Elfquest belongs to Wendy Pini and her husband Richard.
This fanfic is set to post-Final Quest prologue, and obviously contains massive spoilers if you haven't read that far. (Not the entire Final Quest, that one's still in progress at the time of writing this; just the prologue.)
Strongbow was hunting on his own, for once.
The others were otherwise occupied, one way or another. Moonshade was in the Palace, as always, and his cubs with Ember's tribe in a distant land. Truth was, he hadn't asked anyone to join him, not even Nightfall. He could use some solitude. He needed to think, a task which he did best when alone.
Moonshade wasn't saying it, but he knew she wanted to lose her wolfblood and become a "true immortal", as it were. As if they weren't long-lived enough, with their countless eights of eights of years. It wasn't the Way. It wasn't right. If you thought were always going to live, you would not be on your guard. Why, if you feared death, you couldn't live in the Now of wolf thought, and that was certain death as far as he was concerned.
He was occupied with this paradox when he caught the scent of a predator in the vicinity. It was some sort of big cat – he could feel it on the wind – and… something else, slightly elfin, but in a strange way. Abandonning thought, he steered his wolf in the direction of the scent, readied his bow.
The big cat was snarling at a woman who had her back pressed against a tree. It had its back to him. A quick arrow to the shoulder caught the feline's attention, making it turn toward the approaching wolfrider, who swiftly delivered another arrow between its eyes. The cat fell to the ground. It took Strongbow another second to realize that the person it had been baring its teeth at was a human female – not Shuna, he thought – who was still staring at the carcass.
He regarded her with calm brown eyes. She had long, yellow hair that fell to her hips, and a white "dress" that reached her knees, and her heart was beating fast; he could hear it. It sounded like a small heart, smaller than in most humans. He began to realize that the only human smell coming from her was coming from her dress and the leather-wrapped bundle strapped to her back, when she turned her eyes on him. She looked more confused than scared. And she didn't smell human. He growled.
And then she shrank.
Drawing his knife, Strongbow got ready to turn his Ironhammer and flee. Warn the others. This was magic. This was… He blinked. The human woman had become an elf girl, hair still to her hips but her dress now reaching to her ankles. She was staring wide-eyed at him, but this time she looked frightened. Strongbow remembered the knife in his hand and reluctantly lowered it. Clearly this was a magic-user, but that didn't mean she weren't dangerous.
«Who are you?» he sent. Her eyes grew even wider. Her hands flew to her head, and she mumbled something in a tongue unfamiliar to him, yet unmistakably human. He growled in frustration, then remembering himself said: "I don't understand," in Shuna's tongue. The girl relaxed slightly.
"Who are you?" she asked in an oddly accented version of Shuna's far-away language.
Maybe he should let Cutter deal with this.
Turning Ironhammer, he motioned for her to follow. He heard her scramble behind him and felt her walk up to his wolf, where she stopped. He sighed.
"Behind me," he murmured. Her eyes widened again, but he reached out a hand and lifted her up behind him.