Post by mahri on Oct 18, 2010 11:34:32 GMT -5
In the Beginning
Early morning sunlight streamed in through a small window, illuminating the young girl lying upon its rumpled and lumpy surface. Ebony tresses obscured a face that would later be commented upon for its beauty. The unscarred features were angular and awkward, as were the child’s limbs. Mahri groaned, jerking the covers over her head, hoping to stall the beginning of another day. Just then, her door was flung open and the booming voice of her father called, “Get up, Mahri. The chickens need feeding and your mother needs you to go find those herbs she always needs.” The laughter in Orean’s voice always seemed to be at odds with the gruff baritone.
Mahri knew if she didn’t get up, her father would insist on tickling her until she rolled out of bed in a fit of giggles. Cheeks flushed with delight, a grin tugged her lips upwards and she pulled the blankets tighter over her head to wait for the inevitable. Just like she had expected, the stomp of farm boots on the slats of her bedroom floor gave warning of impending tickles. Barely suppressing a giggle Mahri squirmed just as thick calloused fingers found her sides and wiggled.
“Dad!” she shrieked in laughter. Kicking the blanket off in a desperate bid to defend against the onslaught of merciless pokes and prods to her sensitive sides and ribs, “I’m up! I’m up!” It still wouldn’t stop until she rolled from the bed. As soon as her bottom hit the floor, she looked up into a face so like her own, except for the eyes. Where hers were so light a gray as to be called silver, Orean’s were a deep blue and crinkled at the corners. He was a big man, dwarfing her mother by at least a foot or more. His hair was as dark as his only child’s and his skin held the tanned leather look of a man who spent his day’s out-of-doors.
Gasping for breath, Mahri got to her feet and tugged her nightgown back into place. At eleven, she showed promise of growing into a lovely woman. Slender like her mother, Sharice, she was just beginning to show the signs of impending womanhood. Orean didn’t fail to notice the nearly too small night shirt that hardly concealed the budding evidence of his daughter’s bosom. Suddenly embarrassed, he looked away and cleared his throat.
“Ah, get dressed, love. Your mother has need of you after breakfast,” with a quick wink and soft press of fatherly lips to her forehead, Orean left the small addition built when his wife told him she was pregnant. Alone, Mahri rummaged through her chest of drawers and removed one of two dresses, this one her everyday clothes. Donning the oft patched dress, she went to the kitchen. The smells of cooking and the remedies that the townsfolk often requested brought such a sense of belonging that Mahri despaired of the day she would be forced to marry one of the local boys and do as her husband demanded. Just the thought rankled. It wasn’t as though any of the boys were interested in her. Going to the village was always torture, the other children staring and whispering about the strange girl who spent most of her time in the nearby forest.
Settling herself on the bench near the rough-hewn table in the center of the kitchen, she watched Sharice move efficiently about the warm room. It always fascinated her how quickly her mother could get things done with a minimum of fuss. Short, rail thin and with the same colored eyes as her daughter, Sharice learned the art of healing with herbs from her mother, who learned it from her mother and would be passed on to Mahri. In fact, the moment Sharice noticed Mahri sitting there, watching so quietly, a smile bloomed to reveal perfectly white teeth. Smile lines deepened at the corners of her eyes, but more and more lines of worry replaced those markers of a good life.
“Mahri! You’re up. Good. After breakfast,” a plate of eggs, bacon and toast were set in front of her, “I need you to go to the woods and gather some mint. Mister Trunel is having problems with his stomach again. I need to make a tea for him but I seem to have run out and you know where the best plants are.”The pride she felt for her only offspring shone unmistakably in those very light eyes. Wiping her hands on her apron, Sharice continued, “First though, I need you to go gather this morning’s eggs. Those are the last from yesterday.”
“Alright, you know I could show you where the mint patch is though,” wrinkling her nose in a grin at her mother, Mahri dug into the food. Not one to be shy about what or how she ate, the food was soon gone, and Mahri was out the door to begin her chores. Pausing, the basket for eggs hung on one arm, the girl took a deep breath of the clear morning air. Canting her head slightly, she closed her eyes and listened. Something seemed a bit off. There was no birdsong. Not even the chickens squawked for their grain. Frowning, she made her way slowly to the coop. Her bare feet scarcely made a sound on the hard-packed dirt of the yard. Unhooking the latch, she swung the door open swiftly fully expecting to find a fox snatching the mornings laying. Instead, huddled in a corner was a boy. Two eggs were clutched desperately in his hands and a look of utter fear and shame twisted otherwise handsome features as he looked at the door and the slip of a girl standing there.
Drawing in a breath to scream, Mahri paused and snapped her jaw shut. The first thought that went through her head also came out of her mouth, “Just who are you and what are you doing with my eggs?” Planting her hands upon her hips, she waited for an answer and when it wasn’t forthcoming she prompted with, “Well?”
Tavish stared at the scrap of child-almost-woman glaring daggers at him. At first, he thought it was the farmer himself coming to collect the eggs, and then cursed himself for being an idiot. What farmer with a daughter gets his own eggs? Quickly, the fourteen year old formulated a lie, “I was getting them for you.”
Cringing inwardly, he knew she didn’t believe him when she turned her head just enough to yell over her shoulder but not enough that he could sneak back out the chicken’s entrance without her seeing, “Dad! There’s an egg thief in the henhouse!” Defeated, Tavish slumped into the corner, lowered his arms and hung his head.
“Stupid Tavish, what were you thinking? ‘I was getting them for you.’ Like that was believable.” Berating himself kept his attention away from the bear of a man that could only be the girl’s father. At fourteen, Tavish stood nearly six feet tall, so cowering in the corner seemed to be a silly thing to do. Straightening as much as he could in the coop, the boy met the farmer’s eyes steadily. Suck it up Tavish, you are the one stealing eggs. Aloud he said, “Sir.”
Cerulean eyes sparkled deeply with mirth as they took in the disheveled boy. There was something in the way he decided to own up to his wrong that reminded Orean of himself. “Boy, what the hell are you doing in my chicken coop?” The question was asked in a brusque tone, with no small amount of humor hidden in the depths of the rich baritone. The farmer leaned one thickly muscled arm across the top of the doorway and leaned partway in, waiting for the boy’s answer. One look was enough to tell the elder man that this scrap of a kid was starving and probably running from something, or someone. Offering a reassuring smile, Orean reached with one hand to beckon him from the dark coop and into the yard. Wisely, Tavish placed the eggs in the girl’s basket on his way out. Shuffling his feet, Tavish drew in a bracing breath, squared his shoulders and lifted his head to meet the man’s gaze levelly, “I was stealing your eggs, sir. I was hungry.” There really was no use in lying at this point. He’d been caught, plain and simple. Whatever punishment that came his way was deserved. A rush of blood tinted tanned cheeks with shame at the admission all the same.
Mahri stared at this rather tall boy before pressing her lips together and entering the coop. She couldn’t hear what her father said to the boy, but that didn’t matter. She knew him well enough that she could imagine. First, he’d chastise the stranger—telling him how turning to crime was no way to get through life—then would come the invitation to eat rest and maybe do odd jobs. That’s just how he was; generous almost to a fault. Chelsea, her favorite hen of the bunch, watched Mahri with glittery eyes that seemed to miss nothing as she plucked eggs from the nests and deposited them in the basket.
“Nothing will come of that boy, Chelsea,” she murmured, not expecting an answer. With a soft cluck, the brown hen ruffled her feathers and hopped from the straw bed to go scratch at the ground for bugs. Chuckling softly to herself, Mahri ducked out of the coop and went back to the house. Wiping her feet on the rag-rug her mother had made, she cocked her head, listening for voices from the kitchen. Sure enough she could hear her mother and father discussing this temporary addition to their household. He had to be temporary. Something told her that nothing good could come from that boy’s being there. Days turned to weeks, weeks into months and months into years. And yet, he didn’t leave. Tavish seemed to have become very nearly a permanent fixture.
[edit] Five Years Later
With a basket slung over her arm, Mahri meandered through the yard towards the line of trees demarcating the line between farm and forest. A flush of anticipation and excitement stained her cheeks a healthy pink as a surreptitious glance is cast over her shoulder. She couldn’t see them, but she knew Orean and Sharice were both watching from the kitchen window. They knew she wasn’t really going to pick berries, and they were happy about that. In fact, they seemed to encourage her excursions with a knowing grin and nod. Still, the teenager kept up the pretence of secret meetings and trysts. The moment she passed the tree-line, Mahri took off at a sprint; the basket fell from her arm to lie ignored on the ground. A wide grin pulled her full lips up in an expression of pure joy. Her feet barely touched the leaves that littered the ground as she ran. The very trees themselves seemed to bend out of her way and their roots dug deep so as not to encumber her race for the meadow. Ebony hair streamed out behind the girl, the very wind combing the snarls from the shining mass and her dress fluttered around her calves as she held it up in her rush to meet with her beau.
Waiting with infinite patience and an endless supply of nerves, he stood in the middle of the late blooming wild flowers. Tavish thrust his hands into the shock of sun-streaked brown hair that fell haphazardly into his face. Five years since Mahri had found him in the coop. Five years of getting to know the strong-willed girl who grew into an even stronger-minded woman. A smile bowed his lips as he thought back over his time on the farm. Orean had been like a father to him. Sharice was a better mother than his own. He’d watched and learned, working every day. Withdrawing his hands from the nest of hair, Tavish looked at them with a critical eye. Once, they had been soft, the hands of a noble; or just the son of a merchant. The whipcord thin body he’d once strutted around in had thickened with muscles and calluses formed on his hands. There had been many nights when Sharice had bandaged and clucked over the blisters that broke open in the first weeks the boy had worked well beyond his ability to earn his keep on the farm.
Mostly, he remembered the dark-haired girl who watched him as well with suspicious silver-gray eyes. It was those very same eyes that filled his dreams from the time she turned thirteen and he first noticed her, not as an annoying child—but as a woman near full grown. Gods above, by the time Tavish had turned up on the farm, he was supposed to have been on his second voyage as cabin-boy on his father’s latest shipment of goods from Cenril to Rynvale. And he would have been too if it hadn’t been for the fact that pirate activity had increased and no ship-of-the-line was safe from marauding ne’er-do-wells. He’d run away the night before they were to set to sea and never looked back. Now, with Orean and Sharice turning gray with age and depending more and more on him and Mahri to work the farm, he’d made a decision. It was time to return and face up to his cowardice. This thought took all the joy out of his reminiscing and brought him back to the present.
The flutter of wings and the whisper of feet on the leaf-carpeted ground alerted Tavish to Mahri’s imminent arrival. Tugging his shirt over the rough fabric of his breeches, he prepared to receive the girl he’d hoped to one day marry. Funny, how things hardly ever seemed to go as planned. Still, when she burst into the meadow, he opened his arms wide to catch her flying form. Wrapping strong arms around a slender waist, Tavish buried his face in the mess of fragrant hair that whipped about her shoulders.
“Mahri,” he groaned, breathing in her scent and closing his eyes. He had to memorize it all, this moment in time, because it was all about to change.
“Ah, Tavish, you scoundrel, asking me to meet you here,” laughing that low throaty laugh that made his legs weak, she clung to him only a moment before asserting her independence once again and drawing away. Not out of his arms, but just far enough to let him know she is and always will be her own woman. It nearly undid him, seeing the love shimmering in eyes that seemed to be able to change one moment to the next. Sometimes, they were soft and warm, fluid like quick-silver. Others they were like the bottoms of storm clouds, dark and foreboding. Even worse is when they were hard and cold, like flint being struck with steal. The smile slowly faded and her countenance became troubled as her eyes searched his own. “What’s wrong?” For the first time, uncertainty entered her tone and her spine stiffened in his arms.
Slowly, Tavish lowered his arms and took a step away. Unable to meet her gaze any longer, he picked a point just over her shoulder and stared at it, “I have to go, love.” Mahri blinked a few times before she smiled again and shook her head with another laugh, “Is that all? Well, that’s nothing. You’ll be back and we can tell Mom and Dad our plans.” Snuggling closer, Mahri laid her head upon his broad shoulder and closed her eyes. It took a moment or two of silence before she raised her head again. This time there is no smile, either gracing her lips or lighting her eyes. “You aren’t coming back, are you?” He shook his head, unable to speak past the lump in his throat.
“We aren’t going to be married. Are we,” she wasn’t asking now, and as she spoke, the girl was slowly extricating herself from Tavish, physically and emotionally.
“No,” he finally managed to rasp. Tears stung his whiskey colored eyes, but Tavish quickly blinked them away and cleared his throat to say in a stronger voice, “No. I won’t be coming back, Mahri. I’m…” he’d started to apologize, only to bite it back and clench his jaw. Better she hate him, “I can’t stand it here anymore. Getting up with the sun and not going to bed until it’s well below the horizon. The stink of animals and the fields that won’t wash off. I can’t be expected to do this the rest of my life.”
By the time Tavish had made his great speech, Mahri turned her back to him and was staring into the trees. Tears tracked their way down her cheeks unchecked and her shoulders jerked with sobs that made no sound. He hated himself then, in that moment. Clenching his fists until his knuckles turned bone-white, Tavish ignored the ache in his own chest and turned about on his boot-heel. Without another word, he strode away. What was left to say? Mahri heard him leave and almost raced after to try and stop him. Pride was her undoing however. Instead, she sank to her knees in the middle of the field and cradled her face in her hands. She’d cry, get it all out now and never cry again. Silently, she made that promise. No man would ever, ever!, make her cry like this again. The moon had past its zenith in the suddenly cloudy sky by the time her tears dried up. Wiping her damp cheeks with the hem of her dress, Mahri took one or two last hitching breaths and slowly stood. It was then she took note of the silence. Not even at night is the forest completely silent. The wind rustled leaves hesitantly, as though afraid to draw attention to itself. Cocking her head, Mahri listened intently to the breathy voice: Go now. Run. Run fast! Leave!
Her breath quickening in sudden fear, she looked about the meadow and slowly started for the tree line. Bare feet picked their way tentatively across the grass, listening carefully for the smallest sound. Then she heard it. A howl broke the silence and every instinct she possessed told her it was not one of the natural wolves that roamed and hunted in these woods. They usually kept a respectful distance from her when she wandered, aware she was an ally if not a friend. Often enough the girl had healed wounds after a scuffle to settle pack disputes or the occasional broken bone after an inquisitive pup got in over its head. No, this wasn’t one of those, and no answering howl came which was all the prodding she needed to pick up the pace. It was a lycan and a rogue if she wasn’t mistaken. Nothing else would have felled the forest into silence. With her breath coming in panicked gasps and blood rushing in her ears, Mahri ran. She ran as fast as she possibly could, veering past trees and leaping over roots. With her head low and her body leaning forward, the girl paid no heed to her direction, and that’s how it happened. She stumbled into a bramble, fell through and landed in a heap of scraped hands and knees. With a groan, she pushed herself up then froze when a menacing growl broke into her panic stricken mind. It came again, accompanied by the wet squelch of tearing flesh and her paralysis broke. Looking up, Mahri pressed the back of her hand against her mouth to stifle the horrified scream that threatened to spill out. Too late, the smallest of whimpers sounded, drawing the attention of the anthromorphic lycan. Not quite a beast and not a man either, it was covered with coarse, wiry dark-brown fur. Ebony claws dripped with crimson ichor, spackling the ground with the still steaming-warm fluid. At its feet lay a fawn, still sporting its infant spots. Or, rather, what was left of it. The guts were strewn about, like some morbid holiday decoration, and its neck was twisted in an unnatural angle. All this she took in at once and would have lost her supper if she hadn’t met the creature’s feral gaze. The eyes seemed to capture and hold her in place, their amber depths glowing preternaturally when the clouds parted and a shaft of moonlight illuminated the irises.
The lycan lurched, startling her into action and Mahri scrambled to her feet, bolting through the underbrush in the opposite direction before turning sharply towards the farmhouse. She could hear it, thundering behind and she knew it was playing with her, enjoying the chase and scent of pure terror that surely poured off her like ambrosia. Still, she ran on, knowing that she would never make it in time. At the edge, just before the field, he leapt. Claws rent through her dress, shredding the gingham from shoulders to hip. A scream finally burst from her throat, echoing across the pasture and reaching the house. Just as she went down, Orean burst through the door, bow in hand and already drawn with an arrow held taught against the string. It was dark, but he shot anyway, the arrow sailing high before coming down. Down, down, down it fell, the napped stone tip imbedding itself in the werewolf’s hip just as those lethal teeth closed around her right shoulder and tore flesh, breaking skin and setting free the warm-copper of her blood.
That was the last Mahri remembered before waking in her room. A bandage was wrapped around her shoulder, the gauze already soaked through with blood from the wound. Staring up at her ceiling, the voices of her parents seemed to be coming from just the other side of the door, and yet, they were oddly muffled as though they were doing their best to speak in tones she wouldn’t hear.
“Sharice, what do you want me to do!? She was bitten and survived. You know what’s going to happen. None of your potions are going to help her now,” the pain in his voice almost brought fresh tears to the girl’s eyes. Keeping them wide-open, she willed the salty sting away.
“I have to try. It’s what I do, Orean,” came the calm tones of her mother. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her daughter, nor was she unafraid of the months to come, but the Gods hadn’t given her the gift of healing to not be able to help her only child. Determined, Sharice turned from her husband and walked serenely to her work room. Closing the door behind her, she slid down its smooth surface and gave in to the grief burning inside.
In her room, Mahri shifted a bit on the bed, wincing at the pull of stitches in her shoulder. How long had she been out? It was hard to tell with the overcast sky outside her window. Struggling into a sitting position, her small cry of pain must have alerted her father since the door opened quickly enough and his strong arms came around to help. Offering a smile of gratitude, she allowed him to plump the pillows for her to lean back on.
“We’ll get you better, sweetheart,” he murmured in a low rumble. Unable to meet her eyes for fear of what she’d see Orean looked anywhere and everywhere but at his only child, the light of his life. He didn’t sound too convinced and Mahri took pity on him, reaching with her good arm to smooth a hand over his gray streaked hair.
“Don’t worry about me, Dad. I’ll be just fine,” as though to prove it, she stiffly moved the injured limb to embrace the man who’d been the center of her world until…biting her lip, Mahri put all thoughts of Tavish from her mind. At least, she tried to anyway. Some part of her wondered if he’d made it out of the forest before the lycan found him. Another part, a cold unfeeling part she hadn’t known she possessed, didn’t much care.
Desperate to agree with her, Orean nodded against her shoulder and gently pulled away, beaming a smile down at her. The dark circles under her eyes and the red blotches on her cheeks told him she’d been crying before the attack but he wouldn’t pry. If she wanted to tell him, she would. Changing the subject of her health, he asked, “Where’s Tavish? Didn’t you meet with him...” he didn’t finish. The momentary look of stricken heartbreak told all he needed to know. “Oh, honey.”
Before her father could gather her into his arms in sympathy, she flashed him a weak smile and shook her head, “I wouldn’t worry too much. I’m sure he’ll be just fine.” Reclining against the pillows, Mahri closed her eyes as though slipping into sleep. Willing her breathing to slow and even out, she waited until the sound of the door closing announced her father’s leaving. Staying like that, she eventually fell into a troubled sleep, filled with the images of lycan and Tavish and somehow the two became meshed into one.
Through the night, Sharice kept a vigil over her daughter. Cool clothes were applied when the fever took hold and Mahri thrashed about on the bed. Incoherent words were spoken and invisible demons fought against as the curse ran rampant through her veins, changing the girl forever, for better or worst remained to be seen. By day break, the fever had also broken and Mahri slipped into undisturbed sleep. When she finally woke the following day, something seemed to be missing from the carefree girl some vital spark that had let her thumb her nose at the villagers when they whispered behind her back.
It was a week before Sharice even considered allowing her out of bed, another yet before she consented to a brief sojourn to the edge of the woods. Mahri stood there, hands clasped and head bowed in what appeared to be mourning. In her mind, that’s exactly what was happening. Her shoulder had healed well before she’d first gotten out of bed, her natural healing ability having had no effect. So, here she was, saying goodbye to the girl she’d once been. It was impossible, now, to even consider returning to that carefree child, the one who used to run in the forest to learn the latest tidbits from her sylvan friends. Though the weight of her separation weighed heavily on her breast, the teen didn’t shed a single tear. If there is anything she is good at, it’s keeping a promise to herself.
Turning from the exact spot where her life had irrevocably been changed, Mahri stares again at the house ablaze with remembered laughter and shared sorrows. As much as her parents wanted to, they could not help their daughter now. She could tell how much it hurt them to see her so melancholy. Squaring her shoulders, she looked up at the sky. Why had she never noticed the phases of the Twins above? Both moons shone brightly in the cloudless sky. In another two weeks they would be as full as the night Tavish said his goodbye and she’d been bitten. Two weeks to convince her parents that her leaving would be best for all, especially them. The moonbeams beckoned, enticing her even now to shed her human husk and race them across the meadow. Shivering from the lure of absolute freedom, Mahri tears herself away from temptation and treks back to the house.
The scrape of chairs when the door opened told the girl that Sharice and Orean had been watching from the window. Trying to understand their worry, she swallowed down the irritation and hung the shawl she’d worn against the unseasonable chill in the air. Taking a bracing breath, she readies for the battle ahead. With a resigned look on her face, she enters the main room of the small house. It only really had four rooms; the main room, with its modest hearth and ample seating though they never had guests (until Tavish but he was banished from her thoughts), the kitchen and two bedrooms, so it isn’t surprising that even though she had taken her time, her father looked like the book he was reading upside down had just been opened, and her mother was working on the same stitch as an hour ago in her embroidery. It was sort of amusing and her lips twitched with the want to smile. Suppressing the urge, she took her own seat and folded her hands lightly atop her lap to wait.
Her mother looked up first, Sharice forcing a cheerful smile even though her eyes, as light gray as her daughter’s, was full of worry, “Oh, I didn’t hear you come in, Mahri. Did you have a nice walk? It’s so good to see you going out again after…well, we don’t need to speak of that now do we.” Aware that she’s on the verge of rambling, Sharice closes her mouth, compressing her lips into a thin line and casts a glance towards Orean, silently begging him to say something.
He obliged, clearing his throat and lowering his book even though the farmer didn't look directly at Mahri. She had changed so much in such a short time. Two weeks ago, he’d been sure that she and Tavish would announce an engagement, so happy they were together. Over the years he’d watch the two grow. At first there’d been conflict, sure, such is the way when two fought against the pull of nature. They had argued like cats and dogs, each storming in an opposite direction when neither would give way to the other. A nostalgic curved his age-softened lips as he finally meets his child’s waiting eyes. “I recon, what your mother is trying to say is: Whatever you need to do to be happy, we’ll support.”
The gasp that came from his wife confirms that that is not what she’d wanted him to say at all. The chocked sob that follows and the rush of her skirts from the room only cement the idea. For his daughter’s part, she seemed to finally relax, like a weight had been taken from her. His voice came, thick and rumbling with emotions held in check, “You have been through quite an ordeal these weeks, daughter-mine. I can’t see you so unhappy anymore.” Eyes that had become rheumy with advanced years stole a glance at the closed bedroom door where his wife was surely crying on the four poster bed he’d built when they were first married. “I love your mother, and I love you. Seeing you and knowing she couldn’t stop what was happening is killing her even if she won’t admit it, and it is killing me to see the two of you wandering about like zombies. So you go into the world girl and find out just who you are. There are two weeks left yet before the moons rise full. The two of you will have that time to do what’s needed.”
At the end of his speech, Orean pushes from his chair and sets the book—unread—on the side table. Passing Mahri on his way to his wife, a callused and strong hand rests on the girl’s shoulder before he moves off. Staring ahead, Mahri has the distinct misfortune of feeling every tension flow out of her. If she had been expecting a fight, she was glad not to have gotten one. The support from her father meant the world to her, but now, she had plans to make. As soon as he was gone, she rushed to her room to pack. Pulling out a valise that had belonged to a long dead relative, Mahri snapped it open onto the bed. It’s only then that, upon looking around, she realized that nothing she had could go with her. Decision made, the newly turned lycan had no plans to ever return or look back. Turning a slow circle, she finally sat at the edge of the bed, one hand resting on the empty case. For the first time, she smiled, twin dimples puckering in her cheeks. So, this is what it felt like to be free. No one would ever take that from her. Not now, not ever.
Over the next two weeks, Mahri’s excitement was undaunted by her mother’s pleadings. Time and again Sharice tried to talk her child out of leaving. What was out there that they couldn’t give her? Clothes? Money? What were those when compared to a family who needed her. Mahri just shook her head, on the constant verge of tears, and would not change her mind. “I’m sorry, mother,” was all she would say while staring at the forest through new eyes from the kitchen window.
Finally, one evening, just as the sun was going down and the moons making their rotund appearance, she could stand the siren call no longer and brushed past her mother. “It’s time,” she whispered in awe. With Sharice’s protests ringing dully in her ears, Mahri hurried out the door, shedding her clothes eagerly. It is almost certain that no one in the history of this curse had ever met their fate with such abandon. Most writhed as the transformation over took them. Not Mahri though. She met it joyfully even as the agony of shifting bones, muscles and tendons brought her to her knees. She’d almost made it to the forest and behind she could vaguely hear the terror stricken screams of her mother. With the last vestige of her humanity, Mahri silently bid her farewell. It seemed to take forever, the changing of her form, but it was only a few minutes. In the place of a farm girl lay a wolf with a pelt as black as her human hair and eyes the same eerie silver. Getting shakily to her feet, the beast shook itself before raising her muzzle to the sky and letting free a howl of such unmitigated ecstasy the keening wails of grief were drowned out. An answer came, one by one, as the pack called to one of their own.
Without so much as a look back, the wolf turned tail and raced into the darkness of the forest and was soon swallowed up among the shadows. Racing through with the wind stroking cool fingers through her fur, Mahri’s feral form drank in the new sensations. Colors that she’d never seen before assaulted her eyes in a kaleidoscope of hues. Scents were richer, the earth turned by worms and moles seemed to hold so many new mysteries. Even the trees gave off a mixture of earth, wind and water. Excitement raced with her as she made to join the hunting pack. They were found beneath a rocky outcrop she had never noticed before and Mahri had been all through these woods in her past life. The wolf though had no such mundane thoughts. Instinct ruled in this body and it told her to be cautious. The Alpha was a huge male, gray and white with oddly intense brown eyes that stood shoulder and flank above the others except his mate.
Slinking forward with an inquiring whine the midnight wolf tucked her tail dutifully between her hind legs. She belly crawled, claws scratching miniature furrows into the earth, her way through the menacing stares of lower ranking bitches and males. Even the Beta eyed her warily. The tawny female was the one to step forward, her head held high and ears perked forward at the strange lupine. She smelled faintly of humans, and vaguely familiar. The black whined imploringly, wriggling to her back to expose her throat to the ranking female. After a moment’s hesitation, the bitch lowered her head and nosed the new comer’s shoulder before clamping her teeth around the exposed throat. Mahri’s tail swayed hopefully, sweeping the ground just enough to move dried leaves and stir up a plume of dust. The brief tightening of her jaws, a low growl and the alpha released her potentially lethal grip upon the jugular and stepped back to allow the new pack member to get to her feet. She’ll have to fight her way through the ranks of course, before finding a place among the wolves. Adrenaline raced through her veins, elation followed soon after as Mahri rolled back to her feet and crept up to her alpha, raising just enough to lap her tongue gratefully across a turned cheek.
The rest of the pack, as if by some subtle signal, crept forward to welcome this strange wolf. Each one, male and female, investigated with a brief sniff before the male gave a low chuff and bounded off the rocks. Into the forest he disappeared, his bitch soon following and Mahri wasn’t far behind. She missed, in her haste to prove her value to the pack, the dozen eyes that peered from the hollow ground beneath the rocky outcrop. In the shelter of trees not too far away, a blur of white left the den. Blood-red eyes had seen it all. From the moment of Mahri’s shift to her acceptance with the natural pack she had watched. The albino melted into the foliage, morbidly curious to know if come the morning, the girl would still be alive.
The Ghost was disappointed. The new day came and there, just outside the hole that housed mother and pups, laid the newly turned lycan. Her blue-black coat glistened in the dappled sunlight coming through the canopy above. This one would bear future watching, she decided. A fly landed on the black’s coat and the muscle beneath twitched in irritation. Raising her head with a wide yawn, the wolf caught just the barest flashes of snowy fur. Scrambling to her feet, Mahri gave a warning growl. Her hackles raised aggressively as her oddly silver eyes scanned the tree line. Seeing nothing and smelling nothing, she settled back down and rested her lupine chin on her paws.
Months passed. Her life was good with the pack. They hunted and played. The pups grew to become adolescents under the watchful eyes of the other wolves. But none were more vigilant than the black. It had to happen on day, certainly. The day that Mahri shed her feral form and resumed life as the human fate had decided to alter. The fact that it happened while she slept was probably merciful. Her body had been locked in a quadruped form for so long that, had she been awake when it first started, Mahri’s screams would have panicked the others. These wolves were natural and did not deal with sudden changes very well. Oh yes, they had accepted her into their midst easily enough but Mahri would soon learn it wasn’t due to the wolf. Instead, her natural affinity for nature had once again stepped in to shield the human half of her being.
When the bitch came to check her pups, already full of her next litter and irritable to begin with, she was startled to find a human lying there among the young. Mahri awoke to a low growl, her eyes blinked open in confusion. Her immediate thought was that something had snuck into the den and was a threat. Her second was that she was cold. The older litter had woken with the first rumble and scurried out of the den. One by one they dared a peek inside at the woman now occupying the space a wolf once had. Fear had become a foreign emotion to Mahri. It took a few moments for her to figure out it was fear that held her limbs frozen and stopped her breathing. When she finally dared a sharp breath the alpha and her brood had already backed away from the cave opening. Crawling forward, Mahri cautiously thrust her head out into the afternoon light. They were gone, all of them. On padded feet, the pack had simply left the young woman alone in the forest.
She opened her mouth, but no sound was forthcoming. Digging her fingers into the rich soil, the lycan clawed her way out of the narrow opening while jutting roots scraped her skin and let welts along her bare flanks. By the time she had pulled herself out, Mahri was covered in dirt, bruises and cuts. This didn’t bother her so much as the absolute silence that had overtaken the woods. Huddling against a boulder with her knees draw up, she thought fast, trying to remember who and what she was. The wolf had taken over so completely that this body felt alien. Raising a hand before her face, she flexed the fingers. Dirt crusted the nails which themselves were ragged and torn. Lowering her hand, she watched as her toes wiggled against the chilly ground. Goose bumps rose all over her body and her muscles shivered with the effort of keeping warm. It was the cold that actually got her moving. Gaining her feet unsteadily the trees made for good hand holds as she learned to use two limbs to move around rather than four. After a while it got easier and she soon found herself following familiar paths. Somehow, she knew where they would lead. Home, that place of warmth and laughter.
In her mind, dark blue eyes crinkled at the corners with a half remembered smile. Eyes like her own scolded softly. She knew these people and it took only a few moments to remember. Memories came crashing into her mind, bringing the young woman to her knees. Her palm scrapped the bark of a tree. She ignored the stinging pain and once again got to her feet. It was easier that time and soon she was running towards the field. She remembered it all and hoped it wasn’t too late.
Hope was a fickle thing. It let you believe that everything was going to be the same. It lifted spirits when all else seemed bleak, then it tore it all away in one fell swoop. Her world crashed, again, as she emerged from the forest and into the meadow she remembered running through as a child, chasing butterflies and dragonflies as they fluttered and buzzed about. Her parents must have remembered as well. There, greeting her was a headstone. White marble with veins of gold, it gleamed as only a lovingly maintained monument could. Glancing cautiously at the rundown farm house, she stepped around to see the name etched upon the surface. Limbs trembled, her stomach clenched and childishly she closed her eyes tight against what she knew she’d find. Forcing her lids to open, Mahri stared in disbelief at her own name on that slab.
Dropping to her knees, Mahri leaned forward to rest her arm across the smooth top and pressed her cheek to the cool face of the stone. Tears ran unchecked down her cheeks as the fingers of her other hand traced each letter. There she stayed until the sun went down. The night air bit coldly at her flesh finally forcing her to move again. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered why no one had come from the house to investigate. Turning around she was surprised to see no welcoming lights glowing in the kitchen windows. Slowly Mahri realized the farm had an air of the abandoned. One step, two steps, three then more took her right to the door. It didn’t take much, a gentle push really, to have it swinging open on squeaky hinges. That wasn’t right. Orean had always oiled those when they became noisy. Sharice had found it distracting while she worked to hear the door squawk every time someone came or went.
Cobwebs and dust coated the frame and caught in her hair when she finally stepped inside. An indrawn breath lead to a sneeze as particles flew up her nose to irritate the lining. Unerringly, she found her room. The bed was still there, her clothes too. They had left everything behind when they moved. For once she was grateful. Taking the basin from her dresser, Mahri filled it with cold water from the kitchen’s pump and washed up as best she could before falling into an exhausted sleep on the dusty mattress. Some rodent or other had chewed holes in the comforter. It didn’t matter as she pulled it up over her head. Morning would be soon enough to face this new change and decide how to deal with it. Outside, blood red eyes watched the dilapidated house. Turning into the forest she again moved silently and disappeared. The girl would find a rabbit on the doorstep in the morning with no clues as to how it got there except for the torn throat. After that, the girl was on her own the Ghost having enough of her own uncharacteristic concern to depart for new territory.
Early morning sunlight streamed in through a small window, illuminating the young girl lying upon its rumpled and lumpy surface. Ebony tresses obscured a face that would later be commented upon for its beauty. The unscarred features were angular and awkward, as were the child’s limbs. Mahri groaned, jerking the covers over her head, hoping to stall the beginning of another day. Just then, her door was flung open and the booming voice of her father called, “Get up, Mahri. The chickens need feeding and your mother needs you to go find those herbs she always needs.” The laughter in Orean’s voice always seemed to be at odds with the gruff baritone.
Mahri knew if she didn’t get up, her father would insist on tickling her until she rolled out of bed in a fit of giggles. Cheeks flushed with delight, a grin tugged her lips upwards and she pulled the blankets tighter over her head to wait for the inevitable. Just like she had expected, the stomp of farm boots on the slats of her bedroom floor gave warning of impending tickles. Barely suppressing a giggle Mahri squirmed just as thick calloused fingers found her sides and wiggled.
“Dad!” she shrieked in laughter. Kicking the blanket off in a desperate bid to defend against the onslaught of merciless pokes and prods to her sensitive sides and ribs, “I’m up! I’m up!” It still wouldn’t stop until she rolled from the bed. As soon as her bottom hit the floor, she looked up into a face so like her own, except for the eyes. Where hers were so light a gray as to be called silver, Orean’s were a deep blue and crinkled at the corners. He was a big man, dwarfing her mother by at least a foot or more. His hair was as dark as his only child’s and his skin held the tanned leather look of a man who spent his day’s out-of-doors.
Gasping for breath, Mahri got to her feet and tugged her nightgown back into place. At eleven, she showed promise of growing into a lovely woman. Slender like her mother, Sharice, she was just beginning to show the signs of impending womanhood. Orean didn’t fail to notice the nearly too small night shirt that hardly concealed the budding evidence of his daughter’s bosom. Suddenly embarrassed, he looked away and cleared his throat.
“Ah, get dressed, love. Your mother has need of you after breakfast,” with a quick wink and soft press of fatherly lips to her forehead, Orean left the small addition built when his wife told him she was pregnant. Alone, Mahri rummaged through her chest of drawers and removed one of two dresses, this one her everyday clothes. Donning the oft patched dress, she went to the kitchen. The smells of cooking and the remedies that the townsfolk often requested brought such a sense of belonging that Mahri despaired of the day she would be forced to marry one of the local boys and do as her husband demanded. Just the thought rankled. It wasn’t as though any of the boys were interested in her. Going to the village was always torture, the other children staring and whispering about the strange girl who spent most of her time in the nearby forest.
Settling herself on the bench near the rough-hewn table in the center of the kitchen, she watched Sharice move efficiently about the warm room. It always fascinated her how quickly her mother could get things done with a minimum of fuss. Short, rail thin and with the same colored eyes as her daughter, Sharice learned the art of healing with herbs from her mother, who learned it from her mother and would be passed on to Mahri. In fact, the moment Sharice noticed Mahri sitting there, watching so quietly, a smile bloomed to reveal perfectly white teeth. Smile lines deepened at the corners of her eyes, but more and more lines of worry replaced those markers of a good life.
“Mahri! You’re up. Good. After breakfast,” a plate of eggs, bacon and toast were set in front of her, “I need you to go to the woods and gather some mint. Mister Trunel is having problems with his stomach again. I need to make a tea for him but I seem to have run out and you know where the best plants are.”The pride she felt for her only offspring shone unmistakably in those very light eyes. Wiping her hands on her apron, Sharice continued, “First though, I need you to go gather this morning’s eggs. Those are the last from yesterday.”
“Alright, you know I could show you where the mint patch is though,” wrinkling her nose in a grin at her mother, Mahri dug into the food. Not one to be shy about what or how she ate, the food was soon gone, and Mahri was out the door to begin her chores. Pausing, the basket for eggs hung on one arm, the girl took a deep breath of the clear morning air. Canting her head slightly, she closed her eyes and listened. Something seemed a bit off. There was no birdsong. Not even the chickens squawked for their grain. Frowning, she made her way slowly to the coop. Her bare feet scarcely made a sound on the hard-packed dirt of the yard. Unhooking the latch, she swung the door open swiftly fully expecting to find a fox snatching the mornings laying. Instead, huddled in a corner was a boy. Two eggs were clutched desperately in his hands and a look of utter fear and shame twisted otherwise handsome features as he looked at the door and the slip of a girl standing there.
Drawing in a breath to scream, Mahri paused and snapped her jaw shut. The first thought that went through her head also came out of her mouth, “Just who are you and what are you doing with my eggs?” Planting her hands upon her hips, she waited for an answer and when it wasn’t forthcoming she prompted with, “Well?”
Tavish stared at the scrap of child-almost-woman glaring daggers at him. At first, he thought it was the farmer himself coming to collect the eggs, and then cursed himself for being an idiot. What farmer with a daughter gets his own eggs? Quickly, the fourteen year old formulated a lie, “I was getting them for you.”
Cringing inwardly, he knew she didn’t believe him when she turned her head just enough to yell over her shoulder but not enough that he could sneak back out the chicken’s entrance without her seeing, “Dad! There’s an egg thief in the henhouse!” Defeated, Tavish slumped into the corner, lowered his arms and hung his head.
“Stupid Tavish, what were you thinking? ‘I was getting them for you.’ Like that was believable.” Berating himself kept his attention away from the bear of a man that could only be the girl’s father. At fourteen, Tavish stood nearly six feet tall, so cowering in the corner seemed to be a silly thing to do. Straightening as much as he could in the coop, the boy met the farmer’s eyes steadily. Suck it up Tavish, you are the one stealing eggs. Aloud he said, “Sir.”
Cerulean eyes sparkled deeply with mirth as they took in the disheveled boy. There was something in the way he decided to own up to his wrong that reminded Orean of himself. “Boy, what the hell are you doing in my chicken coop?” The question was asked in a brusque tone, with no small amount of humor hidden in the depths of the rich baritone. The farmer leaned one thickly muscled arm across the top of the doorway and leaned partway in, waiting for the boy’s answer. One look was enough to tell the elder man that this scrap of a kid was starving and probably running from something, or someone. Offering a reassuring smile, Orean reached with one hand to beckon him from the dark coop and into the yard. Wisely, Tavish placed the eggs in the girl’s basket on his way out. Shuffling his feet, Tavish drew in a bracing breath, squared his shoulders and lifted his head to meet the man’s gaze levelly, “I was stealing your eggs, sir. I was hungry.” There really was no use in lying at this point. He’d been caught, plain and simple. Whatever punishment that came his way was deserved. A rush of blood tinted tanned cheeks with shame at the admission all the same.
Mahri stared at this rather tall boy before pressing her lips together and entering the coop. She couldn’t hear what her father said to the boy, but that didn’t matter. She knew him well enough that she could imagine. First, he’d chastise the stranger—telling him how turning to crime was no way to get through life—then would come the invitation to eat rest and maybe do odd jobs. That’s just how he was; generous almost to a fault. Chelsea, her favorite hen of the bunch, watched Mahri with glittery eyes that seemed to miss nothing as she plucked eggs from the nests and deposited them in the basket.
“Nothing will come of that boy, Chelsea,” she murmured, not expecting an answer. With a soft cluck, the brown hen ruffled her feathers and hopped from the straw bed to go scratch at the ground for bugs. Chuckling softly to herself, Mahri ducked out of the coop and went back to the house. Wiping her feet on the rag-rug her mother had made, she cocked her head, listening for voices from the kitchen. Sure enough she could hear her mother and father discussing this temporary addition to their household. He had to be temporary. Something told her that nothing good could come from that boy’s being there. Days turned to weeks, weeks into months and months into years. And yet, he didn’t leave. Tavish seemed to have become very nearly a permanent fixture.
[edit] Five Years Later
With a basket slung over her arm, Mahri meandered through the yard towards the line of trees demarcating the line between farm and forest. A flush of anticipation and excitement stained her cheeks a healthy pink as a surreptitious glance is cast over her shoulder. She couldn’t see them, but she knew Orean and Sharice were both watching from the kitchen window. They knew she wasn’t really going to pick berries, and they were happy about that. In fact, they seemed to encourage her excursions with a knowing grin and nod. Still, the teenager kept up the pretence of secret meetings and trysts. The moment she passed the tree-line, Mahri took off at a sprint; the basket fell from her arm to lie ignored on the ground. A wide grin pulled her full lips up in an expression of pure joy. Her feet barely touched the leaves that littered the ground as she ran. The very trees themselves seemed to bend out of her way and their roots dug deep so as not to encumber her race for the meadow. Ebony hair streamed out behind the girl, the very wind combing the snarls from the shining mass and her dress fluttered around her calves as she held it up in her rush to meet with her beau.
Waiting with infinite patience and an endless supply of nerves, he stood in the middle of the late blooming wild flowers. Tavish thrust his hands into the shock of sun-streaked brown hair that fell haphazardly into his face. Five years since Mahri had found him in the coop. Five years of getting to know the strong-willed girl who grew into an even stronger-minded woman. A smile bowed his lips as he thought back over his time on the farm. Orean had been like a father to him. Sharice was a better mother than his own. He’d watched and learned, working every day. Withdrawing his hands from the nest of hair, Tavish looked at them with a critical eye. Once, they had been soft, the hands of a noble; or just the son of a merchant. The whipcord thin body he’d once strutted around in had thickened with muscles and calluses formed on his hands. There had been many nights when Sharice had bandaged and clucked over the blisters that broke open in the first weeks the boy had worked well beyond his ability to earn his keep on the farm.
Mostly, he remembered the dark-haired girl who watched him as well with suspicious silver-gray eyes. It was those very same eyes that filled his dreams from the time she turned thirteen and he first noticed her, not as an annoying child—but as a woman near full grown. Gods above, by the time Tavish had turned up on the farm, he was supposed to have been on his second voyage as cabin-boy on his father’s latest shipment of goods from Cenril to Rynvale. And he would have been too if it hadn’t been for the fact that pirate activity had increased and no ship-of-the-line was safe from marauding ne’er-do-wells. He’d run away the night before they were to set to sea and never looked back. Now, with Orean and Sharice turning gray with age and depending more and more on him and Mahri to work the farm, he’d made a decision. It was time to return and face up to his cowardice. This thought took all the joy out of his reminiscing and brought him back to the present.
The flutter of wings and the whisper of feet on the leaf-carpeted ground alerted Tavish to Mahri’s imminent arrival. Tugging his shirt over the rough fabric of his breeches, he prepared to receive the girl he’d hoped to one day marry. Funny, how things hardly ever seemed to go as planned. Still, when she burst into the meadow, he opened his arms wide to catch her flying form. Wrapping strong arms around a slender waist, Tavish buried his face in the mess of fragrant hair that whipped about her shoulders.
“Mahri,” he groaned, breathing in her scent and closing his eyes. He had to memorize it all, this moment in time, because it was all about to change.
“Ah, Tavish, you scoundrel, asking me to meet you here,” laughing that low throaty laugh that made his legs weak, she clung to him only a moment before asserting her independence once again and drawing away. Not out of his arms, but just far enough to let him know she is and always will be her own woman. It nearly undid him, seeing the love shimmering in eyes that seemed to be able to change one moment to the next. Sometimes, they were soft and warm, fluid like quick-silver. Others they were like the bottoms of storm clouds, dark and foreboding. Even worse is when they were hard and cold, like flint being struck with steal. The smile slowly faded and her countenance became troubled as her eyes searched his own. “What’s wrong?” For the first time, uncertainty entered her tone and her spine stiffened in his arms.
Slowly, Tavish lowered his arms and took a step away. Unable to meet her gaze any longer, he picked a point just over her shoulder and stared at it, “I have to go, love.” Mahri blinked a few times before she smiled again and shook her head with another laugh, “Is that all? Well, that’s nothing. You’ll be back and we can tell Mom and Dad our plans.” Snuggling closer, Mahri laid her head upon his broad shoulder and closed her eyes. It took a moment or two of silence before she raised her head again. This time there is no smile, either gracing her lips or lighting her eyes. “You aren’t coming back, are you?” He shook his head, unable to speak past the lump in his throat.
“We aren’t going to be married. Are we,” she wasn’t asking now, and as she spoke, the girl was slowly extricating herself from Tavish, physically and emotionally.
“No,” he finally managed to rasp. Tears stung his whiskey colored eyes, but Tavish quickly blinked them away and cleared his throat to say in a stronger voice, “No. I won’t be coming back, Mahri. I’m…” he’d started to apologize, only to bite it back and clench his jaw. Better she hate him, “I can’t stand it here anymore. Getting up with the sun and not going to bed until it’s well below the horizon. The stink of animals and the fields that won’t wash off. I can’t be expected to do this the rest of my life.”
By the time Tavish had made his great speech, Mahri turned her back to him and was staring into the trees. Tears tracked their way down her cheeks unchecked and her shoulders jerked with sobs that made no sound. He hated himself then, in that moment. Clenching his fists until his knuckles turned bone-white, Tavish ignored the ache in his own chest and turned about on his boot-heel. Without another word, he strode away. What was left to say? Mahri heard him leave and almost raced after to try and stop him. Pride was her undoing however. Instead, she sank to her knees in the middle of the field and cradled her face in her hands. She’d cry, get it all out now and never cry again. Silently, she made that promise. No man would ever, ever!, make her cry like this again. The moon had past its zenith in the suddenly cloudy sky by the time her tears dried up. Wiping her damp cheeks with the hem of her dress, Mahri took one or two last hitching breaths and slowly stood. It was then she took note of the silence. Not even at night is the forest completely silent. The wind rustled leaves hesitantly, as though afraid to draw attention to itself. Cocking her head, Mahri listened intently to the breathy voice: Go now. Run. Run fast! Leave!
Her breath quickening in sudden fear, she looked about the meadow and slowly started for the tree line. Bare feet picked their way tentatively across the grass, listening carefully for the smallest sound. Then she heard it. A howl broke the silence and every instinct she possessed told her it was not one of the natural wolves that roamed and hunted in these woods. They usually kept a respectful distance from her when she wandered, aware she was an ally if not a friend. Often enough the girl had healed wounds after a scuffle to settle pack disputes or the occasional broken bone after an inquisitive pup got in over its head. No, this wasn’t one of those, and no answering howl came which was all the prodding she needed to pick up the pace. It was a lycan and a rogue if she wasn’t mistaken. Nothing else would have felled the forest into silence. With her breath coming in panicked gasps and blood rushing in her ears, Mahri ran. She ran as fast as she possibly could, veering past trees and leaping over roots. With her head low and her body leaning forward, the girl paid no heed to her direction, and that’s how it happened. She stumbled into a bramble, fell through and landed in a heap of scraped hands and knees. With a groan, she pushed herself up then froze when a menacing growl broke into her panic stricken mind. It came again, accompanied by the wet squelch of tearing flesh and her paralysis broke. Looking up, Mahri pressed the back of her hand against her mouth to stifle the horrified scream that threatened to spill out. Too late, the smallest of whimpers sounded, drawing the attention of the anthromorphic lycan. Not quite a beast and not a man either, it was covered with coarse, wiry dark-brown fur. Ebony claws dripped with crimson ichor, spackling the ground with the still steaming-warm fluid. At its feet lay a fawn, still sporting its infant spots. Or, rather, what was left of it. The guts were strewn about, like some morbid holiday decoration, and its neck was twisted in an unnatural angle. All this she took in at once and would have lost her supper if she hadn’t met the creature’s feral gaze. The eyes seemed to capture and hold her in place, their amber depths glowing preternaturally when the clouds parted and a shaft of moonlight illuminated the irises.
The lycan lurched, startling her into action and Mahri scrambled to her feet, bolting through the underbrush in the opposite direction before turning sharply towards the farmhouse. She could hear it, thundering behind and she knew it was playing with her, enjoying the chase and scent of pure terror that surely poured off her like ambrosia. Still, she ran on, knowing that she would never make it in time. At the edge, just before the field, he leapt. Claws rent through her dress, shredding the gingham from shoulders to hip. A scream finally burst from her throat, echoing across the pasture and reaching the house. Just as she went down, Orean burst through the door, bow in hand and already drawn with an arrow held taught against the string. It was dark, but he shot anyway, the arrow sailing high before coming down. Down, down, down it fell, the napped stone tip imbedding itself in the werewolf’s hip just as those lethal teeth closed around her right shoulder and tore flesh, breaking skin and setting free the warm-copper of her blood.
That was the last Mahri remembered before waking in her room. A bandage was wrapped around her shoulder, the gauze already soaked through with blood from the wound. Staring up at her ceiling, the voices of her parents seemed to be coming from just the other side of the door, and yet, they were oddly muffled as though they were doing their best to speak in tones she wouldn’t hear.
“Sharice, what do you want me to do!? She was bitten and survived. You know what’s going to happen. None of your potions are going to help her now,” the pain in his voice almost brought fresh tears to the girl’s eyes. Keeping them wide-open, she willed the salty sting away.
“I have to try. It’s what I do, Orean,” came the calm tones of her mother. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her daughter, nor was she unafraid of the months to come, but the Gods hadn’t given her the gift of healing to not be able to help her only child. Determined, Sharice turned from her husband and walked serenely to her work room. Closing the door behind her, she slid down its smooth surface and gave in to the grief burning inside.
In her room, Mahri shifted a bit on the bed, wincing at the pull of stitches in her shoulder. How long had she been out? It was hard to tell with the overcast sky outside her window. Struggling into a sitting position, her small cry of pain must have alerted her father since the door opened quickly enough and his strong arms came around to help. Offering a smile of gratitude, she allowed him to plump the pillows for her to lean back on.
“We’ll get you better, sweetheart,” he murmured in a low rumble. Unable to meet her eyes for fear of what she’d see Orean looked anywhere and everywhere but at his only child, the light of his life. He didn’t sound too convinced and Mahri took pity on him, reaching with her good arm to smooth a hand over his gray streaked hair.
“Don’t worry about me, Dad. I’ll be just fine,” as though to prove it, she stiffly moved the injured limb to embrace the man who’d been the center of her world until…biting her lip, Mahri put all thoughts of Tavish from her mind. At least, she tried to anyway. Some part of her wondered if he’d made it out of the forest before the lycan found him. Another part, a cold unfeeling part she hadn’t known she possessed, didn’t much care.
Desperate to agree with her, Orean nodded against her shoulder and gently pulled away, beaming a smile down at her. The dark circles under her eyes and the red blotches on her cheeks told him she’d been crying before the attack but he wouldn’t pry. If she wanted to tell him, she would. Changing the subject of her health, he asked, “Where’s Tavish? Didn’t you meet with him...” he didn’t finish. The momentary look of stricken heartbreak told all he needed to know. “Oh, honey.”
Before her father could gather her into his arms in sympathy, she flashed him a weak smile and shook her head, “I wouldn’t worry too much. I’m sure he’ll be just fine.” Reclining against the pillows, Mahri closed her eyes as though slipping into sleep. Willing her breathing to slow and even out, she waited until the sound of the door closing announced her father’s leaving. Staying like that, she eventually fell into a troubled sleep, filled with the images of lycan and Tavish and somehow the two became meshed into one.
Through the night, Sharice kept a vigil over her daughter. Cool clothes were applied when the fever took hold and Mahri thrashed about on the bed. Incoherent words were spoken and invisible demons fought against as the curse ran rampant through her veins, changing the girl forever, for better or worst remained to be seen. By day break, the fever had also broken and Mahri slipped into undisturbed sleep. When she finally woke the following day, something seemed to be missing from the carefree girl some vital spark that had let her thumb her nose at the villagers when they whispered behind her back.
It was a week before Sharice even considered allowing her out of bed, another yet before she consented to a brief sojourn to the edge of the woods. Mahri stood there, hands clasped and head bowed in what appeared to be mourning. In her mind, that’s exactly what was happening. Her shoulder had healed well before she’d first gotten out of bed, her natural healing ability having had no effect. So, here she was, saying goodbye to the girl she’d once been. It was impossible, now, to even consider returning to that carefree child, the one who used to run in the forest to learn the latest tidbits from her sylvan friends. Though the weight of her separation weighed heavily on her breast, the teen didn’t shed a single tear. If there is anything she is good at, it’s keeping a promise to herself.
Turning from the exact spot where her life had irrevocably been changed, Mahri stares again at the house ablaze with remembered laughter and shared sorrows. As much as her parents wanted to, they could not help their daughter now. She could tell how much it hurt them to see her so melancholy. Squaring her shoulders, she looked up at the sky. Why had she never noticed the phases of the Twins above? Both moons shone brightly in the cloudless sky. In another two weeks they would be as full as the night Tavish said his goodbye and she’d been bitten. Two weeks to convince her parents that her leaving would be best for all, especially them. The moonbeams beckoned, enticing her even now to shed her human husk and race them across the meadow. Shivering from the lure of absolute freedom, Mahri tears herself away from temptation and treks back to the house.
The scrape of chairs when the door opened told the girl that Sharice and Orean had been watching from the window. Trying to understand their worry, she swallowed down the irritation and hung the shawl she’d worn against the unseasonable chill in the air. Taking a bracing breath, she readies for the battle ahead. With a resigned look on her face, she enters the main room of the small house. It only really had four rooms; the main room, with its modest hearth and ample seating though they never had guests (until Tavish but he was banished from her thoughts), the kitchen and two bedrooms, so it isn’t surprising that even though she had taken her time, her father looked like the book he was reading upside down had just been opened, and her mother was working on the same stitch as an hour ago in her embroidery. It was sort of amusing and her lips twitched with the want to smile. Suppressing the urge, she took her own seat and folded her hands lightly atop her lap to wait.
Her mother looked up first, Sharice forcing a cheerful smile even though her eyes, as light gray as her daughter’s, was full of worry, “Oh, I didn’t hear you come in, Mahri. Did you have a nice walk? It’s so good to see you going out again after…well, we don’t need to speak of that now do we.” Aware that she’s on the verge of rambling, Sharice closes her mouth, compressing her lips into a thin line and casts a glance towards Orean, silently begging him to say something.
He obliged, clearing his throat and lowering his book even though the farmer didn't look directly at Mahri. She had changed so much in such a short time. Two weeks ago, he’d been sure that she and Tavish would announce an engagement, so happy they were together. Over the years he’d watch the two grow. At first there’d been conflict, sure, such is the way when two fought against the pull of nature. They had argued like cats and dogs, each storming in an opposite direction when neither would give way to the other. A nostalgic curved his age-softened lips as he finally meets his child’s waiting eyes. “I recon, what your mother is trying to say is: Whatever you need to do to be happy, we’ll support.”
The gasp that came from his wife confirms that that is not what she’d wanted him to say at all. The chocked sob that follows and the rush of her skirts from the room only cement the idea. For his daughter’s part, she seemed to finally relax, like a weight had been taken from her. His voice came, thick and rumbling with emotions held in check, “You have been through quite an ordeal these weeks, daughter-mine. I can’t see you so unhappy anymore.” Eyes that had become rheumy with advanced years stole a glance at the closed bedroom door where his wife was surely crying on the four poster bed he’d built when they were first married. “I love your mother, and I love you. Seeing you and knowing she couldn’t stop what was happening is killing her even if she won’t admit it, and it is killing me to see the two of you wandering about like zombies. So you go into the world girl and find out just who you are. There are two weeks left yet before the moons rise full. The two of you will have that time to do what’s needed.”
At the end of his speech, Orean pushes from his chair and sets the book—unread—on the side table. Passing Mahri on his way to his wife, a callused and strong hand rests on the girl’s shoulder before he moves off. Staring ahead, Mahri has the distinct misfortune of feeling every tension flow out of her. If she had been expecting a fight, she was glad not to have gotten one. The support from her father meant the world to her, but now, she had plans to make. As soon as he was gone, she rushed to her room to pack. Pulling out a valise that had belonged to a long dead relative, Mahri snapped it open onto the bed. It’s only then that, upon looking around, she realized that nothing she had could go with her. Decision made, the newly turned lycan had no plans to ever return or look back. Turning a slow circle, she finally sat at the edge of the bed, one hand resting on the empty case. For the first time, she smiled, twin dimples puckering in her cheeks. So, this is what it felt like to be free. No one would ever take that from her. Not now, not ever.
Over the next two weeks, Mahri’s excitement was undaunted by her mother’s pleadings. Time and again Sharice tried to talk her child out of leaving. What was out there that they couldn’t give her? Clothes? Money? What were those when compared to a family who needed her. Mahri just shook her head, on the constant verge of tears, and would not change her mind. “I’m sorry, mother,” was all she would say while staring at the forest through new eyes from the kitchen window.
Finally, one evening, just as the sun was going down and the moons making their rotund appearance, she could stand the siren call no longer and brushed past her mother. “It’s time,” she whispered in awe. With Sharice’s protests ringing dully in her ears, Mahri hurried out the door, shedding her clothes eagerly. It is almost certain that no one in the history of this curse had ever met their fate with such abandon. Most writhed as the transformation over took them. Not Mahri though. She met it joyfully even as the agony of shifting bones, muscles and tendons brought her to her knees. She’d almost made it to the forest and behind she could vaguely hear the terror stricken screams of her mother. With the last vestige of her humanity, Mahri silently bid her farewell. It seemed to take forever, the changing of her form, but it was only a few minutes. In the place of a farm girl lay a wolf with a pelt as black as her human hair and eyes the same eerie silver. Getting shakily to her feet, the beast shook itself before raising her muzzle to the sky and letting free a howl of such unmitigated ecstasy the keening wails of grief were drowned out. An answer came, one by one, as the pack called to one of their own.
Without so much as a look back, the wolf turned tail and raced into the darkness of the forest and was soon swallowed up among the shadows. Racing through with the wind stroking cool fingers through her fur, Mahri’s feral form drank in the new sensations. Colors that she’d never seen before assaulted her eyes in a kaleidoscope of hues. Scents were richer, the earth turned by worms and moles seemed to hold so many new mysteries. Even the trees gave off a mixture of earth, wind and water. Excitement raced with her as she made to join the hunting pack. They were found beneath a rocky outcrop she had never noticed before and Mahri had been all through these woods in her past life. The wolf though had no such mundane thoughts. Instinct ruled in this body and it told her to be cautious. The Alpha was a huge male, gray and white with oddly intense brown eyes that stood shoulder and flank above the others except his mate.
Slinking forward with an inquiring whine the midnight wolf tucked her tail dutifully between her hind legs. She belly crawled, claws scratching miniature furrows into the earth, her way through the menacing stares of lower ranking bitches and males. Even the Beta eyed her warily. The tawny female was the one to step forward, her head held high and ears perked forward at the strange lupine. She smelled faintly of humans, and vaguely familiar. The black whined imploringly, wriggling to her back to expose her throat to the ranking female. After a moment’s hesitation, the bitch lowered her head and nosed the new comer’s shoulder before clamping her teeth around the exposed throat. Mahri’s tail swayed hopefully, sweeping the ground just enough to move dried leaves and stir up a plume of dust. The brief tightening of her jaws, a low growl and the alpha released her potentially lethal grip upon the jugular and stepped back to allow the new pack member to get to her feet. She’ll have to fight her way through the ranks of course, before finding a place among the wolves. Adrenaline raced through her veins, elation followed soon after as Mahri rolled back to her feet and crept up to her alpha, raising just enough to lap her tongue gratefully across a turned cheek.
The rest of the pack, as if by some subtle signal, crept forward to welcome this strange wolf. Each one, male and female, investigated with a brief sniff before the male gave a low chuff and bounded off the rocks. Into the forest he disappeared, his bitch soon following and Mahri wasn’t far behind. She missed, in her haste to prove her value to the pack, the dozen eyes that peered from the hollow ground beneath the rocky outcrop. In the shelter of trees not too far away, a blur of white left the den. Blood-red eyes had seen it all. From the moment of Mahri’s shift to her acceptance with the natural pack she had watched. The albino melted into the foliage, morbidly curious to know if come the morning, the girl would still be alive.
The Ghost was disappointed. The new day came and there, just outside the hole that housed mother and pups, laid the newly turned lycan. Her blue-black coat glistened in the dappled sunlight coming through the canopy above. This one would bear future watching, she decided. A fly landed on the black’s coat and the muscle beneath twitched in irritation. Raising her head with a wide yawn, the wolf caught just the barest flashes of snowy fur. Scrambling to her feet, Mahri gave a warning growl. Her hackles raised aggressively as her oddly silver eyes scanned the tree line. Seeing nothing and smelling nothing, she settled back down and rested her lupine chin on her paws.
Months passed. Her life was good with the pack. They hunted and played. The pups grew to become adolescents under the watchful eyes of the other wolves. But none were more vigilant than the black. It had to happen on day, certainly. The day that Mahri shed her feral form and resumed life as the human fate had decided to alter. The fact that it happened while she slept was probably merciful. Her body had been locked in a quadruped form for so long that, had she been awake when it first started, Mahri’s screams would have panicked the others. These wolves were natural and did not deal with sudden changes very well. Oh yes, they had accepted her into their midst easily enough but Mahri would soon learn it wasn’t due to the wolf. Instead, her natural affinity for nature had once again stepped in to shield the human half of her being.
When the bitch came to check her pups, already full of her next litter and irritable to begin with, she was startled to find a human lying there among the young. Mahri awoke to a low growl, her eyes blinked open in confusion. Her immediate thought was that something had snuck into the den and was a threat. Her second was that she was cold. The older litter had woken with the first rumble and scurried out of the den. One by one they dared a peek inside at the woman now occupying the space a wolf once had. Fear had become a foreign emotion to Mahri. It took a few moments for her to figure out it was fear that held her limbs frozen and stopped her breathing. When she finally dared a sharp breath the alpha and her brood had already backed away from the cave opening. Crawling forward, Mahri cautiously thrust her head out into the afternoon light. They were gone, all of them. On padded feet, the pack had simply left the young woman alone in the forest.
She opened her mouth, but no sound was forthcoming. Digging her fingers into the rich soil, the lycan clawed her way out of the narrow opening while jutting roots scraped her skin and let welts along her bare flanks. By the time she had pulled herself out, Mahri was covered in dirt, bruises and cuts. This didn’t bother her so much as the absolute silence that had overtaken the woods. Huddling against a boulder with her knees draw up, she thought fast, trying to remember who and what she was. The wolf had taken over so completely that this body felt alien. Raising a hand before her face, she flexed the fingers. Dirt crusted the nails which themselves were ragged and torn. Lowering her hand, she watched as her toes wiggled against the chilly ground. Goose bumps rose all over her body and her muscles shivered with the effort of keeping warm. It was the cold that actually got her moving. Gaining her feet unsteadily the trees made for good hand holds as she learned to use two limbs to move around rather than four. After a while it got easier and she soon found herself following familiar paths. Somehow, she knew where they would lead. Home, that place of warmth and laughter.
In her mind, dark blue eyes crinkled at the corners with a half remembered smile. Eyes like her own scolded softly. She knew these people and it took only a few moments to remember. Memories came crashing into her mind, bringing the young woman to her knees. Her palm scrapped the bark of a tree. She ignored the stinging pain and once again got to her feet. It was easier that time and soon she was running towards the field. She remembered it all and hoped it wasn’t too late.
Hope was a fickle thing. It let you believe that everything was going to be the same. It lifted spirits when all else seemed bleak, then it tore it all away in one fell swoop. Her world crashed, again, as she emerged from the forest and into the meadow she remembered running through as a child, chasing butterflies and dragonflies as they fluttered and buzzed about. Her parents must have remembered as well. There, greeting her was a headstone. White marble with veins of gold, it gleamed as only a lovingly maintained monument could. Glancing cautiously at the rundown farm house, she stepped around to see the name etched upon the surface. Limbs trembled, her stomach clenched and childishly she closed her eyes tight against what she knew she’d find. Forcing her lids to open, Mahri stared in disbelief at her own name on that slab.
Dropping to her knees, Mahri leaned forward to rest her arm across the smooth top and pressed her cheek to the cool face of the stone. Tears ran unchecked down her cheeks as the fingers of her other hand traced each letter. There she stayed until the sun went down. The night air bit coldly at her flesh finally forcing her to move again. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered why no one had come from the house to investigate. Turning around she was surprised to see no welcoming lights glowing in the kitchen windows. Slowly Mahri realized the farm had an air of the abandoned. One step, two steps, three then more took her right to the door. It didn’t take much, a gentle push really, to have it swinging open on squeaky hinges. That wasn’t right. Orean had always oiled those when they became noisy. Sharice had found it distracting while she worked to hear the door squawk every time someone came or went.
Cobwebs and dust coated the frame and caught in her hair when she finally stepped inside. An indrawn breath lead to a sneeze as particles flew up her nose to irritate the lining. Unerringly, she found her room. The bed was still there, her clothes too. They had left everything behind when they moved. For once she was grateful. Taking the basin from her dresser, Mahri filled it with cold water from the kitchen’s pump and washed up as best she could before falling into an exhausted sleep on the dusty mattress. Some rodent or other had chewed holes in the comforter. It didn’t matter as she pulled it up over her head. Morning would be soon enough to face this new change and decide how to deal with it. Outside, blood red eyes watched the dilapidated house. Turning into the forest she again moved silently and disappeared. The girl would find a rabbit on the doorstep in the morning with no clues as to how it got there except for the torn throat. After that, the girl was on her own the Ghost having enough of her own uncharacteristic concern to depart for new territory.