Stories from RhyDin & The Rings

Sunday. December 2, 2018
10:27 AM Rhydin Standard Time
Local Weather: 15°C, Sunny

The first thing I notice are the trees, everywhere. Claustrophobia kicks in immediately. I’ve never seen so many trees in my life and they’re surrounding me, looming and pressing in from all sides. I can’t breathe, which is ironic because there’s all this oxygen being made all around me. I’m not used to so much of it, though, and it makes my lungs seize. I’m hyperventilating, starting to get dizzy, feeling feverish.

That’s the second thing I notice. It’s so warm. The parka, hat, gloves, boots, and layers I’m bundled up in is too much. There’s absolutely no trace of the freak snowstorm that hit us last night. I’m kneeling in a bed of dried leaves that crinkle and crunch underfoot as I stand up. I yank off my hat and then my gloves, stuffing the latter into the former, and unzip my coat.

Where is everybody?

“Cyril?” He's the first one I call out for. Panic is making my heart pound furiously. Last I remember he was standing right beside me. Right as the wall of snow swept over us I remember grasping hands.

Now I don't see him. I turn in frantic, frightened circles and I don't see anyone. All I see are trees and trees and trees and it's making my head spin.

“Felix.” I stop. He's there, right there in front of me, clutching me by the arms to make me cease turning round and round. When our eyes lock I can breathe again. Even though I see the same panic written in his gaze, I feel a hundred times more calm

And that's when I remember my sister.

“Xia-Marie?” Fixing a tight grip on Cyril's arms tells him I've come back to my senses and he lets me go. We turn away from each other, back to back, and search together.

“I haven't seen her,” he tells me over his shoulder.

A sharp, resounding bark that echoes through the trees has our heads snapping toward the east. Danger! Other! Wrong! We both take off at a run. Out of the corner of my eye I see Cyril explode, his clothing and skin and bones absorbed and reshaped mid-stride to take the form of a large but lean grey wolf. He moves much faster this way. We both do; I shift as well.

Cyril has outpaced me by a dozen yards by the time I reach the source of the alarm. I see him trotting up to a grizzled old white wolf standing protectively over the curled figure of a young human girl, not yet a teenager. The two wolves greet one another, muzzles smearing together. Cyril’s teeth graze the old wolf’s ragged ear.

All around us, other wolves lope into the clearing to join us, bringing our number to eight in total, plus one human girl. Everyone accounted for. I lower myself in their presence, crouching with my underbelly to the forest floor and crawl over to my baby sister. She sits up when I reach her, slender arms looping around the mane of white fur at my neck.

“Where are we?” Xia’s thready whisper ruffles my fur. I whine at her in response. She hugs me tighter.

The rest of the pack is too restless. They are all of them pacing back and forth, communicating too rapidly for me to keep up. The clearing stinks of their pheromones, but the chaos of eight voices overlapping is quickly silenced by a howl which commands their immediate attention.

In the absence of the Daimyo, another wolf steps into the role of leader. His muddled grey coat mirrors Cyril’s in stark contrast to the rest of the pack’s arctic coloring. When Takeshi shifts back to his human form, the rest of the wolves follow suit, one by one -- everyone but Grandfather, who stands guard beside my sister, and Eska, who breaks away from the rest of us to investigate the perimeter. I’m the last to shift, and the first thing I do is remove my jacket. Several of the others are in the process of doing the same.

“Does anyone know what happened?” Our new Alpha, Takeshi Dufour, looks calmly from one face to another. While not the biggest man, nor the oldest at twenty-one, he is the most clever, and well suited to his new role.

“No,” Cyril replies definitively. That much had been communicated before shifting back to our homid forms. “A sudden storm, wind so loud I couldn’t even scream to be heard.”

“The sky was green.”

“An aurora,” Rosalie answers Hunter, tying her dark hair up so it’s off the back of her neck. “That was the last thing I saw before the snow.”

“There was an earthquake,” I add. I slide into place beside Cyril and cross my arms to hug myself. He flashes a smile at me and claps a hand onto my shoulder, kneading gently.

“I remember the ground opening up and a wall of snow coming at me like a freight train. Next thing I knew, I was standing here surrounded by trees,” Cy finishes.

The others nod, murmuring in agreement, having had similar experiences. Quivering, Xia shoves herself between my chest and my arms. I give up hugging myself to hold her tight instead. That there’s no helpful information etches a tiny frown onto Takeshi’s face.

Silence swallows the clearing for one long minute, maybe more. The return of Eska to the group stirs Takeshi from the deep mode of thought none of us dared interrupt. She trots in a circle around Takeshi’s legs, her tilted ears and hanging tail communicating a relaxed disposition.

“We need to figure out where we are before we do anything else. The woods are safe. Eska and Fang can continue to scout ahead as we make our way out of… wherever it is we are. Once we get our bearings, we can make a plan to get back where we belong.”


Co-written with Bad Dog.

1:19 PM Rhydin Standard Time

“Shut your mouth; you look like a tourist,” Rosalie hisses.

I can’t help it. None of us can really help the gawking. There are people everywhere and the buildings are packed tightly together. Most of them are made of brick or stone. I’m pretty sure the streets are too. It’s like we’ve wandered into a medieval metropolis. The people are dressed in such an odd variety of styles that I get the feeling we’ve stumbled upon one of those action adventure theme parks. I don’t hear any joyous screams or rumble of roller coasters, though. And nobody seems the least bit fazed that there are a couple of wolves walking with us either.

“What is this place?” Of course it’s my wiser little sister who asks the question we’re all too stunned to ask. Maybe she feels bravest because she’s clutching Grandfather’s ruff and caged in the protective circle of the rest of us.

“It smells,” Rosalie complains.

“I beg to differ.” Cyril’s gaze snags on a candied nut vendor. A wrinkled, old lady shakes a striped paper bag full of piping hot walnuts at him.

“Five coppers,” she sings. “They’re fresh!”

“They smell wonderful,” Cyril replies diplomatically. “But no, thank you. Not today.”

As we move past the old woman and her cart, Cy glances my way significantly.

“Coppers?” I ask. Cyril shrugs.

“It must be the local currency,” Takeshi comments. He’s maddeningly level-headed given the circumstances. His reason only warrants my little sister’s next obvious question.

“Where are we?”

“Rhydin,” Takeshi says.

Three of us, in unison, say, “What?”

“How do you know that?” Xia asks snottily.

Takeshi comes to a stop, so we all do the same. He points. We follow the line of his finger. There, hanging from a large building in the middle of some kind of central square is a banner, reading, Rhydin Welcome Center.

Cyril grins. “That was easier than I thought it would be.”

“How can you be so pleasant?” Rosalie scowls, folding her arms across her chest.

“I’m always pleasant,” he counters smoothly.

At the back of the line it’s easy to mask my smile, but out of habit I duck my head and hope that no one sees. They don’t, of course, because nobody’s looking at me. Nobody ever looks at me.

“Could you maybe tone it down a notch or three?” she snaps. She’s wound up like a guitar string, practically thrumming with tension. “Some of us are pretty freaked out right now.”

Cyril’s expression softens and he loops an arm around her waist, drawing her in close against his side. “It’s going to be fine, Rose.” Being his sweetly affectionate self, he feathers a kiss on her temple. “We’re going to get through this. Being miserable won’t help anyone. Relax.” He whispers the final instruction and it’s enough to bleed some of the suspense from her slim, athletic frame.

She rearranges their pose and latches onto his arm instead, keeping close as they follow Takeshi into the building. Before he disappears inside, Cyril glances over his shoulder. Mischievous eyes dance from one face to another before finding mine. He locks gazes with me longer than the rest.

I’m the last one inside, hurrying after them once I manage to unstick myself from the street. Passing over the threshold of this place fills me with a chill. It’s so foreign and different. I can hardly take it all in. With a shudder I bump into Charlie’s back. He grunts and mutters a “watch it” at me. I swallow down an apology and step to the side an inch, giving him back his space.

We must look as lost as we feel because we’re immediately approached by a perky female with bubblegum pink hair and a friendly, hundred megawatt smile.

“Welcome to Rhydin!” She’s wearing a nametag that reads Skylar. The color of her eyes matches her hair and I’m pretty sure her skin has a faint lilac hue. Xia’s mouth falls open as she stares at her, we all do, but she seems to take this in stride. She puts her hands on her hips and after looking us over, says, “Don’t tell me. You have no idea how you got here, and worse yet: you don’t even know where here is. Am I right?”

We all nod as one.

Skylar brings her hands together in a soft clap. “Happens all the time!” she says brightly. “Come with me.”

We shuffle through the room, bumping our way to a cubicle with a small desk covered in paperwork. Skylar proceeds to educate us on our new surroundings, and provides us with a collection of freebies, including a bag full of unfamiliar coins and an armload of pamphlets. By the time we shuffle out with a guide, also provided by the Center, my head is spinning faster than it was before. It’s all I can do to keep up.


Co-written with Bad Dog.

3:52 PM Rhydin Standard Time

Our guide leads us to a boarding house in an even more run down and ancient looking section of the city. The air is so humid I feel like I’m swimming. I can hear the echo of waves crashing and smell the stink of fish and salt. The sea must be nearby. Bells clamor. A foghorn blares.

“The harbor is just a few blocks away to the west,” our guide explains. “Here’s Mrs. Nagy.”

Sometimes it’s a blessing being the tallest of our group. Even from the back of our clustered bunch I can see the gray hair done up in a tight bun. The woman is short and old with dark skin that’s shriveled and extremely wrinkled. She may even be older than Grandfather.

The old woman and the guide exchange polite greetings and he explains to her our situation. Her head bobs up and down as she takes it all in. Takeshi gives her a voucher provided to us by the Welcome Center. She snatches it out of his grasp with a harrumph, quickly reads it, and then looks up to assess each and every one of us in turn.

“I’ll have no trouble,” she says immediately. “There’s nine of yeh here, two of which is mongrels.” Eska bares her teeth. Hunter puts his hand on her head to keep her from growling. Grandfather lolls his tongue, making him look just silly enough that it’s hard for me to suppress a laugh. It comes out sounding like a sneeze. Mrs. Nagy mutters a reflexive “bless you.”

Looking sideways, I notice Cyril grinning at me. He shakes his head and I can’t help but grin back, amused. My attention wanders the minute he looks away. The old woman prattles on about the rules. I hardly pay attention, sure that Takeshi will repeat them all back to us verbatim. I won’t be surprised if he hand writes them and pastes it to the wall for us to read and recite daily.

The boarding house is an old wooden structure with broken shingles. Mrs. Nagy leads us up one flight of creaking stairs, past four doors, and up another rickety staircase to the attic. It’s the largest room in the house, she explains, and apologizes if it’s a bit drafty.

Our new home is one large, long room with two round windows, one at either end facing east and west. A single cast iron wood burning stove is bolted to the floor in the middle of the room. The floorboards creak as we all walk across them, spreading out to stake our territorial claims. Grandfather flops onto the floor against the south wall where he can see the stairs. Xia tucks into the great old wolf’s space and leans against him. He licks her cheek reassuringly.

Mrs. Nagy tells us that the first door on the left back down the stairs is the communal washroom. She explains there is a posting and encourages us to sign our names to time slots. Hot water is limited and therefore she restricts the entire house to no more than three washings a day. We are responsible, she also informs us, of emptying our own chamber pots. The revelation of what that means disgusts Rose the most, I think, but my little sister looks a little pale as well.

“The lodging voucher pays for the first month’s rent and that’s it,” Mrs. Nagy tells us pointedly. Sensing the leadership vibes coming off of Takeshi, she fixes most of her stern attention on him. She tells him the monthly fee. Payment is expected on the first of the month, every month; our first payment will be due in January. “One day late and you’re out on the streets. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Takeshi defers politely.

Xia giggles. It’s a quiet thing, but the sound of it carries through the room like a bell. I turn my head to find that Cyril has taken to perfectly mimicking Mrs. Nagy behind her back, right down to her crooked, old woman posture and tremulous gesticulating. He mirrors her facial expressions with exaggerated style, managing to alleviate the heavy strain of tension if only for a moment.

I find it really hard to contain laughter myself. I have to bite my lip and hug my arms tight around my chest, holding my breath.

Rightfully suspicious, our landlady twists around to investigate the source of the laugh. Both Xia and Cyril sober themselves in an instant, leaving Mrs. Nagy to wonder dubiously. Cy stands there like an angel with his attention fixed on the woman, utterly rapt. Grandfather lifts his chin to lick Xia’s face and she giggles again. My laughter escapes, sounding again like a sneeze.

“Bless yeh, child. Heavens. I hope yeh’re not contagious.” I stifle another laugh and this one sounds like a cough. Takeshi is shooting eye daggers at Cyril for his antics, but I can only smile. When Mrs. Nagy turns her back on them to resume rattling off rules at the rest of us, Cyril flashes a wink at Xia for being his partner in crime.

By the time she leaves, everyone has already chosen a spot on the floor, and marked their territory with discarded coats. Anything close to the wood burning stove has been claimed. Rose has drawn an imaginary line down on the east side of the room by the stairs, and is telling us that once we get some curtains hung up that’s to be the girls room. Eska flops down against the wooden balustrade near her, guarding the only entrance and exit a bit more pointedly than Grandfather.

Everyone seems to be taking our new situation in stride. I don’t know how even I’m remaining so calm. Inside, I’m screaming.

“We’re going to need some money to buy curtains,” Takeshi says pointedly to Rose. He jangles the pouch of coins the girl at the welcome center gave us, sneering slightly. “I’m not sure how long this is going to last us, or how long we’re going to be here, but we should probably plan ahead and figure out how we’re going to make an income to cover next month’s rent. Just in case.”

We’re a long way from home; we know that now. The girl at the welcome center had explained, but my head is still spinning from how unreal it all seems. I back up a few steps until I bump into the west facing window’s ledge. It’s just big enough to tuck myself into after I sit down. The glass is cold. This isn’t exactly the warmest spot in the room, but that’s been denied to me by everybody else’s first dibs.

“It’s been a long day,” Takeshi is saying. “Hunter, come with me. Let’s see about spending some of this on supper.” Rose volunteers to go with them, insisting they need to find a pharmacy as well. She shoots a meaningful look Xia’s way, and my little sister shyly smiles her thanks.


Co-written with Bad Dog.