Luc' 12

~

The scene was set. Was there anything else to be done? Probably not. Luc’ looked at his hands. It was his imagination that showed him his wolf in the blood coating his hands. It had to be. I hate blood. Luc’ growled in spite of himself and turned away from the scene he had set out. Erin Ravenheart…I am sorry.

~

“What the hell is this?” Erin attempted to pull his arms out of the guard’s grasp.

          “Erin Ravenheart, you are under arrest for the murder of three children and their mother.”

          “What?” Erin shouted, obviously aghast.

          Luc’ lay himself down on the other side of the street in wolf form and whined. I am so sorry, Erin Ravenheart. He visually followed two guards drag Erin down the road and lock him into a cart drawn by a horse. Soon, Master. Soon. He whined thinking about it. Master was too far away right now. For a long time he would stay that way. Who knew for how long?

~

“He’s a big fellow,” some stranger commented walking by. Luc’ lay in wolf form on his belly in the dirt. It was hot but the dirt was cooling. Curse being a wolf when he needed to be. He panted continuously even in shadow. The gallows were being put up. Luc’ averted his eyes elsewhere. The rope would strangle Erin, his own guilt may strangle him yet. The whole thing was a noose waiting to ensnare. Your trial will be short, Erin Ravenheart. He sighed. They have already decided your guilt.

Luc' 11

~

The house was quiet. That was why Master had requested this hour besides the veil? It was bizarre to think that soon he would be on his own after such careful teachings.

          There were small paper piles upon Master’s desk. All were turned over. Luc’ glanced down. His hands were clasped in front of him. Why was that important?

          “You are anxious, Luc’. Do not be.”

          “Yes Master.” There were plenty of things to be anxious about. “Master, I am uncomfortable with…”

          “This is the way it must be Luc’. He is the last of my bloodline,” Master scratched a further line of words onto parchment, “and he will not live long enough to produce another.”

          “Yes, Master.” Luc’ lifted the picture up. A tall, physically fit man with black hair and hard features. Erin Ravenheart. “What of the Stars, Master?”

          He flourished the curve of the last letter in his page and stared at the writing. “They will watch over him. They will intervene only if absolutely necessary.”

          “Master,” Luc’ acknowledged. He made to step away from the throne like chair.

          “Luc’, he is to find his way here in his own way. If he steps off of the path set out for him you are to allow him.”

          “Yes, Master.” Luc’ bowed at the waist. He swivelled around on one foot and stalked out of the room. I know what I am to do.

Luc' 10

~

Almost a decade later

The years were good. Via Sir’s, now Master’s, care he felt grown and ready for the world. The acorn had prospered under its christened name Luc’. Maybe he had been the acorn or all three of them. Luc’ stood at the window and placed his hands behind his back. What Master had spoken to him of not long after he had gained the wolf’s trust was coming. Master had become enclosed in his chambers. More so than in Zach’s passing. Luc’ held his breath and released it. Zach had done more than either of them could in tightening their loyalty to each other. The wolf and he were one and the same though still separate and distinct.

          A young boy went by catching Luc’s attention. A puppy gambolled after him. Luc’ curved his lips a little bit. He could be the wolf and still be himself. The wolf didn’t seem to mind.

          “Excuse me,” some male voice enquired softly from behind him. Luc’s gaze drifted over his shoulder and took the young man in. There were many serving in Master’s house. Luc’ frowned. They were not Master’s servants though. Who did they belong to? Who did they serve under? Perhaps they were on loan to Master…Luc’ gave it up. How long could he go on trying to fathom the whys and wherefores of Master and his doings? “Forever,” he muttered. To the young man he said, “Yes?”

          “Excuse me sir, Sir requested I give you this,” he held out an envelope sat on a shining serving dish. Luc’ one eyebrow. How long had he lived around humans? Nearly ten years. It didn’t make any sense the way they were. It made little to no sense why someone would deliver a letter on a serving dish. Luc’ lifted it from the silver and bowed his head before he opened it.

          My Dear Luc’

          I believe I have found him at last. Come to me at first light. It is time, loyal one.

          First light. The time when the veil was most visible, almost tangible. This mysterious veil Master had long spoken of which seemed to exist between different times of the same world they existed on. At times it was ludicrous to believe it. Luc’ examined the letter again. Sometimes ludicrous things were true.

Luc' 9

~

A loud bang swept through the room. Shortly after a second sank through the wooden door and spread. It niggled his temples and coaxed him from his dreams.

          It wasn’t quite daylight. The sun had barely kissed the world and Zach was knocking on his door. The wolf, he thought and sat up as if he were commanded.

          “Sir? I’m sorry Sir, you requested an early rise.”

          “Thank you Zach,” he said back. Bless Zach, he never needed to raise his voice with the boy…man? They were all boys. You have exceptional hearing Zachary Smith. Sir pushed away his covers and pushed his feet into the warmth of his sandals. There was a bowl of water upon a table near his window. He went to it and gathered the water in his hands, cleansing his face. “I thank thee, the three Fates, for this water and this new day.” Sir dabbed the water from his face and dressed himself in traditional black. As he wrapped himself in the shadows of his cloak he turned his face back to the shrouded world outside. “I thank the Fates for the gifts given to me every day since my birth.” Sir left the view and looked to the door. As he walked to it he continued, “I pray that I will serve as I am meant to, and I do no harm to my fellow inhabitants of this world.” He put his hand onto the metal handle. “If I do, strike me down for I no longer should be in this world.” Sir pulled on the handle and stepped into the hall.

          The wolf-man was in the small dining hall. He sat on a long rug of sheepskin. The clothes suited him better than those of yesterday. Simple colours, nothing flamboyant. Black pants and a simple white long sleeved work shirt. Sir studied his behaviour before he walked in. The boys, they weren’t boys, they were men. My age need not change that. The boys on either side of him were still nervous. Yet the wolf-man talked to them anyway. He was a bit of a marvel there was no mistaking that. Today. Sir decided and walked toward the three.

          The men looked up. The wolf-man kept his head down and lifted his eyes to him as though he were ashamed, maybe he was. It didn’t matter. Sir knelt beside them.

          “I have explained what we shall do. Your role is to trust in what we are doing,” he told the wolf-man. “Now, lay on your left side, close your eyes.” As soon as the wolf-man was ready Sir nodded to the other two and placed his hands gently on the wolf-man’s neck and shoulder. He chanted words he remembered from long ago and invoked the powers which held to them. Beneath his hands the wolf-man tensed as though he were going to fit. The heart beat below Sir’s fingers slowed and his form grew shorter as he became wider. Sir watched finding himself in awe as two limbs sprouted and grew fur. The ears of the man grew into points and his face lengthened until it became canine. The eyes opened and shot wide. His awe broke as the wolf strained beneath all three of their grips and tried to bite.

          “Sir?” Zach worried.

          “Quiet,” he answered and increased the pressure on the wolf’s neck. “Hush.” The wolf attempted to turn its head. When it found that it couldn’t it growled instead and scrabbled at the rug beneath it. “Hush,” Sir breathed. He could only go by his instincts as the wolf did. So much hate ran through the creature’s veins. Hate and anger were not the way to respond. They bred each other only to create something malicious and monstrous.

          Sir bent lower over the wolf and put his mouth to its ear. “Hush. Be still.”

          Still.

          Sir breathed. If he did not his beating heart would rush his words and the fragile calm would break as surely as a child’s snowball. Sir closed his eyes. “Still,” he breathed into its ear. “You will hear and understand. I am with you. I will be your protection and your control,” he let that sink in before he added, “You will not need to be concerned any longer.”

          Hear, I do. Understand, I do. Want it not, do I.

          “What do you wish?” Fur beneath his fingers stretched and adjusted.

          Freedom.

          “You will have no freedom acting as you do. Death lies through the doors. Give yourself to me.” Sir heard his voice lower in pitch and raise in volume. The atmosphere changed as if the temperature had been quickly lowered. A shiver swept through the hall and ruffled the curtains covering the windows. “Calm your heart. You will not go free from here whilst I exist.”

          Kill you I shall, It threatened. In the expanse between its thoughts and Sir’s laughter rumbled like thunder before a storm broke. I do not want to break you. Sir thought to himself. He concentrated on his breathing. A drum beat pounded in his heart and grew in tempo and strength. Sir rubbed his fingers over the wolf’s neck, the feeling was mutual in that moment, he realised. The waves of their minds and hearts had collided into calm seas. In the distant reaches of his mind froth lapped gently over bubbles beneath the surface. They were together. It was done.

          “You may leave us,” Sir said to Zach and the second man. “I will be fine. The wolf will not attack. Go, now.” Fates he was hot. Sweat clung to his skin and stuck his robes and garments to him.

          “Let’s go,” Zach said. Sir listened to their footfalls and opened his eyes as the door clicked shut. He lay down beside the wolf and stared at the ceiling. Cobwebs danced in the breeze and dust breathed clinging to the air which swept it up.

          Trust me, do you?

          “Trust is a sapling. One day it may grow strong and virtually unbreakable. First it must be nurtured and helped to support itself. Our trust is but an acorn in the ground. One day it shall erupt into being. Before that can happen we must christen it.”

          Who be acorn? The wolf asked insightfully. Sir curved his lips and spoke a name.

          “Luc’,” he envisaged the word escaping from his lips as a butterfly and watched it fly free into the shining shafts of sunlight caressing the beams above him.

          Luc’ the wolf echoed in the same gentle tone.

          Now we have truly begun. Sir thought to himself.

Luc' 8

~

There was a forest nearby. A house stood in the distance. A nest of houses in fact. Where was this? He was on the very edge of the forest. He would make the houses if he ran now. Night was drawing in its curtains over the sun and animals stirred close by. Wolf’s pulse thrummed in his ears like a drum beat. Something stirred in the forest.

          Wolf looked over his shoulder and he noticed he was in the centre of the forest all of a sudden. The trees were tight about. There was no clearing at all. A brush of something swept through. Wolf scanned the grey and black. Was there something in here with him? Hairs on the back of his neck tickled as though something scuttled just over his skin then he saw two eyes shining in the darkening light.

          Wolf swallowed. It’s going to eat me. As if in response the animal snarled and growled low. It didn’t want him here. Wolf closed his eyes and jerked his head. Fear iced through his heart and drew his breath so quickly he raised his hand to the spot. The animal wanted him to sit, not necessarily leave. How did he know that? I’m going to sit, he thought as he sat and crossed his legs.

          Wolf dropped his eyes to the floor beneath. In the very next instant the animal crept forward. It was careful, as all animas were. What did he know about it? He’d never had an animal. Wolf snuck a look up toward it. It was a wolf. A big wolf. It’s you.

          The wolf snarled at him and sat down, rather expectantly, if he had a right to say that. Speak the truth, something, an instinct? said. “I um…I’m afraid,” he stammered and drew his knees up. The wolf raised one brow thoughtfully. “I, I didn’t want to um, ack…acknowledge you. That you existed. I trapped you. I was scared that you’d hurt me, the people around me.” I’m jabbering, “Do you know the man? They call him Sir,” he carried on without answer, “I was told I never gave you a voice. Because I, because I never accepted you. Is it true? Is it why you attack people?”

          The wolf cocked its head. Maybe it didn’t object to a jabbering human.

          “I…I want you to have a voice. No,” he changed his mind, “I need you to have a voice.” The truth, something coached. Wolf gathered a breath. He had to stop jabbering on. It wasn’t going to go anywhere this way.  “I’ll never exist if we don’t start trusting each other,” he enforced calmness on himself. The wolf might need his calm. Something was happening, wasn’t it? Something small. A tiny strand connecting them? Wolf drew his eyebrows together.

          “Maybe, maybe if you can talk, we can build something.” He gathered his eyebrows tighter. “I’m ashamed. I’m, I’m sorry. I see now that we are part of one another. I can’t ignore you any more than I can ignore myself.” Wolf put his hands on the floor and caught the dried leaves in his fists. “Please.”

          Please. He heard within his mind. Wolf looked at the wolf in front of him. “There is much I can learn from you.”

          There is much I can learn from you.

          Wolf narrowed his eyes. The wolf was echoing. Right? “I don’t know what. How to coexist together?”

          How to coexist together.

          Wolf let himself smile a little bit. Why had he been so afraid of this? Sir could be right. It could possibly be a good thing to exist together instead of alone.

          They must have spoken for hours. The wolf was curious. Why else would it have stayed? When Wolf opened his eyes into the waking world it was dark just like in the forest. Had it been longer than hours? Sir was still there. Had he moved at all?

          “How did it go?”

          “It is learning,” Wolf told Sir.

          “Did it speak to you?”

          “It echoed a lot. I think it could speak here better. If you let it take me…”

          Sir’s eyebrows lifted high up his forehead. “Take you?”

          “I want to let it out. Can I? Would that be safe?” Was he imploring?

          Sir’s eyebrows sank down his face as his eyes sank down onto the table and examined it for a time. “I will allow it. Tomorrow. Be ready.”

Luc' 7

~

Two weeks later

“Sir, I’m not sure about this,” Zach warned.

          Sir set his hands down and leant onto the table. Even in a trance state the wolf was more powerful than he’d realised. Why had he not considered that? It growled and snapped with the man’s mouth. Sir set his mouth into a line. How strange not to feel fear in these moments. Seeing the hope in others wasn’t always positive. It blinded him, he admitted to himself. Easy now. Fear was not present but anxiety, like tickling fingers, teased and brushed. He shivered, perhaps visibly as the wolf snarled louder. It pulled and jerked in Zach and the other’s hold.

          Had the wolf-man not been in a trance state it would have taken over by now.

          “Hate,” he told it and slammed his hand down onto the table. In the next moment he stood upright. The method would not work. The wolf was already angry, hateful. It didn’t need force. Understanding perhaps. Sir closed his eyes. “You will keep a tight hold,” he told the two.

          Sir travelled up the table and arrived behind. The wolf strained the man’s neck whilst it looked back. As Sir shook back the sleeve of his cloak and raised his hand its eyes shot wide. “Hush,” Sir whispered to it and set his hand down. The wolf-man’s black hair was soft, not unlike a dog’s fur, yet silkier. “You hate. You kill. The cycle will not end,” Sir slid his hand along the wolf-man’s forehead. The wolf panted. Sir watched the blood pulse in the wolf-man’s neck. It was undecided over what to do? “You are afraid,” he was getting somewhere. The blood in the wolf-man’s neck was slowing. It didn’t seem to be straining every muscle at its command. Sir refused to smile. “You do not know what is happening. Sleep.”

          It strained again, it lashed out and barked ferociously using the man’s voice.

          “Sleep,” Sir repeated. “Sleep now,” he coaxed and watched the wolf-man’s eyes close. Sweat trickled like small rivers down his neck and his hair. Sir lifted his hand away and nodded to the two with him. “Leave us, we will be fine.”

          They looked at him as if he were crazy. Sir observed the wolf-man. Maybe he was a little crazy. “Wake,” he said to the wolf-man as the door behind him closed. The second method wasn’t going to work either. As the wolf-man’s eyes opened Sir raised his eyebrows. At least, not on its own.

          “What happened?” The wolf-man wondered to him.

          “It is angry and hateful. I cannot give it a voice.” He observed the wolf-man’s response.

          “You can’t?” He was clearly disappointed. To his credit he was still polite.

          “I can’t. You can.”

          The wolf-man raised his eyebrows now. Me? He seemed to wonder. He probably thought him crazy too.

          “Have you attempted to speak to it before?” Sir asked as he sat down.

          The wolf-man focused on his hands. He studied his palms intently as though avoiding the question. Sit waited. “No. The wolf frightens me.”

          “Frightens you,” Sir echoed. He should have expected that maybe. “Why?”

          “Why? It’s out of control.”

          I think I’m beginning to understand. You hate the wolf as much as it hates humans. You won’t accept it as part of you. Time to change tactic a bit. “You shun the wolf. You won’t give it a voice because you don’t want to hear what it has to say. You must accept that it is part of you and you are part of it,” Sir sighed before he knew it. Frustration commanded his words. He would be regretting it later. “You are the one who made it hate humans.”

          “What?” The wolf-man exclaimed, obviously offended at the very thought.

          “You have spoken to me of your younger days when the wolf was younger than yourself. You kept it shut away, as if it were in a tiny cage. If you do not allow an animal freedom would you expect it to have any respect for the race which imprisoned it?”

          “That wasn’t my fault,” the wolf-man said pointedly. He demonstrated that with his finger pointed down onto the table.

          “Yes, it was. You may not have grown up with your people but you were in control of it in your younger years,” he told the wolf-man and his tone was firm.

          “How was I supposed to let it escape? It would have attacked everyone. Don’t you sit there and talk of what you don’t…”

          “That is enough,” Sir affirmed and loudly. If the wolf-man wasn’t going to take responsibility they would never get anywhere. The wolf blamed him, it was why it never allowed the wolf-man out. Why should it? The wolf was imprisoned for decades. The wolf-man needed to understand that or it would never work. And I cannot give up now. “Speak to the wolf. Now.” The wolf-man opened his mouth but there wasn’t going to be any questioning and no more excuses.. “Now.”

          The wolf-man groaned and swore. He bit his tongue, Sir noticed. Maybe to not swear directly to him. So respect was growing. Good. The wolf-man sighed the last of his annoyance or aggravation. “How?” He asked.

          Sir could only go on instinct, a little insight as well. “Close your eyes and breath. Picture a place you know the wolf is most comfortable and you the most vulnerable. See if it will approach.”

          “Do I speak aloud?” The wolf-man asked. His voice slurred a little. Sleep clung to him as much as alcohol saturated the mind.

          “Speak how the wolf feels comfortable. You aren’t there for yourself. You are there for the wolf only.”

Luc'6 part 2

          “Wait,” the wolf-man requested. Sir looked back over his shoulder. His leaving was negotiable. Anything, in fact, was negotiable to an extent. “I will talk if you stay,” the wolf-man admitted. In defeat? He averted his eyes onto the blanket covering his form.

          “Speak,” Sir told him. He took up his seat.

          The wolf-man traced the pattern of the blanket with his fingers until the pattern reached an end. His hands were rough, his nails dirty. Had he noticed that before? The wolf-man swallowed and tilted his head down a bit further.

          “I think I’m controlled. We aren’t one, we aren’t two. We’re both a part of one another and apart from one another,” his mouth lifted just a little bit, “I don’t understand the wolf.”

          Sir leant forward onto his stick. What was it about the wolf and the man, that so intrigued? Destiny and the Fates. What else could it be after all? “The wolf doesn’t understand you either,” he surmised. “Does it know speech? Can it talk or communicate at all?”

          The wolf-man…Luc’? Sir filed it away for later. More important things about for now. The wolf-man made eye contact, hesitantly, possibly even furtively. What was he afraid of? The wolf would come? Sir narrowed his eyes. Maybe so.

          “It hears but it doesn’t understand. It is angered by speech.”

          “Perhaps I may teach the wolf and give it voice. One who communicates,” he lifted his fingers from the stick’s rounded head, “may express his emotions and wants.” You want to not be alone. “I can give you control over it. The wolf should not rule you.”

          “Do you have a name?”

          Sir lifted his gaze and did not expect to find the wolf-man looking at him. They made eye contact. It didn’t break. Trust ought to travel in both directions at all times. The scales did not always have to tip one way or the other. “Once. My name is Sir.”

          “Sir? That is not a name,” the wolf-man observed and Sir raised his lips into a smile.

          “It is not. I do not remember my name. It has been a long time since I used it.”

          The wolf-man bowed his head down.