Work Text:
The grand chandelier above the dining table shone the warm candlelight down below, illuminating the large space with light that spread to every corner, aided by a couple of tiny lamps equally displayed on each of the four walls.
The ceiling high above presented colorful frescoes that had recently been painted, multiple recognizable figures in action, surrounded by fauna and flora, ethereal entities aiding them from heaven, fighting against the dark powers.
The fire gleamed down, the candles flickering tiny amounts of warmth throughout the large space.
Its main attention settled on the mahogany table, stretching meters in the middle of the space, on the smooth marble, it set two particular figures in the spotlight.
One wearing a thick fur cape, dyed proudly a rose red, the glimmering golden crown sat atop his chestnut brown hair.
“You are no hunter, Slab” The King's rough voice explained, clear anger laced in with pure annoyment.
This is the problem;
He’s mad, extremely and utterly, unmistakably furious.
And Etho sat there, at the other end of the table, only acquiring the echoes of his majesty’s speech. He understood it, yes, but it really did make the rebellious nature sparkle in his heart.
It burnt, burnt a heated, dancing fire in his chest. It warmed his lungs, melted his ribs, twirled his brain into a tangled mess of cells and neurons. Like masked royals dancing in the ballroom, focused on their own being, their spinning, the skirts’ rising and falling, the ties’ swishing from side to side as the space around them turned into a blurry vortex of colors.
Passion. He was passionate, the ambition tore holes in his body.
He was ambitious.
And most definitely, too stubborn.
“Your majesty, I understand” he nodded his head in response to the King’s judgement. The King’s words were holy, the most important in the universe, one which mustn't be disobeyed, worse even, straight up ignored. “It was foolish of me to try and investigate,” he went on, unsure of what his tongue was leading him on. “But–”
“No!”
The yell echoed throughout the dining hall, startling the soldiers standing by the entrance doors. The wine glasses on the butler’s tray shuttered, the rich, red liquid waved from side to side white foam forming at the edges.
Etho was, as much as he wouldn’t like to admit it, as taken aback as the rest of the King’s peasants, wide eyes staring at the majesty’s, fear sparkled in the dark and red of his unique iris.
“I apologize, Your Majesty” he bowed his head low in respect towards the higher power, eyes closed, proving his devotion towards Him. With Etho, so did the rest of the people supporting the walls of the dining hall.
It was a ritual, a rule known by all. Simply, if you didn’t bow your head to the King, it would land in a basket filled with the rest of the defying citizens’ heads, blood the only contrasting color against the pale faces and light purple bruises. Right next to the shining guillotine near the town hall.
—
Etho escaped.
The hooded cape flew dramatically behind him, the wind swishing between threads of badly sewn material, the cold of a midnight forest getting under his skin.
Roads, or rather misplaced footsteps of people who had done the same before him were barely noticeable in the eerie darkness. The lamp that swung, held by his shaking hand, provided just enough light for him not to crash into a tree and get caught.
The woods surrounding him felt closer and closer with every weary step, as if every time he’d blink, they took a step towards him, their branches expanded, ready to grip his limbs and tear them apart. The bushes shook weightily near him, awaken animals escaping the human kind.
He ran, even though it wasn’t the ideal move on his side. Nobody was chasing him as of the moment, no one even knew he was outside the Kingdom, in the dangerous forest surrounding him.
But he knew the moment the sun rose above the horizon, the sky exploded in a palette of reds and yellows, the stars hid behind the sun, the moon shied away, its time long gone past, the hunt was going to begin.
The King would realize his best researcher was gone.
He would send soldiers to cover every inch and cranny of the Kingdom, the villages, the forests, the caves. Etho would inevitably be caught, his sickly blond, almost white hair a stain of red on a white tablecloth, a black sheep in the gloomy woods.
He was done for, all he could do was wait for the burning star to wake, for the dozens of footsteps belonging to the Kingdom’s troops to set off and search for him, for his head to be sliced clear off as the sharp trapezoid blade glistened in the afternoon light, the cheers of standbyers as the blood splattered on their faces from his neck, the terrified gasps of children held by their proud dads. For him to be the example no should follow.
Yet for now, as the moon shone red onto the world below it, the colour of torture, of injury, of hurt painted the satelite with strikes of what Etho found beautiful.
A Bloodmoon. One night when the universe was frightened, when the monsters came out, when every being hid from sight, that one moment the streets were entirely empty, the lively chatter in pubs transformed to whispers, the Kingdom was an absolute ghost town, only the candlelight beaming weakly from the windows a proving it truly was just a bunch of fearsome humans.
The only night where they came out.
The werewolves.
Etho, aside from being a researcher, rotting in his lab for hours on end, scribbling words on paper, drawing prototypes with graphite, getting his brain cells running a rat race around incredibly dull and pointless orders, was interested in other topics as well.
The primary topic, undeniably, werewolves.
Keen on the creatures, he tried every single book in the grand library of the Palace, read all the words, every letter, every point at the end of a sentence. The stacks of papers hidden below his hard bed possessed every spec of knowledge he had acquired from the pieces.
However, as most researchers do, he yearned for more.
So the sudden rustling of leaves nearby, a sudden and obnoxious sound, made the adrenaline spike higher than any peak or any tower. It rose to the sky and further. The grin on his face spread manically, hidden only by the scrap of cheap material he had managed to steal from the Kingdom carpenter.
It was thrilling, as the sound kept on getting louder and louder, his heartbeat a speedy pitter patter, the excitement only hardened, jumping around from branch to branch, rolling in the moss, weaving through the leaves.
He ran towards the sound, mind spiraling with possibilities, ideas, contemplations and theories. The buzz in his ears was like honey, the feeling of threads connecting, of the mindmap finally being one neat presentation about the abstract creatures.
The dark, scary in one’s eyes, everstretching forest was a wonderland. It was heaven, Eden incarnated, a majestic miracle, a godsent utopia.
Fireflies sparkled in the depths, resembling the stars towering above. Their wings fluttered near patches of purple flowers, making the petals glow and illuminate the undestined, endless woods.
They all flew away, faded into the fog as the sound shattered their usual uncanny calm of their land.
It ran from one side to the other, Etho could hear it once in his right ear, a second later in his left one. It broke twigs on the ground, scratched the barks of trees, weaseled through the bushes.
It was undeniably a creature, a fast one, too.
Etho’s smile widened at the thought, beaming like the brightest star in the universe
A werewolf!
Next second, his back was against an oak tree stump, the energy of a powerful shove sending him flying towards it, where he bumped harshly with a grunt. The old, brown bark crumpled behind him, the pressure of weight on it sending crumbs of wood down towards the wide roots his feet were balancing on.
His head panged against the tree, sending a prolonged shiver down his spine and a piercing migraine up to his brain, making his skull ache from the collision.
His eyes hesitated opening, eyelids heavy and unable to lift up, face what was that had ambushed him. It was an instinctual move, the tinge of scaredness pumping his heart on.
Yet a growl, a deep, rich and chestful sound so loud in his ears made the adrenaline spike. His eyes slowly fluttered open, like wings of a butterfly setting off from a flower, a moth escaping from the lamp once the candle inside had burnt out.
Before him, sharp, long white fangs bared their glory for him to see. All blade jagged teeth symmetrically spread in the clenched jaw. The moonlight peeked through the leaves sending sparkles to its big, blazing yellow eyes, sharp pupils like a snake’s probing through his soul.
It was majestic.
“Woah,” he absentmindedly mumbled, astonished by an encounter with an actual, real, existing werewolf.
The creature’s face had a visible fuzz on it, a short layer of fur that speckled thicker by the end of its human face, like a man’s beard, except for the fact it spread all over it. A caramel brown by its nose, a deep black where its mess of brunette curls began.
Ears poked from its hair, relatively big, spiky ears that were bowed down in a show of anger. Fury was clear as reflection in purified water, visible in its expression, its limbs, its tail that swished slowly from side to side, not an enthusiastic wag like the stray dogs in the Kingdom, a deliberate, calculated, timed motion of left to right.
From Etho’s immediate analysis of the werewolf before him, he figured it was a male.
A significantly more aggressive, protective of its territory, with darker marking than a female would have, the human–wolf creature was, without a doubt, a man.
Although, knowing no other researcher had the guts to step outside the protective walls of the Kingdom, the precise drawings in the dusty books he had found in the library might have been a little, if not incredibly, outdated.
Species’ appearance changes over the years with the transformation of environment or way of existence, so the werewolf gender roles might have been reversed over the years of the human kind ruling over nature, carelessly setting their Palaces and Kingdoms over the homes of a being that did nothing to deserve such treatment.
Either way, Etho was thrilled, and he wasn’t about to waste such a wonderful interaction.
“Are you a female or a male?” he asked without prior thinking, ignoring the constant formidable growling. In the back of his mind, the high possibility of dying stuck like an unmovable boulder. Werewolves, in spite of being one of the most interesting creatures he had ever heard of, were deadly and monstrous, unafraid of kill, of murder, of tearing his skin from his body.
But even if the bloodthirsty creature did not kill him, his head would be cut off by the guillotine once he comes back anyway.
And it would be an honest delight to be beheaded by a live, astonishing, powerful werewolf.
“I–Wh–” It ruggedly stuttered, words clearly not coming easily to it after the transformation. “Male.” the werewolf stated, not a blink flashing in its eyes, just a stern, eerie stare on Etho.
The man hummed in response, unphased by the sharp claws pressing against his neck. They were the usual temperature, different to a dagger or sword’s death bringing blade. Maybe even a little warm, considering the magic of werewolf transformation surely created warmth emitting energy.
“Are your claws normally this warm or is it because of the transformation?” He quizzed, pulling himself closer to the claw to decipher any more secrets that laid beneath the hard texture of them.
”Do you want to die?”
The werewolf interrupted, the rumble of his voice louder than any being’s, than the Priest’s at the chapel, the King’s during an announcement of a defence act. His thick eyebrows furrowed down in anger, its breathing heavy and groaning.
“Well, no,” Etho admitted, squeaky from embarrassment, his hands fumbling before him in a desperate attempt to picture what to tell to something he had been secretly studying for years. “But it would be an honour for you to do it and not–not the King or his foolish peasants, If I were to be honest”
The werewolf exhaled a breath of disappointment, his expression close to an absolute deadpan at the human’s words. In an instant, he gripped both of Etho’s gliding hands, pinning them to the tree behind, leaving the man unable to move.
His claws dug into Etho’s wrists, slowly seeping into the flesh with an uncomfortable sound.
Etho would wail, or at least grunt uncomfortably if not for the fact that it was so interesting to watch the werewolf in its natural, hunting habitat.
The blood crinkled from the wound, the smell suddenly filling the air with a thick and salty fragrance. The red leisurely dripped down, leaving stains on his pale skin, passing through the material of his dark sleeves, like the morning dew sliding down weak leaves in droplets of water.
His eyes came back to the werewolf’s finding them crinkled in a relaxed manner as he observed the blood ooze from beneath his white claws.
“Does the sight of blood bring a stop to the hunting instincts?” The man blinked down at the werewolf, enthralled by the unexpected reaction.
“...Maybe” He muttered, yellow eyes never breaking contact with the pulsating wound, pupils following each drip as it lazily travelled like a stream of water down his skin.
His answers were short, child–like with no further explanation. Simple, undetailed.
The werewolf seemed to enter a trance, its previously fury filled bared teeth out of sight, replaced by a tiny line below his nose. A face of dissociation, near confusion that, at the same time, mingled with a tinge of concentration, strictly on the man’s burning wounds.
Etho hissed as the werewolf pressed his claw deeper, reaching further into his defenseless body. The blood squirted out the skin as though the pure sap from a peaceful dandelion.
One lone fang stuck out of the werewolf’s mouth, white contrasting with the caramel of his centered fur. It resembled a human’s tongue in a state of deep concentration.
Etho was entranced by every action, every word, every piece of evidence that werewolves were undeniably real. Every sound and breath he took. If only he had paper and an inked feather he could write with, he could muster up a whole encyclopedia of research he had gathered from both the encounter and the decades of reading other informatory works.
Slowly, as if prompted by Etho’s worsening blood loss, his claws travelled back to the surface, away from the stabbed muscles and red wrists. By the time, the man couldn’t feel his wrists anymore, the only sensation a tiny, spiky buzz that made his hands tremble.
His arms fell down abruptly as the werewolf let go, watching as the blood sprinkled down onto the ground like rain above a lake, the sound of a blood drop swiftly moving down through the gloomy atmosphere of the forest.
“I think I was correct” Etho chuckled lightly at how dazed the werewolf seemed, how its eyes looked down like a timid, shy girl’s in the Kingdom’s downtown. How they didn’t change their straight direction of the wound, still trickling red from the wound.
The creature curiously glanced up at the researcher, its iris without the previous fury it held, a blue tinge of calm settled.
Werewolves were always, no matter which book he would pick up, described as deadly and unforgiving.
Staring at the brunette creature, he was positive that was not the case.
He looked, aside from the ears, tail and a visible layer of fuzzy fur all over his body, like a human of skin and bone. A normal being of his variety with feelings, thoughts, emotions, relationships and love blossoming in his heart.
Werewolves were undoubtedly beautiful.
“Do you have a name?” Etho queried, taking advantage of the other’s lack of bloodlust, his odd serenity, his normalness.
“I do,” he answered, voice barely above a whisper, unfazed by his previous tone of voice, his growls or barks, he was a steady ship, no boulder in its way. “I’m Joel, at least that’s what they call me” the shrug he made was so eerily human Etho self–oblidged himself to note it down in his memory.
“Who calls you that, Joel?” The name felt strange on his tongue. The animals in the Kingdom were never given human names. From The King’s stead, Eclipse to the stray cat that visited him in the research chamber, Clurp, they all had a unique title just for them only. A werewolf was not fully animal nor human, however Joel wasn’t at all within the pet names spectrum, instead, on the far right of the man side.
The werewolf hesitated, ears flicking to the side at the question in puzzlement. His pupils staring daggers at Etho’s it was impossible to look back from such a piercing gaze. Yet his mouth stayed shut, no answer forming behind his dagger sharp teeth.
He was an interesting specimen that Etho was highly willing to investigate.
“My– pack used to call me that,” he muttered, an uncomfortable expression spreading over his face. “They’d left me since then…but the name stuck” his reply was an emotionless shrug.
However, the slight lowerage of his ears towards his skull proved otherwise, the slight tremble of his paw–ish hands, the shudder that shook his fur like a spider web when a fly would crash into it.
Etho, at that exact moment, of a creature acting so painfully human, expressing sadness, longing and grief, felt a pang of sympathy. His heart, normally stiff as a rock, crumbled down in his ribs.
He knew, it was clearer than the air itself, that Joel was not a human but a merciless, deadly monster of the night. But one with feelings, that had a family, had somebody by his side to trot through the forest, to pick berries with, to run around the grassy meadows barking without a care in the world.
If a hunter, a simple minded, nearly brainless hunter would approach them, they would scatter into the bushes, fading into the thickness of the wilderness.
Even if they would all set off into different directions, in a matter of time, they would find each other, a bond keeping them together as though with a rope.
One day, somehow, by means Etho did not know of, that rope was cut. As though with the sharp blade of a sword or the guillotine as it hungrily reached for his neck. A slash of the Heir beheading the King at the battlefield, a knight bringing a poor slave’s life to an abrupt end.
It was unexpected, and heartbreaking.
—
The light of the campfire Etho had managed to set up made the forest surrounding them an enjoyable warming orange. The fire sparkled every so often, spitting out dark ash from its core and endlessly huffing out smoke to fly above to mingle with the wind, dance with it, gray the blowing wind’s greatest best friend, dancing as the happiness of a reunion twirled around them.
The dance was gentle, slow and deliberate, letting the two beings below observe how each stroke slowly faded out of existence, up to the heavens where it laid its feeble soul forevermore.
Etho has never been much of a poet, but he expected spending time nearby such a breathtaking creature could bring all the wonders in the world towards him.
Joel laid down beside the campfire, his face illuminated by the ember, highlighting his burning eyes that watched the angry flames flicker. His face was set, a slightly crooked line for a mouth, like a grumpy cat’s, eyelashes batting when the hotness of the fire sent uncomfortable burns past his eyelids.
The researcher was sat right at the werewolf’s side, the creature’s brunette mop of hair nearly touching Etho’s knee, single loose ahoge sticking forwards, seemingly stretching out just enough to meet the fabric of his pants.
Their silence was peaceful, Etho let Joel stay quiet, while Joel let Etho observe him without consequences, make dozens of tiny remarks in his brain, take steps towards his remote dream of writing an encyclopedia on werewolves.
His primal observation of the creature’s behaviour was that it was strangely calm. At first, when Etho had entered his territory, he was furious and unwilling to let go of his prayer. However, once he had seen blood, it was like a person blowing out a candle at once. Abruptly and unannounced, his lust for violence switched to a stoic state of calmness, of silence and steadiness.
Joel also didn’t like loud noises, his ears pressed flat against his head as a trebuchet fired a boulder far away or a scream of tortured slaves rang through the tree leaves all the way from the remote castle chambers. His enhanced hearing made the sounds way more pronounced, which resulted in being able to hear much better than Etho ever could.
When the researcher found out how much as a pitched scream pained Joel more than ever, his questions became less and less frequent and significantly quieter than before.
So the two of them were only piercing holes through the campfire with their eyes, never glancing away to see if any troops were out during a bloodmoon to catch them, not stealing a peek at each other despite Etho’s obsession with learning more.
He had enough, some questions that lingered in his brain were never to be answered but he was endlessly grateful that Joel didn’t brutally shred him to pieces the second he saw him.
Joel was in fact, the very opposite of what all the books, the creepy tales and the threats told Etho. The werewolf did attack the researcher, like the stories said, yet only because it was his territory. As any other animal, he was incredibly protective over his territory, ears piping up at every little noise, his tail swishing with awareness, paws gently stepped on the ground below.
He was purely a mix of human and wolf, yet with a handful of quirks that only his kind had. Etho adored that about him, his uniqueness, that one of a kind feeling he got when interacting with Joel.
“This may sound strange,” he voiced abruptly, watching Joel’s eyes flutter open, revealing the radiating yellow iris. The creature was laying on his side near Etho’s thigh, letting the campfire warm his fur and ragged clothing. “But can I stick around for some time?”
The silence panged strangely, Joel blinking as he considered the suggestion. Although his eyes were empty, mindlessly observing as the fire danced before him, Etho was hoping he would at least acknowledge him.
“Why?” His voice was calm, croaky from staying quiet through the night.
“I’ll be executed on the spot when I return to the Kingdom” The researcher admitted timidly, facing the unfortunate truth of having broken the King’s rules. Life was over for him, not an ounce of hope remaining in his heart or even a thought that maybe the King would be merciful and spare Etho’s existence. He was done for, coming back to the Kingdom was certified death. “And before I do so, I want to get to know your kind a little better”
“Why would you want to when you’ve got death staring down on you?” The werewolf wondered. He glanced up to observe how Etho's eyes squinted down. “There is no point in befriending me if you’re going to leave either way” Joel plopped on his back, now fully able to look at the researcher as the man uncomfortably twirled his fingers into the material of his cape.
“What if I stay then?”
The werewolf clicked his tongue, ears twitching up whilst touching Etho’s leg. “That would make more sense, huh?”
Etho was enthralled with the creature's vocabulary. The analysation of said fact drifted him away from Joel’s comment. The werewolf was highly intelligent, able to read another’s emotion and act upon it. His wording was rich for someone who, as Etho thought, hasn't had many opportunities to speak the human language. Did he communicate with his pack in animal ways or in English, as he has been with Etho the whole time? The thought gripped him tighter than the guillotine’s blade could do so to him against the cold stone pedestal of the town square.
“Hello? Earth to the human?” Joel’s voice seethed with annoyment at the researcher’s dissociation, his call waking the man straight up from the phase.
The werewolf also knew idioms–
“Ahem,” He interrupted his own thoughts, having caught himself getting carried away as usual. “Apologies,”
“So…?” Joel blinked at the person above him, curious eyes blinking in the light of the fire.
Was the werewolf encouraging him to stay? To get away from death and live beside an entrancing, magical being with endless things to learn about?
If that was the case, Etho wouldn’t for his own life, bring the offer down.
“I’m staying.”