The Wildness Within

Accommodation 1

'Okay, here's the deal,' Ash said, as Gwyn stood beneath a new green bubble dome – not as large as Augus', in front of a new home, beneath the weight of a new lake. Gwyn was dripping wet, lungs still burning from holding his breath during the teleportation. This house wasn't like Augus', plastered pale at the front and looking a little like it had sprung from the pale lake sand and stone. This was built of brick and mortar, wooden windowsills and frames and a red wooden door with whorls of woodgrain still visible and a golden doorknocker upon the door. 'It's not your fault. You did nothing wrong, okay?'

'I don't understand,' Gwyn said.

He followed Ash into a home – door unlocked and unguarded – that was filled with bric-a-brac and piles of cushions and blankets and looked cozy but smelled dusty. It had an unlived-in feel, despite the fact that it had been designed for comfort.

'What-?'

'-I should've done something sooner,' Ash said, growling at himself and then kicking the sofa that he was standing next to in frustration. 'Fuck it all.'

'What-?'

'-He can't handle people living in his space for too long,' Ash said, but he wasn't even looking at Gwyn, glowering instead at a framed illustration of a landscape on the wall. 'It's not good if he's been pushed to this point. It'll be fine, I just should've been keeping a better eye on it. He's a fucking liar half the time, you know? He lies, Gwyn, about how fine he is about shit. He's always done it. And normally I can catch it when he does it more often? But I just...'

'You're angry at yourself?' Gwyn said in confusion. 'But is it me? I don't want-'

'I know it's hard for you to get this,' Ash said, frowning at him, 'but it's not your fault. But it is something that's going to need some problem solving. We can talk about it over drinks. I need a beer. You want to go to the human world for a bit?'

'What?' Gwyn said, feeling like he was saying that word an awful lot.

'Yep,' Ash said, flashing him a grin that seemed on the edge of dangerous. 'You look like you could also do with a beer.'

*

Everything was happening too fast.

First, Ash had told Gwyn to wear different clothing, but nothing Ash had fit him properly. So then Ash teleported them into a lake in the human world and used his glamour to charm his way into not paying for jeans or a shirt at a store. Gwyn stood there feeling awkward and not saying a word, and he'd watched Ash spin his glamour like fairy floss all around the dazzled shop assistant who had gazed at Ash like she was in love with him.

Then, in a public toilet that stunk of refuse, Gwyn had gotten changed while Ash played lookout, reminding him to 'take the tags off.' It wasn't something Gwyn had associated with clothing before, so for a few seconds he wasn't even sure what he meant, until he saw the tags themselves and frowned at the fact that they seemed to be attached in odd ways to odd places. He didn't tell Ash about the small hole he made in the shirt when he simply tore the tag out with a little too much force.

After that, a quick walk down several alleyways and up three flights of brightly lit wooden stairs and into an apartment that had Ash's scent all the way through it – but faint, as though he hadn't been there for months. There, Ash grabbed a wallet, stared at his hair in the mirror for a few seconds before leaving it alone, and taken Gwyn by the wrist and dragged him back out again.

Gwyn felt frazzled, and less than an hour before, he'd been near Augus and things had been – he'd thought they'd been fine.

But if Ash was right, and Gwyn wasn't at fault...