I dreamt of mist that night.

Swirling, festering, wrapping around my legs like smoky tendrils. I was alone, walking down a gray, barren landscape, lost. For all around there was nothing, except the blank, flat world and the mist.

"I'm sorry." A wolf walked up behind me, and I turned around slowly. I didn't know who she was, but she somehow seemed... familiar, and I wasn't alarmed when I saw her. I knew she wasn't going to hurt me.

"Who are you?" I asked, stepping toward her.

She smiled sadly. Her fur was dark, tinted with blue and white patterns, and her eyes were like dark water; eyes that refused to look at me.

"I'm sorry." she said again, lowering her head. "I'm so, so sorry, my little Riftborn."

"No, it's okay!" I told her quickly. "I'm fine, see?" I gave her the most reassuring expression I could muster, but then it came—a sudden, desperate pull in my chest straining toward her, a clawing need to know who she was. "But why are you so sorry? What happened?"

"Watch." She said, her voice a light whisper, and she walked up to stand beside me. She inclined her head forward, and looked into the mist.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the fog spluttered and swirled, and created a fuzzy picture; the figures of two wolves. One, I realized, was her—identical to the version next to me.

"Woah, that's so freaky!" I said. She didn't say anything in response; she'd gone blank. I looked back at the figure.

Another had appeared, this one of a small, black-and-white pup with bright green eyes and blue markings like the she-wolf next to me had. He sneezed, and looked miserable.

"I'm sorry, little guy." The she-wolf in the mist said sympathetically. "Being sick isn't fun, isn't it?"

"No, it isn't!" The pup agreed. His voice was high-pitched and nasally, as if his nose had been clogged. "I wish I could go out and play with you."

With a loving smile, the she-wolf touched her nose to his. "Rest for now. I'm just going to go out into the garden with your brother. Then I'll be back."

There was another voice, calling to her, and she turned. I did too, to see another pup burst out of nowhere, sending tufts of fog flying into the air, and ran excitedly toward her.

"Let's go!" the pup whined impatiently. "You promised to show me a fighting move, remember?!"

"Wait a minute..." I stared at the pup with horror. "That's...that's me."

The dark wolf nodded. "You from another life."

I looked back at the pup, wondering what she meant by that. Same scruffy, ragged black fur, the white V, the wide, blue eyes. I tried to move my legs, but they had seemingly been frozen in place.

"All right, I'm coming." Her smoky clone said warmly. She walked up to me--the me from the past--and ruffled the fur on his head with her paw. "Let's go."

As the pictures in the fog faded away, I turned toward the she-wolf who stood in her vigil beside me. "I don't understand." I turned to look at her. "What happened?"

For a long moment, she didn't move. Her face had darkened, as if she was trying to remember something. I spotted a thin line of blood slide down her chin and drop to the ground, staining the mist around it red.

"We went to the garden." She murmured. Her paw went to touch her chest, and I saw a golden, shining arrow protruding from it, something that had not been there before, and dripping more blood.

I stepped back instinctively as the red spread across our blank world, staining it, tearing through it like a savage beast. There were flashes of events coming from the smoke, passing too fast to fully comprehend. I only managed short glimpses: whitish-blue fire, everywhere; wolves, gathering in a giant mess, until they were indistinguishable from each other, yelling, growling, and spitting; a deep voice crying, loudly, desperately, full of pain; a blossoming cherry tree at sunset, its pink petals drifting in slow circles to the ground.

"Wake up, you idiot, wake up!"

Before I knew it, reality had crashed back into me, and I sat up, breathing hard. For a second, I panicked; I didn't know where I was, what the grumpy ghost in front of me was doing there, or why the ground looked so far away. Then I remembered, and managed to slow my breathing so it didn't sound like I'd just run all the way across the kingdom.

"That," Edge said, one eyebrow raising, "Is not a good place to fall asleep."

I automatically scanned my surroundings. The night before, I had managed to haul myself up onto a tree branch, and had unceremoniously draped my body around several of the boughs to ensure I didn't fall. My claws were dug deep in the bark, and I had to forcefully yank them out again. It had certainly been one heck of a dream.

"I had to hide myself." I explained to him. "I couldn't just, I dunno, lie down in the middle of the road."

"You might as well." Edge said with a snort. "It's winter. This tree doesn't have any leaves to hide you—any one who passed would have seen you for miles!"

"Well..." I thought about that for a second. "Well, then I guess they'd have a hard time trying to get me, all the way up here. I'm quite the climber, you know." I proudly gestured to the branch I was hanging on to for dear life.

"Obviously." Edge said. He was standing perfectly balanced on a cluster of droopy twigs, which looked really weird until I remembered that he probably didn't weigh anything. He was a dead guy only I could see, after all. "So, what's your plan? Are you going to the healer's?"

"I think I am." I said, eyeing Edge from the corner of my eye. I didn't want him to disagree with me again—fortunately, he didn't seem to react to what I'd said. "The problem is, after I checked the directions Taa and Cliff gave to me, I found out he lives way out of our way. I'd have to cut directly through the village to get there by nightfall."

"Seems risky." Edge said with a shrug, but didn't protest my decision.

I nodded. "Edge, I think I had a memory resurface last night."

Edge looked at me curiously. "Oh? What did you see?"

"Not much," I admitted sadly. "I just saw this she-wolf and these two pups. One of the pups was me. They were just, I don't know, being together. Then, all of a sudden, there were these terrible flashes..." I trailed off with a shudder. "Blood, and screaming, and...and... "

Edge was avoiding my gaze. "I don't know the answers, Tarius. I'm sorry. But I do know one thing: your past isn't going to be pretty. Believe me. Are you still sure you're going to go through with this? Find the answers?"

"Do I have a choice?" I looked him in the eyes, and I could have sworn Edge smiled just a little at that.

"Do you need help getting down?" He finally asked, after we'd both had our fair share of awkward silence.

"What are you talking about?" I huffed. "Of course I don't need help getting down. I got up here, didn't I?"

Edge watched me through a measured gaze. "Very well, Tarius. Show me how a master climber like yourself gets down from a big tree like this."

He sat down on the branch, watching me expectantly.

"I will." I said, and turned to show him exactly that before realizing, shortly, that Edge had been right. Scrambling up and finding a way down were two very different things.

I tried a few more maneuvers and methods, but nothing short of falling seemed to work. I waited a humiliating moment. "Ok, I think I may, actually, maybe need just a little help."

"I thought so." Just as I turned away, Edge leapt at me—I yelped in surprise as he collided into my side. I grasped for footing, but there was none. Edge had unexpectedly hit me with the force of an angry elephant-bison. My claws gave out, and I hit  the ground with a really hard, really painful thump.

"What the crow, Edge?!" I demanded, scrambling to my feet and wincing from the fall. "First of all, that was not nice, and secondly, you didn't tell me you could actually touch me! I thought you were like, a ghost!"

"I am a ghost. That doesn't mean I can't touch things—it just takes a lot of my energy." Edge chuckled, strutting across the branch. "But that was so worth it."

<><><>

Rotam was way bigger than I thought it was going to be.

The buildings were shabby, but sturdy, and the streets surprisingly crowded. The Ceclians passing me were pulling carts of cut meat, carrying large baskets on their backs, or herding animals along with them. Most of them weren't in a hurry; they walked in clumps, talking, laughing, and pups rolled around on the streets in play-fights and shrieks of laughter. Even as I walked down the road, four wolves smiled and nodded their greeting to me. I beamed at them in return, excited to see so many canines in one place, and most of them  being friendly.

"You really shouldn't draw this much attention to yourself," Edge pointed out. He was starting to become more transparent around the sides, and looked incredibly tired. "And you really need to keep an eye on your cloak. See that? That wolf just almost stepped on it! What if there's a Celestial Flame in that window?! Everyone will see your demonic runes!"

"Relax, you old jerk! Stop bossing me around." I told him. "I know how to take care of myself, you know. I'm not completely helpless."

"Then you shouldn't act like you are." Edge growled seriously. "These wolves—they act friendly now, sure. But the very instant they know what you are, they're going to turn against you, and attack you, and try to spill your blood on these cobblestones."

I frowned. "That's... intense. You don't look too good." I commented, trying to change the subject. "Is it because of the energy you used to push me out of the tree?"

"Probably." Edge said with a grimace. "But that was still worth it."

"I got snow in my ears." I protested, and Edge chuckled. His image flickered.

"I can't stay much longer." Edge warned. "I need to replenish my energy. By the way—you should speak more quietly to me. Wolves are staring."

"I don't care about them." I huffed. "I don't even know who they are."

We kept walking, and Edge led me around a corner. There were less wolves here.

"What do you mean, replenish your energy?" I asked. "How do you do that? Where do you go, when you aren't here?"

"Well... I go inside you." He said with a shrug.

"Inside me?!" I demanded.

"Yes. I feed off of your energy, so that I can replenish mine enough to manifest myself."

"And you didn't think that asking me first about that was a good idea?!" I was incredibly uncomfortable about the idea of having an ancient, grumpy ghost hanging out inside of me and feeding off of me.

"First of all, you'd be dead by now without me." Edge rolled his pinkish eyes. "Secondly, you have a surplus of energy. Enough that you can't even feel me taking some of it. Thirdly, you're being followed, and I have to leave."

"Followed?!" I exclaimed.

"SHH!" Edge snarled, and I snapped my jaws shut. "They don't know that we know that they're there."

"What does that even mean?" I asked blankly, more quietly this time.

"Basically, be alert, and keep yourself safe. This guy doesn't look too threatening, but that doesn't mean he isn't alone." Edge looked sharply at me. "Please don't die. That'd be incredibly inconvenient."

"I'd imagine." I grumbled. "Edge, where is...?" I trailed off as I realized that he'd already disappeared. Inside of me. Gross.

I kept walking, trying to stay alert. There were a lot of wolves behind of me, but none of them seemed particularly suspicious.

What would Edge do? I found myself wondering. I looked around. This street was darker than the previous one, cast into shadow. A merchant glared at me suspiciously, and I smiled back.

Edge had led us into this road for a reason. I thought for a moment. Why? It had actually made our route longer.

Of course! He must have been confirming that whoever had been following me was still there. I glanced behind myself, swiftly, and still thought there were one too many individuals there for me to single any one of them out.

All right, I figured. If Edge had led me into a secluded place, then in order for me to single out who exactly the the threat was, then I had to go someplace even more secluded.

Picking up the pace, I scanned my surroundings. Alleyways were far too closed off, so I walked past them. Shops were too open.

There. I spotted a passage in-between roads, with no sign of life except an elderly she-wolf. It was way out of the way—perfect for zeroing out my mysterious stalker.

I ducked around the corner and threw myself behind a protruding wall, peering around the edge with my fur on edge. I pulled down my hood so I could hear better. Now, all I had to do was wait.

I didn't have to wait long. Nearly a minute had passed before a small hooded wolf came cautiously into the passage, walking slowly.

I pressed myself back into the shadows, heart pumping. Edge had been correct. I wondered what I should do; attack? Confront them?

Too late to decide now; they were right on top of me, probably wondering where I'd gone. Bunching my four legs beneath me, and drawing my lips back so my teeth were bared, I leapt outward, right in front of the stalker.

They hadn't expected this; with a whine, they turned tail, but I was faster. In two bounds, I had wrapped my front legs around them and wrestled them to the ground.

"Prepare to be interrogated!" I growled in their face, before my face fell. "Wait...you're..."

"Stop, stop!" The impostor lowered their paws from their face to show me who they were. "Tarius, stop! It's only me!"

"Faylan?" I asked, confused, because it was. Except a far more terrified, wide-eyed Faylan. I backed up to allow him the room to sit up. "What are you doing here?"

He dusted himself off with a severe glare in my direction and pulled off his own hood. "Relax, would you? I just came to apologize about what I said. That...that was really rude. I'm sorry about what I said, okay? You can't help what you are."

He glanced back up at me, and my heart swelled. "You came back just to say sorry?" I asked, feeling enormously better. I jumped upward and wrapped him in a big, tight hug. "I can't believe you came all the way to tell me sorry!"

"Geroffph!" His protest was muffled by my thick fur, and he fought his way out of my embrace.

"How did you find me, anyway?" I asked. I wondered briefly about the suspicious manner with which he'd been following me, but decided it didn't matter.

"Saw you sleeping in that tree on my way to Academy," he explained. "Decided to see where you were going."

"Well, I'm trying to find that healer that your parents told me about." I looked over at him. "And then, I'm going to try and find my memories!"

"Yeah... good luck with that." Faylan said. "By the way, you're way off-track. The healer lives all the way over there." He pointed in the opposite direction I'd gone.

"Woah, how did you know that?!" I asked.

"Who do you think went to go get the healer in the first place?" Faylan asked.

"You did?!" I almost hugged him again, until I saw the look on his face. "You're a lot nicer than you seem!"

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it. Now come on." Faylan turned, looking back at me expectantly.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"You're going to get lost if you don't have someone holding your paw. Obviously. Now, come on!"

Not wanting to be left behind, I ran up next to Faylan, grinning at him. He just rolled his eyes.

Characters:

TARIUS

EDGE

FAYLAN