A/N: This chapter is a lot darker than what has previously been written for this story. It is a major shift from the original source this story is based on. I promise there will be a silver lining eventually, but we gotta get through some heartbreak first.
:WARNING:
This chapter describes depictions of violence, mild gore, some strong language, and character death. Reader discretion is advised.
The sun hung low in the distance, shadowed by the silhouettes of the forest trees. Its evening glow was dampened by dark, low-hanging clouds that flashed with distant lightning, threatening a quickly approaching storm. Thunder echoed across the valley like the rumble of a long forgotten war. A young man clad in silver armor flinched at the sound and he nearly dropped his dagger. His eyes warily scanned the small clearing, searching the growing darkness for any signs of glowing blue eyes, or fangs dipped in red. "The heavens are angry with us," he said through quivering lips.
"Give it a rest, Jack!" Crawe barked. With a heavy hand, he brushed back his long, greasy hair and he spit into the dirt. "It's just a storm."
"I told you. Our souls be damned. I told you…"
"Damned we are, boy," another voice spoke. Jack gulped and his heart skipped a beat. Sir Clarence ran the back of his hand over his brow, a smear of blood left in place of his sweat. "But our damnation comes not from this."
"The demon will not forgive this," Jack whispered. "It will kill us."
Sir Clarence looked at the young man and he grinned, the gnarled, yellow smirk sending a shrill of ice down the kid's back. "Let the beast try."
"Got it!" Crawe howled with laughter as he raised his prize high in the air for the others to see. In his grip he held the scruff of a white pup with black-tipped ears and a gray stripe down its back. The pup curled in on itself, a pitiful whine caught in the back of the babe's throat. "What do we do with it?"
Sir Clarence approached the man and he eyed the pup. He ran his hand over the scruff of his face in thought, then grimaced in disappointment. "It's just a runt, no better than the last. Get rid of it."
"Aye, Sir." Crawe outstretched his arm, holding the wolf pup far from himself, and he fetched his hunting knife from its sheath.
From high above, fat droplets of water fell. The cold splash of rain burned against Jack's hot skin, and he shook his head in disbelief. "You've brought this upon us. Our blood will be on your hands!"
The corner of Sir Clarence's lips twitched up into a hideous smirk. "Blood of which I will gladly bathe in, if you so wish, boy."
Crawe brought back his blade, the light of the dulling sun glinting against the sharpened tip as he reared his strike. Then, he screamed. Powerful jaws clamped around his forearm and the beast shook violently. Flesh seared apart and bones crushed from the unbelievable weight, and he dropped both the pup and his blade to the ground. The man stumbled to his knees and he clutched at his ruined arm. Stuttered, nonsensical words tumbled from his dried mouth. Blood spurted from his fingertips and spattered the ground, and he fell face first into the dirt.
"W-wolf!" shouted the fourth man, Thomas, who had previously remained silent through the previous ordeal. Now, as he stood face-to-face with the demonic, blood-soaked white wolf, the man spoke. He was unable to string together proper words into a sentence, they simply fell from his quivering lips as quickly as his hands shook. The great wolf stood as high as his chest. He could see its rippling muscles from beneath its stained pelt, tight and tense against its skin. Its mouth hung open as the beast panted heavily. Small droplets of blood fell from its black lips with every exhale. Its eyes - those cold, blue eyes he had caught merely glimpses of before looked back at him now with no restraint, and he saw the face of death.
"Well, go on, then!" Sir Clarence shouted. "Kill it!" The hackles upon the spine of the wolf bristled and spiked. A low growl of warning rumbled the beast's throat and rattled through Thomas's being. He took a step back, then another. "Kill it, Thomas!"
The wolf's eyes narrowed. It ducked its head ever so slightly. It was testing him, daring him to stand against her, and he couldn't. Thomas turned to run, though the wolf was upon him in seconds.
He fell hard onto his chest. The overbearing weight of the wolf loomed over him, making his otherwise powerful build appear nothing more than a rag doll. The wolf placed its paw between his shoulder blades and pushed down. What little air Thomas had left within his lungs was forced from him. An odd, airy moan clawed itself from the depths of his throat, then changed to that of a strangled scream until the sound died in the air of rain and thunder.
The wolf lowered its head, so close to his own that Thomas could feel its hot, sticky breath against the shell of his ear. Then, the world seemed to go silent as the wolf spoke. "Why have you come here?"
"W-what?" was his only reply. The shock of the wolf's ability to speak did not miss young Jack, nor Sir Clarence. The two men gawked at the horrible revelation with wide eyes and rampaging hearts. Jack stumbled back, then fell to the forest floor. Sir Clarence, who had previously held his sword at the ready, could bear its weight no longer. The sharp tip fell down and stabbed the earth while his weight limply leaned against the cold, slick iron.
The wolf snarled and snapped its jaws, the noise of which was louder than the continuous crashes overhead, and spoke again in a voice that sounded faintly feminine above its horrid, gravely growls. "Why have you come here?"
"I-I don't know," Thomas whined pathetically.
"Who sent you?"
"No-no one! No one sent us, I swear it!"
The wolf leaned down further and she nudged his head with her muzzle, which pressed his face deeper into the growing mud puddle. "Alright," she purred. The single, sultry word bit into his core, and Thomas began to weep. "Where are my pups?"
With great effort, Thomas moved his head. His face scraped through the mud and pebbles until he faced the opposite direction, and he stared. The wolf followed his gaze. The atmosphere went strikingly cold and quiet. The dull raindrops covered the clearing in a hushed lull, cradling both humans and wolf with its daggered hands.
Towards the right of the clearing and tied against a tree were two horses. The frightened creatures bayed and reared back on their hind legs, fighting for retreat of either the wolf or the storm. Not far from where their hooves pawed the ground, there was a bundle of fur. The shadows made it almost invisible in such low light, but when a strike of lightning lit the sky, its tiny body became apparent to the world. The female pup lay still and limp. Her only movement came from the wind that tousled her wet fur.
"Sila!" Diaval called out as he transformed from a bird and back to a man. His chest hurt with the exertion of attempting to keep up with the mother wolf through the storm, and now that he had arrived, his breath was harder to get control of. The bloody corpse of Crawe struck Diaval's entire being with fear. Although, when Sila spoke again, Diaval felt as though he had not known true fear until that moment.
"Get out of here, Diaval."
Her voice was completely different - completely wrong. It was strangled, broken, like the voice of one who had never spoken before. The rage laced within was palpable and inhuman as though a true demon had used the memory of her voice.
Diaval had been stricken dumb. He could not think, nor even process what was happening. Sila's body trembled like the last leaf of autumn in the breeze, fighting for its existence. Her snout shortened, becoming deformed and mutilated as the fur retreated from her skin. The face beneath was nothing short of monstrous. Half human and half wolf - human features with too-large fangs within a too-long mouth. Her body rippled with change. Some parts of her began to take on a human look, then would change back to wolf the second Diaval blinked. Human eyes of blue rimmed with red stared down at the body beneath her wildly, unseeing as an unspeakable pain overtook everything else.
With a swift bite to the back of his head, Thomas's unheard, pitiful pleas were silenced in a single gush of warm blood. "I said go!" Her shout echoed through the clearing deafeningly and Diaval flinched as he quickly came back to reality. With a horrendous, otherworldly roar, Sila lept from Thomas and towards Jack.
Diaval kept his eyes to the floor. He couldn't watch. Even as Jack's cries of pain met his ears, he could not move. This wasn't happening. What had happened? What was happening to Sila? He couldn't leave her - not like this. Whatever was going on, he knew it was bad. There was no telling what would happen if left her like this.
Just as Diaval made his resolve to stay, something caught his eye. Curled up against the dead body of Crawe, Diaval saw Little Forest. The pup whined to itself quietly in both pain and discomfort. The poor babe was situated against the crook of the dead man's deformed elbow, trying to hide away from the downpour and the evil unfolding beneath the willow tree. Diaval made a new choice, then. He had to leave Sila. She would be alright without him. At least, for now. What mattered most was getting her son far away from this place.
Diaval snatched the pup from the ground. Using the opening of his jacket, he shielded the pup from the rain and cradled his tiny body tightly to his chest. Diaval took a step, then stopped. The urge to tell Sila that he had her son - that he could look for her daughter - came upon him. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but when he dared to look back upon the wolf, he felt sick.
Despite the rainfall, Sila's front and chest were red. She stood stock still in the middle of the clearing, her eyes trained only on Sir Clarence, who clutched his previously damaged arm tightly. This time, if he were to somehow get away again, there would be no saving his arm. Even at this distance, Diaval could see that Sir Clarence's arm was held only by his other.
"Why?"
Sila's voice was more of a snarl than a question.
"Why?"
A whisper that suffocated the wind.
"Why?"
Sir Clarence, despite the awful grimace upon his ugly, whiskered face, managed a foul laugh. "Because you deserved it. You and every magical fuck in these woods deserve this."
Sile hunched her shoulders and a terrible moan escaped her. Her body rippled and grew and shrunk. She dug her claws deep into the mud, then launched herself forward. It was all Diaval could bear to see. Clutching Little Forest within his arms, Diaval spun on his heels and took off far into the darkness of the storm. Though, he could not outrun Sir Clarence's screams.
Sila did what she had to do, and that was that. She felt no remorse for their lives, nor did horror take her for what she had done. All the mother wolf felt was pain. A pain completely indescribable. A deep, searing pain she would now carry with her forever.
Her paws felt heavier and heavier with each step she took. The closer she got, the further from reality she fell. Her heart continued to pound against her breastbone, the sensation making her completely numb to the world. Step by step she drew nearer. A familiar scent entered her nose, followed by a thick, sickly metallic smell. Step by step by step…
She stopped. Not even the rain could wash away the feeling of the soft, black tendrils of baby fur that tickled the tips of her paws. Sila lowered her head and she nudged her daughter. A gentle, encouraging whine met the low rumble of the storm.
Nothing.
Sila whined and nudged the pup again.
Nothing.
There was nothing.
No whimpers, no breaths, no movement.
Fierce was gone…
As heavy as a bag of stones, Sila's back legs gave out and she dropped. Her haunches lowered and her head drooped. "Get up." She didn't recognize the words as her own. They were just a sentence, something said by someone other than herself. The pup did not move. "Up," Sila commanded once more.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing but the rain.
The mother wolf turned her attention to the sky. She watched as the dark clouds pummeled the earth with their tears, and her bottom lip trembled. Sila howled. Her heart screamed. It tore itself open, ripping itself apart bit by bit with its only solace coming from the broken cry that flowed from Sila's throat. She howled long and loud, but the pain in her chest only grew.
She howled again. The melody broke the ambiance of the forest, disrupting the peaceful nature, bringing light to the great loss the world was otherwise blind to. With her head held towards the sky, her snout began to shorten and the fur on her limbs shrank away. The broken song in the air twirled and intertwined with the mother's new wretched sobs.
Sila lurched forward. She took her daughter's cold form within her human hands and she held her in her lap. The woman rocked back and forth upon her knees, the hot tears that dripped down her cheeks like that of hot iron. Sila cried and she gasped and she screamed again.
"My baby," she gasped with torn vocal cords. "My baby…"
The downpour continued, the rain innocently unaware of the terrible thing that had just occurred. The darkness of the night continued to ebb in closer and closer until there was no light. Eventually, the worst of the storm passed by, leaving behind a dull drizzle in its wake. The willow tree hung its branches low to the earth, though the leaves brought no comfort from the cold.
When he could run no further, Diaval found that he had arrived at the creek. He was further upstream than where he had tended to Sila's chest wound. He took in a ragged gasp of breath and brushed his damp hair from his dark eyes, then he gagged. He clasped his palm over his mouth and he hunched over as images of the terrible scene replayed in his head.
Sila drenched in blood… Sir Clarence's screams… The haunting howls and sobs that filled the forest air… Little Forest hiding against Crawe's ruined arm…
That's right! He still had her son.
Quickly, Diaval pulled the pup from beneath his jacket. The babe let out a pitiful whine that broke the raven man's heart. "Hey, hey," he cooed gently, although his voice still shook. "Hey, Little Forest. You're okay. We're gonna be okay." The pup blinked slowly, staring directly in Diaval's eyes with dull, heartbrokenly confused blue orbs. A switch flipped and Diaval suddenly felt like he would cry. He brought the pup to the crook of his neck and cradled him. As Little Forest snuggled in closer to his warmth, whimpering against his damp skin, Diaval sniffed and gasped as he fought against his tears. He rubbed Little Forest's back and whispered comforting, shushed words. They were just as much of a comfort to him as they were to the cub.
"I'm sorry," Diaval said. "I'm so sorry..."