There's a Change in the Air

Artorias hadn't dared try to interfere with Bowen's time with her new lover. As much as it still tweaked something inside of him, he knew she deserved to be happy and have time to herself as well. It was the same case with him and Briar, and it had quickly shown him how Bowen must have felt whenever she saw him and the Fatalis girl together. If anything, if just made him yearn for her all the more, especially once Briar had returned home and Bowen was still hanging around whatshisname. He'd left them be, but it still made him smile when he heard the knock on his bedroom door to find his little sister inviting him out for a late night stroll.

Of course he'd accepted, and the two Carpathian wolves wandered the Starlit Plains side by side, enjoying the warm Austerian winter together. He turned his head to gaze at Bowen, only to receive a kiss to the side of his muzzle that sent a burst of warmth through his heart and a smile spreading over his lips. "I'm only ever a moment away, Bo. I'm never too busy for the pirate that stole my heart," he replied with a teasing grin. What had started as confusion and tumultuous emotions had become a wonderful and comfortable love and relationship he'd built with his beloved sister. There was no shame, no awkwardness to it for the dark-furred brute as he followed the creme-caramel fae that shared his blood through the soft grasses, lit by a full moon and a million dazzling stars in the heavens above. It was still odd to him to hear wolves address him as Aegis—except when it came from Bowen. The way she said his title with the way those gorgeous green eyes looked at him... it stirred things deep within his core. He repressed the urges while he watched Bowen's rump when she cantered ahead of him; there would be time for that later.

Cresting a hill behind his lover, Artorias also noticed the dramatic shift in the air. Warmth gave way to unseasonable chill, and a gust of wind like a breath from a specter hit them both in the face. Art came to a slowing stop alongside Bowen, his expression shifting to confusion as narrowed eyes surveyed Hallowed lands. All of a sudden the world felt as if it had just rained, damp and cold and disconcertingly lifeless. "I do," he said, echoing what Bowen had noticed. The fur on the back of his neck began to stand on end, and out of nowhere small lights of hundreds of fireflies seemed to rise from the sea of grasses. But something was off about their color. They weren't yellow, but... blue? What were they? Exchanging a look with Bowen, Artorias gently nudged his sister's side in a silent gesture to stick close, then meandered down from the hill toward the cluster of blue and purple fireflies.

As he drew nearer to them, Artorias began to realize a couple of things seemed off. Other than the fireflies, there were no other nocturnal insects heard. No chirps of crickets, nor whines of cicadas. There was only them and the fireflies. Or... were they fireflies? Whenever he would come near one, the lights would disappear, as if they had switched their luminescent rears off, only to reappear a few dozen feet away. "Have you ever seen anything like this?" he turned to ask Bowen. She was the more worldly of the two, and though Artorias had a fair amount of travel beneath his belt, his wayfaring sister had seen lands only imaginable with her eyes.

"Bowen & Artorias"