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The woods are nice. Ylfa likes to sit there, sometimes, surrounded by trees and birds and squirrels. Little creatures scurry this way and that, and she can just sit and listen. As much as she loves her friends, her family , it can be nice to get away. Maybe she’ll even see a caterpillar with a butterfly again.
Sometimes she goes to the forest for a reason. Ever since everyone rewrote their stories, redefined their destinies, she’s become more thoughtful. Or maybe that’s just what happens as one grows. Either way, as she’s come to terms with what death is, she almost feels as though her old self has gone, too. Not in a morbid way, or a way that makes her sad. Ylfa just knows that she is markedly different from who she was in the beginning of this whole adventure, can hardly remember the girl she was before.
It’s not grief for her old self that draws her to the towering oaks. Rather, it is the want to remember her old self. She does not want to be that young, naive girl again, but she does want to remember who she was. Ylfa never wants to forget herself, even if she becomes unrecognizable.
Today, she simply feels like going on a walk. Ylfa has the entire forest basically mapped out in her mind, it sometimes feels more like home than her actual house, so that’s where she goes. It helps that she may be able to visit her grandma’s cottage, where she spent so much of her childhood. It’s nice and quiet there, and sometimes she runs into an old friend on the way.
Ylfa makes it about halfway there before straying from the path. She has been told more times than she can count to never stray, but she has learned a lot since then. How can she stay on the path after all she has learned about straying? There are risks, of course, but she is who she is because she decided to stray. It also helps that she is a personal friend of Death’s. In some versions of her story, she and he are one. Death isn’t all that scary anymore.
Flowers bloom in a field not far from Grandmother’s. Ylfa decides to rest there for a bit. She lays back, red cloaking surrounding her. If she were to see herself from above, she would probably say it looks like a scarlet pool of blood around her. She can’t see herself, however, so instead she just closes her eyes.
“You’re far from the path, young one.”
Ylfa grins at the deep voice that feels like it rumbles through her whole body. Her eyes crack open, and make contact with the Wolf’s. She closes her eyes again, and sighs contentedly.
“Yeah, I know,” Ylfa says. She tries to keep from squirming as the grass tickles her face. “The path is boring though, isn’t it. Plus, it doesn’t have all the wildflowers that I can find off of it. Bo-ring.”
The Wolf huffs, but he sounds amused. Ylfa can hear him shuffle, then she feels a large body next to hers. Now there’s fur and grass tickling her face. It makes Ylfa want to sneeze, just a little bit. She doesn’t, though.
“You are willing to risk a lot, for a chance to see a small fraction of the beauty in this world,” Death muses. He presses his nose against Ylfa’s arm. She squawks, yanking her arm away from the cold, wet muzzle. The Wolf chuckles as he watches her, and she glares.
“Well, that was the point, wasn’t it?” Ylfa asks, wiping her arm off in the grass. “To be able to see beauty in things that are a little scary? Going off the path isn’t scary anymore, anyway.”
“Isn’t it?”
“How could it be? I am personal friends with Death. I’ve already come to terms with the inevitability of it all. It isn’t scary to me anymore.”
“That does not mean you should seek me out, young Ylfa.”
“I’m not seeking you out,” Ylfa defends. She sighs and turns, cuddling into warm fur. “I mean, I like seeing you. Obviously. You’re part of my family. But I’m not seeking out death. I like Death, not death.”
“As incomprehensible as that sounds, I understand,” the Wolf says. He curls around Ylfa, and it feels like protection. Death isn’t quite as suffocating as people would think. “Still, is it not nicer to be with your friends, at home?”
“But this is home to me, too. And I love my friends, my family. Obviously. But sometimes it gets to be… a lot. Like, I’m not an outcast among my family. We did this together, you know? Obviously Rosamund and Timothy don’t think I’m weird for thinking the way I think, or acting the way I act. Everyone else is the issue. They all seem to be torn between thinking I’m a hero and thinking I’m a freak. They usually look at me like I saved all of them, which I guess I did help do, but when they think I’m not looking, they look scared. Like I’m gonna wolf out and eat them all.”
“Will you?”
“What?” Ylfa pulls back to look at the Wolf, whose dark eyes seem to look past every part of her. They look into her. Not in a way that feels like prying. It’s comforting. “No, obviously not. I mean, if they turned evil and started attacking people, then I might wolf out. I wouldn’t eat them, though.”
“Then why does it matter?” Death asks, unblinking. Ylfa flops back, and the Wolf rests his head on her chest. She begins petting him, running her fingers across his ears. He leans into the touch, and she smiles despite herself.
“It’s just tiring.” Ylfa loses a bit on the tension in her shoulders as she pets the Wolf. She sighs. “I don’t want to feel like I’m constantly having to put on one version of myself. It feels like I can’t ever just relax, because I’m too laser-focused on seeming normal. I don’t need to be normal here.”
“You do not need to be ‘normal’ there, either.” The Wolf’s tail thumps against Ylfa’s leg as she scratches behind one of his ears. He looks up at her carefully, analytically. Like he cares about her, and what she says. How she reacts. It’s nice. “Why can you not be Ylfa?”
“It’s just hard to be Ylfa and a wolf when there are so many people watching me all the time. I thought I understood how to balance them, but that was when I was just with the people who already got what it was like.”
“Hm. I don’t know that this is a problem I can fix for you.”
“I know,” Ylfa sighs. She looks up at the sky. “I’m trying to work on it. Get better at being myself, whoever that is. It’s just hard, sometimes.”
“I understand.” The Wolf nudges her again, and moves himself closer. Ylfa lets herself be enveloped by his warmth. She always hears about death being cold, but she thinks it makes more sense for Death to be warm and welcoming. “Well, I am here until you figure it out. You know where to find me when you need me.”
“Thank you,” Ylfa whispers, before shifting in order to bury her face in his fur. “I just wanna stay here for a while, please.”
“However long you want,” Death affirms, “I will be here.”
Ylfa falls asleep there, with Death curled protectively around her. When she wakes, he is no longer with her, but she knows how to call him back if she needs him. She doesn’t. Instead, she walks home, a little bit of the weight off her shoulders, in order to have dinner with her family. Timothy is making steak for dinner, she’s pretty sure, and Ylfa refuses to miss that.
