Nauthiz (Need), Rune of the Third Aettir of Heimdall
Resistance leading to strength, innovation, need-fire (self-reliance);
Distress, confusion, conflict, and the power of will to overcome them;
Endurance, survival, determination;
Recognition of one's fate.
Major self-initiated change.
Facing fears.
Nauthiz Reversed
Constraint of freedom, distress, toil, drudgery, laxity.
Necessity, extremity, want, deprivation, starvation, need, poverty, emotional hunger.
The white crescent moon
Eternally looking down at the city
Behind these blue eyes of mine
The demon inside has been awakening
In this sinful earth
Believing, dreaming
We are searching for the place where the soul descends
-Rakuen no Tobira, Matantei Loki Ragnarok OP
The wolf had come to him when he was very young.
The wolf had come to him when he was very young, so he could not remember it. Sometimes, when floating in that hazy state just between sleep and awareness, a jumble of impressions came to him that he thought might be his memory of the event. But he was never sure if it was truth, or if it was imagery thrown up by his own imagination, or if it was something else entirely.
A gray dawning – the chilled scent of the wind and of the rain within it – the long blades of the moor-grasses waving, rustling, edged in silver-gray frost - a long, faint keening that may have been the wind, or may have been the howl of a dying animal – the wind rushing past him, tousling hair and making eyes tear- the scratching, gasping ache of lungs starved for breath as he ran - and one great golden eye peering at him.
Never any memory of the bite, though he knew it must have come, and he knew where – the ragged white circle marked the skin of his right shoulder. Little traceries like streamers of silver flame wandered off the edges of the ring of scar. It grew apace with him, so that it never seemed any smaller when he traced it with the fingertips of a wondering hand. The scar had faded, until people could not see it even when they knew it was there (those were few) - but he always knew where it lay on his skin.
It was possible he dreamed a fuller account of that day. If so, however, he never recalled it when he waked.
At first, he and the wolf had been as one. A small child and a young wildling are very similar, if not the same thing. Their view of the world had been the simple view of the primal first – they wanted and needed on a basic level. They avoided hurtful things if they could – if not, they fought it. When they were hungry, they looked for food. When they were tired, they flopped down on the softest, warmest place in the vicinity, and slept deeply and well. He used both forms as blithely as an adult uses both hands – and would have no more entertained the thought of remaining long in one than a man contemplates tying his hand behind his back for the day.
But then they grew.
The boy, who was a lord and a member of a civilized race, learnt of deceit, and lies, and the false smile that masks the dagger. He learnt the way of speaking with words that were drenched in more meaning than the definitions ascribed to them, and to interpret when others used words thus. He learnt the rule of law, which says that one must not do certain things even if he can – and, what is more important, even if he desires. He learnt of honor, which binds a soul in invisible fetters and condemns many – and, if satisfied, be a greater matter than anything he could get for himself. In a word, he learnt the many subtleties of man.
And he learnt to be ashamed of the wolf.
So he caged the wolf – walled and locked it away with the sheer force of his will. He held himself with ruthless and exacting restraint, everyday further refining his control so that he never did anything without fully intending to – so that he never betrayed himself by sudden starts, or expression, or passions. As a child, he had run so wild as to be the talk of distant places; as a youth, he was so self-disciplined, so faultless a young soldier and student and son, that yet again they spoke of him.
And the wolf hated it, hated everything and everyone with an increasing savagery. It raged unceasingly. No matter how much he honed his self-control, the wolf always matched it, rising ferocity for greater discipline. There was now a darkness to the wolf that had never been in him before - whether it was a product of his suppression, or whether it would have come regardless, he was not sure.
So, another reason to rein the wolf in. And this he did with cold, unswerving perfection. Day followed day without the wolf touching the outside world. Except….
Except that the wolf had yet twelve nights in the year that were still his own, twelve nights when he reigned, savage lord of the savage wilds. He had long since stopped trying to hold it back on these nights – for, will he or nil he, the shifting would come, drawn by a catalyst ancient and compelling.
When the moon shone white and full in the night-sky, the wolf resumed existence in the physical plane – no longer a prisoner, snarling and impotent, within a man's mind, but supremely and simply itself, being with a primeval intensity that had been lost to the other race. On these nights, the man was less than the wolf had been during the other nights and the days. He could not even rage against the wolf as the wolf raged against him.
Because that was his other deep shame, twin and parallel to his shame for the wolf. He was shamed that though he had taught himself to hate the wolf, as civilization demanded, he could not forget that he loved the wolf. He loved it still, with the simple devotion of a child who cannot imagine doing aught else – hated himself for caging the wolf as much as he hated the wolf for requiring it. Love and hate were wound up in each other, twining round like strands of thread, until he was not sure where one ended and the other began.
So he did not begrudge the wolf these twelve nights. He did not cry out in protest when it ran wild and free through whatever lands they found themselves in. He did not even begrudge the gashings and wounds the wolf gave him when it sensed the shift drawing near, gnawing on its own limbs and dashing itself against walls and rocks for the knowing that the man would have to bear the wounds. And it was not even for the fact that they would heal swift – the healings always came as painful as the wounds. He accepted the wounds as his due, a sort of guilt-justice.
And part of that guilt was that he reveled in these nights just as the wolf did. That these nights were a breaking of cages for him as well, of the cage of restraint and control he had built himself. And that these nights, the terrible joy of his freedom, were all that kept him sane and controlled during the days, when he battled others and himself and never had rest or relief.
Those nights were his freedom as well.
Random Author Notes
Completed September 26, 2004
Probably the first fic I completed since coming to Canada. :D The writing style is heavily influenced by Frank Herbert's Dune series and Judith Tarr's Avaryan Rising. In a way that's too bad – I wanted to try writing less long-windedly, with less-run-on sentences, like in the first chapter of this series.
Yes, series. Isn't that funny? The thing ought to have ended with the first chapter, the elevator challenge, which was supposed to be just Saber and Jesse and dealing with claustrophobia. I had been planning a werewolf fic – it's strange that someone who likes wolves as much as I do hasn't yet produced a wolf-centric story, I think – and it insisted on going into the story. In vain I argued about a one-shot. The wolves simply would not change their minds.
This chapter dedicated to Claudia and her crows and wolves, and her influence in getting me to actually put my thoughts to paper (or computer screen, as the case may be...) ;;
Soundtrack
-Scarborough Fair, Celtic Chillout
-Rakuen no Tobira, Whitebound, Matantei Loki Ragnarok OP
-Track 16, CD 2, of the Chrono Cross OST
-A Child Is Born, Barbara Streisand, Disney's For Our Children
-Tell Me What The Rain Knows, Maaya Sakamoto, Wolf's Rain OST