The Wolf & The Witch

The witch didn’t die through the night- the wolf kept her warm. He kept frostbite off her ears and nose, and he kept ice off her toes, and he kept her alive yet another frozen night. But, perhaps, the witch kept him warm and alive as well.

Claire woke, surprised to discover she was holding the wolf’s head against her chest, her arms wrapped tight around him, pulling his face into her cleavage. “Ugghhh, god damnit,” she groaned to the morning. Her joints ached, and her ears and upper back were cold, but her body was warm. Why did it have to be some goddamn fucking wolf? Of all the men on this earth: filthy chimney sweeps, under-handed tax collectors, even the men who shovel shit all day at the stables- any would be better than a wolf. If she ever saw the priestess again she was going to stab her through the goddamn heart with a dull iron bar. Claire’s feet ached from the cold and constant pounding as they ran over rocks. Her knees ached. Her hips, and back ached, and she needed a bath, and food. And she wanted to let go of the wolf, but didn’t- she was shivering, and trembling, and the day was frozen, and he was warm.

She sighed; she remembered waking a few times through the night, and she remembered the way he had held her- protecting her against the cold as much as he could, and she wasn’t sure why he cared about her freezing to death. She twisted the left side of her mouth up. She really didn’t want this man to be the first to ever put his face, or lips, against her chest; she didn’t want him to be the first to snuggle his face up in her breasts. She always dreamed her first kiss, and her first time, would be with some dashing gentleman, perhaps a slightly older male witch with a little gray in his beard, or the intelligent son of a wealthy merchant- certainly not a wolf. “Goddamnit,” she growled, but held him a minute more.

Lestat woke to soft warmth: firm, soft, squishy pillows that engulfed him. His face felt comforted, and peaceful, and he could hardly breathe, and for some reason his brain was perfectly fine suffocating. He pushed his face down into a heavy line of soft warmth, and she slapped the back of his head and shoved him away. He sat up, joints aching, feet cold, fingers cold, face warm and red, and blinked awake. He looked at the witch and tugged on their cuff. “Let’s go.” He was hard.

She averted her eyes. “Do not,” she commanded, and held her right hand out in an effort to shield her eyes from his nakedness.

“Do not what?”

“You know what,” Claire said through gritted teeth.

“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but this is how I wake up when I actually get to sleep a little.”

Claire covered her breasts and stood- she had noticed and didn’t like it. “Do you not know how to say good morning?”

“Good morning, witch. Let’s go.”

She glared at him in the dim light of the cave; cold was starting to sit on her now that they weren’t cuddled together. “Where?”

“To catch a coyote. Do you not know how to say good morning?”

She narrowed her eyes down at him, which caused her nostrils to flare and the top of her nose to crinkle. “Good morning, ass.”

They shivered and trembled as they crouched down behind a thorn bush, waiting. It took over an hour in the early morning for the coyote to come back to the stream, and it took most of the morning for it to dig up whatever it was after. And they waited. The air sapped their heat and gave it to the half inch of snow, melting it into the cold ground.

Two hours later the coyote was exhausted, panting, and tugging at the hard edge of a large turtle. “Take a shot,” he whispered.

Her hair sounded like breaking ice as she turned to look at him. After how badly she missed yesterday? He must be insane- the cold must be getting to him. “Fuck no- you take-“

“Throw it,” he whispered, then, “I’m not left-handed.” He shook their cuffs- his right hand, her left. “Throw it, and we run the second it leaves your hand.”

She swallowed. His faith in her ability to throw an iron bar was nice and all, but he was still giving her orders, which pissed her off. Claire said a prayer to all the gods she knew, hefted the bar, stood, aimed, and hurled it. This time her aim was better- the iron bar hit the coyote in the side, breaking its hip. It yipped, and barked, and took off, and the wolf and the witch gave chase.

They pulled the turtle out of the bank first, retrieved their iron bar, then followed across the long open red fields. Two miles on the coyote ran along the edge of a leaning forest, like old people out of chairs, stooping over. The wolf and the witch followed, not yet tired. The sun was a cataract in the sky, and the shadows it cast were pale and short.

The coyote darted into the woods, past tall, hollow beech trees and through years’ worth of leaves and roots and bark gone to black soil. Mile after mile, the wolf and the witch kept up with the coyote.

“God… Damnit!” Claire huffed. “What… the… hell.” How far can a goddamn dog run on a broken leg?

“Who… knew…”

She glared at him the way the sun glares at stupid children dumb enough to look at it. “This is… all your… goddamn fault.”

“You think I… spend my… spare time training ca-” he coughed, and stumbled, nearly sending her to the ground, but he caught her, and they ran on, gasping for air, the trunks of tall trees whipped by as they ran. He wheezed, and tried to say something, but couldn’t. The damn dog was losing them.

“Must be… some… comeback,” she wheezed. Her feet hurt so badly she seriously doubted she would be able to do anything but crawl tomorrow.

“I train them for… morning endurance and stamina- just to… fuck with you.”

Claire was too tired to respond to his idiocy and stopped, pulling Lestat to a stop. Her chest pounded and her vision swam. It would be dark in a few hours and they had accomplished nothing but carrying a damn turtle across this dying countryside, beating the hell out of their feet, and expending all the energy they didn’t have. They stood in the cold day, cuffed, naked, leaning against a dead beech tree, panting, wheezing.

They collected dead branches, lichens, and moss and built a fire against a stone outcrop. They made a small shelter of sticks while the turtle cooked. They dug through the ground and heaped piles of cold, wet, black dead leaves onto the sticks, then they crawled in and sat down together and ate, and both were happy to not be running, very happy to be eating, and very happy to have a small fire. It had been six days since either had eaten, and their bodies responded to the warmth, and the food, with exhausted sleep.

Night came, and with it more snow, and once again the wolf and the witch snuggled up close together, and they both dreamed they were snuggled up with someone else, in a bed, under blankets, with socks on their feet.

Lestat woke to the tip of a sword pressed into his neck. He glanced up- one soldier looked down at him, and three more behind. He heard horses in the distance.

“We knew you two would be back,” the soldier said. “Get up.”

Lestat put his right arm over the witch, shielding her nakedness from the soldiers. “Give us a second,” he said, his voice still asleep.

The soldier took a step back, but didn’t look away, and didn’t lower his sword.

This is interesting, Lestat thought. For soldiers to be here meant either a camp, or a city, was nearby. Which meant food, and warmth, and safety. Except those five little words- we knew you’d be back. Lestat knew, beyond any shadow of any doubt, he had never set foot in this land before. He nudged the witch, and she turned over to face him, her eyes still closed.

“What is it?” she said, drowsily.

“We have visitors,” he said, then lowered his voice, and moved so that the soldier couldn’t see her. “Stay behind me. Keep your mouth shut.”

She opened her eyes and glared at him- him and his goddamn orders were getting really old, but then her brain processed what he had said- visitors? She looked out of their little stick shelter at the four soldiers. Excitement rose in her throat, and chest, and her eyes lit up- they were saved! “Oh thank G-“

“Shhhh,” he hissed, and covered her mouth.

Her excitement eroded into contempt as her eyes turned from the soldiers to the wolf. “Ghet ur han off ah outh.” That was the second time he had covered her mouth, and she liked it less and less each time.

He removed his hand from her mouth, and slowly crawled out of the shelter, the tips of four swords pointed at his chest. He turned to help her and looked at her as sternly as he could; he threw her off balance on purpose by tugging his right hand down, then reached to catch her, and whispered, “They think we’re someone else. I smell wolf on them. Be careful, stupid witch.”

Claire looked at the soldiers, and their swords, and worried. They weren’t wolves, but that didn’t mean they didn’t work for one, or weren’t ruled by one. Either way, they didn’t look like they were willing to share a coat. One of the men came up and slipped a chain around their cuffed wrists, locked it in place, and tugged them naked through the frost to his horse. The chain held- it didn’t turn to dust like everything else. The soldier hopped up, adjusted himself in the saddle, and two soldiers rode in front, pulling them along, and the other two rode behind, swords drawn, their eyes never leaving Claire’s delicious round ass.