Chapter Three: Found

What story do you wanna hear tonight, baby?" His moms voice was soft as honey as she pulled the covers up around him. Why she needed to ask, no one knew, his response was always the same. He wanted to hear the story of her childhood, homeland of the Tylwyth Teg; he wanted to hear the story of Annwn. She nodded at his request cherry wood eyes shining, as she pushed back her silken blonde hair. She enjoyed telling the story as much as he enjoyed hearing it. It was one of the reasons why he always requested it. He loved seeing the nostalgia and longing that that visited her features as she spoke of it.

"Annwn, home to the Tylwyth Teg, was a magical place of unsurpassed beauty. It was free of all of earths burdens. No one had to struggle for food or water, nor did anyone die of sickness. It was a paradise of open hills and lush green spaces. The Tylwyth Teg were ruled by Arawn, king of Annwn, who was a strict but wise ruler. Under his reign the Tylwyth Teg thrived, they built beautiful glimmering cities of stone and gems, and lived out impossibly long lives. For centuries they partied and basked in their wealth but their long lives became tedious and they started to search for new way to enjoy their time. They looked to the realms around them, when one caught their eye – the perfect place to fill their boredom."

"They chose our realm, right mom?" He interrupted excitedly. She nodded, running a calming hand through his hair, smoothing the unruly strands.

"Yes, they saw earth and it's humans – magicless and struggling – and decided it was there they would enter. They opened gates to earth, wandering through, first as benevolent beings baring gifts; and the humans worshiped them as gods, enthralled with their beauty and marvellous powers. But being treated as Gods warped something inside the Tylwyth Teg and they began to see the humans more and more as their play things. They started to torment them, stealing from them, tricking them out of their possession – even taking their young. 

"But another king was also looking down on the human realm. He was the King of Gwynfyd charged with protection of the humans souls, and their afterlife. Seeing them tormented angered him, so he challenged Arawn to war. The King of Annwn met the challenge send out deadly hounds – colossal beasts called the Gwyllgi. Their fur was the colour snow, ears tipped with blood, and grew to the size of horses their eyes a brilliant shade red that glowed when they hunted. They were hounds of the Cŵn Annwn, used to chase down and hunt game for the King only now the hunters and their Gwyllgi weren't after game, they were after King of Gwynfyd and the human souls he protected." 

The hounds had given Alwyn nightmares the first time he had heard the story, he dreamed of blood thirst beast hunting him down and eating his soul while masked hunters pulled his body back to the Tylwyth Teg to be tortured. But after he had gotten lost in the forest nights ago he found himself not so scared anymore. Anyone can do bad things under the influence of bad people, but that didn't make them monsters. Perhaps the Gwyllgi didn't want to kill all those humans, but their master the Cŵn Annwn had given them no choice. 

"But Gwynfyd's King was smart and cunning, and he was able to trap the hounds. Without the Gwyllgi the Cŵn Annwn, paused in their hunt. Arawn appeared to the King demanding the release of the dogs. He agreed, only on the condition that The King of Annwn would take his Tylwyth Teg from the earth and never let them roam free again. Arawn agreed to the Kings terms, retrieving his Gwyllgi and dragging his subjects back to Annwn. The magic folk were not happy to once again be trapped in their kingdom with nothing to entertain themselves.

Eventually they found a loop hole in their Kings promise. They could leave Annwn as long as a human invited them over, so they learned how to lure the most foolish of mortals to the remaining gates, offering them all sorts of gifts in return for freeing them. It didn't happen often but occasionally they would worm their way free and would wage all sorts of trouble before Arawn could track them down and drag them back to Annwn. But there was a few kind Tylwyth Teg, ones who had become enthralled in the humans, they managed remain undetected by their ruler and lived among the humans hidden but watching, sometimes even falling in love with their magicless counterparts." Alwyn smiled, he liked to think some of those nice Tylwyth Teg lived in his town, that they could perform magic and used it to help the town. Sometimes he even let himself wonder what it would be like to be one of them, what it would be like to have magic. His dad called it nonsense, but Alwyn saw the truth of it in his mother's eyes every time she told the story – he might not be magically, but it existed out there and one day he'd prove it to his father.

****

Alwyn woke confused and disoriented on the forest floor. A soft wet tongue lapped at his face, pulling him reluctantly to consciousness. His muddy brown eye opened searching out the tongues owner. 

A giant white canine laid next to him, the tips of its gigantic ears were a curious shade of bright red, its amber coloured eyes watched him interested and curious. It's larger than possible paws held him down, as he struggled to gather his barrings. 

A throbbing in his head told him he must have taken a tumble but the last thing he could remember was peeling catkins off a green alder. They were good for his father's arthritis – something his mother had taught him when they used to hike the woods together. She would point to each plant they had passed rattling off its name and use. He had been struggling to do the same that day, a good way to brush up on his studies, but an intense fog had descended as he'd entered the woods. The fog made it hard to see anything below his knees, still he was able to identify the Lodgepole Pine with its high starting branches, and the beaked hazelnut with its bushy razer edged leaves. 

"This is a beaked hazelnut, the brown seeds it hides in the green shells are great for stomach pains, and as a paste it eases tooth pain." She had said peeling back the green casing and collecting the seeds in a little pouch. It was almost like he could see her ghost kneeing in front of him, the same way she had when he was a child. 

Perhaps that's how I was taken off guard. He wondered, eyes glancing around at the shrubs surrounding him. I must have gotten lost chasing memories and tripped over a concealed root. The theory didn't sit right in his stomach, his intuition telling him it was more than that, but he pushed the feeling aside gasping onto the logical solution. 

The dog whined low and desperate as Alwyn attempted to stand once again. He looked more closely at the colossal animal. He'd been right to think it was some sort of canine, but the size of it could rival any horse he'd seen. It's paws larger than one of his hands, and its fangs the size of his forearm. The way it's eyes glowed in the limited light almost made the amber hazel blend seem more red. If it weren't for the nervous, scared emotion clenching at the beasts features Alwyn would have been terrified that he would tear out his throat and feast on his bones. His heart beat quickened for another reason; What could scare such a powerful creature? 

He heard footsteps walk past their bush, strange light – not quite the beam of a flashlight but serving a similar purpose – scanned the area around them. The canine tensed, Alwyn held his breath, but whoever was there just called out in a strange language he'd never heard and walked away. Only when the beast relaxed, did Alwyn release the breath he was holding. 

He wondered who the strange foreigner was, and why they horrified this animal so bad. Was he some sort of experiment, a mutated version of a dog, who'd escaped a small outpost nearby? He looked at the animal hovering over him again. Yes, that did seem likely, after all if you took away the glowing red eyes and shrunk it by several feet it would look like a husky-wolf hybrid. A sense of familiarity closed around him, his heart beat slowing as he and the beast locked eyes. The sense pulled at a long dead forgotten memory of a magic forest and a protective snow-white dog.

The air around the canine shifted as they sat starring at one another. His body became smaller, and smaller, fur receding under skin, snout and teeth retreating, till a man stood in place of the animal. His features were sharp and angled, eyes still the intense glowing red amber as before. White hair was shaggy and loose falling into his eyes, sharp tipped ear stuck out of the sides of the snowy mop, their tips still appearing red, looking almost sunburnt. Alwyn was in shock, brain reeling as he tried to process what his eyes were seeing. The man spoke to him, but all he could focus on was the still to large fangs that poked out beyond his upper lip. 

"You can't be here, you have to go back." The man's voice was gruff, as if the vocal cords were still more canine than human. "I don't know who you followed here, but we will both be killed if they find you." The threat of death sharpened Alwyn's attention, his gaze shooting in the direction of the person who had walked by earlier. Kill him, why? 

"I don't understand," He told the strange being leaning over him. "Why would they kill me, I was just taking a walk." Fear spiked in his heart as he heard leaves crunch around them again. The other lowered himself under the shrubbery, practically laying on Alwyn, crushing the boy under his weight. 

"You speak too loud," The man growled at him, when the searcher moved on again. 

"I'm sorry, but my dad's the sheriff. If these guys are bad news we can tell him. He'll help, just let me text him." He didn't know how to explain to his dad that he'd just seen the dude turn into a human from the form of a dog, but it was obvious that the patrolmen scared him. Maybe it was drugs, or illegal experimentation – his dad would know what to do. He reached for the phone in his pocket, pulling it out and trying to turn it on. The screen remained black. "Shit, it must have died." He groaned, shoving the offending item back into his pocket. 

This time it was the shifter that looked at him confused. The human puzzled him, why did he put a dead thing in his pocket – did he collect them? And why wasn't he understanding the urgency of the situation? "How did you come here, the door may still be open you can leave through it." He asked, Alwyn just stared at him mind trying to understand what exactly he was being asked. 

"I'm not sure where exactly we are, but my house is on the edge of town. I was heading east – I think. I couldn't have gone too far out before I tripped." The two males stared at one another, trying and failing to understand the other. "It seems late, my dad should be home soon. If you come with me, we can try to explain the bad guys to him. I'm sure he'll be able to prevent any killing." Alwyn offered, smiling at the shifter who just continued to look at him as if he'd grown another head. The look made him uncomfortable, which in turn increased his need to talk. "Or not, I mean I'm not exactly sure what's going on her. I'm leaning toward some form of illegal human experimentation since you were a dog earlier. Did you escape from a facility or something? We don't have to tell that part to my dad, it up to you. But if they are doing experiments on people we need to tell the police, it's kind of super illegal. Though if superpowers are their aim that's pretty cool. People can't handle difference in skin colour, so we'd probably end up with some X-Men styled humans against mutants thing. I don't think I want to deal with that, so best if we stop them before it gets out of –" 

Alwyn was cut off as a light shinned down on them, this time the shrubs didn't hide them. The person behind the beam shouted in the same foreign language as earlier, his voice gruff and excited. The white-haired man shifted back into a dog, growling at the guard, as he tried to shove him backwards. There was nowhere for Alwyn to go, his back hit a stone wall off to the side he saw a lake, its surface was black and bubbling. No escape, they were cornered; by the way the person smiled behind the search light, he knew it to. 

Panic rose in his gut, bubbling up and cutting off his air supply. He had said that these guys would kill them, and now they how found them, cornered them. He was going to die, and his father would never know. He stared into the beam, eyesight fading at the edges as he tried pull air through his constricted throat. I'm going to die, was the last thought that ran through Alwyn's mind before his sight went black falling like to the floor like a sack of potatoes.