there are no happy endings

ЯIKYN   The mist was so palpable it roared.   I had never been in such a predicament; even in the north, where the mountains would fill with the dense bodies of clouds, and morning patrols were led blind and almost by instinct and memory of the road alone, the fog had never seemed so wild and inconceivably deep.  The trembling of my buck, pressed firmly along my side, does little to ease the overall sensation that things are terribly wrong; that we, as always, have gone down the wrong path.   Whatever had attacked us at least seemed to have turned back; it was no wonder, now that I was too far into the shit to really know which way was back.   "Gwyn!" I call out for my daughter, for what feels like the hundredth time, not really expecting a response; no matter how many steps forward I take, she is not there.  A sick feeling builds in my stomach, and makes my pulse echo in my head.  What if she is dead?   Don’t, Duir tells me, not wanting to think of that, not when it was hard enough putting one hoof in front of the other.  Not when he saw faces and figures swirling in the mist, and heard the croon of things with claws and fangs.    "Gwyn!" I try again.  Only the roar of the silence greets me in return, entwined with the sensation of Duir’s growingly hopeless fear, and the dark, taunting voice that echoes within:  you have failed again, boy.       call me a safe bet I'm betting I'm not

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