Time had never before meant anything to the half-breed. Before, the hours had melded together with nothing to tell them apart but when he slept, the occasional meal that materialized when he woke, the times when She came, and the much less frequent times when He came. He had, had no concept of day or night, because he had never seen the sun, moon, or stars. The closest analogy he had was the difference between his cell and Her room: it was always night in his safe, dark cell, and it was always day in Her room, which he perceived now was only lit dimly compared to the blinding brightness of the outside world during that horrible, terrifying time called "day". The comparison was not a reassuring one, for his "day" had grown infinitely worse, and even his "night" had changed beyond recognition.

When he'd woken that first night, mind numb with incomprehension, believing himself still dreaming, the half-breed had crawled out from the safety of a pale, ribbed, furry sort of cave, clambering over obstacles that twitched and were warm, only to be confronted with a vast emptiness that expanded endlessly as far as his dead black eyes could see. He had woken his shelter with his screams, tried to blot out the sight of that endlessness, tried to race back where he had come from, expecting the safe, if oddly colored and textured, roof to shield him from the nothing. Another horror awaited when he turned to find that the room he had woken up in was not even that, but was an appendage of those bright, giant creatures who he had only glimpsed through the protection of his shadows before the pale one and the red one had come to him. Their forms were enough like His to bring back promises of torture and death, and again he had screamed, trying to run and stumbling over sharp rocks in the process, until the reassuring presence of the pale one invaded his mind. She made him stop, turn, and stare trembling while the shining giant warped itself, changed, and became the pale one. The shaggy giant did the same, turning into the red one.

It had taken her a long time to calm him again after that, for the shadows were everywhere, and they did not trust her. It had taken her even longer to convince him to walk with her, for even if he had gone beyond it, he wanted the familiarity of his old, hated, loved world again. There was nothing there, though, the rooms smelled like smoke and pain and fear, and he could not find a trace of Her anywhere in them. Despairing, not knowing what else to do, he finally went with them, though the nothing above him never ceased to make him hunch and duck nervously into the shadow of one of his guardians.

They traveled only at "night", finding a cave when the emptiness that they called "sky" began to lighten, where the half-breed would fitfully sleep, blocking the light of "day" from him as much as possible with their big bodies, and they fed him more and better than he had ever eaten before. For those things, he loved them. Even so, they drove him on mercilessly, towards some unknown goal and through an alien landscape, and he had not seen Her since She fought with Him. For those things, he hated them. His hate was always at war with his love; this was nothing new. So far, however, he had no chance to show them his love or his hate, and he didn't know when he would.

In the days that passed, the half-breed saw things he had never seen before, some that were only shadow-tales, some which he had only dreamed of, and some things he had never even dreamed that could exist. Sometimes it frightened him, sometimes it made him stop and stare in wonder, and sometimes it made him angry and he tried to destroy what had made him pause. Once a sight brought out such a strange reaction in him that he frightened himself: a loud, braying sort of sound, almost like a shout, but there was nothing of pain or anger in it. It had been the red one, in her big body; she had been grumbling under her breath, as she always did, when the pale one suddenly darted forward and grabbed her tail in her mouth. The red one had looked so surprised, with her wings all unfurled, her fur standing on end, and her jaw gaping so, that he had made that sound. Startling himself, he immediately fell silent and looked around apprehensively, but then he recognized a similar sound still coming from the pale one, and then connected it with a ghost of the sound that the shadows sometimes made at him. It was laughter.

The first time the pale one lifted him up onto her soft, sloping shoulders, he had shrieked with surprise. Her reassurance flooded through him then, and he shuddered, staring around at the world from this strange, high vantage point. Then, to his wonder, he quickly discovered he liked the rolling motion of her gait, and the warmth and support of her under him. He came to the end of the night's travels much less exhausted than before, and without the horrible aching and shaking of his legs, which had never walked so far in all his seemingly timeless, monotonous life. Without the constant attention of where to put his throbbing feet, he could see far more of what they passed, but also far less since he was so far from the ground and its smaller wonders.

It also gave him more attention to give the shadows-- or them, to give to him-- who had followed him from the dark underground and hid in the shadows of the pale one and the red one, or in the shadows thrown by rocks and trees and a passing bird. They whispered to him always, sometimes shouted at him, always mocking, promising, cajoling, threatening, contradicting each other and arguing amongst themselves. It got so bad sometimes that he couldn't hear anything else, couldn't see anything but the shades surrounding him, couldn't focus enough to form a coherent thought of his own.

It was during the long days, in which he was no longer so exhausted to spend entirely asleep, while the shadows crowded in around him, that he had to start giving them reminders that he didn't have to listen to them. It even worked, sometimes, drawing their voices out of anger, softening them, making them offer comfort instead of hatred. Once in a while, if it really hurt, they would even fall silent, leaving him alone to finally sleep in peace. Whenever he woke, the pale one would fuss over him and heal away the marks he made without leaving even an echo of the pain to remind him they were there, washing away the blood he left with careful hands while he tried to explain away her confusion and distress. As usual, she didn't understand, but she smiled and kissed his forehead sadly, anyway. Maybe she just didn't like it when he hurt himself and it wasn't for her, the way She always snarled at him for cutting himself without Her permission.

The world they moved through finally began to change, from bleak and sharp to green and gentle, and the air changed from hot and searing to quick and humid. It was when it smelled particularly salty that the red one led them to a cave that grew out of the ground, ushered him past staring eyes and into a room with a door, and set him down beside a real bed, almost like what She had. Even the sliver of memory made him shy away from the thing, refuse to touch it, and the pale one finally gave up and let him sit on the floor. It didn't feel like any other floor he had ever felt, not cold and unyielding, not gritty, but smooth and slightly warm. Wood, one of the shadows told him disinterestedly, but he was fascinated. This would be much nicer to sleep on than solid stone or rough sand.

That night, the red one and the pale one shared the bed, leaving him to hunch in the darkness against the wall by their feet. He could see easily even with so little light, and he stared at them both while the shadows whispered amongst themselves. They had done so much for him, and even though he hated them sometimes, even though there were times that all he wanted was to find Her and have Her use him and love him and hate him and hurt him, or to hide in the safe blackness of his cell, he was still grateful, and he still loved them. Especially the pale one, because she was so kind. He stared at them, sleeping so soundly and contentedly, and tried to think of how to make them know how he felt.

Then it came to him, and he could have bitten himself for being so stupid. They were showing him, right now-- inviting him, even. They were on a bed, weren't they? Feeling a relief he didn't know he needed to feel at the sudden eruption of the familiar and normal into what had been a long string of bizarre and strange, the half-breed hurriedly drew his claws over his skin, leaving the bloody rents that always pleased Her when She knew they were for Her to lick clean, and clambered onto the end of the bed, waiting for the scent and movement to wake them again.