test for the crooked Solo Finished

threading as Johannes Sauer
speaking in russian unless specified

There was no branch to step on, no door to fling open. It was not a horror movie in which Johannes necessarily needed to announce his presence, for it seemed his arrival had already been anticipated sooner than later. Of course, he’d been told where to go, even far from the freezing shores of Durmstrang's many lakes.

It was in the way habit built routine, the same winding route staked into familiarity despite the winter wasteland. Here, the branches still shook past a fork in the road, a disturbance passed along message routes and fallen trunks with amateur blazes half-cut into them. As long as one knew what to expect and who to greet along the way, no claimed territory could be disputed while court was in session. If one of their own got lost here—where every overlapping disturbance echoed far beyond its origin—the most they'd suffer would be a sprained ankle and some social embarrassment before being rescued by a diligent guard.

Johannes had, on principle, vowed to begrudge every Pack change that occurred without his approval as branch guard, if only because of their inner circle’s defection from the Polevik Troops. If the Hounds had been foolish enough to push a stranger through the campaign process without his absent vote, how much greater freedom did these traitors enjoy to circumvent established courtesies? It was easier to denounce change when he didn’t have a hand in it, even easier when he bounced between countries every few months.

His grandfather used to say if you spoke of the devil, he’d appear. After first year, Johannes had always considered himself a greater threat than any supernatural influence, the Hellhounds as virtual proof of this, but, years into his membership, he didn’t feel any less fallen than when he’d first flown the nest. If Johannes had been asked his role years ago, when he’d first been promoted to his position, he would considered himself on top of the world. Now, he just felt somewhat cold and disadvantaged in being summoned rather than the other way around.

And yet, cutting into the forest beyond cleared paths and identical tree lines, he could at least admit sense in choosing drier shores. Johannes’ Boss had chosen Durmstrang’s shores as their meeting spot for the view and the audacity of it, not for the safety. He’d learned how to skip rocks in those lakes, but also how to swim in cold water and abuse hot-air charms within an inch of their lives after a few too many close-calls. He couldn’t romanticise the risk of pneumonia, no matter how stubborn he was, not with an intimate knowledge of how stupid some kids could be for scraps of recognition—not when he’d been that stupid kid, years ago. A change of scenery was perhaps the most routine decision for any head, originally Hound or not.

Drawing closer, a beacon of red at the centre of the snowy, tree-ringed clearing, the Hellhound’s newest leader lounged upon a large boulder at perfect vantage to the rest of the surrounding Pack. A discarded winter cloak lay draped under him like a makeshift throne, flanked by the inner circle’s elite advisors and guards keeping watch. The great majority of Hounds did little else on their first day than catch up on later plans, too busy to bother endangering their reputations for an unsanctioned tussle between branches. So early into the school year, the strictly demarcated lines of association hadn't fully set in yet—they’d likely regulate themselves by the end of the week, when the novelty of summertime separation wore off, but, for now, nothing else but simple inexperience softened the ghosting influence of structured obedience.

With the wash of noise upon him, Johannes could catch only fragments of class complaints and summers well spent. Only a few boys-in-training lingered at the edges of conversation, little more than window dressing in the grand scheme of greater duties, not yet hooked in enough to hang off of their elders’ words without a healthy scepticism. This was not a day to prove greater wisdom to them, but a moment for everyone else, especially for the Pack’s newest swear-ins, to show off their gleaming, gold-chained loyalties. Giddy despite a cool facade, readily boastful as they drifted vaguely between groups, they weren’t hard to tell apart from the rest of the Hounds. One of them lacked their coat—plain-faced but quietly dignified, the subservient honour of willing sacrifice had been well-received. Still, closer inspection brought them no further from leaving their branch’s eyesight than sheep to their flock.

The display seemed... shockingly tame given all the Pack's radical reforms under his original Boss. Obviously, he'd always known that each leader had their own method of keeping the peace, but he had expected some remnant of familiarity past member count. Where was the snark and cunning that characterised the Hellhound Pack’s greatest strength? It was only the first day, but Johannes had always remembered such an event as fiercer than any other moment. There was no better time to vie for recognition in hopes of greater instruction, and no easier time than to fade into the crowd of fellow Hounds. When Johannes had first joined as a messenger boy, he’d had to elbow his way into recognition, let alone real sponsorship. It’d been hard to identify himself, worse as just another sworn member when the Boss Johannes had sworn himself under prioritised nothing less than individuality. Purpose was paramount, his Boss would often proclaim, benevolently picking and choosing his favourites with a far-reaching intention to use all of which each Hound could offer to his advantage. No single pet project could be the same, and Johannes had been lucky enough to fill a niche.

In stark comparison, their current members wielded no sharper resistance than metaphorically filed teeth. They seemed distinctly aware of their own supervision, constantly glancing back at their guards with an unconscious anxiety, and their interactions altogether seemed slightly too tame to be authentic. Structured. Sanitised, as if afraid to step out of line. Johannes could scarcely recognise his own peers behind the Lost Boys veneer, so few of them remaining. Many of the elder Hounds he had once admired were now long graduated, washing their hands clean of academia's scum before Johannes had even realised their absence, and unfamiliarity had encroached on his safe space. In the span of a single transfer of power, the Pack had somehow been reconstructed closer to the original organisation that’d existed when he had first joined. Gone were the casual displays of playground havoc and rank-earning wit— no, it seemed that this incarnation of the Pack valued hierarchy just as much as any other delinquent social group.

For a brief moment, Johannes could have been yet another late-coming Hound taking advantage of the new school year's adjustment period. If things were easy, he could have passed himself off as a simple upperclassman, significant enough only to be vaguely recognised from last year's mischief. Could he pretend that his straying path hadn’t stepped through the international door? A trespasser he’d let himself become, as if he hadn’t once fought to keep the same territory his peers currently held. And yet, knowing his luck, any hope of peaceful reintegration died with Johannes’s judgment of the group’s civility.

Caught musing over the Pack's peripheral structure, he hadn't intended to attract direct attention so quickly, but he’d greet it well. Guards could not be considered guards without complete vigilance, after all, and the inner circle maintained itself as the best in the Pack. Known but not yet identified, he met their kingpin boldly; in a single instant, the other’s regal demeanour and complete focus seemed to shift completely. Was this the first time he'd truly met their new leader? If true, Johannes’s absence was felt more keenly than many others. From where he approached, interloping, those eyes seemed shadowed in the fading evening light, sharp and endlessly dark with familiar unfamiliarity. For the briefest moment, it was as if they were sizing each other up—as if rumours of their respective positions hadn't already circulated amongst their mutual circles.

What conversations he'd caught soon hushed, Hounds returning to their places in a flurry of dutiful motion. Had he any greater favour to employ, Johannes would have once been amongst those corralled crowds. He'd never forsake his seniority, but had he ever looked that young? It felt like a million years ago that he and his peers had been just kids draped in each other’s jackets, bonded around ice floes and smuggled candy cigarettes. He remembered it differently. He must have remembered it wrong. Familiar only in its highest levels, even his own branch did little in terms of silent greetings. Merely a glance, a moment of polite acknowledgement, there and gone again. Such dismissal cut sharper than outright rejection.

One thing was certain— Memory would have to serve him in the same way he’d failed to serve the Pack. Johannes had been appointed to branch guard for a reason, even if his fealty had never been reconfirmed. A true Hound at heel, his typically nonconformist nature failed to hide the manners he’d been taught towards.

Emboldened by early acknowledgement and the knife-sting of implicit exclusion, he ventured further forward into the clearing. “My liege, fellow Hounds.” A strange wash of apprehension greeted him as he swept into a low bow before their distinguished inner circle, finally breaking eye contact to stare down at the trampled snow dragged beneath him. The afterimage of intensity clung fiercely still, even with his head bent. “I’ve come to pledge my allegiance.” He offered no further explanation, resigned to weigh against the silenced crowd’s conclusions.

If he were anywhere else, he’d ridicule the unnatural formality of it all. If he were anyone else, he’d pity the poor soul demeaning themselves in front of so many once-brothers. Yet the crawling discomfort of voluntary vulnerability stayed his tongue, as sharp as it often was—facing his technical superiors, any amount of artificial deference was better than none at all.

“And so you have.” Whoever their current leader was, he had authority down pat. Dark and bittersweet in a way Johannes was unused to, the other's voice lacked the deceptive kindness of his former Boss's demeanour. Instead, there was a hanging note of expectation—salt on the wound of public humiliation. This was not a man of the people, but a lord of the flies. “The worldly, prodigal son, in the flesh. Returned to reap his just desserts.” Slow to bite a readily set bait, equipped with the mindset of a leader already established rather than the aspiring one Johannes was meant to appeal to, their kingpin let the remark settle for a moment longer than necessary. “It’s, hm, quite late for a pledge, but I suppose your position is unique. I presume you intend to rectify your negligence? You must realise that a public display demands greater scrutiny than usual.”

“Of course,” Johannes had realised that. “I’d expect nothing less.” While it was true that his international dramas had taken the forefront, he knew well his owed duty. To even imply otherwise couldn’t have been anything but an insult. He’d never lose himself that thoroughly, no matter all the everyday habits he’d forgotten while abroad. A replaced leader didn’t remove him from his training, and it certainly couldn’t soothe his increasingly wounded pride. Could he excuse scrutiny as focused interest? Did doing so give too little credit to the cold stares at the nape of his neck? His offer of fealty was serious, even if their kingpin thought otherwise.

Brushing off the slight for what it was, Johannes dutifully offered his tribute without further complaint, and into another’s outstretched palm fell a gathered chain of simple silver means. The threaded-through crests of his selfishly defended rings clinked accusingly against each other as they swung free. For years, since the moment he’d first received either, whether in the most and least advisable of times, neither Hellhound nor Sauer crest had left him for longer than a few hours. His grandfather would kill him if he knew the stakes levied against Johannes in this moment, and his thankless willingness to meet them. Only standard athletic safety remained the sole exception to such caginess, where the risk of authoritative complaint outweighed that of personal injury, but even that compromise had been hard-won.

It was not the material value at stake, but the meanings associated with it. His rings were more than simple jewellery, no matter what they looked like. For Johannes, his rings were a point of recognition and, though he’d never put a name to truth, a physical manifestation of his identity. To voluntarily relinquish his precious ties was far more than a simple assertion of loyalty. It was a bid to absolve himself of his fractured past, to let go of the physical representation of outsiderhood and once more swear his life to another. He could not covet their kingpin’s mark of worthy membership without hope of complete sacrifice. Sentiment, not material, distinguished the Pack’s leadership. If accepted, he'd be able to walk freely afterwards, legitimised in the eyes of any punk who considered it worth their effort to terrorise another without fear of great retribution. Graduation was no limit to the Pack’s influence. What was once a means of survival in his youth would soon translate to precious connections in the real world. Years worth of protection far outweighed a single, standalone sacrifice of identity—even if it damned him to a Polevik’s yoke. It needed to be worth the fanfare.

Above his head came the tinkling transfer of hands as Johannes’ offering passed along to every member of the inner circle for close inspection. He'd spent weeks planning, suffering through indecision—all for his allegiances to be as roughly taken as any other object. By noise alone, the sentinels seemed considerably less interested than their advisor peers, but no amount of deliberation could compare with their kingpin’s consideration.

A beat. A huff of amusement, something strange and out of place amidst Johannes' tight-jawed anticipation. “And so, nothing less than your previous loyalties? An… interesting choice considering your first,” Had the other even been present for that? “But I suppose a wand is too much to ask for, with so many friends now. Discretion is to be expected.” Surely not, for Johannes hadn’t heard of their current leader until the campaigning process. To be so slyly reminded of the memory, and with such familiarity, was enough to make him flush. It was not discretion but true self-correction that had driven him from theatrics.

To be a stupid second-year once again… Who was Johannes to calculate the merit of his current sacrifice when he’d once been so willing to give up everything at the first step towards membership? Whether bolder or blinder towards reason, he'd once been so taken by the idea of safety in numbers that no other tribute could compare. His fucking wand, his first and only connection to the new wizarding world. It had been easy to ignore the consequences of pledging his loyalties to someone he believed to be a friend and mentor—it was harder now with a virtual stranger weighing his heart against the feather of worth. He'd sacrificed his title as easily as his brother wielded disregard, readily offering it as if his entire future didn't depend on magical potential. What a terrible, childish thing to do. The mere idea of replicating such a sordid affair now hadn’t even crossed his mind, at least not for longer than a moment. Though he acted otherwise, Johannes was not an elaborate planner, and he had certainly never considered himself clever enough to trick his own, even to outdo his younger self in foolishness.

Likely realising this, idly clicking the polished chain, their kingpin allowed Johannes his moment of mortification before letting out a sigh. It came out heavy, weighted with condescension. “No matter, I accept this offering for all that it’s worth. Anything else to plead your case?” When no response came, as Johannes knew better than to mistake the question as permission to speak, the other's momentarily light-hearted tone sobered into fair displeasure. “I see. You leave me no choice then.”

Shit. That wasn't part of the plan.

“Komarov! Step forward.” Faintly audible, significant only due to the intense silence that had fallen over the crowd, there came the telltale shift of heavy fabric as one of the elite guards left their post. Something cold and sudden shot down Johannes’s spine at the intrusion. If he'd previously prided himself on his careful resolve, its makeshift nature had never felt more obvious.

“You cannot expect much from a lenient teacher,” their kingpin started, not-yet drunk off of held power and yet all the more smug for it, “which is why, until Sauer has relearned his place, he will be yours to train instead.”

Relearned his place?! Startled, possessed by the innocent shock of a struck dog, Johannes could not help but flinch back.

It was only a moment of reaction, but, wavering unsteadily on his feet for a brief moment, it was all the evidence the Pack needed to justify supervision. Had his position disintegrated so thoroughly that he had been assigned a handler? Did they believe him to be so poorly socialised that he needed to be led back towards domestication? Surely, he could keep himself in check without the humiliation of extra observance. He was meant to give his allegiance and continue his duties like any other sworn Hound—the significance of his return was meant to be restricted to his director and the inner circle, publicly displayed only to limit slander on his good name. In all of his research, he couldn’t even hope to recognise any of the inner circle’s sentinels, let alone enough to be bound to one of them against his will.

If Johannes tilted his head just so, peering up through his eyelashes, he could just glimpse the barest hint of Komarov standing at attention. At this terrible an angle, nothing else but the other’s neatly kept shoes, polished to a shine, seemed identifiable. Komarov (was that really his name? Unlucky bastard!) remained there for a moment, several steps out of line, quiet even under scrutiny. Their leader had offered an impossible choice, and though Johannes was truthfully dubious of his new handler’s expertise, there was no better response than—“It would be my honour, sir.”

Komarov sounded as stern as his position implied, inflexion flat with a sincerity that suggested either genuine belief in the cause or complete allegiance to authority. Evidently, the other Hound had been one to sacrifice dignity for loyalty. Though Johannes himself would have stuttered at the responsibility, no such hesitation seemed audibly perceptible. It was exactly the response their kingpin sought after, likely one that’d followed both of his superiors across Troop lines.

Their kingpin continued, lighter now, mollified by such immediate trust, “I trust your judgement, you must realise, and expect better results. In my opinion, there is no guide worthier to bring one of our own to heel.”

Above his head came the continuation of negotiations, the faint whisper of branch advisors leaning over to mutter in their director’s ears, but none so distinct over his over-loud heartbeat to distinguish words despite their boldness.

If thoughts could kill, Johannes would have led a full-scale mutiny by now. Whatever powerplay this was, he’d have none of it. If their kingpin wanted to humiliate him, he’d done it so abruptly that Johannes’s summoned presence alone spoke to his internal infamy. There was no normal reason for a member of the inner circle to be called upon, not unless their kingpin sought to capitalise on weakness. Johannes was already a made man and didn’t seek any greater position than the one already protected for him—his freedom shouldn’t have been so easily promised away. Did they think he’d be forced into complacency with a fucking ghost on his heel?

Sensing his resentment—it was not so hard to do, even with his bare attempts at hiding the worst of its sharp edges— their kingpin finally addressed him once more. Called upon, Johannes glanced upwards and rose from his bow, humiliation boiling his very nerves. Deliberately, he did not look upon his new handler’s face. Komarov loomed in his peripheral vision regardless, as tall as a ghost and just as unrelenting in haunting his very existence. He stepped back into place, wordlessly, and Johannes could not help but envy him. The swinging chains of the other’s golden pin seemed to mock his dutiful submission—so close yet so far in rank, they were. Johannes had swallowed his pride in the name of appropriate conduct, but he would not give so boldly into the inner circle’s trickery as to be rewarded for defection. Call him difficult, but he’d not be anything other than stubborn when it came to loyalties.

His kingpin studied him for a moment, taking in the extent of his obedience. Glaring now at the other, the chilling taste of cold acknowledgement had mellowed into something less terrifying and more simply panoptical. “Consider this a gift, Sauer, and a favour for my predecessor. What luck you have to wander back home now—not many people have the opportunity, you must know.” And yet, despite their clear power difference, the knowing grin sent Johannes’s way was so disarmingly white and charming that it stunned a small part of him. He’d expected something cleverer than that boyish light, more akin to the men both of them were by this point, and harsher for all of its manipulation. Had he not known about the other’s controversial seizure of power, that switch-up could have won just as many hearts as his own Boss, even lacking the proper succession process. No wonder the kingpin held such sway over the Pack’s leadership.

But no, Johannes could not be so weak as to stutter at a single moment of preference, no matter how strange the praise felt on the other’s tongue. “How—” He considered, near-murderously, before biting back the taste of thinly veiled contempt in favour of bland acceptance. “generous, my liege.” Two could play the game of civility.

And yet, was his self-censorship so funny as to inspire that amount of satisfaction in his kingpin’s eyes? Though he could not prove it without protest, Johannes felt distinctly ridiculed.

Perhaps this entire act was planned from the beginning, and he, temporarily excluded as ever, had been as oblivious as ever.

Ever charismatic, their kingpin settled back against the cloak-draped boulder with a casual arm out and made a sweeping gesture towards an empty spot near his feet. “Formalities aside, come, sit! Make your acquaintances while we're still present.” Nevermind the fact that Johannes had been a member longer than half of the inner circle. “It’s been a while; you must have interesting news to share from your time away.” And though Johannes had always had a gift for embellishment, he’d expected to reoccupy his empty spot amongst his branch ranks since the day he left for the international stage—he hadn’t put much weight or effort into exploiting opportunities abroad.

Bound to cross further into the clearing, the idea of parading himself around even more, this time from the very middle of the inner circle, was nothing short of discouraging. If a few members truly did want to know more about his travels, today of all terrible days, Johannes would likely be a worse conversation partner than he normally was.

Capable of compliance though he was, he would not demean himself so much as to sit where others stood. Lowering himself—not rightfully alongside his Pack branch but as close to his kingpin as any ranked member would be allowed—Johannes sank instead into a sullen kneel, not quite defeated even upon the thin, unseasonable September snow.

Slowly, hesitatingly, the frigid atmosphere began to thaw back into its street imitation of a king’s court. With Johannes's little display finished, there was nothing else to do but adjust to the new normal and all the gossip that came with it. Conversation broke back out amongst his stranger Hounds, first a low hum, growing stronger with every unpunished moment, then enough to necessitate a few shielded remarks behind cupped hands. Already, he could pick up the scrutiny of one of the first branch’s red-headed advisors, staring as much as their kingpin. Yuri Popov, if he recalled correctly, though the other had only voluntarily offered that scrap of information once in the several years Johannes had butted heads with them to (avoid) normalis(ing) branch relations. Of all his familiars—of all the fellow upperclassmen he still knew among their ranks!—Johannes just had to have let the best ones leave in his absence. Even kneeling, wholly beneath his rank, not even approval surfaced, not when Johannes’s obedience had been so begrudging. If his peers had chosen to abandon him to the wolves, he’d not blame them.

If all had been well, things would have been different. Johannes would have been able to announce himself long before his kingpin found loyal lapdogs. His skill wouldn’t have been questioned to this extent, and he certainly wouldn’t need to demean himself so basely. In another life, had the disparity of Pack seniority adequately outshone his foolish bids for greatness, these interloping superiors would have had little more respect from him than a child unsworn.

He, who had bound himself to the Hellhounds since his earliest days at Durmstrang! Playing hard to get wouldn’t have been so terrible alongside his peers. Hell, a few of their middling members had been just as favoured by their previous leader as he, back in the day. Without competent Hound-raised candidates, the Polevik takeover had happened without a hitch. Did the gutted Polevik Troop miss their errant members, or had they dressed themselves up as so wholly Hellhound that abandonment seemed the only honourable way forward? These former outsiders may have deluded themselves into acceptance, but Johannes couldn't put aside their betrayal. Had they truly reverted to old traditions, this power play would be on his side, and he would have been the one demanding the show of competence. For his loyalty to be won over rather than the opposite would have been wonderful. A younger him would have rioted at his call for acceptable conformity, but he’d done well for himself in the safe confines of hawkish criticism.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, seniority meant little when even the lowest associates outranked him in perceived loyalty, and the simple truth of his downfall pained him too much to admit hypocrisy. Estrangement must have poisoned him, surely, if he aimed to betray his betters precisely as he allied himself. Even now, he could not yet risk making new connections, not with the inner circle's advisors listening in for any scraps of information to hold over his head during later meetings.

Lord, it had been so long since he’d engaged in such power plays of intimidation.

Was it nostalgia or deception that he had craved? This was the environment he'd been raised in, though he had not realised the terrible idiosyncrasies of his everyday life until he’d temporarily removed himself from it. Whether such barbarity remained a vestigial part of the Pack's storied past or his kingpin's once-foreign social group, he could neither tell nor defend its origins. What was he if not a black sheep marching into a lion's den? No murmurs of congratulation or pity could pierce his bubble of allegiances, but at least he’d been accepted back into the fold without greater hazing. He’d put himself into two different graves, as if both foreign and frozen soil could bury him well enough to be more than a betraying brother in arms. Hadn’t his spoils of war always been for another, though? In being granted mercy, Johannes had been disgraced.

Yet to show weakness was to admit his own incapability. Despite it all, wasn't this exactly what he'd wanted? Knelt upon the fresh snow at his kingpin's feet, though temporarily lacking any recognisable crest, Johannes still held a strange remnant of his once-favoured position. He’d been forced towards deferment, stood at attention towards even their youngest members, but had not been completely stripped of opportunity. He’d kept his title as any appointed Hound would, as if he hadn’t been accused of revealing the Pack’s secrets mere weeks before. He was not just a spectator anymore, ceaselessly watching, ever-critical and carefully sheltered under his director’s care. He’d been given responsibility years ago, when he’d first become branch guard, but, far from the smooth-talking mischief-maker of his youth, Johannes had since grown purposefully ambiguous. Distant, even. Time apart had changed everything and nothing at the same time. His silver tongue tasted nothing else but honeyed allegiance, and in the dying moments of his freedom, the watery early-evening weather had only grown darker.

The international eye had evidently made him soft, all too willing to sulk behind the dependable defence of his outside associates. The mere thought of such obvious weakness was mortifying. Perhaps a taste of societal subterfuge was what he deserved after time spent away, after the time he still intended to spend alongside the Horntail Horde without great suspicion. His newly re-pierced ear burned cold in rebellious protest. How far he’d fallen—to think that he’d once had an untamable reputation, delinquent to all authority except his leader and branch director…!

What was it worth if he had remained for the exchange of powers but not the campaigning process? What was the memory of a crown without his fellow loyalists? Despite Johannes’s stubborn allegiance to the Pack, he’d always idolised the system over the sovereign. While he was not necessarily the last of the Pack’s old guard, he was the last to convert and had certainly become the least predictable variable in his kingpin’s plans. For his Boss, he had dared to give up his wand—his single most important aspect of magical living—for just a chance at social success, and now he had all but scrambled to regain that favour. Clearly, he hadn’t gotten any smarter in the past few years if a continuation of self-destructive faith had only resulted in this. There was no wonder he’d been assigned extra supervision. He needed to remind himself of the obvious: His branch had never meant to replace the group’s coherence, only to supplement the gaps in its expansive network. There was no use in allies when the entire Pack intended to be his brothers-in-arms.

Backwards towards the once-familiar, the Pack was returning to, in a perpetual and contradictory regression of progress. No matter the ambitious claims of their leaders, they'd stay in the same place as their forefathers, the passage of time marked only by retraced lines in the dirt. Caught in the middle of it all, what more could Johannes do but work his abandoned field of duties, praying quietly for a future plentiful beyond possible measure? He had learned the careful song and dance of subordination once—he'd remember it again if only to be on stage alongside his peers.

Home, his kingpin had proclaimed. Johannes had made it home, and yet he’d never failed to recognise the foundations more.

threading as Johannes Sauer
speaking in russian unless specified

That night, notable amongst all other nights, Johannes falls into sleep with an unexpected ease that seems less a mercy and more a great mockery of restfulness.

It is not a nightmare any more than a dream or vision, but the hunger that possesses him within it is nothing but lucid. There is sin here, to dream of being wanted so badly that there’s no difference between the hunt and the hunted. He is entirely conscious and yet unable to control himself—the feeling sits upon him as familiarly uncomfortable as any withheld desire, and yet the mere thought unsettles him.

It’s the middle of the night, though he only knows it because of how fucking dark it is.

Johannes’ midnight scrapes and chronic insomnia have prepared him for most any late-night escapades, but the city's empty in a way he'd never experienced any place being. He passes empty streets and buildings without recognition, their corners blurred into indistinguishable towers of grey on black on blue, lamps—not lights, modern in a way he knows, but old-fashioned as any wizarding technology without being completely dead for magic’s sake—gleaming such beautiful, brilliant yellows that small jewels seem to float above every lightpost. Everything is vaguely fuzzy, soft and without great contrast, and whatever signs he finds are unreadable. He’s not using them to direct him right from wrong, anyway, but his over-wide range of vision and the strong winds rushing past his ears deafen him to logic nonetheless.

It’s cold—his head hurts, bizarrely—and it’s rained recently. He doesn’t remember being caught in the storm, though he's miserable enough to have probably witnessed it. Still, the flooded freshet puddling the dimly reflective stone looks new, and everything feels slightly too slippery to justify even a few hours’ reprieve. His body seems to know where he's going before he does, a strange scrape to every stray step, and all he can do is let the distant memory of repetition guide him forward.

A glint of silver catches his eye. When he turns his head, eyes burning with the effort of awareness amid a storm, there’s a glimpse of something turning a corner. It’s too frenzied for the strange calm that’d settled over him from the beginning.

The blank spaces in his memory fill like water in a glass, like the first taste of salvation in a desert, and an animalistic vindication possesses him suddenly. Yes, of course, that was right—How could he have forgotten? He’d been let free for a reason, had trusted subconsciously in familiar unfamiliarity for only as long as necessary to gather information before the real fun began. There was a monster somewhere here. There was a monster upon these streets, and he was either it or its worst nightmare. He couldn’t just let it run free; it wouldn’t be safe for anyone if he started something and didn’t finish it.

Already, there's blood on his tongue. He can't draw up its origin. Does he need to? It coats the back of his teeth, hot and sharp, but the otherwise disgusting familiarity of it all tastes strangely sweet. It’s easier to reduce everything down to instinct when he wasn’t met with the principle of his directive, but his target’s little slip-up had been enough to put things back where they belonged. Now that he’d remembered his purpose, everything made sense. Whatever that was, he needed to catch up with it before it was too late. It was not enough to stop it; he needed to solve the problem entirely.

Mind made up, he takes off running, heedless of the slick stone beneath his feet, shooting forward faster than he’d ever run without an imminent threat to his life. A left, past the stone-tower church, across a plaza ahead—there, that creature he’d seen before comes into view. So focused on its own survival, it doesn’t even look back at him, but he knows, just as it knows, the fruitlessness of escape. Together, Johannes in hot pursuit, they cut through railway crossings, leaping over empty parking blocks and ducking under holes in chain-link fences like he’s thirteen and unafraid again.

Johannes had never remembered his dreams as anything more than a long-desired leap forward in routine, but it was as if he'd had this dream, this experience before. This was not the first time he’d pursued this specific beast, and it would not be the last—he’d have it many more times again, forever, for as long as needed to pull him to the next checkpoint of approval. The phantom acknowledgement frightens him as much as it comforts. Failure is not failure as much as it is disappointment, of which Johannes had always been painfully well-acquainted, but the possibility, no matter how small, of success is enough incentive to run the never-ending wheel.

Caught up in the all-encompassing thrill of the chase, the surety of his step jolts everything but black-and-white certainty. Twice, he almost loses his chase in the starburst sea of orange lamplight. Only once, they nearly slip off the longest bridge he’d ever been on, lined on both sides with statues carved like avenging angels, and into a deep, choppy river. If he hadn’t known how to retrace another’s steps, he would have lost his way hours ago.

And yet, after what seems like forever and no time at all, his stubborn quarry begins to slow. Johannes had never been an endurance hunter—always too self-aware of his impatience, better able to hold his ground from a defensible spot— but he doesn’t even feel winded as it stumbles just out of sight. He skids after it, lurching into the open, winding alleyway with an unyielding obsession. The prospect of a beautiful, impossible escape is no longer within reach. It had never been, but Johannes had been momentarily distracted, so he’d give it a pass for its opportunism.

He's found it. It’s found him. He's lost track of how many ways a beast can scrabble at survival, but any respectable kill knows when it's finished.

His unlucky target, his pathetic prey, sat slumped against the wall, white-knuckled on the damp floor and panting with exertion. What a wretched beast, to think it’d be able to outwit him—he, who’d been sent here for only one good reason. Stalking closer, the merit of his catch becomes imminently clear to Johannes. It’s a pathetic, disturbing thing, covered in greater blood and shadow than any creature ought to be, but it was his. It’d be his until he dragged it back at the end of the night like he ought to, hopefully just whole enough to pass as acceptable to his owner, and it’d be his until he got bored with it—until the next new catch presented itself. What fun he’d have.

It’d be easy, too, now that he’d finally outmatched its resistance. The profaneness of it all was enough to make him giddy.

Between one step and another, Johannes is taller than he once was, looming over the poor wretch like a death sentence. Crowding closer to the dirty wall, colour leeches back into frame just in time for him to glimpse a stark white sash tied around the creature’s arm, emblazoned with a rippling, old-fashioned Red Cross. It’s partially draped in shadow, but the brilliant red mark of humanity catches his eye nonetheless. Hadn’t it realised that such insignia were outdated by now? A healer, then, or at least someone stupid enough to consider themselves so important as to save lives.

Something in him means to pause there. If he were any better of a man, he would have. And yet, just as a shadow of ridicule crosses him, it takes but a moment before his training kicks back in again. His attention lowers to its face, and nothing more distinguishable than a paper-blank facade greets him.

It’s inhuman and faceless, featureless except for its eyes, which remain the same dull and stone-washed grey of any dead thing, as if a mannequin or marionette without its strings. If not for the pretty white and red of that armband, it would have blended into the greyscale cityscape like any other statue on the bridge. Neck craned back, its eyes are the same as the ones he sees in the mirror every morning, though the smooth indifference that greets him is anything but familiar. It peers up at him through its lashes, as if aiming for guilelessness and managing to capture nothing else but a pale imitation of emotion. For all of his well-wielded malice, it seems strangely unrepentant, and that singular fact foretold more of a death sentence than the phantasmal orders tightening its noose.

How could he think of similarity when faced with such inhumanity? This was no man, only a beast playing God, bound not by mortality but hubris. He was better than this thing, this curse upon their fair city.

Unsettled, a reflexive sneer of derision already upon him, Johannes reaches to grab it by the collar. And yet, the creature catches his sleeve just as he pulls it from the wall. A penitent about to meet salvation, it tilts its head up, imploring, as if confessing some wordless sin. But the complete lack of mouth and sound removes every attempt at communication beyond an accusing stare. Uncomprehending, Johannes means to drag it further to its feet, but its knees buckle halfway, and the beast slumps against his shoulder in some strange imitation of support.

It's about the same height as him, though the draping way that the creature suddenly clings suggests something greater than simple similarity. It’s cold to the touch, already dead before Johannes had been tasked to retrieve it, and heavier than expected. A disgusted horror wells up in him as he tries to settle it against the alleyway wall, but it presses impossibly closer, something lifting in his peripheral. It presses the wand, turned cross, turned weapon (when did it get that? Where was his? Coward, running from a winnable fight!) to the nape of his neck, and suddenly, it is no longer prey, but a fellow predator.

The light blinds him before the pain registers, but when it does, it consumes him completely.

For all of Durmstrang’s flirtations with Stribog’s favour, Johannes had never once shared in the god’s favour, nor belief. He’s only seen the lightning scars on his Kapitäne in passing, accidentally, and he’d always been too intimidated to ask. With marks like those, no explanation was needed, and as an emergency healer at heart, he’d never been entirely certain if he wanted to know more without having been there to help.

The pain, now, feels like what he imagines lightning in a bottle to feel like.

It’s worse than betrayal, than exposure or grief, and yet all of those aspects all at once, tearing through him with the same single-minded passion that’d drawn him towards this hunt in the first place. If his head had hurt earlier, it was nothing compared to the white-hot agony exploding across his vision. It blocks out the foreign city he’d thrown himself across just earlier, the momentary satisfaction, and even the directives that had been burning in his mind all night—the ones he’d been trained towards understanding as if they were the last thing in the world to make sense.

Thoughtlessly, he throws the creature—that cunning bitch!—off of him, and it collapses with its strings cut. Its head crashes against the stone with a dash of previously unshed blood. When he stumbles backwards, hands over his ears and eyes screwed shut, the floor’s sticky, but he does not fucking care. He was not moral enough to care, not anymore. If it still lived, it could kill itself for all of its trouble, maybe finish the job for him, and he’d be free—no, that wasn’t right. He’d never be, had never once been, free. This wasn’t meant to be a ticket out, just another notch on the post, another hopeful bid towards external approval.

Dear lord, fuck, it burns—! Something desperate and gnashing possesses him then, a howling, wild thing that cannot help but recoil at something greater than himself.

It isn’t until the ringing in his ears overwhelms him that he wakes with a strangled gasp, one hand gripped over the junction of his throat in some belated recapture of safety.

Fuck, none of that was real. A dream, or maybe a vision of what was to come. The ambiguity of it throws a chill down his spine.

He’d never had a night terror like that before. They’d only ever been gradual and disturbing, always just off enough to unsettle him for the rest of the day and night, but never anything similar to that. His throat felt tight, choked—thick with a strange, terrible grief that stung his eyes and drew phantom pains over the centre of his chest. Whether such pain was towards the fate of another or his own, he wasn't entirely certain. Behind the stinging aftermath of phantom memories loomed an overwhelming numbness, as if all the adrenaline had flooded from him too early and left him hollow. For all the pain that had assailed him in his dream(?), he feels strangely empty.

Whatever mission he'd been put on, whether by his own or another's hand, he'd failed so thoroughly that the disappointment followed him into the waking world. He’d been so close to securing that bitter, beautiful success, and yet—! He should have disarmed that fucker when he still could, instead of giving it the chance (the confusing, too-clever chance) to get the jump on him. One would think he’d learn by now not to teach an old dog new tricks, not when he’d refused to change for so long. There’d be no difference if he were 12 or 21, stupidly naive and unable to imagine his future except for the worst parts, and even then with cryptic incomprehension. If he could have done it all over again, he would have been more diligent or perhaps simply less trusting.

Next time. Surely there’d be a next time.

The bare floor is cold when he pulls himself out of bed, shaken, stumbling unsteadily over his own feet to close the open window. Why did he open it in the first place? Durmstrang’s fucking cold at night, and Johannes had always run hot enough to prefer drowning the discomfort in layers. His roommate hadn’t opened it when he was asleep, for all of the—he pauses to check the clock, squinting— three hours he’s managed to doze off. The other student, a stranger for all their knowledge of each other, likely wouldn’t wake until morning, and for that he was grateful.

In the dead of night, the greyed silhouette and tangled blankets seem softened by familiarity—true familiarity, in the way Johannes knew where to step before he did so, in how he recognised the layout of his area like the back of his hand, no matter the location. It smells vaguely like smoke, though probably from a blown-out candle rather than any real concern.

He leans out the window a little before turning to close it. There’s no lingering afterimage of light, no matter what his memory tries to tell him. Instead, though he never expected otherwise, it's pitch black outside. The moon’s under cloud-cover, and, this far out into Durmstrang's open wilderness, there’s not a single light to pollute the clouded skies. It’s not even developed out there, and only a distant blanket of snow greets him. It’s so far down the tower that he only knows it's there because he’d been outside earlier. If he hadn’t grown up in the city, he would have never known how advanced humanity could be, how ever-present life was. It’d never be like it was in his dream, with every leech-like city abandoned. So urbanised, he was, to still dream big when he’d been made so small earlier just that day. So conditioned, he’d become, to feel such fear only when cornered.

His mouth still tastes like blood. When he curiously lifts a hand to touch his teeth—to make sure he still has them instead of that stark, faceless mirror, and to ensure they hadn’t somehow shifted sharper than usual—he finds that it's under his nails, too.