Yore placed a hand on Lucas’ chest to halt him as they approached the mage. The mage was still blindfolded, but his hands weren’t bound behind the tree anymore. He was hunched forward, head down, hugging himself. Yore didn’t know whether to approach the situation with caution or concern.
Yore took another step forward and the mage lifted his head.
“It’s me,” Yore said. “Keep the blindfold on.”
The mage nodded.
“What happened?”
The mage held up the rope and Yore took a few steps closer to get a better view of it. Had it been burned through?
“I’m sorry,” the mage whispered. “I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”
“This is fucked up,” Lucas commented, and the mage’s head jerked in his direction.
“It’s okay,” Yore reassured the mage. “I have a friend here with me, but he won’t hurt you. Did you burn the rope?”
The mage hesitated and then nodded. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Did you get scared?”
The mage nodded again.
“Wow, Yore, who would have thought, a Companion who has trauma related to being tied up,” Lucas said as he approached the mage. “Amazing. Never would have guessed.”
“Oh, shut up,” Yore told him. “He’s an expensive Companion. Getting tied up isn’t exactly something they typically go through.”
“Yeah, I’m kind of feeling like this particular situation isn’t quite as straightforward as that.”
“Me either. I’m just saying, there’s no reason him being a Companion should have led me to believe he had rope related trauma.”
“And yet when you told me you’d done this, I knew it was a bad idea.” Lucas upstrapped the device from his belt and approached the mage. “Hi. What’s your name?”
“He hasn’t even told me that yet,” Yore said.
“Well, I wasn’t planning on giving him my name yet either, so I guess that’s fine. We can do introductions afterwards, I just thought it would be easier to give him instructions when he was blindfolded if I could address him by name.” Lucas clicked his fingers. “Actually, yes. That’s still a good idea. Until we find out your real name, I will call you Bob. Is that okay, Bob?”
The mage nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Uh, no, ergh. Don’t ‘sir’ me. I hate that.”
The mage dropped his head and hunched his shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m also banning apologies.”
The mage pressed his lips together. He was silent.
“Okay. Can you stand up for me please, Bob?”
The mage obeyed.
“Good. Thank you. Now lift your arms up and hold them away from your sides. Good. Now stay like that. Just stand still.”
The mage complied, and Lucas switched the device on. He passed it over the mage’s wrists first, and then when there was no telltale beep he tried his back and then began slowly passing the device over the rest of the mage’s body.
The mage started out standing extremely still, but as the seconds passed, he started to shift his feet and then he dropped his hands and started picking at the rope still wrapped around his wrist.
Lucas tapped him on the arm with the device. “Arms up.”
“Sor—” the mage started to say, and then abruptly fell silent as he brought his arms back up.
Lucas resumed slowly moving the device over the mage’s body, but just a couple of minutes later the mage scratched the back of his neck and then just left his hand there instead of holding his arm back out. Lucas didn’t bother correcting him this time.
“Okay,” Lucas said finally, and the mage startled and lifted his arm back up again. Lucas gently pressed both the mage’s arms back down. “You can relax now.”
“Nothing?” Yore asked.
Lucas shook his head. “Did he have any injuries when you found him? Any cuts on his wrists?”
“Not on his wrists. He had a nasty gash on his side, but it pretty much healed after he took that energy from me.”
The mage pressed his lips together as his head dropped.
“Huh. No other injuries?”
“There were some cuts on his back, actually. Right at the centre next to his spine. I didn’t give it much thought because he’s a Companion, but do you think…?”
Lucas nodded. “I’d say that’s where his chip was. Either this isn’t his first escape attempt or whoever owned him knew he was more than just a Companion. Hey, Bob. You remove that chip yourself, or did someone else do it for you?”
The mage kept his head down and didn’t answer.
“From the look of the cuts I’d say he did it himself,” Yore contributed. “Which is a little impressive, actually. The whole idea is that they’re not supposed to be able to do that.”
“Well, he did and he has no chip, which I guess means…” Lucas turned to the mage. “Bob, would you like to take that blindfold off now?”
The mage hesitated. “I can take it off?”
“Yes, you can take it off now,” Yore confirmed.
The slave complied, and then startled backwards at the sight of Lucas. “You’re—you’re a Companion?”
“Born but not so much raised,” Lucas said. “My name is Lucas. Will you tell me your name now?”
The mage looked between Lucas and Yore. He just looked confused.
“Okay, how about this,” Lucas said. “Yore is a werewolf.”
Yore slapped a hand over his face. “Really, Lucas?”
“What? You weren’t going to tell him?”
“No, that’s just… the sort of thing you ease into.”
“How do you ease into telling someone you’re a fucking werewolf?”
Yore shook his head and turned his attention back to the mage. “Anyway, that’s a thing. How do you feel about that? About all of this?”
“You’re really a werewolf?” the mage asked. “You’re not tricking me?”
Lucas waved a hand in Yore’s direction. “Do the thing.”
“Really?” Yore asked.
“Yes! He’s too polite to ask, but that sort of thing does kind of demand proof.”
“You just want to look at my dick again,” Yore grumbled, but he was already pulling his shirt off.
“Nah. Flaccid dicks don’t really do much for me, actually. Now, your ass on the other hand…”
“You can keep both of your hands to yourself,” Yore said, but he was smiling. He didn’t actually mind Lucas’ attention. Hell, if he’d still had a fully functional body, he probably would have reciprocated it.
Lucas laughed, but he wasn’t actually looking as Yore took off the rest of his clothes.
Yore let out a long sigh. Now the unpleasant part, for the third time in the last hour. Yore got down onto all fours and started to shift.
Besides being painful, it also felt difficult, like it required great effort, though once started the whole process would be much harder to halt than continue. Every muscle strained, every joint twisted. Yore lifted his large, furry head and looked up at the mage.
The mage looked a little afraid. That was always expected from someone who hadn’t seen a werewolf before. They were far from the most creepy thing that lived out here, but they were quite large and he’d been told they had a predatory intensity to their gaze.
“So, what do you think?” Lucas asked, rubbing a hand over Yore’s ears. “Do you want to pet him? His fur’s softer than you’d think, just like his heart.”
The mage hesitated. “Is he… is his mind the same? Is he the same person?”
“Yes, exactly the same. He won’t bite you or anything.”
The mage folded his arms over his chest, hugging himself. “Then I shouldn’t touch him. He wouldn’t want me to.”
“He’s a little different about what he is and isn’t okay with when he’s in this form.”
“Well—well maybe in that sense it would be okay, but he doesn’t want me to touch him anymore anyway. Because of what I did. He doesn’t trust me.”
“Yeah, he did tell me about that. What’s the story there?”
The mage shrugged. “It’s just… something I can do.”
“Seems handy.”
The mage was still hugging himself. His hands bunched in the fabric of his sleeves. “It’s not. I don’t ever want to do it again. If I’d just been good and trusted Yore, everything would have been fine, but I tried to run away and I attacked Yore and now he’s never going to trust me again and everyone will think I’m dangerous.”
Yore pushed past Lucas and approached the mage, giving his arm a gentle nuzzle with his nose. The mage was drawing in fast, uneven breaths.
“There, see?” Lucas said. “Listen, all of this distrust, all the secrets, it was because he was worried you might have been here to spy on us, but that’s clearly not the case. And I think whatever you were worried about has now proven to also not be the case.”
The mage unfolded his arms and reached out a hand to tentatively brush Yore’s ear. Yore dipped his head and welcomed the touch.
“Do you think you could tell us your name, then? I’ll admit, Bob doesn’t really suit you.”
The mage hesitated for a long moment. He ghosted his hand over the top of Yore’s head and Yore shut his eyes and pressed up into the touch.
“O—okay,” the mage said finally. “My name is Fanner.”
Yore’s eyes flew open and he turned to look at Lucas. From his wide eyes and half open mouth, Yore was guessing he wasn’t the only one who recognised that name. But was this really the Fanner they’d been told about? Was this really Danya’s friend, who they had been trying to find for almost a year now?
He looked around the right age and he fit Danya’s description. Danya had always stressed how attractive Fanner was, but that he’d had a hard time finding a master because he couldn’t stay focused and stand still. Hadn’t this Fanner said something similar? That he had difficulty with that sort of thing?
“If you don’t mind me asking, Fanner… which house were you raised in?”
Fanner had stopped petting Yore and was hugging himself again, looking between the two of them. “Why? And why did you look at one another like that when I said my name?”
“It’s nothing bad,” Lucas assured him. “We just might know a friend of yours. Or not. I’m not the only Lucas out there and I’m sure you’re not the only Fanner.”
“Is it Duran? I haven’t seen him in over a year now…”
“No, although now that you mention it, you did talk to Duran, didn’t you, Yore?”
Yore had been putting it off, but it was time to shift back. He forced his body through the agonising process again. His joints were going to be so angry at him.
“Yes,” Yore said when he finally stood on two feet again. “He’s doing well. He’s living full time with his master now.”
“I miss him,” Fanner confessed. “I don’t know who else you could mean, though. He’s the only person I would call a friend.”
Yore and Lucas exchanged a look and Yore shook his head. Finding out Danya was alive would be an emotional moment for Fanner. As much as Yore wanted to be fully honest with him, it would be better if Danya could be there with him while he went through it.
“You’re going to have questions that I think this friend of yours will do a better job answering than either of us can. We’ll answer other questions now that we know you’re not chipped, but I think that one’s better off waiting for later.”
“Okay,” Fanner agreed. “Will you tell me where you’re taking me? What you want me for?”
“There are other mages who have run away or been liberated,” Yore said as he started putting his pants back on. “Quite a few of them. We’re taking you to be with them. And… we don’t really want you for anything. You needed help, so we’re providing it.”
“There are others who have escaped?”
Yore inclined his head. “There are.”
“I was told it was impossible to escape. That we always got caught.”
“Yeah, it’s weird how the people who owned you would lie to you about that,” Lucas commented. “Can’t imagine why.”
Fanner ducked his head and hunched his shoulders. “I suppose some things I believe to be true… aren’t true.”
“Don’t feel bad about that,” Yore told him. “That’s something every single escaped slave goes through. The fact that you’re already accepting that instead of pushing back and denying it puts you ahead of most.”
“Especially for a Companion,” Lucas added. “I fucking hate dealing with Companions.”
“Lucas,” Yore scolded.
“What? You know what I mean and he probably does too. Their training is impenetrable. They’re very hard to get through to.”
“No, I—I agree,” Fanner said. “Of course something that makes for a good slave won’t make for a good escaped slave. That’s only logical.”
“Are you a good slave?” Lucas asked.
Fanner shook his head. “I’m not a good anything. But I—I’ll try to be useful. I know I don’t have much to offer but a pretty face, but, um…”
“Fanner, you knocked me clean out,” Yore pointed out. “That’s a lot more than a pretty face.”
“No,” Fanner said, taking a physical step backwards as he shook his head. “I don’t want to do that. Please. I don’t want—”
“Okay, okay,” Yore said before Fanner could get too worked up. “Nobody’s going to try to make you do anything. I was just saying. There’s more to you than that.”
“I don’t want there to be,” Fanner murmured.
“Let’s not worry about it too much for now,” Yore said. “There’s an inn nearby. Why don’t we get you some clean clothes and a hot meal?”
Fanner chewed his lip. “What if word has spread about my escape and people are looking for me and—”
“It’s not a human inn,” Lucas interrupted. “Come on. You’ll love it.”
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