Circles
Raven's POV
TA 2907
This land was well guarded and the wolves here seldom dared to announce either their presence or their claim on territory. The nights were silent, unbroken by even the faintest howl. Though the whole clan buzzed around me in excitement, preparing for battle, I was utterly alone. I felt icy cold inside, and my heart refused to stop racing. I had been given me light leather armour of the kind these Silvan Elves wore, and I felt extremely uncomfortable in it. I had never before worn armour, and the sensation did nothing to ease me. The armour's edges cut into my arms and thighs, and for the hundredths time I thought of taking it off. Why fight like some shell insect, with as much agility as snail? Why risk a killing blow being turned into a maiming one by thick leather? I wanted a quick death, didn't I?
And this was my chance, a battle that was sure to be fought to the last orc, and cornered orcs were deadly enemies. Maybe I need not face the next morning.
I could not tell how long it had been since the night the orcs had killed my brother, or since I had left the orcs' camp. I had got revenge, thousandfold it seemed, since then, and I wanted more. Cold, straight-forward charges, but somehow I had always survived. It was absurd. And time and again, my mind replayed those charges to me, pointing out countless moments where I could have just not raised my sword to block a strike. Where I could have let it end.
But I had never allowed it. Instead I had wished with every kill I had the meanness to let them suffer. The wolf would not accept that, though. In his form certainly not, and even when I was unfurred the wolf kept me back. So besides feeling torn inside my Elven part I had also got the first deeply disconcerting experience of being at odds with the wolf part of myself. Prey deserved a quick and clean death, so did an enemy. So did even orcs. Well, not necessarily clean, but neither wilfully prolonged. I cut the thought off again. Anything that might jar the tenuous hold the wolf and his focus on the moment still had over me was deadly. Without the wolf telling me what to do I did not want to know what would happen
I wished for everything to end, just as the wolf wished to go on. I had my hands full keeping myself sane, and then this Elda had attached himself to me, firstly because I needed a translator and secondly because we had agreed on loose pairs to have an eye on the other's back during the upcoming battle. Absurd enough that this had happened after my own counsel. If any hunting group of Ashi'kha happened to be forced into face to face fight they would pair of in a very efficient system. We were no match for the physical power of an orc, even less the heavier man-orcs, so fighting in twos had proved fruitful. If you wanted to survive. But I did not!
And I was beginning to lose control of things, including my wariness. Gildor had kept an eye on me permanently since he had returned from scouting, and I could not say if he did so out of mistrust or if he saw more than I wanted him to know or guess. He frightened me. And at the same time the wolf strongly told me to stay near him, pushing me towards him with a power I could not completely fight. Desert lion. The name and the image kept following me, turning up in my spinning mind over again. It was curious that his name would have a nearly exact equivalent in my own language, and that it's meaning would fit as well. Desert lions were a dark gold, Onakir had said, and this Elda's hair was so much remindful of their manes and their colour. I had seen Eldar before. My own father was one of them. But I could not understand the shock I had felt when I had first seen this one. Maybe I had just been so confused and frightened when the Silvan Elves had caught me that his suddenly speaking Quenya had felt as if I had found a rock in a swift-rushing stream.
And then he had said his name, and not only did it have that meaning in my own language, it also meant in a little different words what our name for the Eldar meant. Calathaura. Mighty light. Blinding bright. It made no difference if the words applied to that were his Sindarin name 'Gildor' or our word 'khai'toh'.
From father I knew only that the Eldar he had come from had lived in a hidden city, alone, cut off from all others and caring but little what went on outside their walls. But Gildor was here now, fighting rather for a people that were not even his own than to stay safely in the place he had named his home. He was strange. I feared him, with an ambiguity I could not understand. As the wolf feared fire I was terrified of the power I knew he had, that I felt whenever he looked at me with those cold green-blue eyes. They were not wolf eyes. They were too bright, too keen, and they saw too much. When a wolf looked at you, he saw quite clearly if you feared him or not, and he would act on that. But a wolf would only demand submission according to pack-law. Khai'toh would judge you, and see what you wanted to keep hidden, and what he would do with that knowledge I did not know.
Yet, whenever I looked at him, trying to understand his intentions with the wolf's mind, I could find no weighing judgement in his gaze. I could not understand him with the wolf, because he was no wolf. But my understanding alone did not help me either. I knew too little to see what he felt. He was kind to me, and patient, and he did not show the mistrust the clan-leader had for me still. He had asked them to release me in the first place, and though I tried to hold back, the wolf felt eternal gratitude for him for that. In fact, the wolf did not fear Gildor as did I alone. Rather like what he would feel for a much stronger pack-leader, careful respect but mainly trust. Something about Gildor made the wolf want me to trust him. But my terror was greater. He kept watching me. He had touched me once already. I think I had managed to clutch my ragged shields together enough that he would sense nothing wrong. They had got torn with Niy'ashi's death, and I knew that any elf with some skills at mind-reading would be able to see through me if he happened to get close enough. Or rather, he would not be able to avoid it, were he not perfectly shielded himself. And physical contact would invariably multiply any mental signal. I had felt no pain from Gildor's touch, so I knew I had at least for that moment shut out any sign of Niy'ashi's death. He had not touched on that, and he himself had been shielded. And as for the wolf – Gildor had said he had not attempted to read my mind. I had hidden the wolf as deep inside as I could, so probably he had remained undetected as well.
The brief talk with him yesterday had exhausted me more than my whole trek across the dry plains. With a depth that had left me dizzy I had been relieved when he had gone. And with the same painful depth I sometimes wished he would touch me again, wildly hoping he might be able to set things to right again. But whatever he might do, whatever I might set my silly hopes on, he would then find the wolf!
I swore desperately. Gildor's presence rocked all my cramped resolutions, shattered my resolve to end this, and I had no hope of finding any reason to go on. Not alone. Not as I was. Though the wolf stubbornly assured me that I lived, that it was alright, and that it was enough. And the thought what might happen if they found out what I was frightened me just as much as the thought of the coming battle. I would rather die on an orc-blade than be caught as shape-shifter by these elves. I knew how little love the Eldar had for wolves, any kind of wolves. I knew from personal experience that the Silvan elves hunted wolves if they could. They did not kill us simply out of fear like the humans. At least they took the furs, but that would help me precious little. I would be hardly more than a demon to them.
And once more I could not understand my own doubts. I longed for an end. Did it matter so much how it came? If I died as wolf or unfurred, that was unimportant. Only I wanted it to happen. I wished fervently the signal for attack would come. I could not bear this running around of my thoughts in so many separate circles. It did not make me dizzy, it made me feel mad.