Pathetic summary is pathetic. This may be bordering on a Mary-Sue fic, so if that's not your cup of tea (or coffee, as the case may be), don't read it. I will do my best to make it decent, but it does revolve around a werewolf OFC with excellent fighting skills, which I'm told are two common characteristics of a Mary Sue piece. That being said, I had the idea, and wanted to see what I could do with it. I will try to keep everything as realistic (for middle earth) as possible. My updates will usually be illogically spaced apart but I will not give up on it unless all feedback is negative. I hope you enjoy!
Chapter 1: Wandering the Wilds
Asta gazed into her flickering campfire, procrastinating getting cleaned up until the last possible second as she lounged on the dirt in the forest. The drying troll blood in her mouth was absolutely foul, but other than the taste and the stench, she was warm and comfortable. Her thoughts, as they often did when she was feeling exceptionally lonely, wandered to her oldest (and only) friend Bilba. She hoped she was still safe and cozy in her luxurious smial, and the thought gave the human comfort in her solitude, that if she couldn't be entirely happy, at least her dear friend could.
Unfortunately, her mind continued to wander on, and she began to recall different flashes of her life before her eyes. The walls of the white city, Minas Tirith gleaming in all of its majesty, the capital of the greatest standing kingdom of Men. Flash. Wandering outside on the evening after a full moon, proving that she was just as brave as any lad. Flash. The whining and growling of a dark creature in pain, a flash of mottled fur too swift for her eyes to follow, searing pain in her left shoulder and down her back as teeth raked her vulnerable skin. Flash.
She shuddered, coming back to herself quickly. The attack by the diseased warg haunted her nightmares enough, there was no cause to think on such events during waking hours so many years later. Unbidden and unwanted, however, the memories resurfaced once more.
Her own family, fearing her, hating her, disowning her before the city. Her own mother, calling her a freakish monster, brandishing a kitchen knife at her wounded and frightened thirteen year old daughter. Anger, confusion, self-loathing. Freak. Monster. Cursed filth.
Trying once more to pull herself from her thoughts, she was once again struck by the unfairness of it all. She had not asked to be attacked by a diseased warg. She hadn't asked to be turned into a monster. Even when faced with her body becoming something else, a wolf, three nights a month, she was able to keep her mind and took no lives, yet still her own people cast her out. She was a child! She tried in different areas to fit in, find a home, but in each place as soon as her condition was discovered, she was threatened and tossed back out.
Five years later she gave up all hope of ever being accepted, and the eighteen year old took to wandering in the wilderness, avoiding others when at all possible. It would have been easy to become bitter and vengeful, but she had been made to believe that this was entirely her fault, and she tried to make up for it by helping where she could. Whenever she came across orcs, wargs, or goblins in her travels she would slay them, either with weapons or with claw and fang. Her condition granted her swift healing, an aversion to silver, excellent reflexes, slightly above-average strength, a longer life-span (similar to that of a healthy dwarrow) and night-vision, all in her human form.
She was able to shift forms at will, although on the night before, of, and after the full moon the change was forced. Fortunately, she kept her mind even at these times, but it was still inconvenient. Rejected and shunned wherever she went, she remained in the wilds, helping any of the free peoples of middle earth she came across if they so needed it, but otherwise avoiding them if possible. After years of being told she was a monster, an abomination, she had begun to believe it, and had even come to the point where she was debating whether or not to take her own life.
The young werewolf found herself in the forested areas on the borders of the peaceful Shire when these dark thoughts began to fully form. She had ended up sneaking into a very large hobbit hole, (or smial, as she later discovered they were called), and found a silver knife that would do the job admirably. It was the sight of a suicidal human girl holding one of her silver knives to her throat that greeted young Bilba Baggins when she came home that evening, although all she saw at first was a burglar attempting to steal some of her silverware.
The mild altercation that followed still brings a wolfish grin to Asta's face to this day when she thinks of it, how the little hobbit had attacked the human with her umbrella. It had been laughably easy to deflect the blow, disarm the hobbit, and hold the knife to her throat, but the shifter had stopped before she even came close to hurting her. She had broken into the hobbit's territory uninvited, after all, and she was well within her rights to drive the intruder out or kill her if she so chose.
However, when she pulled away the knife, dropped to her knees, and offered the hilt of the blade to the hobbit, she simply stared in fear and confusion. Time stretched on and on, and finally Asta waved the knife a bit in clear invitation for her to take it. Bilba did so automatically, and Asta then tipped her head back to bare her throat, presenting a perfect target. Another minute passed, and she huffed slightly in irritation at the continued lack of a sharp blade ending the miserable existence of a monster.
"W-Would you, perhaps, like s-some tea?"
"Why do you hesitate to kill me?"
They spoke at the same time, and then both did a double take. "What did you just say?" they asked simultaneously. Bilba looked at her rather nervously and repeated her offer of tea and biscuits. Asta's shoulders slumped, and when she spoke her voice was thick with resignation and defeat. "Please Mistress Hobbit, I know I transgressed against you by trespassing in your home and laying hands upon your belongings, but do not mock me. Kill me if that is the price for my crimes, or throw me out if you will, but I have not the patience for false kindness this evening."
Bilba was silent for a long moment, then she smiled softly, though her eyes were full of sadness. "It seems to me that a bit of tea would do you good, or perhaps even a full meal. I do not mock you, rather I would be honored if you would join me for supper. As for your unexpected arrival here, speak no more of it. I do like visitors. Granted, I generally prefer to know them before they come visiting, but here I think I can make an exception."
The werewolf stared at the hobbit, searching her eyes for any hint of mockery and lies. They shone true, earnest and heartfelt, and she could clearly feel compassion coming from Bilba, but no misplaced pity, for which she was grateful. Finally she had accepted the offer, and stayed for supper. Somehow the charismatic young hobbit had also managed to convince her to spend the night in one of Bag End's many guest rooms, and then the next day and night as well.
Asta became very fond of the hobbit, and it seemed she felt the same of the human given Bilba's generosity to her and overall cheerfulness whenever she was near. As the hobbit worked in her garden the next day (Asta had offered to help but had been politely but firmly denied, as it seemed hobbits were rather protective of their gardening), they had spoken at length, and Bilba told her of her own loneliness since the very recent death of her parents.
Shortly after that conversation, their talk had turned to Asta's life, and she had filled Bilba in as much as she could whilst omitting that she was a lycanthrope. When the young Baggins heard her guest had no place to stay at the time, the hobbit had immediately offered her lodging in Bag End for as long as she desired it. It had taken time, but the girl had ended up accepting the generous offer, and for the next several months stayed in the Shire. In return for housing and feeding her, she often disappeared into the nearby fields and forests and returned several hours later with the fruits of her hunts.
Whenever she smelled orcs or wargs coming anywhere near the borders of the Shire, she would track them down and slay them without mercy. The Rangers of the North tended to avoid her, and vice-versa, as they reached an uneasy truce. Their captain had seen a similar case to hers several years ago, and recognized Asta's circumstances by the way she moved and spoke. Although they were wary of a werewolf nearby, they appreciated her help in protecting the Shire, and so long as she took no lives of the free people of middle earth, they found a way to live in tentative peace.
The snap of a branch in the woods nearby shook Asta from her trance and she shook her head slightly to clear it. Rising to her feet, she built up her dying fire and then stripped of her bloody clothes and boots. She opted to carry it all in a bundle as she walked the half mile to the small stream that flowed nearby, and proceeded to wash out as much of the foul smelling troll blood as possible. She also rinsed her teeth and mouth as best she could, before drinking the cool clear water. Once her clothing was clean, she brought it all back to her campsite, setting up a makeshift clothes-line near the fire to dry out her over-clothes while keeping a thin shift aside.
Asta set up her boots with the tops toward the flames, hoping they would be mostly dry by morning, having chosen to deal with slightly soggy boots rather than the stench of the trolls any longer. Once she had accomplished that, she wrung out the shift and prepared to put it on, wincing at the chill of the water, and dreading returning to the stream to clean her body next. She had wanted to get her clothing drying as soon as she could so they would be ready early the next morning, but now she had little excuse to put off bathing in the icy waters any longer.
She then tended to the little herd of ponies that she had acquired after slaying those trolls, ensuring that they had plenty of grazing ground for the night. In the morning she would herd them to the river, then release them into the wild. They were sturdy little ponies, and she had no doubt they would be able to survive. The werewolf was just glad she had slain the trolls before they could eat these little creatures. As a passing thought, she wondered if they had belonged to the farmer and his family that she had been too late to save. Although what use a small human family would have for sixteen ponies eluded her.
Asta had just resigned herself to leaving her camp to finally bathe when an intriguing scent hit her nose, and her head whipped around to sniff at the air. She grinned in a rather feral fashion when the owner of the scent was identified, then shifted in one swift movement and began her hunt. Not five minutes later, she was back in (mostly) human form contentedly gutting her kill by claw before dragging the large buck back to her campsite for cooking.
Surprisingly, the ponies showed no objection to either the giant wolf in their vicinity nor the smell of deer blood. That seemed rather odd, but the shifter supposed that after being captured by three monstrous trolls they wouldn't be fazed by much. Of course, she had still been in her wolf form when she killed the trolls and drove the ponies before her to their current location, so that may have had something to do with it.
Once she had skinned the deer, it took only minimal time for her to cut the meat from the bones and set most of it up to cook as best as she could. Her cooking never had been amazing, but as she was the only one eating it, she could see no reason why that would ever be a problem. Never mind how often one side of whatever meat she happened to be roasting turned out rather rare and the other blackened. Meat is meat. Perhaps she should stop leaving cooking meals halfway through to scout around, or go and bathe, which of course is just what she did then.
Asta did put on her undergarment this time, letting out a low growl as the cold water still in the shift came into contact with her skin, and took off at a swift sprint for the stream. Once there, she stripped, hanging the garment on a low hanging tree branch, then leapt into the water. As she bathed quickly but efficiently, she found her mind returning to Bilba once again, as she remembered the hobbit's reaction when her human guest turned out to be not all that human after all.