Archive of Our Own ^beta

Most people would agree that the vast majority of fairytales are just that – made up stories, mythology, cautionary tales, or fanciful ideas spun for the amusement of children. But every once in a while, there comes along a tale of fae persuasion that has its roots in fact.

There is, for example, a story of a bewitched fox that some – one Miqo’te tribe in particular – would claim is absolutely, completely true.

The story goes that a cunning and intelligent fox was hunting one night in an enchanted forest. He was having little and less luck, by nature of the fact that all the animals in the forest were bewitched by the fae. No matter which prey he sought to chase, he could not catch it. Regardless of how hard he ran, or how stealthy his steps, or how keen his eyes or ears, he caught not a single creature.

It was as if they each vanished into thin air the moment his claws or jaws would have closed on them.

At last, exhausted and hungry, the fox came upon a quiet clearing with a still, clear pool of water at the center of it. The light of the moon and the stars was reflected so clearly and so brightly from the surface of the pool, it was as if a mirror had been laid out on the forest floor. Every corner of the quiet glade was illuminated as if by some manner of magic.

The weary fox crept up to the edge of the pool and slowly began to drink. If he could not catch any dinner, he thought to himself, at the very least he could quench his thirst. The water was cool and refreshing after his difficult and fruitless toil, but it did naught to satisfy his growling belly.

And then suddenly, the fox looked up and over the clear pool. Sitting across the glade, drinking from the opposite edge of the water, was a large black hare. The moonlight shining from the pool danced across its glossy fur and reflected in its large, dark eyes. The fox only stared for a moment – mesmerized, standing completely silent and still, his own thirst forgotten.

His stomach, however, complained insistently. And so he leapt.

It may have been some manner of fae magic that carried him over the pool. Or perhaps his hunger and desperation gave some additional energy to his leap. Regardless, he managed to clear the pool without dipping so much as a back toe into the crystalline water.

His jaws closed over nothing upon landing. The hare had seen his incredible feat of strength and ran off as swiftly as ever it could. He had been expecting not to catch it, though, owing to his rotten luck since entering the forest. And so, the moment his feet were back on the ground, he turned and gave chase once more to the hare.

Except now his pursuit carried with it a feverish and singular focus. Whether born of the urgency of his famished state, or of a spell or some trickery wrought by the pool or by the forest itself, the fox now ran like a creature possessed.

And possessed he fairly was – possessed by the all-consuming need to catch this black hare at any cost.

But whatever enchantment may have been upon him now did him no favors with regard to his swiftness or his dexterity. And again, the hare seemed always just out of reach. Rather than be deterred, he found the ever-present sight of the hare’s fleeing back paws and tail enticed him even further.

Moonlight flashed on black and red fur in turns as the pair ran ever deeper into the forest. No longer did the fox see any other prey. There was nothing in his vision or his mind but the hare. He was going to catch it if it was the last thing he ever did in all his life. He was certain of it.

He never did, of course, for the forest and all the creatures within were bewitched by the fae. Even the fox.

And most who tell the tale might say that he is still in that enchanted forest to this day, forever chasing a black hare that he will never catch, and which may not even exist except as an illusion to bait him. But there are a few who would disagree.

In particular, one family belonging to the Miqo’te tribe in question – the Gryphon tribe – would tell you that the fox died of hunger chasing that hare, but that his spirit was so discontented with the bewitchment and his fate that it lingered, and that it cursed their family line with its madness.

G’raha Tia had never put much stock into the superstition, personally. Every one of his relatives insisted it was true, would even point to supposed “evidence” to support their wild conjecture. But in his opinion, it was largely a way to cast blame on an uncontrollable variable for things that went horribly wrong in life.

He could hardly deny that his family within the Gryphon tribe were known for occasionally producing kits born with bright auburn hair and the most vivid crimson eyes ever seen. They were traits that were not only rare, they didn’t seem to follow any sort of proper genetic rules either. But unlike the rest of the tribe, he didn’t consider them the mark of some terrible curse.

It also couldn’t be denied that every one of the supposedly “marked” members of his family had wound up going mad at some point in their lives over some obsession or another – what the superstition referred to as the proverbial or modern-era “black hare”. That one singular thing had so completely taken each one’s focus and attention until they had been rendered incomprehensibly deranged and deluded, or languished in abject misery and regret.

The most recent case had been a great uncle of his who had ended up so raving mad they had to lock him up for the remaining few years of his life, lest he hurt himself or someone else in his disillusioned state.

Despite the fact that he didn’t particularly believe the validity of the tale, G’raha himself could not help but fall into the trap on occasion. There was something a little comforting about being able to blame your problems on some mysterious, outside force. His academic disposition and his rationality prevented him from fully committing to the belief, however.

Not to mention his field of study. As a student of history and ancient civilizations, his entire line of work was in sifting out the truth from the myth. Research and academic discovery were far more interested in factual evidence and concrete truths than in fairytales and fantasy. Such nonsense had no place in his professional life.

But in private, it was not uncommon for him to refer to something in his mind as his own personal “black hare”.

The current culprit was his ongoing research project into the Allagan ruins. There was something he found intrinsically fascinating about the ancient civilization that seemed to pull his attention from any and all other pursuits in a way that he was sorely tempted to attribute to the supposed curse of his family.

Something that, he could argue, felt to be always just barely out of reach no matter how hard he tried to catch it.

Funding for his research department was difficult to procure, and even when they could get it, field assignments and grants tended to be awarded first to the older and more experienced historians, rather than junior academics and students such as himself. Even text records and documented research, easier to obtain by comparison, and still useful for writing a thesis or finding a new perspective, were scarce and hard to track down.

This was the one thing in his life that he could truly say was an obsession of his – and it was a mild one at best.

Until the day he met an actual black hare…

He had finally managed to secure a spot on one of the coveted field research assignments. Better yet, it was in a quiet, sequestered corner of forest wherein lay nestled an especially intriguing set of ruins. It was a site that few had had the privilege of scouring yet, and so much of the place had been largely undisturbed before his team’s arrival. He’d had his sights on this particular assignment for moons now, and he could hardly believe his luck when he’d managed to land it.

He was alone, in the process of documenting some initial observations while the rest of the team got settled at their lodgings in the nearby village, when he heard it – the unmistakable crackle of underbrush. Something tearing through the very forest he was in, making its way to who knows where in a terrible hurry.

He glanced up, just in time to see a humanoid figure darting between the trees in the near distance. Intrigued, he lowered his notebook and pen, walking forward a few paces to try and get a better vantage through the bright foliage.

And that was when he saw it. The flash of long, leporine ears covered in sleek black fur.

And something in his gut dropped at the sight.

Of course he was familiar with the existence of Viera. After all, who wasn’t? But as focused as he was on his studies and his research, he couldn’t say he had actually met very many of them. And strangely enough, he could not recall a single one he had ever seen with such ebony-black hair and fur.

If it was a coincidence, it was certainly eerie considering that he had just been thinking about his family’s ridiculous curse. And if it was some cosmic joke played by the gods, it wasn’t a funny one.

The feeling in the pit of his stomach, where his gut had dropped, was beginning to churn with a strange sort of unease. He had the sudden and nearly irresistible urge to chase after the individual. Like something inside of him, separate from him, had suddenly awakened with the sight of the stranger, and was now pushing him to give in to instinct and go on the hunt.

He pointedly ignored the pull, but all the same, his curiosity was duly piqued. Who was this person, and why in the heavens were they here in this empty, quiet corner of the woods, where no one was supposed to have stepped foot in recent memory? What business could have possibly driven them – the very image of his family’s idiotic superstition – to be here at this precise moment to catch his attention?

In the end, he reasoned with himself that it was not for the instinctual urge that blossomed in his belly, but for his own curiosity that he finally jumped into motion, chasing after those long black ears that he could see beginning to vanish behind the trees in the distance.

The chase was arduous, and he was sorely out of shape for running through a forest, even as light on underbrush as this one admittedly was. Most of the path lay down hill as well, which was fortunate, and afforded him the opportunity to maintain distance, if not catch up. But he quickly began to tire, and the taunting black ears of the hare were making less and less frequent an appearance in his view.

In desperation, afraid he would lose sight of his quarry for good and be tormented by the question forever – maybe he truly was going mad? – he called out.

“Wait! Wait, just a moment!”

His voice threaded out weakly into the air as his lungs burned. His legs stuttered to a halt, unwilling or unable to carry him any further. Leaning over, he propped himself on his knees and gasped, sweat beginning to collect under his shirt in the damp humidity.

What on earth am I doing? he asked himself, eyes squeezing shut as he fought to catch his breath. Have I finally lost it, then? Is this how it happens? Chasing phantom images of strange hare-like entities through the uninhabited wilderness?

What was it exactly he had hoped to accomplish by simply running after a total stranger through the woods? Why had he called out like that? Why had the thought of losing sight of the individual conjured such panic in his heart?

He had no answers, and his weak excuses from before seemed traitorously flimsy now as he stood bent over and panting amidst the trees.

“Were you chasing me?”

The smooth tenor voice caused his short, ruddy ears to flick. His gaze snapped up to see the strange Viera leaning around from behind a tree and staring at him – a few scant fulms in front of him rather than the yalms that had separated them before.

The stranger was taller than him, with a mussed shock of wavy black hair hanging over one eye. Long sleek ears stood straight up from the top of his head, twisting a little to catch the sounds around them but still trained carefully on G’raha and waiting for a response.

“Yes, I… I suppose I was,” he stammered out between frantic pulls of breath, straightening slowly. “My apologies, I simply… I simply was taken to understand that… that this forest was largely devoid of modern civilization, and… and found it odd that someone else was… was here aside from me.”

It may not have been the whole truth, but it was all he could think to say that didn’t sound completely insane.

“Did you, now?” the stranger replied, with an amused quirk of the mouth. He came the rest of the way around the tree and leaned his back against it, hands resting casually on his hips as he regarded the breathless scholar bent over before him.

G’raha regarded him in turn as his breath returned to him gradually. The man was tall and of slender build, wearing simple, leather-reinforced work clothes of some sort. His boots were sturdy and thick-soled, and there was a large, well-worn axe strapped to his back.

He didn’t look like a mercenary, from what G’raha could tell. But as far as he was concerned, anything was possible at this point.

Finally able to breathe more or less normally, the Miqo’te straightened, one hand still resting on his chest to ease its heaving and collect some of his propriety once more. “Who are you, if I may ask?” he said calmly.

The stranger smiled, and a soft light sparkled in his two-toned eyes – teal and yellow, bright and keen and good-humored. “R’alma,” he replied, holding a gloved hand out in introduction. “And you?”

“G’raha Tia.” He took the proffered hand firmly, feeling something inside him twist strangely at the strong, steadfast grip. “I’m with the Students of Baldesion, researching some Allagan ruins in the area.”

The extraneous information tumbled out of him quickly and nearly unbidden. To cover up any strangeness in his reaction to the handshake, he told himself.

His heart was still racing far faster than it had any right to.

“Well, G’raha Tia,” R’alma intoned with a nod and another warm smile. “I do hope you are suitably recovered from your sprint, but I’m afraid I really am in a hurry. There’s an airship in the nearby town that I have to catch, and I’m liable to miss it if I don’t run.”

And with that, and a quick wave behind him, the mysterious man took off running once more. His long black ears weaved through the dappled sunlight as his back disappeared between the trees.

It was only as he returned to the research site that G’raha realized he had got nothing from the man save his given name. That fact alone, he knew, was going to plague him for days…

The mysterious encounter certainly did hold his attention for some time afterward, though with decreasing frequency and severity as he became further and further removed from the event. Some initial questioning of other members of the research team turned up absolutely no answers – as far as anyone else was concerned, there had been no one else in the woods that day.

The stranger might as well have not existed, for all the evidence G’raha was able to find on him.

After nearly a moon had passed, he had forgotten the odd encounter almost entirely. His studies and research took up much of his time and focus, such that he hadn’t the luxury of idle fancy and constant wondering about an individual that may have only existed in his own imagination for all he knew.

And besides which, the more thought he gave to the idiotic superstition, the more ridiculous he felt about the whole thing.

It had been his choice to chase after the stranger. Not some curse, not some possessing spirit. And certainly not some fae enchantment.

His dear mother had called to check up on him, as she did on occasion. And per her usual, she had asked after his health and then turned the conversation quickly to the subject of his impending doom. She had some misplaced notion that, if she could identify the object of his obsession before it had a chance to consume him, she might be able to do something to mitigate the atrocity of his curse somehow.

And so she conducted a thorough interrogation every time they spoke – which G’raha ensured was not often, for this reason – in an attempt to pin down the source of his thus far nonexistent madness.

That was nearly a week ago now, and though it brought the incident briefly back to mind, he hadn’t mentioned it to her in the least. Better not to give his well-meaning but misguided mother any further ammunition for her fretting.

And he truly had not thought of the encounter since then, nor had he for several days before that. So caught up and focused on everything else that demanded his attention, the passage of time of late seemed uncanny and swift.

Thus it was that he found himself several weeks removed from the incident in question, and suddenly with a day bereft of his usual mountain of obligations. On a whim, he thought to venture outside of the academic campus that he normally inhabited and check in with a local bookshop that he hadn’t visited in some time.

This particular shop had a reputation for procuring especially rare old tomes, and he thought that perhaps if he could dig up a volume on ancient Allagan structures to augment his currently unfinished thesis, he might get a leg up on being awarded more field assignments.

He was so absorbed in these thoughts that he paid little attention to those he passed by on his way. Fortune saw fit to grant him sparsely crowded streets on this day, otherwise he may have missed it entirely.

Some part of his subconscious was paying attention, however, for quite suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks. Every occupying thought in his head came to a screeching halt as he stared blankly forward, mind churning.

What was it that had made him stop?

He worked through his memory, trying to find it to nearly no avail, when it hit him.

Black ears.

He had seen black ears just a moment ago.

A quiet corner of his mind had logged the information and gently prodded at him until he’d come out of his reverie. But which way had they been traveling?

The opposite direction.

He spun on his heel, eyes alert now and scanning the thin crowd as best he could. How long had he been in his daze? How far away were they now? Had he actually seen them? Or was his mind playing some elaborate trick on him?

He was just about to give up and chalk it up to study-related fatigue, when he finally caught sight of them again – long, sleek black ears tipped in red, bobbing rhythmically over the sea of heads. Moving away from him just as they had been that day in the forest.

The memory flooded back to him as the twist in his gut returned, pushing and urging his feet to move.

And move they did, seemingly of their own accord. Before he quite knew what was happening, he was chasing after those elusive leporine ears.

“Wait!”

The call left his mouth before he could stop it.

The black ears were several yalms away, but for a mercy they did not seem to be traveling particularly quickly this time. The foot traffic was not dense either, but there were enough people moving between them that he could not get a clear view of the man to which they were attached.

Not to mention that, though he intended to run, he could not move as fast as he would have liked through the crowd, light as it was.

A chill sense of panic rose up unbidden in his chest, and he searched his memory for the man’s name. If he could but catch the black hare’s attention…

Ignoring for the moment how quickly the moniker came to him subconsciously, he dug into the recollection, pulling it to the forefront of his mind where it had not been this past week. He needed something – anything – to act as a tether, something that would allow him to root his quarry to the spot and keep him from getting out of sight.

At last, his mind conjured it, and without giving more thought to whether he should, he called out.

“R’alma!”

Long ears flicked and swiveled toward him, reacting instantly to the familiar sound as he knew they surely would. The man’s head followed almost immediately after, his bright, mismatched eyes turning to survey the crowd for the source of the voice that had called to him. When they landed on G’raha, the look of pure bewilderment may have made him laugh, were it not for the breathlessness he was feeling from his own shock.

The Viera stammered as his brow furrowed in disbelief, wrinkling a scar that ran across his left eye. “Wait, you’re—”

“G’raha Tia, Students of Baldesion,” G’raha panted in response as he came to a stop nearby. He had no expectation that the man would have remembered his own name, so he didn’t wait to find out.

“Chasing after me again,” R’alma mused, resting his hands on his hips and letting a little amusement quirk his mouth. “Something I can help you with?”

“No. Er, yes…” G’raha shook himself to clear the confusion out of his voice. “That is to say, I was rather hoping to get to speak with you this time, is all.”

The crestfallen look on the other man’s features made his heart sink, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. “I’m actually… really quite busy today…”

As he trailed off, however, he glanced up to the building they had stopped in front of, and something in his demeanor brightened. G’raha turned to see what it was that had improved the strange man’s mood, and saw that he had managed to stop R’alma just outside of a small local diner.

“One cup of coffee?” R’alma suggested, tilting his head in invitation.

G’raha couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at the corner of his lips as he nodded in agreement.

The aroma of the hot steam rising from the cup did wonders to clear the strange fog from his head as they sat together at a corner table and talked quietly. G’raha got his the same way he normally did for his study sessions here – black, with just a little sugar to cover the bitterness, and strong enough to sharpen his focus considerably.

R’alma, on the other hand, requested some distastefully sweet additions to his, such that it could hardly be called “coffee” by the time he had his hands on it. But the way his eyes lit up after the first sip had G’raha carefully biting down on that judgment to keep it from escaping.

Besides, he was far too occupied with his task before long.

He found himself wanting to study this man, like the subject of his research, but the gathering of information proved as fruitless and scarce as the dusty tome he had hoped to procure that day. R’alma was far less forthcoming with information about himself than G’raha had hoped, and more often than not twisted the conversation to asking the scholar about himself instead.

In the interest of politeness – and, as they went on, more in the interest of keeping the man as long as possible – he answered any questions he could with enthusiasm.

There was also the hope that, if he showed trust and willingness, perhaps it would encourage the other to open up a bit more.

Before he had quite noticed, they’d long since finished their respective cups, and yet remained seated and talking. About his research assignments. About the town. About his troubled relationship with his family, though not the details for why. Their conversation leapt and flowed easily from one topic to the next without so much as a falter.

What he couldn’t help but notice, however, was the fidgeting. It started innocently and barely noticeable – picking at his blunt nails, fiddling with the buttons on his work shirt, repeatedly adjusting the exact position and orientation of his mug.

But from there, it had grown steadily more severe as time went on. Brushing a hand repeatedly through his hair. Tapping fingers against the scuffed top of the table. Twisting the leather watchband that wrapped around his left wrist.

When R’alma’s knee began a rhythmic and nervous bouncing, it became truly distracting.

There was a subtle, barely restrained impatience to the man’s entire demeanor now, one that caused a small nugget of guilt to settle in the pit of G’raha’s stomach. But as he began to back off his questions and try to give the strange Viera an opening to leave, he realized that whatever it was that caused the odd behavior, it was not driven by a distaste for the company.

R’alma completely ignored any and all opportunities granted him to simply and graciously bow out, continuing instead to ask his own questions to keep the conversation flowing.

The incongruity of the situation was baffling. The man had taken to rubbing nervously at the back of his head, eyes shifting near constantly to the window, while still somehow looking like he was hanging on the scholar’s every word. G’raha fought to keep the bewilderment from his face, as he would rather not use whatever short time they may have left in bringing attention to the strange behavior.

At last, however, and quite abruptly, that time ran out.

With a startled jerk, R’alma’s back went rigid – right in the middle of another question – and his jaw snapped shut. He glanced down at his watch, then back up to G’raha with a pathetically apologetic look on his face. “I really… really do need to go this time,” he said softly, a strained sort of sound in the timbre of his voice.

G’raha glanced out the window, and felt heat rising in his face when he realized from the angle of the sun that they had been sat there talking for at least a bell already. “My apologies,” he stammered out. “I have kept you far too long, it would seem.”

“No, please,” R’alma insisted, with a small but reassuring and genuine smile. “I… I enjoyed the company.”

But all the same, he stood from the table and hurried out the door, looking for all the world as if he had a fire under his feet.

And G’raha was left feeling stunned and alone, barely registering the fact that the man had left him with hardly more than he had the last time. Not even so much as a goodbye or a “we really should do this again sometime.”

When the server for their table arrived to collect payment from him, however, he realized with some surprise that the Viera had left enough money on the table to cover both of their drinks.

He had significantly longer to forget the incident this time, but found it much harder to do so. Moons later, and G’raha still found the strange coincidence pestering him at the back of his mind. Though nothing near what he would call a full-blown obsession, it was a constant thing now.

He couldn’t pass the diner without thinking of it, recalling the hesitance with which the other man had fled their impromptu correspondence.

Again, however, he might as well have met with a ghost that day, for all the evidence he had been able to turn up about the man’s existence. No one he could think to ask had heard of such an individual, let alone been able to point him toward any sort of clue or trail. Not that he had much in the way of detail to give when asking. He still had learned little and less about the strange man.

He didn’t even have a family name to put to the face.

Regardless, he was grateful for the distraction when the chance arose to attend a lecture at a large conference center in a neighboring town. The lecture was being delivered by Dr. Rammbroes Zasertylsyn, a prevailing expert in Allagan archaeological research. Several of the other Students of Baldesion would also be in attendance, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity for G’raha to get his focus and his work back on track after the untimely disruption that was the Black Hare.

It was fortunate indeed that he had thought to take so many notes during the lecture itself. For, upon leaving the conference hall afterward, as he was preparing to locate his route back to the airship docks, his wandering eye caught the sight of long, black-furred ears.

His heart leapt instantly to his throat.

His feet very nearly tried to follow suit, but he firmly stilled them, hanging back and trying not to draw attention to himself for the time being.

R’alma was engaged in a lively conversation with one of his fellow lecture attendees. Both were standing in a shaded corner near the main hall doors, out of the direct sun that was beating down overhead, but despite the shadows cast over the pair, G’raha found he recognized both figures quite easily. The other, he was startled to realize, was a colleague of his.

It was not long before the other Student gave a cordial wave of farewell and turned to leave. He saw R’alma preparing to do the same, and a small panic rose up inside of him and pushed him to move at last. For once, there was little distance between them, and he closed it as swiftly as he could.

“R’alma!” he called out, trying his best to make it sound lighter and less urgent than he felt.

The man’s long black ears swiveled toward the sound of his name, and his gaze followed shortly. G’raha allowed a soft smile to pull across his face at the familiar movement. In some deep corner of himself, the strangest thought formed and bubbled up to the surface – the thought that he would never tire of watching those ears flick in his direction, drawn to the sound of his voice calling out to them.

It was like a tether pulling taught, a small indication of a successfully sprung trap.

And why, in heavens’ name, had his subconscious chosen that particular metaphor?

The Hare looked stunned, of course, as he always seemed to. Otherwise, G’raha might be tempted to wonder if the man was following him for the purpose of playing some elaborate trick. The look of bewilderment did not last as long this time, however he could have sworn he saw a shadow of something like regret pass over R’alma’s face as the recognition set in.

“We really must stop meeting like this,” the Viera stated as G’raha finally stopped at a comfortable conversational distance. “Second time’s coincidence, but they say the third time’s fate.”

“Do they?” G’raha asked, hoping that his voice sounded at least marginally level. “I cannot say I put much stock in such things myself.”

R’alma chuckled quietly, pressing the back of one hand to his mouth to try to hide it. “It’s just a silly turn of phrase,” he said softly.

A heavy wistful silence passed between them then. G’raha realized that the other man had no intention of asking him what he was doing this time. It was pretty obvious his motives were much the same as they had been on the previous occasions that they had met circumstantially like this, and R’alma didn’t seem interested in repeating the ritual dance.

He did, however, glance down at his watch after a moment, scuffing his heavy boot against the concrete walkway. “I’m afraid I haven’t got time for any delays today,” he intoned gently. “Would that I had, though. But I’ve been here for too long already, and I’ve just picked up a pretty big commission.”

“Oh,” G’raha breathed, feeling all the air rush out of his lungs. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath.

“I wish I didn’t—” He stopped short, as if he had been about to say more. Indeed, his whole body seemed poised on the very edge of something for several drawn-out seconds.

But in the end, he simply frowned and shook his head. “Sorry, I have to go.”

A crushing weight settled squarely on G’raha’s chest as he watched the man turn and set off at a brisk jog toward the road. Something within him pulled along with the motion, feeling as if it were swiftly withering as the figure moved farther and farther away from him. Like a pulled thread in an old scarf, quickly and steadily unraveling the fibers of his heart.

He clutched in surprise at his chest, as if the physical motion would stop the thread from pulling and unraveling the rest of him right on the spot. Frantically, he cast about for something to occupy his attention. He had to keep himself grounded somehow.

R’alma had been talking to someone else. The Black Hare was real, and someone else had been talking to him.

Suddenly he had a new purpose, and it stabilized him – if only for the moment. Shaking off the strange encounter, he went off immediately in search of the colleague of his that he had seen speaking with the elusive man.

Unfortunately, Snoegeim was not nearly as much help as G’raha had been hoping she might be. Oh, she was more than happy to divulge what little information she did have. But that information was scarcely more than he himself had been able to gather from the limited interactions he’d already had.

What she was able to tell him, however, that he had not been able to figure out on his own, was R’alma’s profession. As it turned out, he was actually a highly knowledgeable woodsman of rather esteemed reputation, particularly among some of the other research departments on their campus. It was said that he could procure samples of any type of flora, no matter how rare or how remote they may be. His services were in considerably less demand among historians and archaeologists than they might be for students of more present and lively fields, which served to explain why G’raha had not heard of him before.

Beyond that, though, not much more was actually known about the man – where he had come from, where he lived, who his family was. He was a mystery, blowing in when he wanted for work and blowing out again when it was finished. He never stayed in one place for long, and no one knew how to get into contact with him when his services were required. One simply had to wait around in locations that he was known to turn up when available, and hope to catch his attention before he disappeared again.

Elusive didn’t even begin to describe him.

G’raha heaved a quiet sigh and thanked Snoegeim for her assistance. When asked about the large commission R’alma had mentioned, she said only that she was in particular need of some specialty materials for one of her projects – wood of a particularly rare and hardy variety – but that she hadn’t the faintest idea where to find it herself.

Of course, that meant that G’raha also hadn’t the faintest idea where he might be able to find his Black Hare now. If only he had been able to find out where the man was going…

But no. No, that was beginning to sound like an obsession, and he wasn’t going to fall victim to that nonsense. He was incredibly busy with his research, and there was the next field assignment to vie for, and preparations to make should he manage to get himself on the team. The Black Hare had made yet another appearance in his life, but had left without leaving him any connections or trail to follow.

If there truly was fate at work, that was his sign, was it not? Fate had seen fit to tear the two of them apart in such a way that it was nearly impossible to circumvent.

Surely…

Surely…

There was certainly no hope of forgetting about the strange man now. It seemed like everywhere he turned, there was something or other to remind G’raha of the series of circumstantial encounters.

And now that he was aware of R’alma’s reputation in the academic circles, talk of the mysterious Gleaner – which was, as he had learned, what many of the other researchers had taken to calling him – was like a near constant buzz in his ears.

For weeks, it was almost all he could think about. And every time he did, that twisting, unraveling feeling would begin again in his chest.

This is it, he said to himself, tracing a hand gingerly over his chest. This must be what it feels like to go mad.

It wasn’t only the twisting in his chest that was causing him grief, either. His dreams were plagued by vivid images of mismatched eyes, of a quirked brow and a crooked grin. Of that melodic tenor voice whispering to him, or laughing, or humming thoughtfully.

Of long, sleek black ears twitching in response to the sound of the man’s name falling from G’raha’s lips.

Of his back disappearing through the trees.

By some miracle, G’raha still managed to land a spot on the next field assignment team, despite his significant distraction. The far-flung research site to which they were sent was far less remote than the location he had been previously assigned – being on the outskirts of a town with an actual Aetheryte system and all – but still a considerable distance away.

Far enough away, he mused, that there was no reason whatsoever to believe that he would have a repeat meeting with a mysterious individual out in the woods this time.

The prospect should have been an exciting one. This particular set of ruins, while not as fresh and undocumented as his previous assignment, was still one of the larger and more intact sites, which boasted a veritable bounty of valuable cultural data and relics to study. His head should have been spinning with possibilities and theories.

But instead, all he could think about was that first incident, moons ago, when he had spied those long black ears flitting between the trees for the first time.

His family’s curse was a perpetual thought in his head as well. He still clung to his ardent belief that the whole thing was a lot of superstitious nonsense, but it was beginning to feel like he was doing so out of desperation now. The feeling that he might have been wrong about the whole thing had started to creep into the corners of his mind, lodging a sliver of doubt into his logical reasoning.

But every time it did, he shook the thought away, insisting to himself that it was just his family’s stubbornness over the existence of the curse that was in turn influencing his reaction to the strange coincidences.

It was getting steadily harder to convince himself that this was the case.

Regardless, these meetings of theirs never seemed to happen when he was expecting them. Which, arguably, significantly reduced the likelihood of another one happening, didn’t it? After all, if R’alma only seemed to turn up when G’raha was no longer thinking about him, then the fact that he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him now meant that the opposite should surely be true.

At least, that was the hypothesis he chose to go on at present, as he fought to keep his focus on the research work that he was supposed to be conducting.

It didn’t stop him from looking over his shoulder with increasing frequency, expecting to see the elusive woodsman come running through the trees with every rustle of leaves or every snapped twig that reached his ears.

G’raha could feel his heart drop a little further in his chest every time he turned around to see nothing but the empty forest around him. The silence and the isolation of it pressed around him in a way that he had never felt before. He found himself thankful that he was alone on his shift, however, as he would prefer no one else be privy to his apparent descent into madness – if that was indeed what this was, and he was becoming convinced more and more with each passing bell that it was true.

Just as he was about to give up, however – a truly ridiculous notion, hadn’t he just decided that it was not going to happen at all in the first place? – his ears picked up the distinctive sound of footsteps crunching through the dry underbrush. It came from the direction of a rocky outcropping just on the border of the dig site, which effectively blocked his view of the surrounding forest on that side. Which meant he’d be unable to determine the identity of the individual until they had come around the corner.

Despite the fact that some part of him was half expecting it, he still felt a jolt of surprise when he saw R’alma actually appear from around the corner.

The shock kept him from calling out this time, but it didn’t take long for the taller man to see him. R’alma stopped short, that familiar look of bewilderment on his face. Mixed with another emotion that G’raha couldn’t quite place.

“Gods be good,” the woodsman muttered as he paced over to where G’raha was standing. “It’s you again…”

“Not running this time?” G’raha quipped, though it felt a bit halfhearted in his opinion. Truthfully, he felt exhausted by the anticipation and the obsessiveness that had gripped him all day.

R’alma’s mouth twisted as a faraway look fell over his face. “I try not to, generally,” he stated frankly, though he certainly didn’t sound annoyed by the question. “Someone like me, constantly on the move… If I can help it, I try to plan out my time so that I have the luxury to take it slow and admire my surroundings. Sometimes I misjudge, though,” he amended, a small smirk pulling at one side of his mouth.

That crooked grin was gratifying to see – and at the same time, maddening.

Someone like you, G’raha mused to himself. And just what exactly are you, then?

He didn’t ask, though. He was staunchly determined not to indulge his all-consuming impulse this time. It was bad enough he had spent the entire trip thus far thinking of nothing else, he was not going to concede any ground now that the object of his fixation had miraculously appeared.

Besides, R’alma had made it pretty clear both at their last meeting and just now that this odd circumstance was less than ideal for him.

Though you wouldn’t know it from the way he casually leaned against a large boulder and seemed to make himself comfortable right then and there. In fact, he looked for all the world like he had no intention of going anywhere for a good long while. Astounded and confused, G’raha followed suit, taking a seat on a nearby stump and tucking his book of field notes into his lap.

“Are you not in a hurry this time?” he asked softly, not daring to hope.

R’alma’s mouth twisted again, and he seemed to be trying to avoid eye contact for some reason. “I am,” he replied simply.

But still he made no move to leave.

“Well, I… I would not wish to keep you from your… engagements—”

“You’re not.”

G’raha’s crimson eyes snapped up to meet mismatched ones, his teeth clicking together in surprise to cut short the thought that had been winding its way from his mouth. R’alma was looking at him now with a warm, gentle expression on his face, but that mixed-in emotion was shining out from the depths of his eyes again. It looked almost…

...Sad?

Regretful?

Like pity, almost. But whether for G’raha, or for himself, the scholar was still unsure.

“I told you,” R’alma went on. “I like to take my time when I can. Enjoy my… surroundings.”

And so they sat together there in the middle of the forest doing just that. For a single, solitary moment of blissful serenity, eyes closed, listening to the soft sounds of life around them.

It didn’t take long for the fidgeting to start back up again, though.

This time, likely owing to the fact that they were out in the middle of nowhere and not restrained by the expectations of civilized society, R’alma let loose a sharp growl of frustration. His entire demeanor changed abruptly. Where before he had been laid-back and relaxed, now he was agitated. Restless. He pushed off from the rock he’d been leaning against and began to pace, scratching anxiously at his shoulder.

At last he stopped and leaned down, his hands resting on the stump that G’raha was sitting on. In an incredibly intimate gesture, he gently pressed their heads together. A small, shaky breath escaped him in that moment of suspension, their physical forms touching for the first time.

“It’s not fair,” R’alma whispered. “I’m sorry, G’raha, but I have to go…”

G’raha was stunned motionless by the sudden tenderness of the moment. He wanted to reach out, his every instinct screamed at him to grab the taller man and keep him rooted to the spot by whatever means necessary. But his mind swirled with the unexpected closeness and vulnerability with which the soft admission was made, rendering his limbs immobile.

His mouth, however, was not quite so paralyzed.

“Raha,” he breathed, nearly tripping over his words to get them out before the contact could be broken. “Please.” He wanted to preserve this quiet moment between them as long as he was possibly able. “Please, call me… Call me Raha.”

There was a beat of hesitancy between them as R’alma processed his own shock. G’raha couldn’t be sure if the man had any clue what a monumental allowance this was, but he figured someone as well-traveled as the Gleaner would have gathered something of traditional Miqo’te customs and culture. And besides, he had his own suspicions…

“Alma, then,” the woodsman breathed in return. “You can call me Alma.”

“Alma…” The name spilled from him effortlessly, winding around his tongue and slipping past his lips so sweetly. It tasted of familiarity, of reverence and of affection. It felt like a well-trod path lined with damp leaves, like a gentle wind blowing at his back and carrying with it the faintest hint of wood-smoke.

He nearly lost himself to the sound of that name whispered in the back of his throat.

But still the tether was not strong enough.

“I really…” R’alma began, his voice faltering as his fingernails dug into the brittle wood of the stump.

I really do need to go.

The words he had said so many times already. The words he would continue to say. The words that G’raha wished he wouldn’t.

“I really… don’t want to,” he whispered instead.

“Third time is fate, fourth time is just cruel…”

G’raha’s head came up in surprise at that, his crimson eyes searching for R’alma’s in hopeful confusion. But breaking their physical contact seemed to break the spell, and the woodsman stood and took a step back.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as he – once again – turned away and dashed off through the trees. His black ears streamed behind him, flashing in the dappled light as he disappeared from sight.

And G’raha knew that he would be forever haunted by the miserably torn look in the other man’s eyes as he pulled away to leave.

Several moons passed after that without a single instance of him catching so much as a glimpse of his Black Hare. There were plenty of rumors and scattered conversations for him to pick up on, of course. But he always seemed to be just the slightest bit too late to actually catch R’alma any time he was in town.

The time between them stretched so long, G’raha even wound up on yet another field assignment. He spent the entire time half-expecting R’alma to come walking around the corner again and surprise him. It had happened twice in a row now, it was not an entirely ridiculous expectation.

At least, that’s what he kept telling himself.

This time, however, the elusive woodsman did not make another sudden appearance, and G’raha was left doing his best not to be disappointed by that turn of events. It was a losing battle for the most part, unfortunately. His notes from the latest trip were an indecipherable mess, and he had lost more than a few bells of sleep over the course of the few days he’d been away.

So it was that a haggard and slightly disheveled scholar arrived back at the academic campus, with a load of borrowed survey equipment that needed returning to the office of his department’s supplier. After making sure that everything was properly checked back in – a feat he was frankly surprised he had been able to accomplish, given his truly distracted state of mind – he was making his way back to the dorms for some much needed rest when he heard it.

“Raha!”

One short ruddy ear flicked and swiveled toward the sound coming from behind him, so vibrant and unexpected. As he turned to look for the source of it, he allowed himself a single brief moment of reflection over the symmetry.

Ah. So that’s what it feels like.

The sight that greeted him felt like the warmest and most refreshing of summer breezes to his tired and anxiety-riddled mind. He could have sworn the sun came out from behind a heavy bank of cloud cover at that exact moment, the way the world itself seemed to brighten as soon as he laid eyes on the dark-haired Viera running toward him for once.

As exhausted as he was from the strange mental state he had found himself in of late, he was wholly unable to resist the first impulse that claimed his limbs. Which was, of course, to rush forward and wrap the man in an embrace of absolute relief.

The instant his arms made contact with the form of the taller man, the strange fog in his head seemed to clear immediately.

R’alma tensed in response to the unexpected gesture of familiarity, but only for a fleeting moment. Before the scholar had a chance to regret the impetuous act, his rigid posture melted under G’raha’s clinging grasp, and his arms wrapped around in an answering embrace.

The tether pulled tight.

“You’re not an easy man to find,” the Viera said – directly into his ear.

G’raha couldn’t help but laugh a little at the hypocrisy of the statement, but otherwise didn’t comment. “You were looking for me this time?” he murmured in disbelief.

“Yeah, I was.” The taller man pulled away, though more than a little regretfully. “Margrat told me you were due back from your survey trip, and I… well, I felt like surprising you, I guess.”

Now that the immediate relief had settled, G’raha found himself stunned and unsure of how exactly to read the situation. His mouth opened to reply, then closed before opening once more. “I would have thought… That is, you always seem in such a rush.”

“I have some time now,” R’alma replied simply, taking him by the elbow and guiding him toward a small park nearby. “Not much, but a little. Let’s sit down, though, I want to hear about your trip and my feet are killing me.”

They found a bench in a quiet secluded corner, situated under the shade of a tree on a hill overlooking the campus. The tree was large, and looked to be incredibly old, but G’raha could not have named it if asked. He found himself suddenly wondering if R’alma knew what it was.

But the woodsman had asked about his field assignment, and had stated already that his time was, as ever, in short supply. And so G’raha would not distract with his own unrelated questions. He spoke instead about the survey, about some of the research that his department was currently conducting, and about his own thesis – which had been of late rather sorely neglected.

But he did not speak at great length about any of these things, nor at all about his mental distress, for he found himself not only distracted, but strangely disinterested in talking about himself. There was an immense urge within him to ask his own questions for once, to find out more about this strange man that he found himself so inexplicably intertwined with.

And so, against his previous misgivings, he finally did ask about the tree.

R’alma leaned his head back, gazing up into the vast, spreading branches of the tree above them, drapes of leaves hanging from the ends like a hundred delicate tendrils, and gave a small smile as he replied, seeming not at all displeased at the interruption. It was a wisteria, he supplied easily, and a very old one at that. A uniquely robust specimen not typically found in these parts of the world, and particularly revered by some of the more mythically minded locals.

This was news to G’raha, of course. Given his history with his family’s superstitions, he was not the least bit interested in any myths or fairy tales really, let alone local ones. But the way the woodsman talked about it, even in passing, the way his face gentled and his eyes drifted as if roaming some far-off trail unseen by anyone else…

It made the normally inflexible scholar so very curious.

When pressed, R’alma fell comfortably into spinning a fascinating tale about a magical seedling planted by woodland spirits, nurtured by sylphs, and tended by nutkin and other forest creatures. About perceived protective qualities, about locals and travelers alike seeking it out for the purpose of receiving a blessing from the forest.

About the wrath of the woodland fae when it was intentionally damaged by some disgruntled townsfolk.

In his excitement – or so it seemed at first – he stood and began to pace, hands gesturing broadly as he continued to tell of the etchings of the hearts and hopes of lovers upon its trunk, of midnight trysts held secret under the protection of its boughs. Of the magic held in its roots to grant the earnest wishes of the pure-hearted, in its bark to ease the heaviest burdens of the world-weary, in its blossoms to carry the auspicious dreams of the newly betrothed and long-standing partners alike.

Whether it was all actually established folklore, or made up on the spot, G’raha couldn’t be sure. But he was truly enraptured nonetheless.

It soon became apparent, however, that the energetic pacing was less about the woodsman’s enthusiasm for the tale he wove, and more yet of the odd fidgeting behavior that he had exhibited at their previous meetings. As he continued to tell the story, his measured wandering became more and more frenetic. His hands, before sweeping and painting the air around him with wordless illustrations of the tale, now moved in aimless jerks and vague waving. His voice, too, sounded more distracted and distant as the all too familiar spell seemed to creep over him.

G’raha couldn’t bring himself to draw attention to the shift in the man’s demeanor, no matter how incredibly distracting it was. He feared that drawing attention to it might cause R’alma to close himself off, or make it worse somehow. Less bearable, harder to ignore. To put it quite simply, he didn’t want to do anything that had a chance of cutting their time any shorter than it clearly already was.

He could feel the tether fraying with each passing second. Each march past the bench wore it thinner and thinner.

Until finally it snapped once more.

It happened mid sentence, right in the middle of a rousing tale of star-crossed lovers and their fervent promises uttered to one another beneath the sheltering branches. G’raha could almost feel it in his chest, the way the other man’s spine snapped straight and his jaw clicked shut, his teeth cutting the weave of the tale short in an instant.

And in the next instant, R’alma turned his mismatched gaze on the scholar, a look of such intense distress in the depths of his eyes that G’raha felt his heart drop.

“Gods, no,” he heard the woodsman whisper under his breath, before sweeping in to sit on the bench once more. The agitation in his posture and his limbs was painfully obvious as he leaned close to G’raha.

Rather than wait for the inevitable, however, the scholar opted to save his companion the trouble. “You have to go, then?”

R’alma’s hands twitched, as if he meant to take up G’raha’s own in that moment. But he didn’t. Instead, he leaned heavily on the back of the bench, as if seeking to anchor himself to something that was not easily moved.

“I wish I didn’t,” he said softly – plaintively. “I really… really wish I could stay, Raha.”

Fighting to keep his own distress from showing on his face, G’raha forced a reassuring smile as his own fingers began to fiddle and pick at the leather bracer on his arm. “Well, you know what they say about wishes and horse-birds,” he said, hoping his voice sounded as light as he tried to make it.

But he could already feel the heaviness creeping over his shoulders once more, the mire and the fog that had shrouded his heart these past moons. And his Hare hadn’t even turned to leave yet.

Though it was held at bay for but a moment at the comically quizzical look on R’alma’s face. The faintest smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, though it was tinged with sadness and didn’t quite extinguish the sense of wavering distress behind his eyes.

“I’d always heard it said about fishes myself,” he quipped back halfheartedly. “But you’re right, regardless.”

The Hare swallowed thickly then, a brief flash of pain washing over his face before he finally stood and turned reluctantly toward the airship docks. A thought occurred to G’raha then, and he reached out to grab the man’s wrist before he could run off.

“Wait. Alma, wait, what was that you were saying before? About making promises under the tree?”

He couldn’t have imagined the woodsman looking any more distraught than he already was, but somehow the question seemed to accomplish just that.

“I’m afraid I can’t make any,” R’alma whispered in reply, without turning back. “Not like what you’re thinking. But… But I can promise you that I’ll find you again, when I can. I don’t know when that’ll be, but… but I will, Raha. I will.”

And with that, he finally pulled himself free before dashing off down the path. A dejected slump to his shoulders the likes of which G’raha hadn’t seen before.

And the scholar clutched at his chest to keep his heart from leaping out and following after.

In the weeks that followed, G’raha found that progress on his studies and his thesis came to a near standstill. He could hardly focus at all anymore. The unfinished tale of the magical tree and the promises made by the lovers that met beneath its branches haunted him, as did the sight of R’alma’s retreating back.

It was even beginning to bleed out of his thoughts and into his daily life. This latest encounter with the Black Hare had inexplicably awakened in him an interest in mythology and fables, and a desire to learn more about them. A desire the likes of which he had never known before.

That his family’s adherence to the supposed curse had colored his perception of such things, he could hardly deny. But the way R’alma had talked about those local legends – the way his passion for the tales had added such vibrancy to them, painted them in a lens that he had never thought to look through…

It made him want more. In the absence of the other man’s presence, he felt an incredible need to seek out that sensation again on his own.

But time spent seeking it out was time spent not working on his studies, or his research. And as the weeks went by, it began eating up more and more yet of his already limited time.

And so one evening, as he felt his sanity slipping slowly but surely through the cracks of his very being, he sought one last grand effort to right his rapidly capsizing circumstances. This involved a long and intensive study session the likes of which he had not undertaken since obtaining his Archon marks – and which he quickly found far less effective than it had once been.

It was a losing battle, and quite possibly a lost cause entirely.

After many long bells struggling against the distractions that plagued him, to little or no avail, he found himself instead back at the diner where the second encounter with the Black Hare had occurred. The hour was late, and both staff and clientele sparse, as he sat at a corner table with his light meal. A meal that was meant to energize and reinvigorate him, but for which he found he had not the appetite.

It felt like that was the way everything had gone so far that day. Nothing that should have refreshed him had done so. Even the fresh air and brisk walk he had attempted had done little but remind him of the elusive man that held all his thoughts captive, from the mystical tree to the bustling diner, to the snippets of conversation he caught from his colleagues, to the simple scent of trees and grass and leaves.

Honestly, it was all becoming rather exhausting, the way his mind would constantly derail itself every time he tried to get it back on track. He picked aimlessly at his food now, mind wandering whither it would. He hadn’t the energy left to stop it anymore.

So tired and preoccupied with his thoughts he was, and with his back to the door, that he neither saw nor heard the very object of his newfound obsessive tendencies walk right in.

R’alma stepped swiftly over the threshold and stopped, taking a moment to glance about the empty tables before spotting his objective. Without missing a beat, his long, purposeful strides took him directly to G’raha’s corner table, and he slipped smoothly into the opposing seat.

Dumbfounded by the abruptness of the man’s appearance, G’raha blinked at him in open surprise.

“Hi,” the woodsman said simply, though his tone was level and serious. “I told you I’d find you.”

The scholar could only stutter a weak and barely coherent response.

“I’m on my way out of town,” R’alma went on quickly, a strange sort of urgency in his voice. “I have about a bell before I need to leave, and… Well, I was hoping to spend it with you.”

G’raha’s mouth opened and closed helplessly as he searched his addled mind for a proper response. He was still in shock from the suddenness of the Hare’s arrival, as if his obsessive thoughts had conjured him from the aether.

Fortunately, R’alma seemed disinclined to wait for a more civilized reply. “I’ve been worried about you,” he said softly, leaning his elbows on the table between them. “I overheard some of the other Students talking about how poorly you looked. They said you’ve been running yourself ragged of late.”

The sense of worry he heard in those words snapped G’raha out of his stupor immediately. Waving a hand dismissively, he let his gaze slip away at last. “O-Oh, no, I am quite well, I assure you,” he managed. “Or, at the very least, I am feeling much better now. Thank you for your concern.”

It was not quite a lie. Now that he was overcoming his shock, the presence of the other man had a strange sort of calming effect on his heart, the likes of which he had not felt since their last chance meeting. All of the anxiety and distress that had been plaguing him, the odd twisting in his gut, all seemed to lift the moment he had laid eyes on that familiar face before him.

Like a hunger inside him had been mysteriously sated.

He felt the all-too-familiar tether tug inside of him once more.

In a desperate bid, he reached out to secure it, his gaze coming up to meet the other man’s. “But we always talk about me,” he interjected quickly, before R’alma could insist. “I would much rather you tell me something of yourself this time.”

The Hare hesitated, but the Fox could feel the hunt closing in.

“Raha, I don’t think—”

“Please, Alma,” he pressed, his own sort of urgency coloring his tone. “I would know more of you. And we are, as ever, short on time.”

R’alma worried his bottom lip between his teeth as he considered, though he did not take long to do so. They were short on time, he had said so himself. And so, at last, he sighed and gave a small, slightly sad smile.

“All right. If you insist.”

It was almost everything he had been craving since the very beginning – a subtle, ephemeral lifting of the veil. The chance to peek behind the enigma that was this mysterious persona he had found himself so inexplicably and inextricably entangled with.

He listened with rapt and unwavering attention.

The woodsman, he learned quickly, was not in the habit of talking about himself. In fact, he was not in the habit of forming connections with anyone, and therefore had little reason to open up about himself on any occasion, due to his frequent comings and goings.

His travels were so frequent, G’raha discovered, that he did not remain in any one place long enough to call anywhere home.

He did, however, have a village where he had grown up, and a family that he had left behind when he first began his wandering. And this, at least, he did describe in great – if somewhat melancholy – detail.

The village was a small and close-knit community nestled deep in the forests of a distant continent. R’alma had been raised by his mother, alongside a younger sister, though his father was something of a wanderer as well and had been mostly absent throughout his childhood. Though, G’raha couldn’t help but note, this information was not delivered with bitterness, but with the same dejected tone that he used when he spoke of how much he wished he didn’t have to leave at the end of their time together.

The reason for the wanderings was not broached, and nor did the scholar ask. It was not his place, or was unimportant. Or perhaps he simply did not wish to give R’alma any cause to stop divulging. Whatever the reason, he asked no questions, and instead only listened intently.

He could not help but notice it, though. The subtle twitches, the nearly imperceptible trembling of his hands. The way his heavy boots shuffled under the table, or the way he started to fumble his words in places as he spoke. The Hare was making notable effort not to fidget in his seat, but as the bell dragged on, his efforts proved less and less effective.

As his leg finally began a shuddering jerk, his voice faltered and a pained expression pulled at his features.

The pain was new. Other than the brief flash of it at their last meeting, G’raha could not honestly remember having seen it before. Was it something that had always been present? Was it getting worse? What was the cause of it?

Was it somehow connected to the fidgeting? Was it the reason for the sudden and urgent disappearances?

And had he been somehow making it worse by trying to get R’alma to stay?

The questions sat at the tip of his tongue, ready to ask that which he had so carefully avoided for so long. The answer would surely be a deeply personal one, and he knew better than anyone that there were some things you would just rather keep to yourself. But he could feel the tether fraying again, and he wanted – needed – to reinforce it before it could break again.

He wasn’t sure he could stand it breaking yet again.

Before he could let even a single one slip, however, the Hare stood. The motion was sudden and abrupt, and shattered the moment of anticipation in an instant. One glance at the torn, distressed look on R’alma’s face, and he felt the tether rip apart. There was a different sort of pain in his expression, one that the Fox could identify and was becoming bitterly familiar with.

“I’m out of time.”

R’alma’s normally dulcet tenor was strained. High-strung and discordant. Grating. Like it had been dragged harshly against the flat of a blade.

“I need to go…”

“Truly?” G’raha found himself asking. “Has a bell already passed?”

It was meant to sound lighter, dismissive. Unbothered. But he couldn’t keep the mournfulness from his voice. The moment the tether shredded, he could feel it. Darkness creeping over him, eclipsing his heart and drowning him in the loneliness that had plagued him for what seemed like an eternity.

Neither could he keep the anguish from showing on his face, so keenly did he feel it. His ruddy ears sagged, and his gaze dropped to a spot on the table in front of him. The thought of watching the Hare run off yet again, the Fox helpless to stop it or to make him stay, had him sure his heart would tear from his chest.

Worse yet was the fact that R’alma seemed to want to stay, yet was compelled not to for some reason. And G’raha’s mounting torment seemed to compound the problem, whatever it was.

If only he knew more about why the woodsman kept leaving in such a rush.

I truly must be going mad now.

R’alma stood still in miserable indecision beside the table for an agonizing moment, before slipping into the adjacent seat. In a rush, he swept G’raha’s hands into his own, pulling them close to his chest. The scholar’s crimson gaze came up with them, and he stared in shock. The woodsman’s face was a torn mix of anguish and concern as he urgently pressed their foreheads together.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his voice shaking and thready. “Please believe that I would stay if I could. I truly want nothing more right now. But I can’t. I really, really can’t.”

The tether began to weave itself anew.

“I don’t understand,” G’raha breathed in reply, though more than that he was unable to say. The words failed him.

“I know.” R’alma’s breath shuddered, and his fingers squeezed painfully around G’raha’s hands. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry…”

And then the cold and darkness crashed in around his ears as those large, warm hands tore away from him in an instant. The barely formed tether snagged on his heart as it was rent a second time in quick succession.

As the Hare dashed out the door – without so much as a glance behind him – the Fox felt his heart ripped clear out of his chest as if to give chase.

Or as if being dragged along on the end of a string.

It was all he could do to keep from crying out in agony in that moment, or from collapsing in the road on his way back to his dorm afterward. Everything after that singular moment of excruciating anguish was covered in a thick fog of detachment.

At some point another day dawned. And another, and more yet after surely. He was unsure how many exactly it was. He was barely aware of his surroundings at any given moment, instead moving about in a daze. His mind clouded over, eyes unseeing, as the retreating back of the Black Hare played over and over in his head.

No longer did the Fox see any other prey. There was nothing in his vision or his mind but the hare. He was going to catch it if it was the last thing he ever did in all his life. He was certain of it.

Except he was certain of nothing of the sort.

The story behind his family’s curse churned around in his head, mixing with the vision of his own Black Hare in twisted and frightening ways. It harried his every waking thought, invaded his dreams, and haunted the corners of every shadow. It was inescapable.

And he was beginning to surrender to its veracity.

What else could he do? He had done all he could to resist, to deny the validity of the curse, to put the Black Hare out of his mind. And he had been entirely ineffective in doing so at every turn. And now…

And now he wasn’t sure he wanted to anymore.

It was startling how quickly and completely he had been shattered by this strange circumstance he had found himself in. He was a perfectly reasonable and logical individual, a scholar who dealt in only the most reliable of facts and particulars. How in the heavens had he allowed himself to become so deeply entrenched in such nonsense?

How had he let it go this far?

Whether it had been one day or several – or weeks even – he was vaguely aware of the fact that he had hardly eaten or slept during that time. What his time was filled with instead, he couldn’t rightly say. His mind was all but consumed with thoughts of the Black Hare, but beyond that, it was as if time itself was simply slipping past him.

It was in a rare moment of relative lucidity, during which he was contemplating the wisdom of calling his mother and admitting his sudden and unexpected downfall, that he was at last discovered.

His dorm mate and dear friend, Krile, found him languishing, stretched out across the armrests of his reading chair and looking an absolutely wretched mess. His red hair lay unbound and mussed, his crimson eyes sunken and sporting dark circles against his atypically pale skin.

“Raha!” she exclaimed as soon as she laid eyes on him. “What’s happened to you? The others have mentioned how poorly you look of late, but I did not realize your condition was so dire. Is your thesis truly giving you that much trouble?”

He groaned pathetically as he righted himself as best he could. “If only it were that simple,” he muttered in reply.

Perhaps it was the haze that had descended so completely around him. For some reason, though he had been reluctant to speak of it to strangers in the past, and even to close friends, he found the entire story tumbling out of him – of his family’s curse, and of his recently acquired and unavoidable obsession.

Admittedly, the entire thing came out in such a jumbled mess that it was very nearly incoherent. He stumbled over his words, failed several times to explain himself properly, and had to be told to start over on more than one occasion. But after several minutes and a few attempts, he had managed to get the whole thing out.

“Well,” Krile began slowly when the torrent of words had at last abated. “I’m not sure I understand entirely. But have you tried talking to the Gleaner about all this?”

“That would be as good as affirming the existence of the curse,” he all but moaned, resting the back of his wrist on the bridge of his nose as he leaned back. “Though mayhap that would be for the best. I honestly could not say why I continue to deny what is right in front of me…”

“I think it would be worth a try, at least,” she replied. “If for no other reason than to give yourself some peace of mind. I can honestly say I have never seen anyone actually pine so badly before. You are the very picture of the term ‘lovesick’, for heaven’s sake.”

Lovesick.

The word pierced through the fog in his head, striking in its clarity and acuteness. Like a bolt of lightning, it lanced straight through to his heart, paralyzing his churning thoughts. Was it possible? Could it be that’s all this was?

He sat up then, the sudden motion making it feel like his heart had dropped to his feet. “I have to find him,” he stated firmly, a new conviction in his tone and a fresh sense of urgency surging in his chest.

“I didn’t mean right now,” Krile exclaimed, motioning fretfully for him to lie back down. “You clearly need your rest—”

“Krile, please,” G’raha said, his pleading gaze coming up to meet hers. “Please… I need to talk with him.”

She hesitated a moment, but it was brief. “All right,” she conceded at last. “but I won’t have you traipsing all over town trying to track him down yourself. Not in that state. Get some food and some sleep, and I’ll see what I can do about finding where he’s gone or when he’ll be returning.”

Her reassurance lifted some of the weight from his back that he hadn’t realized was there. He felt… relieved in a way that he hadn’t for what seemed like an age.

Lovesick.

He couldn’t deny the way his heart leapt and yearned for the woodsman. But he had been so caught up in his family’s superstitions, so sure that the curse was responsible for what he was feeling, that he had nearly missed it entirely.

He had assigned the feeling to something ominous and vengeful, when that was not what it was at all.

It looked like he might be calling his mother after all. But not until this had all been resolved.

First, he had to catch his Black Hare.

“You’re in luck!”

The sound of Krile’s voice jolted him out of the light sleep he had managed to fall into. Though he found he couldn’t complain when his tired mind parsed what she said next.

“It looks like he’s due back this afternoon, actually. But he already has another commission lined up, and is expected to leave again by nightfall.”

He couldn’t be sure how long it had been since their last conversation, or even how long he had been asleep for. But at the very least, it seemed to be late in the morning now. And he did feel marginally more rested than he had before.

He sat up and rubbed the last of the clinging sleep from his eyes. “How in the world did you manage to figure that out?” he asked groggily.

“It was surprisingly easy,” she replied, coming to sit next to him. “Snoegeim helped me track down the Gleaner’s latest commission. I checked with the botany department to see if they might know where he was most likely to go in order to fill it. After that, it was a simple matter of calculating how long it might reasonably take him to return, based on the pattern of his previous visits.”

“Why didn’t I think to do that?” G’raha mused aloud as he stretched his stiff limbs. His head was still swimming with exhaustion, but the solution still seemed maddeningly simple.

“Because everyone you’ve asked about him has told you he can’t be tracked or found unless he wants to be,” she offered gently. “Which is true to some extent. But no one has yet been desperate enough to find him to realize how easy his trail actually is to follow. You just need to know who to ask first.”

“Krile, I…” A swell of emotion caused him to flounder for a moment as he struggled to collect himself.

She only gave him a kind – and slightly amused – smile. “Besides that, you are clearly too close to the situation to be thinking rationally about such things. You just needed an unattached party to look at the bigger picture for you. A service which I am more than happy to provide, if it means improving your state of health.”

“I don’t know how I can ever thank you,” he whispered earnestly. If this all panned out like he hoped it would, he would owe her a truly enormous debt of gratitude. One that he wasn’t at all confident he could ever repay.

But she just chuckled a little and gave his knee a good-humored pat. “You can start by going to see him, and quickly. I’ll be glad to see you looking in better spirits, and I’d hate for all that effort to be for naught should you miss your chance.”

And so he set out on his hunt at last. The final one of its kind, if he had anything to say about it. No longer would his quarry pester and elude him. No longer would he be tormented by the phantom of possibility and longing, dangling before him just out of reach. By this strange and incalculable hunger for which he could find neither rhyme nor reason.

He would rid himself of this wretched curse, one way or another.

He was going to catch his Black Hare.

After making sure he’d had sufficient nourishment for his chase, Krile had sent him out with hastily scribbled directions to the individual who held the Hare’s latest commission. He made his way to the address as quickly as he dared, though he fought the urge to actually run. It was still early in the afternoon when he arrived at his destination, and hope rose quickly to his chest.

That hope was just as quickly dashed, however, when the man informed him that the Gleaner had arrived slightly ahead of schedule, and that G’raha had just missed him by mere minutes.

It was replaced immediately by a desperate panic when he was told that R’alma was likely heading back to the airship landing with the intention of leaving on his next job right away.

Without seeking him out. Without trying to find him this time.

Somehow even more pressed for time than usual.

He had to hurry.

After hastily offering his thanks for the help, he took off down the road at a dead run. He was heedless now of appearances and propriety. His only focus was on reaching the Black Hare before he was out of reach yet again. He had to talk to R’alma before it was too late.

He had to get him to stay this time.

He only hoped he had not already missed his chance.

By some twist of fortune, he hadn’t made it quite halfway to the airship landing when he at last spotted what he had been searching for – long black ears tipped in red. His heart leapt, and he found himself thanking whatever deities had seen fit to listen to his urgently whispered prayers. The figure in question was moving at a brisk pace, but for now at least he was not quite running. Which meant that G’raha would catch up to him easily.

When he was sure he was within earshot, he called out once more, being sure to keep his tone earnest but level – as well as he could while sprinting at full tilt, that is.

“Alma!”

Crimson eyes tracked the now familiar twitch and swivel with an intensity and hunger that he was no longer keen on suppressing. As he ran on to meet his quarry, he was put in mind of the very first time he had chased after those ears. How he wished he had seen them turn toward his call that first day in the woods. Though perhaps, if he had, it would only have served to hasten his descent into madness.

He never wanted to stop watching them flick toward the sound of his voice.

Mismatched gold and teal turned to meet him, stricken with… something akin to fear. Or dread. And though the Gleaner stopped in his tracks to allow the scholar to catch up to him, he looked ready to bolt at the slightest scare or provocation.

Like trapped prey trying to escape a predator.

As G’raha slowed to a halt, he doubled over to catch his breath, lungs burning and muscles tingling from his impromptu race. R’alma shook his head and took a step toward the dock. “Raha, I’m sorry,” he pleaded. “But I really can’t—”

“Wait!” G’raha reached out in a frantic attempt to catch the tether that was already slipping from his grasp. His fingers closed firmly around the other man’s leather-bound wrist, effectively rooting him in place. “Wait, please,” he wheezed, fighting to calm his erratic breathing.

The Hare twisted weakly in a halfhearted attempt to dislodge his grip. “I have to catch—”

“There will be other airships departing,” the Fox interrupted, fighting the urge to growl in agitation. “If it is still your wish to leave, that is. After I have said what I came here to say.”

Though he saw a tension in the Hare’s shoulders that did not ease, the man nodded reluctantly, and so G’raha released him. Only to then clutch insistently at his sleeves, an imploring desperation to his movements.

“It is not my wish, however,” he said fervently, gravely, clinging to the taller man like some sort of lifeline. “Had I my way, you would never board another airship. I cannot stand to see you leave yet again, Alma.”

He took in a shuddering breath and dropped his gaze to the ground between them, unwilling to watch the pain that was already beginning to play out on the man’s face. He felt like he was perched on the edge of a cliff, and before he knew it, he was tumbling down over the edge and into the longest and most vulnerable explanation he had ever had to make.

“My family is cursed,” he began slowly, “by the spirit of a fox that was bewitched by the fae. At least, that is how the story goes, and I can tell it to you in its entirety some other time. But suffice to say, in his last moments, he chased after a hare that eluded him and led him farther and farther into the enchanted forest in which he had been trapped. According to the superstitions of my family, those born with the fox’s crimson eyes are doomed to find their own Black Hare and go mad trying to catch it, whatever it is.”

His limbs trembled and his eyes burned as he went on, ears pinned back against his head and tail lashing in distress. “I never believed in the story myself, despite the insistence of my relatives that I was bound to be next. But that day in the forest… The day we met… Well, I could hardly believe my eyes. My very own Black Hare, sprung up out of nowhere, running through the woods where no one else was supposed to be, taunting my curiosity.

“You were like some terrible omen, a harbinger of my impending doom, and yet I couldn’t stop myself all the same. That is why I chased after you that day, Alma. Why I continued to chase after you, every opportunity I was given, every time fate saw fit to place you in my path. The sight of your fleeing back began to drive me mad. I was so close to giving in to the idea of the curse at last.”

Finally chancing to glance up into R’alma’s eyes, he swallowed thickly. His heart hammered loudly in his chest. “Thoughts of you haunt my dreams, consume my every waking thought. I can focus on nothing else when we are apart. Seeing you is like a balm on my very soul, and every time you depart again, my heart is ripped from me as if to follow.”

His voice finally began to falter, the torrent of words coming to a pause. The Hare’s hands came up to grip his elbows in a bolstering gesture, though they trembled more violently than his own now. Mismatched eyes bored into his own, lit with anticipation and anguish.

G’raha pressed on. “But my family’s curse is hardly to blame for any of that, as I came to realize quite recently. And that is why I could not let you leave without hearing me out. Alma, I…”

Another bracing pause, before he plunged ahead blindly.

“Alma, I do believe I have fallen in love with you.”

The woodsman balked at that, shuffling a half step backwards as he shook his head again. The tether slipped, snapped taut, and the scholar frantically tightened his grip to keep hold of it. He waited breathlessly for a response.

When it finally came, it was in a strained, reluctant murmur of despair.

“Raha, I… I can’t make those sorts of connections. To anyone.”

The words rocked him to his core, but he refused to let them shatter him just yet. “Because of your work?”

“Yes. Well, no, it’s more complicated than that.”

R’alma heaved a frustrated sigh, and his shoulders slumped in clear discomfort. “It’s because I can’t… stay in any one place for an extended period of time.”

The confusion must have shown plainly on G’raha’s face, because the woodsman let out another sigh of resignation. All the same, he gave voice to his bewilderment. “I’m afraid I do not understand. Alma, what are you talking about?”

R’alma shook as he sucked in a steadying breath of his own. “What you said about a family curse… I know what that’s like, more than you realize. Because my family has our own curse.”

And so he launched into a tale that, had G’raha been less familiar with the myths of his own relatives, he may have found it difficult to believe.

Many years past, so the story went, a distant ancestor of the woodsman was horribly lost. He chanced upon a powerful fae, and sought to make a deal – a favor of the fae’s choosing, in exchange for being guided back home. Both parties found this agreeable, and a deal was struck, though no physical contract was signed as proof.

The fae was true to their word, and guided the lost traveler back to familiar territory. But once he was safe in the comfort of his own home, he forgot all about the deal and the fae both. Thus when the fae returned to collect payment, the traveler – in a less desperate frame of mind – refused to comply, and broke his end of the bargain.

So the fae, understandably upset by the lack of recompense for their service, cast a curse upon the traveler, telling him that since he found such little value in the guidance he had been granted, neither he nor his sons, nor their sons, would ever be possessed of a home again. That they would be forced to wander the land instead forevermore.

“And that,” R’alma concluded weakly, “is why I have to keep moving. The curse deals me physical pain if I stay in one spot for too long, and the longer I stay in one place, the farther I have to go to escape the consequences, and the longer before I can return. Unless I’m sleeping, I generally have about a bell before it starts to become unbearable. You’ve never asked, but… that’s why I can’t ever seem to sit still around you.”

“And why you take jobs that send you to such remote corners of the world,” G’raha added, his mind working to put the pieces together.

R’alma nodded, averting his gaze. “You can see how that might make it difficult to get close to anyone. And until recently, I had done a pretty good job at not letting myself form connections like that with anyone. It’s too painful, for everyone involved, but it was so easy to just blow in and out as I needed without getting tied to anything.”

A heavy pause, and he brought his gaze back up to meet the Fox’s crimson eyes. “Until you,” he went on, voice trembling. “You kept turning up, kept chasing me down. And I kept telling myself that it wouldn’t hurt to indulge your curiosity for a short time. And then I had to tell myself that it wasn’t that bad. That it was no big deal, or that the attachment wasn’t that strong.

“And then I had to fight myself on which pain was worse – the curse, or leaving you over and over again.”

Every ilm of him was shaking now, his face twisted in anguish as G’raha continued to hold him in place. His body twisted against whatever torment he was feeling, but he made no move to break free.

“I truly want nothing more than to be able to settle in one spot,” he whispered plaintively, voice hoarse and thready. “Especially if that meant I never had to leave your side again. But I am a shade, cursed to do naught but drift. My soul is without a tether to this world, and so I must continue to wander.”

The tether.

The tether that kept breaking.

The tether that was even now starting to fray again at the edges as it strained.

G’raha was quiet for several moments as he mulled everything over, his mind the clearest it had been in what felt like eons. Even as the woodsman doubled over in agony, clinging to him for support, he could see a path laid out before him. Like a trail, clear as crystal, winding through a dense thicket. And suddenly, he knew what it was he had to do.

At last he nodded, straightening his back and shoulders and setting his jaw. A fierce determination flared up within him, and his voice came clear and light.

“Well then,” he said, soft but firm. “I shall bind you to me. To my heart, as I have been trying to do since the moment you first left me standing in that forest. I have tried every form of tether I can think of to do it, and nothing so far has worked. So I will just have to use the strongest one I know.”

And with that, and without wasting any more time thinking, he surged forward. His arms swept around the taller man’s waist, pulling him close as their heads came together. Noses brushed, their foreheads pressed tight, and he whispered, “I will bind you to me with a kiss.”

He pressed his lips to R’alma’s then, eager and insistent, as if to devour him on the spot. His quarry whimpered and melted under him, surrendering entirely at last. One foot shuffled forward as he leaned into the kiss, and his hands moved up to brace the scholar’s head. Accepting. Conceding.

G’raha could think of nothing in that moment beyond pouring every onze of emotion and longing into that singular point of contact between them. He moved slowly, reluctant to break it even for the tiniest sliver of time. If this did not work – if this tether snapped as well – he was sure he would break on the spot.

At some point, he became acutely aware of a strange sensation around them, as if the air itself had become like glass. It shimmered and warped, bending and twisting and strained. But when he finally pulled away to look properly, it shattered. Dispersing into the wind as a thousand glittering specks, barely outside the edge of his peripheral vision. His ear flicked, and it was gone, as if it had never been there in the first place.

His attention was brought instantly back to the moment by the long, shuddering sigh of relief that R’alma released. The Viera was still leaning against him for support, but there was an ease to his posture that the Miqo’te had rarely ever seen. The tension was gone from his shoulders, and his face no longer twisted in discomfort.

In fact, as his mismatched eyes met G’raha’s crimson – glassy and bright and brimming with emotion – his lips pulled into the biggest grin that the scholar had ever seen. Momentarily speechless, R’alma could only laugh as he pressed their heads together once more. G’raha could only answer in kind, as the rest of the weight lifted from him. A weight that, though it had grown heavier in recent months, he suddenly realized he had been carrying for far, far longer.

The woodsman, likewise, seemed completely at peace for the first time since they had met.

Bright morning sunlight poured into the dormroom as G’raha stretched and roused himself awake several days later. He could hardly remember a morning when he had woken so rested and refreshed. The last of the anxiety and stress over the strange circumstances he had found himself in had finally melted away and allowed him a deep and peaceful night’s sleep.

Now, he mused to himself, was the time to finally get his studies back on track. He had a thesis to finish – the scope of which he was seriously considering some adjustments to. Though he still wanted to discuss the idea with the department supervisor before committing, he was taken with the idea of trying a different angle on archaeological studies, one that had more of a focus on myth and folklore and how those sorts of stories shape culture and carry with them their own unique form of artifact.

As he sat up to clamber out of the bed, however, he found himself rooted fast to the mattress. His waist was weighed down heavily, and no amount of shifting or twisting served to free him. The momentary panic and confusion lasted only for a second, as a glance down revealed a sinewy, sun-tanned arm wrapped firmly around his hips.

R’alma tightened his grip, pulling the scholar back into the warm refuge of the covers. With a loud, satisfied sigh, he curled around the smaller man, nuzzling the back of his neck as G’raha unceremoniously collapsed back into the pillows. He chuckled, surrendering to the insistent pull, and allowed himself to be drawn back to the bed.

With the constant compulsion to keep moving no longer present, the woodsman had become habitually lethargic and reluctant to rush. And he had seen fit to assert that reluctance on him at every opportunity.

Not that the opportunities had been many so far. R’alma had still left shortly after their momentous kiss, in order to complete his commission. But he had returned far sooner than he had ever been known to, and the two had been inseparable for the few days since – R’alma relishing in taking his time for once, and G’raha reveling in not having to watch him rush away.

After a moment, he gently tapped the arm wrapped around him, a smile pulling at his lips. “Alma, I will need to get up at some point,” he intoned softly, though there was little conviction in his voice. “I have work to do today, and you have another commission pending.”

R’alma groaned and curled tighter around him, his grip not loosening in the slightest. “It can wait,” he mumbled, a good-natured whine in his tone. “Whatever it is, we can do it later. I’m enjoying this.”

He likes to take his time, G’raha reminded himself. To savor the quiet moments, enjoy his surroundings, appreciate the stillness and simple moments.

And he’s never had a chance like this to do so.

The musing brought a thought to the front of his mind, one that had passed by on multiple occasions before, but that he had not had the opportunity to ask until now. Without wasting another moment, he voiced it.

“What was the rest of that saying you mentioned before?” he asked quietly. “The one about coincidences and fate?”

R’alma burrowed his face into his back, ears flicking lazily. “Was just something I made up, mostly,” he admitted in a murmur.

“I’d still like to hear it.”

After a moment of quiet consideration, the woodsman obliged. “First time is happenstance, second time is coincidence,” he droned thoughtfully. “Third time’s fate. Fourth time is cruel. Fifth time is torture.”

His grip around G’raha’s waist tightened as he smiled. “Sixth time’s a trial. Lucky number seven is the end of the road. Or the start of a new one. Now come back to bed, I don’t want to leave yet.”

He pressed a kiss to the back of the scholar’s neck then, and G’raha hummed in thoughtful appreciation. At last, he relented completely, as he had every time, sinking back into the warmth and softness.

There would be time later. They would both emerge eventually, tend to their individual responsibilities, and life would move on. The woodsman would accept another job, one that would likely pull him to some far-flung corner of the world once more.

But he would always return here, as their orbits around each other became so much smaller than before.

It was strange, the scholar mused, that the farther removed from the phenomenon they became, the more difficult he found it to believe. It was as if his mind sought to gloss over and forget the whole ordeal. The more time passed, the easier it was to assert that the respective curses had been a fabrication after all, that the whole thing was an exaggeration of intense feelings and nothing more.

He wasn’t even sure if the shattering sensation he felt was real, or whose curse it was that broke first in that moment.

But as he rolled over to indulge in a few more stolen moments of quiet, a deeply relieved and contented sigh of his own escaping, he found that it hardly mattered what the truth was in the end.

For at last, the Fox had caught his Black Hare.

And the Wanderer had finally found his rest, and a place to call home...