humans challenge, week 2, day 3: crossover/fusion (realm of the elderlings)
It was dark, but the fox’s keen eyes pierced through the shadows, its lithe body moving softly through the undergrowth, on the prowl. Fred shared in the hunt, joined to the creature in a way he didn’t entirely understand - their senses were fused, sights and sounds flowing between their two minds until he could hardly tell what was his experience and what was the fox’s. It was exhilarating.
Fred’s pulse quickened with the thrill of the chase, and he realised that the fox was not only sharing physical sensation, but also what passed for his emotional awareness. Right now, the fox was hungry, but what motivated him strongest was the joy of hunting. The final return to the activity that had always given him purpose. He was a young fox, Fred could feel that, keen to prove himself, perhaps even take on the alpha, now that he was fit again. Fred was surprised and pleased to note that the fox linked him with the recovery. A swell of gratitude was communicated to him, and although it was done without words, Fred heard the fox thanking him, as clear as day. It was fascinating, the way their minds had bonded. Had Father known this would happen, when he’d challenged Fred to heal the fox’s broken leg?
Fred felt the fox stiffen in anticipation, and then together they sprang upon their prey. In the heat of success, it really did seem as if they moved as one being, and the sound of the rabbit’s neck being snapped, which might have sickened Fred at any other time, was instead a noise that filled him with satisfaction. He was flooded with the delight the fox felt, the pride, that he would drag this back to the den where the vixens might see it. They might think him worthy, then.
The fox was busying himself with the kill, engrossing both of them in it, but suddenly it lifted its head again, alert to another presence. A few moments had passed before Fred realised that the fox was noticing something near him, not in its own vicinity - the fox was amplifying his own hearing, making him as wary as the creature was itself. Fred turned his head slowly to look over his shoulder. His father was standing there, outlined in moonlight, staring at Fred with his arms folded across him.
“Father,” said Fred. “I think I know what you were trying to teach me. The fox and I–”
Fred bit back the rest of his sentence abruptly as his father stepped towards him, grabbing him roughly by the shoulders and shaking him.
“How dare you,” his father snarled. “You’d bring this shame on our house? Don’t you know what they do to Witted folk in these parts?”
Fred could only stare, wide-eyed, and wait to be told. He was aware of the fox cowering in the bushes, sharing all of this just as Fred had shared the hunt. He felt the fox’s fear mingled with his own; a deeper, more primal unrest, but not by much. Fred’s own fear of his father ran deep enough. He longed for the fox to drop their connection, flee into the bushes as he couldn’t hope to do himself. But though the fox seemed to acknowledge his offer, neither of them knew how to sever the tie between them.
“The Wit is the lowest of all the magics, Fred, I shouldn’t have to tell you how foolhardy it is to bond yourself to an animal.” David’s face was a mask of horror and disgust. “There’s no controlling it. You’ll be foaming at the mouth and running feral through the forest before a year is out. You’ll only eat what you can kill. Everything that makes you a man will be lost to that beast, is that what you want?”
Fred kept silent. The only thing he could think of was the fox, and how he’d almost rather be a beast if being a man meant being like his father. That would be sure to earn him a beating, supposing he wasn’t in for one already. He daren’t even look away from his father’s face, or do anything other than wait there. He wondered how his father had known about the fox. Perhaps he had used the Skill to detect it - Fred had not received any training yet, but he knew the Skill was sensitive to the use of other magics. Not that Fred would ever have dreamed that was what he was doing.
“There’s only one thing for it,” said his father. “The fox must die. That’s the only way to truly sever a Witbond.”
“No!” Fred gasped, startled into speech by the threat. “You can’t kill him! He’s not even full-grown—”
“You should have thought of that before you bonded to him.”
“I didn’t know! I thought it was a test… You told me to fix him!”
“I did no such thing!” his father roared. “I told you to see for yourself, he’s as good as dead. It was you who decided to treat that as a challenge. If I’d known you’d be so stupid as to bond yourself to him, I’d have finished him off myself…”
Even as his father quoted the words he’d spoken days before, Fred understood them as they’d been meant. Not a test, after all, just an expression of how little David thought of his abilities, how much he had been underestimated. Because he’d done it, hadn’t he? He’d mended the fox’s leg, even though the poacher’s trap had all but crushed the bone to dust. He wondered if he’d been using what his father called the Wit, even then, unknowingly becoming more and more joined to the animal as he worked. Despite his father’s wrath, he couldn’t bring himself to see it as something ugly and shameful. He’d done a good thing, even if he’d used a low magic. Besides, it was his father’s fault Fred knew nothing of the Skill, or any of the other forces used by more respectable folk…
“Bring him out of the bushes,” his father ordered him. “You’ll kill him with your bare hands. Maybe then you’ll learn.”
“No,” said Fred, defiantly. “I won’t do it.” It would be murder, even worse somehow, he couldn’t even conceive of ending a life he was so tightly bound to. “You’ll have to kill me instead,” he said, boldly, “if you want to… to sever the Witbond.”
David’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “This isn’t a game, Fred. I won’t have you contaminating this family. Mia’s Skill-training is almost complete, but no Coterie will take her with a smear on her name like having a Witted brother. Bring him out.”
“Liar! You’re inside his mind. Suggest it to him.”
“He wouldn’t come. He’s scared of you. He understands that you’re a threat.”
His father tightened his hold on Fred’s coat, jerked him closer towards him. “The only threat you need to worry about is what it’s doing to you, boy.” He released him, a shove that sent Fred sprawling backwards, in the direction of the house. “Get out of my sight. You’re not to leave your room until I’ve found that fox and killed it myself, or else driven it far enough that I can’t smell the Wit on you.” He spat on the ground. “My own son. El and Eda, my own son treats me like this.”
Fred stumbled back to the house, heart beating fast, feeling the thread that joined him to the fox growing longer, not weaker. Run, he urged the fox, run as far from here as you can.
He felt the fox’s reluctance to leave him, mingled with an intense gratefulness for the warning. Then he felt the strokes of phantom leaves brushing against him as the fox dashed deeper into the forest, fleeing the clearing where Fred’s father had stood.
We’ll find each other again. He wasn’t sure if the words flowed to or from himself, he just knew they were true.
