AU of the time of old Arlathan where Lavellan is a village healer and a young Fen'Harel is her reluctant, troublesome patient. I have been toying with this in my head for weeks now and thought I should take a moment during my off time to share. Hate it. Like it. Whatever. But I guarantee you can get at least one chuckle out of it. Get fluffy!
She staggers along the beaten path. Her eyes were half open and still crusty from waking not an hour before the start of her excursion. She swung her empty basket back and forth around her side with each step as she lets out a jaw-straining yawn.
The dawn had just made its presence known above the mountain peaks, which meant the entire village would be awake soon enough. Which meant the villagers would find new and exciting ways to get sick, injured, or die before the sun sets.
Her biggest problem right now however was the fact she was very low on several herbs in her stores and needed to gather supplies from down the river. Her feet aching with each bare step and her eyes refusing to focus on anything but the path ahead. She was tired, starving, and just wanted to gather her herbs and soak her feet in the cool river before heading back home to her clinic.
I
Fen'Harel awoke when a beam of light through the forest canopy directed its burning wrath on his eyes. He turned his head trying to find refuge in the shade but as he began to stir he realized the rock underneath his backside was more uncomfortable than the light in his face.
He sat up and found the cool clover patch he slept on that night had chilled his body more than he realized. With a small curse, he got to his feet and stretched his body until he heard the relaxing pops in his spine give way to relief.
His clothes felt damp from lying in the clover, but within a few minutes his body heat managed to dry them as he walked towards a shallow creek not too far from where he lay. The thought of washing his face and drinking from the cool water made him realize how thirsty he actually was.
He arrived at the creek and unbuckled his heavy fur jacket, exposing the woolen undershirt as he knelt besides the creek. Hiking up his long sleeves and cupping the water in his hands, he drank in the cool liquid slowly.
He sat back after washing his face and hands in the creek and tried to find order in his hair as he pulled each lock and tangle out before securing the hair in a band. He sat for a few moments more; staring at the small minnows in the water before what sounded like a distant voice pierced the tranquility of the scene.
I
"Bastard!" She yelled, clutching her right foot in her palm as she tried to maintain her balance and pick out the offending acorn husk from the arch in her foot.
The blood from the small wound had begun to travel up her leg and onto her stockings as she held her foot up in a stupid attempt to stop the bleeding. Now she was mad. Getting the blood stains out of her clothes was hard enough. However, trying to get it out of something sheer without ripping them? All she could do was stare at all the half broken acorns scattered around her feet in white frothing anger as she applied pressure to the wound.
After a moment she decided that she was considerably more awake now than before and decided to let the acorn win this round.
'That's silly, Dahlia.' She thought to herself. 'You should have just sent Jun to market yesterday for these herbs. This is what you get for being lazy.' With this new cut in a very uncomfortable place, the cool water in the river seemed more enticing.
She continued her walk a bit more slowly than before until she finally met the river. The water was clear and cold as she pulled up the multiple layers of thin fabric from her skirt and secured them in a knot on the right side of her belt. With the movement of the cool water helping to clean the cut on her foot she brought the basket with her into the knee-high water and began to look for the plants she needed.
She slowly began to walk up and down the river side picking the various roots and leaves she needed when she heard a loud bellow from what was no doubt a very large animal.
She stood as still as she could, bent above a spindleweed bush with the leaves still in hand and her eyes wide and focused on nothing but the plant before her. After a moment she gathered up the courage to move her head towards the direction of what made that incredible sound.
I
He stood up from his seat and craned his head in the direction of the noise. 'Perhaps it was just a bear,' he thought to himself. He had little to fear from the woodland beasts, great or small, since most gave him a wide berth due to fear and uncertainty.
He would sometimes walk the forests in the form of a great wolf for the sheer joy of viewing, walking, and smelling the natural world in the form of a beast. He could smell what no man or elf could, ran faster than any beast, and it was this ability that made him feel so powerful and unique compared to his elvhen kin, even the pantheon.
Here in these woods, he was king in his domain.
Then he heard the shrillest scream he ever heard and he began running towards the noise without a second thought. He called upon the beast within him and from a cloud of smoke he became the great wolf of legend. His large paws beat the ground with purpose as he knew someone was in need of his help and they needed him now.
"A bear!" She screamed, more to herself than to anyone else who could actually hear her.
"It's a damned bear! This is how I'm going to die?!" she said in between heavy breaths. She looked behind her briefly to see the bear galloping behind her at an unfathomable speed. The cut in her foot was no longer an issue, the adrenaline saw to that, but even still the shakiness in her legs from the rush saw that her efforts of escape were ineffective.
Her legs gave way underneath her and she fell flat on the rocky path before her. She spun around quickly to see the bear stop before her and bellow out one more blood-curdling noise as it rose its powerful claws in what she would assume would be the equivalent of tossing a doll around a room. She closed her eyes and waited for the painful blow.
But it did not come.
Instead she heard the bear let out another horrible roar and she could feel the small tremors through the ground. She shrieked and tried pulling herself up off the ground in one final attempt at fleeing, but her legs would hardly cooperate. She curled on the ground away from the noise and as she opened her eyes she saw a strange sight before her.
A wolf, almost as big as the bear itself, had it by the throat. The bear reared up on its back legs, trying to gain some force as he stomped back down in hopes the wolf would let go. The white pelt of the wolf was beginning to stain red with blood when finally the wolf was thrown from the bear in one last stomp.
She watched as the bear no longer took interest in her and began to battle the more aggressive adversary. She watched them go back and forth for a while before she began to realize, 'to the victor go the spoils.' Her eyes grew at the thought that this wolf was going to probably eat her instead and is just battling the bear for the right. Was it starving? Would it just eat the bear? Do wolves eat bears? Would they want to? Curiosity overcame her need to flee, and as she saw the wolf take hit after hit from the powerful claws of the bear she felt bad for the poor thing.
Both beasts were winded, but the wolf had caught the bear off guard in the beginning and managed to rip into the side of its neck, letting blood gush all around. But the wolf had taken the brutal strength of the bear's hits all across its body, the whine from the wolf when the bear caught him on the head and forced him into the ground made her sad for the poor creature.
Her magic was weak. There was no way she could take out a bear, 'but perhaps I don't have to.' She thought. The bear was weak and no doubt afraid; perhaps she could scare it away.
The bear tried putting all its weight onto the paw that held the wolf by the head and at that moment Fen'Harel began to see his vision fading. 'Killed by a bear; I should have returned to my form earlier.' But to return to his elvhen form now would no doubt kill him underneath the bear's weight. He felt himself fade more and more until the sudden relief of pressure left his head. He couldn't see much but the bear seemed to be in a panic. A bright orange glow leapt off the bear's pelt and sent it hopping and thrashing in a fury as it tried desperately to extinguish the flames from its back.
It had taken all her concentration to make that little flame, but the fur on the bear quickly caught fire and the more the bear thrashed, the more blood it spilt from the gushing wound on its neck.
After a few minutes the fire died.
The bear exhausted and bloody walked away from the path back into the woods. There was no doubt in her mind the bear would not survive, but she did not have the strength or courage to get close enough to the bear to end its misery.
She looked back at the wolf, beaten and battered on its side, just barely awake. And she felt sadness for the creature. While it probably was just trying to find a quick meal off her, she felt it had actually saved her instead.
She crawled closer to the wolf, its eyes watching her but made no attempt to protect itself like any injured animal would. She knelt next to it and pulled her long, white hair back behind her shoulders and began petting the wolf like it was just a sleeping puppy.
Fen'Harel could barely make out what was happening. He felt each nerve on his body screaming for help, and she was going to pet him? He was tired. He was injured. All he wanted to do was fall asleep and hoped that when he awoke he would be back in the clover patch.
He fell unconscious. Without a mindful effort to maintain his form, in a puff of smoke he returned to his original form.
Dahlia jumped to her feet. What was once a large white wolf now became a man! She stood over him for a second and began to look warily in each direction for some explanation to this craziness.
"What the fuck!"
If you see any problems let me know. I want to correct any grammar mistakes or misspellings I didn't catch.
Next episode will be fun.