A Wolf in Human Clothing

by skele-smol

Over the years living within in a world hellbent on killing her, Clementine has grown accustomed to feeling scared. So, why is she so surprised to learn that in a world where the dead still roam, there are other dangerous anomalies existing alongside her and the rest of humanity. And why is she surprised to find herself caught up in the middle of yet another struggle for survival?

A Wolf in Human Clothing.

Chapter. 1: Trial by Teeth.

With darting dragonflies and the sweetness of bird song threading through the calm and quiet serenity all around her, Clementine smiles softly with relief as the forest hums with life. In the rain-softened mud are hoof prints, the cloven tracks of a stray deer, not as large as a stag but something with enough body mass to make for a plentiful meal for herself and her friends. That is until her eyes fall upon the second set of tracks, paw prints that stop Clementine dead in her own.

They are fresh, overlapping the scarcely older impressions of the deer in the springy loam and there, indented into the soft peat, she notices a trampled leaf, the tell-tale sign that informs her that the tracks were made after the rain that had fallen only an hour before. She bends down at the knees to take a better look. The prints have four oval toes in front, like a feline or canine, but the size and the claw marks give them away as the latter. She frowns and holds a finger to one of the toe impression for comparison and then straightens.

The prints are huge. Much larger than any domestic dog that she can recall. Larger even than Rosie's broad paws. That one single toe had been almost the length of her finger, the soft pad the same width as her palm.

Wolf.

Pushing herself back on to her feet, Clementine shakes out her limbs and, moving carefully, she continues her hunt. She knows that there are wolves out here, she's heard them often enough at night or in the early hours of the morning, but she has yet to see one. In the almost full year that the old boarding school has been her home, the animals have remained elusive and secretive. She has asked her friends about them often, but her questions had never been answered, only brushed aside and ignored. Even when she had spoken to Marlon about them, the teen had simply shrugged her curiosity off; simply telling her that all she needed to know was that the wolves mostly kept to themselves and were good for keeping the walkers away.

So Clementine had stopped asking her questions.

Well, she stopped asking Marlon anyway.

Louis, on the other hand, had been a little more open about what he knew of the secret wolves when she had asked. He had also been more than happy to teach her how to read tracks in the earth and the breaks in the foliage so that she'd know which way to go to avoid the animals while she roamed the forest. And, when she had quietly admitted to him that she would like to see one, her friend had simply laughed and wished her luck before tacking on a teasing comment about how she should stick to her skill set of creeping up on the walkers and deer instead of the wolves.

The smarmy jackass.

As she follows the twin trails of prey and predator, she can hear the whimsical song of the river bubbling up ahead of her and can see the dilapidated roof of the old fishing shack peeking through the maze of trees from the corner of her eye. And then, flashing through the light and shadows across the stream is a lean and fluid shape that sends Clementine's heart rate skyward and herself diving behind the old broken down truck and willing her excited body into stillness. She's silent as she squats behind the mechanical relic and she allows time to slow around her as she watches, with wide eyes and childlike excitement, the wolf that melts out of the forest shadows and moves toward the water's edge with a grace that is almost unnatural.

Her paws are light as they kiss the earth in an easy trot, and her fur is a creamy silvery colour, with burnt sugar tips that concentrate around her twitching ears. She's a beautiful animal. She is smaller than Clementine had imagined by the size of the paw prints in the earth, but she is elegant as she lowers her head to drink. And as Clementine watches her, she is shocked by the sudden childish urge that swells in her belly and compels her to move closer. Surprised by the hopeful desire to perhaps even pet the wolf. She's curious to feel how her fingers might sink into the thick, glossy fur around her neck and she wonders if her tail might wag if she were to rub her ears.

Then, as the teen is lost in her fanciful thoughts, the wind changes and it tickles a path up over the slight sheen of sweat that has settled on Clementine's skin. Collecting up her scent to dance and twirl with the seasonal warmth; carried upon the gentle summer breeze that ripples across the waters glassy surface, and into the wolf's twitching nose.

In the next moment, Clementine's breath catches in her chest and she finds herself ensnared by the sharp eyes watching her from a delicate canine face. The wolf's eyes are of springtime mosaics and glow of crystalline waters with the greener hues of a glacial melt and, cocooned within, is the firey light of human intelligence that flares with recognition for the girl.

For a moment, wolf and human simply stare at each other and that's all it takes for Clementine's mind to bring up a strange thought that stalls the rest of her body.

She knows those eyes.

Clementine blinks once, twice and then after the third parting of her lashes, she is left watching the caramel sugar tip of a tail vanishing between the trees, the fronds of deer fern dancing back into place from the wolf's swift disturbance and the warm summery breeze.

"No, wait. Wait! " In her haste, Clementine's feet slide and slither beneath her as she pushes herself into a run over the slippery pebbles. The deer that she'd been hunting since dawn, as well as her bow and arrows, now forgotten in favour of following the mysterious wolf out into the wilds.

The chase that ensues isn't an easy one for Clementine, nor would it be for any bipedal creature for that matter. It isn't out on the open paths and flat trails that she's used to, instead, it's one filled with one carefully calculated move after another. The grounds of these forests are eccentric and wild; sometimes entirely transforming into dangerous rises from the remains of trees -that had fallen over the generations- that then descend suddenly into muddy swamp puddles. Already Clementine's lungs ache with each scorching breath that burns into her chest, and her legs burn and sting with each clumsy stride and footfall thumping down hard against the earth.

But for the wolf, the forest was her kingdom. Her paws easily find the secret trails she and her kind have forged over the years; fitting her toes into the same depressions already made and cutting through fern and thicket in a straight path that conserves her energy and maintains her speed. Her ears flick and swivel, monitoring the human girl's fumbling pursuit of her. She's close still, the smell and tang of human sweat dominate her senses over the sweet scent of damp loam and wet leaves and she can hear the girl's breathing as it rattles furiously in her throat, and she follows how the terrain, crunching beneath her boots, switches from brush to rock.

Clementine has never come this far out into the forest before, she doesn't recognize the trail that she runs as it snakes around the trees and disappears from sight over a craggy rise. It's well worn but narrow and broken up with knotted roots and branches that hang overhead, dappling the sunlight as they twist and battle against each other in their quest for more warming touches until they come together in an archway of green and stippled gold. The warmth and humidity, still trapped beneath the thick canopy of the forest, makes her feel sticky like she's suffocating in her own skin and when she tries to swallow her throat is so dry that it burns. And, as her sweat beads across her heated flesh and rolls down her temples to sting her eyes, the wolf breaks from the bushes to stand and stare at her with the summer's golden rays caramelizing the very ends of her silhouette.

She's so close this time that Clementine could probably reach out and touch her with the very tips of her fingers, but she doesn't. She simply gazes back, her own tawny amber eyes wide and her breath soft as she whispers. "I know you, don't I?"

The wolf snorts and dances on her toes. The ripple of lean muscle under her fur moves in a way that almost looks like the shrugging of her shoulders, and the silver-green eyes that watch her flash with similar human emotion.

For a fleeting moment, that troubling little feeling of recognition in the back of Clementine's thoughts surges closer to the forefront. But it's only for that moment because, in the next one the perked ears twitch, the right one angling itself almost backwards, tracking a sound that flanks them- a sound that Clementine's own ears can't yet follow. And then the wolf is gone again, diving into the dense undergrowth across from the spot that she had emerged from and taking flight once more.

"Really? More running?" Clementine grumbles to the empty clearing. As she glances around and tries to familiarize herself with her surroundings, the full realization, as well as the consequences of her reckless pursuit of the wolf through the forest sinks in- she's lost. The pit of Clementine's stomach stirs in frustration and she groans to herself as she pushes into a jog. Almost immediately the stitch in her side reignites and tightens the muscles in her chest and, from the corner of her eye, where the thickets thin out and the trees scatter, she spots the fluid movements of the pale wolf weaving in and out of the wilds. "Don't you ever get tired?"

Almost as though to prove a point, the animal throws herself into a sprint and vanishes from sight, barking once as she leaves Clementine trailing alone with her exhausted limbs and stumbling pace. "Show off."

Although she doesn't see her through the wild swirls of greens and browns of the forest, Clementine knows that the wolf is still nearby. Every few yards, she catches the little swayings of dancing bushes and hears the steady percussion of paws striking the ground and keeping pace a little ahead of her. There is one unsettling moment where the gentle sounds turn silent and the stench of rot sours the air, and the girl's feet actually stumble to a stop when the warning growls and low moan of confrontation drifting on the breeze escalate into the savage snarls of battle. A battle that abruptly ends with a high and sharp yelping cry and the wet crunching sounds of teeth through flesh that leaves Clementine with slick palms and a cold fist in her chest.

This time, when the underbrush ripples around her and unsure of what might push through the tangles of fern and bramble in the next moment, Clementine reaches for her knife. With her heart pounding in her ears and her pulse throbbing behind her eyes, Clementine adjusts her grip and lowers herself into a fighting stance; ready to defend herself as the fist that clutches her blade rises to chest height and the sun winks wickedly off of the sharp killing edge.

A liver coloured nose pokes through the brambles first and the long cream muzzle, lightly stained with the reddish-brown of stagnant blood, quickly follows the twitching organ. Dilute peridot eyes that are framed by an angular canine face and topped with rounded ears the hue of burned sugar come next and, finally, the wolf's long and lithe body follows; ending with her thick tail- its tip dipped in that unique caramel blonde colour of hers, trailing behind. She pauses, tilts her head toward Clementine and utters a low "wuffing" sound from her chest and then she simply slinks past the girl and pads through to a clearer trail.

Clementine watches her curiously as she slips her knife back into the sheath buckled to her thigh and frowns. The wolf is moving differently, her steps are stiffer than before and her pace seems slower and uncomfortable. She's still alert though, her ears still move and track every almost silent sound around her, but her stride seems unsteady. It's only when the canine pauses to turn her head back, looking for Clementine, does her body twist around just enough for the girl to notice the pinkish smear staining her platinum cream flank.

"You're hurt." Without thinking, Clementine reaches her hand out, intending to comb through the bloodied fur and inspect the wound hiding beneath, only to find herself snatching the appendage back as soon as she hears the first low note of the wolf's growl leaving her throat. To her surprise though, it's not a menacing sound; instead, it's soft and more of a grumble rather than a sharp warning. "Alright, I got it. No touching."

As soon as Clementine's fingers retreat, the wolf snuffles into her fur to lick at her injury. Her pale pink tongue curling and flicking through the paler fur, holding the human girl's gaze the entire time.

"You shouldn't lick it like that, it could get-" Clementine says softly, surprise softens her expression and widens her eyes when the wolf stops with the very tip of her tongue still peeking from between her lips. "Infected…" Her brows tug down over her eyes and she suddenly drops her voice lower as she addresses the animal directly for the first time. "You do understand what I'm saying, don't you?"

If by chance, Clementine had held any doubts of the humanity that she swore simmered in the depths this wolf's eyes; if she had, in actuality, been able to explain away everything right up until this moment as a trick of the light or her own excitement at finally seeing one of the wolves in the forest, then there was no explaining away what she was seeing now. For perhaps a split second the careful guarding in the animal's eyes shatters like glass, the animalistic neutrality no longer protecting the complex human emotions like surprise and shock that dwell beneath the surface and Clementine gasps quietly under her breath. "You do. You're not just a wolf, are you?"

Clementine finds herself mesmerized by the intelligence that stares back at her, lost in their swirls and galaxies of colour as her brain shuffles through her thoughts and drags that little flutter of recognition back into the front of her thoughts and excitement seizes her chest. "And I do know you, don't I?"

To her surprise, the wolf's lips lift up and away from her teeth and her head lowers to draw tight between her shoulders. Her hackles rise and her tail fluffs out, making her look larger and more like the wolves that Clementine remembers prancing through the pages of the fairytale books that she would read with her mother when she had been small. But then, as the shock pushes itself onto Clementine's face and before she could think to hide it, the wolf's eyes are gone and her caramel tail tip swishing as she wheels around and runs, leaving Clementine staring after her in bewilderment.

For a long moment, the human girl simply watches the wolf leave her and she notices how her pace slows almost immediately, notices how her gait is laboured by the limp and how it forces her into a more lupine lope.

Clementine's next breath seems to stutter in her chest for a moment before she lets the tension drain from her body on a noisy exhale. Her breathing gradually returns to the gentle rise and fall of her chest and the sedative qualities of each breath winds through her entire body like a lullaby as she allows herself a moment to sweep her surroundings, taking in the gnarls and cracks in the wide trunks.

She recognizes the parting between the trees and how the ground evens out into the smoother trail that would eventually lead her back to the main path and the school, and she can hear the sound of running water swishing in the stream not far from where she is now. She knows where she is, the wolf had led her back home and, with a look of irrefutable confidence in her eyes, Clementine breaks into an easy jog.

Her boots drum the earth and rap over the wooden bridge as she slows to a halt beside the familiar skeletal truck. Her bow and bundle of half a dozen arrows are still where she left them, partly tucked beneath the reclaimed vehicle. And, as she bends to collect her weapon, something catches in the corner of her eye. There are new tracks in the soft earth, tracks that lead toward the old fishing shack and she knows, without any trace of doubt, that they belong to her missing wolf.

With her eyes firmly fixed on the shabby structure, Clementine threads her head and shoulder through her bow and slides her feet slowly, cautiously, toward the building. As she moves, she is careful to take notice of any movements that could indicate a possible ambush and her ears strain for any sound that might shatter the peace of the giggling water and the cheerful bird song.

So far, nothing. Just her almost soundless steps and cantering heart.

Stealthily she begins her approach of the door and the closer she moves, the more she hears. There's the rolling clink of disturbed glass and the clattering of wood announcing an upturned chair that sees her dropping into a squat by the dilapidated steps that lead up to the sagging porch. And she listens in near silence to the low whining sound that winds through the cracks between the door and its frame and drifts through the splintered walls.

The wolf is inside.

To avoid alerting the animal to her presence with any accidental noises, Clementine shucks off her bow and leaves it, as well as the arrows, tucked behind the rain barrels before she feels confident enough to test the first step with her foot. And she mutters a sharp swear low under her breath when it squeals louder than a rabbit caught in a snare and her eyes snap nervously over toward the shack as the movements from behind the flimsy door suddenly quieten and still.

She holds her breath and her eyes dart nervously, searching for an escape route until she hears the scrabbling of thick claws scraping over the naked wooden boards and the heavy panting of a distressed canine fade in and out of earshot. Waiting a few moments longer until and she feels confident that the wolf has moved far enough away from her wall for her to confidently slide her foot back under herself without a sound.

The next thing that Clementine hears is a louder, sharper whine than the first, but it's the following crash of a body tumbling heavily to the ground that sends the brunette scrambling for the nearest crack in the wall large enough for her to peer through. It's hard for her to see all that much and all that clearly through the gloom. But there is just barely enough light cutting through the darkness in blades -courtesy of the numerous cracks in the walls, for her to see the wolf. Her light coloured body tucked as deeply inside the broken old bathtub as she could be, with her eyes closed and her angular head resting on her paws.

She's so still and, if it hadn't been for the laborious panting and the strange contortions writhing beneath her thick fur, Clementine would have sworn that the animal was dead. Then her paws twitch and a low moan rolls from between her long teeth and the rippling contortions melt away, taking with it the fur and teeth and claws and leaving behind a thin and naked form with short tangles of soft blonde hair that sticks to damp, pale skin.

As the girl inside the shack shakily pushes herself to sit upright, Clementine's eyes slowly unfocus and her mouth falls open, wide and slack, as confusion buzzes noisily inside her skull. Her thoughts race faster than her brain can process them and her logical mind tries to desperately convince her that she did not just watch a wolf morph into… into her! - despite what her eyes are telling her. But it's when she hears that distinctive bluesy voice uttering a raspy "Shit" that she knows there is no other explanation for it, not one that she feels she can accept anyway. Not after what she had just seen. Her knees shake beneath her and as she sinks down she seems unable to breathe properly anymore, only capable of taking air in but not expelling it.

She just saw… she…

Violet was - is - the wolf?

For a moment longer, Clementine can't move, can't breathe and when she tries to stand she can't. Her limbs feel like they are made of wet sand, crumbling away under her weight. So she stays there on her knees and, gradually, the cold sensation that had washed over her leeches out of her joints and the fist of incomprehension unfurls from around her brain. Slowly, Clementine forces herself back onto her feet and steps onto the porch. She can't feel the warmth of the day on her back any more; nor can she feel chill from the doorknob in her palm as her fingers curl around the rusted brass, she just feels numb, like she's awake inside of a dream.

"Okay, Clem, okay." The brunette closes her eyes as she shakes out her limbs. "It's all going to be okay. It's just Violet, you know Violet… apparently not as well as you thought, but it's still her… Right?" She takes a long, slow breath deep, deep down into her lungs and holds it, counting to five inside her head before she lets it out slowly and taps her knuckle gently on the rickety door. "Vi? You in there?"

Nothing but silence answers her and the younger teen feels the first gentle stir of irritation forming in her chest. Her knuckles tighten and she slowly twists the doorknob as she calls. "I'm coming in okay?"

"Clem?" There's a hint of panic in Violet's voice and the sound of bare feet thumping against the equally bare floorboards. "Uhhh, just… just give me a sec, okay? I'm not dressed."

Something else crashes to the floor from behind the door. Something very solid and denser than the chair from earlier and, if the string of colourful curses was anything to go by, that 'something' was Violet herself. The corners of Clementine's mouth twitch fractionally upwards; just at the very edges, although she's not entirely sure why, and she eeks the door open just wide enough for her to slip herself through without having to open it entirely. Once inside it takes a moment or two for Clementine's eyes to adjust to the gloom and a moment longer to find the still naked blonde sprawled across the floor, her ankles tangled up in the ropes used to secure the fish traps and her fingers frantically tugging at the thick cords in an effort to escape.

"God-fucking-damnit!" Violet hisses. Her eyes narrow as she still struggles to dig her nails into the rope fibres. "Stupid fucking-"

"What are you doing?"

"I, uh…" The way that Violet looks at her then; the way that her careful guard cracks and splinters and the way that her shock edges through the jagged shields and her anxieties flood into her irises, sends Clementine's heart leaping into her throat and her mind reeling back to that moment in the forest.

It's exactly like looking into the eyes of the wolf.

"I, um… I went for a swim," Violet mutters quietly, but her tone is so flat that it's almost like she doesn't even buy into her own feeble story. "In the little pond upriver, the one I showed you last fall."

"Oh." The brunette kneels, turning her attention away from the blonde's face to focus on the tangle around her ankles instead, only glancing up again once the last loop slides free and Violet pulls her legs toward herself. "Alone?"

"I like the quiet."

Swallowing hard and blinking harder, Clementine just nods and settles back on her knees. "Where are your clothes?"

"I… I don't…" Violet groans and presses her eyes against the backs of her knees. She squeezes her thighs together a little more firmly and she tightens the fingers of her left hand around her right wrist. "In here… somewhere."

"Why leave them here, Vi?" Clementine doesn't want to push. She really doesn't. But she also doesn't want Violet to keep lying to her, not when they'd grown so close to each other over the year. "Why didn't you take them with you?"

Violet keeps her face hidden behind her knees and shrugs. The more Clementine picks holes into her excuses, the more her arms tense around her shins and the more they pull her legs even tighter into her ball of unease; until her heels are pressed flush against her ass and she can't curl any smaller. And the more she hides, the more Clementine pushes her.

"So, you're telling me that you came out here to swim. And, rather than undressing at the pond, you thought it was a better idea to strip here and walk - naked - through the forest instead?" Clementine tries to catch and hold the flicker of green that just barely peers over the pale knees and through the scattering of limp blonde strands. "That doesn't sound like something that the Violet I know would do."

The air around them softly hums with what Clementine can only deduce to be a low growling sound. A low growling sound that seems to be emanating from somewhere deep in Violet's throat. "Well, maybe there are some things about me that you don't know. Did you ever consider that?"

There's something that simmers in Violet's eyes that has Clementine's jaw tightening and her throat constricting around her tongue. Something wild and untamed and Clementine finds that she is the first to drop her gaze, her heart galloping in her chest as she pushes herself to her feet. She has been in so many life-threatening scenarios with walkers in the near-decade of the apocalypse but she has never felt more like a rabbit staring down the gaping maw of a predator as she does at this moment. It wasn't as though she actually thought Violet would hurt her -why would she?- it was just something primal, instinctual, one predator suddenly discovering that there was, in fact, another rung in the food chain set above them and that they were in the presence of the creature that claimed it.

Violet doesn't watch as Clementine pads away from her. She just closes her eyes and waits to hear the door of the shack rattle open and slam shut. She doesn't expect to hear Clementine's heavy boots move further away from the door and then back to her, nor does she expect the thick blanket that drapes around her shoulders and traps her radiating body heat between bare skin and fabric. And she certainly doesn't expect to hear the words that come next as Clementine, once again, drops to her knees in front of her.

"I know what you are, Vi." She says quietly, almost guiltily. Her fingers shake a little as she takes the edge of the blanket and uses it to wipe off a tiny brownish smear still clinging to the blonde's cheek.

"No, Clem. You don't." Violet's own fingers entwine with the fabric, eyes on her own slim digits as they rub the textured threads between the pads of her thumb and index finger, pulling the wide covering closer around her shoulders as she adds in a whisper. "You can't."

"I saw you out there, today." Clementine drops the edge of the blanket from her fingers and gently cups the blonde's sharp jaw instead, applying the smallest amount of pressure, she coaxes Violet to turn her face toward her. "And you know I did. You let me follow you."

Again, as she holds the blondes chin in her palm and watches the girls eyes, Clementine feels that same sensation that she is eye to eye with something primaeval. And that feeling only intensifies as the pale green hardens. "You saw a wolf , Clem. Just a wolf."

As soon as Violet says the word, Clementine feels a surge of acknowledgement and this time, when she holds the blonde's gaze, she's determined not to look away first. Her lips contort into a strange mix of a smile and frown, like her mouth can move but her cheeks remain stiff, refusing to compromise. "I didn't say anything about a wolf, Vi. But now that you've mentioned it, you're right, I did see a wolf out there. And I followed her, out into a part of the forest I'd never seen before. Then she led me back here, to this shack. Inside this shack, where I found you."

With each word that escapes Clementine's lips, Violet's body freezes up a little tighter and her rational mind shuts down, reverting itself to the baser of her instincts. Fight or flight. Her pupils dilate and dart, frenzied and trapped and scanning for a way out, a direction to run.

"I saw you, Violet. I watched you change. You didn't go swimming. You were out there, in the forest, as a wolf." She hates how panicked the blonde is. Hates how her breathing has shifted from a deep, steady rhythm into rapid swallows of air. "You're a werew-"

"Don't!" In the half-second that it takes for her to spit the word, the blonde is up on her feet. The movement was so quick and fluid that Clementine's mind is still processing it even as she watches the blonde pace a few awkward steps across the room, the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders and swirling around her feet.

"You don't…" The blonde pauses and sighs heavily through her nose. "You can't know, Clem."

"That you're a werewo-"

"Loup-garou." Violet hisses, again cutting off the brunette. "And, no. No one is supposed to know about us."

"Us?" Although Clementine's brow drops down low over her eyes in a puzzled frown, her voice skips higher at the end of the word and hitches as her excitement refuses to be concealed. "There are more loop-grus?"

"Loup-garou. " The blonde repeats, carefully enunciating the word.

"Werewolf is easier to say."

Violet shrugs. "Maybe, but werewolf makes you think of some half human-half mutated wolf mess. Loup-garou is more accurate."

Her curiosity peaked, Clementine arches an eyebrow at the bundled blonde and finally rises up on her own feet. "Really? So, what does it mean?"

It's easy to tell, just by the way that Violet's shoulders are hunched that she's insecure; but there, on her lips, is the tiniest of curves, the tightest of smiles as she murmurs. "Werewolf." Then the smile breaks and fades and her voice is softer now, but at least she's not hiding anymore. "It's uh, French, I think. Louis's idea. Said it makes us sound less terrifying and more 'mysterious' or some stupid shit like that."

"Louis?" Clementine breathes. She rises up onto her flexing toes and bounces lightly. It was like every fibre of her being was vibrating with anticipation. Her adrenaline courses through her veins in warming waves and her hands tremble as she touches her fingers to her quirking lips and her smokey topaz eyes widen. "Louis is one too?"

"I fucking hope so," Violet grumbles quietly and pads over to the mattress shoved into the corner of the shacks open living space. She shifts her gaze over to the brunette still standing near the door and drops down heavily onto the old, worn-out bedding. "Seeing as he's the big ass timber-fuck who bit me."

"Louis bit you?"

Violet nods, her eyes downcast as she picks at the frayed edges of the blanket with her nails. It's only when she manages to push and twist her index finger through the hole she's made does she look up at the girl slowly moving toward her. "In here, actually. D'you see the torn sheets on the wall and the claw marks in the floor?" She waits for Clementine to finish her visual exploration and nod. "That was me. Well, my wolf. It was my first shift and I couldn't make her listen and she didn't want to." She resumes her picking at the fabric and adds softly. "The idiot saved my life."

For a long moment, Clementine doesn't speak. She just quietly lowers herself to the mattress, sitting as close to the blonde as she dared yet far enough away for her to not feel threatened by her presence. "How?"

"He stayed with me." Violet lifts her eyes, but not her chin, as her grey-green irises flash toward the younger teen from beneath pale lashes. "After he bit me and I was half-crazy fighting with her. He could have left me here and let the wolf tear me apart, but he stayed."

She stops clutching the blanket around her shoulders and lets her arms shift down to wrap loosely around her middle as her teeth begin to worry at her lip. Her eyes have a glassy, far-away quality to them like she's somewhere just out of reach to everything else around her. Then Violet hums a sigh and Clementine is suddenly aware that that wasn't quite all that the blonde had to say on the matter of Louis's heroics.

"But that wasn't how he saved me, Clem." This time when Violet looks up, she does lift her chin. This time, when Violet looks to Clementine, she holds her amber-gold gaze with her own unwavering stare. "Biting me into the pack, that was how he saved me."

"I… I don't…" Clementine pauses. Confusion and trepidation sliding through her insides, it's touch slithering down and winding its chilling fingers around each and every organ until it coils low in her belly. She swallows, touches her lips with her tongue and then tries again. "How does his biting you save your life?"

"It's… It's complicated." Violet just barely rolls her shoulder in a gentle shrug, sending the loosening blanket slipping a little lower down her skin. "There are rules, Clementine. And some are really, really fucking shitty."

Shifting around on her hip and ignoring the gentle squeak of the worn-out springs, the brunette slowly reaches her hand across the span of personal space between them and clutches at Violet's tense fingers. Letting the warmth and softness of her own offer the blonde her comfort as she smiles her encouragement. "Then talk to me and help me understand your world."

The silence that fills the tiny cabin is as absolute as it is deafening. The bright and merry bubbling of the river is, ironically, drowned out by the void; the sweet lilting songbirds quietly absent. The presence of the blonde and her company, in which Clementine usually finds so comforting and so often finds herself going out of her way to seek, feels almost wrong; like she's sitting with a stranger instead of family. And so, as the quietness continues to grow ever deeper, all that she can hear is her own steady rhythm from within her breast.

Violet's tense again. Clementine can see it in the way that her lips are taut and in how there's a slight tremor in her cheek, pulling at her eye. She could encourage her, tell her that it will all be alright in the end, but she doesn't know that. Violet does, however, and her avoidance throughout this entire interaction doesn't exactly fill the brunette with that much confidence but it does continue to stimulate her curiosity. Thankfully though, Clementine doesn't have to try and force the blonde because she takes the long, cleansing breath, slow and softly deflating, of someone with a story to tell.

"I was thirteen when I found out." The blanket edge is back between Violet's fingers and, for the third time, she's picking at the tattered tears and widening the holes. "Found out a lot of things when I was thirteen. I figured out that puberty and hormones suck. That the crush I had on Minnie was more than just those weird-ass teenage hormones going insane."

She pauses, snorts a single dry chuckle and selects a new area of the fabric to destroy. "I was a kid, a really fucking stupid one and all I knew was that I really, really liked her. So, I carved that dumb little heart into the wall over there and brought her down here to show her. She really seemed to like it, but she was fourteen and she had someone pining for her so, of course, she liked it. She kissed me and said she wanted to show me something too. Told me to close my eyes and to keep them shut and she'd let me know when I could look. So, like an idiot, I did as she said. The next thing I know, there was something tugging on my pant leg. I panicked. Thought a fucking walker had dragged itself inside and was about to take a bite out of me, so I kicked it. It yelped and, when I opened my eyes again, there was this red wolf standing there staring at me."

Clementine gasps quietly; her eyes wide and dancing with an enthralled light as she breathes in a gentle voice. "Minnie's one too?"

"She's the reason I'm one." The way that Violet is looking at her sends Clementine's heart tumbling through the floor. There's a strange emotion lurking just beneath the watercolour irises like someone lit a match behind them; the grey flecks artfully swirling through the greens burn like liquid silver, wild and supernatural, before the flame dampens and they shift down and she looks away again. It's something that makes the tiny, sensitive hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end and shiver. "Knowing about us, it's a death sentence, Clem. Trial by Teeth. Some medieval bullshit punishment. The wolf who breaks the rules and causes the threat to our secrecy is the one who has to carry out the act."

Clementine can feel her brain floundering; trying to dissect the words that Violet had just dumped in her lap into something more digestible... but she can't. It's like her mind has just stalled out entirely. She opens her mouth and tries to say something, anything… but she can't . There are a million questions floating around inside her head; she can see them all so clearly just drifting there, and all she has to do is focus and say something. But. She. Can't… she just can't .

Then Clementine's eyes widen and she swallows, hard. "Minnie… She..." She feels like she already knows the answer to the question that's she's about to voice… and that answer frightens her. "She's why Louis bit you, isn't she? That's what you mean when you say that he saved your life."

"Because Minnie wouldn't." Though her voice is steady and Violet's lips twist up as she gently snorts, it's far from anything born in good nature; the blonde's posture and her body language clearly radiate her feelings of bitterness. "Louis was so mad at her. Minnie knew what breaking the rules would mean for me -she knew!- and she broke them anyway. And then, she made it so much worse when she made me swear to keep it secret. She said that she would get in trouble if anyone found out that I knew. And I liked her, I liked her so fucking much that I kept it, for two years."

A heavy silence settles over the two teens, thickening than the uneasy tension in the atmosphere between them. Their unsettled eyes and awkward glances dart unceremoniously around, trying to avoid catching the others attention as they pass by. Violet's focus falls to the floor, scrutinizing the deeply scored marks that her claws had torn into the boards years earlier while Clementine's tawny gaze follows the spread of mildew on the lichen pocked walls. The jittering anxieties that had been steadily encroaching into the brunette's thoughts as she had listened to Violet's words, now twisting into fear.

"It's so easy to think that this world is a little less dangerous when you're one of the dangerous things in it," Violet says quietly. Her words are cryptic as they hang in the air and she slants her gaze over to the brunette. Her mouth tries to smile, but the curve to her lips dies before it can even fully form and she drops her eyes back down to her bare feet, watching her toes press and curl into the furrows. "When the truth is, it isn't. It just becomes harder and a hell of a lot more dangerous because the stakes are so much higher."

Over the years that she's spent living within in a world hellbent on killing her, Clementine has grown accustomed to feeling scared. Grown to crave that little touch of adrenaline that surges through her body every time that she leaves the school's grounds or grappled with a walker; it keeps her senses keen and her wits sharp which, in turn, keeps her alive.

What she is feeling now is different, crippling, and her instincts are confused. Her eyes show her Violet, the girl she'd found friendship and companionship with and her thoughts show her memories of their tangled fingers, stolen moments and smiling lips kissed in stardust. But then she breathes and the fear is there still; sitting on her chest, heavy like a snake formed of iron, with its coils wrapping around her ribs and just barely squeezing. Her breaths feel hindered but not prevented; enough air still gets by and allows her body to keep functioning, even though she can feel her insides slowly dying. Can feel how it slithers into her mind with its confusing whispers. Its hisses of doubt coax her legs to feel weak and encourages her stomach to lurch and squirm, and it convinces her heart to ache.

And then Violet's posture droops and her shoulders sag forwards as she pushes her face into her hands, further muffling her shaking voice as she whispers. "I didn't know you were out there. When you saw me, I panicked and ran. I didn't…"

She's working herself up into hysterics, her fingers threading through her hair and twisting the sweaty strands into knots, but what catches Clementine's eye is the way her skin is pulled tight over the shifting shadows of involuntary movement writhing beneath it; something is pushing to escape. "Vi? Are you… Are you oka-?

"Why were you out here? You weren't supposed to be out here… it wasn't your turn to hunt."

Violet can feel her body instinctively reacting to her distress. Beginning in her chest with her heartbeat suddenly skyrocketing before her abdomen clenches down hard around her insides. Her breathing comes more rapid, more shallow as her limbs seize in a wave of tension so sharp that it forces her breath from her lungs in a soft cry. And the gentle hum of the blood in her veins swells to an angry buzz, a swarm of flashing wings and writhing legs squirming beneath her skin and along her nerve endings trying to force its way out.

Shit! Not now! Please, not now!

The room spins and Violet's eyes roll up just as she crashes down onto her side and sends the other girl jumping to her feet. The faster her thoughts accelerate inside her head and the more she fights for control, the quicker she loses it. Clementine's fear scent floods her nose and it further excites the wolf inside. Predatory flashes of long teeth bared and hot blood flinging; and Clementine's dulled, unfocused eyes staring up at nothing all swirl around inside her skull. And she wants it to stop. Needs it to stop.

… but it doesn't.

Finally, when she can breathe again, the wolf lays there, her jaws parted and her breath panting. She's exhausted, both mentally and physically, her body crying for her to rest but her mind demands that she move. Her short, rounded ears flicker, tracking the rabbit quick breathing of something else close by and, as her nostrils flare, they catch the familiar aroma of human though her scent is just barely sweetened by a touch of fear.

Clementine watches as the wolf rises slowly from where the older teen had lain. She is all strength and long limbs, shaking out her fur so that it lies over her form more neatly; short over her body and longer at her neck. Now that Clementine is so close and actually has the time to take notice, she can see that the white of fur is less pure and more layered hues of creams and palest golds; marrying to the soft butter-caramel colour that drizzles the line of her spine from her darkened ears and the tip of her tail effortlessly.

"Vi… Violet?" Clementine swallows hard, unable to tear her eyes from the strong animal, her heartbeat fluttering in her chest just a little too fast for her to attempt to fool even herself into believing that she was calm. "Can you look at me?"

And when the wolf - Violet - raises her broad head, her distinctive grey-green eyes, wild and untamed, fixate on Clementine's, all of the reasons not to do this as well as the bloom of soft panic rise to flood her system. But when she hears the gentle whine in Violet's throat and watches how her ears pull flat in submission rather than aggression, her gently flicking tail tip tucked slightly between her legs; Clementine breathes carefully and allows her heels to slide out from beneath her as she sinks down to thump heavily on her rear. The storage shelves behind her still press into her spine, reminding her that she is trapped between them and a ninety-pound wolf and has no escape if the animal chooses to attack; she has her knife but it brings little comfort, she knows that she'd never use it on Violet, no matter the circumstance.

Her eyes still fixed on the Violet, Clementine draws her armed leg closer and freezes when she hears the soft growl rumbling low in Violet's throat; surprised to find more wolf than Violet in her eyes as her lips pull back far enough to expose her long teeth in warning.

"It's okay, Vi. I'm getting rid of it." With her fingers just barely shaking and with surprisingly little fumbling, Clementine unbuckles the leather sheath from her thigh and tugs it free. "See?" She shows the weapon in her open palm for a moment before pitching the knife -sheath and all- onto the mattress, chuckling tightly when Violet tilts her head in fascination as it bounces once and then lies still on the old padding. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Violet's ears swivel forward; alert and curious and her eyes soften as the animalistic gleam in them fade back into the edges. She moves slowly, fluidly, like the waters of a still lake; you can't see the swirling and ripples beneath the glossy surface but you know that the current is there. Within moments she's standing over Clementine, her nostrils flaring as she lowers her muzzle and snuffles around the brunette's fingers. Then she squeaks as the snuffling nose pushes into the sensitive skin behind her ear and blows out warm little breaths in quick snorts. Aside from her size and distinguishingly wolf features; not excluding that she had seen the transformation from wolf to a teenage girl then back to wolf again with her own eyes, it's easy for Clementine to imagine that she is staring at nothing more than a friendly -if a little shy- stray dog.

Then Violet pushes her head heavily into Clementine's shoulder, groaning softly from her chest and her tail gently swaying. Clementine's mouth is suddenly dry and she is hesitant but after taking a quick moment to consider where her actions might lead her, she pushes her fingers into the thick ruff of fur around Violet's neck.

The longer tips of the topcoat's guard hairs feel stiff and coarse between her fingers, but then they sink down through to the undercoat which is so unbelievably soft that Clementine can't stop the breathy little "oh" from slipping from her lips. She curls her fingers through it, uses her nails the scrape gently at the well-defended skin and chuckles quietly when Violet lean her weight a little deeper into her touch. "You're still just a giant softy, aren't you. All huff and puff but no actual bluster."

From the crook of her armpit, where Violet's head had now sunk to, Clementine can hear indignant grumbles drift free and those painfully familiar sounds draw a louder laugh from the brunette as she pulls back fully cupping the canine head between her hands and smiling softly. "Thank you, for letting me pet you."

Then her smile fades and she knows what's to come next. Her anxieties and fear resurface in a storm of fluttering butterfly wings in her belly and it must taint her scent a little because Violet's ears lower and her softly wagging tail suddenly stills as she whines. Instinctively, Clementine reaches a hand out to rub the caramel ear, she tries to force the smile back onto her face but can't, her cheeks remain stiff and unresponsive.

"It's okay, Vi." She croons softly, her thumbs still stroking the animal's fluffy cheeks. "It's not like I've never been bitten by a dog before and, besides, I've never really been that afraid of the big bad wolf anyway."

As Violet utters a single soft bark and eases her head from Clementine's hands, the brunette closes her eyes and draws in a long, deep breath; taking it down into her lungs to hold as she waits. It's stupid; because she knows that Violet will smell it on her, but she doesn't want her to see just how frightened Clementine is of her right now. She's scared of what's about to happen, terrified of what will happen to AJ now, and she hates that was her own god damned stupid curiosity getting the better of her that has now put Violet into a situation where she has to suffer for Clementine's recklessness…

And she's furious at herself that she's never told the blonde how much she likes her.

She can hear Violet's thick claws scraping over the barren floorboards as she paces backwards a couple of steps and she can hear how the soft whimpering and strained growls tangle and tumble together, as though she's muttering to herself under her breath. The next thing that Clementine is aware of is the gentle huff of Violet's breath swathing her face and the slightly cold touch of her nose pressing to her cheek and the tiniest flicker of a tongue as she pulls away with a sorrowful whine.

And then there is pain, the sharp tearing sensation of teeth piercing through flesh. And the bubbling sound of blood frothing as it pushes through mocha brown flesh to dribble and flow; staining the cream coloured muzzle clamping hard and dripping down to seep into the furrows sliced into the floorboards four years ago.