Lèzǐ has proven to be nothing but a burden in this new life, too. A headache that Datura couldn't shake. A thorn in his fucking paw that he couldn't pick. Their reunion had left him empty-stomached—gods only knew how many times he'd dry heaved, after the pretty prostitute had finally left—and a hankering for...anything.

Drugs, alcohol, a warm body. The peddler is sour upon the realization that the stash he'd worked his ass off to acquire was gone. No opium, none of his namesake, no homemade brew. Nothing but dirt and jungle vines and himself. A migraine pounded at the base of his skull. His old scar and bastard aches have him wincing with every labored step.

It feels like he's dying again. And, dramatically, he hopes that if he is, he'll stay dead for good. At least in the afterlife he wouldn't have to fight the battle of withdrawals.

Datura is a desperate man. Has been after the war and his relief of military duties. When withdrawals start to creep in like poison, he loses it. He's probably gone mad, given how he's face down in a pile of dirt and what's likely some parrot's shit as he chases down a brightly colored mushroom.

Paws sweating, heart racing. His paws, almost always so steady and precise, shake and tremble as he furiously scooped dirty from his prize.

He's ready to throw a tantrum, when the mushroom revealed itself and is swallowed in the blink of an eye. The taste is horrid—like shit and chlorophyll—but it's possibly the best thing he's ever guzzled down.

Now, all he has to do is wait for his mind to turn to mush and the memories, pain, and shame to melt away.

---

scarcely does gjalla dread bathing. often it is an enjoyable act, and the only thing that changes that now is that she is drenched in scarlet—the water must go deep, and the pond she stands before was no indulgent spring. it has no mineral warmth to seep into her bones, and the cold will linger until she dries completely.

steam ghosts faintly from her muzzle where blood still clings, dark against the raven sheen of her chest and forelegs. an elk carcass is somewhere nearby—the scent of blood is still rich in her nose; she had torn it open with purpose. she feels no shame in the goring of the beast—it was an offering to her goddess, and her jaw aches pleasantly from it.

gjalla eases herself into the pond with gritted teeth and the cold seizes her at once—a living, growing thing. it bites at her legs and climbs her ribs, stealing the breath right from her chest. she goes deeper anyway until the water laps at her shoulders and the ache settles into something manageable. she dips her face once to allow the cold to close over her spine, her throat. blood lifts from her coat in invisible ribbons and she resurfaces dripping wet, soothed.

What a bitter irony his life had been. Once a great warrior...then a physician not by choice, then a life of indulgence to try and forget the foremost latter. How proud and pompous he once was, as a decorated man of honor who'd sworn to lay his life down for his emperor. How he spiraled, the day he was afflicted and cursed with a fractured mind and a failing heart. He'd spent years of his life running from death. Drinking, opium, women and men...

All for it to lead nowhere. He hadn't died a noble death. He hadn't looked for the disappeared folk of the dynasty. He withered away, dour and high and miserable. When death claimed him, there was no honor. He'd watched the reel of his life with a grimace and overwhelming guilt.

He couldn't have even said he tried. Toward the end of his story, Datura had drank and fucked and smoked himself to dust. His emperor casted him aside like a hound, he'd spat in the face of a man he might've once loved.

Datura's death had been a favor to all but himself.

The worst of it all? His gods decided he deserved a second chance. What a waste.

---

Datura had awoken to sunlight scattered through leaves. A bed of jungle grass beneath him, his limbs cast every which way and a pounding migraine teasing the backs of his eyes. He'd groaned, rolled over, and promptly emptied whatever was broiling in his stomach before he got a good, long look of his surroundings.

A fucking jungle. I'm supposed to be dead, aren't I?

His stomach lurched as if it personally had a vendetta. Eyes stinging, limbs aching. The ugly, old scar running from his taint to his breast ached with phantom pain, as if someone had gone in with their fingers and tried to rip it open again.

It's with a dramatic sigh his head smacked down to bounce off the jungle floor. It's with a ragged gasp that when he raised his hands to run them across his face, he found paws.

我到底吃了什么鬼东西? (What the fuck did I take?) And then he was back to dry heaving again.

---

the wind came hard off the ridge, needling through her coat and rattling the dead grass flat against the earth. gjalla stood where the stone broke through soil, head lifted, tasting the air with a stillness that bordered on reverence. old scents lingered here, stale prey long gone and strangers just the same. her claws bite into frost-cured dirt and sleet, wandering aimless.

her ears tipped back as a sound carried. it does not have the naturalness of a bird or spooked prey—it is a rustle that stills when she stills, as if it knows it should not be watching. the woman does not move to hide; she had long since abandoned the habit of shrinking. instead she would turn, periwinkle eyes catching what little light the overcast sky would give.

---

---

Rieka wandered north, her eyes cast on the milky horizon ahead as the wind wrapped haphazardly throughout her fur. The sky held a gray note, clouds wrapped in a hazy blanket of white as the breeze—gustier than she would have liked—moved through the absence of trees with a distinguishable sting. The atmosphere was cooler here, chilled in the way that promised a frigid winter that would soon come.

It was idle curiosity that drew her elsewhere, far from the rolling meadows of greenery that she had grown accustomed to. Instead, her paws followed an ingrained version of her own intuition, as if something deep within her bones knew that there was something more out there, waiting specifically for her.

And so she followed that invisible strand that tugged from her chest, and pushed herself deeper into the snow ridden hills that caught like stars in her eyes.