The Way of The Wolf

The usual swirling shadows greet me. I stand in an endless black beside an even darker wolf. Desh speaks first. “The spirits within and these dancing shadows are all that have accompanied me for an immeasurable amount of time. Yet, I never tire of their performance. ‘Tis an undeniable beauty that has blessed me with its company for ages.”

I’m not sure how to respond to that, so instead I stare at the shadows with him. I have to agree that they’re beautiful, but… I don’t think I could stare at these for a full day, let alone ages and keep my sanity. “I won’t deny that they’re strangely beautiful, but I wouldn’t want to watch them for any longer than I had to.”

His head slowly turns towards me. “Yes, well mortals often find themselves bored within mere moments. ‘Tis a result of thy short lifespan. Digressions aside, what I mean to say is that thy presence is a welcome addition to my time.”

I stand there in confusion for a moment. “What brought this on?”

He turns to me with a barely visible smile. “I should think my desire is clear? Though thou art mortal and ill-mannered; the company of another beating heart is a welcome addition to my endless cacophony. I have stewed in solitude for more centuries than I can count, with only the memories of countless pasts and dancing shadows to occupy my time. To be able to make new memories after so long… I wish to express my gratitude to thee once more for my liberation.”

We stare at each other for a short while. I’m really not sure what to say to that. Eventually I choose. “I appreciate you answering any questions I have with honesty. I’ve learned a lot in such a short time.”

“A knowledgeable partner is preferable for my goals. Since we’ve arrived at the subject, what information may I bestow upon thee this night?”

I don’t actually have any questions prepared this time. Instead of asking a question I close my eyes and focus on moving my body. I’m standing? No, I was walking. My right leg is significantly larger and more mishappen than my left. When I took control of my body, my right leg was carrying me somewhere. “Desh, were you moving us?”

Desh’s voices echo through my mind. “Nay. ‘Tis not uncommon for newly transformed to wander whilst they meditate within themselves. The bestial desires of this form are so potent, that without control they may run rampant.”

“Has that ever caused problems?”

“One out of all my many, many wolves attempted to harm her overseer, but failed and resumed wandering. What are thy plans? Why have we abandoned thy core?”

“I don’t have any questions for today. So, I though a change of scenery would do us some good.” As I said that, I developed a few questions for him. I noticed small yellow orbs floating around the forest. They glow slightly and when I point at them, they fly towards me.
“What are these? Fairies?” My oversized right arm turns over and lets the little lady land in my hand. She’s puny. Maybe, the size my pinky finger is normally. She has pale green skin, and is covered only by her long hair and the roots that seem to cover her hands and feet like tiny gloves and boots. Her wings are a pretty
see-through yellow and seem to drop glittering embers.

“Nay. Though they bare many similarities, these are pixies. Malevolent creatures who lead travelers astray into the dens of beasts most heinous.”
As he says that, the pixie excitedly points in a direction as though asking me to go there. When I look around, all the pixies seem to be leading in that direction. So. Like any sane person would when told pixies lead to imminent danger, I followed the pixies.

When they noticed that I was following them, they seemed to glow brighter with joy as they whirled around me and landed on various parts of my body. One lands on my ear and I instinctively-Ahh! My right eye can swivel all the way behind me! Ahh, this is weird! I spend a moment looking forward, looking back, looking forward, looking back. Desh laughs at me.
After finally getting used to being able to see all the way behind me, I look at my wolf ear. A pixie is leaning on it, like she’s leaning on the rail of a balcony. She waves happily at me. With one this close, I can actually see her face. They’re kind of cute.

As I hobble through the forest, I ask Desh the other question I had. “What do you know about magic?”

He’s silent for a moment before he answers. “Regrettably, less than I should. The Lord of Magic was rather reluctant to distribute her knowledge to the other Lords.”
The Lord of Magic is the Lord Desh knew the least about and the only one who didn’t partake in his banishment. Apparently she was a recluse like no other. She was the only one who didn’t have a temple because she believed anything outside of her research was pointless. Desh hummed in contemplation for a moment before continuing. “The Witch’s assumption on mana is correct. Mana is the heavenly power granted to mortal souls by the Gods. Essentially, thy spiritual influence and girth. Most mortals have enough mana for no more than one healing orb, the very ones that thee can conjure an entire army of.”

That… That can’t be right? Only one? “What about mages?”

“The most I’ve seen our greatest healer accomplish is ten elves at once. After his feat, he collapsed into a state of deep comatose for two full days. Calling upon the God’s wrath is remarkable cheap in comparison to calling upon their miracles. Sadistic, is it not?”

And I managed to heal an entire camp full of people? “Why do I have so much mana?”

He hums again before answering. “I could not say. Thou have been truly blessed by the Gods. Thou have the mana to match, even a lesser Lord. ‘Tis a feat unreached by mortals. I’ve often wondered if thou art the descendant of a Lord, although I know the consummation of spirit and mortal is impossible.”

“Is there a way to increase your mana once you’re born? Could I have been doing that without knowing?”

“Unless thou roamed from city to city, consuming the souls of every inhabitant then no. There is no chance thou accidently expanded thy mana.”
As he finishes explaining, a truly appetizing aroma enters my nose. It smells like… Fresh meat and women. I wasn’t aware women had a smell. A small clearing in the trees reveals a rock with a pack of wolves on it. Based off the smell, I can tell that most of them are female and the alpha male is pathetic. They also have a few nice carcasses just waiting to be eaten. As the pixies fly off me and dance around the wolves, Desh speaks to my mind. “These pixies cast illusions as well? Yet another surprising discovery. Allow me to fix thy sight.”

An itch overwhelms my eyes, and instead of scratching them like my oversized claws wanted to do, I simply blinked over and over. The wolves and meat were slowly replaced by a massive pile of human and eleven corpses. Grotesque greenish-blue spirits float around them on a bed of fog. A few of the corpses are standing. “Can we kill them?”

“With ease. Removing the heads of the undead will ensure their inventible demise. The specters, however, will require magic to destroy. An ideal situation.”
He was right. This is easy. Even with my body as malformed as it is, my massive claws, guided by bestial instinct, easily tear the heads off the ghouls. They each wield weapons, but none of them can even scratch my wolf form. I avoid the specters as much as I can until Desh finishes teaching. “The lore of magic we use is Moon magic. A lore Luna herself bestowed upon me. ‘Tis a magic with no elemental properties, but great mastery over light and sound. To infuse thy strikes with a lightless fury, envision thy hands enveloped in shadows.”

That sounds easy enough. I pump mana into my claws with the image of dark hands vaguely in my mind. My right claws begin to glow with a pale light. I thought this was a dark fury? As I slash at a specter, pure black power bleeds across the chest of the specter. Ethereal howls fill the woods as darkness spreads across his ghastly form. Desh explains as I remove its head, “This spell is largely harmless. Proper training and channeling will grant thee the ability to temporarily steal sight and hearing from thy victims at range. Most spirits and ghosts are impervious to physical blows. Add the influence of magic or silver, however? Thou may see the results for thyself.”

It's a good thing there’s an endless supply of targets right here. The more ghouls I slay, the more that rise up from the pile. The bodies of the undead turn to flakes and burn away like embers from a fire and the specters dissipate and melt into piles of some strange substance. Desh explains that they become ectoplasm. Apparently the more a spirit interacts with the physical world, the more ectoplasm they produce. Apparently elves used it in various rituals.

Eventually all the corpses are little more than bones and old equipment scattered across the ground. I’ve gotten good at using this spell. All my swipes threw out dark energy and when it hit them, they were enveloped in darkness. I assume they went blind. It’s hard to tell when creatures who only shamble around like mindless beasts go blind. The pixies all left at some point.

As I limp back through the forest where I came from, Desh brags about Luna’s magic. Apparently most magic lore is incredibly dangerous to learn. Even learning new variations of spells requires a slightly new channeling method, and if done improperly can result in injury. Moon lore, on the other hand, can be trained to only remove sight and hearing for a few moments before you learn to safely apply the offensive aspect of it. He continues to boast about his werewolves being able to make the most out of Moon magic because of their direct relationship to the Moon.

“Can someone use different magics? Could I cast fire since I’ve already used Moon lore?”

He grumbles. “Tis possible, no doubt. However, the Gods are many and varied. Fire lore, is, in essence, the same as barrowing power from Sol, the Sun God. Using his power will put thee in his favour, and thus enhance thy soul with his energy. Thy fire spells would be more potent, however lore from other Gods would surely diminish in value.”

As I ask about my healing spell and shamble through the forest, I smell something familiar. I can’t quite… Spikes of ice pierces through my abdomen and chest! I jump back and swivel in place to face my assailant!
Aroura? She’s trying to kill me now!? She must think I’m weak! I’ll show her just how weak I am.

I crouch into position, ready to throw myself at her! Her spell dissipates and her eyes widened in horror as she took a few steps back. Her hands slowly raised to cover her mouth as her breaths rapidly escaped her mouth. “K-Kar? What... What happened to you?”

I don’t break a combat stance. Could she really not have known it was me? I am more deformed than before… But if she’s not hunting me, what’s she doing out here?
Don’t give in to her tricks. Stay ready for anything.
I speak to Desh in my mind. “Can we speak?”

“An attempt is all I will promise.”

This beast of a body starts producing a low guttural sound out its mouth. “Auura.”

Upon hearing me speak, she frantically looks around for… Something? Maybe she’s making sure her reinforcements are ready? No, I don’t smell anyone other than her. “Ah! I’m sorry! I hurt you, didn’t I! Are you feeling alright?”
After I don’t respond for a few moments, she approaches slowly and asks, “Can you understand me?”

I inspect her face before I answer. It seems she really is worried… I attempt to speak again. “Why. Yougg. ‘erge.”

“Why am I here? Oh! Well, I heard an ethereal scream and I was informed that you hadn’t yet returned, so I uhh. Set out in order to find you.”

The specter’s howls were that loud? Or am I just that close? “Ahrowgn?”

She takes in the word for a moment before realizing that I said ‘alone.’ “A-alone? Well… I didn’t wish to drag others into battle with ethereal enemies. Only I would be able to hurt them, so I… It… It sounds rather foolish doesn’t it?”

I let out an inward sigh. She wasn’t trying to kill me. I assume a more relaxed stance and point to the ice spikes, impaling one side of my body and sticking out the other. I begin to push on them, and she exclaims, “Of course! We should remove those!”
Seven in total. They slide out surprisingly easy, and Aroura immediately begins chanting the healing magic. I place my smaller arm on her to get her to stop. She jumps and stammers over her own words. “Bu-but, you’re injured!”

I point to one of the holes and she watches in amazement as it slowly fills itself. She looks up at me with an assortment of emotions. Worry. Relief. Curiosity. Astonishment. But most of all Fear. “What are you?”

“Gnerrewhoph.” That was supposed to be werewolf, but it mostly came out as a growl. She tried a few different guesses before I played the most annoying game of charades. Eventually she managed to figure it out.

“A werewolf? I don’t think I know what that is.”

Desh groans. “Truly? There was once a time where one couldn’t escape talk of my wolves! Now, the Witch, the most well-informed upon matters of magic, knows nothing.”

She quickly inspects the parts of my body that’ve changed into their monstrous form before asking, “Is there a cure? Do you know? We can find one!”

I point to the sky an attempt to say Sun. “Shangh.”
More growls. Somehow she understands.

“The Sun? This only happens at night?” I nod.
“But I’ve seen you at night! And you weren’t…. Like this.” She’s acting like she hasn’t seen this form before? I’ll confront her about it later.

I hold up four fingers and try to sound out days. “Ndaysh.”

She continues to attempt to prod me for questions, but I can’t really answer most of them. They’re too complicated for a yes or no head nod. Instead, she begins listing out possible answers as to how this happened and expects me to answer those with a yes or no. She managed to narrow it down to a spirit and possession, but she never came close to the right type of spirit and I let her think this is a curse.

She’s run out of questions. Now the only sounds to fill the space between us is the light rain fall upon the leaves and various insects. She walks to a nearby tree and sits against the trunk. After a short moment I do the same. Another moment of silence between us and she speaks. “Cloudrea misses you. She’s scared that you’ve left her. At first I was a bit upset with you, but… I see that you had a reason…”
Right. Cloudrea. I can’t believe I forgot to check on her. I was in a hurry to escape the camp before sundown that I must have forgotten. Aroura casts her gaze towards the ground. In a desperate attempt to lighten the mood, she changes the subject. “My father told me the wonderful news! That he would leave my attempts to join your court unhindered. Maybe we can find a cure for you! A-a permanent one.”
She laughs sheepishly before she realizes that she really has nothing to say and returns to staring at the mud. If she doesn’t have anything else to say, she should probably leave.

Right before I decide to stand up, she scoots closer and leans into me. What is she doing? Desh’s voices are hushed. As though if he spoke too loudly, she would hear him. “If I were to imagine, it would be another attempt to gain thine affection.”

“But why? What benefit would she gain from someone who’s been cursed?”

“Mayhap a strange benefit we are unaware of. I’m afraid my knowledge of witch coven rituals is limited to the rudamenary.”

I stay seated for now, because I’m usure of what to do. Should I let her think her affection is working? Or do I dismiss her attempts right here and now? No, I should play along with her game for now until I get all the information I need from her. Although I’d rather not sit here with her all night… Maybe I’ll send her back so she can get some rest.

I stand up slowly and help her up with my less monstrous arm. “Gggo. Yougg neegd shleeph.”

She forces a pang of worry into her next words. “What about you? I can’t just leave you here.”
How can I convince her to leave? I decide to just sit back down and shake my head. She looks to the ground and asks, “Will you really be fine out here?”
I nod. She bends down and places her hand on my shoulder. Her face moves close to mine before her delicate lips touch my cheek and she runs off into the dark. I really wish she wouldn’t toy with my heart like this.

“Thine actions appeared as though they were rather premeditated. ‘Twas wise, the decisions thou hath made.” Ignoring Desh’s compliment, I continue where we left off. He teaches me his healing spell until I awaken.