For my rage far surpasses my guilt.

Summer '96

Ministry of Magic – Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures

–

"For my entire life, what I can remember, my name has been Fíona," I repeat again, and close my eyes. Different people, more than I can keep track of by scent or sight, have asked me this same question, over and over till I'm sure everyone in this horrid place knows it. Or, perhaps I only wish it so, so they'd stop asking.

The man before me, for he has given me no name for me to call, taps the tip of a quill on a scrap of parchment. "And how old do you claim to be?"

I know better than to react to his tone, by now. Any hint of anger, and they would spell me asleep or drug me till I knew not my own name, much less if I were asleep or lucid. Mother told me long ago that my anger must be tempered by my wits or it would rule me, but these... vermin in the guise of men, are sorely testing what discipline I retain. Wearily, I answer the fool, "Sixteen summers, I reckon."

"You 'reckon'? Don't you know?"

Perhaps it's the overwhelming stench of some faux scent the man has slathered himself with, which seems to be the habit of these warren-dwellers, or the utterly disbelieving and disparaging tone he used, but my patience had found its end. "Perhaps you recall your birthing day, human? Perhaps you've recorded every passing moment, day and week and year? I 'reckon' because you harangue me mercilessly if I state a certainty – claiming me mad each time! So yes – I 'reckon'!"

Blinking rapidly and stinking of sudden anxiety as I have risen as I can while lashing out at him, the fool draws back and lets his hand inch toward that cursed instrument all these vermin carry. Regardless, I show no fear – these are no alphas. These are not my Gray Mother. I have nothing to fear from them, in their gentle, coward's ways. Huffing to clear my nose of his reek, I slowly sit again, and regard him with narrowed eyes as the chains that restrict me to this side of my cell jangle and clink at my feet. "What else would you ask? I tire of you."

His mouth draws into a fine line, and I see the age in him. The pain. This man has lost something dear... I can see it in how he moves, how his eyes bear so many lines and creases. The smell he carries masks another, drink I think, but it seems all the humans that come to see me either use spirits to base their affected odors or must be sodden drunks. Despite seeing this, I cannot find it in me to soften my anger.

For a month – a guess, as I've not seen the sun or moon for some time – I've been held here. Ever since crossing the deep hollows in the forests I called home, nothing has gone right. I breached the edgelands near of all things a farm, and one of grand scope. No mere garden and small plot for a few beasts, there.

With so much game to cull from, I ate well. Supposedly in doing so I had poached some cretin's livestock, near an ancient copse of wood that had been closed and warded away named Borthwood. It was from there they claimed I came, though I knew different – a secret they would not pry from me. How a single man can account for so many beasts – or need them, baffles me. Of course, I've neither heard of this Borthwood or Isle of Wight, nor as I recall it, ever been to this England it was a fiefdom of.

Neither claim seems to have been taken well by my captors. The farmer happened to be a man skilled in the mage's arts, and so called his Aurors, as I think they were named, and after some difficulty I find myself here, held like a prize bird at the market. They gawked when I spoke, apparently never hearing my dialect before. I suppose that's only to be expected, as I learned what speech I know from The Mother, and have only spoken to her and the few she brought to her home for my benefit. Her tutoring and insistence that I speak with her and practice such have proven both useful and damning here.

One of the little men that thinks me a docile captive let slip that my grasp of their tongue was, at best, archaic. He also thought rather little of my other tongue, crudely insinuating my descent from a Parisian whore. I don't know what or where Parisian is, but if one of these vermin approaches me for carnal favors, they may well count their lives forfeit, even if it costs my own.

"Miss Greengrass, I must finish the questionnaire. You should be aware of this by now."

That is another irritation these mages insist on. Some fool thinks me his lost daughter, and so by whatever process these warren-dwellers live by, now this is apparently my name. Mother once joked that my stubbornness could keep the sun from rising, were I to insist it still not yet morning, and that same trait has served me well here, to my great amusement. For example, I refuse to acknowledge any of the magelings if they call me by such, either 'Astoria' or by this clan name 'Greengrass'. If they insist on asking my name each day, then refusing to have the common courtesy to use it, then I shan't return the favor of hearing their mistake.

As such, I make a study of the far wall, feigning interest in the grand mirror there. It is a massive thing, bigger than any I've seen in my days, though as I'm learning, such means little within the bounds of these human mages. Perhaps every one of them has such a thing in their home? While my muse ponders such things, I observe the girl in the mirror.

Ever since I was a small girl, I had known that I was fair. Fair of hair and skin. Mother used teased me that I was likely to be mistaken while napping one day for a pool of milk, and wake to find myself under siege by an army of kittens. Little could be seen of that girl now, under the tangles and grime and the gray sackcloth they had me wrapped up in. I was not built tall, or strong, but I am fast, and I have a cat's lithe frame and quickness about me. That matters less, of course, as when I need to be strong, I am.

Usually.

Since being imprisoned in this room, I've been cut off not only from the forests, the sun and moon and sky, but also the pulse of the earth that for as long as I could remember, beat in my own veins. Without it... I was just Fíona, as I see her. Dirty, unkempt, and unable to do anything at all about it, or my state. My eyes remained the only hallmark of what I was, the bright amber, verging on gold of them glinting even in this room's drear light.

Seeing how much gold was there, I nearly flinched away. Not in shame, or in anxiety, but futile, impotent anger. Whatever magics they bound me with, kept the beast within me chained. Chained... yes. My gaze moves to the shackles and manacles, huge ponderous things that pull and wear at me endlessly. I can sense the tang of silver in them, and the worry of blood poisoning nags at me again.

I am not as strong as I show them. It was my own error that saw me here, and it pains me to think on it. To my shame it happened almost as Mother one day predicted it would, always chiding me for my rashness and will. She warned me often not to trust or fall into the traps of men, for they were cunning in large groups, and though that vile wit seemed to increase with their number, understanding fled in equal measure.

There was a loud sound, like a thundercrack behind me, and I turned slowly to raise a brow at today's warden. I could not recall what he had been asking, only that he had been doing so for some time while I let myself drift on flights of thought and fancy. Now that he had my attention, however, his mask of false calm returned. I know it false, for I can smell the subtle fear and worry on him, even under that eye-watering reek he bore. "Miss Greengrass, I assure you we are only trying to help you. If could only assist us, meet us halfway, this would be so much simpler."

Still half facing the mirror, I gift the man a mocking smile, "Simpler? For who, pray tell? You? Why should I care to make my interrogation simpler for my captors?" With a curl of my lip, I bark the legs of my chair against the hard wooden floor, regarding him again after sitting. "I tell you what you ask, day after day, yet you only return to ask again. Are all of you simple? Mentally deficient?"

The man blinked, then blustered about how my lack of cooperation was only hurting my own case. "What case?" I wondered, unsure what the man meant. "I am a prisoner here. You talk as if I have rights."

Blanching and suddenly pensive, the man reached up to straighten his glasses, "But that is, er. Of course you do."

Well, this was certainly news. "Then I demand parley."

"Parley? Miss, you are not in a hostile camp or at... war. If you must insist on legal council, then I'm afraid the circumstances are as of yet outside the scope where a solicitor would be of use."

I lean across the table again, a flash of anger at the man's duplicity sinking a low growl into my voice, "Then I am indeed a prisoner. If I have rights, they are as yet secret. Don't think to play word games with me because I may seem a simpleton, lest you prove yourself so." Sitting back, it takes a few breaths to calm my ire, so aptly raised by this apparent mouthpiece for the ones that hold the keys to my freedom.

While I regain my composure, the man collects his papers, apparently at his wit's end for the day. It is well enough. Were he to offer the nighttime sky with proofs and witnesses, I'd not believe him, now. As he rose to leave, he shot me a sad frown, shaking his head, "My girl, it would be best to cooperate. Your family-"

"My family resides deep within the wildewood," I snap back, rising as I can with the chains snapping taut, keeping me back from the man's immediate presence. The table is thrown aside, knocked over as I barrel through where it was a moment before. Regardless of those chains I strain, and hear the groan of metal and the creak of my own sinews, as his eyes grow wide and frightened. "The Gray Mother is my family, not those..." snarling, I wrench at the chain binding my arm and am only rewarded with the metal tang of blood in the air. The pain that follows staggers me, but I keep my gaze on the little human before me, memorizing his face.

As he backs away, I follow him, crouching beside where I've made disarray of the room. My glare promises what he fears, what it is they hope to bind with those same chains.

Death, and pain.

–

A week longer in this Ministry as they call it, has convinced me that all humans that live within such places are quite mad. What else am I to think? They take the only raiments I possessed and garb me in coarse sackcloth? Insist I address my body's functions in some stinking, tiny, abhorrent space that smelled as if every human within miles had made use of it? Chain me, when I am not outright collared with a hoop of silver with inward facing thorns? I feel some days to be a prized yet deadly animal. It sets an ache deep within me, and a fear that shames me.

They ignore everything I say, and insist on their own truths, despite asking me for my own words. It is maddening. Why should they care that I can take wolf-shape? What is it about being Moon-touched that causes them to hate me so? And why all the insistence on learning where and what magics I know? I answer nothing, knowing well that nothing will come of it. Just more insistence on lies. Whatever unhappy providence that lead me here, I wish would take me back. I miss the wood, and the light and the clean air that a thousand mouths haven't dirtied.

I miss my Mother.

–

Today it is not the pleasant, if sad man that asks me questions, but a trio of fools. First among them, as he thinks it so obviously, is a pathetic little man, round and fat and sweating with a flush of fear and stink of it constantly about him. He has all but cured his clothes in the smell, it seems. He calls himself Minister, and by the name of this place, I take it he rules here. How, I know not. Who would follow such a pathetic, cowardly, weak man? I despair anew of ever gleaning any sense from this place.

If it were not for the lack of the Minister's scent, I would think the posturing little pustule beside him a mate. She certainly seeks to appease and stroke that one's ego enough to earn such a place. Though, for the life of me, I can not imagine any man taking such a foul and horrid smelling little lump of flesh to warm his bed. Did she bathe in that scent? Undersecretary she has been called.

Last, but to me certainly not least, is Macnair. Craggy and smelling of blood, this one at least I understand. Cruel eyes and a face in which they look at home, he sat at the head of his companions, leering at me the way he was. "So, a little wolf 'way from 'er pack," he greeted finally, lip curled into a sneer that perhaps to some, would seem frightening.

The gesture wasn't lost on me, but the impact certainly was. Rather than rise to his baiting, I leaned back in my rickety chair and yawned hugely.

Macnair didn't take kindly to his intimidations being ignored, and made as if to strike me with the back of his hand – halting and throwing himself back as I bared my teeth. I smirked at his sudden fear, "Careful, mageling. Wouldn't want to catch the moonfever," I taunt, licking my teeth openly now.

While the ugly woman went about muttering about 'filthy animals', her dear Minister paled and took a step back, as if only then fully realizing what he was in the room with. The bloody man before me however only smiled the wider, "So, she got fangs of a fashion after all. Curious dog though – you don't change with the moon."

It was well known to me that some of my kind had no control over their changing. The cost I paid for such control, at least according to Mother, was too high but she admitted I seemed happier for it. This also lead me to my unusual lodgings within the wood, and why the Mother and I were so close, rather than myself and a pack. Oh, I would run and hunt with them, but had no place there... Irritated that my mind would wander to such bitterness, I focus instead on the magelings before me. Strange, that I've seen nothing but such people in my time here. Were there no simple humans?

Of course, the Macnair man's slight didn't go unnoticed. Dog, indeed! My beast was chained, by my tongue was as sharp as ever. "I find myself unsurprised, that you know so little. Though it amuses me to imagine how such a realization must pain you – or will later, when your mind empties its limited cache to allow another thought within."

I smile as the man purples in rage. The Minister and his Undersecretary babble on behind him, apparently there only to lend some support – moral, emotional? – to the sharp-faced fellow before me. It did concern me somewhat, what they spoke of, but I kept such thoughts to myself. As little as I liked being a prisoner, it so far had been a very pleasant prison in which I find myself. If a tribe within the wildewood had come upon me, stripped of my tricks as I was, I had no illusions on my fate.

Raped, killed. Not necessarily in that order. Put to the torch or worse, depending on their opinions of those within the deep wilds. Finally stripped to the bone for meat, as I had little other use to them. Instead I find myself the unwilling nearly honored guest here. A sudden family provided, and mild interrogators. Were I to overlook the utter strangeness and alienation from my natural place that this Ministry presented to me, this place could be pleasant. Up till now, that was. Macnair's attempt to strike me wasn't forgotten. This man knew violence, something I smelled on him earlier, and easily. I can imagine no other real reason for him to be here, other than to pose a threat, or carry one out.

All this I reasoned out while his color settled, and the chatter on what to do about 'the beast' and unreasonable demands droned on and dulled to a low grumble. Finally it was the Minister who cleared his throat, his stupidly yet appropriately round hat clutched between worrying hands, "Well, we have somewhat of an impasse. That is to say, I'm not at all happy about this."

At the man's halting and barely muttered words, I looked between him and his party with more than a little disdain. This was a leader? Were it my tribe and only these three to chose from, I would have happily taken the blood-stinking man before me! Rather than voice my thoughts, I sat quietly, waiting for this Minister to find his point.

It seemed I was to wait some time, if he kept on at his 'hmming' and 'hawwing'. The Undersecretary instead took up the man's point, "As distasteful as it is, we can't keep it – you – locked up any longer. Despite knowing full well what you are!" She made her displeasure at this idea known quite well, as her ugly, squashed face seemed to pinch into itself more, lending her such a look as I can't describe. Nor shall I try – I find my stomach unsettled in thinking on it.

For the first time it occurred to me that being moon-touched could be a crime among these people. What a... fool notion. Still, perhaps it was best I had not ever mentioned directly my nature. Were it a crime as I suspected, that would have been tantamount to confession. Still, from what they were saying... "So. You mean to finally release me?"

"Much as it goes against any sense, yes," the Minister muttered, shooting the door a cross look. "You will be released into the care of your family tomorrow, to resume the usual requirements of those under the Ministry's note and reach."

That last bit had me tilting my head and narrowing my eyes. Note and reach, I wondered silently, making a point to ask when the chance was upon me, what those notions meant. As my eyes lowered, they rested on Macnair – who noted my attention with a certain dark joy. "An' yer wonderin' why I'm here, reckon." A short nod from me, and he went on, "That's easy. I'm to remind ye. Slip up, girlie, and I'll be the one ta deal with yer sorry hide," he explained with some anticipation.

Oh, I planned to do no slipping, once they removed these damned silver things. But I'd not tell them that. Surely they weren't ignorant of my temper, regardless of my, as they noted, lack of changing. Maybe they thought me a throwback. Maybe they thought me harmless, but the equivalent of rabid – just a carrier, a potential threat. Nothing worth sparing a thought to, as surely this Minister had more pressing things to lend his attention to than one lost girl.

And I was was to be released to my family, was it? Well, all the easier to slip the noose. I doubted this family, if they cared so much about me as they seemed to from all the mention of them, would collar me as the Ministry did. Perhaps some time to learn, glean what I can, before escaping to the wood and wilds again.

I may not even have to kill anyone to do so. Pity. I had nearly decided to make my own way. Perhaps I shall have to return, one day.

–

If I had thought there would be a great ceremony or to-do about my leave taking of the prison as there had been with my arrival, I was doomed to disappointment. Early the next day, before my captors would deign it time to slip me a plate of what they must assume was food, I was visited by someone new – and disturbing.

She looked to be my age, perhaps a bit younger. Certainly she'd lived like most of the magelings who came and went, with soft looking hands, clean hair that fell in a dark cascade about her face, and eyes without the lines or creases of worry or much experience. It was as I noted this that I felt the first stirrings of unease, looking back into those eyes.

My own eyes, nearly. Oh, different for lack of experience and the lines that come with great joy and hardship, sure, but they were the same color, as mine used to be, and sometimes still were. Not gold, but the blue of the sky. Same hue, shape, and even glint of schooled mischief if I were honest.

The second thing about this young woman that took me off guard was her scent. Unlike most, she didn't affect some faux reek that set my teeth to grinding, but at the moment I wished she had. Recently bathed, her scent was clear and clean – and far too familiar.

"Um, I suppose you're... Fíona?"

I rose, unheeding of her words, and paced the length of my chains, staring. "It wasn't a lie..." Again I scented the air, eyes closed as I picked up the subtle things that marked us similar. Time and living had of course a huge impact on one's unique scent – much as each man had a dissimilar fingerprint, walk, voice. But I'd be a fool to ignore this, when it all but slapped me about the face. "What are you called?"

She seemed momentary taken aback, but steeled herself, standing with some reservation and dignity. "My name is Daphne. I'm the onl-oldest," her slip wasn't missed, and I winced in reaction to the things it brought to my mind. Despite it, she went on, though her voice lowered, softened, "Oldest daughter of the Greengrass family."

This Daphne had been sure her sister was dead for years, all my life in fact. Now she and I stood across from one another, and while my own means of knowing were likely beyond her, she had her own, "You still look like her," she murmured quietly.

"What?" Dragging myself out of my thoughts, circling me like crows over a kill, I blinked up at my... sister. "Who?"

"Astoria," she answered. "My sister Astoria. She had the same eyes... oh they change," She murmured, blinking. I suppose my shock wore off, and the gold had returned. "Still, they were that same blue, and was so pale and with the finest blonde hair..."

I knew those things well enough, having mused on them myself only a week prior. "She was lost some time ago?" I asked, faintly. My voice was weak and watery.

Daphne, for it was the name she called herself, nodded at that, "She was maybe three. We had taken an outing with mother to Hogsmead. A small village," she informed me, answering the raise of a brow. "One moment she was holding my hand, the next she was racing, or half tumbling, around a corner," her voice cloyed then, thickened by some sorrow. "I had only a glimpse. Mother even less, when she was snatched up by something huge and... just strange, into the Forbidden Forest.

"Mother never blamed me," she continued, and I could feel the unstated there. She blamed herself, obviously. "But... it broke her, somewhere deep inside. I'm not sure she's ever been the same," the young woman stated finally, a sad cast to her features. I was no stranger to guilt, and more than once I had been responsible for this or that child. To have had one's death on my conscious... Oh, that as well was nothing new. The wildewood was not a place that forgave mistakes or ill attention well, and the young and old were favored prey. But none of those were my kin, or blood.

Shaking her head, Daphne offered me what I knew was a rare smile – her face looked ill-suited to it. "But well, you're named Fíona, right?"

There was a bald hope in her words. "I was named such by the one that cared for me," I replied carefully, inclining my head slowly. I think we both knew that to stumble headlong into what we feared so would be foolish. I may see her truly, and she me, but we were not the people each remembered, or in my case didn't.

Putting aside such things was an effort, but I did so. "Daphne, why are you here?"

As if it were some trigger, the dark-haired girl before me jerked. "Right." Eying my bonds with obvious distaste, she pulled one of those sticks these magelings all seemed intent on flailing about with. "May I?"

Curious, and understanding her well enough I hoped, I raised my hands. She muttered some arcane words, tapped each-

And as easy as that I was free.

She repeated the process for both feet, and my neck. Shortly, still in slight awe of how easily she undid those bonds, we were off and she picked up a sack that by smell I could identify as having what few things were on my person when I was taken, inside. This she passed to me, and I took it greedily. There would be time later for thanks – I was eager now, the taste of freedom on my lips.

Some time later, and a ride in some indiscernible direction in a tiny closet of all things, I found myself staring at a most impressive statue. I had seen many, for the people within the wood like to make such permanent proofs of themselves, but this was... different. There were men, of course, but also some tiny being, another half-man sized, and then the impressive and altogether familiar form of a centaur.

What impressed me most, was the metal it seemed made of. I had never seen so much gold... and these people simply made statuary of it? Madness.

Daphne lead on, and I gleaned with some terror her direction. "No, you cannot be serious," I stammered, watching as human after human threw themselves into a fire, green as a leaf though it was, only to disappear, leaving nothing behind but floating ash.

She turned to me, confusion on her face for just a moment, before something dawned on her. "Oh! But you've never floo'ed," the young woman muttered, tapping her chin in thought. "Well. I can't apparate yet, and certainly you can't. If a floo disturbs you, I doubt the Knight Bus would do much less... and there's no way to get a portkey. Well," sighing, she shook her head. "I'm sorry, but this I think is the only way."

"Way to what?" I asked, a thread of panic in my voice. It struck me then that at no time in this Ministry, had I smelled clean air. Was this place a cave, or cavern? What madness, to live in such a place, secreted underground. I was no cave-dweller. My legs craved the open field, the forest floor.

Considering my obvious fear, Daphne took my hand – gently – and pulled me over to one. "Fíona," she began, and I noted how she spoke my name as if it left a taste of ash upon her tongue, "there is no other way. You'll need to trust me. Please."

I licked my lips and considered the room, the people, the madness that I had to watch. Why would these magelings all burn themselves to ash? They would not, of course. Some magic was at work, obviously. Daphne used it, or trusted it enough to think it a best option, as well. Could I trust her?

A better question, perhaps, was if I have a choice? Not once had I gotten the scent of clean air. Not once the sight of the sun or moon from this place. If to throw myself into a magical fire rested my only escape, I would take it...

I just hoped my sister knew what she was doing. "Take this," she instructed, handing me a handful of dense white powder. "And do as such," throwing some of her own into the fire, it roared a baleful green. "The Fields," she stated firmly, before looking my way.

My eyes remained on the green flames, till they faded back to red and orange. "What devilry..."

"You tell the fire where you wish to go, after tossing in the powder," Daphne explained, easing me back forward. I had not noticed I took a step back. "Green means it connected. I will wait till you go, then follow behind you. It's safe," she tried to appease me, though it did little good, to start. My trust in her wasn't solid yet, but Mother taught me a little problem solving. If I had only one way out... I would take it.

Stepping forward, I looked to Daphne, who again mouthed 'The Fields,' to me. Swallowing my fear, I threw my handful of cursed powder into the flame, and stated with more force than I felt, "The Fields!"

Green fire answered me, and I closed my eyes, stepping within.

–