Wolf of War
A Patricia Briggs werewolf fanfiction
Chapter Nine:
Taking a Stand
Ares stayed with the wolf bitch for a night and another day, until she grew cold.
On occasion, he attempted to hunt for small meals within the clearing for her to eat, but even when he brought her freshly taken mice, or even one lucky rabbit that he managed to surprise and stun, she took nothing from him.
Twice during that day, a wolf from the Marrok came to him, their scent telling him that he was being sought, that it was time for him to return to the human world. Once during the night, even the Marrok himself came to the edges of the clearing, and spoke to him, but even then, even despite the almost undeniable need to follow the command given to him, there was something in the wolf bitch that called to him just as strongly, a very weak yet immalleable sense that she needed him to stay, that it was imperative that he stay.
And so he did.
He ate the snack of those pair of mice himself, holding out against the hope that she would eat, until he could almost no longer control the hunger of his wolf. Still, she wouldn't eat. But still, he stayed.
He knew, finally, the moment when she was with him no more; he heard the last of her breathing, and then she breathed no more; her heart carried on for perhaps a few beats further, but then it too fell silent.
And still he stayed, just a little longer, giving his thoughts—his prayers—to the Creator, to Mother Nature, to the spirits, that the spirit of the wolf bitch would be at peace, and that, perhaps, even in taking from her, in defiling her ravaged body as he had, that maybe he had done some good, as well, staying with her to keep her from being alone in her last moments.
Finally, however, he knew he had to return, to face the consequences of disobeying the Marrok.
He was met at the treeline to the lodge by the Marrok, as well as by his sons Charles and Sam, flanking him. Ares sat down just out of their human reach, and after a few moments pause, began the process of shifting back into his human form. He figured, if he was in that much trouble that the Marrok himself was set come out to meet him, and if the Marrok wasn't in wolf or were form, that he could at least meet the Alpha of the Alphas in the same manner.
They allowed him to fully change; that surprised him, but he kept his hopes about what would happen after that, to himself.
"What am I to do with you, God of War?" the Marrok offered softly, his tone even and without much inflection or emotion, yet his voice carried well in the evening air. "What you must," Ares offered, not sure of exactly why, but somehow knowing that it was, if not the proper response, if was the right response.
"And what must that be?"
"I don't know," Ares returned, his tone as even as he could make it. "I don't know how…badly, my not returning when you called, when you commanded, what that means for me. I only know that I acted as I thought I was called to act."
"Oh?" the Marrok offered, curiosity coloring his tone this time. "By whom were you called?"
"I cannot give you the answer to that," Ares responded, "only that even as strongly as you commanded, another voice spoke even more powerfully."
The Marrok frowned slightly, and seemed to ponder his words. "Tell me your story," he commanded at length. And Ares did, and when he finished, the Marrok took even more time as he seemed to consider what he had heard.
"Your words seem to carry a great truth to them," he commented at length, "and they are the greatest reason why you still live, God of War." The Marrok paused, and then went on, "You are still a new wolf, and for your disobedience I should kill you now, to head off any chance of your becoming a rogue wolf, and to make an example of you to the others that disobedience cannot be tolerated." He paused once again, and once again continued, "But you are still a new wolf, and because of your words of truth, and because you intrigue me, I will let you share your truth with the rest of the pack, and take counsel from the pack as to what should be done."
"As the Marrok speaks," Ares offered with a slight flourish of a bow.
"Now you're just being obsequious," the Marrok offered with a wry, slight smirk. "It does not become you."
"Fair enough," Ares replied, "I can only hope that I will be judged positively."
"I will ensure fairness, at the very least," the Marrok returned, and then with a gesture to him, turned back, not to the main cabin, but towards a pole barn. Ares followed, flanked by the Marrok's sons; whether to keep him from running away, or to keep him from attacking the Marrok, he could only guess at, even though he entertained neither of those possibilities.
He stopped short, seeing the array of faces looking back at him as he crossed over the threshold of the barn, quite a few of them he hadn't seen before that moment; in all there were perhaps three, maybe even four, dozen persons, with all eyes directed at him. One pair that gaze his way sat in the face of a darkly olive-skinned man, not as dark as he himself, but not too far different, either; he—the owner of those eyes—was a somewhat wiry, compact man, not looking to be quite at tall as Ares, but the intensity borne in that gaze set his new wolf on edge.
Perhaps he let his own eyes rest a few moments too long on the man, the one he was almost certain that the Marrok had spoken of as the dangerous one, for those eyes seemed to intensify even more, and he could hear the very faint rumblings of what could have been anything from a minor clearing of the throat to the beginnings of a challenging growl.
He gave a gently dismissive gesture, a raising of his hand in a "okay, I'll stop" gesture and lightly averted his gaze. He didn't feel threatened by the older wolf—though his wolf was definitely not interested in challenging that one at all—but at the same time, he felt that it wouldn't hurt him at all to show a little deference, at least for the moment, and his wolf didn't seem to find that a problem at all.
"We don't stand much on ceremony in this pack," the Marrok announced as he stood in the center of the great room. "Our newest and wayward wolf has returned, fully aware of his transgressions. His reason is compelling, and I've decided he is no rogue wolf. So, let him speak his words, and let the pack give their counsel for what punishment he should face."
Ares didn't need his counseling degrees to know that the Marrok had basically just told him to repeat his story for the pack, and so he did. The Marrok gave him a few moments of silence at the end of his words, and then asked the pack if anyone had any ideas about what might constitute a "proper" response.
It was no surprise to Ares that Garrak was the first wolf to make a comment.
"Well, Marrok, since it seems that he thinks he's good enough of a wolf already that he can know what he should and should not do, even above the law of the Alpha, then let's see if he's good enough of a wolf to see him through a challenge," Garrak almost growled; his malicious grin, however, projected his glee for what he was about to say. "And since I already challenged him a couple of days ago, I think it would be pretty fitting for him to take on that challenge, right here and right now."
There were a few sounds of assent to that idea, from perhaps two or three others, and perhaps as many again murmurs of unintelligible conversation from a few others, but for the most part, the assembled pack seemed to be awaiting the Marrok's opinion of what the young wolf had suggested; his opinion wasn't long in coming.
"It is an idea that has some merit to it," the Marrok remarked, "does anyone else have any other suggestions?"
"I do," said a quiet, softly accented voice.
Ares could almost feel everyone turn their attention towards that voice; his inner wolf definitely took note.
Ares turned towards the voice, the rush of silence as well as the hairs at the back of his neck suddenly feeling like they wanted to stand up, telling him that the speaker was someone to be wary of, his eyes briefly locked with those of the olive-skinned man from before, 'the dangerous one' that the Marrok had implied; he was more than certain of that for himself, now.
The wolf in him gave him something that felt distantly like a mental whimper at the eye contact, and he could feel his wolf wanting to shy away, wanting to look away, do something, that made it so that the other wolf would not mistake his stare for a challenge of its own. Before he could rationalize his thoughts on the matter, the wolf managed to steal enough control from him to avert his eyes from those of the other wolf, who he was somehow certain felt that his behavior was 'proper'. The human in him bristled with that thought, and he resolved to have a talk with his wolf about that.
"What say you, Asil?" the Marrok asked; all faces turned towards him, and then back towards the other wolf, to see what he would say. Astute as he was, Ares took note of how the tension in the room seemed to shift between the Marrok and the one he called Asil, and wondered, if not for the Marrok, if Asil would have been the Alpha of Alphas. He had a hunch his wolf would likely think so.
"I think that he is more than capable of dealing with a challenge of one wolf against another," Asil offered, "Perhaps, however, a more fitting response might be, if he seems to have demonstrated his own cooperation with his wolf, then maybe he can help the other new potentials to find that same cooperation with their own wolves?"
A few different voices murmured in agreement this time, and he noticed a few heads bob up and down slightly, as though they might agree with the idea.
"That is also an idea that has merit to it," the Marrok remarked; he added once again, "does anyone else have any other suggestions?"
"Send him on a hunt," yet another voice called out, one unfamiliar to him this time. "If he believes he is in control of his wolf, then being hunted- I mean, being on a hunt, should be a piece of cake."
Ares turned towards the sound of that voice, and gave an unamused smirk at the rather blatant suggestion. The Marrok was offering something of a smile when he turned back to him, however.
"Yet another idea of merit," the Alpha commented. "I will certainly give that one some thought." He allowed a few further comments and murmurs, before he raised his hands in the air, silently asking for quiet.
"I will keep in mind all the suggestions given tonight," he spoke to the assemblage, "and will likely set this young wolf for many of them." He paused, then continued, "and as for the challenge issued by one of our young wolves…Garrak? You say you issued a challenge; usually I would not permit such for a new wolf, nor from a wolf still as new to your own wolf as you are. But for the sake of..." the Marrok grinned, a hint of mischief in his expression, "…of my curiosity, I will allow it."
Garrak seemed fairly eager, as he quickly wove his way through those between himself and Ares, moving until he stood only a couple of meters distance between them.
Ares paid him only the barest of attention, not looking fully at the other wolf until the last moment, taking his counsel from his wolf, listening to what his wolf was telling him.
This one is young, was the impression he got from his wolf, the impression not only of actual youth, but of lack of experience as well; the wolf gave what he felt was a chuckling growl, and then gave him a number of images that seemed to convey a sense of overconfidence. I were to guess, I'd bet that he's not as arrogant as he portrays himself to be, he 'told' his wolf; it felt very much like the wolf agreed with him on that.
The wolf 'nudged' him, and he got the idea that the wolf wanted to… well, not take over, as was his first thought, but to share in his control; he didn't see any harm in doing so, and let the wolf come closer to the surface.
Ares turned to face Garrak, and the other male seemed to go stiff, then very, very still. He couldn't help the smirk that was struggling to break free at his lips.
"Do you really want to do this?" he offered the younger male in a soft, quiet tone that nonetheless seemed to carry through to every corner of the room. Without thinking about it, he strained his senses a bit, and realized that he could feel the entire room, and that all but a few here and there had also gone still, though he wondered if that was the 'waiting to exhale' type of stillness, or if it was the 'waiting for the train wreck' type of stillness. "You decided to challenge me, before I was Changed. I'm sure you know that that wasn't…very fair of you. Maybe…we should let this go; what do you think?"
Ares watched as Garrak seemed to be trying to decide if he wanted to test him or not; he saw the decision the young wolf made in the gentle slump of his shoulders. "I take back my challenge," Garrak replied, his voice gruff and reluctant and quiet.
He felt the tension in the room ratchet down a few notches, before he 'felt' the Marrok's son, Charles, approaching him; to be fair, it was more from movement in his peripheral vision than from a true sensing of the other wolf within the man. He did feel the energy of the other man, and while one the one hand he felt that it made him want to turn and shoot him a look, on the other hand, he was also left feeling not all that eager to antagonize the man. His wolf gave him the impression of Charles being a bigger, stronger wolf, and he took that to be the reason for the confliction of his feelings.
"I'm sure I could offer a better challenge," Charles spoke, drawing his attention.
Again, Ares could feel the other wolf's energy, almost spilling out over him, and while it didn't feel hostile, it did feel…energized. Excited. He couldn't tell if he was serious or not, but his wolf didn't want to follow that particular path. Ares himself wasn't all that much interested in the challenge, either, and largely because he didn't want either the notoriety of even taking on one of the sons of the Marrok—let alone whether or not he stood a chance of winning—or the headache of whatever responsibilities being that dominant might bring. He was comfortable with however he and his wolf were.
He let his gaze meet Charles', and let it linger for perhaps a second or two, before shifting away. He didn't feel the same, almost needy urge to look away from the other wolf within, as he had with 'the dangerous one', Asil, or even the calm but powerful wolf shared with the Marrok, but he wasn't sure if that was because if that was because the wolf in Charles wasn't really wanting to offer a challenge, or if it was because his own wolf was wanting to offer up a challenge.
"I wouldn't doubt that," he offered to the other man, "but can I choose the challenge? I'd like to select gin rummy; I think I could give you a run for your money that way."
There was some laughter and a general sense of amusement from the assemblage of others.
"We'll let the Marrok see about that," Charles countered, and then turned towards the Alpha. "Should we settle our challenge with a game of gin rummy?" Ares could hear the amusement in the other wolf's tone.
"Perhaps we should go speak in private and set the rules for any potential challenges," the Marrok offered with a bit of a smile of his own, though Ares thought he could tell that the smile didn't exactly reach the older wolf's eyes. "And I have a few new questions for our new wolf here, so I will bring our meeting here to a close, and confer with Ares and Charles in my office."
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The Marrok didn't immediately take Ares into his office, instead asking him to wait until he requested for him to come and join the discussion. That left Ares in the main room, watching as the assembled folks who had followed them from the pole barn to the main house, slowly left the room, and the building.
Most of them, anyway.
Penelope hung back, and even to Ares it wasn't readily apparent that she was doing so until nearly all of the people in the main room had departed.
"So what's it like?" she asked, her voice quiet- a departure from her usually…unsophisticated and generally unconcerned demeanor.
"What's what like?" he asked back. Ares wasn't ignorant or unaware of what she was asking, but it was in his profession to insist on clarity, and by his standards, she wasn't being very clear about what she wanted to know.
"Being a werewolf. The Change. All of it," she explained a bit. "What's it like?"
Ares opened his mouth to speak, to say something snarky or witty or something that would make her give him a 'what the hell?' moment before she got it and rolled her eyes at him, but then he gave it a moment of thought; perhaps she really did want to know, maybe she was asking because she felt she could ask him, a…well, maybe not 'friend', but someone who she felt at least a connection with, as a colleague in this desire to become something more than who they'd previously been. Thinking that, made him think a bit more about what he might say to her, and it was a few moments before he actually spoke.
"All of it, it's hard to explain," he began, partly to himself, "but the Change, that I can tell you about. Somewhat, anyway." He paused, taking a moment to collect his thoughts, and then continued, "The Change itself is hazy, but I think that's on purpose." His gaze focused on Penelope more intently now than before. "They say that women kinda forget the pain of childbirth, because if they actually remembered just how badly it hurt, they'd never have children again. I feel like the Change is kinda like that; I remember that it hurt, and I can remember that it was horrible, but I can't exactly remember the pain.
"I do remember everything after that," he offered, and gave the woman a pointed look. She gave him a slightly vacant one in return. "The first thing that hit me was the hunger. It gnawed at me, like a physical creature, trying to tear its way out of my stomach, I was so hungry. It hurt. And then the smell of that deer leg hit me, and it was almost as good to me as the scent of you was when you were standing in the doorway watching me."
He paused, cocking an eyebrow to go along with his pointed look; Penelope gave him a confused look, which he chose to ignore.
"But when my hunger hit, and then when I smelled that hunk of deer, all I could think about was eating. I think, now, that I don't think I could have even thought about anything else but eating, right then, and I know I wasn't thinking about anything but all that meat until I finished it and I wasn't so hungry anymore. Then, I could smell you, and…"
He gave her yet another look, this one an expression of questioning and curiosity wrapped up into one. "…I think you might get what I'm saying? Maybe I shouldn't really go into it." He offered up a brief smirk, though the smirk faded as he went on.
"But, for me, before the Change, I was…I was all by myself, up here," he gestured to his head. "I don't mean like I was alone; I mean like, there wasn't anything in me that wasn't just me. But after the Change, I wasn't alone; I wasn't all by myself, up here. And it's like another part of me that I didn't know was there, but now I know it's there, and it has a helluva lot of influence on me, and I have to figure out how to live with that part of me now."
"As far as being a werewolf," he offered up a faintly sly smirk, which only lasted for perhaps a couple of heartbeats before fading away, "well, I've only been one for about a day; I don't think I can tell you a lot about it, other than so far, I think my wolf and I get along well enough."
"I said you'd be an interesting one," a male voice startled the two of them, though even as he was turning towards the owner of the voice, he already knew that it was the Marrok. "It would seem that perhaps you just might be."
Penelope was even more surprised than Ares himself was, and she seemed almost to shrink away from the Marrok as he approached the pair. The Marrok seemed to both take notice and remain oblivious to her reaction, and he assumed that the Marrok had decided to give more attention to the new wolf—him—than to the not-yet-a-wolf. That seemed proved when the Marrok spoke again.
"God of War; we should speak now," he said to him, his tone neutral but his bearing stiff and formal. The wolf in him seemed to 'feel' like he was due for a chiding now, but refused to 'cower' for doing what they both felt was right. I guess it's time to face the music, he sighed softly, bracing himself for whatever was to come. The Marrok turned and headed back to his office, and he followed.
Charles closed the door behind him when he had passed through the door, and though Ares did his best to try to stay calm and collected, he gave the slightest hesitation to his steps. He knew himself well enough to know that he wasn't as blasé as he was trying to be; he didn't think that the Marrok—or Charles—would kill him for his disobedience, but punish him for it? Yeah, he could imagine that; were he in either of their shoes, he would probably have to.
"Now," the Marrok began, his tone light and fairly quietly, but with the rail of steel that told Ares that this wasn't going to be a conversation, so much as perhaps something closer to an interrogation, "tell me everything, from the moment you rushed out of the door after your Change, until your return. I want to hear not just what happened, but how you and your wolf managed the either situation."
He started with how he had felt from his first moment of awareness after his Change, though the Marrok hadn't asked him to go back that far; but he felt that it was relevant to explain his later actions, feelings and thoughts. Neither Charles nor the Marrok seemed inclined to interrupt, letting him tell them about his conversations with his wolf and how they had ultimately agreed to 'teach' one another how to live with the other, and to live in the world of the other. He almost didn't see Charles go still for a moment at some of his descriptions of his 'discussions' with his wolf, but long being a study of people and their body language, he could tell that something in his words had some significance to the other, older wolf.
So too, to the Marrok, by his comment after Ares had finished his story.
"It would seem that you and your wolf share a strong connection," he offered, his tone seemingly neutral to the new wolf. "I think, in light of that information, I will punish you by having you test the strength of that connection.
"You, will help the survivors of the next round of the Change, assist in helping them to become comfortable with their wolves, and then lead them on a hunt."