Just an Old Legend

I'd like to thank the many readers who provide a bit of feedback now and then. For one thing, it let's me know if I haven't done something as well as perhaps I should have. The comments that I've seen for this tale tells me that I've left one or two scratching their heads and I take that as my failing. If I was a better writer, I might have avoided that. ~shrug~ In my defense, I'll say that this tale has twists and turns, but it shouldn't give you a headache either.

So with that said, allow me to make a few things a bit clearer. Ion is the boy of long ago. He lost contact with the girl and later was married, but left his homeland to start a farm. In the meantime, his wife was bitten, and he knew nothing about it until she arrived to join him in their new land seventy years ago. In this chapter, you'll hear his recollections in his own words, but to answer a comment from a reader, he has never left the island after being bitten.

It's a long, long swim to the mainland. The danger in winter is that the area is a vacation playground to many and the frozen channel echoes with the whine of many snowmobiles for most of the night. He'd rather not be caught out on the ice, since whenever he's been in contact with humans, it usually ends with their deaths, since they shoot him. It's an incorrect assumption he's made.

He'd try to fit in if he had some way to, but he has no clothes anymore, and based on how he was treated when he was a man, he thinks he'd stick out like a sore thumb as soon as he opens his mouth. He knows nothing of the multicultural aspect of today's society. Back then, he was one of the few immigrants for miles in that area. And of course, there's that other thing that he doesn't know about yet. To get by in today's world, you need some kind of identity.

So do the munchy thing if you need to, and dig in. This will be a long one. Oh, and I've added a glimpse of the Huntress again for her um, fans. :)

I should point out that I know nothing of the established ways of the packs that appear in the tales of others. These are my werewolves, after all.

--------------------

He sat in the shade of an overhanging tree with her pad of paper and the pen. He kept looking at the thing. Almost all of his writing had been done with a pencil, and he'd used an ink pen once in a while. Ballpoint pens were something brand new for him, being commercially available on a wide scale only just after he'd come to this country, and back then, he sure didn't have money to try out anything new. He'd seen them in the store, but had needed nails. The choice had been easy for him.

He looked at the paper again. He had a couple of pages of terse notes now. A lot of this had been difficult for him to write for a few reasons, but every time that he'd balked at putting something down, he remembered Elena's request and was hopeful to solve this question for her. All of this was hard for him to do. But he knew how he felt, and she'd said that she'd felt the same way. Loving someone could be hard enough without his curse now affecting even this.

It made him determined in his quiet way. Anything, any detail that he could smile at and interpret as somehow cheating what had robbed him of the life that any man had some expectation to be able to live, well it brought him pleasure now. All he'd wanted was a life with the woman that he'd loved, to maybe have children with her, and then grow old together. All of that had been torn from him with her awful bite that one terrible night, just as the bite that she'd suffered before had cheated her - as if she hadn't had enough to worry about.

Well she'd been dead and gone a long time now, he thought, and he'd suffered for that and more. If this could work between himself and Elena, well he'd welcome anything with her. He already knew that it would be impossible to tear himself away from her now. She liked to be close to him, it still amazed him. That she wanted to find a way for them to ... he shook his head. He didn't know for certain, but he strongly doubted that Danaya, as much as she'd loved him, could have brought herself to want to do this if it had been him with this thing in him beforehand instead of her. He looked down at his list, and doubted if he could think of anything more. He put the list on the deck of the house and began to walk to the dock. Just as he got near the ridge, he heard her boat, and walked to where he'd be able to see her.

Their meeting brought them both to laughter. Helen loved the picture of this wonderful man stepping into her view completely naked, and hoped that he'd continue to do this for her once in a while. He laughed at her slightly shocked and very pleased smile, even more after she'd told him that the sight had made her think very hard about just throwing off her clothes right there.

With her purchases put away, she taught him how to work the clothes washer and drier. He'd looked a bit askance at her, and she already knew the thoughts there. She asked him to examine the machines, and tell her what parts of them indicated to him that they were only for female use. "That's right, my friend, there aren't any. If you were here as a normal guy, you'd have to do this too. You're normal enough for this. I'll show you the things of mine that you can't just dump in and crank. I'll wash those myself. There are a lot of things that we're different in, Ion, but there are more that we are the same in. I can't do what you do, and you can't do what I can, at least not yet, but there are common things, so you do your half, and I'll do mine."

He nodded with a smile. She thought she'd have more trouble with it, but she hugged him and showed him how to make coffee the easy way with instant. Then she pulled out the clothes that she'd gotten him. Almost all of them even fit him, and she was amazed. She loved how he looked in a T-shirt, but after looking at him a little while, she asked him to take it off for a while. He had a bit of trouble with her explanation that if he kept it on, she'd want to rip it off him, so why not just spare the shirt, she'd said, as she handed him another one to try on.

Helen promised him that now they could go into town and get him the kinds of things that would fit properly and suit his activities better as a farmer - just to start with. Ion began to protest at the cost of this to her after seeing the price tags on a few things, but she explained a little about inflation to him and pointed out that he'd need clothes to wear no matter what, and that seemed to settle him down.

She asked him about the list and he produced it. His face took on a bit of a somber look.

"Understand, please, Elena, we were poor people. I worked long time to have money to come here and begin. Elena worked long and hard and I sent money when I have some for her to come. When she came was war, and still she came here, and all alone." He looked down, "I do not think that she was bad."

Helen hugged him, "Of course not, Ion. I didn't think that she was anyway. I only see this as something terrible that happened to you both. There's no way I can know how you must have felt, but I'm trying to understand, and you don't have to tell me what you don't want to, either. I hope you know that. I only need to know what I asked about. Try to tell me like it's a machine that is broken and what you saw."

"Danaya was beautiful girl," he said, "and always very shy. When she came here, I think I see that she is not shy so much anymore. I think this is good thing at first." He went on to relate a sad tale that included Danaya's depredations on their cattle, but Helen stopped him.

"Ion, forgive me, but you're telling me the facts like I'm interviewing a crime suspect - and that's not what I wanted, but I'll listen whenever you want to tell it to me. I wanted things like how she was different as your wife."

"Yes," he nodded, turning the page, "I have this too." and he began to read what he'd noted. Helen made notes of her own on some points. When he was finished, she made them some coffee and sat down next to him. "So she was more argumentative, and moody, but you thought this might be because of the isolation of your home here..."

This carried on until Helen had worked out some things about their sex life and how it had changed. Danaya had become more assertive, which Ion had initially welcomed, but he began to detect a worsening pattern after he found out about her new nature - that is, that she was a werewolf. She had always been deathly afraid of becoming pregnant because her health had been so frail, but now welcomed him and wouldn't hear of him withdrawing when he ejaculated. She began to change her form in the middle of coitus, and now wanted more than anything to be mounted from behind. She sometimes grew dissatisfied with this position and would then prefer to be on top. Ion had no problems with any of this, though he wasn't as attracted to her in her middle form and refused to have anything to do with her as a wolf.

She tried to beg, plead and cajole him into allowing her to bite him, saying that they could still love this way and how it would be better because she knew somehow that she could give him children this way. At last one day she told him that it was only a matter of time before she bit him in any event, but by then he had already seen firsthand the destruction that she was capable of, and though it broke his heart, he prepared to kill her, fearing for the people of the town. One night, she demanded sex while he was in the milking shed, and tore most of his clothes off before climbing onto him. Ion had taken to keeping the shotgun nearby wherever he went, and it was close enough for him to reach. Danaya had laughed at his carrying it around telling him that she didn't fear it, but she did not know about the slugs that he had cast and used in the shells.

Ion looked up with tears in his eyes, "She bit me then, Elena. And then she laughed. She said that now she had her way, and I would be wolf too." He wiped his eyes with his hand, "It hurt to move my arm, anything, I pushed her with gun, and she laughed again, but I shot her. She flew back and up and she hit beside the door and fell. I went to her." He took a deep breath and sobbed. His voice cracked as he said, "She was my Danaya again, but she told me I am fool before she died."

He was silent a long time, and Helen hugged him and thanked him for telling him such a painful thing. He asked her if she had what she wanted, and she said, "Not everything yet, but I have what I need, I think. I just have to think about a few things. What I wanted to know must be in there someplace," She looked up, "But let's not worry about that for now. Come here," she said as she pulled him to face her part way, and she shifted the rest of the way to lean in. She kissed him very softly for a few minutes and then pulled back, "You're not a fool. You're a man who has lived through a very long hell." She touched his hair and smoothed some of it behind his ear, "Can you go on? What happened after that?"

He took a breath, but then looked into her green eyes and smiled at least a little, "Thank you, Elena. For doing this for me. I feel better, a little bit because of telling you." Elena nodded as a way to encourage him.

"I did not know what would happen then, but I was did not want to leave her there like that." He took a deep breath before continuing, "I was crying very hard," he said, "but I picked her up and moved her to middle of the floor. I - I went to the house and came back with some lamp oil. I poured a lot on her and the rest I poured everywhere and lit it. She had killed all of the cows anyway and the horse too while I was working for a farmer near the town to get money for silver. When I was sure that fire could not go out, I tried very heard to clean blood and where she bit me. I wrote a letter about everything then. I do not know why I did this. I came back to be sure that she was burned. I stayed until there was nothing very much left. Then I ran to the end of the island. By the time that I got there, I was beginning to change, and everything hurt. I do not know how long I was like that, but I woke up and I was like wolf. It was daytime."

"I smelled the smoke of the fire and I smelled the men who came. They stood around and from what they say, they wait then for the constable to come. I hid from them. It was easy to do this now. People came and went for days, and I hid. At night time, they were always gone and it was then that I was the worst. I did not want to hurt anybody, but now I looked at the smaller ones and thought about eating. I think that I lost my mind sometimes, but no one found me. They did not look much, because they were looking for a man," he looked down, "who killed his wife."

"After they did not come back, I found I could change myself, but I was hungry and I wanted to be dead. I even tried to kill myself. I tore myself open many times, but I did not die. I always get better very quickly. Finally, I just began to hunt the animals here. If I refused to eat anything, I change to wolf and just hunted anyway. There was nothing that I could do to stop it." He looked at her with a sudden worry, "Sometimes I must hunt something, Elena. I, ... this cannot be stopped. I have hunted men before, but I have never left the island to do this. This does not make it right, what I did, but I did not want to hunt them. It was in the years after, I was hunted because some men thought that I was some animal. They didn't seem to be sure of what animal, but they were here to hunt and saw something to shoot at."

He looked at her, "I got away if I could, Elena, but it is an island. If they hurt me, or if there were too many of them, then I would hunt them. Please believe me. I have tasted human meat, but I never ate it. I only killed to protect myself, and most of them looked like they had drowned. Some had broken neck. By the time anyone came to find them, the other animals and the fish had their chance to eat."

"How did they hurt you?" she asked.

He shrugged, "Once with a trap that I did not see in time, it was kind that closes on the leg. It hurt, but it was not made to catch something that could open it again. I got away from it, but then I knew that someone who had set trap would come back to look. I think he was trapper. I don't think he was trying to catch what I was. But he came back and searched a few days later. He saw me as a wolf and before I could get away, he shot me, so I kill him. I have been shot many times, Elena."

"What happens then," she asked.

Ion shrugged, "I get better very quickly." He stood up, "I will show you. Come." He walked to the sink and lifted out the coffee cups from earlier in the day. He opened a drawer and selected a short knife with a wavy edge. "Do you faint when you see blood?"

She shook her head, but before she could ask him why, he held his arm over the sink and cut deeply in a long line that she could see must have severed more than one artery in a lengthwise direction. He quickly leaned forward to keep the spray of the blood aimed at the sink. Elena hadn't even had time to accept what Ion had just done before the deep slash had closed and the flow of the blood was stopped. "I can do this again if you want me to," he said as he turned the tap on to carefully clean the sink.

She shook her head, and he turned the arm so that the damaged area was on top. As she watched, it finished closing and healed in seconds. "Would cut like this kill a man if the blood did not stop?" She saw that he already knew the answer as she nodded and kept watching. Inside of a minute, there was no trace of what he'd done, no scar, nothing. "Killing myself has been dream of mine for long time," he said, "but there is only one way, and I have missed my only chances. The door was locked, and I did not want to leave a sign that I was here in case I failed. Then the fat man took the gun away before I could stop him without killing him."

He looked at her and then stepped to the spice shelf. He touched nothing, but turned back to her in a second, "There is silver here. Why did you lie to me last night? Shells are here. I can smell gunpowder on a shelf that has only spices. I can smell the gunpowder from the shells still in the box over there. And I feel the silver. Why, Elena?"

She shook her head as she stepped back, and he saw the beginnings of her fear and shook his head as he raised his palms, "I am not angry. I think I know why you do this. It was because I would have used one last night. I understand. I think I have something else to thank you for now." he stood looking down in some shame, but he took her hand, and before she could pull it back, he'd kissed it.

Elena stood in shock, but she stepped forward to put her arms around his neck, "You're always beating yourself up. I have my own confession to make to you." She looked into his yellow eyes and felt the power of his gaze again. She felt his honesty, and felt a little worse about her own.

"I hate lies, Ion. I felt bad last night for telling you one, but I was a bit desperate. I'm sorry for that - but I'm glad now that I did it."

"You wanted to stop me, I understand."

She shook her head, "That's very true. That was the main reason, the one that caused me to lie before you could stomp away to get the gun. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have been able to stop you. But it's not the only reason, Ion. I didn't want my friend to end his life, " she reached for his face, and strained up to kiss him for a moment.

"I wanted to know more," she said, "I wanted to know you more than anything. I, ... I think that I also wanted to have a chance like this with someone like you. I felt like it was the last chance that I'd ever get, and don't ask me to explain it because I can't. I think that I almost used that thing on myself on the way back from town yesterday." She watched his expression change. She knew what he was about to ask.

"Because, ... because I thought that I had a reason to give up right then, that's why. And I had the way to do that in my hands then. You're not the only one living with regrets here. I haven't had to live in a horror story for years and years, but I've been alone a long time because of something that I did too. It's not anything like what you've lived through, but I know I'm not as strong as you are. I mean inside and outside. I had a love that any woman would want once. A great husband who adored me, anything that I could have dreamed to own, I could have. But I'm a pretty big fool, Ion. I did two things that cost me everything. I would not let a stupid argument go because I had to be right, and at a terrible time I badgered him to push me like the spoiled brat that I acted like. Then I told him that I wanted a divorce, right when he was at his lowest. Right where I'd driven him in stupidity."

Helena smiled weakly, "So I got my wish. I threw away a good man and a happy marriage. Today he has a woman and they're doing well, so at least he was able to get past me. I'm ok mostly, but it gets hard to go on in an empty life sometimes. I've met other men, but, ..." she shrugged, "I never blamed my ex-husband. I blamed myself and I've never met somebody who I thought might be the one for me - who could be the one that I needed. I just lost interest in life, mostly."

"What stopped you yesterday?" he asked.

She hugged him and listened to his heart through her ear against his chest, "I realized that I could really have this island if I wanted it. I knew that I had a great big friend here, though not that he was any more than a huge wolf who seemed to like me a hell of a lot. Those two ideas together made me want to live here. I think I want this place to be my little part of the world. Then I found out about you, and after things made a little sense to me, I knew that you would think about suicide if you found that the gun and the shells were here. Ion, I don't even know where I found the strength to walk out to you, but I didn't want to lose my new friend. Without you, I wouldn't want to be here alone, even though it had been my original idea before I saw you. With you, I can't wait to try to make a new life here. We seem to have something, and I want it to be what saves us - both of us."