Hi President Loki! Are u going to continue writing?

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 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 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.)