Pyrrhic Victory

 Guildenstern woke on a bed of moss. 

 It was not the kind of grave that befit a warrior of his stature, nor was the wholeness of his body something he regarded with relish. Warriors bled. They succumbed only when there were no limbs to move or no teeth to bite with. 

 If he had not died in battle, then what?

 Around him the land was strangled by a fog as thick and solemn as a funeral shroud. It dampened the bark and leaf-litter with perpetual moisture, a gloom that lived and breathed and wept. 

 He rose without effort, his movements smooth as he shook out his droplet-dusted coat. A pale ghost stark against the shadowed trees, Guildenstern looked up, huffing at the stars. 

 “Until we meet again.”

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 The meeting, as it happened, would come quicker than expected.

 Guildenstern turned and saw a spectre. This is how he was meant to look - scarred and chewed and war-torn, as ravaged as the upturned earth on a battlefield. But the wolf was not a mirror, blinking at him with a stiff facade.

 “Rosencrantz.”

 As reliable and attested as a well-stocked pantry, the memories of his brother lay within easy reach.

 He took a private kind of comfort in knowing he was not alone.

 “Are we dead?” It was a fair question.

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 He shook his head as the threads of memory slipped his grasp like the string of an escaped balloon. Those tendrils floated up and away, dissolving with the fog.

 “Nothing. Save for you and home.” A home he knew was long behind them, but the distance of time and miles seemed shorter now, like something or someone had stolen a section of his life to lock away.

 He began to pad around, sniffing the moist soil with idle interest. “And you? Do you remember any more than I do?”

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 A private part of him wondered if this was still an afterlife, just an unpleasant one. An existence where hunger, emptiness, and loss were the norm.

 Guildenstern’s nose twitched, considering that possibility. If it were true, he would cling to the fact that he wasn’t alone. Reassured by the steadfast and sandpaper presence of kin, the pale wolf set off through the forest, picking his way through the trees.

[size=small] [/size]“The only way to be sure is to search.” For confirmation - for others, for a new life.

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