Hi President Loki! Are u going to continue writing?

Very good colour like if it’s good

Best camouflage in game #invisible

Hi I’m back sorry I haven’t been on in a while. Been busy.

-President Loki.

Waning Unity

Lume's Epilogue

Lume watched from higher up the creek as a tired old bear snatched one of the unfortunate salmon that had leaped past. It started to turn and lumber away before catching her eye and holding her gaze. There was no animosity, no silent threats between them. Each had seen something similar in the other and that was enough to give them an understanding that very few creatures could match. The grizzly grumbled lowly, and a small, fluffy cub poked its head out from behind a rock, quickly waddling after the mother as she disappeared down the hills.

"You see?" Lume asked, still looking at the spot the bear had once been. "You're safe here. There's no need to worry."

Voices from behind her caught her attention, and she turned to see familiar shapes rise over the pebbled ridge, laughing and chasing and playing with one another as a larger shape trotted and kept watch over them from behind. "Stop biting your sister's tail," Fraser scolded one of the pups lightly, shoving two that were shooting each other scorching glares further up the hill. Raising to her paws, Lume padded down to meet them halfway, a familiar tickling sensation at her heels.

"Have fun chasing rabbits?" She asked, a soft smile spreading on her face as the pups tumbled at her feet. "Yeah, yeah!" One chirped with excitement, "I almost caught one! I would have if Fawn hadn't gotten in the way," she grumbled, shooting Fawn another glare. The other pup simply stuck his tongue out in retaliation. "You tripped over your clumsy paws, Wildflower," he protested. "That rabbit could have taken a nap and still outran you."

Naming the two had been an instant matter for Lume. She'd insisted to Fraser that they be named after his fallen pack mates, the least she could do after the two had lost their lives because of her.

"Alright, alright that's enough you two," Fraser chuckled, placing himself between them. "Did you have any trouble back here?" He asked, looking up at Lume. The much less ethereal wolf shook her head before looking down and meeting the large eyes of the pup pressed firmly behind her. "We saw a bear and her cub. She gave us no trouble... I think we both recognized the look of a mother in each other's eyes." Doe had inherited a quiet and sometimes timid nature, and she was often inseparable from Lume. The other two were quick learners, and she trusted them to easily take care of themselves, but Doe brought out a protective side of Lume that hadn't been active in a long time. Perhaps because she saw the pup the same way she had seen Fraser initially, though somewhat different since she was a mother now.

The word still felt foreign to her... 'mother.' She was still in awe when she looked down at the trio of fluffy little canids that followed them gleefully (or rather shyly, in Doe's case.) Had she and Fraser done this, make these wonderful, funny, unbelievable little miracles? The days of violence and fear seemed like another life, a past that existed only in tales to be told to children.

Despite her reservations, Fraser still entertained the pups of the ancient Moon wolf, of her fierce wrath and graceful protection, of the days he had run from her and run towards her. Per her request, he never revealed the Moon wolf's true identity. In all honesty, Lume no longer felt like a myth. She had lived countless years and watched many lives raise and fade, but now every day was a lifetime for her. Some part of her knew that when the part of her that lived and breathed essence died, her eternal nature died as well. Just as with any other, she would grow old and sick and die.

But there was something else to be said with that: she would grow old with Fraser, and they would watch their children grow together. They would get sick together, and someday they would die and be reunited in the Forever Grounds together too.

So what if Lume was no longer immortal? Now, she was finally alive.

(Now I'm picturing us both watching this all unfold like a movie and you and I just bawling our eyes out in the corner.)

~CL1

[P.S. This has truly been a joy to write, and though I'm sad the ride's over, I'm so happy with the ending (I feel like I rushed the end of Blood War, if I'm being honest, and this was my chance at redemption.) Thank you so much for the collaboration Pres, and for creating the Howlverse in the first place, but now that we're done, I'll kindly have to ask you...

ARE YOU GONNA FINISH BLACK GHOST AND ALH OR WHAT?!

Ahem. That is all. Thank you, and good night.]

Waning Unity

Fraser’s Epilogue

What exactly was love?

For a long time Fraser wouldn’t have been able to answer that question. A powerful bond? Sure, you could say that. An emotion that fits right alongside joy and anger? Maybe that, too.

But he had come to learn that love was something that truly couldn’t be described. It was something to be experienced, to understand by living in the moment and learn by walking alongside another. Another who you loved, who you cherished, who made the world go round because they were all that mattered.

Contrary to what he would have thought for his life, Fraser finally had that someone.

He and Lume never stayed in one place. They didn’t have to. They traveled where they pleased and saw what they wished to see; forests of glorious trees that were high as the sky itself, wide-open plains filled to the brim with flowers painted colors as bright as the sunset. Brilliant sights of cascading oceans and peaceful valleys and bare mountaintops that made for the best sights of the sky and stars at night. But nothing, no matter how many places they went, was more brilliant to see than the white face that accompanied Fraser every step of the way.

And every day, no matter where they would run to and explore, they would share an intimacy so precious that Fraser had trouble keeping a smile from his face. He would say her name and she would say his, and they didn’t have to speak verbal words to understand each other completely. They would walk side-by-side across the banks of babbling brooks and listen to the birdsong high in overhead trees. They would look at each other and, for such a small moment, the world would fall still all around them as their eyes met and their heartbeats joined together into one sound, into one rhythm. And if there was such thing as a perfect moment, that would be it.

Because that moment? That moment was everything.

It was the kind of moment that gave the sun motivation to rise, the kind of moment that encouraged the birds to sing and the breeze to whistle and the rivers to rush. It was the kind of moment that made the stars bright and worth looking at, the kind of moment that made all other moments weak by comparison.

And it was their moment to share forever.

So Fraser no longer had to wonder what love was or how to describe it. It was a question that could remain safely unanswered, a question for others to wonder as they sought out a reason for their lives. But Fraser didn’t have to wonder anymore, and no longer did he have to spend nights alone in his old pack’s abandoned home praying for his company to return so he would no longer feel so abandoned.

No longer did he have to wonder because his prayer had been answered, and Lume had found him, and his world had flipped upside-down but in all of the right ways.

Now he wasn’t alone. He had a friend. He had a pack.

He had Lume. And that was all he needed.

(This didn’t take me nearly as long to write as I thought it would and I also adore this chapter/epilogue with a burning passion)

- President Loki :)

Waning Unity

(A collaberation between President Loki and CL1)

Lume's Prologue

It had been a long time since Lume had been in the midst of such peace. A pack bonded closely together, caring for one another as their own. They all walked past her, around her, almost through her. She had done all that needed to be done and now she was nothing more than a silent spectre standing guard over wolves that didn't need her protection.

She could not bring rain, or lead herds to the wolf dens, or any of the grandiose stories pups' heads were filled with; in all honesty, she couldn't do much good in the midst of trouble and with that realization came the voice:

You can stay no longer.

She did not know whose voice it was, or whether it was really an external force or just the manifestation of her own thoughts, but the voice spoke truth.

It was both the blessing of curiosity and the curse of restlessness, but Lume could never stay in one place long, nor would she try. Two days of quiet life in this pack's plentiful oasis was long enough.

She stood to her paws and turned away from the heart of the camp, padding towards a split in the bushes marking the way out. She had hardly taken two steps when she caught the sound of a stampede of little paws behind her.

"Lu? Where are you going?" A trio of pups stared at her wide-eyed, their little heads cocked to one side.

"Away," Lume responded without inflection.

"Home?" One of the pups piped up curiously.

"I don't have a home." Her delivery wasn't sad or longing, just matter of fact.

"Oh." The pups looked to each other, even more confused. One of them looked back to her. "Then ... where will you go?"

Lume raised her head to the slightly gray sky overhead. "I don't know. I'll keep walking until I can walk no further, then I'll turn around and keep walking the other way." At least, that was the way she had been doing things.

Another pup tackled her, nuzzling her head into Lume's side. "Don't go, Lu. What will we do without you?"

Lume stood to her feet, steadying the stumbling pup with a paw. "I suspect life won't be much more different in my absence." The sound of a voice in the distance drew their attention. The pups all perked their ears at their mother's voice. A she-wolf appeared, stopping as she spotted her pups with Lume. There was hesitation in her gaze, and a twinge of fear. "Come," she said to her pups, still keeping her eyes on Lume. "Back to the den, all of you." The pups moped and sulked past their mother, further into the camp.

"I am leaving," Lume said finally, hoping to put the unease to rest.

The she-wolf's eyes narrowed, and her stone grey fur bristled ever so slightly. "You know, you've caused this pack a lot of pain and death," she said with a half growl.

Lume nodded blankly. "I know." Silence stretched forward as Lume realized an apology was expected of her, but she simply turned and disappeared through the bushes. The moment she stepped out of the pack's camp clearing, something in her lightened, and the blue tone that had shined on her fur before returned to its natural white glow.

"What sort of a heartless creature are you?!" The she-wolf cried from the safety of the pack's grounds. The question echoed through the trees and slipped into Lume's ears, bouncing around in her head. The voice returned once again to put the unanswered question to rest:

You are what you are.

~CL1

Waning Unity

Chapter Twenty-seven

On trembling paws, Fraser slowly began to back away from Lume. The she-wolf loomed over him with open and slavering jaws, poised to strike like a venomous rattlesnake. The flight instinct that guided Fraser’s every move was swelling up inside of him again, and his instinctual reaction to the situation was to run. Run far away, run in any direction that he could to get away from her. Get away from the danger.

But Lume wasn’t a danger. For the first time in his miserable life, his paws hardened like stones and kept him from fleeing. His mind was directing him to turn tail, demanding for him to leave the moon wolf for good and save himself from inevitable pain. Only this time, Fraser’s mind and heart refused to align. His desperate effort to stay alive, to maintain his pack’s home until they returned, was gone now that he knew they weren’t coming back. His fight or flight instinct was, for the first time, conflicted.

He wasn’t going to run from Lume. Not this time.

“Fraser,” a voice that he had learned to belong to Milkweed called out from somewhere behind him. He kept his dark eyes trained on Lume’s contorted and snarling face, staring intently into the white and angry voids that she held for eyes. The ethereal wolf had taken her focus off of him and now looked up at the ridge behind him, the place from which Milkweed’s as well as others’ scents rode in on the breeze. He didn’t hear their footsteps approach, and among the smells of the desert he could taste their faint fear.

Lume let out a rumbling growl, her eyes narrowing dangerously the longer she looked back to where the others would have been. Fraser swished his tail, recapturing her attention as he lifted his chin toward her. He worked to steady his own breathing, holding her piercing gaze as he tucked his fear away into a far corner of his mind. He wasn’t afraid of her, he told himself. He knew her, he told himself. She knew him, he told himself. “Lume,” he uttered finally.

The she-wolf’s attention lasered in on Fraser as he spoke, snarl growing louder as it throbbed within her throat, contorted claws digging into the dirt underfoot. “Fra-a-aser,” her unstable voice growled, tone pinched. Behind the sweltering rage that burned like starlight in her eyes, he could see an underlying trace of utmost fear. The real Lume, the one that made Fraser laugh and that pulled him from danger at any given moment, was still there. She was a prisoner in her own body, but despite her possessor’s deadly hold, she was still there. And she was desperate to protect Fraser.

But today it wasn’t Fraser who needed protecting. It was Lume.

With a long breath, Fraser lowered his haunches down into the sand and sat. He held the she-wolf’s burning gaze, kept still when her snarling thickened. This dark side of Lume, the one that was holding her prisoner inside herself, wanted a challenge. It wanted to chase him through the sands as he fled for his life. It wanted to beat him in a fight that he would never be able to win. It wanted to rip him apart, slowly, effortlessly, all while he was pleading to escape. But Fraser wasn’t a fighter and he never had been; at least now with physical strength and the use of teeth and claws. He was a fighter of words, of wit, of wisdom.

“I’m not leaving,” Fraser uttered defiantly, refusing to let himself flinch when Lume let loose a throaty growl, her slavering jaws dripping with saliva that dripped down onto his snout as she loomed over him. “I’m not leaving you. Not again.”

The ethereal wolf let out a guttural growl, eyes narrowing tensely as she stared at him with blazing eyes. “I’m staying here,” Fraser said with certainty as he faced down the large wolf, shoulders tense and chin lifted. “Just me and you. I’m staying here with you, Lume. Even if you kill me.”

- President Loki

(This feels like an appropriate “I’m with you ‘till the end of the line” moment)

Waning Unity

Chapter Fourteen

(On time like it's SUPPOSED to be ... okay lemme stop throwing shade lol.)

The blue essence that had filled Wildflower began to unravel, branching off as wisps circled her body. Lume tilted her head

back and allowed a long, low howl. There weren’t many pack traditions she participated in, but howling at the passing of a

wolf had always been something she’d done, for reasons unlike those of common wolves.

Death provided a different spectacle for her than it did others. To a pack, the group howling in the presence of death might

have been a mournful goodbye, but in her eyes, howling had always been the wings needed to carry essence from the living

world into the Forever Grounds. Even howling just now and Fraser’s voice joining in, the strands of blue essence clinging to

Wildflower’s body snapped their tethers and climbed into the sky on the winds.

Her wisp of blue joined the aurora of varying shades of blue pulsating in the night sky, a gathering of wolves in the Forever

Grounds as they gathered to welcome Wildflower to their number.

It seemed fitting that something so sad should have a beauty to accompany it. It was a shame wolves like Fraser could not

see as she saw.

With the last fragment of Wildflower gone, her body faded into a hazy gray indistinguishable from the soil and vegetation

around her. Lume’s coat lightened back to pure white without an essence to affect her anymore, and she could feel herself

grow smaller as her heavy, imposing nature faded away to the empty shell she had been before.

————————————

“So you do sleep?”

Lume cracked open her eyes and lifted her gaze to see Fraser hovering over her. His usual cheeriness still hadn’t returned,

but the silence had likely been harsher on him, Wildflower’s absence being glaringly evident now. “I need to heal,” she

murmured, turning her head to look at the gashes in her side. Then she looked at the matching claw-marks that trailed down

Fraser’s haunches. “And so do you.”

Fraser didn’t protest, simply padded a bit further away and plopped down, gnawing on something Lume couldn’t make out in

the dark. “Do you eat?” he asked with the tilt of his head. Lume stared at him a moment, then let her gaze travel to

Wildflower’s body, tufts of ripped flesh and fur slicked with blood outlined by the moonlight. For whatever reason, neither had

buried her yet. “Under the proper circumstances, I eat anything.”

She looked back at Fraser after a moment to see his face contorted with disgust as he immediately understood what she

was insinuating. She laid her head back down. “These are not the proper circumstances,” she assured him quietly. He

averted his gaze and then looked down at the object he had been gnawing. “These bulbs are pretty good. They come from

the roots of those golden flowers over there.” He tossed his nose in the direction of a diverse patch of gray flowers nearby.

She started to explain her ‘colorblindness,’ but decided she wasn’t in the mood for a thousand questions right now. “Thank

you,” she said quietly, shutting her eyes again.

“Lume?” Fraser called again, breaking the silence once more. She opened her eyes in a silent answer. “Thank you … for all

your help and everything, but … well, I don’t think I was meant to bring my pack back together. No matter what I try, it seems

like things aren’t going well.”

“You’ve only had two encounters,” she pointed out.

“I know, but …”

“If you wanted to quit, you would have just let that mountain lion kill you. You didn’t. You beat it with a stick. A stick, Fraser.”

There was quiet. “That was before Wildflower was …” he trailed off.

“Sleep, Fraser,” Lume said, more of a command than a suggestion. “In the morning, I’ll find a new trail, and you can decide

whether or not you’ll come with me.”

Fraser started to speak again, but Lume shushed him with a look before shutting her eyes.

~CL1 (Sorry, was too lazy to fix all the weird spacing on this one.)

Waning Unity

Chapter Twenty-five

Loneliness chewed at Fraser like a starved beast finally successful in catching prey as he trekked through the sunbaked sands, watching as the sun crested the horizon and threw glorious bands of color every which way, turning the dark night sky to vibrant blue, streaked with near every color on the spectrum. The sounds of nighttime beetles died away as light pierced through the surrounding shadows and washed over Fraser’s dust-colored fur, giving light to yet another day of desolation.

Fraser ascended up a rocky incline, scrambling his way up onto a small plateau, tucking himself out of the sun’s rays in the shadows of a rock pillar, laying down with a sigh as he laid his head on his paws and watched the desert below.

It didn’t make any sense to him. He knew these desert plains better than anything else, so why did he feel so lost? Not the kind of lost he had felt in the past, the kind that gripped his heart with loneliness, the kind that he concealed by burying it underneath layers of delusional ideas that his pack would return. No, this time it was different. This time it was like a pit, and no matter how many lies that he told himself, it couldn’t be filled.

As hard as it was to admit, he missed Lume more than anything in the world. And he just couldn’t find out why.

Movement below caught his eye and he looked down from his high place, watching a pair of deer make their way across the rocky plains with a young fawn at their heels. As he watched them walk, hooves scraping against stones and echoing up to Fraser’s ears, he felt the loneliness inside of him swell. Never before had he wished for a family, never considered the possibility of claiming a mate or producing pups of his own. Even now, the idea was one of untrodden territory, dangerous and unfamiliar. But the mere thought of having someone, anyone, there at his side was enough to make him consider anything.

His chin sank back down to rest on his paws and he watched silently as the deer made their way across the sands, the fur of his tail trembling in the breeze and moving it for the first time in weeks. How he longed to feel it thump against the ground again. When had he wagged last?

Right. When Lume made him smile.

Why couldn’t he keep his thoughts away from her?

The breeze carried a familiar scent to Fraser’s nostrils as he breathed inward and his head lifted faster than it had in a long time. He turned his head and looked in the direction from which the scent came, searching the horizon as hopefulness grew inside of him. He pushed himself to his feet, scanning the surrounding sands and rocky outcroppings until finally, there; the shape of a white wolf approaching.

It was Lume!

Fraser watched her for a moment longer before turning and running across the plateau, following his well-trodden trail and descending the pebble-layered slope, slipping over loose sand as he rushed down. He rounded the rocky corner, inhaling deeply to ensure that he was still going the right way, falling into a dead sprint as he pelted in pursuit of the white wolf.

Rounding a corner, he came upon a small incline, watching her white tail disappear over the top. He hurried up after her, pausing once he reached the top, paws sinking into the sand. “Lume!” he called down to her.

It was Lume. It was Lume. It was LUME!

(Dude this hurts)

- President Loki

Waning Unity

Chapter Twenty-Four

She wished she could take it back. She wanted to turn and go back to the river. What if's rang through her head constantly: What if Fraser didn't survive his injuries? What if the wolves from over the river came back and tore him and everyone else to pieces? What if she couldn't make it on her own? That question haunted Lume the most, though she wasn't sure why. She had wandered a life of isolation for as long as she could remember, so why was it eating her alive now? She looked down at the scar of essence that stretched down her face and shoulder. It alternated between red and blue, while the rest of her remained blank white. She wasn't sure what it meant, but she had a good idea of what was causing it.

She stopped walking. Why didn't she just go back? Fraser would forgive her, surely. And as long as she avoided interactions with wolves with red essence, all would be well, right?

'You can't go back,' the other Lume in her head reminded her. 'There will be terrible suffering should you return.'

She bowed her head, once again resigned to her lonely fate. Perhaps it was simply better this way. A rustling in the nearby bushes threw her gaze back upwards. A pair of glinting eyes stared at her from the dark in a way that was all too familiar. Before she could place them, they stepped forward, revealing the same mountain lion that had claimed Wildflower's life, as evidenced by the familiar scars lining its body. Lume tensed as it stepped towards her, but it stopped just out of her reach, staring at her with a look of what seemed to be peace. She could have sworn she saw the slightest tint of brilliant blue inside of it. "You seem to be able to do it," she said to the big cat, unsure if it understood her. "You live a life of solidarity without issue. How?" As if to prove her immediately wrong, there was more rustling behind the cougar. A trio of cubs galloped and tripped over one another before settling next to their father.

A light went on in Lume's head then. Even the most solitary of creatures couldn't live their entire lives on their own. She didn't truly have to keep her distance, did she? Fraser had specifically asked her not to leave him, and here she was thinking he would reject her. The mountain lion gave her a small nod and a slow blink as if reading her thoughts and urging her to go on. She dipped her head in thanks to the cat before standing and turning in the direction that went back towards the river.

'You cannot go back,' the voice urged. Lume hesitated, but only for a second before taking a step forward. She had made her choice.

Almost immediately, the scar of colored essence on her pelt went deep red and began crawling over the rest of her fur. Her back arched in a permanent attack stance and her fangs pointed further from her jaw in an unnatural manner. It was then Lume realized she couldn't move, or rather, she couldn't control her movements. Her paws turned back and launched her forward. Her jaws opened, splitting the skin at the ends to unhinge it further than it should have.

It wasn't Lume that snatched one of the fleeing cubs and ripped its head from its body. It wasn't Lume that grabbed another and smashed it against the trunk of a nearby tree until its head was a mush of shattered skull fragments and shredded muscle and brain matter. It wasn't Lume that fought off the attacks from the furious panther, coming to protect its young.

She watched as her body pressed the cat's flailing limbs to the ground, forcing them down until they snapped. She watched while her jaw unhinged and snapped down on the mountain lion's head in one bite before tearing away from the decapitated corpse. She tried to take back control in vain as her eyes stared down the last surviving cub. She tried to force the word, "Run" from her lips, but her mouth refused to cooperate with her brain. She was filled with relief when her body turned away from the small creature, letting it escape deeper into the brush.

There was a moment of stillness as she tried to figure out what was happening, and then, in the silence that followed, the voice spoke. 'You really should have just listened.'

In that instant, Lume knew that this inner self was not her protector, it was her programming; a sect of her mind designated to keep her a lone wanderer for the rest of her days. It would do whatever was needed to keep her in the cycle of sojourning she was meant to exist in, even taking control of her body in a full autopilot. All of the warnings the voice had given before weren't warnings, they were threats, all alluding to this horrific turn.

And then another realization hit. So long as Fraser lived, she would always have a reason to ignore that programming and go back, so when her body turned back to the trail of essence prints that led the way back to Fraser, she knew immediately what her mutinous body was doing, and she began fighting harder than ever to make it stop.

(Yeah... besties)

~CL1

Waning Unity

Chapter Twenty-one

The darkness felt so good.

It enveloped him. It covered him. It stirred all around him like hot desert winds.

The desert. Oh, the desert. What a desolate place. He had been so, so alone. His heart had been slowly dissolving away. It broke, fractured, fell apart until there was nothing left but a hollow shelf of what he had been. And what was a wolf without their heart?

He had known from the beginning that his pack would never come back. It wasn’t the loneliness itself that had broken him, it was the knowledge that the loneliness would never be healed. He would be alone forever, and he would die alone, and the darkness would close in on him and eat away at him until he was nothing.

Except he wasn’t nothing. He wasn’t alone anymore. Because of Lume.

Lume.

The thought of the she-wolf ripped him out of the darkness that enfolded him. He sucked in a desperate gasp, thrusting himself to his feet. “Lume!” he cried, though it came out as a ruptured whine. His legs buckled and he fell back into the ground as burning pain engulfed him, throat tightening and cutting off his air flow. Instinctually he began coughing and retching, stomach bile mixed with blood running from his jaws.

Somewhere behind him he heard his name, carried on a fearful voice, but his gagging filled his ears and he couldn’t focus on anything else. The pale, sun-kissed fur of Milkweed leaned over him, her body brushing against his as he fought against his own lungs to breathe, eyes wide. Tears ran their way down his face as the convulsion continued, stabbing claws of pain through his entire body.

“Breathe, Fraser,” Milkweed’s voice told him from somewhere overhead, voice filled with concern. He could feel his sister’s fear, but more evident was guilt. Not her guilt, he managed to process as he vomited up more blood. Someone else’s.

The form of Lume appeared beside him, pale fur almost white with the faintest trace of blue, except for the stripe of sky blue that weaved from her face down to her shoulder and along her side. Fraser managed to pull his eyes up and look at her, and as their eyes met he found that the she-wolf’s fear was greater than Milkweed’s. “Fraser,” she whispered, voice trembling with worry and guilt.

Everything was on fire. He felt as if the pain, the convulsion, the burning would go on forever. But just when it seemed to hit its peak, all at once his body stilled, muscles relaxing and freeing him from the potentially deadly hold. He panted heavily, open-mouthed, sides lifting and sinking as he regained his breath, dizziness overtaking him. His weight sank into the forest floor, everything growing limp as his eyelids sagged. He couldn’t smother a pitiful, pain-driven whimper.

“Fraser,” Lume repeated his name, moving to lay in front of him with her nose level to his. “Fraser, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

He let out a weak, shaky moan in the form of a response, straining to look at her. Milkweed’s fur swished against his side before she turned to move. “I’m going to get him food,” her voice said, wobbly, as if Fraser was underwater. “Be careful, okay? I’ll be right back.”

Silence followed, the only sound being the wheeze which followed Fraser’s every breath, straining his lungs to a point where he wondered if death would be a far better option. The darkness had been so soft. So warm.

“Fraser,” Lume’s voice whispered finally, after what felt like an eternity passed between the pair. “I am so sorry.”

Fraser groaned out an inaudible response, every piece in his body weak and heavy with burdensome weight. He felt himself begin to tremble as a chilled wind hummed through the treetops, a mixture of cold and his current status catching up to him. He could faintly hear the rustle of Lume’s fur as he moved, but his eyelids were too heavy to force them open and look at her. His heart thumped inside of his ears as a moment passed, when all at once the powerful strength of the ethereal wolf enveloped him, fur brushing against his as she moved to lay down alongside him. Though a simple gesture, he felt his heart swell within his chest. It had been so long, far too long, since he had been able to lay in the company of another wolf. One who cared for him.

“I’m so sorry,” Lume’s fractured voice repeated in a hushed tone. Fraser moaned out a shaky answer, giving up on speaking and instead allowing his muscles to untense completely as he dipped away back into unconsciousness, the vibration of Lume’s heart against his side comforting him to the point of rest.

(They’re besties)

- President Loki

Waning Unity

Chapter Twenty

'Stop it.’

Lume could hear him screaming as she thrashed him back and forth, pulling the blood in his veins from one side of his body to the other.

'Stop it.'

She could hear him breaking as she slammed him into the ground over and over again.

‘Stop it.’

She felt his throat working as he pleaded for his life over mouthfuls of blood.

It would have been simpler to say it wasn’t her fault. There were many creatures of legend with a sense of duality, a second mind controlling their body. For all anyone knew, she could easily have been one of them. For all they knew, Lume had retreated to some far away corner at the back of her mind, left to the devices of a mindless beast.

But Lume knew. This was her; she was that beast, and lying to herself would do no good. She had promised to help them, to save them like a fool. Maybe she had even cared about them. What good had it done now? She’d cared about Fraser at some point, right? Now here she was killing him, and as much as she subconsciously might have wished she could have, she didn’t care. She was hurting, hurting too much to care about anything else. Their essence was causing her pain … if she could only get rid of them all, it would finally stop.

“Lume. Please.”

So if it was Lume in control, what was that then, that voice repeating over and over: ‘Stop it.’

She tried to pull her jaw shut tighter, tight enough to simply break Fraser’s neck and silence him, silence the pain, but she found she couldn’t.

‘Stop it.’

‘I can’t. I want it to be over.’

‘You’ll kill him.’

‘I know.’

Maybe there was another part of her, not a separate mind altogether, but another Lume. That was the Lume Fraser was looking for, the one he could plead with and be heard, the Lume that tried to keep him out of harm’s way; the Lume that wanted to protect the only creature that had ever truly bothered to care about her. Maybe that was the other voice that had been in her head all along; a Lume that existed simply to keep things like this from happening.

‘You wouldn’t kill him.’

‘I would.’

‘You can’t.’

‘I must.’

Wolves were slamming into her left and right as they ran past her. She had long gotten past the point of recognizing anything else was there. It felt as if she was burning alive, and it only grew worse the further the battle went. Her entire body was

trembling now.

‘I just want it to stop.’

“I’m loyal to you.”

Her internal dialogue halted. What had he just said?

“You are my pack.”

Something in Lume broke. He was trying to stop her … no, he was trying to SAVE her; save her before she did something she would truly regret. The red of his essence seeped away, softening to a light blue once again. The scar of red that had started Lume’s torment became a striking blue, taking a portion of the pain away. She felt as if she could breathe again, if

only a little. Fraser didn’t break eye contact with her, and his eyes were soft and kind, already forgiving her. Then they rolled back and shut, pulling Lume back to the reality of what she was doing.

‘It’s time to stop.’

She released her grip on Fraser’s neck and he began coughing out heavy spurts of blood. Lume was still hurting, still

frenzied, but in the midst of her hysteria something remarkable happened, perhaps not so remarkable for anyone else but her, but remarkable nonetheless; Lume began to cry. It was just pooled in her eyes for a bit, then tears began to run down

her face in small threads, and then like rivers pouring down her face. She sank to the ground slowly, sobbing while fire ran through her veins.

‘It hurts.’

‘I know.’

‘Not the essence.’

‘I know.’

Lume tried to blink her tears away as she fought to regain control of her breath. Horror dawned on her at the helplessness of her position. She was stuck in a degree of pain that threatened to turn her feral at any second, and Fraser was lying broken

and bloodied beside her, now unconscious and teetering on the edge of death. Initiative drove her back to her feet and she lifted Fraser by his scruff, gently this time, before turning and dashing into the forest as far as her legs would carry her from

the sea of red behind her. She was aware of footsteps trailing behind her, but the scent belonged to the young she-wolf Fraser had acknowledged as one of his past pack mates.

Several times she wanted to stop, and then a strike of pain would inform her she wasn’t yet far enough, so she kept running. She ran until the agony became a numb stinging all over her body, and then she collapsed, still trembling. Milkweed wasn’t far behind, panting as she made her way into the small clearing Lume had found, careful to keep her distance from the monster that had torn half of each pack apart.

The ethereal wolf hung her head as she looked down at her friend’s bloodied body, and a new, vulnerable thought occurred to her. “Fraser,” she whispered to a wolf she wasn’t sure could hear her, “I … I don’t know what to do…”

(EMOTIONAL DAMAGE)

~CL1

Waning Unity

Chapter Eighteen

She could not see it, but she felt it. A clutch of wolves were following her to the river when a sudden stab of pain made her

heart throb. She stopped for a moment as she tried to keep herself from doubling over. The wolves behind her gave each

other looks of confusion before Mink pushed past them and pressed against her side to steady her. “Are you alright?” He

whispered. “What happened?”

“I … “ Lume tried to put into words what she had just experienced. “Truthfully, I do not know.”

Mink blinked at her a moment

and then gave a nod towards her. “Is this a sign we’re getting close?”

She wasn’t sure what he meant until she looked down to see a sharp streak of scarlet stretching from her right shoulder and

stopping just shy of her heart. She thought it might have been blood if the shivering of the wind through her fur hadn’t alerted

her that this was merely a change of color on her coat.

She had never seen this before, both colors resting on her fur at

once, and the searing pain emanating from the scar of red essence made her certain it was not good for her.

She looked up

suddenly, searching the group of wolves for the cause. It didn’t take her long to find a splotch of red in the sea of blue around

her.

“Fraser?”

The much less timid wolf raised his head towards her. She hadn’t seen him back there, but she had assumed he was lost in

the crowd. Apparently he had only just now arrived, his appearance marked by the shift of essence. “What?” He asked, likely

growing uncomfortable with the way Lume was gawking at him. She had never seen him with red essence, not even when

Harrier and Boa attacked. She couldn’t imagine what must have happened to result in this.

“You … you’re … ”

She stepped forward and the searing pain grew worse as the red stripe quickly grew along her fur,

reaching halfway down her leg and up her neck to the right side of her face. She yelped suddenly and hopped back from

Fraser, leaving the curious wolf just as surprised as she was. The wolves around them gave Lume a wider berth as Fraser

tried to approach her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Lume retreated one step for each step he advanced. “Stay back!” She

shouted to him, letting out a small sigh as the crimson retreated back to the small sliver in her fur and the pain subsided a

little.

“It’s okay, I just want to help,” Fraser assured her quietly, taking two more steps slowly towards her.

The patch of red grew back ferociously quick and climbed up the side of her face again. She could feel her mouth fill with

saliva as the tips of her fangs tore further from her gums in an painful, elongated state, along with her claws. A hideous

screeching noise accompanied a sudden light-headedness, and once she regained her focus, she found she was lower to

the ground with her ears flattened against her head. “I said stay BACK!” It came out, half snarl - half bark, and it was no

longer clear whether it was fear or anger taking the reins.

The wolves encircled around her dropped to defensive stances, their essence slowly ebbing into red as well, only making

the pain worse until everything in her vision was a shade of scarlet. “BACK!” She snarled, snapping at all of them as she

spun to face them.

The tense situation was thrown into utter chaos when barks and snarls drowned out the sounds of the forest. The group of

wolves all turned to see several canine bodies moving towards them through the trees; the enemy pack had arrived. She turned back to the pack she was supposedly meant to be defending, but everything was blurred and red. She couldn't see clearly and her head felt like it was being torn in two.

The

war was about to begin, and once the commotion began, friend and foe would all be the same to her. Lume remained self aware only long enough to realize things were about to get very, very bad.

~CL1

Waning Unity

Chapter Two

She didn't know how long she had been trudging through plains and forest and rock terrain, but Lume knew she had been walking endlessly. She looked around at the trees and the water and the sky above. It was all so ... bland. She had heard other wolves describe the "greens" and "yellows" and "oranges" of the tree leaves as the seasons passed; the "purples" of a deep night sky. For her there had never been much beauty in nature. She quite literally saw the world in black and white. Everything was some varying shade of grey, all equally as unstimulating as one landscape.

Long ago, older, wiser wolves had thought something was wrong with ancient wolf's eyes, but it quickly became clear to them that Lume could see things they couldn't. For instance, the small pools of white leading like a trail of pawprints further into the desert. Thin whisps of white, smoke-like dust lifted from the essence prints further from the ground, curling away as she stepped past them. She didn't have to walk far to find where they led.

A young, chalk-brown wolf lay curled under a gnarled, dead tree ahead, muttering something under his breath. She hadn't gotten within seven pawsteps of him before his head shot into an upright position and he turned his head to face her. "Stop! Stay where you are!" he shouted, standing quickly. Lume noted the hind paw he was clutching close to his body, wincing everytime he put pressure on it.

"It's rare I find one with a completely neutral essence, neither this way or that, other than mine," she said, sitting just in front of the rock the defensive wolf was perched on. "You must be quite conflicted to manage that."

He stared at her for a long moment, sizing her up with the look of a predator determining if an intruder was a threat or simply a passerby. "You're in my pack's home," he said, holding his head high in an attempt at an authourity Lume had no concern for. "This is our territory ... you must leave."

Lume looked around the desolate ground around them. Other than the crickets and lizards lurking under dust-colored rocks and dead bushes, there wasn't any other creature in their company, though she could see the evidence that this had once been the heart of a great gathering of wolves.

"They no longer remain here," Lume said, more of a statement than a question. The tan wolf's authority faltered. "They ... they'll be back!" he said with finality. Lume stared at him without saying a word. "They'll be back," he repeated, much quieter this time. "We'll all be together again."

Lume stood suddenly, content with a slightly fuller understanding of the situation. She turned, following one of the many faded-blue essence trails as it broke away from the others, growing a red tint as it split further from the heart.

"Where are you going? Their scents have long gone cold, it'll be impossibpe to track them through time and weather!" the tan wolf called after her.

"Scent fades quickly, essence doesn't," she called back over her shoulder, still following the reddening trail faithfully. The follow up questions from the tan wolf began to fade behind her slowly, but she disregarded them for now. Either he would follow, or he wouldn't; that was his path to decide.

For her, the decision had already been made as she found a new direction to wander.

So sorry, I was certain that I’d posted this but apparently not. ):/

Waning Unity

Chapter Seventeen

“I leave you alone for a half hour and you start a WAR?”

Lume nodded as though this was an extremely natural scenario, making Fraser wonder if she had done something similar in the past. The two of them were out for a stroll, which had been up until this point peaceful, as they ventured through the pack’s forested home. Here the lushness of the overhead forest canopy hid the sun’s harsh rays, concealing the countless birds that sang in joyous harmony. “I can’t trust you with anything,” he muttered as they continued on, following a narrow deer trail that led through the shrubbery.

The ethereal wolf, her fur still glowing a dusty blue, paused to turn and look down at him. “They believe I am a savior of sorts, Fraser,” she told him with what looked like surprised optimism. “I would like to live up to their expectations of me.”

Fraser sighed, letting out a wispy breath through his nostrils. “And their expectations of you are that you’ll fight wars for them?” he muttered, looking away as he sat down hard into the dirt, stirring it beneath him. Lume sat down parallel to him, ducking her head in an attempt to make eye contact, which the little desert wolf fiercely avoided.

“Fraser,” said the large wolf gently, her tone caring. “They are fighting against starvation. I cannot stand by and let them suffer. You out of everyone else should understand the gravity of this pain.” She lowered her head, swiveling herself as he evaded meeting her eyes. “And besides, I think that I can help.”

“You THINK?” Fraser cried, backpedaling a few steps and turning away from her, his head low as he shut his eyes. A million things were racing through his head, thoughts and opinions and decisions and choices running tracks in his mind. He sucked in a breath, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment before turning around to face her again. “It isn’t my decision to make,” he uttered finally. “Just… whatever you decide, don’t leave me.”

As sunshine gave way to dark, the sky flaunting brilliant colors of fiery orange and vibrant shades of purple and red, Fraser lay underneath a burly oak tree just within the camp’s boundaries. As he sat, head down in the dirt and eyes closed, he listened to the rustling of leaves in the wind. He wasn’t yet used to the forest, the dancing shadows that dappled the ground or the way that sunshine was hidden away from view nearly all the time. The way that squirrels and other animals dashed through the underbrush startled him. This place was nothing like the desert which he called home.

“How are you feeling?” a voice asked. Fraser’s eyes flicked open and he lifted his head. Milkweed, one of the three wolves from his old pack, was standing in front of him, a smile tracing her face as she awaited his response.

Fraser hesitated a moment before responding. “Fine,” he sighed, turning his head away from her in hopes of avoiding a conversation.

Suspicions arising, Milkweed moved to sit beside him. “Are you sure?” she asked softly, doubt radiating in her expression. “You know, it’s alright if you’re not fine.”

A sudden anger flared up in Fraser’s chest. “Stop being nice to me,” he snapped, pushing himself up to his feet and fixing her with a glare. She looked taken aback at his sudden outlash, though he didn’t give her a chance to speak. “Stop acting like we’re friends, like we’re family.”

A look of bewilderment cascaded over her face. “But Fraser, we are fam-”

The smaller desert wolf cut her off with a growl. “Don’t finish that sentence,” he snarled, ears pinning back against his head. “We are not family. Not anymore.” He turned away from her and began to pad off, pausing to shoot over his shoulder, “If we were really family you wouldn’t have left me.”

- President Loki

Waning Unity

A new collab by President Loki and CL1

Fraser’s Prologue

This wasn’t happening.

This couldn’t be happening.

But it was.

Fraser stood in the center of the clearing- HIS clearing- as his pack all around him dispersed in different directions. Groups of two and three vanished over the horizon. Lone wolves flashed away from view.

In all but a moment Fraser was the only one left.

Dust swirled up around his chalk-tan paws, the hot desert wind causing his washed out brown fur to rustle every which way. The sun was sinking low towards the horizon, silhouetting the rocky outcroppings that littered the desert around him in shadows, casting streaks of crimson and auburn throughout the cloudless expanse overhead. He turned his head, looking around with hurting in his heart at what had once been a bustling home for a wolf pack. Now it was empty, the rocks which surrounded the sandy bowl of safety looking miles away now that his pack mates were gone.

If there was a chance that nightmares could become real, it was happening now.

Slowly turning, Fraser walked with his head down over to the brittle, twisted tree that grew out of a small rocky cliff, hanging over the camp. Hopping up the red-brown rock underfoot he settled beneath the trunk, harsh bark raking through his fur. He crossed one paw over the other and laid his chin on his foreleg, breathing out a lonely and desolate sigh through his nostrils. His pack would be back, he was sure. This was his pack’s home- he had lived the first year and a half of his life in this desert, running through the sand dunes beside his family. There was no way that they would leave now, when food grew sparse. The famine of prey would end, and then when it did, they would be back to greet him and thank him for protecting their home.

He would wait, Fraser decided. He would stay there, living in his now-huge camp, until his pack returned to him. And then he would welcome them with open arms. And then they would gallop through the desert once more, following all of their old rocky trails and hunting all of the prey that they could fit in their bellies. Until then, he would survive any way that he could, by any and all means. He would use his smarts to guide him. He would pray to the ancestors that his family would return soon, that the prey in the desert around them would return so that they could once more rule their territory as one.

So he would wait.

- President Loki

Incorrect. The spacing looks fine for me on other things. I think your eyes are just lying to you.

And no worries! We want a good story, not a rushed one. My mind is always in writing mode, so its easy for me to pull a plot point quick hehe.

~CL1

Waning Unity

Chapter Twenty Eight

"Even if you kill me."

Lume's body took the words as a challenge and lunged at Fraser, jaws tearing open and welcoming the temptation of blood. True to his word, Fraser stood his ground, only being spared a quick and painful end by a pair of bodies crashing into her side. She skidded only for a short while before her claws caught in the coarse dirt, allowing her to ground herself and get back on her paws quickly.

She was met with the snarling faces of Boa and Harrier, bearing a few more scars than when she last met them, but alive nonetheless. Lume rejoiced inwardly that she hadn't killed the siblings, but she had little time to do so before her attention was jerked back to the present as a set of fangs dug into her hind right leg.

With a snarl, Lume's snout turned quickly, catching the attacker by the neck. She recognized them as Mushroom, another wolf that had repacked with Milkweed. The young wolf squirmed in Lume's grasp, whimpering as her grip began to tighten and her teeth began reaching deep below the skin, straining for the vertebrae. Another joint tackle by Harrier and Boa knocked her off balance, losing her grip enough for Mushroom to break free.

"En...ough!" A monster-ish growl escaped Lume's snout as a wave of red rolled through her coat. Her head turned to Fraser, who had started to approach Lume slowly.

"They can-not prot-ect you," the monster snarled, sending threads of red essence flying at the wolves around her. Lume knew that if she were allowed to keep talking, the unified group of wolves would begin to get lost in mass hysteria, tearing each other apart in seconds. Her mouth started to open again before Boa launched herself at the ethereal wolf once again, this time sinking her teeth into Lume's throat. "No!" she snarled over a mouthful of fur as she jerked her head back and forth, tearing at Lume's neck.

"Boa, stop!" Fraser was right next to Lume now, close enough that she could hear his heartbeat. If he was frightened, he handled it extremely well. "It's not her fault," he explained to the infuriated she-wolf, trying her hardest to finish what she'd started. "That's not Lume!"

"Then help me kill it," Boa snarled back, hints of red essence beginning to show themselves both in her and the other wolves, all except Fraser. Harrier leaped at Lume now, aiding his sister's attack as he attempted to tear Lume's neck in a different direction than Boa.

The monster shrieked, finally tearing itself away from the siblings, far from unscathed. The deep gashes in her neck oozed with blood, and Lume's heartbeat began to throb in her head. Then there was something else, itching in the gashes at first, then pain. The monster threw itself to the ground, convulsing as a feeling like a thousand barbs digging into the deep scars filled her body. The semi-circle of wolves backed away, ears flattening and eyes widening as they started at Lume. They seemed smaller now like her shadow could swallow them whole. The pain hadn't stopped, but it was beginning to fade, and she could tell something had changed drastically, enough that the brave warriors that had fearlessly attacked her before were backing away with their tails between their legs.

Fraser didn't budge, a train of panicked thought evident on his face. "I'm not giving up on you Lume!" he shouted. His voice sounded so ... far away. "I meant what I said. You are my pack!" It was getting harder for Lume to think clearly. She had to focus, she had a job to do; she had to kill Fraser.

No, no, that wasn't her. Those weren't her thoughts. It was becoming all too hard to keep solid lines in her mind to distinguish whose thoughts where whose, her's, or the monster's.

It dashed at Fraser again, and again the wolf planted his paws, prepared to stand his ground and withstand whatever it took to rescue her.

That's touching, she thought her own words becoming murky in her mind, but I'd rather keep you alive.

A snarl at her right snapped the monster's attention away from Fraser and towards Fawn. The young, steel-headed wolf was making a beeline to Lume.

It was only when Lume snatched him from the ground and held him up as something else began to tear his scrambling legs from his body and swallowing them did she realize just what that needling pain in her neck had been. She forced her eyes down, control becoming much easier as her thoughts became more poisoned by the beast in her head.

From the gashes Boa and Harrier made had sprung teeth, gnashing, cutting fangs that all ate away at Fawn while Lume and the others watched. At last, it was over and Lume dropped the wolf, now missing all of his legs and his tail as he shuddered on the ground. The gashes began to tear wider as Lume stretched her neck upward, her head no longer able to keep upright as the folds of flesh and fangs accordioned to one side or another. The monster turned back to Fraser, Milkweed now standing at his side.

"Round ... two."

(Word limit.)

~CL1

(Sorry this chapter took me a few days!)

Waning Unity

Chapter Thirteen

Lume let out a fearsome snarl that made Fraser's fur crawl. He backed away, tail snatched between his hind legs and his body low to the ground, as chaos erupted in front of him. Lume smacked the cougar away in time for Wildflower to land a bite to it’s neck. It recoiled with sharp claws and temporarily blinded her, thanks to claws over the bridge of her snout. The ethereal wolf, glowing a soft blue, pounced on the big cat and tussled across the ground locked in harsh combat. He had to do something.

But what was he supposed to do?

Use your brain, he told himself. That’s what you’re best at.

Forcing himself out of his fearful paralysis, he looked around, tuning out the violent barks and yowls of fighting in front of him to think. He slowed his breath until it was rhythmic, running through the library of ideas in his brain and sorting through what could be used and what couldn’t. The cougar was powerful and dangerous. Fraser was not.

His eyes landed on something. A stick.

Fraser quickly dashed through the underbrush and pounced on the stick, sinking his teeth into the damp bark and heaving it up. His neck strained at the weight of the fat branch but he ignored it, dragging it back towards his companions. He heard a crunch and froze, stiffening as fear crawled through his spine, rolling his eyes around to see that the cougar was stalking towards him now, teeth curled up to reveal frightening fangs. Lume was distracted by something behind the big cat, bent down towards the ground. She wouldn’t be able to help him.

I don’t need help, he told himself sharply, tensing his jaw around the large stick in his mouth. I’m perfectly capable of defending myself. I won’t run. Not this time.

The cougar let out a frightening yowl, pouncing closer with jagged claws reaching out to attack him. Tensing all of his muscles, Fraser swung his head around, gravity whipping the stick around after him, lifting it up and building momentum due to his speed of motion.

The stick connected itself with the cougar’s neck and sent it tumbling back. Right as he felt the jarring of the strike he opened his jaw, pulling himself away from the stick and letting it thrust the cat backwards. As it let out a pain-filled cry, temporarily stunned by the strike of the stick, Fraser jumped forward, now carrying the offense on their attacker.

I won’t run.

Using his hind legs he pinned the feline to the ground, and scraping his claws through the soil underpaw, he flung dirt into the cougar’s eyes, temporarily blinding it. It let out a furious snarl, using its claws- which Fraser had forgotten it had- to score marks down his haunches. Blistering pain was joined to his muscles within moments and he yelped, hopping backwards and dodging into the bushes. The cougar staggered to its feet and shook off, whipping around to attack him again.

Not this time.

Lunging forward, Fraser let out a harsh bark, baring his teeth with a throaty snarl. As he did so Lume appeared, and her mere hulking presence finally convinced the cougar to turn tail and flee into the woods. Fraser panted, staring after it, regaining himself before turning back to Lume. She had claw marks along both of her sides and shoulders, and the side of her face was bleeding as well.

“Are you alright?” he asked, analyzing the depth of her cuts and deciding whether or not they were fatal. It didn’t appear so, but infection could prove that thought wrong if they weren’t careful.

“I am safe,” she told him. “Wildflower is not.”

Fraser’s heart sped down into his stomach and dropped like a heavy weight. His wall of hope crumbled around him as he dashed numbly past the white wolf, crossing to where Wildflower lay in a heap of reddened fur.

It didn’t have to be spoken. Wildflower was dead.

- President Loki