A Worgen Love Story
By K.M. Hollar/Carroll
Copyright 2010. The World of Warcraft universe copyrighted by Blizzard and Activision.
Everyone said that Bernard and Charlotte Preston were a poor match.
Theirs had been an arranged marriage. "They'd do well to combine their fortunes," their families had said. "They'll come to like each other after a few years."
It had been three years, and the pair had yet to show signs of liking each other.
Bernard scarcely cleared five feet in height, balding, and tended to the portly side. He and Charlotte met at meals, and beside making polite conversation, they ignored each other.
Charlotte stood five inches taller than Bernard, and wore her mounds of golden hair piled artfully on top of her head. Her dresses were always of the latest style, and she held elaborate dinners and dances for the rest of the upper class of Gilneas so she could show off. Her ultimate goal was for Lady Graymane to pay her a social call, but that had not yet happened.
Charlotte found her social climb hindered by her husband. Certainly they were wealthy, due to three generations of sea trading on both sides of the family. Yet Bernard was content to remain obscure behind her social facade. Most days he spent his time in his alchemy laboratory behind their mansion, sometimes consorting with other alchemists and sometimes the Gilnean Mage Society. But a handful of arcane researchers did not bring Charlotte the acclaim she craved.
She spoke to Bernard about it one evening at supper. They were seated at opposite ends of a vast dining table, amid islands of silver and glimmering candles. Bernard had acquired a loathsome habit of reading while he ate, and was engrossed in a small tome as he sipped his soup.
"Bernard," said Charlotte. "I wish to ask you something."
He looked up in surprise, his glasses slipping off the end of his nose. He caught them before they landed in his soup, and laid them and his book aside. "Yes, my lady?"
"What is it that you do all day in your shop?"
Bernard was mildly flattered that she had asked him something about himself. However, three years of his wife's presence, however distant, had taught him that she rarely took notice of anyone else unless she could make use of them. "I am conducting various alchemical experiments," he replied.
Charlotte frowned. "Are they of ... any significance?"
"I believe they are," said Bernard. "Some of us distrust Argual's methods of defending Gilneas ..."
"Oh, politics," said Charlotte with a tinkling laugh. "I am trying to climb the ladder of society, and you are brewing potions! You must aspire to greater things if we are to become important in the eyes of Society."
Bernard said nothing. He merely replaced his glasses and reopened his book.
"Well?" snapped Charlotte. "Didn't you hear a word I said?"
"Yes, my lady," said Bernard without looking up. "I have no intention of 'aspiring to greater things', as you put it."
Charlotte snorted.
From that day on, she pestered Bernard about his social importance. She introduced him to other important men and women, whom she took to inviting to dinner. She encouraged them to talk about topics that might attract the attention of the Graymanes, like the state of shipping and Gilneas's troublesome isolationist policy.
Bernard participated in these conversations very little, and departed as soon as possible.
Bernard's real concerns were far more real and pressing than Charlotte would have believed. He locked himself in his laboratory and observed the different-colored potions simmering in their vials, and grumbled to himself. What a silly, empty-headed woman he had married. He wished that she cared about his work, rather than only herself.
Late that night, a knock sounded at the lab's door. Bernard opened it, and admitted a middle-aged man in a blue robe. "Hello Kryn, come in, come in." It was raining outside, as usual in Gilneas, but Kryn's robes were dry. He pushed back his hood, and the sparkles of a weather-warding spell trickled off him.
"How is the new batch coming?" asked Kryn, walking to the table covered in alchemical instruments.
"I haven't tested it yet," said Bernard. "Did you test my other sample?"
"Yes, unfortunately," said Kryn. He pulled a burlap sack out of one of his robe's spacious pockets and tossed it on a nearby chair. "It reversed the transformation, all right, but the beast died afterward."
Bernard donned a pair of leather gloves, opened the bag, and withdrew a strand of hair with silver tweezers. "Pity," he said, peering over the top of his glasses at the hair. "I'm beginning to think that I'm approaching the problem all wrong."
"What do you mean?" asked Kryn, helping himself to a pot of tea kept warm over a small ball of blue magefire.
"Maybe there is no cure for the transformation," said Bernard. "But maybe I could insulate the mind from its effects."
Kryn froze with the teacup halfway to his mouth. He set it down again. "You may have something there. The Society knows all about the magic manipulation of minds. For instance." He cast a small spell on Bernard, changing him to a man-sized sheep wearing glasses and leather gloves. The sheep looked at Kryn reproachfully.
Kryn changed him back into Bernard, who straightened up. "I wish you'd warned me."
"Sorry," said Kryn. "I was making a point. Polymorph doesn't affect your mind. Only your body."
"You'd better dissect the spell for me," said Bernard. "How could I duplicate such effects with herbs?"
They fell to discussing the technicalities of their crafts, and worked until sunup. Then they parted ways, and Bernard went to bed until noon. It was one way to avoid Charlotte.
Gilneas was a small walled nation in southwestern Silverpine forest. Their cities were built on a peninsula, and the great Graymane Wall cut off all land access to the peninsula. This served to keep out the undead Scourge when they flowed down from the northern lands, engulfing the capital city of Lorderon. But when the Alliance called to King Graymane for help, he scorned them and declared Gilneas an isolated, neutral nation that would take no part in the affairs of its neighbors.
Yet the Scourge persisted in attempting to scale the wall or circle around it by sea. So the Archmage Arugal decided to summon an army that could rival the Scourge in size and ferocity: the worgen.
None could say where Arugal found the Scythe of Elune. But the Scythe allowed him to summon myriads of vicious wolf-men. None knew their true origin, or where they came from when summoned. Some thought they must have once been human or elvish, and now suffered under a terrible curse.
And the curse was spreading. People were disappearing. Men from the Night Watch vanished most often, and someone reported to have seen their badges hanging around the necks of worgen in Argual's compound.
The Mage Society and every alchemist in Graymane City were hard at work, trying to find a way to remedy the curse before it spread any further. But the worgen condition baffled them. The curse did not respond to any of the regular methods of breaking or lifting a curse, and the worgen tested generally died, or lost what little sanity they still possessed.
Bernard and the mages worked hard on this new angle of treating the curse. Perhaps there was no cure ... but perhaps the curse itself could be modified?
Bernard spent three weeks creating a new potion. All the while, reports from Arugal's compound became more alarming. The worgen responded less and less eagerly to Arugal's commands. They had been observed trying to leap over the wooden walls of their enclosures. Several succeeded and were shot down by guards, which seemed to infuriate the rest.
"Suppose they all get out," thought Bernard as he stirred his latest concoction. "There are at least four hundred of them. What might that do to Graymane City?"
Meanwhile, Charlotte had taken no notice of the alarming rumors. Spring had arrived, and it was time for the annual Spring Ball. She had pulled every string she could to ensure that the ball took place at Halfmoon Manor. She kept the servants hard at work cleaning the whole house from top to bottom, and drove several maids to tears by making them re-polish the ballroom floor over and over.
Bernard read his book at dinner, and tuned out Charlotte's chatter about Mrs. So and So and Mr. Such and Such who had accepted her invitations. The only thing he listened to was the list of the food she had planned. When she insisted that Bernard attend, he agreed so cheerfully that she was astonished.
The day of the ball crept closer. Bernard paid it no attention. He was nearing a breakthrough on his worgen curse treatment, and had little thought for anything else. He had many other alchemists and mages alike running their own, parallel experiments, and they all kept in close contact.
The morning of the ball, Bernard distilled his elixir into a small bottle. It was a pale blue, and shimmered a little in the light. He poured a single dose into a small vial, planning to carry it on his person at all times. Then he looked at it and thought for a moment. He might as well carry two. He filled a second vial, and tucked them both into an inner coat pocket.
Then he pulled out a piece of parchment, loaded a quill with ink, and wrote, "Kryn, I have finished the elixir. I have not yet tested it, but I have high hopes of its success. We must test it tomorrow." He signed it, blotted the ink, rolled it up, and placed it on a square carved stone on a pedestal behind his alchemical equipment. The scroll vanished, sent to a matching stone in the Mage Tower.
The mansion was seething like an anthill with last minute ball preparations, so Bernard avoided it. Instead he fetched a horse from the stables and rode into town.
The sun was breaking through the perpetually cloudy sky, and the wet streets glistened silver. People called back and forth across the streets, and children ran about, almost under the feet of the carriage horses. The air was warm and smelled of spring. Bernard smiled and relaxed in the saddle, allowing his horse to choose its own pace through the crowded street.
After a while he passed through the busiest areas and reached the more affluent neighborhoods on the wall side of Graymane city. He cantered through their grassy yards, his horse flinging chunks of turf from under its hooves. He was making for the worgen pens just inside the gates.
His horse snorted and slowed to a walk, tossing its head. He patted its neck. "Easy, boy. We're still a good distance from them."
But even Bernard could smell the worgen pens ... like filthy dog kennels. After a while he came into sight of them, thick double-braced wooden enclosures, the tops of the fences studded with sharpened stakes and jagged metal. Guards stood at intervals around the walls, gripping their gnomish rifles and looking nervous.
As Bernard watched, something hit the wall from the inside and the entire enclosure rocked. There was a horrible wet snarling sound, then silence fell.
Bernard turned his horse around and galloped for home, his alarm growing. The once strong fences had been rocked about so much that their supports in the ground had weakened.
"They should all be destroyed," he muttered to himself.
He arrived home at noon, and resigned himself to the ministrations of his servants, who were under orders from Charlotte to apprehend Bernard and make him presentable. He submitted to a bath, and having his scanty hair combed and powdered, then dressed in stiff, pressed formal clothes. He made sure to transfer the precious elixir bottles into the inner pocket of his jacket.
By the time his manservant pronounced him presentable, it was mid-afternoon and guests were beginning to arrive. Bernard peered out his window at the drive below, which was packed with carriages and footmen ushering brightly-dressed women and somberly-dressed men up the mansion steps.
He sighed. Off to an evening of fake smiles and pretending to be pleasant to people who didn't know him. He patted the elixir bottles in his pocket, and strode out the door.
Charlotte was busy greeting guests, and was glad to see Bernard appear at her elbow and greet the couples as they entered. "About time," she muttered out of the corner of her mouth.
"I was otherwise engaged," he murmured back through his smile.
That was all the conversation they managed. Guests arrived intermittently for the next four hours, and Bernard's feet began to ache in his good shoes. Charlotte looked ravishing in layers of white and red silk, with a train that fell five feet behind her. She wore a bouquet of real flowers pinned into her hair above her left ear. Bernard admired her, and wistfully wished that they liked one another. They were married, after all, and he had never once touched her.
Once all the guests had arrived, Charlotte sailed into the ballroom, and Bernard trailed in her wake. The worst part was over with now. All he had to do was hobnob with the other men and enjoy the buffet. He eyed the table of spirits and soda, but turned away. He wanted his head clear tonight. That wobbling fence kept passing through his mind's eye.
The band started up a spirited waltz, and Bernard watched as the dozens of pretty dresses and crisp suits swirled onto the dance floor. Charlotte was in the thick of it, dancing with a tall, handsome lawyer. She never danced with Bernard. He watched her, and felt a faint twinge of jealousy. Then he wondered why. Their marriage was all but name only, but he had never toyed with other women. He felt that he was married and needed to uphold that. He wondered if Charlotte felt the same, and watched her twirl and dance with the lawyer. He doubted it.
The dances went on, and Bernard browsed the buffet. It was excellent. He hobnobbed with the other men, as he was expected to, and flirted courteously with the ladies. But he kept thinking of that wobbling fence, and wishing that he could check his scrollstone for a return message from Kryn.
It was nearing midnight, and Bernard was feeling fatigued and resting in a chair, when he heard a strange sound from outside. An animal howling. Then the sound of breaking glass.
He rose to his feet and stared across the room at the ballroom entrance. The servants were hurrying out in alarm. But people kept dancing and the music kept playing.
Bernard stood frozen, heart beginning to pound. He had expected something like this, yet he had no idea what to do.
Then the screams began.
Terrible screams, screams of dying women mixed with an animal roaring and growling. The music stuttered to a halt, and the roomful of handsomely dressed people turned to stare.
Bernard spotted Charlotte as she rose to her feet from a chair across the room, where she had been resting her feet in the lap of the young lawyer. Bernard hurried toward her, shouldering past other staring, frozen people. No one paid any attention to him, for the screams were growing louder.
"Charlotte," he said, grabbing her arm.
She looked at him, her face white. "Bernard," she gasped, "what's happening?"
He pulled the elixirs out of his pocket and pressed one into her hand. "Drink this. It might save you."
"What is it?" she whispered, looking at the shimmering blue liquid.
"Drink it!" he commanded, uncorking his own vial. He drank it in one gulp. Charlotte sipped hers, made a face, then finished it and laid the vial on the table.
Then the worgen entered the ballroom.
Five of them bounded through the doors, some rearing up on their hind legs to peer over the crowd. They were much taller than a human, all shaggy gray fur, long canine faces with bared fangs, and long arms ending in dagger-like claws. Then they dropped to all fours and sprang into the crowd.
The ballroom erupted into pandemonium. Everyone tried to run away from the worgen, but only succeeded in tripping over others and themselves. Worst were the women in their choking skirts, tangling in them and falling, only to find their throats bared to the worgens' fangs. People opened windows and leaped out, but from the noise outside, there were worgen outside the mansion, too.
Bernard pulled Charlotte around the circumference of the room, making for the balcony door. Many people had fled already, and the crowd was thinning. The floor was splattered and smeared with blood.
Four of the worgen were mangling and killing every human in their paths, but the fifth worgen, with a human-like cunning, was only biting. He bit only arms or legs, only deep enough to draw blood. He saw Bernard and Charlotte, and sprang at them from across the ballroom.
Bernard leaped in front of Charlotte to shield her from the gray furred monster charging them, and yelled in pain as its teeth sank through his sleeve and into the flesh of his forearm. Then it flung him aside with astonishing strength and seized Charlotte's bare white arm. Its teeth flashed, then it turned and bounded away, leaving Bernard and Charlotte staring at the blood running down each other's arms.
Another worgen ran toward them, but saw that they had been bitten, and ran out its tongue and laughed instead. It leaped out a nearby window, and they heard screams as it mangled someone else.
"Why did it leave us alone?" whispered Charlotte.
"We're bitten," said Bernard grimly. "We're now under the worgen curse, just like them."
Charlotte looked at the blood running down her arm in horror. "We're ... going to turn into one of those things?"
"Let's get back to our rooms," said Bernard. "Can you stand?"
He helped Charlotte climb to her feet, and pulled up one layer of her dress to wrap around her wound. She colored slightly at the impropriety of this, but did not protest.
The worgen left them alone as they slowly made their way out of the slaughterhouse that had been the ballroom, through the entrance hall that was strewn with the bodies of the servants, and up the stairs to their personal rooms. Bernard made for his own room out of habit.
As he opened his door (in relief, as his rooms were untouched by worgen), Charlotte made a funny sound. "I know you've never been in here, but it's all right," he started to say. Then he saw that she was looking at her hands. They were lengthening, her fingernails thickening and curving into claws.
He pulled her into the room and closed the door. "Charlotte," he said, "are you wearing a corset?"
Her attention snapped away from her hands, and she glared at him. "How dare you ask such a thing!"
Charlotte's eyes had already turned yellow.
"Charlotte," he said, "if you transform while you're wearing a corset, it will probably crush your internal organs."
"Oh," she said, looking down at herself. "Yes, I am. Buttons on the back of my dress."
He helped her undress, thinking that at any other time, he would have loved doing this. But now his own hands were rapidly changing into long, thick-fingered claws, and he could hardly undo the buttons. Beneath her clothes was fur, and she was beginning to wheeze and gasp as her body changed shapes.
Finally Bernard hooked his fore-claws through her corset and ripped downward, peeling it off her like the skin off a banana. Charlotte tore the rest of it off and kicked off her ruined dress, then dropped to all fours, groaning. She was a white worgen, looking almost like a wolf, but for the length of her arms and legs.
Bernard tore off his own clothing, thankful that his was not as restrictive. He was deep gray marked with brown, and his transformation had made him huge. He stood up experimentally on two legs, and touched the nine-foot ceiling with one hand. He felt a wry surge of satisfaction. For the first time in his life, he was tall.
Charlotte huddled on the floor, ears flattened to her head, peering up at him. "We're monsters," she whimpered.
He dropped to all fours and bent over her. "Not completely. The elixir I made you drink let us retain our human minds."
She lifted her head and looked at him hopefully. "Will it let us transform back into humans?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "I hadn't yet tested it. I was only trying to preserve the humanity of the mind, and it seems that I have succeeded."
He walked over to his full length mirror and stood in front of it, examining himself thoughtfully. After a moment, Charlotte got up and stood beside him. "Oh," she whispered. "I'm horrible!"
"You liked the way you looked," said Bernard, examining his teeth in the mirror, then flexing his muscles, turning to look at his back. "I never did."
Charlotte stepped away, glaring in scorn. "You're such a boy, Bernard! Look at you, preening!" She turned her back and sat down on her haunches. "You don't have to like it so much."
Bernard felt bad. He walked to her and sat down beside her. They sat in silence a moment.
"What do we do now?" said Charlotte. "We can't stay here, can we?"
"We'll either be shot as monsters, or taken back to the worgen pens," said Bernard. "Such a shame. I could make lots more of the elixir. It might let people who are worgen at present regain their sanity."
"Where should we go?" asked Charlotte, voice trembling.
Bernard thought for a moment. "To the Blackwald. We can live out there until this dies down, then I might be able to contact Kryn."
They sat for a moment longer. Charlotte wanted to cry, but she was too shocked. She kept staring at her muscled, white-furred forearms, and her long pink and brown claws. Their worgen bites had vanished when they had transformed.
Bernard rose to two legs. "Well, no point sitting around here. Let's see if we can salvage any food."
He shambled to the door, and Charlotte rose and followed him. This body walked on two legs all right, but if she moved any faster, she tended to fall forward onto all fours.
The house was quiet now, but their sensitive noses were clogged with the stench of blood, death, and spoiled food. As they picked their way between the bodies of the dead servants, Charlotte whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," to each one.
The wild worgen had been in the kitchen. Food lay trampled and spoiled all over the floor, but a good deal remained on the counters and in the pantries. Bernard clumsily picked up a box and began loading food into it, but Charlotte slapped his claws away and did it herself. Even though her hands were also clawed, hers were smaller and more dainty, better at handling small objects.
Bernard found a cloth sack that had once held vegetables, and they shoved the loaded box into it. Charlotte slung it around her neck and carried it on her back, and they hurried outdoors. The silence of the mansion weighed on their nerves, and they expected any moment to hear either gunshots, or the clicking claws of approaching worgen.
Outdoors it smelled better, and Bernard felt safer without oppressive walls around him. "I can see in the dark," he said in surprise, looking around.
Charlotte was also surprised. "I didn't expect this. It's like twilight instead of night."
Bernard dropped to all fours. "There's still worgen around. Stay close." He bounded away across their yard, and Charlotte loped after him on all fours. It was the natural way to run.