It was standing in a ray of sunlight, sitting unaware as it ran its paws over its velvety-looking ears – the rabbit. In the undergrowth, Khyriel remained frozen except for a slight twitch of his nose as he caught its warm scent.

He’d been staring at the rabbit for a couple minutes now. Not because he was securing his prey or anything, but because he found it mesmerizing to watch. Its small, fuzzy paws, its tiny nose and shiny eyes, its soft-looking grey fur… if he hadn’t been planning to kill it since the very beginning, Khyriel might have admitted that it was kind of cute.

Sighing inwardly, the wolf tensed his limbs and leapt out of the undergrowth. In a single swift motion, he swept up the rabbit in his jaws and bit down hard. It didn’t even have time to squeal.

Sweet blood welled up in his mouth and Khyriel dropped his prey in the beam of sunlight to smack his chops. The sight of the rabbit’s crimson-stained fur and the aroma rising from its exposed flesh made it impossible for him to resist any longer before leaning forward and snapping up the fat meat. Satisfied after being filled with breakfast, Khyriel crunched on a couple last bones, then lifted his head and started making his way back to the roadside camp.

He’d slept up in a tree by the edge of the clearing last night, drifting in and out of a sleep plagued by nightmares and bittersweet dreams. In the end, once the sun had started rising, he couldn’t stand struggling to get any more rest and had left to hunt. That strange man wouldn’t be able to get up at the break of dawn anyway, right?

Or so he’d thought. Reaching the last thicket of foliage before the clearing, Khyriel paused and stretched, spreading his jaws in a yawn before straightening and padding into the campsite. Although Nafan wasn’t anywhere to be found, the man’s scent was overwhelming. Thinking that maybe he’d gone to do his business behind a tree or something, Khyriel sat down next to the campfire ashes and licked the lingering warmth of meat off his teeth.

He’d been trying to ignore it for a while now, but he could feel his heart beating irregularly in his ribcage. His head, too, was coated by a thick, hazy layer of painful nostalgia, brought on by a night of dreaming about that man’s face. The long, soft brown hair and sharp golden eyes that had watched over him for so long, had made him feel safe and warm for so long… only to fill him with gut-wrenching grief and disgust now. The respect he’d once held for his father must have really degraded if even a weird foreign man like von Tethys was enough to spark old memories… was what Khyriel tried to tell himself, but the more he thought of it the more disgruntled he became.

Nafan was tall, like his father, and had brown hair, like his father. But the human’s hair was thick and wavy. He was scruffy-looking, his chin darkened with whiskers and his messy bangs entirely shadowing his right eye. The other eye, Khyriel couldn’t even remember what colour it was, because the man’s gaze had been so half-lidded and drowsy-looking that he’d barely been able to catch a glimpse of Nafan’s irises.

But even so… he felt an odd sense of comfort around the man. Well, no, rather than comfort, it was more like… a lack of anxiety. Perhaps it was because Nafan knew he was a lycan, like Tianxi. Or maybe it was because the man looked even more out of place than he did, with his foreign features and wavy brown hair. Or perhaps because Nafan inadvertently reminded him of his father…

Disgruntled, Khyriel huffed and blinked back to the present. Staying as a wolf muffled those human emotions a little, but it still left a knot in his chest. In any case, that human was taking a while, had he already left? Annoyed, Khyriel rose to his feet and took a sniff of the air. Nafan’s scent had faded slightly, thinned out by a fishy river breeze from further north.  A quick scan of the camp told him that the man hadn’t left a single belonging behind, either. Growling to himself, Khyriel padded over to the edge of the clearing and slipped into the undergrowth.

Nafan was heading to Zhao, meaning he was going west along the Yellow River Road. And since it had only been about forty minutes since Khyriel had left, the man couldn’t have gone far. Slinking through the shadows of the roadside undergrowth, Khyriel trotted forward and kept an eye on the road.

As he’d expected, it was still too early for anyone to be travelling this far from any main cities. The silence made it easy for him to detect any strange noises in the air… strange noises like the high-pitch sob of a human female.

Ears perking, Khyriel quickened his pace, threading through the sharp brambles with his nose high in the air and his gaze pinned on the road. The sobs were louder now, but they had grown muffled, and along with the sound he could feel the sharp sting of fear scratching his nose. Loping forward, Khyriel ran until he spotted a cluster of humans at the side of the road. The crying had come from a woman, who was protectively holding the head of a young girl against her waist. Kneeling in front of them, his hair glinting bronze in the low light, was a man dressed in dusty robes.

Tethys? Muzzle pulling back in an instinctive snarl, Khyriel tensed and stalked closer towards the road, only to realize that there was a fourth human in the dirt below Nafan. A small old man was lying with his eyes closed by the side of the road. Nafan’s hands were stroking the man’s chest in an eccentric, rhythmic maneuver. Fascinated, Khyriel relaxed and lay down in the undergrowth, blending with the shadows as he watched the man work. In the next couple minutes, Nafan repeated that strange movements several times. Then, eventually, there was a ragged cough and the man on the ground gave a violent twitch.

The woman immediately let out a cry of relief and bent down, looking like she was about to grab the man and pull him up when Nafan held out an arm to stop her.

“Wait, give him some space.” Nafan’s voice was uncharacteristically sharp, and Khyriel felt his ears twitch warily. The old man continued to wheeze, fingers scrabbling against the dirt as his brittle body twisted in an attempt to sit up. Nafan bent over to help him, pushing his back up gently and waiting until the man was calm enough to sit properly by himself before getting to his feet with a relieved huff. “You, sir, were two seconds away from the afterlife. How do you feel?”

The old man didn’t answer, one hand pressed against his chest as he continued to take wheezy breaths. After gazing at him for a couple seconds, a strange sort of smile flitting at his lips, Nafan took a small breath and turned to the woman with a friendly beam.

“Well, he should be fine for now. Wherever you’re going, don’t walk too fast, and make sure he gets enough sleep.”

Wide eyes turning to Nafan, the woman dipped her head and gasped shrilly. “Thank you! W… Who are you?” Beside her, the girl pulled away and knelt beside the old man, calling his name with a scared whimper, but the woman was still staring at Nafan with the sort of awe seen in someone who thought they were in the presence of a god.

Nafan replied with a shrug and an airy wave of his hand. “I’m just a doctor, heading to Zhao to find some work. You should let your father rest for another couple minutes. Would you like me to wait with you?”

The woman seemed to hesitate, glancing at the old man and then shooting Nafan a half-fearful, half-intrigued stare as she stammered. “N… No, it’s alright. Thank you…”

“Be careful.” Nafan smiled again and dipped his head at her before walking off in a matter-of-fact sort of way.

Unfreezing his haunches, Khyriel padded after the man, his head buzzing with curiosity as he stared at the back of Nafan’s head. Had this man just brought a dead person back to life…? He couldn’t be sure, but Khyriel thought he’d caught the first whiff of death emanating from the old man just seconds before he came to.

Maybe Tianxi-xi was right. His friend’s hushed whisper echoed in his ear as Khyriel narrowed his eyes at the man’s hair, lit a flaming gold in the sunrise, and felt a foreboding shiver run through his spine.

Maybe he is more dangerous than he looks.