Ghost Walk

Ashe monster, monster under my bed, come out and play cause I need a friend.    A sleepless night. Surprise, surprise. Her limbs trembled as she padded through a shadowed alley, the dredges of adrenaline coursing out of her system with every clouded breath. She hadn't noticed or felt the cold when she fled from her sleep, doggedly chased by things that lived in her memory. It was an expected ritual now, and it helped in it's own way. Running until her breath was ragged, until her paws ached, until she felt every muscle tremble. Until she could feel every part of herself, this wolf's body that had never hurt or been hurt like that.      Ashe slowed her steps as she reached the end of the narrow avenue, golden eyes peering out into the silver mist from beneath a fallen pillar. She stopped entirely, ears pinning forward as she tilted her head, and her jaws clamped shut. Faintly, somewhere close, she heard it. A song. She couldn't discern any words, but the melody was both haunting and soothing.    Suspicion prickled along her inky black pelt, but curiosity itched worse. The she-wolf lowered her head and moved in pursuit of the sound. Her claws gripped at stone as she hauled herself up the slope of a collapsed wall, pulling up onto a rooftop and... there. Moving in the dark, there was a warm light--the source of the song. Ashe narrowed her eyes, and she padded after it, hopping nimbly from rooftop to rooftop, following it until they were on an old, broad avenue. The mist cleared enough for moonlight to break, washing the street in pale color, casting the man ahead in silver and revealing... a familiar head of white hair.    Before she really knew what she was doing, the wolf girl picked her way down off her rooftop, down to edge of the street. Her pawsteps were silent as she padded out into the open, ears forward as she followed after him a few paces. What was he doing out here? Her eyes strayed to his lantern as she listened to his song. What are you singing? she softly called. If he'd turn, she would shift, standing still in the fog with her hand pulling at a thread in her old, tattered blue cloak, her fire-blue eyes keen and inquisitive on the Sage. you're so damn close that I feel your breath. you're the only one I have left.