I may be from the dark

Leo glanced over at the woman. His lips curling up into a grin as he slowly placed the knife he had been looking at back down. “Nice eye you got there,” He mused, glancing from her down to the wolf companion that laid beside her. “And um… wolf? Do they got a name?” He asked, not bothering to hide his admiration that the woman had actually caught the expert thief trying to snag one of her items or his curiosity in wolf companion. Keeping his distance from the wolf despite his curiosity in the other. 

“Best in the North,” she attests, but that is something that could very easily just be a prideful comment about the desires of her own powers.  The wolf doesn’t have a name, not one that he has a chosen yet, at least. She’s giving him the choice, but the young wolf keeps pushing a feeling of indecision to her. She thinks nothing feels right, but she understands. Instead, the wolf yawns, showing white teeth as if a warning to the man, “There’s no trust enough in the world for me to tell you what that is,” she says, “Names are power that are easily stolen by the gods. Unlike their wares, which can only be traded for in goods or coin. Not so easy.”

For years, she didn’t want to. Didn’t think it was something that she was allowed to do. Her father loved her, that much was for sure. But her mother vanished from sight god knows how many years ago and when she was a teenager, she quickly fell in to a dark cycle of drug abuse and thievery. Long, wild nights where she didn’t remember who she was let alone where she was. Cold, winter nights spent huddled together in alleys, under bridges, lost by the wayside with other junkies.

But like most things, the sun always comes out. It took years of clawing out of that darkness, left scars that etched on her heart but most were caused by herself. Her father still stood beside her, always telling her she had a place to stay but she never took him up on it until she ruined every other relationship and he still scooped her up like a lost child and let her be warmed by the fire of family. He let her heal, and then when the time was right, she went off to college.

The first year she stayed at home. Dorms weren’t good for her. She needed space to acclimate herself to the sudden bustle and chaos of college kids. She was already a few years their senior when she made the choice. But her slight build made her classmates feel like she hadn’t experienced the things she had experienced.

The second year she got an apartment, something through the college where she still didn’t have a choice in who she lived with, but she had space. She had a small room, a bed and a desk but it was something uniquely hers now.

She didn’t know her room-mates. There was a rough and tumble blonde like her, there was an unspoken language between them. Something of shared grief, pain and anguish. Gwen, she thinks. She’s never around. But Indi doesn’t want to connect more than that. She needs to concentrate. There was soft spoken young woman who always smiled at Indi, she felt like a wounded animal in her eyes. Zahra. 

Maybe she just feels like that  because they share a wall, and Zahra has heard the soft sobbing that follows after a nightmare. Those are the mornings she, who walked ever always so gracefully in to every room, always made an accidental too much breakfast and shared. Nearly ordered Indi to eat because she was always so observant, noticed how the petite woman would pick at food, or nearly lived on coffee.

She spoke enough for both of them, Indi thought. But she learned enough about Indi along the way. Her coffee was always black, she hated apples, Indi’s father was a dentist who had her when he was barely out of highschool. Her major was music. Zahra felt like it was a secret when she said, “It’s the only thing that kept me alive.” Hers was business, but the way she spoke always caused Indi to space out, but not in a way that was an insult, no. It was relaxing how she just spoke, not expecting Indiana to continue with it but yet she radiates happiness when she does share a few words, sentences.

It takes nearly the whole damn year for them all to be comfortable. For Indi to share why she acts the way she does sometimes when it gets too loud, when neighbors, rowdy and drunk, trying to get them to party. Gwen is surprised when Indi nearly pins some man a foot taller than her against the wall, but Zahra sees something else in her eyes and places a hand on her shoulder, and her grip drops. The man laughs, he won’t remember it in the morning, or the next time he walks up behind her and she grabs his hand and steps back, about to throw him down but somehow Zahra is always there to soothe the animal inside of her.

Indi thinks she just felt tired, and rested her eyes for a few minutes, but there was a sense of unease when she comes to. The wolves around her didn’t notice anything as they continued to wrestle and play.

But for a few minutes it was hard to tell what was real life and what was the dream she had. No, no, it wasn’t a dream. It felt.. she doesn’t know. She can’t pinpoint the feeling. Can’t pinpoint why it felt so unnerving. Her wolves have melded in to other wolves, and her surroundings changed from the woods to something rockier.

Something that called her there. There was a whisper in her mind almost to tell her to seek it out. The voice speaks in every language but no language at all and she can’t figure out the words but she knows what it says. There was a gem, a beautiful brilliant green color she hadn’t seen before in nature.

Her mouth feels dry when she comes back to and looks over to @thegladerider​ to see if she noticed. If she did, Indi didn’t see it on her face. “We can’t stay here,” she says.

There came a time when everyone had to experience change. Which is something the petite zookeeper she hated. She would fight and struggle against any little bit of it, which her coworkers in her department of the zoo came to understand easily. Some fool named Oggy, who would argue that she is closest to him in terms of everyone else they worked with, knew that it was easier to talk to her in terms of sarcastic comments, then sincere words.

So when a new zookeeper came along, some… beefcake of a dumbass that Indi despised, Oggy couldn’t hold in his delight of the onslaught of insults she hurled about him, one morning as they set up breakfast for the wolves. “I helped raise Bento and he’s been here a week and the jackass already thinks he knows them better than us- than me, tellin’ me I give them too much food- as if their intake wasn’t strictly monitored,” she muttered as she chopped chunks of meat with reckless abandon. Oggy just leaned against the counter with a wide grin. “Maybe you’ve just got a crush,” he teases, but his words get cut short when she twirls around, knife in hand and for a second, he swore he saw a very animalistic sneer split her face.

“Sorry,” he apologizes, palms up. “He’s a douche, I know. You should have heard what he told Xi about the penguins.Maybe he gets off on tellin’ short girls that they’re wrong.” She goes back to chopping as he starts portioning off meat, ensuring that certain wolves would get medications that the veterinarians prescribed. 

“I’m pretty sure Vaeril just hired him because he wants to fuck him,” she swears, “Do you think we can get away with feeding him to the tigers?”

-

“You’re probably right.” She grinned, chuckling. Indi had a wicked sense of reality when she was speaking about different things. Always observant, always pragmatic, and with a biting lack of bull shit. Sometimes Gwen wondered if somehow one of her sisters had gone off and started the wildling tribe Indi was a part of as that same sarcasm and plain-spokenness had run in their family. “I imagine I’ll die in a bar fight… that or… I dunno some other hunter will just murder me over a kill.”

Gwen nodded, she didn’t know what speaking to them would be like exactly, her abilities manifested a bit differently. “I don’t hear them in any language elves or humans or dragons speak… I just sort of stretch out for them and I get images and feelings and I just… sort of know what they need me to. That’s how it’s always been for me, at least.” They quieted as they drew closer to the pack and their prey. Gwen had her bow in hand, knocking an arrow but she would let Indi take the shot and make the kill, whichever one she went for. Gwen was only ready in case something went wrong and the wolves jumped. But even then, she knew she could probably calm them before anything happened. Indi’s arrow aimed true and the stag crumpled to the ground as her arrow met some organ. Lungs, probably. Gwen closed her eyes for a moment, pushing aside the last few fleeting feelings of fear and pain as she prayed for the stag’s spirit to find some peace in the After.

She doesn’t wonder how she’ll die. She knows. She’ll die lost and forgotten in the woods to be consumed by fungus and scavengers. Her bones picked clean, body looted by no one her spirit knew. To be returned to the ground. “You would not be claimed so easily, Gwen,” she whispered. She hopes her companion has a heroes death.

“They don’t have voices,” she agrees, at least in terms of speaking to her wolves, “But I know what they say. I know their howls, be them lonely or happy or a warning. Like that one,” she says softly, after the arrow landed, “Was one of triumph.”

…

“Feh, most wildlings I meet I end up in as shit a position I’m in now with a fair bit more bruises and scars. Not sure if I’m better company, but Northerners hole up in their houses and buildings too much. Makes the lost of them nervy to outsiders. The weather’s to blame, a body shouldn’t be this cold all the time and holing up inside.” Oggy shook his head, pulling a face of disgust.

“Thanks for the not stabbing me part, mate.” He nodded, making mental note of the venison stew. His mouth already watering. “Indi.” He nodded again. Pausing, and  just before he went to follow the young wolf out of the woods Oggy bent down. The elf reached for his other boot, still wet by it’s own right but not removed or ruined with holes he managed to fish out the dagger hidden there. Hoping the wolves would catch more of his nonviolent thoughts than rush to action

It was his third favorite and was too small to fit or spin comfortably in his own large hands. He pulled up and tossed it to Indi’s feet. “The handle’s carved horn from an animal- well it’s like an elk but it’s in Vailen. For your time.” And with that parting gift Oggy was more than eager to find his way to some stew for the night. He motioned to the wolf and made his was to that end.

-End-

“It makes us stronger.” But really, she felt no loyalty to her location. She thanked the north for making her strong and stubborn, but felt nothing but disdain for nearly everything else of the area. She held nothing personally against the royalty, but still couldn’t find herself caring if anything were to happen to them. 

She shrugs, almost as if to tell him it was no big deal although she’s sure she would need all her fingers and toes, and most of his, to count how many times she had the urge. She wants to tell him that she hopes he finds what he’s looking for, but she’s tired of speaking, and just wants him to leave at this point, so she can go back to her normal wildling activities. Which she thinks at this point calls for a nap.

He gave her a knife from his shoe and all she can focus on is the idea of hairy toes touching it, even though it came from the ankle and not deeper, she couldn’t help how her brain spiraled to that. But it’s beautiful, and she’ll give him that. She opens her mouth to yell out about foot knives, but her wolf and the elf are already gone by the time she looks up from the dagger in the ground. It gets swooped up in a swift motion, and she too, disappears in to the forest.

Gwen knew what it was like to drown in your own despair and rage. She’d been doing just that for hundreds of years. But she’d learned to push it and fold it and beat it down until it was compact enough to store it away. Every once in a while, that little box she managed to shove all of her pain in popped open, but it got easier over the years to manipulate it and ignore it. So maybe what Indi needed wasn’t ignoring the wolves’ feelings, maybe she needed to embrace them. Though that brought up a few questions regarding her talents with controlling her berserking. “Use what they feel. Let it push you. If they are scared or hungry, remind them you’re helping and protecting them. Not the other way around. Wolves respond to familiarity and compassion. You have both in spades.”

“I’d really rather never find out. I’ll die in the mountains somewhere… probably tripping down a ravine or something. Painful and screaming.” The elf and the little berserker continued trekking through the forest, eventually coming to the tree line. Light began filtering more brightly as the trees cleared out and they could see the pack of young wolves cornering the two deer. Gwen would let Indi make the first moves but if she needed help or couldn’t control the wolves, she would step in. “Your call.”

She disagreed when Gwen said she was helping and protecting them, something that the young wildling wouldn’t utter outloud. They didn't need it, not from a deer. If a bear, or other hunters, yes. Indi would lay her life on the line for that. But no, she told them that she was a friend, and that they had the same goal. She'd make a deal with the spirit of the land and with them that the wolves could take the doe, and they the stag. Something they seemed content with. 

“You wouldn’t trip down a ravine, someone would push you. Otherwise you’d see it coming,” she pointedly said you to remind Gwen that she was better than that. She made it this far and death would not be so easy for either of them, a fact Indi is all too aware of in her personal life. The gods kept her walking the earth for some reason, as frustrating as it is. An action that taunts her. 

“I met another elf recently. He could speak to all animals,” She grows quiet picking through what was coming to her in waves from the wolves. “It makes me feel lucky that I can only feel them and not speak to them.” Not feeling them might be the worst feeling she could imagine. They were the heart beat to this forest and a reminder of her connection to them. She knows they are aware of them stepping closer, within range to shoot and quickly her bow is in her hands and drawn. She feels the wolves tense, ready to jump. The deer are quartered away, distracted by the wolves, and would offer her as perfect as a shot as she could get. She pulls back the arrow to a whispered prayer of flying straight and true to her target of vital organs, the quickest and most humane way she knew to hunt.

…

“Aw’right, probably for the best. I was being a little too kind maybe. In my estimations.” Oggy’s nose scrunched up as he spoke. “Know I’m one to talk with how grimey I get just walking around but you’d need a good scouring before anyone in civilized society let’s you close.” He looked her over. “What? Not even locals. Closest town might as well be one step away from living in caves themselves. No decent bar, no whores at all, what have they got to judge?” It was unbelievable to Oggy, who’d seen the sweeping architecture of Vailantis almost regularly, major port cities in every continent. “Sound like they’re a load of podunk asshole’s, aren’t they?”

 Oggy watches her in the silence. Silence that isn’t really silence, as he can sense the wolves are happily amused at least. Then there’s the gentle hum of other things in the forest, birds and bugs and other animals unbothered by the previous noises or the smell of wolves. He sighs, just standing in the moment that wasn’t so peaceful as it was robbed of it’s tension ‘cause the forest didn’t care about them and their problems. It was this great big macrocosm of life separate from petty squabbles and material pleasures Oggy mostly occupied his days with. “Yeah I can get that,” and for a moment that was true. He could almost see the appeal of living in the woods.

“Gods, Must be,” He said pressing the back of his hand to his forehead. Convinced he must be running hot cause he almost thought about living in the woods as a good thing. “Great, get myself proper lost in the woods and I don’t even get beserking out of it. Just pneumonia and a hole in my boot.” He rolled his eyes, not even bothering the wounded pride. “Leave you to it then, won’t I? You can commiserate about how shit your situation is with your furry friends there, and I’ll be licking my wounds and seeing if the locals at least have soup if they don’t have fuck-all for spirits.” He nodded to her, lips tight.

“Names Oggy by the way, you ever change your mind or got needs that are more–city focused– you look me up, yeah? Shouldn’t be too hard to find someone who knows me once you get to proper civilization.” He looked back over the way he came, scratching at his neck. Fairly–mostly sure he wouldn’t get lost on his way back.

“The north doesn’t like the wildlings.” A frown creases the dirt and mud on her face, purposeful marks to shield her in the woods. She got a taste of being in a city that didn’t shy away from them and it gave her.. a strange sense of longing. There was a certain anonymity that that place offered her that here, in the woods of the North, didn’t offer her. Maybe some day the rumors of her would die out. Maybe they would outlive her. “Sometimes my kind can’t even step foot in the cities to trade without violence. It’s very hard not to stab them. They would deserve it more than you would.”

She imagines herself an old crone in the woods, people like Oggy venturing in deep to try to find her, to spite her, year after year. She’d be more animal than human then.  But he’s speaking again and she finds herself back to reality, if for a moment longer. She shrugs at him, unbothered. “Sorry about it,” she lies, “Not the first hole in your boot.” She doesn’t even ask what the word was that he said, pneumonia? Sounded like a city folk problem for people who didn’t know how to weather a storm.

A brow raises, “It’s cold here, how do you think they last the winters?” she questions, “Without the use of beer and venison stew,” which was a recommendation from her. There was one or two inns, off the main road, that accepted the business from the wildlings, and Indi was more than happy to help them hunt for a price. He’d find them if he was smart, if he wasn’t, he’d have to settle for whatever other kind of slop they offered.

“Indi,” is all she says, followed by a pointing gesture to a lean young wolf, who stretched out when he felt her calling to him, “Follow him out of my woods. Or don’t. That’s up to you.”

She didn’t venture to Mer Sereine very often. In fact, if she didn’t have to, she wouldn’t. But she drew the short end of the stick and her, along with three or four other tribe members, had to venture in to the city in hopes to sell some excess wares. There was pelts, bows and arrows, knives, and an assortment of leather items. Her tribe mates were meant to peddle and sell, and she was supposed to watch and protect.

But that didn’t mean she wasn’t bored out of her mind as she watched them desperately try to sell from where she laid in the wagon. Her ever present wolf companion laid next to her, one eye open, as his head rested on her lap.

Movement catches her eyes and she warns lazily, “I would put that back if I were you.”

-

Gwen would leave the choice to Indi, to kill the stag or leave it be. Indi’s sensibilities were correct, that the mother shouldn’t be harmed if it had a fawn but wolves didn’t live by the same rules humans or elves or dragons did. Wolves took what they needed when they needed it. “Mm… good. Can you talk to them at the same time, have you ever tried?” She asked, gently prying into the feelings and instincts of the wolves and the stag herself. There was another with him, a doe, and they both reeked of panic and fear.

That too, was something Gwen and Indi could agree on. The sea had never been home to Gwen, she’d never felt its calling or its allure. “There’s nowhere to run on a boat.” She agreed, shrugging. “When I cross over, I try to make the shortest ports possible. I’d rather not go down to… what they call it? To join  Ivar’s crew?”

That was the hard part. She could push, urge them to only go after the stag, but they didn’t have to listen to her. They have made that aware time and time again. But there was a natural order to things, and they had to follow it too. “Sometimes I feel like they don’t want to hear me.” There would always be hate and self doubt filling her cells up. “Sometimes what they feel drowns me out,” she continues with a frown.

She disagreed, but she wasn’t one for grand words or gestures. That’s a talent she didn’t acquire, couldn’t learn or let grow. But that’s not what this is about. She shouldn’t have overheard, she had no idea what was the start of the conversation but her voice rang loud and clear.

There was power in their blood, even in the most basic of women. But that was the key. Women held the power, from a young age, the gods reminded us that. We bleed, we create. A power many women, but not all, have. (But just because a women couldn’t create life, didn’t mean they didn’t create life in a different way. But it was a complicated thought. Something she didn’t want to focus on right now.)

“If you can’t handle blood, then the gods made a mistake in making you a woman.”

The tavern is mostly empty, but there is a voice that is soft but she can hear it. Eyes narrow over her tankard but he stares, and she can’t break away. She didn’t, sometimes accidentally hate raw meat, but preferred her meat at least.. sort of cooked. But no, no blood.

Gwen’s question makes her panic and eyes scan down down to her hands. There’s a rust color under jagged nails, a faint scent of iron that even her nose can pick up on but she can’t distninquish from something human or animal but gods does she hope that it’s just a deer but she doesn’t... she doesn’t know.

"That’s not mine,” she says quickly. It’s cold and sticky on her bare feet. She wonders if it came from him, but she can’t tell. He seems to be in.. the same amount of pieces as he was the last time she saw him.  But once again, there was a chunk of time missing from her morning and well... she can’t confirm she didn’t do it.

…

“Hah! Now that’s something I could help you with. I got the lightest fingers in three cities, and certainly between the two of us.” He grinned wider, seeing an opportunity. “I don’t do much pick-pocketing anymore. People see a six foot tall elf with one good eye and they tend to shy away, pretty girl like yourself… well-” He shrugged, acting nonchalant about it. “You could clean up, keep your fingers too. If you want me to give you some pointers.” He didn’t know if it would work, what her history was, if she wanted much more than knives. But it was another way to needle himself closer and closer to her might me closer to what he waned.

“Nah, bugs are everywhere and they’re too different. It’s sleeping while it’s raining, or camping next to a river. Eventually you just tune that sound out. What’s weird is if it’s too quiet. Means something bad is in the air if, don’t it? If even bugs won’t stick around.” He shuddered, been around the world enough times to see some scary places. Being on the sea with Yue, there were just

 “Shit… yeah…” Oggy didn’t know what to say. He just stood there, awkwardly, clicking his jaw in silence. Revered and hated by her tribe–this wild girl had a lot going on that he just sort of stepped his foot right into. It was far removed from Oggy’s relationship with magic and the gentle ‘oh you have a special gift like mommy let’s take you to mages to learn to control it’ that he rebelled against in his younger years. It was embarrassing to think about how much time and anger he spent on that compared to this. No wonder she didn’t want to teach or think about her magic. “That’s- sucks…” Gods he wished he just said nothing, but he wasn’t about to go ‘there there and pat her on the back. Even the wolves seemed to catch on how lamely he dealt with difficult emotions.

“Yeah sure, okay!” Oggy threw up his hands, exasperated and almost happy to have something to be angry about again. “Your wolves are very special and have their own special wolf powers, it’s just- well that’s an awful poetical way to look at things for a wildling. You must’ve known what I mean, didn’t you?” He sighed. “It’s not like wolves go around- I dunno’ shooting out knives of ice with their eyes or setting fire to things with their paws as ther run. Powers, those kinda powers, mind-reading, earth-shaking. If we’re talking about the power to make somebody piss themself then I got that sure.” He laughed too.

“All I gotta do is smile at people wrong.” He demonstrated, waiting for her reaction. Not even acknowledging the rest of what she said. Cause of course she was right, he’d leave the forest not getting what he wanted anyhow. Oggy just didn’t want to let on he knew he was wrong.

“Creepy smile, and they’re scared, creepy smile, and they’re scared.”

He calls her pretty and her first reaction is a thought of sending another arrow through his other shoe. She had mud on her hands and her face, her hair braided and matted. She didn’t take care of herself, and sure as hell wasn’t going to let any of the elders who tried to do it after her mother left the world. Instead, she stares at him blankly, “I’m good. I don’t like being around people.” The cities were poison to her, too much stimulation, sounds and smells, she.. hated it. “People aren’t kind to wildfolk up here.”

She thinks she understands that sentiment, and she’s thankful that it’s just the wolves she hears, and it’s only pulses of feelings that she can put words to. She wonders what it would be like to have an actual conversation with them. They were quiet enough but she would miss them terribly if she didn’t hear their comforting howls at night. “Their thoughts are simplistic. Nothing like a human. I would live farther in the woods if that were the case.” 

She ignores pretty much everything else he says, ignores his spark of anger and frustration, almost as if a bubbling stream filled her mind. Mostly because she let her mind wander to images of wolves spitting fire and ice as they danced in the moonlight. They find themselves amused at Indi’s thoughts and she has to shake the thoughts away, embarrassed.