Sometimes she was called a ghost.

Not because she was dead, mostly because no one ever seemed to realize she was there until she actually spoke. Syzygy liked to reason that maybe it was because no one could pronounce her name, and another, darker part of her suggested it was because she was known only to a few, and sometimes passed around as a story on the lips of disbelievers. In the public eye, she might have once laughed off the strange moniker and then returned to her own simple company to lament the nickname, wondering what happened in her formative years to make her seem so invisible. Now that being alone was her new normal, her steely disposition mutated so that she now wore her heart on her sleeve, a wretched condition of life she had mocked for so long prior. She was her own self-fulfilling prophecy, a phoenix who had not yet come to the apex of her flight because she was scared to get burnt. Syzygy still hadn't reached the peak of her life. At this point, she doubted she ever would.

The disbelievers were whispering now, having taken shape of the tall, hearty pine trees around her. They passed rumors from branch to branch, waving back and forth and asking one another if they had really seen that small brown tabby or if they were just imagining things. Syzygy heard them all and noted all their remarks but hardly had the energy to rebuke the wilderness for their incessant gossip. Her paws ached and her eyes, a striking steel grey with sparkles of aquamarine, were weighed down heavily by boulders carrying sleep. She knew there to be a society nestled deep in the mountains she was so familiar with, cloaked by tendrils of hollyhock and lamb's ear, but finding such a place was easier said than done. She wandered the forest floor, scarce but littered with blankets of deep brown pine needles dislodged from their branches by the mighty hand of autumn. There was the vaguest sense of disturbance in the overwhelming musk of the mountain spruce, and such a revelation gave Syzygy hope, but her hope was quickly waning and her motivation dwindling just as fast.

The brown tabby stopped on a dime, creamy paws digging into the mulch underfoot and ears perked. She watched the trees with thinly-veiled suspicion as if one might move and shatter the illusion of an entirely still forest. Just as she thought the bark might molt and shift around the knot in a fire-colored aspen, a black and white cat came from behind it instead and strode close to her with a swagger she had not seen in anyone else. Syzygy watched him carefully, her shoulders tensing and her paws instinctively stepping back. No matter how hard she tried to calm the incessant racing of her mind, nothing stilled, and she was stuck with nervous energy and no outlet; paws twitching, tail lashing, ears flicking. She hated it, and she especially hated the way he drawled 'sweetheart', as if he was the most magnificent thing in the forest. Her eyes narrowed.

She didn't hate him, not yet, for he was a stranger and Syzygy found it hard to feel that strongly about anything anymore, but she certainly felt suspicious. Even so, she breathed in, and just beneath the thick aroma of leaf litter and petrichor from late morning dew, she found the scent she was seeking. Perhaps he could help her. "Okay, uh," she murmured finally, more to compose herself than anything. "Is...Is this Sunhaven?"

The name sounded foreign on her lips and her voice was rough with disuse. Syzygy immediately cringed upon hearing herself.

The juniper and wax current parted with veridian flourish, and from it’s creeping tendrils crawled a fox. Small, ruddy, but standing in such a way that asserted they were unaware of their size, Syzygy noticed only the black leather mask on their face. A grim tableaux, a reminder of a time with pestilence and death and fire, Syzygy found no need to wear it in times of relative peace. Her stance, already shuddering, broke further when the strange fox came to circle her, and she could not help the lash of her tail or the unsheathing of her claws as she dug them into the mud and peat of the mountains. Just as soon as they came they were gone and Syzygy was left only with an overwhelming sense of discontent. The feeling spread through bones and marrow and infected every part of her body and blood until she felt her skin crawl with worms and maggots. Her fur prickled and her shoulders tensed, the blood pumping in her ears so loudly it almost drowned out the simple question on the fox’s lips. Syzygy avoided his gaze but pondered her answer nonetheless, taking so long so that it might be assumed she had just stumbled upon some inalienable truth of life. The blood rushed to her face and her ears pinned back against her head, feeling heat a thousand degrees above normal settle upon her cheeks. She hated speaking, she hated interacting, she hated saying anything. Syzygy came to the conclusion that she was way in over her head.

"Um, yeah, I guess I do. I’m Syzygy, and I was hoping to join Sunhaven," she murmured finally, speaking more to the tussocks of grass she tore underfoot than the tiny host of listeners. A few moments passed and she grew increasingly aware of her audience’s silence, she she snapped her head up and spoke again, smiling a smile she knew was a dead giveaway for her anxiety. "Though you don’t have to call me that if you don’t want to. Lots of people say my name is kind of long and hard to pronounce so they just... don’t talk to me. You can call me whatever you want, it doesn’t—I’m sorry, I’m talking to much."

Syzygy went silent again, cursing her big mouth.