Nox walked along the river’s edge, the village noises fading as the sound of crickets, cicadas and other animals overtook the space. My bag bumped my hip in a rhythmic pattern, the fabric sample and a few newly hemmed pants stuffed inside. I tilted my head back to stare at the rich ink sky in an attempt to figure out my own constellations among the twinkling stars only to feel myself get jostled and quickly righted myself, staring at the back of Nox’s head.

“Thought you were gonna fall off.” They answered, shoulders shaking in barely concealed humor.

“I was staring at the sky.” I wrote on his shoulder.

“The sky huh.” They were quiet for a few minutes, only a fish leaping out of the water and getting caught by a bear was the only heavy source of noise for a few seconds. The animal walked back into the woods, uncaring about us as we strolled along the shore.

“My sister loved the sky.” I leaned up a bit more, wondering about the unprompted statement, they were reminiscing about her. “She loved painting sunrises and sunsets, the colors looked almost magical and the nighttime when she could see the stars…” They trailed off, their voice breaking a bit.

“I never gave her a piggyback ride.” Came from them after a while, I could feel the sadness radiating off them in waves as they began to follow a branched off stream deeper into the woods, I tried to figure out the position of where we were compared to the main road but I was kinda failing at the moment. The mead was really good, sucks I couldn't finish it.

My eyes focused on Boyd as he trotted in front of us, tail half raised as he observed the world, I stared at the black fur of his back and I was immediately brought back into the conversation. “…I had a weak body back then, in and out of doctor’s offices and hospitals as a youngling, I never got to be a normal kid, with normal parents and my sister was the one who had-” My heart ached, remembering my own life and I found myself tuning them out again as my mind filled with thoughts of my former life. My mother-before she died, my father, my brother, and aunt who probably are going nuts trying to look for me while I’m playing the role of a village girl. A part of me even wondered about my estranged brother, the part that hated him for what he did to me and hoped he died reared its head and growled at the muddled memories, of me remembering that simple plastic brachiosaurus he had in his room-I stopped further from others bit surfacing, trying the breathing technique to calm myself. No need to hysterically cry right now.

Then the guilt rose up, knowing the highly likely chance he most likely had done it to other girls and I was a coward for not speaking up and trying to find him-I still am, even now, even with what happened not being my fault but the fact I still let him-

I squeezed Nox’s shoulders and exhaled slowly, trying to think about Nox and their sister, who Vervain learned to love, a bit of me ached at the thought, wanting someone who would love me. But how could anyone think to look my way? I was broken in so many ways…No, bad Rán, bad! You don’t need those thoughts right now.

“I don’t think she resented it.” I wrote out on their shoulder.

“I never did with my own brother, life gave me a funny lemony, citrus take that way but everyone is different and I don’t want to shove words in a dead person’s mouth. Yet, I do hope she didn’t resent you.” I'm rambling, I always ramble, why am I like this?

“I, hope so, she had to grow up way too early after what our older brother did to her-” They stopped and I almost asked them to continue only to notice something; there was no sound like before, as if the world was holding it’s breath, no animals, wind or water from the river babbling softly was heard. I could feel my heart starting to race, like something dangerous was just barely hidden out of sight and had caught us. I started to turn my head around to fully look but was jostled again, I glared and saw the back of Nox’s head as it turned side to side as if to silently say ‘No’. Boy was standing, tail poofed up and ears back as he looked around.

“No attention right now, good thing you can’t speak.” I squeezed their shoulders in response. They slowly began to walk again, Boyd doing strange little hops as he forced himself to stay near us.

“He’s a cat sith, fun thing about them most people don’t know is that they have one person they have a special bond with, one that can apparently travel through time. Were there any animals you had before you came here?” I answered them, wondering about my other cat, Munchkin who passed away before Boyd. I had Munckin for most of my life, maybe because he was a ginger cat and Freyja did like ginger and gold-colored cats that he was residing with her rather than meeting me again. The thought made me smile, I knew she would take good care of him so I sent a soft prayer and a thank you for the hope Munchkin was enjoying himself.

Boyd let out a yowl, crouching low and Nox cursed. I followed Boyd’s gaze to see where a creature stood there, with grey ash flaking off it and colored like smoke, a skeletal quadrupedal animal, like a horse or some kind of similar animal shape with tightened skin over its bones stood there, the pale rings that had to be it’s eyes looked onto us. The neck snapped as it looked at us in jerky, stiff movements, like a newborn attempting to figure out it’s limbs or a corpse attempting to walk again. I blame my love of horror at that bit of information appearing at the forefront of my brain.

Was it a zombie? The swaying jerk as it tried to walk made me think zombie. I felt Nox shift, limbs cracking and twisting as he changed to their own horse form under me and sending me into the river. My bag became saturated with river water, thankfully I hadn't grabbed any reading material.

“Purify.” They stated, staring the creature down. I stared at Nox, confused as the water cooled my heated skin where I was laying, the creature’s eyes followed me, head tilting as it seemed to study me.

“Purify the river.” I looked down at the water swirling around me. I could only do a small bit and there was a time limit before the water got contaminated again. There was a grumble from the zombie as it began to jerkily make it’s way towards me, Nox reared up with a bellow and aimed a solid kick at it. The creature stepped back before attempting another step, not caring as Nox ran at it.

“Now you idiot!” I jerked, splashing around a bit before trying to remember what I’d had done before.

“Pray and reach out with your senses!” I looked at my reflection, the ripples distorting my image a bit before they calmed. I like calm, what did that feel like? Was it similar to a cold winter day with the sun blazing out, the crispness of the air or the peacefulness of the cabin, fire going in the hearth as I helped sort herbs and read up on the books I’ve been getting?

Or was it like this stream? Where despite what was happening on the shore, there was barely a disturbance now. The water helped me concentrate as I felt the different temperatures swirl over the back of my palms. I like heat, and the simplest way to purify water was to boil it, when steam rose it was about a hundred degrees Fahrenheit but water needed to be about a hundred and fifty to kill off most bacteria if I remember from my old job, two hundred and twelve was the ideal temperature but it would take to long if I could tell by the creature’s increased desperation to get to me.

I locked my eyes with it and it bolted, slamming into me, I landed on my back under the water, hitting my head on a rock. Water filled my mouth with the silent scream as I held the creature back in case it tried to bite me-I was not ready to become a zombie! Flashes of pain and muddled memories of something swirled in my mind along with a strange feeling of desperation.

I blinked, feeling my eyes sting from the water as I stared at the creature, the ashes flaked away, revealing the face of a young buck colored red. I heard the muffled yells of my name and was pulled up and out towards the shore. I coughed and spluttered, bringing a hand to the back of my head where the air was managing to sting it, my fingertips were bloody. Nox was glaring over my shoulder and I peeked, squinting at the creature, beast-buck-what was the scientific classification for deer again?

It stepped closer and Nox snarled, pulling me further away. I shoved their hands away, feeling a little unsteady from the adrenaline slowly fading in my system but faced it. It took another step before bowing it’s head down, it didn’t have that flakey ash but instead wisps of mist swirled around it and faded from view. I moved closer, within arms reach.

I touched the shoulder of the animal, feeling the warmth radiating from it. Nox studied the wispy beast, eyes squinting and head tilting in many ways as they looked it over. “It was a guardian, undoubtedly the land it looked over must have been destroyed or it had been forgotten.” I ran my hand up it’s neck as it lifted it’s head, scratching between with the twin nubs of a pair of antlers growing, it was about the size of Belgio at its head and kinda cute when I looked at it fully, the redness of the buck’s fur vibrant as I inspected it closer, giving the face a rub with my thumbs which it enjoyed.

"What to do with you?" I mused.