Wolves

They had travelled as shadows for an age now, arriving in the form of wolves after a brief dream that birthed a pack mentality in them. The prey had at first been a teacher that they were after. The teacher, a fellow shadow, a jackdaw if Black Dog remembered correctly, that had rolled in the snow of amnesia and turned magpie: he had stolen their key and fled. What use was the key to a bird? He asked that of Umbral, his companion, but got no answer. And now they had learned their lesson: he was no jackdaw, but a man in disguise. The man had happened across a white hart as he slept and had stolen the dream from his flickering eye -- wearing that reflection he had appeared to the two brothers and seduced them with his tales. They should have known that it was not promise but lies that flickered in his eyes. Stood here under this burning sky, their ragged charcoal forms the shape they would be cursed to wear ever after, they watched as that wily bird-turned-man lifted into the sky in his hot air balloon. If they had the key in their possession they would have been able to shrug wings up from their shoulders. But they just had to stand and watch.