6. Lorin

Chapter six

Lorin

L orin was exhausted by the time his tears had dried up. Like a dishrag that had been wrung out. The fox was a steady presence against his chest, and he lifted his tear-stained face from its fur, feeling a little bad about how much he was leaning on it.

He was a mess.

Witches were supposed to look after their familiars, not the other way around. So far Lorin had done nothing but ignore or use the fox. It made him dry swallow past the lump in his throat.

He glanced around the shell of his old room. There was too much here to deal with at once. Too much that had been locked away between its walls. He gripped the fur under his fingers tighter and breathed out, trying to decide where to even start. Every door inside this place was a gateway into a past that was painful and raw. He didn't know if he was ready to open them all yet.

Maybe tomorrow.

Right now, he needed to get out. To lock it back up.

He adjusted his hold around the fox, which perked its head up in interest. Amber eyes locked on his face as Lorin lifted it up, getting back to his feet.

The fox seemed excited by this change in position, snuggling underneath Lorin's chin and licking at his neck and chin, its fluffy tail curling over Lorin's forearm. Lorin allowed himself a small smile, even as he tried to avoid the tongue. He still couldn't find it in him to resent the fox, not when it was so generous and kind and unassuming. Not when the glow in his chest begging him to embrace it and protect it was growing ever stronger.

All the fox seemed to want to do was help him, so maybe he needed to start repaying that. At least a little.

He walked them to the kitchen and set the fox at his feet. It was reluctant to leave, trying to scramble back into his arms to be cradled, claws catching his shirt.

"What? You want me to walk you around like a baby?" Lorin asked, stuck in a half crouch. "Aren't you a grown fox?"

Lorin paused here.

Was the fox fully grown? Observing it now with a tilted head, it wasn't exactly large, but he didn't know the measurements for foxes in general. Humming, he sat back on his heels and took out his phone with his free hand.

The fox fussed around his arm, still trying to be cuddled and held. He typed in arctic foxes and scrolled through the information while he petted it absently.

"Aha!" he exclaimed once he reached a diagram with the different life stages of an arctic fox. "You are a grown fox, not a little kit!"

At the end of his sentence the fox went crazy, dancing around him, hopping up, and licking at his face so much that Lorin fell onto his ass, his phone clattering off.

"Hey! Calm down!" Lorin said, trying to contain the energy fluffball suddenly climbing all over him and licking his face. "You're certainly not acting your age. Maybe you are a kit."

The fox screeched in agreement, so loud Lorin had to cover his ears. "Okay, okay. You're a kit. A lovely little kit. Please stop whatever it is you're doing."

The fox settled back down onto its ass obediently, looking up at him like butter wouldn't melt.

Lorin shook his head, slowly pulling his hands away from his ears once it appeared to be safe. "You're not as cute as you think you are."

The fox tilted its head, as if challenging that assumption.

Lorin rolled his eyes. "Okay, Kit. You wanna be Kit?"

The fox jumped up and did a circle. It was as good a defined yes as anything the fox had done so far.

Lorin smiled, grabbing his phone and getting back to his feet. "How about we make some food, Kit?"

Kit padded over and pawed a cupboard open, sticking his nose inside. Lorin hooked him back out with a hand under his belly and hind legs.

"I meant ‘we' as in me. Get your snout out of there, it's unsanitary and I just spent hours cleaning."

Kit seemed offended by that.

"What? I don't know where you've been. No one knows where you even came from."

The fox still gave him a baleful stare.

"How about I make it up to you by making you an extra big dinner? We kinda skipped lunch, and crying makes me hungry." He tried for levity, but it fell flat.

Why was he trying to tell jokes to a fox in the first place?

He rolled his eyes at himself and walked to the cupboards. There were some cans of soup and some fresh bread his grandma had left him that looked appetizing enough until he could go to the store himself.

But that left him with another dilemma.

"Uhhh…what do you actually eat?"

He looked down at the fox, who simply stared back up at him, his right ear twitching.

Lorin consulted his phone again, refusing to call his grandma and getting another earful from her. He pursed his lips as he read through the info. "The arctic fox's main source of food is…lemmings. What the hell are lemmings?"

He looked back at the fox as if he could tell him the answer and found Kit had disappeared from his spot. Lorin glanced around himself in panic until he spotted the end of a fluffy tail in the same cupboard Lorin had pulled him out of earlier.

The little brat.

Lorin stomped over and pulled the door open, not actually going so far to pull the fox out by his tail, though it was tempting. He found Kit sniffing around a nondescript container, trying to scratch and gnaw it open with sharp little teeth. He didn't even have the decency to stop when Lorin caught him.

Lorin pried the container out of his cheeky grasp.

"What's even in here that you want so bad?"

He unclipped the plastic clasp and the smell that greeted him made him gag. Raw fish. He held it away from his face at arm's length, watching as Kit tried to hop up and grab the bottom of it.

Holding one hand over his nose and mouth, Lorin set the thing on the floor. "Knock yourself out."

Kit did, shoving his face into the container and gobbling down the fish. Lorin noticed that they had been deboned, but the heads and tails were still intact.

Ugh.

He turned away from the ravenous eating, grateful his grandma had at least prepped that much. Lorin would have to figure it out for the future, but she hadn't left him high and dry while giving him her tailor made ‘sink or swim' tough love.

He located a saucepan and checked that the water collector was working. It was, so he washed the pan and dried it before setting the soup to boil. He cut some bread while he waited, nibbling on a few crunchy corner pieces as his eyes strayed back to Kit. Just watching.

It was soothing in its own way.

He wondered if other witches got as much calm just from watching their familiar eat. The knowledge that he was taking care of Kit was a warm and bright light inside his chest. His fingers twitched with the urge to pet, and he looked down at them, realizing then that he hadn't put his glove back on his left hand—the one the fox had pulled off.

He stared down at his fingertips for the first time since he'd found his familiar and cemented his power irrevocably. The black creeping over his nail beds was noticeably a little higher, the coloring darker, a sooty black. Not as abyssal as his grandma's, but definitely stronger.

His nails had grown too, sharp and dangerous looking. He could feel the dull ache from his right hand where the nails there were still confined, longing to be free.

He moved each finger slowly, like playing keys on a piano, catching a glimpse of something new crawling over the space between the second and third knuckles on his pinky finger.

A splash of hot soup bubbling up and spitting on his arm tore him away from his observations. He hissed at the sting, moving the pan off the small electric burner and rubbing at the spot on his forearm.

Kit made a noise and rushed over to his feet, pawing at his leg.

"I'm okay, I just wasn't paying attention," Lorin said.

He busied himself with getting a bowl out and washed while Kit trailed his steps, then he served his own food and bypassed the table and chairs. Instead, he sat in front of the back door, peering out at the darkening sky. Kit settled next to him, licking the spot on his arm where he had been burned before nosing curiously at the soup bowl.

Apparently potato and leek wasn't to his taste, if the sneeze that came after was anything to go by, like he was trying to get the smell out of his nose as quickly as possible.

"Yeah, well, you stink like dead fish," Lorin told him, taking a superior slurp of soup and burning the heck out of his tongue.

Kit opened his mouth like he was grinning at him and Lorin scowled, getting up to grab a bottle of water. He settled back on the floor after downing half the bottle, and made sure to blow on the soup before eating it this time.

They passed time like that, with Lorin eating and Kit silently sitting next to him. A gentle breeze rustled the trees surrounding them, evergreens as far as the eye could see stretching up into the darkening sky, where silhouettes of the occasional bird flapped past.

Lorin turned his head to follow one of the birds and caught sight of a dried-up circular piece of land right at the end of a shallow path in the ground, concave and surrounded by dry bushes and stones that looked just a bit too smooth and perfect to be natural.

There was a tiny little wooden bridge over the empty space, and a tiny dam. That same pang of pain came back for a second. It was the little stream and pond that had belonged to his mother. Or…whatever was left of it now. Dry ground, smooth rocks, and a tiny wooden bridge leading nowhere. Like everything else, the reality didn't match his memories at all.

And yet, despite all of that, there was still a certain peace creeping in along his softer edges that he hadn't expected.

Lorin had gotten so used to eating alone. Doing everything alone. The clinking of his own silverware was usually his only companion, the rush of traffic outside his apartment window letting him know the world still existed but was rushing by without him.

Out here in the middle of nowhere, a place he never wanted to be, he felt less lonely than in the heart of a city.

It was a strange thought to come to terms with.

He mopped up the last of his soup with a bit of bread crust and chewed it slowly, allowing himself just a few more moments to contemplate this new feeling. To cup it in his hands like water and bring it to his mouth to sip. Kit had sprawled next to him at some point, tucked sideways against Lorin's thigh, paws pointing away from him, belly bulging from all the fish he'd eaten.

Lorin smiled at the fox-shaped carpet next to him, letting it reach its full potential for once instead of holding it back. He didn't want to disturb Kit, but his butt was getting kinda numb and the air grew chillier with each passing second.

He made a show of standing up, making sure Kit felt him move so he didn't startle. The fox pushed himself to his feet, his fur rumpled into abstract shapes and eyes lazy. He stretched, paws reaching and tail in the air, before following Lorin inside.

Lorin closed the doors and windows behind them, making sure no cold air was entering the small place anymore. He walked to the sink and dropped his plate and spoon inside, finding a small sponge to wash his dishes with.

He turned the water on and was reaching for the plate when the mark from before caught his attention again. He left the plate in the sink, stretching the fingers on his hand out, putting them together, and turning his palm to face up, toward his face.

He'd always been pale-skinned. Always nearly translucent. The stark black marks on his fingers looked even more visible like that. The same was fact for the brand-new bond mark on his palm, stretched across four fingers, unmistakably there, the outline matching Kit's shape perfectly.

A fox, mid leap, fluffy tail wrapped around the side of Lorin's pinky. Like Kit's actual personality—big enough to not fit into the predestined space of Lorin's fingers. It just had to spill over. Had to be cheeky. Needed to be seen.

Rationally, Lorin knew the mark had formed the moment he had found Kit. He had seen his grandma's bond mark a million times before, and there was a flash of something in his head he was pretty sure was his mother's palm reaching to stroke his hair. The blurry, shapeless black outline marking her skin. He wasn't sure if it was a memory or just wishful thinking brought on by the day spent in the house made of memories.

He leaned against the edge of the sink, lowering his head and staring at his hands. One marked, and the other still wrapped in black leather.

Leather that had no reason to be there anymore. He straightened up and plucked the other glove from his hand, leaving his fingers bared to the world.

Because who was he hiding from?

Everyone in this town knew who he was. Everyone who had been at the ceremony had seen him finding his familiar. His signature was in the bonding ledger. The mark came with that, just like darkness came with night. It was as real as the bond curled up warm in his chest, slumbering but constant.

There was no hiding it, no matter what he did to cover it up. The only person he would be hiding it from was himself.

He turned his palm toward Kit where he stood next to his feet.

"It's you," he said softly, and Kit yipped at him, tail swishing behind him. He stretched his head up and licked a soft stripe across the mark, yawning right into it on the next breath.

"Right," Lorin said, snorting. "You're most impressed by my mark, I see."

Kit huffed and yawned again, this time a short, aborted little puff as he blinked up at Lorin.

"We can sleep, yeah," Lorin said, picking up the blanket his grandmother had left for him.

He turned toward the door next to his childhood bedroom, the process of elimination telling him it had to be his parents' old room.

He couldn't go in there. Not after one full emotional breakdown at seeing his own room. He didn't know how he'd cope with the ghosts of his parents in there. Tomorrow, maybe.

Not tonight.

He made short work of getting himself ready to sleep in the tiny bathroom, turning off the lights as he finished. He walked over to the sofa, toeing off his shoes and grabbing the blanket again. He went to lie down but found the fox sprawled in the middle of his makeshift bed.

"Can you scoot over a bit?" Lorin asked, and Kit shuffled sideways with his eyes closed until he was just under the armrest where Lorin's head would be. "Really?"

He got no answer to that, so he huffed, stretching himself across the sofa, the fox tucked right into his neck. Kit's tail landed on his chest, a soothing weight, and Lorin pulled the blanket up, covering them both.

He looked up at the ceiling and counted the shadows until sleep took him over.

Kit

There was something about this den that was special.

Kit had been around a lot of magical communities, so the brush of magic or the taste of it in the air like ozone didn't faze him. But this house breathed and called to him in a different way. Not even Lorin's grandmother's den felt like this one.

There was a melancholy that had seeped into the beams, a history that could be felt in every nook and nick in the wood. Maybe that was why Lorin was so sad. Kit was hyperaware of it, but he wasn't scared or uncomfortable.

There was excitement and joy there too. An overwhelming pulse of love and welcome that was easing the pain with every moment Lorin stayed within its walls. It shifted and moved as if trying to get closer, hug Lorin tighter.

Kit didn't know if Lorin had noticed yet or not. The witch often got lost within his own head, and Kit didn't know if he was too good at looking out when he was always drifting inward.

It didn't matter. Kit could look out for both of them now.

He would be able to do that better if he could still shift, however.

He slipped away from Lorin's sleeping form, watching him scrunch his nose as Kit's warmth disappeared from his neck. He was happy his mate was finally getting some rest after an emotional day.

Kit padded silently toward the back door, looking out over the woods pensively, sharp eyes catching all manner of woodland creatures skittering around in the dark.

Kit sighed through his nose, holding back any other noise that wanted to escape. He was happy in his fox skin. It was a natural part of him. A seamless shift. But to have the human part of him blocked off was stifling.

He longed to stretch his legs, to communicate properly with Lorin, to have the ability to hold him back when he was sad.

The frustration made him pace until he couldn't stand it anymore.

He climbed onto the dining room chair and then the table, hopping across to the kitchen counter. Walking along, he got to the window and nosed the latch open, pushing it wide enough to slip his body through and jump out into the chilly night.

He looked up at the moon above, shining down through the canopy. An owl flew across with an echoing hoot, its shadow eclipsing the crescent shape. Kit breathed deeply, his breath fogging in front of him.

The snow would be coming again soon, and this time it would stick.

Kit could feel it in the air, and his anticipation rose. Nothing was better than curling up warm in his den, then heading out and hunting in the snow. And now he had his mate to cuddle with, this winter promised to be extra special. Even if he couldn't be human, he wouldn't have to spend it alone again.

He bounded off into the night, crashing through the underbrush to try and work off some of his pent-up energy while Lorin was asleep. This form needed it. He couldn't be still for too long, it made him feel itchy and anxious.

He'd be back by morning.