there are many paths to tread
For a moment, he wondered if his silent follower would humor him or simply disappear back into the night. He couldn’t blame their hesitation. Toulouse might display the same hesitation if their roles were reversed.
The moon seemed to grow brighter overhead, swelling with light. It’s laughing at me,” he had time to think, in the time it took her to step into the clearing. Does it know I’m a wolf?
Perhaps it did. Perhaps it was waiting for him to grow sharp teeth and shed his skin, to have his body twisted and warped into something terrifying.
Perhaps it was waiting for him to turn into the monster of Viride, and turn around to consume the stranger following him.
It would be a fitting end, and one he would not be opposed to. Toulouse was a monster of his own right, after all, one that changed his face every day and became someone - something - new every morning.
But he was not a monster that fed on flesh; only secrets. He was not Viride’s monster.
He hears her first step, the crunch of frosty grass underhoof, and his smile grows. He turns around to meet the black and white mare as she creeps into the clearing with him. The moonlight turns her silver, and he can hardly make out the trails of red marking her sides. She’s tall, taller than him; but she slinks like a fox, each step hesitant, despite her baroque appearance.
He drinks in her appearance, his smile slowly fading.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t,” he muses aloud. He hopes it surprises her; liars don’t usually admit themselves so easily. His eyes sparkle at her, laughing silently with all the secrets he knows but doesn’t say.
“Nor do I know you,” he continues, dipping his head once so the rings on his horns catch the moonlight. “Yet here I am, giving you the benefit of the doubt, trusting that you aren’t a murderer. Life is a balancing game after all.”
Toulouse falls quiet, watching her with a thinly veiled interest. Only the wind stirs between them, brushing its cold fingers along their bodies. He resists the urge to shiver, glad for the weight of the heavy scarves hanging along his frame.
Then he shrugs his shoulders and flicks his long, pale tail. There’s a hundred questions he could ask, but he settles on one - for now.
“Why were you following me?”
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