Word Count → 790 :: Wanted to write this for my own sake; I got it up laaaate. Takes place in early March, right after this thread. There's some language (in Turkish) but don't hover, don't be offended. xD

A plaintive meow echoed through the shadowed pine trees, escaping from the jaws of a wolf in a cloud of white vapor. The canine moved along on four legs, humbled, steps stunted from sore muscles screaming at each contraction. Around his ankle, the colorful cloth dragged in the dirt, just as his colorful demeanor had faded to nothing. He was only forlorn and alone, letting out another mewl, his head throbbing with the agony of loss. Only the previous night he had called it Dionysus’ loss, but it became Levent Kartal’s as well.

“Ampelos,” Levent whimpered, and sank to his haunches as he squeezed his eyes shut against the pounding of his skull. “Wilson! Sevgili arkadaşım, nereye gittin?” He hurt, by the god he hurt. Small wounds showed wetly on his shoulders, but they were nothing compared to the moaning of his hips and abdomen and the shrieking between his ears.

He whimpered again, pathetically, and curled up into a ball on the earth. He pressed his nose against wet leaves and pine needles, smothering himself, but a brain screaming for oxygen was no less painful than one screaming at the first hangover he’d had for about a year. He’d been wrong in this, wrong in everything, suffering righteously. The god would be frowning down at him. He’d read the book, and the book made its decree. He disobeyed and he was punished and he was alone.

“Wilson!” Levent cried, a cattish caterwaul that frightened a bird from its nest. “Her şey için, her şey için özür dilerim!”

Would that he could weep, but mucus and tears did not fall from his face. He snorted against the leaves, gasping at last, trembling as he stepped back away from the smothering soil. Another mew left him, but it was the weakest of the lot. He laid his sore belly against the ground and stretched out, shaking, clawing lethargically at the top of his head with a paw as if he could get rid of the pain.

At one point, his eyes opened, ice blue rimmed with the red of blood vessels. A little white wolf stood before him, shimmering in his hazy vision. Sand-colored eyes regarded him for a moment before the tiny wolf walked away.

“Gitmeyin,” the lost man pleaded, but the other didn’t heed his words.

He woke up a bit later, to find a wad of drenched moss before his nose. His pink tongue flicked out to it, and he sighed at the taste of water. Pressing the lichen with his nose, he sucked the moisture from it, and then he turned his attention to the offering beside it: a dead mouse. His dark ears lifted, and he wolfed the thing down before peering at his surroundings.

He was sitting there, tail tucked neatly around his small paws, his chin lifted and his yellowy eyes cool.

The sight made the wolf’s tail stir in the leaf-litter, but the feline only meowed distantly, “You still look rat-arsed.” He rose onto all fours and stepped closer to the canine, sniffing him and looking for injuries. “But I think you’re a lucky bugger for even being alive.” He scooted away when the wolf tried to touch him.

“Üzgünüm,” Levent tried to say. “A-ama ne yaptım affedilemez oldu.”

The tom stared at him, tail slinking from side to side behind him. “You know I can’t understand a bloody word of Turkish.”

“Yalancı,” the wolf croaked, but he fought hard, and he found the words. The low speech of cats had come to him easier than English had in this agonizing state, and still he struggled. “You… You were doğru, right about ev-everything. And—but—siktir,” he breathed, dropping his chin on his forepaws.

“You did that already,” Wilson meowed.

The canine giggled weakly. “Ben bir iblis becerdin.” His giggles turned to whimpers. “Wilson, sen…seni…”

There was a pause, and then the white tomcat padded over to him, lying down and snuggling against the crook of his neck. Levent inhaled his friend’s scent and relaxed, nuzzling into his fur and whimpering quietly. He hurt, and he hurt because he knew he’d hurt his constant companion, his confidant. He’d gone against everything the tom had warned him about and had abandoned him. He’d danced with death, but all it had done was brush against his mortality and left him open and in agony.

“Sleep,” Wilson said, rasping his rough tongue over an ear. “Perhaps when you’ve slept and gotten more water into you, you won’t be so hung-over. I forgive you, and there’s nothing else to talk about.”

“Sen terk etmeyeceğim,” Levent asked tiredly, “olur mu?”

“I won’t. Go to sleep, love,” the cat purred weakly, and the wolf closed his eyes at last.