The dreams had started as a young girl. A beautiful and pristine white wolf walking through the forest, its gait smooth and elegant. It had the most vibrant blue eyes. They looked almost like… hers. She would stand in her dreams, barefooted with her sandy hair in braids decorated with beads, straps of leather, and feathers. The feel of the grass between her toes was real- almost too real for a dream. At first she was frightened of the beast, backing away as it approached her. In fact, she would get so frightened in the beginning that she would wake up with a start, only to find that she was alone in her dark room.
As the dreams continued into her adult life, though, she became less and less afraid of the wolf. One night she finally stood as still as a statue in the grass, her heart pounding in her chest. The wolf was at the other end of the clearing, its blue eyes staring her down. It moved and slowly approached. She fought the urge to move back, to stumble backwards and wake up from her dream. The wolf came closer and closer until its nose touched her chest, right above her pounding heart.
“What are you?” Rei breathed softly into the still forest air. The wolf looked up to her, its white fur seeming to glow in the moonlight.
I am you. She gave the wolf a confused expression. The beast turned and bounded off toward the treeline.
”Wait!” She gasped, her feet kicking up blades of grass as she took off in a loping run of her own. The branches smacked against her face, leaving little cuts and nicks in their wake. The wolf was a white blur between the trees, weaving gracefully between the thick trunks.
She ran after it, after her, for what seemed like hours before she planted her bare feet in the grass, skidding in the dirt to come to a halt before she ran directly into the wolf. It had stopped and was standing eerily still next to a gravestone marker. She recognized the grave as the same placed they had interned her father into the ground. As she drew closer, she saw his name and his birth and death date inscribed neatly in the stone. The wolf suddenly turned around, and when their matching blue eyes locked, she awoke, sweating, in her bed.
Rei threw the rough hide covers back and stumbled to her mother’s bed. She shook her mother awake. As her mother fought the haze of sleep, she told her every detail she could remember of her dream, from the realness of the grass to the blue eyes of the wolf. Go to your father’s grave, she had said. Your soul is waiting there. Rei had thrown on her hide clothes and went running into the forest. The night was still dominate, the moon high in the sky and illuminating the forest below.
She ran and ran until her feet were sore and she had stitches in her side from breathing so hard. She slowed to a walk as she broke the tree line and, to her great surprise, there was an ethereal looking wolf standing there, watching her. Her approach was slow, deliberate. She reached out and touched the beast on the nose, a bright light emanating an enveloping them both. That distant vacant feeling that had always permeated her chest suddenly was filled. She had found the other half of herself.
Rei first met Wendell when he came to The Infirmary in Rharne where she works. It was an awkward encounter, as his ailment was an infected Eidisi pin-up girl tattoo on his backside. His charm, however, secured him a date before he left. They had a fabulous date at The Butcher's Block and had their first intimate encounter. They continued to spend time together, and, though they've had their bumps along the way, they have grown close and she now carries the title of
his woman.
Rei first met Patrick at The Bronze Boar where he works as a bartender. She was visiting Wendell and repaying him for his work on her small flat. The three had a fun chat, though Wendell became jealous of Patrick's flirting and left. Rei later, feeling pity for a drunk and lonely Patrick, made a mistake, though they have since recovered from it. She cares for Patrick as a friend, even though she knows he thinks more of her.