Note: This story was a submission to the Zelda fanfiction contest at The Sacred Realm, where it had the honour of receiving an honourable mention. (Excuse the tautology.) There were a lot of other entries to the contest - definitely worth checking out if you have the time.
Oh, and happy 2010!
"girl and wolf"
-
The sun has long since set over Ordon. The only person awake in the village is the girl in the old house by the river's head. In the near darkness, her loosely fitting gown and tangled hair appear an ethereal white, so light that they nearly float above her. Her eyes are ringed and worn. She stands near the top of the stairs, bending down to peer through a window she was once too short for.
It is a winter night, and though the southern provinces never see snow, the full moon's light reveals the sparkle of frost on grass blades. The girl grimaces: the crops are not long for this world. Somehow they were forgotten, swept away amidst shadowy invasions and disappearing children. Someone should have remembered. Grieving or not, it was negligence to lose nearly the entire harvest. Someone should have remembered.
The girl's eyes flit from shadow to empty shadow. Nothing moves. Nothing in Ordon has moved at night for months.
These night long vigils are not easy. Her devotion may be absolute, but tiredness is its own master and often she finds her concentration waning before dawn arrives. Sometimes she thinks she hears him coming, and is outside in the cold before she realises it was just a gate creaking in the wind. Her back aches from standing with her head hunched all night long; nowadays she is finding it hard to lift even small crates. She sleeps in the mornings, when the rest of the village rises to unknowingly relieve her of her post. She is not missed. She has no formal duties beyond agreeing with her father's opinions and preparing the nightly pot roast. Lately she has overcooked the meat.
The crack of a twig snapping startles her. Her eyes dart back to the window, trying to find the source of the noise. Nothing.
Dejected, she closes her eyes. It is only for a few seconds but even so the room begins to swim around her.
When she looks up again, a flicker of movement from across the stream catches her attention. Her brow furrows and her eyes dart left and right, searching for the source.
It is a small, dark shape, clearly inhuman. The girl lets out a disappointed breath. Still, she watches it as it pads across the bridge on all fours. As it steps out of the shadows and into the moonlight, she recognises it as a wolf, with silver fur and frazzled mane.
The wolf walks along the path and stops before her house. Its head slowly angles upwards, until its eyes meet hers. At this, something deep inside the girl shudders uncontrollably. There is something about the wolf's gaze that is terribly wrong, something horrible. She meets its stare, willing herself to understand.
After a while, it becomes clear that just standing here will not be enough. She exhales slowly, rises, and goes down to hunt in the dark for her father's coat.
Minutes later she emerges outside. It is cold but thankfully windless, and in her exhausted state she barely notices the chill. The wolf has been resting on its haunches: as she draws near, it straightens up.
-Why are you here?, the girl whispers to the wolf. What do you want?
The wolf turns away and begins to tread down the path the way it came. Mystified, the girl stops in her tracks, watching it go. There is a kind of primal grace to its movement, an easy confidence that reminds her of how empty the village is now. After a few steps it stops and looks back towards her. It tilts its head and waits.
At first the girl is apprehensive. Wolves are the bane of the farming village; they are the malicious forest keepers, the hunters of goats and fowls and even small children who wander too far off the beaten path. They are not to be tolerated, certainly not trusted.
Still, what a coincidence for this wolf to appear as she was looking out her window. It must be a sign, she decides. I only watch at night and it came at night, so it must be a sign.
(The girl believes in fate. Magic, too, though she isn't sure exactly what magic can and cannot do.)
She begins to walk and, once it is sure she is following, the wolf sets off again. It moves at a comfortable speed for her, and soon they are walking side by side through the village and out into the woods.
Faron Woods can be disorienting at night. The moonlight barely penetrates through the dense leaves and thick tree trunks, and in places one can barely see one's own feet, let alone the roots lying dangerously long on the ground. People have been known to trip here at night, twist an ankle, and go missing for days.
But walking with the wolf, the girl is not worried. Wolves are creatures of the trees and shadows. She cannot imagine a wolf being lost any more than a falcon touching ground.
The grass crunches icily underfoot. The girl's feet are numb with cold, but she has long since stopped caring. At worst they will be red and painful the next day. Nobody will think less of her for it. At least, nobody important.
The village is devoid of people worth knowing. Her father carries on and on about rescuing what is left of this year's yield. The other adults squabble about whose children were worse treated in Kakariko, while their spoiled brats continue to play their rough games as if nothing has changed. The only exception is the smith's son. In that young boy's face she sees a look of melancholy and betrayal that she knows only too well. Sometimes their eyes meet as she walks through the village. She can tell he misses too. The difference is that he is a boy, and can toil and sweat to become strong and brave. He can become what was lost. She can only stand by her window, praying for its return.
The trees open up and the girl and wolf come to a clearing near the old temple. The wolf comes to a halt before a sharp cliff precipice, peering down past the edge. She stops and looks, too. There are more woods down there, thicker and longer. Perhaps they go on forever.
The wolf is looking at her, head inclined. Puzzled, she asks it:
-Why have you brought me here?
Immediately she berates herself: silly girl, wolves don't talk. Yet the animal seems to regard her question with the calculated patience of a draughts player. After a thoughtful pause it nods its head into the distance. Her eyes follow it into the sky, where the moon is at its peak.
In this clearing, with nothing to obscure it, the moon looks smaller and less impressive than it does from the village. Yet she still senses a little of its scale, its celestial magic. She wonders how wolves see the moon. Do they think of the orderly cycle of months and seasons? It seems unlikely. And yet surely those animals think of the lunar sphere as more than just a great white circle. She imagines they hold it in reverence, as something grand, mystical and beyond their influence.
-Why have you brought me here?, she asks at length.
The wolf doesn't seem to acknowledge the question. Instead it grips the ground with its feet and barks once, twice. It echoes against the evergreen canopy, muffled but with real presence.
The girl is confused.
-Is someone out there? Are you waiting for someone?
The wolf shakes its head slowly from side to side, but something tells her it is lying. Perhaps the wolf is a little like her, she thinks, perhaps it has lost its mate and is beginning to fear for a life alone.
As if in answer to this thought, or on some animal impulse, the wolf tilts it head back and lets out a long, piercing howl. The girl jumps, taken by surprise. For a beast not much larger than her, its voice is surprisingly loud and clear.
Again she has that strange uncomfortable feeling like when she first saw the wolf. It isn't quite fear, at least not for her life, but some part of her feels like the ground is crumbling to pieces beneath her feet. There is something about the wolf and its howling that scares her and makes her want to turn and run back home and hide under the covers with muddy feet.
And yet she cannot look away from it, cannot do anything but stand there and listen to it howling to the moon like in the bedtime stories of her childhood. There is something beautifully realabout the sorrow in its voice, something far more raw and of-this-world than anything she has seen in the villagers' faces these past few months. And its howling, its clear, steady howling. So beautiful, so sonorous. It is like a song, like the melody that...
The thought completes itself and she convulses on the spot. For a moment she actually believes she is in physical pain. Epiphany is never pleasant.
An eternity later, the feeling subsides and only her gut is sinking.
-You, she says. It's you.
The wolf falls silent and glances away with a quickness that borders on fear. She knows the mannerism well: it was his way of deflecting 'thank you's and compliments rather than acknowledging how wonderful he was. It was misguided modesty, a tear in his rugged tunic. She always said 'thank you' to him.
Whatever shreds of doubt she might have harboured are gone now. It is him. Something inside of her is tumbling over and over, falling without end.
She knows the very thought should jar her, knows that in any other light she would have turned and ran, screaming, from this place where all the magic in the world is ultimately enough to silence love. But it is a full moon tonight, what was once human is human no more, and she accepts this all as truth without shock or denial. Bitterly, yes, but acceptance nonetheless.
-But how? Why?
Her voice is pleading, as if she can undo what has been done to him if she hopes for it hard enough.
-Why are you like this? What happened? Was it a curse?
The wolf lets out a low moan and droops its ears. A curse, then. The word drips with evil, and 'evil' is the only way she can explain what has happened. It must have been some great, malevolent force, intent on tearing her soul to shreds, piece by piece. Bad things do not happen to good people just by chance: this is what she always clings to when the clouds come, for if the girl is sure of nothing else, she is sure she is a good person.
It isn't fair. Nothing has ever been fair, and now more than ever she wants the power to right wrongs, to peel away this horrible shell and return what was lost to where it should be. All those thoughts. All those platitudes they were meant to exchange. And then – the future, dreamy years of pink wet faces and wrinkling skin. She cannot let it slip away like this. She has to fill the silence, to tell him that she still cares, to let him know that the world of humans is still there, ready to embrace him with open arms. Nobody is beyond rescue. She just needs to find the right words...
-I waited.
Silence.
A gentle breeze blows through, the first of the night. The leaves rustle and the girl shivers. Her father's coat is not enough protection from the elements. She should go back and find more layers. But she knows she isn't going back.
The wolf doesn't move. Hasn't it heard her? Her voice rises a note as she speaks again, desperately trying to elicit a response:
-I've been waiting.
It is only once she has spoken that she realises the finality of the words. Waiting for what? For this moment? This is all she can ever hope for now. That much is clear. There will be no fairytale endings, no his-mouth-on-hers to stay the winter frost. There will always be another harvest, but some things are irreplaceable.
Waiting? Waiting does nothing, means nothing. The only way she can make a mark upon the world, upon him, is through action. Ideas swirl through her mind, as natural as they are terrifying.
The wolf tilts its head, fixing her with a stare – regretful? melancholy? – that seems to burn straight through her. Those eyes. How could she not have seen them until now? That was what was so wrong with the animal's gaze. Those two blue wellsprings are as recognisable here as they are in her dreams, impossibly out of place on this lupine face. Before these eyes she is naked, exposed, a caterpillar before a draft horse. She cannot hold his gaze for fear of being crushed.
She averts her eyes, looking down past the edge of the cliff and into the woods below. The trees are dark, thick, full of mystery and promise. A wolf could live comfortably there. Is comfortable enough?, she wonders. It is certainly more than she has now. Part of her wants to join the beast down there, to follow it running barefoot across the earth, shedding clothes and false veneers with every step. Part of her knows that escape will never be possible. Part of her is tired and longs for sleep. Part of her is just tired.
The silence that follows seems to last forever, and when it ends, and the trees seem to sigh, and the wolf steps closer, and its fur brushes through the flimsy legs of her gown, and the girl inhales sharply... when the silence ends, it is all the decision she needs.
The wolf lifts its head and howls anew, and the girl is standing there on the edge of the cliff, wondering which is colder right now: the woods below, or the bed she is leaving behind.