Taa'kan looked up from where he was lying down and blinked in confusion. Where was he? He couldn't recall that anymore, but here he was anyways. He stood up and shook his fur, small beadlettes of water cascading off him and showering the air with a scintillating mist that quickly settled to the floor and faded away. This realm, for as far as Taa'kan's eyes could see, was empty and black, a land of shadows and eternal depth.
He strode forward cautiously, uncertain where his feet would fall when even the ground around him seemed to be the same shade of greyish-black that colored the sky and all levels of the horizon around him.
A green light suddenly appeared in the distance, and a voice answered Taa'kan's confusion.
This is a realm of desires...where all your wishes can come true...Taa'kan laughed. The voice sounded more like his own than anyone else's, but maybe this was just a dream. That way, even that disembodied voice would make sense to him...
"Wolf?" Taa'kan asked as the green light ahead of him took a human form.
The man before him stared for a moment, then glanced around the shadowy world for a moment before asking, "Where are we?"
"I think I'm dreaming," Taa'kan answered honestly.
Wolf shook his head. "No, no, that can't be it... Maybe you're contacting me in a dream?"
"Or maybe I'm merely dreaming of your disbelief of this being a dream."
Wolf shrugged. "That is a possibility, but it still feels real to me."
"But anyone in the dream would accept the dream as being reality, so I really cannot discern the truth of your psychology. If you are a dream to me and see this as reality, it is still but a dream in the end, is it not? And if truly this is reality, and you truly do see it for such, how can I be truly certain that this is true at all?"
Wolf squinted. "I...don't know. But your philosophy astounds me."
"I know." Taa'kan took a few steps closer to Wolf. "I didn't see you in the battlefield while I fought the shadows. What happened to you?"
Wolf raised his shoulders and leaned back, leaning upon nothing as if an unseen wall had decided to conveniently appear behind him. "I got sucked into a few things I couldn't get out of and had to fight the Shadow's King. I'd been told to do him in quickly, so I'm actually a bit surprised that the war hasn't ended yet and things haven't gone back to the way they were before... Almost makes me want to call on Zosma again, just to make it all end already."
"Zosma? Oh, yes, I recall that now. Tell me, Wolf, what are you going to do if anyone ever finds out that you called him in the first place?"
Wolf was silent a moment. "Well, for one, something had to be done, but after this, I doubt anyone will even remember anything at all, not even me, so if anyone does find out about it... Well, my actions were committed in the best interest of the kingdom. If anything ill came because of them, it was unforeseen when the need of intervention came upon us and I was forced into action in the first place."
Taa'kan nodded. "True that is, but still, you should watch out for yourself, Wolf. Already this world is twisted enough, what with this day suddenly appearing between two others and bound to disappear entirely when it ends, and with time twisted enough as it already if. After all, yesterday you sensed the other Knights using the magic that the crown has bestowed upon you, but you won't even discover that you can do that until tomorrow morning."
Wolf tilted his head to the side. "Yeah, I...well...never noticed that before...
"So, anyways," the Green Knight continued, "whether this is a dream or not, I've appeared here for a reason. Any idea what that may be?"
"Hmm..."
"That's really helpful, you know."
"Then I should do it more often?"
Wolf glared at the wolf (which is actually rather oxymoronic when you consider the syntax).
"No, I suppose not then." Taa'kan looked around him, still marveling at the desolate plains that seemed to stretch on infinitely in every direction yet spontaneously become solid when it was willed to be so. He suddenly wondered for a moment what would happen if he stopped expecting the ground beneath him to be solid, yet he let the curiosity pass after briefly considering the implications of what an under-developed and over-described world could do in the hands a bored creator procrastinating in reaching anything of actual importance in a narrative the size as this.
"Where was I?" Taa'kan wondered aloud after another moment of silent contemplation.
"According page 114," Wolf answered nonchalantly, "you were in the infirmary."
"No, no, I mean, where were
we?"
Wolf hums for a moment, "The syntax of that sentence was rather skewed, if I may say so myself, that is. The pattern is off, with a loss of one letter then two between words, because if a third word were to be added, it would have to consist of three letters less than two, and such a word is not possible, and even if it were, I have no idea how it would ever be spoken when the movie reaches this point, which, if you ask me, will probably be rather anticlimactic with the better bosses beaten beforehand, which is rather twisting on the tongue but shows a perfect example of alliteration, which, being composed solely of spoken elements, really can't be 'shown' at all, if you get what I am saying. At which, what am I saying?"
"Huh, you were saying something?"
"Yeah, I think I was asking you why I was here in the first place."
"Oh, yes, I recall that now." Taa'kan smiled, which, despite being able to speak English, is rather profound for a wolf seeing as that his anthropomorphism goes only so far as speech, and, thus, he should not actually be able to smile at all. "Yes, well, as I was saying, I have a request for you, Wolf. I know we may not be on the best of terms at all times and you thoroughly have an aversion to everything existing from your past, but I must ask you, can you return to the war for a little while to help move it along? I may have four paws, but they're of little use beyond claws and ambulation."
"I suppose it really couldn't hurt, could it? I mean, I probably should go check on Shino anyways, to make sure my revival worked and all, not that I gave him back whatever he lent to me only to find that it really didn't do a thing at all to him, which, come to think of it now, is rather likely to have occurred seeing how things haven't gone anywhere yet with anything other than a talking robotic statue.
"Although, Taa'kan, how will we ever explain the plot hole that this creates? 'I came out of a dream' probably won't cut it for anyone."
"What are we cutting?"
"I'm not sure entirely, but that's what they always say, so...." Wolf shrugged.
"Hmm...I do have an idea," Taa'kan says, ignoring entirely the fact that this breaks the congruent tense of this entire narrative with only a single word. "Let me whisper it to you, though, so I don't spoil the surprise for anyone who might be eavesdropping on our conversations, alright?"
Wolf shrugs again, a word which here should really have two
gs because he has two shoulders, even though it only has one. "Sound good to me."
Wolf gets down on his knees and Taa'kan walks up to him and whispers something into his ear, Wolf's ear, that is, not the wolf's ear, which, again, is rather oxymoronic if you consider the syntax. Wolf nods and then nods again, and then finally says something like, "That's a good idea, I like it," but, because they were whispering things so that no one else could overhear them, no one can really be certain if that actually what he said or not.
"Is there anything else?" Wolf asks as he stands up after a moment.
Taa'kan shrugs, a word which here should also have two
gs even though, despite the fact that wolves have two shoulders, too, wolves really can't shrug at all, and says, "For the most part, this scene was mostly exposition and the two of us talking, so maybe we should simply say it never happened, thus cutting down on both the effort that the animator will have to take in creating the movie when it finally comes to this as well as the effort needed for anyone else who might be exposed to this to understand it. So, what do say about that?"
"First, you were rather redundant there, and, second, it's better than me calling Zosma again. And, third, although it's really not a point you mentioned at all, removing this scene entirely would help reassure our peers that this facade I'm holding towards you and the forest as a whole, in fact, stays in tact, because a conversation as casual as this one has been would certainly ruin that. And, besides, right now, I'm not really feeling myself. A bit...dreamlike, I guess."
Taa'kan says nothing.
"Well," Taa'kan says after Wolf doesn't say anything, either, "I suppose I should wake up now, shouldn't I?"
Wolf nods. "Yeah, you probably should."
* * *
Wolf pulled back on the horse's reigns as he rode out of the trees and onto the battlefield for the second time in only hours. The Shadows seemed entirely gone by now as the morning sun fell over the horizon and settled lightly upon the ruins that remained there.
"Come, Sora," he said to his horse as he brushed his hand down her main and pressed his feet into her sides for a moment to tell her to start walking again. When he had awoken in the castle hardly an hour beforehand, he knew he had to return to the battle and see for himself that it truly was over. Relief had filled him when he saw Sora standing outside the stables and waiitng for him; the mare must have run back to the castle after they had been separated during the battle. Had Sora not been there at all, Wolf probably would have had to stay at the castle, his exhaustion from his recent battle too much to allow him to get there all the way on foot alone.
"Ikkin?" he asked as Sora rode past the kitsune and a small group of gathered guild members that surrounded her. She was still the Blue Knight, despite her seeming betrayal of Dunburrow the day before, but right now, Wolf was willing to forgive the treason and hold off her punishment until things were a bit more back to normal once again. "Ikkin, do you know where Shino is?"
(( Oh, and, just for the sake of clarification, only the last three paragraphs actually happened. ))