Delarn, on her way home, stopped by the shop to pick up meat and bread. It reminded her of when her father explained to her that they didn't hunt not only because they couldn't while living in Varrock, but more because it was important to care for those who needed the coin more than they needed the meat. If there was one thing her father took great pride in, it was the well-being of his neighbors. He seemed to glow with pride whenever he would do something to help them in return. Delarn personally just liked how the woman at the shop would pat her head and sometimes give her candies.
"Have you been behaving for your father, Delarn?" She asked, a hint of a smile on her face, and the girl immediately puffed up as if insulted.
"Yes, ma'am, of course I have," she squeaked indignantly, and the woman patted her head indulgingly. The girl immediately settled down when the woman slipped a piece of candy in her hands.
"So has your father been well? Has he told you any new stories lately?" She asked her, wanting to know about her father more than anything else. She fancied him, to say the least, and found Delarn herself to be quite adorable.
"No new ones," she replied, not in the mood to tell any stories anyway. The woman nodded, her expression warm and soothing as she handed the girl the usual packages her father ordered beforehand. She felt a bit disappointed despite her friendly demeanor. He hadn't been coming by to get these things himself lately, preferring to send his daughter.
"Well I'm sure he'll tell you a new one soon," she cooed to hide her disappointment. "Make sure to keep up with your studies."
Delarn nodded, thanking her quietly—the words barely words, but recognizable as such—before heading on her way home. When she made it there, she was surprised to hear her father talking to a stranger. She opened the door slowly as to not alert their guest that she was there. Normally when a new person she wasn't familiar with appeared she would slip upstairs and wait for them to leave unless her father introduced her to them directly. She had felt nervous around people a lot more lately.
This time, however, she lingered in the doorway because her father was telling one of her favorite stories, though he was on the end of it. This at least gave her a moment to examine the man. He was clean, his beard trimmed nice and neat, and there was more than one holy symbol of Saradomin on him, including a shined and prominent silver one resting on his chest tied with blessed twine. She imagined the twine was blessed anyway. Everything was immaculate about him in every way, and he seemed to practically glow. Her father, with his untamable red mane and beard, and gritty eyes, smelling heavily of sheep hardly appeared to belong beside such a man.
"And I'll tell you that he was the toughest man that I've ever battled beside. A god among men if I've ever seen one. Raised by the ocean itself if I didn't know better—I'll be damned if he wasn't!—and he definitely commanded loyalty in any poor bugger he met, though they weren't any poorer for it! He could call upon noblemen and beggars alike. Spit in my eye if any man in this world considers himself his better! Surely the edicts of Guthix himself would have to be broken for that to happen!" Faewulf laughed boisterously, and the man across from him seemed to grow more and more uncomfortable the longer he rested there.
"That's quite a story," he replied, clearing his throat with a hesitant smile on his face. Most people, when they first met Delarn's father in his own home seemed overwhelmed upon speaking to him. Delarn considered this man was new to Varrock and its churches. "You said his name was—well, never mind that. I really must be going. It's getting late after all. Thank you for having me Mr. Faewulf." He seemed to swallow the name heavily upon saying it as if it were too frivolous for someone like him to say.
"Don't bother being so stiff with me. We agreed on being fast friends, didn't we? Call me Izara if you'd like," he said with a grin.
The priest muttered the name a few times as if trying to recall it like an edict in his holy book before nodding jerkily, a hint of a smile as he considered that this was meant to be an honor for him to know. Still, he didn't offer his own, and he seemed hurried about leaving, though Delarn acknowledged that maybe he already told her father his name and maybe really didn't like walking in the dark in a town he wasn't yet familiar with. She moved out of his way quickly as he made his way hastily to the door, and he only paused when he noticed her, giving her a gentle smile though he still looked harried.
"An interesting chap," he laughed once he was gone. "Selling some of his old Saradome." He didn't think that he would ever quite understand Saradomin but considered that to be fine as he swept his daughter up in a hug. "Thanks for getting the groceries for me, dove. I'll make us something to eat, and I've got to go check on the sheep. As much as I've gotten talking to that nice young man I'm sure one of them must have gotten into mischief."
She nodded, smiling happily as she cuddled against him, tugging playfully at his beard. This was the safest place in the world to her, and she couldn't imagine anywhere else to be, but she soon had to retire to the table while he cooked over the stove with great skill. She wanted to cook like him someday, with a sense of passion and curiosity in her hands as she moved about the kitchen, sampling all that they had at their disposal.
There was something special about the stew he made, something lighter and more filling with the bread he made with it that so perfectly soaked up the broth. After such a meal her eyelids were heavy, and her stomach was full. He smiled lovingly at her and held her in his big arms affectionately before shuttling her to bed. She settled into bed with great relish, barely registering a kiss on the forehead, or what her father told her before he went out to check on his flock. The present Delarn, the Delarn that was recalling so vividly, longed desperately to remember what he had said.
At some point late at night, Delarn awoke to a feeling of fright. She felt something dark and foreboding like a yawning maw twisting and searching out in the distance. This, though not overly common, was a well-known sign. A demon of some sort was being summoned somewhere out there. She whimpered and searched for her father, reaching out her hand to feel for him, though he wasn't there. She shuddered fearfully. Her father was a hero by nature, a protector of the people, and the first thing he did when there was something like a demon about was go out and try to take care of it himself.
Wolves, like most creatures of nature, have a strong fight or flight response, and when it called her father to fight he fought like the best of them. Demons were a particular talent of his, having keen senses for creatures of their ilk. Demons rarely lasted long with him around.
Still, there was a weightiness in her chest, a need for him to be there with her. It wasn't merely for her own comfort, though recently that feeling and need had grown in her. It felt like something was wrong, like something would happen to him if he were out tonight. The moon wasn't quite full, but it definitely cast plenty of light over the streets below, though she couldn't see them all too well. She wasn't good at seeing long distances, though on most days this didn't impede her.
She wrapped a blanket around herself and made her way shakily down the stairs, her legs still somewhat dumb with sleep, her hands finding balance against the wall. Her sense of night vision, at least, kept her immediate area easy to make out with the moon so bright. She settled at the table once she reached the bottom, waiting for him with a sense of uneasiness that promised that she wouldn't be able to sleep easily until he had returned.
However, after a while her body began to rebel, her senses no longer staying sharp as she began to feel drowsy. She didn't even realize she had fallen asleep when she was startled awake by the door opening. Though he didn't expect her to be there, her father didn't sound nearly as surprised to find her there. Maybe he expected it after all.
"I could have sworn I took you to bed first," he said with the hint of a laugh, but though he was trying to keep his tone joking there was something incredibly steely and ragged about it.
It was then that she could smell the blood. A man with so much natural red could pull off a bit of bleeding without it being noticeable, but what had happened to him was a greater contrast than any amount of red could hide. It dripped freely from him, leaving a trail. If she had been just a bit older, she might have been worried about the demon, might have worried that it would follow the trail of blood back to their door, but the demon was already taken care of. It wasn't the thing Faewulf was fearful of as he glanced furtively out at the moonlit streets before closing the door and locking it hastily behind him.
He had his back to her for a moment, and she could see the ragged claw marks along his upper right side, but that didn't so much catch her attention—though it was definitely gory and messy, thick and dark—not nearly as much as the silver bolt that clung to his left hip. She could practically hear it grinding against his pelvis, and the only thing that made her more fearful than leaving it in was removing it and having him bleed out. She had heard more stories than she could ever hope for in all her days about noble warriors fighting a noble battle just to return home and succumb to their wounds. There was something far more bitter and malicious about that bolt than those garish and macabre claw marks that were even now bleed like the demon that delivered them.
He chuckled nervously, feeling more powerless than he ever had with the knowledge that he couldn't hide the sight of her bleeding papa from his little girl. He never imagined that his stories carried any weight, and in a sense he was right, as no story carried the same weight as seeing the terrible wounds for herself. He moved stiffly to the counter and took out a series of herbs, and took out a few potions that were already prepared. He whispered a sharp, guttural prayer and the dark, foreboding claw marks seemed to grow lighter, or at least not any heavier.
He then plastered clean herbs over the wound, and though it looked incredibly uncomfortable for him, she didn't move to help. She knew as well as he that any help that she offered would merely be greeted with heavy rumbles and possibly even snapping. No, he didn't expect or want her to help him with this. Anyone helping him with something like this ought to be sure he was unconscious, or else be particularly hearty and stubborn about it. He had to have a hell of a lot of respect for them too, or else his humiliation would demand recompense.
What came next was the bolt, which he gripped with great deliberation. The silver didn't make it any more stinging than the fact that the use of silver was used to begin with, though he kept telling himself that it was for the demon, merely for the demon. As he wrestled with it, Delarn tuned him out, turning away, and only became aware of his struggle again when she heard his pained cry, barely human, indicating that he managed to tug it free. She watched the subsequent cleaning and wrapping.
He settled in the chair heavily across from her, hardly in any shape to move upstairs. He looked ragged, his yellow eyes holding something heavy that he didn't want to share with a little girl, but feared he had to. "You want to know what happened, don't you?"
She considered him with wide, appalled eyes for a moment, but she was undeniably curious about how her father—invincible and clever in his ways—managed to be so hurt on a night like this. She gave the tiniest nod, hardly sure even then.
He nodded, that hollow, steely voice she wasn't so familiar with grating it out for her, "That new priest, the one that I became friends with, was at the mercy of that demon. He didn't seem to know his left from his right out there, and it wasn't long before it had him on the ground. He wasn't moving, didn't even look like he was breathing. I knew that I didn't have a chance of keeping up mentally with a demon of that caliber. I had to shift, but I wasn't worried because he was unconscious. I'm not going to bore you with details, but I had it on its last leg. It was down and wasn't getting back up again, not if I had anything to say about it. It was then that that friend of mine stirred and saw me change to deliver the final blow with my lucky, blessed blade."
He shuddered a bit, "Well it was then that the bright lad shot me in the hip. I want to say that I didn't see it coming, but I literally did, glancing over my shoulder as he took deliberate aim at me before he did it. It didn't look like a lazy slip to me. It looked like he was making a decision and decided it needed to go somewhere into me. Well, I can tell you that a crossbow bolt entering your hip is a damned good incentive to lose your focus on pretty much anything, especially when it strikes a bone just right. That devil was on me the moment my legs went out. I didn't give him much, but he definitely gave me a good lacerating."
He shuffled a bit uncomfortably, as if he was hurting quite a bit, but didn't want to outright say it. He spoke to her like she was a bar friend rather than a little girl. He always did, but especially now. "Well I didn't take that sitting down, and so I finished that blasted demon off. Even after I killed it and it was gone, I could see him fumbling with the crossbow out of the corner of my eye. I gave him a terrible look, and he realized that unlike that devil I wasn't going to be so easy. As a wolf, you should know that a good stare is often enough to cow any enemy that isn't worth fighting or else backing down to."
Delarn nodded quietly and hesitantly went to settle beside her father, though she didn't want to hurt him so she paused a moment. The moment she drew close he checked his bandages swiftly before pulling her into his lap. He groaned, but tried not to make a big deal about the pain he was in. Even then she noticed him watching the door furtively.
"He saw me change and he took a shot at me. I may have made a mistake," he sighed, his eyes narrowed.
"Will we have to leave Varrock?" Delarn asked quietly, worried for her father.
His eyes were deep and thoughtful for a moment, but he was already shaking his head. "I have friends here, friends that know I'm a wolf and still have no qualms. The people know I'm honest and one measly Saradominist isn't going to change that. He was merely startled anyway. I'm sure I can talk with him and I can clear this up. He probably thought I was a hallucination brought on by that devil."
Delarn nodded, relieved, but her father continued to stare out the window, continued to narrow his eyes and shift uncomfortably in his chair.
