Page 16 of Found in Obscurity

“I didn’t trudge over anything,” he said petulantly.

“Well, not on purpose this time,” she said, walking over and picking up a hefty leather-bound book from the table. “But trudge you did.”

She hoisted the book over and slapped it onto his knees, tapping on it with her fingernails. It made Lorin’s hair stand on end.

“I’m not signing it.” He crossed his arms.

She shook her head, turning her gaze up to the ceiling.

“Blessed be the moon for giving you to me, but you are difficult, child,” she said, opening the book and shoving it in front of him again.

“It doesn’t mean—” he started, but she cut him off with a sharp wave of her hand.

“You have found your familiar.”

She handed him a pen she had tucked somewhere in her messy gray hair and he took it reluctantly, staring at the page in front of him with his vision swimming with what he was about to do.

“Signing the bonding ledger changes nothing, Lorin. It’s already happened. It couldn’t be more real than it is. This is just the bureaucracy around it, so you might as well.”

She nudged the book closer and he folded again, signing his name under countless others with shaky fingers and noise thundering in his head.

“Excellent,” she said, slamming the book closed and tucking it under her arm. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

“Wait, you’re leaving?” He stared between her and the still-sleeping fox, whose tail was now dangerously close to touching him.

“I do have a mess to clean up after you,” she said. “The other elders are already calling around asking about a missing fox potential, so I’m going to give them a hand.”

“But—”

“You have a familiar to get…familiar with.” She winked, and with an annoying cackle and the flap of Sjena’s wings following after her, she was gone.

Lorin glanced to the side, his heart in his throat as he was left to confront the harsh reality of his own life.

There was a war going on inside him. One side had taken up arms, demanding he pull the fox into his embrace. The other was holding the line firm, refusing to even consider it.

In the end, Lorin couldn’t stand the fight. He retreated, getting up from the sofa on shaky legs and heading to the back door.

He stumbled out into the cold and wet in his socks, the damp earth and grass soaking them immediately. He paid it no mind, simply trying to draw breaths that didn’t want to be found.

He ended up finding his way to the large alder tree that overhung his grandma’s pond at the end of the garden, slightlycrooked but sturdy. An aged wooden swing hung at the water’s edge, held up by fraying ropes.

Lorin shivered as he made his way toward it, the chill winter air biting harshly at his thin shirt and finding a way through to his skin. He collapsed into the puddle on the seat of the swing, hearing the groans the tree and swing both gave at being used after so many years.

Lorin didn’t think anyone had sat in it since he’d last left. There’d always been an unspoken understanding that this was Lorin’s space. His haven. His grandma always stood at the edges to call for him, but never intruded. It looked like she’d simply left it as Lorin had left it, waiting for his return. The tree too seemed to welcome him back, its leaves swaying.

He stared unseeingly at the layer of algae on top of the pond, the green surface so thick it looked like it could be stood on. He knew there was all manner of life beneath it though. Calm on the surface but teeming underneath. Lorin felt the same, but he didn’t know how to express any of it outwardly, so he simply sat, stone still as he rioted inside. Crawled and writhed and squirmed.

His life was no longer his own. He could feel the irrevocable change. The tie that bound cinching tighter, squeezing him until he couldn’t bear it.

A single tear slipped free.

He was terrified.

It was his every fear come to life. It was sitting here as a teenager on this very swing, heartbroken and wishing on every magic he knew that he would never find his familiar. That he would never have to endure the same fate as his parents.

A rising sense of panic began to fill his chest and he clutched it, feeling his heart begin to beat so hard and erratically he thought he’d keel over. Human hearts didn’t beat this quickly.

And then a soft snout was pushing at his other hand where it clutched the seat.