Long traveled westward into the mist-shrouded ravine, where even the wind fell silent. Here the Qi of the land felt broken - currents of energy twisted unnaturally as if some unseen force had rent the fabric of the world. Gnarled trees lined the narrow path, their roots curling out of crumbling rock like grasping fingers. Between them hung a gauzy haze that clung to Long's skin and filled his lungs with damp cold. He walked carefully, each step measured, the only sound the soft crunch of dead leaves beneath his boots. In the stillness, tension coiled around him, heavy and oppressive; it was the hush of a place long forsaken by sunlight and laughter, a place where shadows seemed to breathe of their own accord.
As Long ventured deeper, he could not shake the sense of wrongness in the air. The mist moved oddly, as if alive - swirling in one moment to form ghostly shapes that vanished the next. His instincts prickled. Something was off. He paused and closed his eyes, extending his awareness. Through the ragged Qi, he felt... fractures, gaps of emptiness like silent cries in a song. An uneasy shiver ran through him. This ravine had seen blood or sorcery - perhaps both. Yet he pressed on, drawn by an urge he could not name, as though the ravine itself called to some lost piece of him.
Suddenly, a sound echoed from somewhere ahead - a thin, keening cry that slipped beneath the moan of the wind. It was faint at first, nearly swallowed by the sigh of the mist, but unmistakably there. Long halted. The cry came again, this time clearer: a high, mournful wail that was not human, yet not any animal he knew. It resonated with an eerie timbre, like sorrow given voice, something in pain or despair. Long's heart clenched at the sound. In its mournfulness he sensed an emotion he recognized loneliness… desperation.
He found his feet moving before his mind decided. Leaving the faint path, he turned toward the source of the cry, stepping over a tumble of wet rocks and into the thicker brush. The world became a blur of greys; the mist here was denser, blurring the outlines of twisted pines and jagged boulders. Thorns dragged at his robes. Long hardly noticed the scratches etching across his forearms as he pushed through a thicket. The cry had quieted to a whimper, but it tugged at him, an invisible thread pulling him off-course and deeper into the gloom.
Beneath a crooked cedar whose roots snarled over a slope, Long glimpsed a flash of white against the brown earth. He hurried closer. There, half-crushed under a fallen branch, lay a small white wolf cub. Its fur, which should have been snowy, was matted with mud and dark, drying blood. One of its forelegs was pinned awkwardly by the heavy limb. The cub snarled weakly as Long approached, baring tiny fangs. One of its eyes was swollen shut, and fresh blood trickled from a gash above its brow, dripping onto the ground. The other eye - a bright, piercing amber - fixed on Long with a mixture of terror and defiance.
Long sucked in a sharp breath. In that single golden eye, cloudy with pain, he saw something familiar... a fierce will to live, edged with fear. It was like looking into a mirror of his own soul. He too was wounded by a past he only half remembered, trapped by circumstances beyond his control. In the cub's desperate snarl, Long heard echoes of a cry long buried within himself. A strange kinship resonated between man and beast in that moment - two lonely souls meeting in a realm of mist and ghosts.
Crouching slowly, Long extended his hands to show he meant no harm. The cub snapped its jaws, a feeble warning. Long did not flinch. He knew a cornered creature's fear all too well. The branch pinning the little wolf was a gnarled length of pine, likely fallen from the cedar above during a storm or struggle. The cub tried to tug its leg free but whimpered sharply, trembling with exhaustion and pain. Long's eyes darted around the ravine floor, alert for any sign of the cub's pack or the predator that had done this. A chill prickled his neck at the thought, if this was a cub, its mother - or something far worse - could be nearby.
He hesitated. His rational mind screamed caution. Where there is a cub, a protective mother might not be far, and few things are more dangerous. Alternatively, whatever wounded this young wolf could still be stalking the fog. Long's gaze swept the shadows between the trees, searching for movement, for the gleam of eyes or the slink of a silhouette in the mist. Nothing - only silence and an uneasy stillness. Still, the sense of threat gnawed at him.
Yet as he looked back to the whimpering cub, ribs heaving with each labored breath, Long felt another pull - deeper than fear, deeper than reason. Perhaps it was the faint pulse of his own fragmented soul reacting, or simply compassion overpowering caution. He could not abandon this creature to its fate. Some part of him, buried and ancient, would not let him walk away.
In a low, soft voice he spoke, scarcely more than a whisper carried on the fog "I'm not your enemy." The words drifted out of him naturally, surprising him. How long had it been since he had spoken to anyone, anything, with such gentleness? The cub's ear twitched at the sound of his voice. It growled still, but quieter now, uncertain.
Slowly, Long slipped a hand under the heavy branch. His palm pressed into cold mud as he tested the weight. The branch was solid and twisted, heavier than it looked, but Long felt a flicker of strength stir within him - a scant ember of his former power, perhaps. Muscles coiled in his arms, and with a measured breath he heaved the branch upward. For a moment it resisted, then yielded with a crackle of splintered wood and damp bark. Long tossed it aside, away from the cub.