Page 25 of Found in Obscurity

Kit made a noise and rushed over to his feet, pawing at his leg.

“I’m okay, I just wasn’t paying attention,” Lorin said.

He busied himself with getting a bowl out and washed while Kit trailed his steps, then he served his own food and bypassedthe table and chairs. Instead, he sat in front of the back door, peering out at the darkening sky. Kit settled next to him, licking the spot on his arm where he had been burned before nosing curiously at the soup bowl.

Apparently potato and leek wasn’t to his taste, if the sneeze that came after was anything to go by, like he was trying to get the smell out of his nose as quickly as possible.

“Yeah, well, you stink like dead fish,” Lorin told him, taking a superior slurp of soup and burning the heck out of his tongue.

Kit opened his mouth like he was grinning at him and Lorin scowled, getting up to grab a bottle of water. He settled back on the floor after downing half the bottle, and made sure to blow on the soup before eating it this time.

They passed time like that, with Lorin eating and Kit silently sitting next to him. A gentle breeze rustled the trees surrounding them, evergreens as far as the eye could see stretching up into the darkening sky, where silhouettes of the occasional bird flapped past.

Lorin turned his head to follow one of the birds and caught sight of a dried-up circular piece of land right at the end of a shallow path in the ground, concave and surrounded by dry bushes and stones that looked just a bit too smooth and perfect to be natural.

There was a tiny little wooden bridge over the empty space, and a tiny dam. That same pang of pain came back for a second. It was the little stream and pond that had belonged to his mother. Or…whatever was left of it now. Dry ground, smooth rocks, and a tiny wooden bridge leading nowhere. Like everything else, the reality didn’t match his memories at all.

And yet, despite all of that, there was still a certain peace creeping in along his softer edges that he hadn’t expected.

Lorin had gotten so used to eating alone. Doing everything alone. The clinking of his own silverware was usually his onlycompanion, the rush of traffic outside his apartment window letting him know the world still existed but was rushing by without him.

Out here in the middle of nowhere, a place he never wanted to be, he felt less lonely than in the heart of a city.

It was a strange thought to come to terms with.

He mopped up the last of his soup with a bit of bread crust and chewed it slowly, allowing himself just a few more moments to contemplate this new feeling. To cup it in his hands like water and bring it to his mouth to sip. Kit had sprawled next to him at some point, tucked sideways against Lorin’s thigh, paws pointing away from him, belly bulging from all the fish he’d eaten.

Lorin smiled at the fox-shaped carpet next to him, letting it reach its full potential for once instead of holding it back. He didn’t want to disturb Kit, but his butt was getting kinda numb and the air grew chillier with each passing second.

He made a show of standing up, making sure Kit felt him move so he didn’t startle. The fox pushed himself to his feet, his fur rumpled into abstract shapes and eyes lazy. He stretched, paws reaching and tail in the air, before following Lorin inside.

Lorin closed the doors and windows behind them, making sure no cold air was entering the small place anymore. He walked to the sink and dropped his plate and spoon inside, finding a small sponge to wash his dishes with.

He turned the water on and was reaching for the plate when the mark from before caught his attention again. He left the plate in the sink, stretching the fingers on his hand out, putting them together, and turning his palm to face up, toward his face.

He’d always been pale-skinned. Always nearly translucent. The stark black marks on his fingers looked even more visible like that. The same was fact for the brand-new bond mark onhis palm, stretched across four fingers, unmistakably there, the outline matching Kit’s shape perfectly.

A fox, mid leap, fluffy tail wrapped around the side of Lorin’s pinky. Like Kit’s actual personality—big enough to not fit into the predestined space of Lorin’s fingers. It just had to spill over. Had to be cheeky. Needed to be seen.

Rationally, Lorin knew the mark had formed the moment he had found Kit. He had seen his grandma’s bond mark a million times before, and there was a flash of something in his head he was pretty sure was his mother’s palm reaching to stroke his hair. The blurry, shapeless black outline marking her skin. He wasn’t sure if it was a memory or just wishful thinking brought on by the day spent in the house made of memories.

He leaned against the edge of the sink, lowering his head and staring at his hands. One marked, and the other still wrapped in black leather.

Leather that had no reason to be there anymore. He straightened up and plucked the other glove from his hand, leaving his fingers bared to the world.

Because who was he hiding from?

Everyone in this town knew who he was. Everyone who had been at the ceremony had seen him finding his familiar. His signature was in the bonding ledger. The mark came with that, just like darkness came with night. It was as real as the bond curled up warm in his chest, slumbering but constant.

There was no hiding it, no matter what he did to cover it up. The only person he would be hiding it from was himself.

He turned his palm toward Kit where he stood next to his feet.

“It’s you,” he said softly, and Kit yipped at him, tail swishing behind him. He stretched his head up and licked a soft stripe across the mark, yawning right into it on the next breath.

“Right,” Lorin said, snorting. “You’re most impressed by my mark, I see.”

Kit huffed and yawned again, this time a short, aborted little puff as he blinked up at Lorin.