The long road home.

[Pantha]

The sun has come up by the time the fae breaks the city border for the woods. It is well into midday before he realizes that the potion that would help him find his way home had been left in the room with his angry lover. Paranoia and fear carry him far from town by foot. Days are spent in the wilds, in limbo between the deep, untouched depths and the still inhabited lands outside of town. Eventually he gives up and heads back to town, but only after he realizes that all the threats Clayton had made are untrue. Well, to an extent. The fae that would be found passed out under a mulberry tree is a dirty, hungry, pitiful thing.

[Jirai]

One could not be on duty all of the time. Constable Alla Breve made a very good attempt at it, though, to the point where she was sometimes ordered to take a few days off, visit her family, and catch up on sleep.

Alla rarely followed those orders.

Still, she had to make it seem like she was, and that was why the constable (not in uniform) was hiking through the woods outside of town with a backpack and a crossbow. It was sheer coincidence that had her path crossing a certain mulberry tree.

[Pantha]

It is a blessing to the fae that the person who is approaching him is a stranger; he had expected the worst to come for him, just as Clayton had threatened. He had expected many terrible things to come to him in the hours and day following the assault, even more so when he had found the potion Raia had made for him gone. The cuts and wounds from Clayton's lashing have gone unhealed and he is covered in mud and missing a few of his packs. The jewelry he is usually adorned in has all been removed and stowed away in one of his packs. Right now, he looks more like a lost, broken child than the dangerous man he might be.

[catch]

He had expected terrible things to come to him. Terrible happenings. Terrible beings. All was promised by the Pride-demon, the Thing Clayton had become, powerful, inescapable, terrible. His words were a cage, an iron cage to bind a fae, a molten pour of golden blood.

Nothing came for the Fae, huddled broken under his tree. He made it so. What was Pride to him, who was Pride itself? He was beyond Pride. A term, a human-term, mortal-term. He was the shadow in the trees, the tall, broad man, with eyes of blue, his bronzed skin, shadow-kissed, naked of all cloth. His great head was bent, blond curls swept across his cheek, and those eyes - sky-blue, absent of emotion - watched the Fae as he slept, huddled, drifted in and out of consciousness.

The air stirred the white fur of the wolf-skin about his throat, the skull thrown across his shoulder, eye-sockets shrunken and empty.

At the coming of the constable, the naked man lifted his head, but he made no move, no sound.

He was a King of Bugs. His vengeance was a patience. He could wait, a little longer, to let himself be known.

[Jirai]

The first thing that passed through the constable's mind was irritation. She had a plan for today and this most certainly was not it. Constable Breve abhored changes in plans. Still, the man was a mess, and the woman - middle aged, plainly dressed but for a brooch pinned to one shoulder, a match to the one Rhaena Olwak had given Gloria Wynsee - was quick to kneel beside the muddy, damaged man, her waterskin in one hand.

"Hey there, what are y'doing out here all like this?" She reached out to gently shake the man's shoulder, to check and make sure he was still alive.

[Pantha]

By this point, he has convinced himself that the haunting dreams of the Wolf watching him seem a figment of his paranoia. The way the woman approaches him without acknowledging the phantom tormenting his mind gives him false hope for a brief moment. His nictitating membranes flash out a few times as he starts to sit up and focus his eyes on her. Shit. His expression falls and he tries to get up hastily on his own. “I am fine, everything is fine...” He smiles at her and balances himself against the trunk of the tree. Nothing to see here, officer!

[Jirai]

"You are not fine." The constable contradicted him, offering out the waterskin. "You are anything but fine. You are sitting under a mulberry tree in the middle of nowhere with no clothes, looking like a chunk of raw meat. You are not fine. Aside from not fine, who are you?"

[Pantha]

Unless the creeper in the trees undressed him while he was passed out, he is fully clothed. She presses and he manages a reassuring smile. “I will be fine. I am just not used to the need for sleep.” Or the nightmares that come with them. He pales a little as the memories of those horror filled vision of mother and child charred alive fill his mind. He visibly shudders and holds out a hand to try and keep her from him. “I am Zilliah. I know I am near town again. I just need to get back to the...the inn.” He holds that forced smile. “I will be fine.”

[Jirai]

"You are drunk, ser." She said. Not disapproving. That was not her job. Especially when she was not on the job. "I shall escort you back to the town, Zilliah." Imagine she doesn't know that name. Imagine incorrectly. "Ser, I shall escort you back to town. You look as if you need it."

[catch]

Was this concern? Professional curiosity? The man who stood in the shadows was now crouched, a small, white form, a fox with pale fur and blue eyes, it's tail fetching up against dainty paws. Concern or curiosity, his mind had other things to consider.

The little white fox lunged from it's cover, short and sharp and full of the snapping, querulous barks of it's kind, entirely focused on the constable. Why, it's little teeth may even nip, snagging on the cloth to provide a little pinch. In a flash it's aggression is spent, and it crouches, lean body quivering against Zilliah, who might feel it's heartbeat through skin and clothes. As if frightened, as if it worried for a Master, with baleful blue eyes on Alla.

[Pantha]

There is a slight sneer when she accuses him of being drunk and he is just about to let into her about it when the creature comes rushing to his defense. While the beast might come to him as if he had some mastery of it, the fae looks startled to the point that he has pressed himself back against the tree, his hands splayed out against the bark. He makes no more to pet or reassure the beast and for a moment it is obvious that his weird lavender eyes are looking almost pleadingly at Alla to do something to help him.

[Jirai]

The constable sighed and offered the fae a hand. About then, a fox bounced out of the woods, snapping and barking and the constable yelped, flinging a hand to try and keep the small beast away. And away it goes, only to lean against the fae who looks almost terrified by this.

"Careful," she said, "Might be sick. Foxes don't act like that." Unless it's some creepy fae magic thing, she supposed, but she supposed that to herself. "Uh...Maybe if you try to move away slowly?" she suggested.

[catch]

Despite it's earlier ferocity, the fox seemed almost placid now; still trembling with some excitement, or fear, unconcerned that Zilliah, too, cowered away from it, even as it cowered close.

It pleased him, the fae's fear. It was a small thing, but he basked within it.

Slowly, the little beast crouched. It was healthy, the little thing, white coat immaculately clean, blue eyes clear, and free of wetness and pus. A Faerie thing, indeed, for it sat there, tame as any little cat, watching Alla with nothing more than animal wariness.

[Pantha]

The fox guise has two disadvantages. The first would be the fae’s distrust of anything fox-like; a demon many years ago ruined that for him. The second is the coloring; the fur is too pale and the eyes too bright and clear. No, he does not yet know who or what really is at his feet but he is naturally untrusting of it. He stands there with his heart beating in his throat waiting for something terrible to happen. When the terrible thing does not happen, he steps over and around the fox. He makes it a few steps away before he falls, collapsing to the ground in exhaustion. It seems the fae does have a physical breaking point and he has clearly reached it.

[Jirai]

The fox was...well... creepy. But the fae was moving away from the animal and the constable moved to catch the man before he fell. "Hey! Hey now! Come on now, Zilliah, I'll help you, but I can't just carry you all the way back to Myrken!"