To begin: there is a wolf, and a girl, and a dragon. The wrought trials of a crusading animal duel have ceased after tirades of blood-slicked blades and roaring fire. Here beauty and beast crouch together as one singing and smoke-blackened heart, unsure in their fate at the whim of an even mightier monster before them, and the final flag remains to be thrown.
----------------------------------------
Though thrilling from the fear, the princess plays the dead rabbit well. She is still, and barely lets herself whimper as the great black wolf coils its body over hers. It lifts her up to its quivering lips and wet nose and adrenaline capsizes her every remaining ability to move. Under the jealous shadow of the beast, she hears its drum heart and the whistling, violent creaks of exertion, and when she drops her head back, its jaws crack open. They are gleaming and stained gold. The rush of hot breath sends goosebumps down to her chest.
It clamps a foaming maw over her neck, but the teeth don’t puncture. The touch is achingly delicate, hot and gentle over the prone neck—but one notch of pressure, and blood would pop and fill its mouth like overripe fruit.
The wolf growls. The sound freezes the maiden further. It’s a low, vibrating instrument and thrums in her ears with terrifying determination. At the warning note, the wicked dragon before them staggers to its feet. It’s twice the wolfbeast’s size, ichor-drenched and ragged from a moonlit battle, and it has decided, wisely, to count its losses. After a last vile glare, the villain slinks away. The wolf stares it down, a relentless snarl jumbling through its teeth at any sign of hesitation, until the fearsome lizard flaps its herculean wings and heaves itself into the dawn. They do not move until it’s a shadow in the clouds.
For a moment, the princess fears, manically, that the trust she had was a lunatic hope. The werewolf does not let go. In fact, the teeth seem to begin pinching through skin. She gawks, drags her hands up to its neck and almost clasps it as if in prayer.
“Please—let go. Please.” She begs with her open mouth and grasping hands until the wolf, shaking, vomits her from its mouth. Before she can drop to the stone, it catches her—and they collapse, one body and then two.
It takes a moment for the wash of post-panic cold to leave her. She heaves herself up by the elbows and finds herself cradling the massive brute head of the beast. White scars criss and cross its pelt, but more urgently, blood and ichor from fresh wounds streak through its fur. The mess sticks to the princess’s skin. The wolf’s body kicks and convulses, and every breath wretches a pained cry from its entire body. The princess searches vainly for cause, until the sun lighting the horizon finally yields an answer. With the full moon gone, the lycan curse bades them alone at last.
The werewolf’s bones snap and knit tighter and tighter, pushing a new terrain from skin and muscle, and the monstrous screams of pain become gulping, human sobs. The fur recedes, or sheds—she’s not quite sure—until what’s left is a starkly naked woman, shivering and bleeding under a heavy coat of furs.
As the princess realizes she’s now instead clutching a very human head in her hands, attached to a very human body, she finally follows a charged emotion other than panicked fear: panicked care. She tears the sleeves of her dress away and finds a wound to wrap them around—a nasty gash close to the collarbone.
With a half-dead grunt, the woman strewn on her lap reaches up and pushes her hands away. She forces her eyelids open and looks at the princess. Her eyes are the color of coal and night, and the bridge of her nose is smeared with blood, and it’s the most intensely anyone has ever stared at her. She strains to reach over again, but the knight’s grip strengthens and she forces her gaze to hers once more, this time unshakeable. She gives the faintest of disapproving grumbles—almost a growl, the princess swears—and then curls into a fetal position under her cape and is still.
----------------------------------------
The woman doesn’t move for hours. The princess has time enough to wash up, feed the horse outside, and prepare a lonely lunch before there is any movement from her rescuer. It’s quick, as well—one minute, she’s the lump on the floor, the next, she’s sat stretching her arms behind her back.
The princess watches from behind a stone outcropping. The knight’s back, gored the night before, is stitched together with threads of healed white sinew. Her entire body is downy with black, curly hair that trails from the nape of her neck and hugs in swirls around her shoulders and thighs, thickest at her hands and feet. She turns her head to yawn and dull fangs poke from under stretchy, cracked lips. Her ears are pointed and her hair is as well, and the princess’s stomach turns from the queerness of it all.
She doesn’t realize her transfixation until she cling-clangs against the lunch pots at her feet. The knight’s head whips around, unnaturally almost. A flash of assessment, and the dangerous reflex quells from her rigid stance. She pushes herself up and pads over to the princess in what feels like one swift motion. The princess stumbles back on instinct. She leans against the outcropping to catch herself and finds the knight already with her, standing close enough to count the fuzzy hairs on her neck.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.”
The knight says nothing but cocks her head to the side.
“I—I made you lunch. I thought you might be hungry. And there’s water and bandages, too, if you’ll take them.”
The woman’s face softens, just for one second. She turns to look at the spread and tilts her chin up with an agreeing nod.
The princess’s cheeks burn and chest tightens. She feels, somehow, like an idiot, but also very reasonable, and it mostly makes her confusedly indignant. “You don’t have to take it.” She manages to sputter. The woman-knight is taller than her. Her frame is lanky, and had it not been that she’d seen her nearly kill a dragon last night, she would appear unassuming in build.
She is also still freshly naked, and smells like wet hair and earth. The princess tries to find purchase anywhere but her gaze and her eyes travel downwards. She wears a necklace—a metal crucifix. Where it sits her skin burns red and raw.
This captivates her, until the soft brush of fingers against her neck flings her to the present. She flinches, and finds the knight looking despairingly at her throat. Teeth marks ring around it, bruising.
She catches the question in the knight’s gaze and hums, “Oh, did it hurt? No, not much.” Her eyes travel and try for distraction. The calloused tips of the knight’s fingers graze over her skin, and this charges her like metal in a storm. She freezes up again, nearly as badly as when her life hung between the teeth of the wolf, and the familiar aching gentleness bleeds her once again from air and thought. She reaches up, and stops the touch.
The wolf knight only looks at her, persistent in search of assurance. “You didn’t pierce skin. I’m okay.” The princess promises again, frigid, and she steps away, pushes her hair over the teeth marks. “Come and eat, now. It’ll be cold soon.”
She leaves to gather the plates and feels the gaze of the wolf linger on her back. This chills her thoroughly, but she says nothing. The lunch is served and at last the knight sits and eats, dutifully and with a practiced restriction. She swallows hungrily, though, and masticates as if to savor every last crumb.
The cape of furs rests over her shoulders and blessedly leaves the princess shy of imagination. She must have grabbed it before sitting, or at least, the princess believes that’s what happens. Her movements are far too damn quick for the inattentive.
A hearty grunt denotes satisfaction, and she hands the plate to her. The princess, scraping at her own empty plate, says, “Thank you.”
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Puzzled, the knight arcs an eyebrow.
“For saving me. Thank you.”
The knight grunts again, nods. Quickly, this combination has become the signature of the dark-haired warrior.
“I really do appreciate it,” the princess continues, and she hears the frustration tip at the end of her words.
The knight follows with a shrug, then, as if sensing the curiosity, taps near her heart, lifts her necklace, and hands it over. The princess takes it with hesitant anxiety.
The necklace bears the cross, as well as two stamped tags: the king’s crest, adorned with the rampant lions, and a coat of arms. The design of the coat of arms is uniform, but shallow and dark, likely hand-carved. It bears only a crescent moon and the words ‘Beauwolf’ lettered at the back. She thumbs over the words carefully and mouths the name. It molds itself over her tongue.
“The knight Beauwolf.” She proclaims at last, soft. “You’re one of the Wulven warriors of the King’s order...of course.”
She folds the necklace in her hands and returns it. Beauwolf takes it and drops it over her head. Faintly, her skin sizzles at the jewelry’s touch, and the princess covers her hands with her mouth.
“You’re wearing pure silver?” She whispers. Beauwolf nods, and the fact that it doesn’t seem to bother her upsets the princess further. “Does the order make you?”
Beauwolf shakes her head, nigh amused.
“Then why?”
Beauwolf takes the necklace again and holds up the cross, as if every answer was obviously inside it. The princess squints. “For God? He makes you?”
Beauwolf shakes her head again, more vigorously than before, still with that glint of amusement.
“For what then?”
“You.” She speaks, finally. Her voice is smooth, and warm, and firm. The princess’s cheeks flush. The noises around them all suddenly quiet, sucked away to some other less important part of the world.
“...Me?” The princess squeaks. “What on earth could you ever mean by that? I wouldn’t make you wear something that hurts you so.”
“The cross to abate the curse, lest harm come to you.” The cadence she speaks with is rhythmic and low, as if the words dig themselves out of her chest one by one. She looks up under her furred eyebrows, and her eyes are like flint.
“You pain yourself to...to keep yourself from hurting me? To keep your flesh holy to the commandments.” The princess fumbles into the right answer, then. “But you’re a lycan! Cursed! Are you not damned by the Devil already?”
“Yes.” Beauwolf says, and the princess knows this will be the last she speaks for now.
They sit in their silence and smolder, with only the noises of crumbling ash and wind and morningsong between them. “I’m Adeline.” The princess finally says.
Beauwolf nods.
Adeline stirs and stews and crouches into herself. Beauwolf takes this as an end to their lively conversation, and rises to leave. Adeline feigns a huff and turn of the head for modesty, but her eyes trail when Beauwolf walks away; the knight really is light on her toes. She sheds the coat and dresses in the spot where she’d awoken earlier in the day.
She steps into linens first, and pulls a shirt over her head. The fabric is tight over the arms, but not so fitted over her breasts and torso, torn in places, and it hangs limp and sheer. Somehow the simple act of covering leaves Adeline more ashamed to watch than before—but she doesn’t stop, instead straining around her peripheral to see better.
Beauwolf pulls her trousers over the curve of her hips and ties it tight with the end strings. Her shock of black hair seems even more stark with the plainclothes. The woolen hose next, then a threadbare black aketon. Her armor takes longer to fit into, first with the metal mesh followed by a puzzle of plated armor, until the only piece missing is the gaunt wolf helmet Adeline had first seen her in. Her uncovered head looks silly and smaller, now built up by a menacing gilded frame, triangular in most proportions. Adeline finds herself chewing her lip to shreds, but feels she would go dizzy if she stared anywhere else.
Beauwolf ties her hair back into a tail and cranes her head back to watch Adeline with a knowing look. She kneels to fit her shoes, then picks up her cape and flips it over her shoulders, ties it tight to the base of her neck. Adeline watches openly now, until Beauwolf is walking back to her. She stretches out a gloved hand. Adeline takes it, and she’s lifted to her feet with a grace that she couldn’t have managed alone.
“Are you taking me home, Sir Beauwolf?”
The knight nods, then gestures over to the fireplace. Her helmet rests strewn on the floor, close to wrecked stone and overgrown plant.
Adeline steps to pick it up, then turns and finds Beauwolf, again, a heartbeat’s width too close. She bows her head and Adeline realizes, in a rush, just how aware she was of her consuming gaze and participation, and that the knight is offering her a hand in the ritual. She slides the helmet over her head and watches it swallow her coal eyes and crooked, scarred nose and narrow lips, until it’s only her chin that pokes underneath. Beauwolf drops her shoulders back, and seems to pause.
She stays paused for a while.
Adeline’s lips purse, annoyed the most you could be at your savior. “Am I to wait for you to carry me?” She crosses her arms, with the premeditated answer of ‘if you insist’ ready for harrumphing.
The knight points to the kitchenware, the scattered belongings—the recovered tiara wrapped hastily alongside spoons.
“Oh,” Adeline sucks her teeth, and ends with the, “Right.” on a sharp ite.
She squats to pick up the tiara—her one remnant of personal treasure, any other trinkets hoarded in whatever depths existed in this ruinous cavern of a castle. She brushes away the lint from its gems, and fits it back to the crown of her head.
“The rest can stay. Better to travel light, I assume.”
Beauwolf seems to have decided this is well. She takes her longsword, which had been leaning against a crook in the wall, and wipes away the dragonblood with her cape before she sheaths it, and they empty the castle.
Outside, the dappled blue steed of Beauwolf whinnies an overeager greeting. Beauwolf pats her at the soft part of her snout, then gives the ears a good scratch. She sees the mostly-drained bucket of water on the ground and nods a thankful acknowledgment to Adeline.
“If you weren’t waking up I was going to take her, you know. Ride off into the sunset on my lonesome. I was thinking of naming her Beleza.”
She rubs the great muscled neck of the horse, who leans into it. “Now wouldn’t that suit a pretty mare like you?”
“Luar.” Beawolf states. She fits the saddle into place and checks the straps, then pats at the leather seat. Adeline smiles, awkward.
“I see it’s ladies first,” she strains a light chuckle, and then tries very badly to mount herself up by her hands. Her elbows shake. She grits out, “I did practice my equestrian arts as a child, it’s just—oh!” And Beauwolf is lifting her up by the waist, and she’s light as a feather, clumsily flailing a leg over the other side of the shifting beast until she’s balanced. “It’s...been a long night.” She breathes, then has to laugh at herself. “A very long night, and a long time since I’ve visited the stables as well.”
Beauwolf says nothing, but swings herself up without even using the stirrup. She slides in front of Adeline, then pulls her at the elbow, bringing her against her back and placing her arm around her waist. Adeline reflexively reaches around with her other, and clasps her hands together, snug at the knight’s base. Beauwolf peeks down at her, once again forcing that long stare of hers, until Adeline nods.
The knight clicks once, and Laur starts into a heavy, well-paced trot. She clicks again, and they’re cantering. Quickly the massive skeleton of the castle behind them becomes a sprouting of rocks in the distance.
Adeline hugs tight and watches the green and blue of the world whip around her, until she realizes the trees and sky have all blurred through tears she’s simply too tired to hold back anymore