FIC: Pack
Thanks to the people who gave me pretty snowflakes for my profile! It was very inspiring of the holiday spirit. :) And so...fic!
Title: Pack
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Bruce
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None needed.
Summary: On a former Kryptonian colony, Clark and Bruce encounter an incarnation of Cythonna, the ancient Kryptonian goddess of ice, and must stop her from plunging the world back into endless winter.
Word Count: 3600
Notes: Written for the WFGE prompt F50: "Transformation fic! Turn the boys (Batman and Superman, Bruce and Clark) into some other creature/species/being/form."
The sleigh jolted to the side, jostling Batman up against Superman. "Adlarayok!" barked their guide, whose name was about twelve syllables long but shortened to "Nuktok." The huge shaggy caribou-like creature pulling the sleigh snorted at her admonishment and tossed its massive head, its breath steaming. "Apologies," the guide called over her shoulder, her purple skin dusky in the misty light. "Being there soon!"
Bruce gazed out of the sleigh, but the landscape was shrouded with heavy fog; mist shaded into snow with no distinction. The frigid wind tugged at the cloak he had been given, the sable fur lining doing very little against the biting cold. "Why did I let you talk me into coming with you?" he shouted to his companion over the clattering jangle of the harness.
"If I remember correctly," Clark yelled back, "You insisted on coming."
"Don't you think it was just a little too pat?" Batman tried not to sound too annoyed but mostly failed. "A millennia-old Kryptonian temple found on a frozen moon, circling a world that has just achieved interstellar travel and joined the galactic community? So they invite the last Kryptonian over to check it out, how convenient."
"Two temples," Superman corrected him as though that was the important information. "One on each pole. It's incredibly rare to find any evidence of former Kryptonian colonies. I was hardly going to turn down the chance to see them."
"That's my point exactly," grumbled Bruce. The howl of the wind and the thunder of hooves drowned out his voice, but he knew Superman could hear him. "It's very convenient."
There was a shift of movement, and suddenly Clark's lips were almost at his ear. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were making excuses to spend some quality time with your best friend," Clark's voice murmured, just inches away.
Bruce hunched down in the heavy cloak. "Well, you should know better," he retorted. "Being dragged around a frozen iceball is hardly my definition of quality time." Clark's smile was undimmed, as it always was when Bruce didn't correct him about their being friends, and they must have just passed through some kind of climate change zone because Bruce felt rather warmer somehow.
The mist eddied and swirled around the sleigh and the caribou's hooves fell into a steady rhythm that--didn't make him drowsy, Batman didn't get drowsy, but he would admit to perhaps being less than fully alert when he heard Clark gasp.
Out of the fog, as if it were springing fully-formed from it, loomed a wolf-like creature, its shoulders easily as high as the sleigh. Its long hair was silver, shading to almost lilac on the muzzle and flanks, and floated like mist itself. It loped easily alongside the sleigh for a moment, its scarlet tongue lolling from its mouth, and Bruce could see a glint of amused awareness in its amethyst eyes.
Then the caribou reared and shrieked in a panic. As Nuktok struggled with it, the silver wolf turned and slipped back into the mist, melting away into it effortlessly.
"Apologies!" Nuktok cried again. "Please be giving a moment for calming!" She jumped from the driver's perch and began to stroke and croon to the frightened animal.
"Rao!" Clark breathed beside him. Bruce looked over to see him staring after where the creature had disappeared. "Did you see that?"
"I could hardly have missed the beast," grumbled Bruce. The wolf's knowing look had unnerved him slightly.
"That was a cythonnirryl--a Kryptonian icehound!"
Bruce felt his eyebrows raise. "You're joking."
"I've seen them in the databases, there's no mistaking it."
"The silayok?" Nuktok looked up from brushing the caribou's neck. "The saying is that the long ago Kryptonians brought them here, but legends ancient are not to be believed."
"Icehounds were called 'Cythonna's Hunters' on Krypton. It's believed they serve the ancient goddess of ice."
"Then it would be fitting, the bringing to this place so desolate and frozen. Until recently, the moon entirely was locked in winter unbroken. In the last handful of seasons only have the equators begun to be thawing from the ice age so long. Impossible until then to settle here."
"Incredible." Clark was beaming. "It was beautiful."
"It looked a lot more dangerous than beautiful to me," Bruce growled as they climbed back into the sleigh, the pack animal placated.
"I don't find the two concepts mutually exclusive," Clark noted blandly. Nuktok whistled sharply and the sleigh began to glide across the snow again, saving Bruce from having to respond.
: : :
The Kryptonian temple was a web of gossamer light and crystal. Nuktok murmured something in her own language, her ink-black eyes wide, as they made their way toward the center.
"This was definitely a temple to Cythonna." Clark was scanning the Kryptonian runes carved into the crystals. "The writing is very archaic, but that much is clear." There was a faint ringing in the air, a chiming noise at the high edge of hearing. It left Batman feeling on edge and uncomfortable, like there were invisible eyes on them.
The maze of crystal corridors opened up at last into a large hall with something that looked like an altar at the center. On the altar rested an indigo crystal, its blue-violet almost black in the dim light of their torches. Clark knelt to stare at the words carved on the altar. "It says something about the soul...the soul of ice, the divine chill...or is that wind? The divine chill preserved forever to the worship of men..."
The strange ringing noise was much louder here, distracting enough that Batman winced slightly, looking down to focus. When he looked up again, he realized that Nuktok was stepping toward the altar, her eyes glassy and distant. She reached out for the indigo crystal. Batman barked a warning and jumped forward, but before he or Superman could intercept her, her fingers closed around the crystal.
The ringing noise rose to a shrill of triumph, causing both men to clap their hands to their heads in agony. Nuktok held the crystal above her head, her posture changed entirely from the quiet researcher to something commanding and regal, her deep blue eyes filled with mocking scorn. Batman started to leap at her, and she flicked her other hand; invisible fetters seemed to clamp him to the ground. Beside him, he could hear Clark straining to break free. Magic. Damn it.
"Fools," Nuktok said, her voice deeper, resonant, filled with power. She was speaking fluent Kryptonian. "Flimsy mortals. Cythonna, Queen of Ice, Bringer of Storms, has returned to this plane!" She looked around, almost sniffing the air, and her lip curled in disdain. "Pfah. Where are my arctic winds, my cold to flay flesh from bone? This place has grown soft and warm." A cruel smile. "But I have the means to restore it to its former wintery glory, fitting for its Queen to rule over."
"Let Nuktok go!" yelled Superman, and Cythonna tilted her head curiously.
"She is mine now, little Kryptonian." She held out a gloved hand, eyeing it. "And yet this flesh is too weak for my essence. No matter. At the other pole I shall solve both problems by using her soul--" she gestured with the crystal, now a pale and flickering blue, "--to power the great magnetic engine that shall bring the ice back to this moon. Then shall I reign in majesty once more, and all shall bow before me in terror and awe." Dark, merciless eyes considered them both. "As witnesses to my return and apotheosis, I shall give you a gift. You shall be the first of my followers, properly clad in a fitting shape." She gestured, a fluid, alien motion, and Batman felt like the world was tilting sideways, like the marrow in his bones was being turned to witchfire. His skin burned, his jaws stretched in soundless anguish. Beside him he heard a choked sound from Clark, but his eyes weren't working correctly and he couldn't move...
Cythonna's footsteps echoing away from them were the last thing Bruce heard before merciful blackness blotted out the pain.
: : :
He awoke to find one of the giant silver icehounds staring at him mournfully, its muzzle just inches away from his face. With a yelp he scrabbled backwards, trying to get a purchase on the icy floor, trying to scramble to his feet...
With another, deeper shock, he realized that he couldn't. Disoriented and panicked, he tried to lunge past the icehound, only to have the massive hound seize him by the scruff of the neck and pin him, with a strangely gentle motion, to the floor.
Unable to move, Bruce took a moment to gather his thoughts. The icehound smelled familiar, he realized suddenly, like blue sky and justice and friendship...ignoring the lurch of vertigo at the unaccustomed sensory information, Bruce closed his eyes and sniffed the air. He smelled old hate and implacable malice still hanging there like a miasma, as well as the magical stink of the spell they had been caught in. He felt his body, taking in the unfamiliar sensations, the awareness of a tail and paws and jaws and how to use them.
As if he could smell Bruce's realization of the truth--and perhaps he could--the other icehound let go of him and moved away, lowering itself to the ground in a posture that was a clear apology for its previous aggression.
"Clark?" Bruce said--or tried to, but instead he made a small yipping noise. For a moment panic gripped him again--without language, how would they communicate? But then Clark's tongue lolled out of his mouth in a grin, and Bruce remembered that language was much more than words. His canine brain processed information a human would ignore--Clark's posture, the tilt of his ears, the angle of his tail, and above all his scent--and he knew that Clark was confused and worried but pleased that Bruce was still himself, pleased that they were still alive and together.
Together they trotted out of the temple into the open air. The caribou and sleigh were gone. Cythonna was heading north to the temple at the other pole, to destroy Nuktok's soul and plunge the moon back into frozen desolation, killing and enslaving its settlers. Bruce glanced at Clark. A wrinkling of the muzzle, a scratch: She's made a grave mistake.
Clark sniffed the air. Yes. Bruce could smell it too--the caribou's scent as heavy as wet wool, and the scent of the goddess, like rotten ice, jasmine blossoms on a corpse. He looked at Bruce, his tail wagging. She cannot escape us. We are Pack.
The concept was dizzyingly intense, redolent with comradeship, understanding, a bond far beyond that of friendship, beyond that even of love. At any other time Bruce would have deflected the idea, found some way to dodge the implication. But icehounds have no way to lie; no way to hide their feelings or conceal their true thoughts. Yes, he agreed with his eyes and ears and scent, with all he was. We are Pack. We hunt together.
As one they turned to the north and began to lope after their prey.
: : :
Their long legs ate up the leagues easily, but Cythonna had a lead on them, and drove her caribou mercilessly. As Bruce's new body began to tire, he felt pity for the pack animal that she must be lashing almost to death. On they ran, until Bruce's legs were burning and he could hear his own panting echoing in his ears. The ice started to give way to tundra as they reached the equator of the small moon, and they found themselves running through fields of golden grass, starred with small white flowers. They found the abandoned sleigh--Cythonna must have saddled the caribou and was riding it north now. They ran on. The scent of life--from the sweet grass to the musky tang of small rodents--hung in the air all around them. To Bruce's heightened senses, it was as if he could smell the entire biosphere, bursting with vigor, nets of connections webbing outward from every point. He couldn't let Cythonna destroy this new world just starting to peer out from the ice.
The sun was just below the horizon when they reached a river, ice floes dotting its tranquil surface. They stopped and took a long drink. The water was ice-cold and delicious, full of flavors Bruce had no human vocabulary for. He looked over at Clark, whose ears were drooping, his tail dragging on the pebbled riverbank. He smelled of exhaustion and determination.
Bruce pawed the rocky ground. We'll rest here.
Clark shook his head in a strangely human gesture--and an unnecessary one, as his entire posture cried negation. We continue.
Bruce felt his hackles raising slightly. It serves no purpose to drive ourselves to death. He wanted to explain that Cythonna was trapped in a mortal body and she and her mount would have to rest as well, but his body wasn't suited to explaining abstract concepts. Communication was about the here and now: We are exhausted. We must rest. For the good of the Pack.
Clark's shoulders drooped. For the Pack, then, he agreed. He looked around, eyes glazed with weariness. We should eat.
Bruce could smell various small animals in the grasses nearby, but his mind revolted at the idea of hunting for living food. Instead, he sniffed around until he caught a scent that made his mouth water. Digging eagerly, he turned up something that looked like truffles, and they feasted on them until they were both full.
Replete, they sprawled on the grass together. Bruce took a deep breath of Clark's scent. Pack. It was a strangely soothing idea.
Together they watched Nuktok's home planet rise above the horizon, a pale green and blue orb, huge against the sky. Bruce felt his blood tingling at the sight, a yearning filling him that he had no name for. He wanted...he wanted...
Beside him, Clark sat on silvery haunches and tipped his head skyward. A long, shivering howl filled the air, like wolfsong but more complex, more resonant and sweet. Bruce felt all his fur bristling at the sound; before he knew it he too was singing into the starlit sky. Their voices melded and twined into a harmony beyond anything Bruce had heard before, something so simply right that it transcended any human comprehension. It was a song of the Hunt, and the Pack, and sweet water and companionship, of the web of life all around them and the joy of friendship.
Together they sang to the stars.
When the time came for the song to be over, Bruce listened to the last chords die away with a deep sense of completion mixed with a strange sorrow. Clark looked at him sideways, then dropped into a posture that was clearly an invitation to play. Bruce flattened his ears. Rest, or continue the Hunt.
This is rest, Clark's scent and ears and tail replied. He hopped forward and nipped Bruce on the neck.
It was a clear and deliberate provocation, and Bruce couldn't help responding by tackling him.
After a short romp of ear-gnawing and mock-wrestling--it would have been longer but they were both still tired--they found themselves sprawled out in what looked like a patch of heather. Clark sneezed; his muzzle was covered with purple pollen from the flowers. He dropped his nose on Bruce's back, curling up against him. Sleep a little now.
His pack mate warm against him, Bruce drifted to sleep.
: : :
They woke up at the same time, springing to their feet. The sky was just beginning to gray. We hunt again! Clark cried with a yip, and dashed off. Bruce took a long draught of the morning air before following. Cythonna's scent was still there, cruel and cold.
They pursued her through the day, through the gathering cold of the opposite pole.
She smells tired, Clark noted at one point. Tired and hungry and...worried.
She's mortal. Not a goddess yet. She fears death. She fears us, Bruce responded.
A laughing glance from the other. And well she should.
They ran on.
They found the caribou lying in the snow, barely breathing. Cythonna had lashed it beyond endurance. Peace, brother, Clark said to it before leaping on.
Their breath steamed on the air in front of them, condensing into crystals that spangled their muzzles. The temple--a twin to its southern sister--came into view on the horizon. Clark put his head down and surged forward, muscles rippling under fur like silver mist. Bruce followed, his heart hot with the chase, with the metallic scent of their prey's fear.
They burst together into the great hall at the center of the temple. Cythonna was there, breathing heavily and clutching her side, the crystal with Nuktok's spirit in it glimmering weakly in her hand. "You will not destroy your friend's body!" she cried. "You would not dare!"
Beside him, Clark growled, a low and vicious sound that curled his lips over long, white teeth. Bruce dropped into a threatening stance as well, letting feral hunger fill his eyes, hiding all vestiges of humanity. He smelled Cythonna's fear and uncertainty. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the two icehounds. "Even if you have lost your sentience, I am your Mistress! You will not attack me!"
Clark barked once, a sharp and hungry sound, and Bruce could see Cythonna wondering, as clearly as if she had cried it aloud: What would it be like to be a god trapped in a mortal body as it was devoured? Bruce bounded forward as if overcome with lust for the kill, and Cythonna screamed, a broken, terrified sound. The crystal in her hand filled with indigo darkness like ink, and the pale blue light rushed out to envelop Nuktok's head. She screamed again as Bruce's paws slammed into her chest, but this time it was a scream of confusion, not defeat.
Bruce danced away from the cowering woman, smelling Clark's triumph and satisfaction. But then the world seemed to narrow, shrinking, and he realized he couldn't feel the scent of his pack mate anymore, couldn't taste the web of life in the air.
As he collapsed to the ground, the pain of transformation racing through his limbs, for a moment he was less pleased to be returning to human than grief-stricken at losing that sense of connection.
: : :
"...and I put Cythonna's crystal in the Fortress of Solitude, where she'll be very safe. Nuktok has invited me back to excavate the temples sometime." Clark smiled at Bruce and scratched the back of his head as if slightly embarrassed. Alfred had made a nice dinner to welcome Bruce back to Earth, and Bruce had decided to invite Clark to come over. He was wearing civilian clothes, a thick wool sweater, and had his glasses off. The result was a mix of Kal and Clark--disorienting, but Bruce decided he liked it. "It's good to be back to normal, isn't it?"
"I suppose, yes." Bruce stood up from the demolished remains of a mascarpone-filled cake topped with berries and wandered into the library. Clark followed after him. "But there were definitely...some advantages to the form." For a moment, he remembered the glory of the song and the Hunt. "The enhanced sense of smell, for example, could be very useful for detective work." He looked narrowly at Clark. "But your sense of smell is always that keen, isn't it?"
For some reason, Clark looked slightly embarrassed. "Yes." He looked down at his feet. "I don't like to dwell on it much. People tend to find the sense of smell...rather primal, animalistic."
Bruce felt his eyebrows rise. "So can you smell peoples' emotions?"
Clark shrugged. "If they're very simple. Fear, lust, amusement. Most of the time people smell very...complicated."
"What do I smell like right now?"
"Um." Clark met his eyes, looked down. "You smell complicated. You more than anyone."
"Really?" Bruce didn't feel like he was experiencing any very complicated emotion at all. It seemed fairly simple, actually.
Clark looked at him, his eyes a bit wide. Very slowly, he leaned forward...and nipped at Bruce's neck.
It was a clear and deliberate provocation, and Bruce had no choice but to respond.
: : :
Bruce slipped out of bed and went to the window, stretching his arms and rubbing his shoulders. Gotham lay in the moonlight. He needed to get back to patrol soon, he'd been away too many days. The moonlight streamed in like a song, and Bruce felt the Hunt calling him, as it always would.
Turning away from the window, he smiled slightly at the sight of Clark sprawled across the bed, arms outstretched across the sheets as if trying to hold him. He stopped and pressed a kiss onto Clark's brow; Clark murmured something in his sleep and dragged the blankets up against himself.
Bruce would try to be back in four or five hours, before the dawn. But even if he wasn't there when Clark woke up, his mate would understand.
After all, they were Pack.
Title: Pack
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Bruce
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None needed.
Summary: On a former Kryptonian colony, Clark and Bruce encounter an incarnation of Cythonna, the ancient Kryptonian goddess of ice, and must stop her from plunging the world back into endless winter.
Word Count: 3600
Notes: Written for the WFGE prompt F50: "Transformation fic! Turn the boys (Batman and Superman, Bruce and Clark) into some other creature/species/being/form."
The sleigh jolted to the side, jostling Batman up against Superman. "Adlarayok!" barked their guide, whose name was about twelve syllables long but shortened to "Nuktok." The huge shaggy caribou-like creature pulling the sleigh snorted at her admonishment and tossed its massive head, its breath steaming. "Apologies," the guide called over her shoulder, her purple skin dusky in the misty light. "Being there soon!"
Bruce gazed out of the sleigh, but the landscape was shrouded with heavy fog; mist shaded into snow with no distinction. The frigid wind tugged at the cloak he had been given, the sable fur lining doing very little against the biting cold. "Why did I let you talk me into coming with you?" he shouted to his companion over the clattering jangle of the harness.
"If I remember correctly," Clark yelled back, "You insisted on coming."
"Don't you think it was just a little too pat?" Batman tried not to sound too annoyed but mostly failed. "A millennia-old Kryptonian temple found on a frozen moon, circling a world that has just achieved interstellar travel and joined the galactic community? So they invite the last Kryptonian over to check it out, how convenient."
"Two temples," Superman corrected him as though that was the important information. "One on each pole. It's incredibly rare to find any evidence of former Kryptonian colonies. I was hardly going to turn down the chance to see them."
"That's my point exactly," grumbled Bruce. The howl of the wind and the thunder of hooves drowned out his voice, but he knew Superman could hear him. "It's very convenient."
There was a shift of movement, and suddenly Clark's lips were almost at his ear. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were making excuses to spend some quality time with your best friend," Clark's voice murmured, just inches away.
Bruce hunched down in the heavy cloak. "Well, you should know better," he retorted. "Being dragged around a frozen iceball is hardly my definition of quality time." Clark's smile was undimmed, as it always was when Bruce didn't correct him about their being friends, and they must have just passed through some kind of climate change zone because Bruce felt rather warmer somehow.
The mist eddied and swirled around the sleigh and the caribou's hooves fell into a steady rhythm that--didn't make him drowsy, Batman didn't get drowsy, but he would admit to perhaps being less than fully alert when he heard Clark gasp.
Out of the fog, as if it were springing fully-formed from it, loomed a wolf-like creature, its shoulders easily as high as the sleigh. Its long hair was silver, shading to almost lilac on the muzzle and flanks, and floated like mist itself. It loped easily alongside the sleigh for a moment, its scarlet tongue lolling from its mouth, and Bruce could see a glint of amused awareness in its amethyst eyes.
Then the caribou reared and shrieked in a panic. As Nuktok struggled with it, the silver wolf turned and slipped back into the mist, melting away into it effortlessly.
"Apologies!" Nuktok cried again. "Please be giving a moment for calming!" She jumped from the driver's perch and began to stroke and croon to the frightened animal.
"Rao!" Clark breathed beside him. Bruce looked over to see him staring after where the creature had disappeared. "Did you see that?"
"I could hardly have missed the beast," grumbled Bruce. The wolf's knowing look had unnerved him slightly.
"That was a cythonnirryl--a Kryptonian icehound!"
Bruce felt his eyebrows raise. "You're joking."
"I've seen them in the databases, there's no mistaking it."
"The silayok?" Nuktok looked up from brushing the caribou's neck. "The saying is that the long ago Kryptonians brought them here, but legends ancient are not to be believed."
"Icehounds were called 'Cythonna's Hunters' on Krypton. It's believed they serve the ancient goddess of ice."
"Then it would be fitting, the bringing to this place so desolate and frozen. Until recently, the moon entirely was locked in winter unbroken. In the last handful of seasons only have the equators begun to be thawing from the ice age so long. Impossible until then to settle here."
"Incredible." Clark was beaming. "It was beautiful."
"It looked a lot more dangerous than beautiful to me," Bruce growled as they climbed back into the sleigh, the pack animal placated.
"I don't find the two concepts mutually exclusive," Clark noted blandly. Nuktok whistled sharply and the sleigh began to glide across the snow again, saving Bruce from having to respond.
: : :
The Kryptonian temple was a web of gossamer light and crystal. Nuktok murmured something in her own language, her ink-black eyes wide, as they made their way toward the center.
"This was definitely a temple to Cythonna." Clark was scanning the Kryptonian runes carved into the crystals. "The writing is very archaic, but that much is clear." There was a faint ringing in the air, a chiming noise at the high edge of hearing. It left Batman feeling on edge and uncomfortable, like there were invisible eyes on them.
The maze of crystal corridors opened up at last into a large hall with something that looked like an altar at the center. On the altar rested an indigo crystal, its blue-violet almost black in the dim light of their torches. Clark knelt to stare at the words carved on the altar. "It says something about the soul...the soul of ice, the divine chill...or is that wind? The divine chill preserved forever to the worship of men..."
The strange ringing noise was much louder here, distracting enough that Batman winced slightly, looking down to focus. When he looked up again, he realized that Nuktok was stepping toward the altar, her eyes glassy and distant. She reached out for the indigo crystal. Batman barked a warning and jumped forward, but before he or Superman could intercept her, her fingers closed around the crystal.
The ringing noise rose to a shrill of triumph, causing both men to clap their hands to their heads in agony. Nuktok held the crystal above her head, her posture changed entirely from the quiet researcher to something commanding and regal, her deep blue eyes filled with mocking scorn. Batman started to leap at her, and she flicked her other hand; invisible fetters seemed to clamp him to the ground. Beside him, he could hear Clark straining to break free. Magic. Damn it.
"Fools," Nuktok said, her voice deeper, resonant, filled with power. She was speaking fluent Kryptonian. "Flimsy mortals. Cythonna, Queen of Ice, Bringer of Storms, has returned to this plane!" She looked around, almost sniffing the air, and her lip curled in disdain. "Pfah. Where are my arctic winds, my cold to flay flesh from bone? This place has grown soft and warm." A cruel smile. "But I have the means to restore it to its former wintery glory, fitting for its Queen to rule over."
"Let Nuktok go!" yelled Superman, and Cythonna tilted her head curiously.
"She is mine now, little Kryptonian." She held out a gloved hand, eyeing it. "And yet this flesh is too weak for my essence. No matter. At the other pole I shall solve both problems by using her soul--" she gestured with the crystal, now a pale and flickering blue, "--to power the great magnetic engine that shall bring the ice back to this moon. Then shall I reign in majesty once more, and all shall bow before me in terror and awe." Dark, merciless eyes considered them both. "As witnesses to my return and apotheosis, I shall give you a gift. You shall be the first of my followers, properly clad in a fitting shape." She gestured, a fluid, alien motion, and Batman felt like the world was tilting sideways, like the marrow in his bones was being turned to witchfire. His skin burned, his jaws stretched in soundless anguish. Beside him he heard a choked sound from Clark, but his eyes weren't working correctly and he couldn't move...
Cythonna's footsteps echoing away from them were the last thing Bruce heard before merciful blackness blotted out the pain.
: : :
He awoke to find one of the giant silver icehounds staring at him mournfully, its muzzle just inches away from his face. With a yelp he scrabbled backwards, trying to get a purchase on the icy floor, trying to scramble to his feet...
With another, deeper shock, he realized that he couldn't. Disoriented and panicked, he tried to lunge past the icehound, only to have the massive hound seize him by the scruff of the neck and pin him, with a strangely gentle motion, to the floor.
Unable to move, Bruce took a moment to gather his thoughts. The icehound smelled familiar, he realized suddenly, like blue sky and justice and friendship...ignoring the lurch of vertigo at the unaccustomed sensory information, Bruce closed his eyes and sniffed the air. He smelled old hate and implacable malice still hanging there like a miasma, as well as the magical stink of the spell they had been caught in. He felt his body, taking in the unfamiliar sensations, the awareness of a tail and paws and jaws and how to use them.
As if he could smell Bruce's realization of the truth--and perhaps he could--the other icehound let go of him and moved away, lowering itself to the ground in a posture that was a clear apology for its previous aggression.
"Clark?" Bruce said--or tried to, but instead he made a small yipping noise. For a moment panic gripped him again--without language, how would they communicate? But then Clark's tongue lolled out of his mouth in a grin, and Bruce remembered that language was much more than words. His canine brain processed information a human would ignore--Clark's posture, the tilt of his ears, the angle of his tail, and above all his scent--and he knew that Clark was confused and worried but pleased that Bruce was still himself, pleased that they were still alive and together.
Together they trotted out of the temple into the open air. The caribou and sleigh were gone. Cythonna was heading north to the temple at the other pole, to destroy Nuktok's soul and plunge the moon back into frozen desolation, killing and enslaving its settlers. Bruce glanced at Clark. A wrinkling of the muzzle, a scratch: She's made a grave mistake.
Clark sniffed the air. Yes. Bruce could smell it too--the caribou's scent as heavy as wet wool, and the scent of the goddess, like rotten ice, jasmine blossoms on a corpse. He looked at Bruce, his tail wagging. She cannot escape us. We are Pack.
The concept was dizzyingly intense, redolent with comradeship, understanding, a bond far beyond that of friendship, beyond that even of love. At any other time Bruce would have deflected the idea, found some way to dodge the implication. But icehounds have no way to lie; no way to hide their feelings or conceal their true thoughts. Yes, he agreed with his eyes and ears and scent, with all he was. We are Pack. We hunt together.
As one they turned to the north and began to lope after their prey.
: : :
Their long legs ate up the leagues easily, but Cythonna had a lead on them, and drove her caribou mercilessly. As Bruce's new body began to tire, he felt pity for the pack animal that she must be lashing almost to death. On they ran, until Bruce's legs were burning and he could hear his own panting echoing in his ears. The ice started to give way to tundra as they reached the equator of the small moon, and they found themselves running through fields of golden grass, starred with small white flowers. They found the abandoned sleigh--Cythonna must have saddled the caribou and was riding it north now. They ran on. The scent of life--from the sweet grass to the musky tang of small rodents--hung in the air all around them. To Bruce's heightened senses, it was as if he could smell the entire biosphere, bursting with vigor, nets of connections webbing outward from every point. He couldn't let Cythonna destroy this new world just starting to peer out from the ice.
The sun was just below the horizon when they reached a river, ice floes dotting its tranquil surface. They stopped and took a long drink. The water was ice-cold and delicious, full of flavors Bruce had no human vocabulary for. He looked over at Clark, whose ears were drooping, his tail dragging on the pebbled riverbank. He smelled of exhaustion and determination.
Bruce pawed the rocky ground. We'll rest here.
Clark shook his head in a strangely human gesture--and an unnecessary one, as his entire posture cried negation. We continue.
Bruce felt his hackles raising slightly. It serves no purpose to drive ourselves to death. He wanted to explain that Cythonna was trapped in a mortal body and she and her mount would have to rest as well, but his body wasn't suited to explaining abstract concepts. Communication was about the here and now: We are exhausted. We must rest. For the good of the Pack.
Clark's shoulders drooped. For the Pack, then, he agreed. He looked around, eyes glazed with weariness. We should eat.
Bruce could smell various small animals in the grasses nearby, but his mind revolted at the idea of hunting for living food. Instead, he sniffed around until he caught a scent that made his mouth water. Digging eagerly, he turned up something that looked like truffles, and they feasted on them until they were both full.
Replete, they sprawled on the grass together. Bruce took a deep breath of Clark's scent. Pack. It was a strangely soothing idea.
Together they watched Nuktok's home planet rise above the horizon, a pale green and blue orb, huge against the sky. Bruce felt his blood tingling at the sight, a yearning filling him that he had no name for. He wanted...he wanted...
Beside him, Clark sat on silvery haunches and tipped his head skyward. A long, shivering howl filled the air, like wolfsong but more complex, more resonant and sweet. Bruce felt all his fur bristling at the sound; before he knew it he too was singing into the starlit sky. Their voices melded and twined into a harmony beyond anything Bruce had heard before, something so simply right that it transcended any human comprehension. It was a song of the Hunt, and the Pack, and sweet water and companionship, of the web of life all around them and the joy of friendship.
Together they sang to the stars.
When the time came for the song to be over, Bruce listened to the last chords die away with a deep sense of completion mixed with a strange sorrow. Clark looked at him sideways, then dropped into a posture that was clearly an invitation to play. Bruce flattened his ears. Rest, or continue the Hunt.
This is rest, Clark's scent and ears and tail replied. He hopped forward and nipped Bruce on the neck.
It was a clear and deliberate provocation, and Bruce couldn't help responding by tackling him.
After a short romp of ear-gnawing and mock-wrestling--it would have been longer but they were both still tired--they found themselves sprawled out in what looked like a patch of heather. Clark sneezed; his muzzle was covered with purple pollen from the flowers. He dropped his nose on Bruce's back, curling up against him. Sleep a little now.
His pack mate warm against him, Bruce drifted to sleep.
: : :
They woke up at the same time, springing to their feet. The sky was just beginning to gray. We hunt again! Clark cried with a yip, and dashed off. Bruce took a long draught of the morning air before following. Cythonna's scent was still there, cruel and cold.
They pursued her through the day, through the gathering cold of the opposite pole.
She smells tired, Clark noted at one point. Tired and hungry and...worried.
She's mortal. Not a goddess yet. She fears death. She fears us, Bruce responded.
A laughing glance from the other. And well she should.
They ran on.
They found the caribou lying in the snow, barely breathing. Cythonna had lashed it beyond endurance. Peace, brother, Clark said to it before leaping on.
Their breath steamed on the air in front of them, condensing into crystals that spangled their muzzles. The temple--a twin to its southern sister--came into view on the horizon. Clark put his head down and surged forward, muscles rippling under fur like silver mist. Bruce followed, his heart hot with the chase, with the metallic scent of their prey's fear.
They burst together into the great hall at the center of the temple. Cythonna was there, breathing heavily and clutching her side, the crystal with Nuktok's spirit in it glimmering weakly in her hand. "You will not destroy your friend's body!" she cried. "You would not dare!"
Beside him, Clark growled, a low and vicious sound that curled his lips over long, white teeth. Bruce dropped into a threatening stance as well, letting feral hunger fill his eyes, hiding all vestiges of humanity. He smelled Cythonna's fear and uncertainty. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the two icehounds. "Even if you have lost your sentience, I am your Mistress! You will not attack me!"
Clark barked once, a sharp and hungry sound, and Bruce could see Cythonna wondering, as clearly as if she had cried it aloud: What would it be like to be a god trapped in a mortal body as it was devoured? Bruce bounded forward as if overcome with lust for the kill, and Cythonna screamed, a broken, terrified sound. The crystal in her hand filled with indigo darkness like ink, and the pale blue light rushed out to envelop Nuktok's head. She screamed again as Bruce's paws slammed into her chest, but this time it was a scream of confusion, not defeat.
Bruce danced away from the cowering woman, smelling Clark's triumph and satisfaction. But then the world seemed to narrow, shrinking, and he realized he couldn't feel the scent of his pack mate anymore, couldn't taste the web of life in the air.
As he collapsed to the ground, the pain of transformation racing through his limbs, for a moment he was less pleased to be returning to human than grief-stricken at losing that sense of connection.
: : :
"...and I put Cythonna's crystal in the Fortress of Solitude, where she'll be very safe. Nuktok has invited me back to excavate the temples sometime." Clark smiled at Bruce and scratched the back of his head as if slightly embarrassed. Alfred had made a nice dinner to welcome Bruce back to Earth, and Bruce had decided to invite Clark to come over. He was wearing civilian clothes, a thick wool sweater, and had his glasses off. The result was a mix of Kal and Clark--disorienting, but Bruce decided he liked it. "It's good to be back to normal, isn't it?"
"I suppose, yes." Bruce stood up from the demolished remains of a mascarpone-filled cake topped with berries and wandered into the library. Clark followed after him. "But there were definitely...some advantages to the form." For a moment, he remembered the glory of the song and the Hunt. "The enhanced sense of smell, for example, could be very useful for detective work." He looked narrowly at Clark. "But your sense of smell is always that keen, isn't it?"
For some reason, Clark looked slightly embarrassed. "Yes." He looked down at his feet. "I don't like to dwell on it much. People tend to find the sense of smell...rather primal, animalistic."
Bruce felt his eyebrows rise. "So can you smell peoples' emotions?"
Clark shrugged. "If they're very simple. Fear, lust, amusement. Most of the time people smell very...complicated."
"What do I smell like right now?"
"Um." Clark met his eyes, looked down. "You smell complicated. You more than anyone."
"Really?" Bruce didn't feel like he was experiencing any very complicated emotion at all. It seemed fairly simple, actually.
Clark looked at him, his eyes a bit wide. Very slowly, he leaned forward...and nipped at Bruce's neck.
It was a clear and deliberate provocation, and Bruce had no choice but to respond.
: : :
Bruce slipped out of bed and went to the window, stretching his arms and rubbing his shoulders. Gotham lay in the moonlight. He needed to get back to patrol soon, he'd been away too many days. The moonlight streamed in like a song, and Bruce felt the Hunt calling him, as it always would.
Turning away from the window, he smiled slightly at the sight of Clark sprawled across the bed, arms outstretched across the sheets as if trying to hold him. He stopped and pressed a kiss onto Clark's brow; Clark murmured something in his sleep and dragged the blankets up against himself.
Bruce would try to be back in four or five hours, before the dawn. But even if he wasn't there when Clark woke up, his mate would understand.
After all, they were Pack.