The Vote

I twitch.

Vague noises drift to me, like flickering candle flames or fast-beating bird wings. They all are only snatches. I know I am dying, slowly. Or moderately. Most likely I will bleed to death, unable to call for help because there is none for me.

I think my wolf half is unconscious or panicking, so it's easy to think by myself in the terribly agonizing blackness. If I let myself stop I may stop entirely.

Another twitch, but a familiar one. A weak spurt of hope bubbles up inside me. I shiver as my body gets colder, fur disappearing. My mouth doesn't feel so full anymore as my teeth shrink and dull. My feeling of detachment does not decrease, and dimly I can picture my changes from all the times I ever have.

The sounds are louder, and suddenly I am so overheated I would itch my hair frantically if I wasn't too exhausted to move my arm.

I feel a pleasant sensation, a tickling one, on my chest. The dead weight that was the lance grows lighter and lighter. I blink, then open my eyes.

"I don't think all of the lance is gone. We'll still have to pull it out." Ellen is peering down at me, her brown hair messy and swinging around in idle, mismatched strands.

"Wolt, bite on this." Ellen hands me what appears to be dirty leather ripped from a boot. Reluctantly I put it between my teeth, comfortingly square and normal.

I look up at the sky, gray with morning. The sun sits glowing and harshly yellow. A better friend than the moon?

Pain attacks me again, my eyes widening and instinctively biting the boot. My hands strangle the grass, some of which is uncomfortably sticky or has too much crumbly texture.

"Stay calm." Sue's steady voice comes from above me. I close my eyes hard.

Another wave of warmth, and I drop the boot and begin to spit frantically to get out the horrid taste. My eyes anchor to Ellen, who is holding the lance. I shiver. Strangely, a good three inches are missing from the front, including the deadly silver tip. Her right hand is entirely bandaged up.

"I'm really sorry." These first words are right. Ellen looks at me, then nods with a sad smile.

"In case you wondered, we used both our healing staffs at the same time. Worked wonders, right?" Saul is half-trying not to look at me, but his sharp gaze darts there anyway.

"Thank you." I dip my head. Saul returns it with a tiny nod, while Ellen nods much deeper. "You're welcome. You are part of our army, Wolt, and that is who we serve." She pierces Saul with a gaze for short moments.

I withdraw my arms to under me and hoist my body upward. When my sight drops to the grass, nausea bombards me and I barely have time to whip my head to the side and vomit out what little food my stomach has.

Ellen grimaces a bit, but draws a blank curtain across it swiftly. Saul mangles his face in disgust. I notice Sue looking calm as usual. I breath a sigh of relief at her lack of change. Is it too quiet for her to notice?

"BACK TO CAMP!" Someone yells, and I manage to get my boots under me, trying to ignore my bloodstained hands and face. The grass is stiff from my life pouring out in memories and helplessness with an icing of pain so far from sweet.

"How are you?" Sue's horse draws alongside me, swinging their head peacefully.

I want to give the short answer. The one where I'm a loyal archer. The composed one.

"I'm-" A cruel breeze meanders past, worming into my clothes through the holes my wolf muscles tore. "-Not all right."

Sue smiles. "Good words as any."

"Are you…aren't you scared?"

"Of what?" She looks at me-down, really. "I'm walking alongside my friend on a pleasant day."

"I meant-weren't you scared…?"

"I knew what you were." A pause. The army walks casually, but there is a certain briskness in their paces. Especially in front of Sue and I. "After all, one is only afraid of the unknown."

I stand on tiptoe to lean over to Sue. "The others are walking faster." The realization lowers me. "They think I'll bite them."

"Isn't that unknown also? Your mind, your thoughts?"

I pat the horse's flank. "I guess. Even to me, sometimes."

Sue nods, dark eyes led to the distance by a faraway hill. I never noticed, but her hair swings when she nods, in forest-colored waterfalls, changing in subtle ways with shadows and sunlight.

"We shall rest in camp today. Tomorrow we set out." Roy shouts. My eyelids flicker with tiredness and my hair wilts flatly, green already and with color like dark leaves that shake with warning in the night.

I hear the rickety wheels of the food delivery cart and slither out of my tent. I have been there since we returned from last night's area. Bors is off somewhere, as I haven't seen him all day.

In line I wind up behind Lance.

"Do you know what today's meal i-?" I ask, tapping him on the shoulder. He turns his head to see me, eyes quickly bursting with fear. He walks forward as much as he can and says nothing.

"Can't you smell it, werewolf?" Growls Tate behind me. I myself step forward.

Finally I reach the cart itself, delight that these people know not of what I am coursing through me. The man is smiling and hands me the normal fare, and I nod to him. "Thank you!"

I hear the next person in line-Tate-speak to the food man. "Don't trust him, sir. He kills. For fun."

"What? Him?"

I walk faster.

The tent is quiet and my bow makes good company. Even if my crumbs attract insects, I'll be far less lonely…What peculiar thoughts run through the minds of the hated…

"So, Bors, this is your tent?"

"Are you kidding me? No! I'm not sleeping in the same tent as a filthy blood-loving wolf, I'm in Oujay and Shin's."

"Hey, Wolfie, howl for us!"

I huddle in the corner, arms around my knees.

Suddenly, there is pounding on the tent from all sides. I try to stay low, but teeter forward as a fist connects with my shoulder. The angry flock is relentless, and I hear a crack as a pole supporting the tent breaks. Fear scoops me up and squeezes, so I seize my bow and quiver. After short fumbling with the exit, the tent beginning to fall upon me, I dash out, prey I have pursued that zigzagged, squeaking in fear but tripping over devious rocks smooth and unfeeling.

They pounce on me, and I fall hard, my nose stinging.

"A killer and a coward? I don't know why Roy lets you stay." Bors says smoothly but laced with hate enough to make my fear accelerate.

"Don't you know? Roy was friends with him before the war." A person who tackled me says with a sneer.

"Always was unskilled." I remember him saying 'good job' when I dispatched two dragon riders a few weeks ago. In my head I curse them all, viciously. Mom would be upset enough to lecture me, a rarity due to her blunt and adventurous nature.

"I suggest we keep him down awhile. Knock him around so the wolf can't hurt any soldier?" The one directly above me asks-it's Alan, the cavalier with hair a slightly deeper red than Roy's. Bors only grunts in agreement.

"Why are you attacking your campmate like that?" Comes a deep, sharp voice, and the weight on my back disappears. I look up and try keeping a straight face against joy.

It is Dieck, scarred and fierce. His mouth is twisted angrily.

"He's-sir, he bit Ellen! Her hand'll take weeks, how's she gonna manage when-" Bors spouts, eyebrows down so far they threaten to overpower his eyes.

"Ellen's left-handed, and that was yesterday." Dieck glares at him-Bors steps back, but still looks angry. "You can't hurt Wolt for a once-a-month abomination." A flash of gratitude occurs when he uses my name. How is Dieck so level and practical while Lance is afraid and skittish? Maybe he is too connected with that horse of his…

Bors and his gang leave, muttering and shooting sword-sharp gazes at me.

"Thank you, Dieck!" I get up and try not to look too messy.

"Telling truth is far better than spinning lies so uncouth." I stare at him. "Something my father said, archer." He waves me off.

The rescue's remainder is a smile and an extra energy in my step. I even whistle, though quietly and with frantic eyes checking surroundings for watchers.

"Wolt!" I stop and snap my feet together. Lord Roy approaches without cape nor delight. "My tent. Follow."

The happiness drips away in melancholy sprinkling. I'm about his height nowadays, and he looks a lot smaller de-caped. His tent is blue but must be a royal tent-its fabric is stretched and old, mere netting in some places.

He closes the tent very carefully. I stoop, expression blank.

"Wolt, I have concluded the army shall decide about you." He sits, smiling despite his serious tone, and indicates I can take a seat. It brings back memories, old ones buried by blood. I nod, an empty feeling rearing its head, yet only the ears visible.

"You can still ask questions." He says teasingly. Roy looks so odd, as though trying to cram a child's carefree face into an old man's world-weary one.

"Well." I feel the corners of my mouth tugged up slightly. "Decide what, exactly?"

The child vanishes. He is only elderly now, gaze down. "Decide to let you stay."

The empty feeling explodes up, and my eyes widen. "Why not you?"

"We are-were…friends for so long. I'm afraid my judgement will be…clouded." Roy's blue eyes change from a deep river to watery stream or barely blue puddles as he breaks his sight from the ground. That's good! I want to say. Clouded judgement-don't you see? I should stay because people care! Sue appears before me in a captured moment of a true smile, where she sheds her cocoon of calm. For so few people.

I know that Roy is good. He's wise, wise enough to make the right decision. I hate the idea. But I know that this, this terrible plan, is the correct choice.

I take a deep breath and exhale. Finally, I nod.

In a wind-quick moment Roy has flung himself at me in a hug. I'm so off guard I fall onto my back.

Roy is very warm, and we both blink at each other. His face is very close to mine, and his breath is uncomfortably thick. I am ice, slowly melting to movement. Roy has his hands under my back. That must hurt. I think slowly. One more blink.

I squirm a little, and Roy turns a very potent shade of red. He pulls his hands out from under me and hoists himself up, then back a short way. I'm burning up too, flames creeping up my face, and my dense hair prickles.

"Um…sorry." Roy mutters, staring at the side of the tent. "It's just…you know…this may be the last time I see you." He shivers. The tent is very stuffy.

His words part when they find me, a river around a rock drenched by its might. Despair and embarrassment meld, one slowly leaving.

"Yeah." I shake my head and begin to open the tent flap. Roy's silence is somehow more concentrated than the other quiet.

I cannot return to my tent. The people here are angry. They are more wolves than I this day.

I walk in a half-crouch, darting behind tents. Why must I act like the enemy in my own home?

Because you are the enemy here. And this place is no home.

Finally I come to the tent with a leaf, dying and ragged, tucked in a hole. The material is too thick to see her, even a dark reflection. I swish the tent flap back and forth as a replacement knock.

"Yes?" Sue is there, like always, and my face shines though my heart is empty. I barge into the tent.

"SUE!" The single star-no, the sun, glowing and calling for attention in the blank, starless sky. Her clothes are smooth when I hug her.

There was a smile pushing its way in past the steady gates, but Sue shoots it down in moments.

"Wolt, what's wrong?"

"Well…" I pull back, and the despair streams in again, beating out happiness so easily. "Roy is going to have the army decide whether I should stay or not-something about feelings and judgement-" Sue is watching me keenly.

"Won't they keep…?" Her voice is not made for lying. It falters with inexperience. "We will see."

I search her dark eyes for something other than the truth, yet they do not have it. Her cool personality is a two-ended arrow that swings perilously, the metal glinting and polished. It's only a question of who receives what, and I have dodged obliviously for too long.

"LYCIA ALLIANCE ARMY!" Roy's voice carries, and the sorrow that's only anticipation surfaces. I want to stay.

Sue puts her hand on my shoulder.

Roy appears nervous, if you look closely. The shuffling feet, the mouth barely an inch off, eyebrows down a fraction. Hiding yourself is what royalty does. Or tries.

"We're here for a vote." He's mastered the voice-level and definite. "To decide the fate of Wolt." He glances past his shoulder but doesn't add on. They all know why.

"This will be simple." If he just keeps talking, he thinks he can get through it. I decide to join, his words my spiderweb. I dance around them, trapping them with elegantly with cases so tight. I cannot let go. "All those who wish him to stay on my right. If you hope for his departure-" Roy pauses, and I catch his hand twitching. "On my left."

I have no idea where to stand, so I stay in place, a vacant face like a new soldier worn. The fluttering of feet stop, and I close my eyes.

I look up from the grass that's had too many steps. I open them.

A few stand on my left. Dieck, Sue, someone I don't recognize with spiky hair and an axe at his side. Ellen is in front of Roy, only slightly towards my supporters. I notice her holding her right hand.

Here, alone, the realization stabs me. This will happen to her too, won't it? After me, will they really have it in them to harm her…?

"Wolt, they…you can see."

It is so easy, so quick, so efficient. I turn around, arms hanging without the blood. They may as well be dead…

"Lord Roy, the one you accuse is scarcely here! How can you judge a man by a monster he barely is?!" Dieck says, an accusing outburst.

"The army decided, Dieck."

"But it was-"

"Your campmates have divided and that division is unequal."

I can almost hear the clank of scales tipping, tipping so dramatically.