As we walk in silence, the memories of my dream tease me. My head develops a dwindling fuzz in my efforts to concentrate on the forest around me, anything to distract myself enough. Though, nothing seems to be working as the only thoughts that occupy my mind are of my mother's face. Her voice.

"If this is about why I was outside, I'm telling you that I'm fine." Though, the lie emits with a hint of stuttering. I'm not even able to believe my own words as they utter through my mouth.

"Serelia," Caesar halts in his tracks. There's a slight tug in his grip as he turns to look back at me, a soft smirk pressing on his lips as his eyes peer along my face. There's a suggestion of levity in his eyes as he further purses his lips closed together, knowing he caught me in my weak attempt of a lie. His thumb fiddles over my own as he thinks of what to say. "You tend to forget I have the ability to hear what you're thinking," he confronts, though his voice is gentle as he speaks. "Besides," he spins back around and pulls on my hand for us to keep moving. "Even if that wasn't the case, you and I both know better than to believe that."

My feet drag deeper through the soil with the more trees we pass. The scent of wet grass and leaves fill my noise the further we trek uphill. Fireflies shine through thin blades of grass and overhead between the empty gaps between the trees. The moonlight breaks through where it can. It's luminescence showering faint teardrops of light, leaping over my skin. There's a faint song of crickets and the cracking of branches in the distance. The cool air sends my skin in shivers, a breeze that only strengthens the higher up we move.

It isn't until there is nowhere physically left for us to walk before Caesar finally stops. My lungs suck in a gasp as I take in the view ahead.

No longer surrounded by trees or dirt, we stand high up on a suspended cliff. A painted navy sky reveals a serene night, the radiance of the moon now clear and at eye-level. Its waning presence is like a giant eye starting down upon us, each creator visible as if looking through a telescope. The stars splatter about, some burning brighter and forming a series of shapes throughout the sky's canvas, a series of stories. My eyes follow along the patterns, silently naming the constellations as I make them out. Scorpius, Centaurus, Libra, Lupus...

Inching closer to the edge, I peer down to see only a silhouette of greens. Trees standing like noble giants far below, their sway with a hushed whistling as their limbs fork out in every direction. A faint glint of water can be seen running through a path below, separating the trees as the further along my eyes follow, the slow rapids bloom into a river that swims between the rocks and grit beside.

Taking a few steps back, attempting to gain a stable stance on the jagged rock, my eyes —where the world breaks in two.

"Tell me what you're thinking."

"Shouldn't you already know?" I keep my eyes looking ahead. Caesar's presence creeps closer behind me.

"Perhaps," his eyes pierce into my back and I can feel his hesitation to draw closer, so instead, he watches me from a slight distance. It would only take one or two steps backwards for my body to be pressed right against his. Even here, his protection for me never falters. Ready in case I were to slip. "I'd rather hear it coming from you."

"Honestly?" In his silence, I turn, so rather than seeing the world ahead, I'm looking at him. "I'm not sure anymore."

"It's not unsureness that stops you. You have the answers residing within you, but something is stopping you from admitting them. Not just to me now, but to yourself."

"I don't- I can't-" Words boil inside, struggling to find a voice that can speak them into existence. "I'm not sure if I can do this. Any of this."

Guilt burns alongside those unspoken words. Guilt about every moment I claimed my mother was crazy, dismissing her entirely from my life. The guilt of when I heard Caesar calling for me in the forest. Him lying on the ground, me unable to save him. That deepening wound of not knowing how I can possibly save everyone.

Caesar takes a step closer, my gaze only able to peer onto him. The wind dries the unfallen tears that brim.

"It wasn't your fault. Nothing has been your fault. None of what's happened now and before. Everyone, we all knew the battles that would be faced long before your arrival here. We are in a war, death is inevitable and-" My eyes shut as he speaks, that darkened thought of more people having to die is another nightmare I don't want to endure. A heated breath exhales from my nose, my head shakes as it droops low. Those unfallen tears begin to sting, forcing my eyelids together and never wanting to part. A gentle warmth presses against my chin. A light nudge lifting my head upwards, his gaze compelling my eyes open. As my eyelids peel from one another, the tears finally spill.

"It wasn't your fault," he repeats, emphasizing each word. His face inches from my own, pulling the breath from my lungs. "Serelia, you are not alone. Not in any battle or obstacle. Never again in this lifetime and any other one will you be alone."

"But-"

"No," he doesn't allow me to interrupt. "We are by your side in this battle. Your father, Verena, Meg, every Lupi in this pack will stand beside you in this war and long after."

"And you? Are you there besides me?"

A soft smile tugs at the corners of his lips. "Yes, I'm there. That's one thing you never have to doubt. That is how we're going to win against the Crimson Children, by trusting one another and moving forward, one step at a time"

His thumb lifts off of my chin only to push back a stray hair from my face. He tucks it behind my ear, but his touch lingers along my cheek. "Despite what you think or say, you are not some broken doll. You're strong. Too strong to let all that you are afraid of hold you back from who you are meant to be."

"And if I'm not sure yet? Of who I'm meant to be."

"You will." That's it. That is all he has to say, yet his confidence is steady with those two simple words. And the way he's looking at me now. His eyes, almost consuming me as undoubted hope sparks behind their hazel color.

Caesar grows silent with those final words, as do I. All there is in this moment is him, his hand pressed on the side of my face, our eyes locked together, and me.

A heat begins to rise beneath my skin. Goosebumps prickle across my arm, but not from the crisp bite of the night air. His hand is gentle against my skin, an unnerving flush stirs beneath his touch. An unsettling impulse beats beneath my chest with the quick thumps of my heart. The wolf is yelling at me with noiseless words, driving me from within. At least I hope it's the wolf. It has to be what's wanting to inch closer to him. Compelling me closer to him. To reach for his hand from atop my face, or to feel the beating of his chest. A thumping pressures against my eardrums, an unsteady rhythm playing. A soft melody that I can't tell belongs to my heart, or his.

My thoughts fade away the longer I look into Caesar's eyes. Only one left that I can hear. I don't want Caesar to look away. I don't ever want to look away.

There's a shift in his eyes, a realization that masks behind the shadows of his face and the dim gleam of the moon's light. His hand falls from my cheek and he breathes out a slight sigh that warms my skin for a brief moment. Shadows darken over his face and he straightens, his body towering over mine, but the heat of his body grows colder as he stiffens. It's as if a switch flicked within him, that intensity that lied behind his stare hardening into the stoic soldier he is.

Snapping out of the dazed trance he casted me into, I move closer to the cliff's edge and lower myself until I'm sitting. With nothing below my feet than a chilled air, I allow myself to become enchanted by the surroundings.

"Why did you bring me here?" Here being a world in between. A forest behind me, a forest in front of me, yet they are so different. The one behind holds danger and death. Its soil holds the blood of those who have fallen and the screams of those who have suffered. The one ahead holds mystery, holds the unknowing, and therefore I believe that it is full of magic and wonderment. Maybe flowers that shine like neon and some of the other creatures I was told of. Fairies and animals other than wolves. Then here we are, in the inbetween. "Of all places, why here?"

"That is another answer your mind should already possess."

My eyes jump around, counting the countless trees ahead. A lively laugh echoing from atop this extending rock. A true moment of cheerfulness despite how somber the night is. "Will I ever be able to ask you something that comes with a simple answer? Or should I be prepared to always have to decode everything you say?"

A quick laugh sounds from Caesar, but is one that just as quickly fades. "Wolves are fierce beings, wild and courageous creatures free from all that could hold us back. And we fight for our own until our last dying breath without fail. Though, as Lupi, one of our biggest faults is that we can never admit to the pain. You have your unsureness of this life, of being one of us, yet you hold this trait that so many bear. Though you sit here now, it wasn't so long ago that you would have jumped."

A memory skips in my brain. Finding my way into the forest, the wolf attacking yet never killing me. The moments before, wanting to find the edge of a world. Of jumping off of the edge of the world.

"You were there?" The words strain from my voice, a slight croak as the recollection strikes. How broken I was before discovering this world. How broken I still am even in this world. How long it's been since I lived in that world.

Another realization strikes and I open my mouth to speak again for an answer I'm not sure I want, but one that I need. "Were you the wolf that chased me? The one from that day?"

"Yes." The word sounds easy from Caesar. Bewilderment fills in both my eyes and heart as I snap my head to face him.

"What? Why? Why would you do that? Why would you attack me?" The questions spurt from my mouth. That single word of confirmation repeating in my head, unable to process that he was the one who chased me that day. Despite my panic, his expression is unwavering.

"It wasn't an attack," he collectively justifies, still unnerved as he speaks. "I was protecting you."

"Protecting me?" I attempt to move away from him, but his eyes hold me in place. I need to wait, to stay here and hear whatever else he has to say. "You attacked me. How is that supposed to be protection?" Has he been playing me this entire time? What reason would he have to do that to me? Then with everything we've been through after that. My mind can't unravel, spiraling as the questions only continue. "I don't understand, how is that protection? Protection from what?"
"From yourself," he says, growing silent again. The questions in my mind hush and I don't open my mouth to speak further. I need him to say more. "Your thoughts, everything you were thinking on that day," he pauses, his face finally faltering as I can see his eyes shift across. As if he's trying to think of the right words next. "In that moment, if you did reach some cliff... would anything have stopped you from truly jumping?"

Yes. I would have stopped.

Or at least that's what I want to believe. To be able to tell myself. But even the deepest conscious of my being knows that if those words came out of my mouth, they would be false. I know that at that moment, I would have jumped with no hesitation. Even now, I can imagine myself running on that day, reaching the end of the world and still creeping closer until there was nothing but air beneath me. Dying before I could even touch the ground.

That day processes in my mind, how things would have turned out differently if he wasn't there. How I wouldn't be here now if I kept running. Knowing that it was me who was the biggest danger in that moment, not the wolf inside of me, and not the monster I believed was lurking in the shadows. Well, not a monster that wanted to kill me. That was all me.

"And so you saved me." He's always saved me. Even from me.

As the thought crosses my mind, he shifts slightly from where he sits. There's a brush of his hand near mine and his heat further envelopes me. The scent of pine and cinnamon masking over the cool air of the forest. In a quick glimpse up to him, I see a soft smile pressed on his lips, though he doesn't say anything and only looks ahead now.

Did he hear me right now? My thoughts?

"Just..." I again move to be closer to Caesar, my arm further brushing against his. "Don't do it again. Don't scare me like that." The sentence plays off of my tongue with a lighthearted warning.

"No promises, Doll." There's an ease in his words, almost one of relief, as if he himself was worried about my reaction to the truth. Did he think I would no longer trust him if I knew? Is that why he wanted only till now to tell me?

"I thought I wasn't a doll. At least according to you?" I tease in a subtle attempt to show him that everything is okay. Showing me that everything is okay.

His smile grows slightly, a soft chuckle at my words. His head turns so he is again looking in my direction. "I said you weren't some broken doll. You will always be my doll."

With a growing smile, I bend my elbow and pull my arm slightly so that it hits him in his ribs.

The silence threatens to overcome the still winds. Another look of puzzlement crosses over Caesar. "Do you want this life?" He almost whispers the question, almost low enough that I didn't hear them. But I did.

"What do you mean?" I know exactly what he means, but still a part of me hopes that I'm wrong. That I misheard him or that there's some other alternative meaning behind his question.

"You're scared. Of the future to come, of failing. You told me you're not sure if you could do this. If you didn't need to be here, if this wasn't all part of some grand scheme and you had any choice, would you want this life?"

"But I don't have any of those choices. Even so, how could I go back to the life I lived before now even if I did want to?" I answer, a muffled plea to change the subject. Is it because you're unsure of the answer, or scared of what that answer is?

"Then humor me." Even if he is listening to my thoughts, to my pleas, he persists.

"I don't know. Yes... No..." My head turns to look at my feet, at the world below this rock instead of the one ahead. In the few short seconds of gathering my thoughts, I try to think of my answer. Before I can fully process, words begin to spill out. "I don't know. I wish I did. I wish I could say either yes or no and mean it. Yes I want this life. That there's nothing I would change and know in heart, mind, and soul that this is exactly where I am meant to be with certainty. But I also know how scared I am. How almost every fiber of my being is terrified all of the time of what's happened and what is still yet to come. I can't remember a time when I wasn't this scared, even before coming here." There's another pause between my words as they begin to come more easily. Not an answer to his question, but an answer nonetheless. "All I know is that, even in any choice or opportunity I may be given, I would never erase what I know now. I wouldn't want a memory where everything from this life that I've learned about and been through is gone completely. I wouldn't want to live a life where I didn't know you. Where I never got to discover who I am."

"And if you were still in your life from before, what would that look like right now? What would you want?"

"Again, I'm not sure. I can't really even remember what my life was like before. I didn't really have much of one to begin with, after the accident. I think some part of me always knew that the life I had before wasn't true. That there was something missing. Though, I guess that missing part became normal enough that I was able to ignore it. I don't want to ignore that part anymore. I think I used to imagine that one day I would ask Meg for a job at Mamma's, maybe one day opening my own diner. Perhaps graduating, going to college. Finding that whole white-picket fence life others always seem to go on about."

"You know, you say you don't know who you are yet, but I do. I know you, Serelia."

"And what do you know about me?" I bite my tongue awaiting his answer, unsure if I should be scared or not of his response.

"I guess it will be another answer you'll have to decode for yourself," he smirks as his gaze shifts ahead. "But I will tell you that I know you the same way I know it is you who is going to end this war."

"And if I don't? If I fail?"

"I'm willing to take every chance on you."

"Why? Why me?"

"Put it this way. If you ever did try to jump off of the cliff, I will be there to catch you. Always."

"Strangely, I don't doubt that for a second."

As his gaze keeps ahead, I follow his line of sight to see the sun beginning to peak above a mountain range that reveals itself with the morning light. Blues and pinks bleeding into the black of the night. The stars become replaced by clouds that stretch as wide as the forest. The water of the river is still streaming, a serene song with the notes of some chirping birds and the hoots of a lonesome owl.

Just like being between the two differing forests, night and day are broken by one another. One not fully present because of the other. It's probably only been a few hours since we've been here, time here feels nonexistent. We could have been up here forever, lifetimes passed, and I wouldn't have cared.

"I'm scared," the word breathes out of me before I can realize. "I'm scared of having to fight this monster when I can barely fight the one within me. The one inside of my head."

"I'm scared too," his reply surprises me and there's a wondering of what he means before he goes on. "I was terrified when your father ordered me to finally bring you here to the forest. When I thought you were going to die and I couldn't stop it. I'm afraid that all that is evil within these worlds will always expand until there is nothing left to fight for. Nothing good at least, nothing worth fighting for. What scares me most is that when the world comes to its end, it'll be because I failed."

"How do you deal with it? The fear." I almost beg the answer out of him, desperation lining with the words.

"I wish I knew. I try to remind myself that life isn't about running away or jumping off of the cliffs we come across. It's instead taking these moments to realize the beauty that awaits beyond them. Aside from that, I guess it's something we'll have to figure out together."

An airy sigh breaths out past my lips. Tiredness begins to fill my being, I slouch sideways. My shoulder presses against Caesar's arm, my head following as it leans against his shoulder. I allow myself to feel completely safe with him. "Can we start to figure it out tomorrow? Tonight, for a minute, I want to watch the sun rise without thinking of what is going to happen tomorrow." Without wondering how many tomorrows I have left. I want nothing more than to let this here be my world for as long as possible, where time is limitless and my nightmares can't follow me way up here. I send my silent wish up into the universe.

His body relaxes under my weight, his own head dropping so that it rests on mine. A matching sigh exhales out of his nose. "Whenever you're ready, Doll."

***

-Xxx