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Oniria 

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The morning sun peeked from behind the clouded veil of sky, dancing through the mist in glittering fractals. It was something he'd noticed away from the misted peaks of Jakten — there was far more sun. For some reason, Mistveil held some sort of otherworldly power that seemed to absorb the rays of light.

Part of him missed the eternal darkness ... the mist that camouflaged him and clung to him like a second skin.

But it would seem he didn't miss it enough to hurry home. Instead, he persisted, treading through the misted fields and comfortably lingering under the canopy of trees. He would phase in and out of visibility as his large paws moved his cumbersome frame with practiced ease. The silence was numbing, erasing the echoes of fading memories in the back of his mind.

The more he was away from it, the more he wanted to forget it. It. His life. His past. His failures. His family. His everything. Perhaps he could just live his life in the comfortable silence. Perhaps he could live like the mist.

A slanted smile slithered up the edges of his dark lips. He was all but invisible, other than the otherworldly blue glow that emanated from his scars.

And he knew .... he knew that could not be true. For eventually, the beast would grow hungry.

The revenant would need something to haunt.

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She had convinced herself that finding him would feel different, there'd be relief maybe, closure. Some grand unraveling of the knot she'd carried in her chest since she left. Instead, when his scent finally drifted through the mist, she froze and her heart stopped first. Then it slammed back into motion hard enough to hurt.

No. The thought was a sharp sting, No, no, no. Because she knew that scent. Every mile she'd traveled, every stranger she'd questioned, every disappointment she'd swallowed, every dead end she'd forced herself through. All of it led here. The wolf standing beneath the trees remained unaware, half hidden by the drifting fog that curled around his legs. He was older, and larger like herself. Marked by scars she didn't recognize; but she would have known him anywhere.

Draugur... a broken word escaped her even as she stood rigid among the grass staring as though looking away might make him disappear. She'd imagined this meeting a thousand different ways, maybe she'd be angry, maybe she'd accuse him, or be triumphant in finally finding him? None of those survived the reality. All that remained was a little sister who had spent years chasing a ghost.

I looked everywhere for you, she managed roughly, she couldn't seem to breathe properly. Every wound she'd spent years stitching shut threatened to split open at once bringing her ebon ears flattened. Carefully Oniria took a single hesitant step forward, followed by another as fear and hope warred so violently within her she felt sick. What the hell happened to you? the question cracked beneath the weight of her guilt.

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