"If you're sure," Michael says, still staring into the woods, still thinking of ghosts and dirt and so, so many things that he cannot bring himself to say. Novus' deities are not without a sense of humor - bleak as it may be. He may wonder how a person can be handed another soul by God herself and wonder at the cruelty of it, but it does not show. The sea of his face, buried in that thick mess of hair, is as still as so many autumn ponds.

How can a person?
How can a person do anything? He does not know.
Maybe this is the uncertainty that she feels: Michael, stumbling in his own fog, crashing to his own shore, a moored boat that creaks and groans and grinds away with the tide. Perhaps his creaking is loud, here in the forest, where it bounces off trees.

Perhaps his heart is such a cacophony that she cannot hear him over its din. Perhaps Michael is the dragon, roaring across the mountain range.

Perhaps he is the damsel. Perhaps he is Morrighan's wolf, gone through the trees. Perhaps he is nothing at all. Never was, never will be.

"Warden!" he grins, "Is that why you're glaring at me like that? I suppose I should congratulate you on a job well done, in that case."

There it is again, the keening. It rises in him like a phoenix, some dark thing birthed from history, some ancient ache that turns his bones to piles of ash. Michael turns again to the shady wood, heart in his throat.

He says, "I'm a storyteller, I guess. But not a good one."
He says, "Anyway, are you coming?" before he tracks off in Bram's direction. He casts her a knowing smile behind his back. "If he's going to be a problem, and you're our warden, you should probably come with me."

It happens a lot.
Michael, ancient Michael, somber Michael, and his smile like winter mornings with the sun and the snow - bleak but bright, and as brittle as it is true. And her, or them, or anyone, standing at opposition with their tongues between their teeth and suddenly he is too bright, or too sad, or too honest.

He is a thing of many honesties and very few of them are worth being honest about. He is a thing that is truthful to a fault except with the questions he is asking himself. And when she says to him, try me, Michael does not hide the way he trips over his next step.

The woods are quiet, and her wolf is nowhere to be seen. Later Michael might wonder what he's doing, here in the trees with Morrighan and the distant scent of a wolf he knows he can't find. Michael keeps telling himself this is enough, this has to be enough, but he drags her smoke in and it feels like ghosts and a bad memory he can't quite yank to the surface.

"Maybe some other time," he laughs, in that nervous way that he has. "assuming we find your wolf before you set me on fire." And Michael keeps walking, the thick white snake of his hair skimming her singed hoofprints.

- - - 

It's been an hour, maybe, when Michael drops his head and exhales through his nose.

(Michael doesn't speak while he's searching, winding through trees until there are no trees left, and when they break through the far edge of the woods the sun is casting long afternoon shadows and red-orange light. There was no wolf, not that he saw, and Michael is tired and frustrated and he'd want to go home if he knew what home was, anymore.)

"Well," he says, leaning against the closest tree, "I think you're in luck. Your wolf is gone."

Michael fixes her with some somber, aching smile. When he turns to go, it is still there. "This has been fun; come find me soon." He says over his shoulder, "Remind me I owe you a story."

Michael walks. He has always been so good at walking away.