The Wolf & The Witch

“Start talking.”

“About? You might have the worst timing of any human I’ve ever met. Why would you wait to ask about kissing when we’re fighting cannibals? We just spent three days walking across empty fields. Why not then?”

She turned to face him. They stood in the middle of an empty cobblestone road, the village burning around them. Their hands and shirts were splotched with blood. Their faces were splotched with blood. The village burned and crackled. A house cracked behind them- support beams broke and fell in and embers swam around them like fireflies. “We don’t have any choice but to answer each other, right? We both answer with the truth, right? And you’re going to answer first.”

The front face of a two-story house crashed in on itself behind him and kicked up a wave of hot air. Their hair whipped around their faces for a few seconds.

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Then make it work. That way. For me.” She bit her lip.

“I-“

“Please.” Buildings burned, and Claire felt the heat, and the flames. She knew what he was going to ask and she was afraid of answering. Not without knowing his answers, first.

Lestat looked at her hazel eyes, sparkling in the light from roaring fires. Cracking and breaking and popping and the roar of oxygen feeding the flames, and behind that a man’s weak groaning, and behind that the sound of thumping, and stifled thuds, coming from metal tanks. He forced her left hand open with his, and laced their fingers together. “Ok.” He turned and led her down the burning street, the cobblestones bright with the light of orange fires. Past the well, past the guard shack, down the dirt road. He unrolled their blanket and she helped him spread it out, and they sat side by side, watching the village burn.

Lestat was thirsty, and wished they had water. “Blowjobs?” he asked.

She nodded.

“I was young. Thirteen, fourteen. And I was on my own, and living in an alley, and this witch found me. She was nice, and pretty, seventeen, eighteen, and she fed me, and bought me clothes, and she told me she loved me. We were walking one night, and she tried to kiss me and I pushed her off, then she pulled my pants down, and… I didn’t push her off.” Lestat paused, remembering. “She was older, and I didn’t know what to do.” He sighed. Hindsight. He knew now why she had been after him, but it didn’t matter.

Claire looked down. Living on his own. At thirteen? So he wasn’t just out getting blowjobs from random women all the time? Recently? That was too long ago for her to be mad, and now she felt bad. “Then what?”

“I refused to have sex with her. So she had someone punch her, reported me, and I spent a year in jail. And I haven’t seen her since.” And Lestat assumed after that she found some other kid to get her pregnant. He was pretty sure she intended to get pregnant, say someone raped her, have an abortion, all to get out of an arranged marriage and maintain her freedom, or pursue the man she actually loved. Pretty smart plan.

“Then… what?” Her fire was dying, and her anger along with it.

“Then… there were no more blowjobs. What do you mean?”

She looked at him. “… then what happened?”

“I got out of jail and lived on my own. I ate scraps out of garbage piles. I wore rags. I worked whatever jobs I could find. I survived. I had those few blowjobs I would rather forget. I’ve killed many people- wolves, men, witches, and women, old people, probably even children- I would rather forget them, too. I’ve stolen money, horses, food, clothes... I’ve dug up corpses. I’ve… I’m sorry my past bothers you; it bothers me, too.” He sighed, and looked at the burning village. Every day was a new sin. How long had he added to that side of the scale? Forever? “There’s a lot of things I would change, and a lot of things I would do… differently.” His voice fell apart like paper- unfolded, the creases flattened, the words erased.

Claire looked down at their blanket and chewed her lip. His voice was heavy, and low. She looked up at him- his eyes were the same. Regret. She pulled his shirt up, looked at the cut, and lowered it. She opened her pack and dug around for bandages. She unlaced his shirt, and slipped it off over his head, and cleaned the cut, and bandaged him. And she chewed her lip the entire time. “Am… I… is meeting me one of the things you would change, or like to forget?”

Lestat looked at her. He so wished the story of his life was written in watercolors- his mother and father, hunger, pain, homelessness. Loneliness. Isolation. His mother. Sins. If his life was written in watercolors he would take the book, and hold it in the waters of a deep, cold stream and open it page, by page, and watch as the words, and the colors, washed away and ran off in the currents, leaving nothing behind but empty white. “No. I would not change meeting you.”

Claire looked at him and offered a weak smile. Another building fell in on itself with a loud crash.

“I’m sorry for punching you, and stomping your toe, and cussing you. I’m sorry for getting distracted, and mad. I get… carried away, sometimes.”

“Then tell me why,” Lestat said, and squeezed her hand. “Why wait to ask me questions, and why are you so jealous?”

Two questions, one answer. And it was easier to answer, at least by a little, because he answered her first. “Because I…” She paused, and looked out at the burning city, and the long fields, and the broad, black night. She took a long, slow, deep breath. She started to answer, and then stopped. Goddamn this promise. Never lying is not an easy thing to do. She scooted around in front of him, and forced his right arm around her waist, and sat in front of him, taking his lap. She reached around with her right hand and pulled his other arm around her, so he was holding her from behind, his arms wrapped around her. She waited, and a second later he tightened his arms and pulled her close, back into the shape of him. “I’m falling in love with you, and it scares me, and it’s making me jealous. I’m positive the more… the closer we get- the closer we are, the more jealous I’ll become.”

Lestat took two breaths, and lowered his face into her hair. He inhaled- she smelled like the forest just before rain, leaves upturned, waiting. “And the other?”

“Some…sometimes I get nervous, and afraid to say things, or ask you things, and then when we fight, or we’re in trouble, you’re all… you’re all amazing, and brave, and it makes me brave.” She bit her lip. She did not want to tell him that much. This goddamn promise. She wondered if he would allow them to replace it with something diff-

“I’m falling in love with you, too,” he whispered, in her ear, and squeezed her. “And it scares me, too.”

Claire shut her eyes, and held tight to him. Her heart unwound and fell out of her chest in ribbons, past her ribs, trying to escape, and with his big arms wrapped around her, he kept her safe, and he kept her close, and he held her heart in, and put it back in place. She saw little speckles of orange in the corners of her eyes, the edges of tears, and she blinked them away, and smiled. She let him go and pulled away just enough to turn and sit on his lap, facing him. She put her left hand behind her back as she took his lap, so that he was holding her. “Am I really the first woman you’ve ever kissed?”

“Yes.” He put his left arm around her, so he was holding her with both arms.

“So you’re just naturally amazing at kissing?”

“Am I?”

Claire blushed. Shit. Goddamnit. She looked down and away. “I didn’t-“ Shit! She nearly lied. Goddamn these fucking promises! She jerked her hand free and started to slap him, to distract him, to change the subject, to- Fuck! He was locking her down with these stupid fucking promises. “You know what- I don’t have to answer everything you ask.”

Lestat smiled at her and poked her side and she jumped. She was stunning illuminated by the pale white light of a full moon and the fierce orange blaze of a roaring fire behind her. So she thought she was only brave when he was? Lestat knew that she was plenty brave without him. She didn’t need him to be brave, but if her strength, and her bravery, came with a jealous streak, so be it. However- “If you get jealousy, what do I get?”

Claire tilted her head. Jealousy wasn’t necessarily bad. Neither was stubbornness. Hotheaded people are nice. Loud, fiery people are delightful. And then she blushed- she was pretty sure she knew what he wanted by the look in his eyes, and she was pretty sure she was ok with it. “Morning kisses. Like this?” With me sitting on your lap, in your arms, pressed tight against you.

“And goodnight kisses, like this.” He put his left hand behind her neck and pulled her mouth to his- she didn’t fight. Their lips touched, and he kissed her softly. He reached his hand up into her hair and grabbed a fistful, and slowly tilted her head sideways, and forced her lips open, and took her tongue, and her breath. She ran her hand up his side, up his stomach, to his chest, feeling his muscles. She broke free of his kiss, and hug, then kissed her way around his face, to his shoulder, checking his injuries, and kissing them. She kissed his cheek, and nose, and eyebrow. He reached down with his left hand and touched her side, and felt her skin, cool, and soft, and ran his hand around to her lower back. She kissed her way down his chest to his most recent wound, and kissed the top of the bandage, then she went back to his mouth.

The occasional scream in the night, a home crashing in on itself, and the roar of a plains fire, was the perfect lullaby for the wolf and the witch, and they slept peacefully, and happy, and warm, and snuggled up in their blanket.

They woke, and packed, and walked into a village of ash and ember. They found the unpoisoned well- the basement of the tavern, and it was full of dead people, and ash, and sewage, and covered in black timbers- they could not drink that. They found no blankets to take with them, no extra coats, no inbred potato mules. The storehouses of food were destroyed. Whatever weapons might have existed were glowing embers. The fields were destroyed.

Lestat kicked the black blade of a metal shovel out of the ash and picked it up. They had a shovel blade, a small hatchet, a bow and 10 arrows, no food, and no water, and were probably not dressed well enough if they were about to walk into ice, as the woman had said.

The wind gusted and wisps of ash swirled in the air. They left the destroyed village, side by side, hand in hand. Out of the ash and into the early morning shadows of the tree line.

The wolf and the witch took a deep breath, looked at each other, nodded, and stepped into the dark forest.