Every wolf is born blind.
Animals, beasts though they were, did not come into the world knowing everything. They had to learn, be taught, or face death from the harshness that was their waking world. It was the mother's role to teach, nurture, nourish. The father, to provide, to tolerate, to teach about the harsh realities, the way of power. The way of a pack.
Instinct could only do so much.
A pack, a family could only teach so much.
So naturally, a wolf would leave, and seek a new pack when his time came.
Only for him, he never found his.
He found them, hope for a pack not even on his thoughts. Yet hope to share the meal that had fallen- the feast of power that could be snatched up if one were quick enough to steal it from unsuspecting jaws. How foolish they were, leaving their catch so open to a lone wolf? Leaving him such an opportunity? Yet as he found her and the power laid bare, he couldn't. It wasn't his to take anymore. He wanted to howl at the irony. The power had been his once. His to feast upon, his to consume and use for himself.
Now it was inside another.
What was his was no longer his.
Scraps were all he had to steal, steal until he could take back his meal, his power; he would have what had been taken return to him even if he'd have to pry it from their jaws by force.
That was why he joined their pack.
Flattery. Drops of things that she craved that he might provide. She saw an elf. He saw a child. No, he saw a newborn. A creature fumbling, blind with what it had found and consumed. It would have consumed her but then it would be lost to him. He needed her, needed her to live, to see, to become more than a blind newborn, stumbling carelessly in the world as if it were a dream made flesh. He needed her trust.
He needed more time.
She wasn't blind anymore. She was different. Young, but not wise nor foolish. Hopeful but not unrealistic. Dreaming... but in reality. She kept going to him, asking him questions, calling him teacher. He was no teacher. He was no kin. He was the one who stole scraps and trailed her pack waiting for his moment. Waiting for his time. Waiting for her.
He wanted more than scraps. Her words burned his ears, her touch soothed him in ways he'd not felt in a long time. They made him crave things he should not crave. They made him question. They made him hunger for more than her power that was his power. They made him want to sink his fangs into her. He told himself he couldn't, shouldn't. That he wasn't a part of her pack. That he was the stray, the one that would sneak and steal and leave and that would be it.
He wanted to sink his fangs into her and devour her and never let go.
So he did.
Carnal actions. Dreams scattered and broken and cries of what was his yet not. She was his, so wholly, so completely, it made him shudder in revulsion and desire. She had smiled in his arms. Laughed in a sweet tune that he coveted. Her howls of pleasure that he drew from her throat calling to him. His power rippling inside of her, inside of him. Everything he wanted, given to him. Not stolen, no more scraps. She was a meal. A dish delicately served and plated for his passions and ambitions. She was what he craved.
And it terrified him to know for a time what it was to feel sated.
He began to wonder when she thought of him as a part of her pack. To know he wasn't alone. To know yet also know. He would be alone. He must be alone. That was his nature. That was the way of his kind, his kin. Yet he wanted to be a part of her pack. To stay, to feast upon her and the power inside of her. To gorge himself on everything she was. Yet it twisted part of him, knowing that if he did he would consume her. Consume until nothing was left but bones. Bones gave no nourishment, no sustenance. He had to go back to scraps. It had been foolishness to feast upon her as he had. To let himself become satisfied for once.
She howled at him, yet did not chase him away, even when he'd lingered on the edges, waiting for scraps. Her laughter. The sight of her smile. The way she moved when she cast her magic. His magic. His power now her power. It made him salivate. To know how deeply he wanted, that he could have if he chased her. Pursued her. Hunted her like he could any other prey.
But she was not prey. She was not a blind newborn. She was his yet no longer.
She was the only one he'd called his lover.
Shattered and broken, it was out of reach, the feast stolen and broken. His power gone yet not. Alive inside of her, yet his portion, his meal, crushed. Slipped through his claws. She was all that remained. Yet even then, even then. He could not devour her. He could not feast upon her. Her touch was soft, her voice held what he knew would chain him to her, to her pack, to a fate he knew he could not damn her with.
"What we had was real."
She was the only one he'd called his lover.
She was the only one he could not devour.
Alone, he howled in his hunger, to know he would never be sated, never be satisfied, never have his own pack again.
He was a wolf, born blind.
And as he looked in the mirror at dawn Fen'harel wondered.
If he had not been born blind, would he have loved her enough to have stayed.