THE SPLINTER.

her mother had always said that the best place to people-watch at events like these was the ferris wheel. it wasn't like the children's rides, where you'd only see the younger ones holding tightly to their parents' hands, nor was it as teenager-heavy as some of the more thrilling rides. a ferris wheel was a universal, tried-and-true aspect of any good festival or fair. in their years of town-hopping, they'd been to enough of them for calla's words to have some weight.

lettie doesn't realize who she's standing next to until the other speaks, the voice one she'd usually hear at the clinic. an amused smile rises to her lips as her gaze shifts between saffron and the wheel in question. "it's definitely the best view. i don't know if you'll be able to see many details, but i'd say it's worth at least one rotation."

“if it's the best, then why only go once?” surely the best should be worth at least two, if not more, rotations. everything is worth one try, that's not special.

she tears her gaze from the wheel, to look lettie over with sharp eyes. she looks okay enough, not that saffron knows enough about what having weird dreams does to someone to say otherwise. and then there's the fractured wrist. how long should that take to heal? saffron idly rolls her own wrist as her gaze lingers. feels the bones, the tendons. it aches, vaguely, when she moves it like this. she stops, realises she's staring. stops that too, jerking her gaze back to the ferris wheel.

“have you been up there yet this year? or - your wrist got hurt, right? would rides make it worse?”

to the wolf, that thing in her that hungers, he looks like something chewed up and spat out. no wonder the hunger wants him back. half-eaten prey. she can feel her teeth in her mouth.

it doesn't make her feel better about him telling her what to do. if that's what he's doing. tone again. always a challenge. maybe's he's joking? whatever. (she likes that word, whatever. she picked it up when eavesdropping on a group of teenagers when she was first getting settled. it always makes her feel like a real person, the same way talking about boring, everyday things like the weather and the traffic does.)

“not unless you know something about the dirt that i do not.” which she doubts. “i can get more on the wind right now.” there is nothing to track, not really. just awareness. she can't really research - or, she could, but she'd get bored and frustrated and it would be terrible, probably. she can pay attention, though. keep watch. and enjoy the summer festival. this is only her fifth one, after all. and there aren't many people who could stop her from getting on that ferris wheel, even if they wanted to.

based on what she knows of alistair, he could use a summer festival to enjoy too.

“you should -” his face is doing something in her peripheral vision and she doesn't like it. she narrows her eyes, turns her head to look at him properly. “why are you making that face?”

do her words ring just slightly, or is that just an after effect of saffron standing around in the festival, listening for some sign? the first time she'd stood in the festival crowd, five years ago, she'd been paralysed by the flood to her senses. too much and not enough and no pack to share it all with. lights and sounds and smells and people, people, people. saffron is more used to it now, can let it flow through instead of flooding her.

olivia doesn't seem to like her. or maybe she's just... shy? saffron wants to ask, but sometimes questions just make people like her less. it's annoying or something. whatever.

“not more than normal. unless i fell, which would hurt a lot. and people would scream.” now, that would be annoying. “but it's been years and no one's fallen and it hasn't broken even though i can hear it make noises. so it should be fine.” she tilts her head to better catch the screeching, creaking sound the ferris wheel makes that, somehow, is normal and doesn't mean it's a metal death in waiting.

“oh and hello,” she adds abruptly. it's polite to say hello to people, instead of just talking to them without the rituals. she knows this, and reluctantly accepts it. and only sometimes forgets. maybe it will ease the... weirdness. “are you enjoying the festival?” and if she is fine with that question, maybe the are you shy or do you not like me or are you just weird? questioning will follow.

— open.

there  is  something  uniquely  unsettling  about  watching  a  town  convince  itself  it  is  still  alive  and  magnolia  creek  has  always  worn  grief  poorly  .  it  hangs  from  telephone  wires  and  settles  into  the  cracks  of  old  sidewalks  ,  clings  stubbornly  to  the  paint  peeling  from  forgotten  storefronts  .  for  three  days  ,  though  -  the  town  forgets  ,  or  pretends  to  .

malachi  envies  them  .

he  wonders  ,  briefly  ,  what  it  must  feel  like  to  attend  something  like  this  without  instinctively  cataloguing  exits  .  his  gaze  drifts  toward  the  ferris  wheel  as  it  crawls  lazily  across  the  evening  sky  .  from  up  there  ,  they  say  ,  you  can  see  the  whole  town  .  every  street  ,  every  roof  ,  every  scar  magnolia  creek  has  spent  years  trying  to  bury  beneath  fresh  coats  of  paint  .  he  has  no  interest  in  looking  .  the  paper  cup  in  his  hands  has  long  since  gone  lukewarm  -  coffee  .  too  bitter  ,  too  burnt  .  he  doesn't  even  drink  coffee  .

a  child  runs  past  ,  nearly  colliding  with  him  before  disappearing  back  into  the  crowd  with  an  embarrassed  laugh  and  an  apology  thrown  over  one  tiny  shoulder  .  malachi  steps  aside  before  the  collision  can  happen  ,  offering  nothing  more  than  a  tired  smile  that  never  quite  reaches  his  eyes  .

she eyes the coffee, wrinkling her nose in distaste. she can almost taste how terrible it is from here. before she can comment on it - surely he can tell how terrible it is? - a child comes sprinting by, carelessly close.

she tracks the child until the little thing disappears into the crowd with the quickness of a rabbit. children are so small, so fragile. how do they survive? but then, survival is different under streetlights and sunlight. it is strange though. she remembers running like that, feeling just as carefree. wind in her hair, dirt underfoot, hunt in her blood, pack at her side, but not yet wearing her fur so easily. she aches for it.

malachi drinks the terrible coffee and she is instantly back in the present. and confused.

“why did you do that? are you stupid?” she asks with visible disappointment and a vague sense of distress. she snatches the cup from his hand to rescue him from himself. too late, but maybe this can prevent future terribleness.

“malachi, i am not an expert. obviously. but i think these events are supposed to be fun. and you look... mopey.” she says the word carefully. it's one of those ones she's heard but not had a chance to use much yet, but she thinks she got it right and she can't help her small, satisfied smile.

❝ i love this world, even in its hard places. a bird too must love this world, even in its hard places. so, even if the effort might come to nothing, you need to do something. ❞

I. INTRODUCTION.

name ― saffron.

age ― unknown (around 27).

species ― werewolf.

gender & pronouns ― cis woman (she/her).

face claim ― chase sui wonders.

status ― taken.

II. DIGGING DEEPER.

growing up among the werewolves, you always felt more beast than human. your home was the forest and the wind and the dark that settled between the pines at night. the pack was the only family you ever knew, and for a long time, that felt like all you needed. you stayed in your wolf form more often than not, half-feral and always hungry for something beyond your reach. you didn't have the words for what it was exactly. you just knew it was there, just past the trees, just out of sight. you often wondered if you had parents once. real ones. sometimes, you dreamt about them in your sleep. you saw the ghost of your mother's hands, heard the echo of your father's laugh. but no matter how you tried to remember them, their faces and names were blank spaces in your memory, white as the moon you were bound to.

the pack ran you hard, and the years blurred into each other until you couldn't keep them straight anymore. you followed where they led, hunted what they hunted, and answered to the pull of the moon. slowly, the human parts of you went quiet, then quieter, then nearly silent. you stopped dreaming about your parents completely. you stopped wondering about what was beyond the trees. the hunger was the loudest thing in you, and it was simple, and it was easier to focus on that than everything else. so you ate. you ran. you forgot. you told yourself you were wild and ferocious and free, and what could be better than that?

and then someone called your name. you didn't even remember what it was at that point, but something in you rose at the sound of it, warm and sudden, like a long-forgotten instinct waking. whispered by a face you didn't recognize or almost didn't, someone from before the pack. and they said your name like they knew you, like you were still someone who could be known that way. you were still in your wolf form — you hardly ever left it anymore — but somehow, they recognized you anyway, from your eyes, your movements, something that hadn't gone entirely animal no matter how hard you'd tried. you looked up at them, for just a moment. and then you ran. ran like a startled animal, back into the dark between the trees. but the name followed you there, and something small and stubborn stirred in the place where the quiet had been, and it wouldn't go back to sleep no matter how hard you ran.

it took time. more time than you expected, more than felt fair. the name had cracked something open in you, and once cracked, it kept widening, the human parts of you pressing through the gap. like your old name was a tether that pulled you back to your core. you started shifting back without meaning to, waking up in your human form, disoriented and cold, the world suddenly too loud and too bright and too big for your little human body. you'd forgotten how much it hurt to have hands. how strange it felt to stand upright. how quiet the world sounded without being able to hear your own heartbeat. the pack noticed. nothing ever gets past wolves. you left before they could decide what to do about it, slipping away in the dark. you didn't look back. you'd learned that much, at least, from the years of running.

it's strange, learning to be mostly human again, seeing the world through brand new eyes. everything is softer than you remembered. the colors. the light. the way the sun feels on your skin. you'd forgotten what it felt like to want small things like a warm meal and a roof over your head and the sound of someone saying your name. you think you're falling in love with it, with being human, with being alive in this beautifully weak body. a good song coming through a radio. the smell of coffee. the comfort of a blanket pulled close, like a wolf-mother cocooning her pup. the way humans laugh at things that aren't funny, just because it feels good to laugh. it's been six years now, and you're still learning new things, still waking up some mornings expecting fur and finding only skin. the wolf is still in there. there is something in you that will always be half-wild, and you've made your peace with that. but you're choosing this, choosing humanity, choosing the world. even if it means you might die protecting it.