Chapter Text
France was beautiful in late spring. The countryside was filled with blooming splashes of color that, while not quite as vibrant as in day, were still quite pretty lit by moonlight to the eyes of Elayn and Serana as they made their way down the road. They spoke as they walk, and the odd traveler with courage enough to brave the road at night would notice that there was a third member of their conversation, one that spoke from one shadow here, and then another there, until it seemed as though there were multiple speakers.
There weren't, of course. Salem just enjoyed being as ghostly as they could manage.
"I'm just saying," Serana said, with the reasonable tone of someone who has tried to argue their point with no success. "If we're descended from children of Poseidon, then why don't we share more in kind with fish? I don't breathe under water, I just don't breathe."
Then where is your metal leg? Salem asked with the patience of someone speaking to a small child. And how often has Hecate commanded you to her will?
“Poseidon hasn't done much of that either,” she argued back, and anyone could see she was hiding a smile beneath her frown.
Elayn let her ears pick up the conversation as it went on, without focusing on it wholly, so that she also heard the sounds of the forest around them. It was because of that passive perception that when the few birds that sang at night went quiet. It was the only warning the party received before the bushes exploded, and a heavy weight bore Elayn to the ground while claws ripped into her back.
“Elayn! Get off of her!” Serana shouted, and the beast above her yelped as it was hit by necromantic energy and went flying.
Her back on fire beneath her now-shredded clothes, Elayn shoved herself up in time to see the beast gather itself. It's eyes opened as it stood, and she got a good look at wild silver eyes and a familiar, furry shape before it was racing at them again, teeth bared.
Elayn acted without thinking. She rushed to put herself between the wolf and Serana. Hunched forward, eyes wide and teeth showing, she brought a snarling sound from the depths of her chest and turned it into a bellow that shook the leaves of the trees around them.
It was all over as soon as it had begun. The wolf skidded to a halt and turned tail at the sound of Elayn's fury. When it was gone, Elayn stood, and spat contempt in the direction it fled.
“What on earth? That was no ordinary wolf,” Serana said, sound shaky but sharp, which was fair given how sudden the attack had been.
“No, it wasn't,” she said, peering through the trees as though she might catch a glance of the creature that attacked them. “That was a werewolf.”“
Are you sure?” Elayn asked for the sixth time, pacing while Serana readied herself to sleep the day away in an inn they had found in a town not too far from where they were attacked. Certainly not far enough for the approach of dawn to be much of a threat. It also meant the town they were in might be well within the territory of the wolf who had attacked them.
“Yes,” Serana repeated, hiding what little exasperation she felt. Or, she tried, only to get a frown from Elayn. “I've told you enough times, luv,” she said, smiling to ease the sting in her words. “If you want to stick around and investigate, I won't argue with you.”
Elayn looked ready to argue against her own case again, so she seized on a different topic. “Do you think there's a pack out here?” she asked.
It worked. “There might be,” Elayn said, finally sitting on the edge of the bed. “There's a few French packs, not that I've met any of them, but my p--” She made a face like she'd bit into something sour. “I knew they existed.”
“So maybe the wolf we ran into just thought we were intruders.”
“Maybe, but--” Elayn frowned, and twisted to rub the more or less healed lacerations on her back. “Whoever it was, they should have been able to smell I was wolfborn, and we would have settled it traditionally.”
Serana raised an eyebrow. “Traditionally?”
“It would have been an upfront fight, not an ambush.”
“Sounds civil.” She sat on the bed and tried for a winning smile as she nudged Elayn. “Well, whoever it was, maybe it was a mistake, and you'll have a second chance at a real fight.”
Elayn started to look hopeful. “Do you think? Maybe.” She looped an arm over Serana's shoulders and pulled her close for a kiss before she stood up. “You get some sleep, I'm going to find some food before I hit the pile.”
“You enjoy that,” Serana said, or tried to say, as a yawn ripped through her jaws before she could complete the sentence.
“Sleep well, my dark beauty.”
As it happened, it was soon to be dawn, so the innkeep’s daughter was just heating up a big cauldron of pottage for the guests who would soon be waking. The bowl she handed Elayn was still half cold, but she was too hungry to find it in her to complain as she sat at the bar to dig in.
When she was finished, she pushed her bowl forward for the girl behind the bar to collect. “Thanks,” she said, trying to be friendly. “Was good.”
Despite her single-syllable grunting, the girl's face flushed with pleasure. “I've been making it long enough,” she said. “It ought to be decent.”
Oh good, she spoke English. Elayn tipped her head, then looked at the door while silence hung between them. The girl went back to her chores, and Elayn watched her from the corner of her eye while she watched the rest of the inn. The kid was young, maybe seventeen or eighteen, and it seemed to Elayn that her mother should be the one handling the early morning chores. It didn't seem polite to ask about that.
“Heard any interesting stories?” she asked, out of some foreign need to fill the silence. Forsaken moon, she spent too much time traveling with company if she didn't still appreciate the beauty of silence.
Fortunately, the girl didn't feel the need to drag out her awkwardness. “My father runs the inn, of course I have interesting stories.”
Elayn could appreciate her frankness. It seemed that this girl might know something. “What about wolves?”
Suddenly the girl's boldness fled, and the color when out of her face. “Oh. Those stories.”
Before she could get the wrong idea, Elayn hurried to say, “My traveling companion and I almost got attacked on our way in. I managed to scare them off, but it was a close thing.”
“You're lucky,” the girl said with a shudder. “We've found many a skeleton left by those wolves, not many people come through these days. The beasts have even started attacking in the day.”
It wasn't hard for Elayn to school her expression into one of shock, mostly because she was actually quite shocked. Werewolves didn't normally hunt humans, out of the respect for the fact that humans were quite destructive in mobs, so it was best not to be the thing in the night they feared. Luckily, there were plenty of other things in the dark for the humans to fear.
But hunting in the daytime? They were begging to be destroyed, if not by the humans then by other packs who saw them as a threat. Werewolf packs didn't always get along well, but when they cooperated, they could move mountains.
Her shock looked real enough that the girl hurried to assure her, “But don't worry, the king will send men soon to deal with the vicious beasts, and we'll be quite safe again. I'm sure if you leave in the daytime tomorrow you'll be fine.”
“Actually,” Elayn said slowly. “I think we'll be staying a little while longer than that.”