85th of Frost, 120
'Sup’.
It’s been a while since you last visited, I hope you are both doing well and the mists have not harmed you. I don’t know where they came from, but they haven’t calmed down in weeks and there seems to be no end in sight. The mists are strong. The small illumite I have is not strong enough to fend off the mists for my home and I fear they will overtake her again. Or me.
I need your help. As you know I have no talent for magic, and I’ve come across a wounded Rathari, but I can only do so much. I’m sure you’re wondering why I don’t just take her to the Tranquil Gardens- trust me, it’s impossible. I’ll tell you more upon your arrival, but something is off about her, and I think it best another Rathari help.
Telion, Rickter, if you could come to my home on the morning of the 85th, put up wards from the mists, and help me figure out this damn wolf, I would be most grateful.
Brianne Duras.'
It was morning, and Brianne was staring out the window of her bedroom on the top floor of her home as the sun rose. She’d sent her letter the day after Talon’s visit. It was rushed. Sloppy- she’d never been one for writing. But she could tell the Rathari child was getting no better and had become desperate. The wolf had begun to refuse food entirely, whether from stubbornness or sickness, nearly five rabbits and two elk legs had rotted in her home as the wolf turned her back on all meals. With a sigh, she turned to her bathroom to ready for the day.
Downstairs, Senara was asleep. While Brianne thought it confusing or simply from sickness, the wolf had a different idea of her death. If this huntress was planning to fatten her up just to take her pelt when it was once more glorious and shiny, then she’d not give her that satisfaction. After all, the room was covered in different trophies of her kills. It only made sense.
Senara had tried nearly every night since her capture to break the bars, grasping them between her teeth only to find them horribly unyielding. At night she’d even tried jumping over the fence but found herself both too weak and too short to make it over the nearly fifteen foot tall bars. But even if she could make it over, Brianne had blocked off the back door in the past two days as the mists had grown closer. Thoughts of simply killing the woman and rushing out the cage door entered her mind, until she realized the door was perfectly sized only for creatures vastly smaller than herself. It was horrifying. The realization that it was no honorable death she’d be granted but instead would need to waste away to nothing. But, at least the woman would get no honor from it either.
But now she slept. Her limbs twitched as she dreamt, thankfully less painfully now that the corruption and poison had been purified from her body by Talon. But her dreams were yet another nightmare to live through.
She sat in the middle of a forest. It was ash, though the air held no temperature nor scent. The twin moons were high above her, her radiant fur glowing as she became the third moon of the night and stalked forwards through a thicket. She didn’t know where she was going, only that with each step dread was setting in. Her pace quickened, but she could not feel her feet below as she pounded across the landscape and crunched leaves below her. Then she heard it.
“Get the beast!!” Men shouted. Arrows flew past her with a zing and stuck into the base of trees while she passed by on sprinting legs. But she wasn’t sprinting- try as she might her limbs moved as if stuck in muck. Slow, she could hear the crowd gaining on her as they brandished and smacked their weapons in warning. Her eyes widened and heart quickened.
’Go you stupid legs!!’
She skidded down a narrow pathway and nearly slipped on fallen leaves but caught herself, somehow, on the edge of a tree.
“GET THE DAMN BEAST! KILL IT!”
’I’m not an it- please stop- I’m not even a beast! Why are they trying to kill me?’ She wanted it to stop. To cry and sob and lay back in her bed and pretend she’d never done it. But she had.
“THE MONSTER WENT THAT WAY!”
The screams continued. Louder, as if they were right next to her ear. And then they were- as if she had been pulled back by her tail ugly faces of the terrified villagers pressed themselves closer to her. They stabbed their weapons through her skin, deep into her heart and she saw one of them pull the muscle straight from her chest. It dripped crimson to the ground but suddenly it was not beneath her and she fell- She couldn’t breathe-
“Murderer. Monster! BEAST! DEMON!”
“No!”
A scream erupted from her throat as Senara woke up. Her flesh tore, her bones and muscles contorted and snapped as they rearranged themselves inside her flesh. Her wolven scream slowly morphed to one of a young woman as her muzzle shortened and the fur retracted into her like needles. It was like someone had sliced her skin open and wretched her bones one by one, sinking their fingers into her nerves, twisting them, and burning her alive. Three agonizing minutes that seemed more like hours passed before the screams were replaced by sobs of a pained, naked, woman laying on the floor of a cage fit for a beast nearly ten times the size of her. Dark brunette hair as long as her own body was sprawled across her matted in blood and sweat. Her shoulder, once bandaged and stitched, was now bleeding once more as the stitches had ripped from her very flesh and shot across the room leaving loose bandages curled around her body.
Senara looked around wildly. Her vision was different. Everything felt different, less- no, more- she looked down to her paws but saw only human hands and with a scream jolted up onto legs that buckled instantly. She fell- hard- right back onto her rear. Her skin felt raw. She could feel the hearth warmer. Feel the cold in her skin. The texture of the tiny hairs on her arms and legs- she hated it.
She could hear upstairs the sound of a bath running suddenly stop. A door creaking quickly, slamming open.
“Wolf?!” Brianne’s worried voice sounded from the top of the stairs and Senara’s heart beat wildly out of her chest. With wide eyes she scrambled in whatever horrible, mismatched way she could and bolted towards the door. But her body weight was half of what it had been before and with Brianne having bolted it locked, she crashed against it and fumbled back. Her head spun wildly as she struggled to maintain balance on two legs before she realized- the bars. No thoughts came to mind except one; get out, and she thrust herself through the now larger spacing in the bars of her cage towards the front door.
In seconds she was out. Both hands had grasped the knob and twisted in multiple directions until one of them worked, and the door opened. No thoughts in her mind as panic set into her bones that still vibrated with the ache of her shift. But the open door brought with it a rush of wind so cold she fell to the ground just feet from the door. Her toes and fingers splayed in the nearly frozen, late frost dirt beneath her as she struggled to push herself up onto two legs again. She needed to leave. To get out. Before that woman got to her again, before she was stuck for the rest of her days.
