The Fog swallows him from sight only a few feet into the grey.

Even with that certainty, he does not stop running. Devouring the distance with long, certain strides.

He has no way of knowing what might lie ahead, but knows with a certainty as deep as his bones nothing can be worse than what lies behind.

Quinn presses forward, eventually his sprint slowing to a jog, then a careful walk.

He dares a glance backward every so often, keeping an eye on the distant, fog-plagued horizon. Checking for the shapes of dark wolves, prowling ever closer.

For now at least, he finds none.

The icy breath he releases at that realisation, it comes as a visible cloud from his lips.

The world here smells of ancient pine, dropped needles crunching underfoot with every footstep. A bitter wind whips through him, carrying with it the smell of distant seas, the salt refreshing and familiar.

It is quiet - almost unnervingly so. Only his own footsteps, the howling wind, and the occasional animal disturbed by his journey through the grey.

He has no idea how long he has been walking when the fog finally begins to grey. It could have only been a matter of moments, maybe hours or days.

Here his concept of time is distant, hazy.

Quinn, mostly for his own sanity, leaves that up to an exhaustion that makes his legs feel like lead with each further stride.

After a further mile or so, the fog gives way entirely. On the other end of it he discovers a forest no different to the one he'd been chased through.

Yet when he turns around, he no longer sees the shapes of distant wolves closing in, here the only sound is the thunder of his heart, not the slam of paws against earth.

The forests are empty, and he can't even see the road in the distance anymore.

He doesn't dare hope at first, does not dare believe it to be true.

But the optimistic part of him, the part he he thought long dead stutters in his chest, the arrhythmic patter quickly grows to a pounding.

He stumbles forward, one step then two. Until gravity draws him downward, his knees hitting cold earth.

Quinn does not reach to steady himself, does not attempt to pull himself upright again either.

Instead he leans back, looking skyward.

Toward the first night sky he has seen in years.

Clouds scatter across the dark night sky, but they are powerless to defeat the hundreds of twinkling lights piercing the dark. A crescent moon peers down on him, the brightest, most beautiful moon he has ever seen.

The moonlight bathes his skin and floods his veins, the tension melting from him as the ice thaws in the new Spring light.

Relief is a palpable thing, like if someone were to stab him he would bleed it.

He inhales slowly, cold night air filling his lungs, the sensation invigorating and the chill of it burrowing deep into his bones. The tears come slowly, unbidden and relentless, ice cold down gaunt cheeks.

Quinn drags the inner of his sleeve across his eyes with a snarl, and drags himself to his feet with a grunt.

Where, for the first time he takes a measure of himself.

The wolf notices for the first time he was changed at the hospital.

The clothes no loner the ones he had spent so long in they had become a second skin. So caked in mud, sweat and blood he could barely remember the camouflaged colours of his uniform.

Somehow that idea makes him feel even dirtier.

The cuffs of the long sleeved shirt fall just too short to hide the bruises covering the length of his arms. He stretches each arm, the muscles aching from the lack of use.

His hands reach for his throat again, the two lines of scars coarse at his calloused fingertips.

The ragged lines of chain indents, and the cleaner slice of the knife.

Ones that would never heal, but his body was covered in similar ones. He'd only learned to live with them by now, and these would be no different.

The feeling of unclean won't shake, so he turns his attention elsewhere.

The Wolf's eyes pull close, his frame drawing tight with tension as he concentrates.

Until his senses pick up on the sound of running water, the splash of it against cool river stone and the stir of the wind through the reeds.

After a short journey, he finds the source of it.

A small river, a few metres wide. The current steady, it glitters in the pale moonlight.

For a moment he hesitates in the shadows of the forests before open land, waiting. Only when he is certain of the safety does he step into the open.

Usually there would be few who could pose a true threat to the wolf, but here he is less certain.

And old habits die hard.

Quinn strips, soon the moonlight kisses bare skin, and he dives into the water.

The shock of the cold is instant, enveloping him into the dark depths. The cold's effect is as instant as it is bitter, soothing the ache in his bones. 

By the time he nears the bottom, the world is pitch black, the moonlight not penetrating the murky depths.

Some small part of him begs to kick until he reaches the bottom, to never resurface.

To drown here.

He kicks off the silt, disturbing the sand as he makes for the world above once more.

He crashes through the surface with a gasp, droplets sent flying as he arches clean of the river.

And he sets about scrubbing the feeling of unclean from his skin.

He could scrub until his skin gave way to blood, muscle and veins and it would still not feel a thorough enough job. So he leaves it at when the grubbiness, the smell has mostly faded.

Only then does a strange sound come to his attention.

A humming, so quiet he doubts anyone without his remarkable hearing would notice it.

Over the ripple of the water against the rocks and banks, even his ears can very barely hear it.

But the sound is so insistent it seems to echo through his own veins, into the chambers of his heart.

Water drips from him as he makes for the bank, splashing against cold earth and what remains glitters on his pale skin. The droplets catching and reflecting the moonlight, giving the Wolf's visage a faint shine.

His breaths come steady and slow, calculating as he pauses on the banks.

At first he ignores it, reaching for his clothes and redonning them quickly.

But the sound doesn't fade, if anything it seems to grow louder the more he thinks on it.

Quinn straightens again, circling on the spot for a moment, before lurching forward with a suddenness the eye would struggle to track.

His right hand closes around what should be open air, fingers clutching around what should have only been nothing.

Instead, they close around flesh.

At first, nothing happens.

Then the glamour shudders, and fades piece by piece.

The silhouette glows slightly at the edges, until between his fingers a neck is revealed, a body quickly following.

He finds a pair of deep, burning ember eyes scowling back at him and a dagger at his throat only in an instant.

It is not the spectacularly bright eyes that draw his attention, however, rather the pair of wings from its - his, back. Four of them, the thin sheen of material glittering in the pale moonlight, the rich blue of the light night sky. They beat faster than the pound of his own heartbeat to keep this stranger airbourne.

There is enough power behind the blow to break bone, but Quinn's grip doesn't falter beneath it.

The stranger is taller than he is, as narrow as willow branches. Those ember eyes are framed with a splash of earthen brown hair, gentle curls gravity defying.

His bronze skin defies the night sky, still catching the golden of long gone daylight. The tips of the man's ears end in a point that reaches toward the stars.

Quinn recognises the same kind of wild captured in his own heart in those eyes.

As wild as the wind, as untameable as the waves.

And as beautiful as both.

The humming intensifies until it is all his brain can concentrate on. Even the lap of water against the shore is barely audible despite only being metres from it. The wind itself seems to have stilled around them.

Until the empty night sky is no longer quite so empty.

The world glows, burning bright for an instant before becoming littered with hundreds, maybe thousands of little lights.

At first he thinks them fireflies, but a closer inspection makes the truth clear.

Creatures, none bigger than a few inches tall. Their wings, it becomes quickly apparent, the source of the hum that had haunted him so many miles.

The world feels crowded all at once, and Quinn recognises one fact to be an absolute.

He is outnumbered.

One hand lifts in what he hopes to be a universal sign of surrender, the other grip loosening on the stranger's throat. He lifts that second hand to join the other in mid-air, and takes two careful steps back.

Stopping only when river water laps at his heels.

"What are you?" The words come unbidden, shock and exhaustion both robbing him of his wits.

The stranger takes a careful measure of the wolf, eyes tracking up and down his narrow, bruised frame. Something quite close to amusement flickers in his preternatural gaze.

"We could quite as easily ask the same of you," his voice is the melody of a crackling fire, deep and rich and welcoming. "These lands have not known a shapeshifter in decades."

Something near melancholy sparks then, the man drawing a sleek thumb over plump lips mostly to hide a grin. "I saw the last shapeshifter die nearly eighty years ago now... so safe to say you caught our attention strangeling."

That startles Quinn, this stranger barely looks older than his own 25 years.

The tiny creatures draw closer now, the buzzing drowning out the sounds of the night.

It takes all of the Wolf's willpower not to retreat, his dark gaze fixed carefully on the other man.

"What are you... what is this place?"

The beautiful stranger devours the distance - a few dozen feet - in the blink of an eye. He stops only when they are at arms length away.

A power matching, if not outpacing his own.

Yet Quinn, who has spent his life around men and women intent to keep him under an iron thumb, does not feel afraid.

"How about you go first?"

Quinn's lips part, but the next sound that carves through the night sky is not his.

But a distant scream.