“Where am I?” Lacey muttered out, feeling predictable and moronic. Still, what else did one say when nothing looked right or felt right or was right? Then again, it could feel right if she was dreaming. Something about it felt very familiar.

“Who are you?” he countered with a slight snarl, startling her into sitting up.

“I asked first,” Lacey protested, feeling childish under his piercing glance that only lasted a moment.

“I have bigger teeth,” he warned, his smile not one that reassured her for he did have bigger teeth. He was, however, distracted enough for Lacey to answer her own questions, at least some of them.

“I’m Lacey,” she answered him.

“How illuminating,” he growled out, but she found his irritation more humorous than threatening.

“Are those really ears?” Lacey found herself asking. She was on a bed that was old, rickety, and prickly with straw. It felt real, but her dreams were often very realistic, and had she had this dream before?

“Do you always ask so many impertinent questions?” the white-haired man snapped irritably. His long-fingered hands were flitting over a desk full of test tubes and liquids.

“I asked first,” she teased him, wondering where she got the nerve.

“I still have bigger teeth,” he threatened her, but it didn’t feel like he meant it. Lacey got the impression that he was more bluster than threat. Besides, her Gran had told her to trust the White Wolf and she’d never seen anyone or anything that looked more like what her Gran might have been talking about. His face was human and handsome, but his jaw slightly enlarged to house the teeth he was threatening her with. She’d thought the ears were a childish set of cosplay barrettes, but they flicked toward and away from her as they spoke as if they twitched at the sounds she made.

“But you seem to know more than I do,” Lacey argued. Perhaps it was unwise, but she’d grown up on stories of a man with wolf ears, snarling teeth, and a long fluffy tail. In every tale Gran told, he was the hero, dashing and romantic and her dreams reflected that. Lacey found herself longing for her own treasured fantasy and let herself enjoy the dream. While she didn’t remember getting home, it was obvious that she had dropped off to sleep still wanting to follow Gran down into another adventure.

“That is because I am the one who asks the questions,” the wolf-man responded, his fingers deftly tilting a few drops of one test tube into a beaker that began to smoke and change colors. “Now be quiet so that I can finish this without blowing up the den.”

His tone was gruff, but Lacey didn’t care. The story was so familiar that she felt more at home here than in her real world. The den consisted of one large room in this cavern. The bed might have been roughly hewn, but it was large enough for two of him including his glorious tail. His scientific equipment bubbled and foamed as if it had come from Dr. Jekyll’s laboratory. Lush fur rugs covered the floors and lanterns dotted the walls enough so that she could see easily.

“How can I be as wise as you if you don’t answer any of my questions?” Lacey rose from the bed, watching as his ears twitched toward her position. She ran her fingers over the smooth surface of a table where he obviously ate his food. It didn’t hold food, nor was it littered with papers. It was clean, with a bowl of fruit in the middle, just as Gran had described it and just as she remembered from the dreams she’d almost forgotten from her childhood.

“Do you wish to become troll food?” he growled again, his default attitude, for sure. “If you distract me much more, this potion will turn us both into troll lollipops. Now shush for one minute.”

Lacey giggled and his ears laid flat against his white hair, but he still didn’t turn from his work.

“You find the idea of death funny?” he challenged; a few taps of glass were all she could hear of what he was doing.

“I’ll take distracting over disinterested,” Lacey picked up a small fruit the size of her palm and the color of a schoolgirl’s blush. The texture was like a peach, but the flavor was a mix of plum and watermelon. It was exactly as Gran had described and Lacey let her eyes close to savor the marilune. It wasn’t the first time she’d dreamed of the White Wolf or eaten the exotic fruit. It was the first time since Gran had gotten ill. The dreams always felt so real, but this was a new flavor of real as she felt the juice from the marilune dribbling slightly down her chin.

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“You are not afraid of me,” came a voice far closer than she’d thought he should be.

“I’m not,” she smiled slowly, lowering the fruit and reaching to wipe away the juices.

“Why not?” he grabbed her hand and brushed the juice away himself.

“Gran told me to trust you,” she answered simply, her stomach fluttering with something she didn’t have time for in her real world.

“Does Gran have a name?” he demanded, and she found that she didn’t mind him holding her wrist.

“She does,” Lacey let her eyes dance playfully. The White Wolf had been her childhood friend and playmate in those dreams she’d almost forgotten. How could she feel afraid of a man who had taught her how to play hide-and-seek in her dreams as a child?

“Don’t toy with me, child,” and Lacey shivered at the remembered tone that had such a different meaning now that she was older.

“I’m not a child,” Lacey shook her head and jerked her hand out of his grasp, her smile turning a bit forced. It was easy to feel brave in dreams, but why did his hold hurt just a bit?

“I can see that,” he leaned into her, looming.

Lacey rolled her eyes at his dramatics. “You don’t remember me?”

“How can I remember someone I have never met?” he sniffed and then his eyes narrowed further. They were beautiful eyes, but his tone hurt her more than his hand on her wrist.

“I remember you,” she challenged him, shaking the fruit at him around her pointing finger.

“Impossible,” he growled, and for the first time, Lacey felt a shiver of apprehension. It was a dream, wasn’t it? Then again, he’d never forgotten her before. He always knew her, or at least of her. Gran was famous in the fantasy world.

“You really don’t remember me?” Lacey’s face scrunched up with the dissonance. The taste of the marilune, so sweet, turned a bit sour. She’d chased the wolf in the hospital and fallen. In a hole.

“Drink this,” his hand held a vial of purple liquid that smoked slightly.

“Why?” she tried to back away, but he stopped her with a hand that clasped the underside of her jaw, holding her shocked head in place. “What is it?”

“It will reveal if you are a goblin in disguise,” he said, swiftly and masterfully sliding his fingers in a way that forced her mouth open. Without a pause, he dumped the vile-tasting liquid into her mouth.

She had a choice to spit it at him or swallow it, and her eyes searched his desperate ones for a path to follow. He didn’t know her. He didn’t trust her. The betrayal hurt her enough to search his features that weren’t quite right. His eyes were wider apart, his muzzle more black than white. She swallowed with a gulping sound that echoed in the silence between them.

“You aren’t the White Wolf,” Lacey breathed out the foul odor of the potion as she said it.

“I am the current White Wolf,” he answered for the first time, still searching her eyes.

“But you aren’t the White Wolf I remember,” Lacey took a breath back in and felt dread settle in her stomach.

“I’m not your Gran’s White Wolf,” his eyes softened to say. “And you are not a goblin.”

“Of course I’m not a goblin!” Lacey found her spine and spat the words at him.

“Then who are you, really?” Golden wolf eyes held her gaze as his softened and hers hardened.

“I told you that my name is Lacey, and my grandmother was Akuzukin,” Lacey pushed herself away from him to give herself some space.

They stood a few feet apart panting at each other as emotions flitted around like puppies at play. She watched his pretty golden eyes widen and then become speculative. He watched her blue eyes sharpen from the teasing play that she’d had upon waking to a very suspicious gaze now.

“Impossible,” he breathed out, breaking the uneasy silence.

“You said that already,” and it was Lacey’s turn to growl.

“You have her eyes,” he whispered. “I just thought it was a trick.”

“You have his ears,” she whispered back. “But your whiskers are the wrong color.”

“Grandfather White Wolf had white whiskers, and a slightly more silvery tail,” the man replied, and his smile was nice now that he wasn’t growling at her. That didn’t mean she should trust him. He wasn’t the White Wolf that her grandmother had told her about. He was a new White Wolf and that meant that he might not be as trustworthy as Grandfather White Wolf. Did grandmother mean to trust this wolf? “But what are you doing here?”

“I followed you,” she answered simply. “Where is your grandfather?”

“He died several years ago, during a massive Goblin raid,” he said, and Lacey wondered how any eyes could show such immense sadness. “The Goblin Queen has been relentless in the last decade.”

Lacey hadn’t dreamed of the White Wolf in so long. Could her childhood friend have died? Was he imaginary or a fantasy? Lacey stalled by taking another bite of the marilune to get the taste of the foul potion out of her mouth. She’d woken in a dream, but had she? Was it?

“My puphood name was Okami,” he offered in peace, holding his hand out to her. Whatever gruffness had come before had been set aside for a more teasing attitude from him and she marveled at how he changed direction so easily. “And before you snark about it, yes, I was named after my grandfather.”

“I’ve insulted you?” she asked him, her mind racing to fill in the gaps of the fantasy.

“I am not insulted,” he explained, still staring into her eyes as if answers were there. “I am vexed.”

“Vexed,” and Lacey smiled again at the use of the archaic word. “I can imagine. Then again, I’m imagining a lot right now.”

“I am not of your imaginings,” he worded it so strangely, almost formally. “I am Okami, and I am the White Wolf, leader of the underground rebellion against the Goblin Queen. I am officially asking for you, Lacey, descendant of Akuzukin, to aid us in our war.” And with that, he dropped to one knee in front of her.