I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

He settled down before a small puddle, staring at the reflection that he saw. He saw the eyes and the snout and the ears. He saw the lanky figure and the young features. He saw the fox in himself and he saw the wolf. And he saw, now, that the world was not filled with wolves.

He questioned how well he could call himself wolf. Was he really? To think that Aza'zel had named him – who wasn't even a wolf himself – how accurate could he have been? Could Aza'zel truly have gotten it right? Was it the right name, was it the real name?

Real name. What was real.

“Who are you?” He muttered, asking the question again to the face that mirrored his own. He did not quite like that face and he did not know why. He did not trust it. He did not like it. And there was something about it that was...

Dark. In his yellow-green eyes rested innocent curiosity and pure fascination. But deeper than that? Beyond that? He saw both cleverness and deceit. Someone aloof roamed there, not willing to be attached or fooled and therefore willing to fool others to avoid the inevitability of their betrayal. He had never been betrayed, but somehow... he knew the feeling. The slow, drawn pain of despair - he could imagine that. And he knew that to trust someone else invited the possibility of being hurt in the process.

As he mused the shadows crept and this time he was keenly aware of their existence. He turned when he saw the shade form out of the corner of his eye, resting on the wall of the tunnel in which he was born. It was shaped like him. Did it take that outline to mock or honor him?

“Are you me, too?” He asked, a little grin tugging on his lips but not reaching his eyes. It was a hollow smile, unsatisfied and displeased. The shadows never spoke, the face in the pool never did anything but mimic. They were not alive. They were not real. But they were they and that meant they were something and...

“Hmm...” He mumbled, his eyes flickering back to the water that showed him so.

“The dark is not so bad...” He told the reflection, glancing to the shade that kept him company. He hadn't been afraid of the dark, but he had met those that were. And he was not afraid of the shadows... but the shadows had never done him an err. Walking towards the shadow he knew that this tunnel terrified many creatures. Some of the ones that weren't sentient avoided this path, unwilling to traverse it unless they absolutely had no alternative.

What did it mean that this was where he was born?

Better yet...

What did it mean that Aza'zel was the one that found him?

“It means...”

That there was at least one person he would habitually return to, didn't it? With a wry grin he looked at his paws and admitted that... even if he wouldn't have joined the Bonebound otherwise, Aza'zel had been the reason. And he was better for it. Aza'zel had been kind to him, caring, tender, and that...

That meant something.

It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving
lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never
quarrel with actions; my one quarrel is with words.

But it didn't answer his question. He was learning many things about many different people, but he wasn't learning the answer to the question he wanted to know most. 'Who am I?'

Why couldn't the shadow tell him? Or the reflection? Why not? Why did everyone else have a name? Arkrael, Blue, Az'zael, Beau – they had names! What about him?

He felt a bubble of frustration well in the pit of his belly, tainting his emotions and twisting them vilely. He had never known aggravation like this, but he felt it. He felt cheated and shorted – shouldn't he have a name? How did they have a name and not him? Was he not worthy? How were they more fitting than he?

The shadow grew tall on the wall, showing its fangs as if they were sabers. It bristled to threaten him and he met it ounce for ounce, fire for fire. He was true to his name and his mane stood on end, making him larger than he already was. Opening his mouth words failed, but a roaring bark came. Rising to his haunches he stuck his paws on the rock wall, his claws scraping the stone and the shadow that would never, ever bleed.

After a moment or two he realized how pointless it was to fight with a shadow.

Instead he frowned, leaving long etchings in the wall where he had once stood and clawed at the entity.

Perhaps his realization triggered something because the shade left the two-dimensional surface then after. It collected more shadows, consolidating and thickening itself to the point it nearly appeared solid. It wasn't anything more than the absence of light, but there it stood, a little taller than he.

Would he be that size when he grew older? What might have been a thought he pounced upon and wrestled with didn't excite him. He scorned the shadow for all it was: pointless, hollow, and unhelpful. What purpose did it serve? What could it do? “You can't even talk...” he told it, turning back to the pool and his reflection within it. At least this showed him something, it showed him his face, it showed him what others saw.

Or... did it?

What is hell? Hell is oneself.
Hell is alone, the other figures in it
Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from
And nothing to escape to. One is always alone.

Sometimes the eyes couldn't see what was really there. Sometimes in the dark people were more honest than they otherwise were. Sometimes when someone was afraid of the dark, they weren't really afraid of the dark... They were afraid of being alone. And sometimes when people were afraid of being alone they were really afraid of being alone with themselves. You see, when it was dark and one felt alone and one was by themselves, one wasn't really alone.

They were alone with their demons.

The wolf pup had never met nor known a demon but he knew he was onto something just the same. The demons were something dark that someone hoped never to show anyone else. But they were a part of a person, just the same. They were constant companions no one ever wanted to admit to having.

But he didn't understand why others disliked them so much. Were they really all that bad?

He laid before the water, laying his head on his paws. He faced the pool but he watched the shadow instead. It stood and faced him with its soulless, black eyes.

And he felt longing.

Wasn't it miserable to be a shadow? To live only behind and below and before someone else? To see nothing and to be nothing but what someone else defined? Poor shadow, he thought.

But the shadow didn't care for pity or sympathy or whatever emotion one elected at that particular moment. It couldn't laugh or cry, smile or frown. Or it didn't when those that were not shadows were looking.

For some reason, that thought made the wolf smile. The idea the shadows had their own world amused him and he thought of that as he drifted off into quiet slumber.

No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed
something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience
it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the
moments where you should've been paying attention. Well, get used to
that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day.

He dreamed. Effortless, deep dreams he plunged into a world of never, ever land. In his dreams he swam and he flew across a 'sky'. Or was it 'sky'? What was 'sky' for a cave-dweller like he? It was big and broad and facile. It was the thing that existed beyond the surface of the rock where he could look forever and see nothing for eons. He flew, like he did when he was born.

And he saw the water and he plunged in, shedding his wings for fins. He flew through the water, his body wiggling and soaring under the rapids. With him swam so many others. Their bodies were long and scaled, and their necks were filled with manes, and their snouts were long and horns adorned their crowns. They clutched rocks and pebbles that shown with virulent colours, whispering to their sweet prizes and singing to the bubbles and waves.

One beckoned him near and as if he was summoned by some other force than his will alone, he went to him.

And in the next instant he was he. No longer was he the person he came in as, he was the other. He wore the other's crown of gold and obsidian and he peered outward with the other's eyes - the eyes of true vermillion.

And he experienced this others life.

He raced across the crashing waters, he threw himself into the heavens and claimed it. He twisted among great and massive trees and he proclaimed himself to the world for every creature to ever know. In his life he gained the respect of others and they loved him. And in turn, he found someone to love. He loved her dearly – she was his! And he was hers, ever and truly. He loved her so deeply it ached, his heart was not his own! He adored her and in every step she took blossoms arose and gold melted to speckled flakes.

It was beautiful. The sky, the water, the world.

And then it wasn't. He did not experience just the greatness of this other's life, he experienced the other aspects, too. He lived the joy and the happiness and then felt it slip from him. In the next moment in his clawed hands was a dead infant. In the other, he watched as his lover lost her youth and her beauty. She grew mad – she saw things that were not here. She turned her wrath upon him and it baffled he...

Until he grew numb to it. Those in his dominion turned against him. Those he loved perished. They died and he lived on, immortal in the worst way.

The years passed and he lived. And he saw. And he watched. And notches were taken and agony met. And in the end there were no joys, no laughter, no sparkles or specks of sweet gold or pure silver or sharp colour.

There was nothing. And finally he lay, dead and dying, closing his eyes as he sunk into the water. The further he fell the darker it became.

But this wasn't right. As he rested upon the sea floor, peaceful and quite content to perish alone, he realized.

This was not quite right.

a pleasure you suffer, an ailment you enjoy

Deep impressions on the heart, overall sadness,
emotional sickness, deep and bittersweet remorse,
penetrating yearning, or a craving to reclaim
memory, passion, fervor, love and closeness.

Saudade

He opened his eyes and he saw nothing. He closed them and he saw nothing again. He listened and he heard nothing. He reached out and he felt nothing. In this vacuum of nothingness he sensed nothing but the weight of his own being.

It was a strange feeling.

He began to walk forward. In the pitch blackness he moved, and he walked, and he journeyed.

He went on for eternity, searching.

'Eternity is a strange concept,' he thought to himself. The idea of forever and ever. The idea that something could never end. How could eternity exist when the idea of 'ending' and 'beginning' did too?

And then he remembered.

It hit him in the way a torrent of water from a waterfall might fall on him, or like a boulder would crush him and pin him down should he be fool enough to be caught in its path. When it hit him, he stopped. He couldn't walk another step. Eternity had ended. His heart seized, his breath caught. His blood ran cold and his limbs tingled. He remembered.

He remembered and it made him quiver. He remembered. It was a feeling, of remembering. The feeling of limitless love, of eternity of faithful waiting. Of patience that was measureless, and passion that was, too. It was the feeling of longing so deep that it defined him, of tenderness that would last and transcend memories and dreams. It was a cruel juxtaposition – “a pleasure he suffered, an ailment he enjoyed,” - something that would never be ever again, but that he longed for just the same.

It was something he loved, truly loved, that he could not bare to forget even if forgetting would do him well. To forget would be merciful, they would say, but it wasn't. He remembered. Even when they forgot, even when they did not care – he would remember. He coveted the fact he would fondly. He cherished it, the pain – what it once was, what it now was... He could imagine it still.

It was a song. A sweet one, but also bitter.

Perhaps one day it would return. Perhaps he would have it again, near his bosom once more.

But would it even matter then, if he could, if it was?

Wistfully, he smiled.

And then he woke up.

The paths fork and divide. With each step you take through Destiny's garden,
you make a choice; and every choice determines future paths. However,
at the end of a lifetime of walking you might look back, and see only one path
stretching out behind you; or look ahead, and see only darkness.

Do not be afraid.

His black lashes fluttered, his vision fuzzy. He blinked slowly, his eyes acclimating and focusing on the shadow that lingered. It was still there, watching him.

How long had he been asleep?

With his cheek neatly placed upon his paw, he stared at the pitch darkness that possessed his shape silently. Quietly he looked, and he looked, and he looked.

And he thought, and he thought, and he thought. He didn't remember everything about his dream, but he remembered something. He remembered his name and he remembered it had a meaning. And he knew what the meaning was because he still felt that ache in his chest. He knew names had some power inherent in them, and that to be named something meant there was a connection there betwixt the thing named and the name.

Something named him what they did for a reason.

"The answers are out there." Aren't they?

He cocked a grin when the figment of a wolf turned to look down the hall. He took that to mean 'yes.' Of course. Breathing a deep sigh he couldn't help but find the fact that 'maybe' was always an appropriate answer a little bit tiresome.

But that was life. And there was a lot of life to be lived. Right? Squinting his eyes until the shadow was fuzzy and his vision blurred, he frowned a little. Yeah. Life was long. And forever was, too. But eternity was waiting. He'd figure things out, eventually, and usually around the same time he stopped struggling to find out he'd stumble onto the answer. It was serendipity – that's the word – that led to him being born. Letting things happen as they wanted to happen. Letting go was when most of the pieces fell into place.

“Saudade...” he mumbled, speaking the word aloud to test the sound against his ears. “... de Sombra.” That was his name. It was bittersweet, a little painful, heartfelt, but born from a place of... love. Real love. Something eternal and immortal, intense and passionate and undeniable. When someone felt it, they felt it completely. The dull ache in his chest was proof enough of that.

It seemed strange for a youngster to already have an acquired taste for jadedness so soon.

But he had already developed being a smartass.

In some weird way, it kinda fit.

Opening his eyes, Saudade saw that the shadow was gone. Glancing into the pool to see himself, his eyes were a little more... acquainted with the face he saw. Maybe it wasn't half bad, eh? Swiping his reflection with a paw, he chuckled and began to head back into the winding labyrinthine caves.

He felt a little... better, a little more confident now that he knew at least one piece of the puzzle: his name.