Scenes filtered accross the fatigued old wolf's eyes as he panted, sprawled accross the dirt on the forest floor. The little piercings in his ears glinted as his golden eyes watched the retreating hindquarters of his opponent, before he finally sighed, pushing himself to a stand, only to fall in a sprawl again, his right foreleg and left hindleg both throbbing, his ears and tail hung low, and his nose bleeding from a pair of scratches where the opponent had ripped them accross his maw.
The scenes were of his younger days, when he had earned himself a respectable outlook from an old hermit in the woods, and would occasionally find some jewelry laying around on a little pallet, perhaps with a meal. Once when he was caught by poachers, the man had rescued him. He ripped out the dual-piercing tag that had occupied his ear, and, with soft eyes and gentle hands, placed within the wounds a pair of brass ear-studs, to help stifle the bleeding and prevent further injuries. The backs were specially moulded so they wouldn't stick out, and he cut the studs' protrusions at just the right length so they wouldn't stick out either.
An electronic placement chip was also removed that evening. The wolf had stayed in the two-legged's home for a few days during recovery, and, upon waking, was given the opportunity to note some obsessive tendencies of the old human. The absolute obsession with the turning of the hourglass, at exactly the moment the last grain of sand slipped through, was well noted, and the assortment of gaudy gold arrangements depicting two-legged beasts in various positions, with the wings of an eagle, or perhaps holding, or kicking an orb of some sort... None of them meant anything, and the wolf didn't stay longer than recovery required, returning to his old den.
"INTRUDERS!" Cawed some of the nearby ravens. "SHADOW-WALKERS! FIND A PLACE TO HIDE!" They shouted, fluttering from their perches as they did. The old wolf fought to his feet again and stumbled closer to a nearby bush, feeling the throbbing still, but letting the sensation fade as he knocked over the hourglass sitting in the brush, his paw folding over it.
The wolf returned after a few days, tilting his head at the window when the human would turn the strange device, letting their eyes meet for a few minutes every time he visited before fading into the shadows again.
One day, the man and his hourglass were sitting on the porch, the first with a fat wad of stink-ridden paper in his odd, long-toed paw. The wolf watched him from the bushes for a while, until he was noticed, then stepped out to watch him from just their edge. The man humphed at the wolf, a gruff sound, especially considered to the wide variation of noises he had made during the wolf's recovery in his home... None of which held any meaning for the wolf, but had kept silence at bay. The silence, at that time, had scared him... And it scared him now.
"THEY'RE COMING! THEY'RE COMING! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!" Those incessant birds cried again. The old wolf's jowels wrapped around one peg of the hourglass as he fought again to press his disappearance. Into the bushes he went. He made it a short distance before collapsing again, cursing up at the crows. He had left no uncertain trail of his path, bleeding from a raking, pulsing wound on his shoulder. The wolf took a long moment to try and figure out what a Shadow Walker was, his past and present mingling.
The man pushed forward the water bowl on the ground, and the one holding half-cooked scraps of fatty meat the human couldn't, wouldn't, or simply didn't eat. Tic turned up his nose at the offer, at first, but before long, couldn't help but give in to the temptation of the spiced meat, and he would find it still warm, and the water a nice, cool temperature. Short of the studs, Tic had taken not one ounce of the jewelry left on the pallet, which still entertained the human's offerings. The man smiled down at his temporary companion.
"You ARE a mystical beast, aren't you? You seem very much like a baron I once met..." He rambled, and would continue to ramble in this way, until the wolf layed down on the porch to... Not really listen, so much as provide a numb ear. A soft click caught his attention, and he raised his head. The man was staring, as if off into the distance, at some little gold trinket: An oval that bounced it's appearance, and was connected to a shimmery tassel far too long for any neck but an elephant's.
Another cry from the ravens jarred his memory and he forced himself to move again, falling off a short cliff into a puddle of mud. His fur was soaked, nose to dewclaw, and ear to tail. His gold eyes slid under the grayed lids of his old fur, the obvious dark circles under his aged amber eyes unwrinkling and blending a little better with the rest of his fur.
"My Wife..." He said softly. "And her half-breed." He glanced down at the wolf's attentiveness, smiling gently and offering him a view of the opened locket. On the images inside were two pictures of a human fae with blinding red hair and thick-rimmed glasses, and a picture of one of the most beautiful faes Tic had ever seen. The man reclaimed the locket before he could imprint her image in his mind, slowly closing it and falling to kneel by the wolf, wrapping the twine of the locket thrice about his neck, so the locket hung romantically there.
"I'm getting old, Baron. I want you to have this." He said softly, pulling the alarmed wolf into a hug. The man hung there for an annoyingly long time before Tic pulled away, his claws clacking against the wood as he backed up. The old, dead lump of human slid to the ground, sprawled accross the panelling of the porch. As Tic stared from the human to the last grain of sand's fall from the top bell, he seemed to make a personal connection between the two. And... Somehow... he felt the sand was now his own counter.
The old wolf's eyes opened on the hourglass, standing and draining in front of him. His old limbs had grown stiff, and he wondered if he would make it out of this. At just this time, the birds pelted down around him. The hourglass tipped and fell to it's side, somehow bringing some life back to his body, as the wolf again began to fight for his legs. He could hear the shadow-walkers behind him, on the path, tormented by the birds, as they were. The gray- now brown wolf limped through the brush, looking for a good place to blend, as the mud began to dry slowly. When he slumped again, it was to the shallows at the edge of a river. The mud kept itself wet while he lay in the water, and at the same time, would allow him to blend in with the mudbank as his mud-splattered nose held it's cover.
The cool, wet sensation helped to clean his wounds, until finally the shadow-walkers left and the crows calmed. But... Who had they taken? They always take someone... He thought long and hard. "The other wolf?" He muttered, staring at the hourglass... Once more upright. The sand was running out. He raised a paw, reaching for the device to flip it, but the weakened limb fell just short, his pawpads landing on the edge of the bottom bowl's wodden flat.
Time was running out...
Time had run it's course for the human. Tic stared between the human and the hourglass, then slowly approached the thing and tilted it. The thing rolled onto it's side, then, with a bit more nudging, stood again. This was the birth of a new 'religious' sort of belief in the wolf... That if the sand was allowed to run out for any length of time, someone the wolf had met, or the wolf himself, would leave for another world, more green, and more coated in wildlife, where nature had not yet died beyond the great walls. Where there were no shadow walkers.
But now, it was time for sleep... And later, he would begin to flip the hourglass again, and religiously keep it moving, trying to shake away the idea it was his fault the other wolf's life was over.
And from then, he crawled from the river and dried his face before walking off to find a drier place to sleep. His dreams this evening, would present images of his capture to turn the sleep restless. He didn't remember much, but the dark, two-legged figures were plenty enough to wake him in the middle of the night to turn his hourglass.
