Word Count: 400+
Just to put this out there and avoid any confusion: Cuhlain is a figment of Finn's imagination. No one else can see or hear him. Finn's just going cuckoo.
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”Go away…” Finn murmured, tucking her remaining ear close to her head and loped down the beach, moving swiftly, but not swiftly enough to escape the voice. Whore. Just like your mother, you know. She got herself knocked up before I met her and she was in just he same predicament. ”I’m not… I’m not!” She growled, slashing at the air with her paw, trying to dispel the pale phantom that lurked beside her. Cuhlain Fidh had not changed in the three years that Finn had been away. He was the same gaunt, haunting wolf that grinned that terrible, toothy grin and whispered chastisements in her ear like some four-footed viper.
And look at you. Look! A freak. That’s what you have become. Finn crouched, hunching her shoulders to ward him off. Trying to concentrate on something else didn’t work, he was in every corner of her mind, that high, rough voice echoing terribly. Finn wanted out. She wanted out of everything. The pregnancy that she now knew about, the hallucinations. She would have none of it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy to get rid of either. She stood, moving down the beach with a more determined gait. She needed o do something to keep her mind occupied. Liquor was no longer an option. As much as she loathed the pups now taking up residence in her womb, she would take no action against them.
Up ahead, a little white cottage sat on the edge of the dunes, as pretty as a picture. Finn would have appreciated the sight before, being one of those people who enjoyed looking at the scenery, but today she could just not bring herself to feel anything but a dull apathy and a burgeoning terror. She loped over to it, Cuhlain snickering all the while, and knocked on the door. Perhaps someone would be home. Talking with someone real would probably help. She couldn’t even begin to share her problems, but even chatting about the weather would be more preferable than listening to the ghost of her father taunt and insult her. Finn wondered if she would eventually go mad. Like her father, and like his mother before him. Morrigan had been as fruity as a loon the day Finn left, and her father had been well on his way when he drove her off. She didn’t want to become that, but the paths she was treading had high walls and no escape routes.
”Finn's words”
Cuhlain's thoughts