"The woods are lovely, dark and deep," murmurs John. "But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep." Slowly, tentacles trailing ichor in the grass, he drags himself back upright. "Miles to go before I sleep."

He does approach, and gently pries loose the bindings where they'd begun to fuse back into the bark of the tree. The cords of vine pull free like muscle fibers from bone. John exhales a slow sigh and eases himself away again, but does not sit. He would not get up again.

"Wait here." When he slouches from their deadly little sanctuary, the renewed glare of the moon hits him like a thrill of lightning. "I will return."

He does not hunt, exactly. He does not have to. Danger comes to find him, and in the pettiest parts of himself, he welcomes the carnage. John slays a minor monster, and his sigil glows gold; he returns to their grove with his hands bathed red and his tentacles no longer trailing ichor.

"I will tell it to you again," he says, as he tugs loose the renewed melding of the vines.

Through the night, John surfaces back into the moonlight at odd intervals. He is approached by another pointless creature: he reduces it to a smear of gore. The snap and break of the body feels good. Cookie crumbs between his teeth, the blood a wash of sweetness. He has no better comparison.

He returns with golden scabs fading on his skin, and murmurs the words again like a prayer. "Miles to go," he says, one palm to the wolf's warm flank, "before we sleep."

Come daybreak, he has crumpled back to human form upon the bloodstained grass, half-conscious and still mumbling in the cadence of a poem.