The Wolf & The Witch

Claire had thirty feet of rope tied around her waist in an effort to cover her sex, and it wasn’t working, and the cold rain, and the wind, wasn’t helping. She also had the iron bar in her right hand, and she had her right arm across her breasts. And every time she stumbled or shivered she accidentally hit him with the bar. Not hard, but still…

He had the last chunk of wooden door the city had to offer under his arm with a length of threadbare tapestry holding it together. “Do you think you could walk like a normal human?”

“Normal. F-funny.” She wasn’t just shielding her breasts from him- she was trying to warm herself; she had never been this cold in her life. She could see her voice with each word, and each breath, in the white cloud of her voice; other than a rope around her waist, she was naked.

It was fifty-five degrees. It was also the middle of the day.

They followed the stream along the base of a long line of mountains, walking, and running, and stumbling forward, one mile, two, five. The ground gnawed at their feet like gravel and glass but they didn’t bleed- dust and clay filled the cuts.

Claire was paying no attention in their run across this barren field, when all of a sudden he jerked her to a stop and she nearly dropped the iron bar. He grabbed her hand- the one cuffed to his, and held it tight, and stopped them.

“Let g-“

He spun and glared at her, eyes wide under sharp, heavy eyebrows. “Shut up. Be quiet.” He dropped the door quietly to the ground.

She glared back, but shut up. Maybe he found a migrant camp selling chicken noodle soup and goat cheese biscuits with those amazing ears of his. Her feet were burning, and the longer she stood, on the cold, hard ground, not moving, the worse they burned. Drops of rain gathered in her brown hair and ran down her face and neck, and pooled at her cleavage, against her forearm, then spilled over and ran down her stomach, tracing her skin the way a lover might with the tip of an icicle. Then she decided not to shut up. She didn’t have a lover, and she didn’t like icicles. “I’ve told you three-three times now-“

Lestat jerked her right wrist behind her back, pinning her and shoved his left hand over her mouth, pushing her head back. “Shhh, god damn it,” he hissed. He glared at her and turned his head, listening. Rain ran down his face- his cheeks, over rigid shoulder muscles, and down his broad chest, getting stuck in his chest hair.

“Lhet mhe ucking o,” she ordered, her voice low, and he slowly uncovered her mouth, then turned his head. He kept his arm around her, pinning her right hand behind her, which had the effect of pulling her body into his. The iron bar was still in her right hand and she couldn’t hit him with it pinned behind her.

“Don’t make a sound,” he whispered, and let go, and crouched, pulling her down. Lestat led them quietly up over a ridge and down, following the stream and stopped them at a low thorn bush, the leaves not even dust at their bases. And on the other side of the bush was a coyote, digging in the hard dirt close to the stream. Lestat waited- the obvious thing to do here was let the stupid dog wear itself out digging a hole, then attack it. And maybe it had found something edible in the hard ground. Either way, coyote meat was better than no meat. So he waited.

Claire raised her right arm and leveled the iron bar like a trained soldier, stood, aimed, and before Lestat could stop her, she hurled the bar at the coyote. It missed by a wide margin. The animal jumped back, looked around, sniffed a couple times, and ran off, across the stream and towards the hills on the other side. Lestat shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. Being stuck with this stupid woman could only be the doing of the witches. Gods were not this goddamn cruel.

They grabbed the iron bar and took off through the stream and out into the long fields on the other side; they were soaked, and their feet bled from multiple scrapes and cuts, and they damn near caught the coyote- but didn’t. It outran them.

They walked back in silence to the stream, crossed it, and could not dig through the clay and stone- not with their hands, not with stones, and not with an iron bar.

They went to retrieve the door, and tapestry, and it was gone. They searched and could not find neither.

Night was coming and he led her across the plain, to a hill, and she kept her eyes on the ground, and shivered, and trembled, and never spoke.

It was fortunate Lestat saw a cave in the distance because, by now, it would be the middle of the night before they made it back to the dead city. He led them to a dark nook between the toes of a tall, black mountain, but stopped them before going in. There was fuel around for fire, but it was meager. Handfuls of rotting, wet grass and wet thorn bushes. But if they could catch that damn dog tomorrow, they would need a way to cook it. He reached his hand down into a thorn bush, scratching himself in the process, and pulled as hard as he could- it didn’t budge. He shifted, and brown fur ran down his body, and he reached further down into the bush, and heaved with all his strength, and slowly, root by root he pulled the bush from the earth. He pulled three more up.

The cave was black and cold and small, with just enough room for a fire on one end and two people on the other. He pushed the thorn bushes to the side to dry, and laid down on the rocks, forcing her to lay down. He pulled her right hand behind her back, their wrists cuffed, and pulled her against him.

And once again, he was warm and she hated him for it. But this time she also hated herself, just a little. “Sorry. For… messing that…that up.” They hadn’t eaten in five days. Tomorrow would be six, and hunger was starting to hollow her out as much as the cold.

He started to speak, then stopped himself. He shifted, and fur ran down his body, and his muscles tightened, and his eyes lightened in color, the hazel now flecked with gold, and he grew warmer. He wrapped his arms tight around her, then his legs, and pulled her up against him. He trapped the bottoms of her feet between her thigh and his, to keep them warm, and cradled her head between his left arm and his shoulder, covering her ears. He draped his right arm down her back, covering as much of her as he could, and held her balled-up hand in his, to keep it warm. He lifted her and turned her in his arms just slightly, so that her body was against his, and off the cold stones, and held her tight.

Claire’s feet ached from running on rocks all day, and her ankles and knees ached, her head hurt, her skin felt like paper that was starting to tear, and she was starving, and she was freezing. Snow drifted down, and the wind came into the cave with long, white teeth, and she was so cold, and she missed her home in the woods so badly, and she was so afraid. “I don’t want to die,” she whispered to herself, to the dark, too quiet for him to hear. She clamped her eyes shut against the coming tears, and clamped her jaw shut to keep it from shaking, and she stopped her lungs, so that her chest didn’t catch and trip as she tried to inhale- she did not want this wolf to know she was scared, or weak.

But the wolf heard.