Note: I wrote this for someone that never bothered to read it, so if you have any comments or suggestions I'll be happy to hear them! Please enjoy!
In the depths of an ancient forest, near a fork in the creek that ran down from the hills, there lived a solitary witch named Sapphire. Her cottage sat in the midst of a large clearing and was covered in moss and vines, looking very much like part of the landscape. She lived there peacefully with her little fenced in gardens of vegetables and medicinal herbs and a brood of hens that roamed around during the day eating grass and bugs and keeping the mice and rats at bay. Seeing what the chickens did to the mice they caught always horrified her a little, but it was a necessary evil.
Early one spring morning, before the mist had fully settled into dew, as Sapphire was letting her chickens out of their hutch, a pained howl cut the silence of the woods and brought a chill down her spine. She knew these surrounding woods, and the last known wolf had been hunted down by local villagers almost fifty years ago. The sound hadn't been as far away as she would have liked. She wondered if she should put the chickens back in their coop, but the birds seemed entirely unphased and she decided against it, figuring that they would run to roost should they sense impending danger.
Only an hour later, as she was weeding the garden, she heard a commotion in the trees and looked up in time to see a large, black-furred wolf breach the edge of the clearing her cottage was in. They locked eyes as it staggered forwards, several arrows protruding from its body. The sound of a human hunting party came through on the breeze shortly after and Sapphire reacted without thinking. She quickly jumped to her feet and ran towards the huge wolf, urging it to its feet and helping it towards the door to her little house, the hunting party drawing ever nearer. Once she got the wolf inside, she shut the door and quickly went back to her place in the garden. She was pulling up more weeds as a group of five men cautiously breached the edges of the clearing. They were from two of the nearby villages, and they knew where they were and who she was. After a brief, whispered conversation, one of the men was pushed towards her by the other party members.
"Uh, 'scuse me miss," he began, taking off his hat out of respect. "You haven't seen a wolf pass through here, have you?"
She shook her head without breaking eye contact.
"Um, only, the blood trail leads directly here into your, uh, yard?"
Sapphire stood up, brushing the dirt from her hands.
"I would know if a wolf came through. I said no. Be on your way."
The memory of Ted the Newt, who was not a newt in body, only in mind, was still fresh in his head and the man nodded and backed away.
"Right Miss. I'm sure you're right. Sorry for bothering you." He said before placing his hat back on his head, turning, and hurrying back to his party. After another hushed discussion, they turned their heads as a group to look at her, and then left the way they came.
Sapphire waited for the sound of the retreating group to fade away into the woods before she scurried back to her cottage to see to what she was already thinking of as her patient. The wolf had collapsed next to the fireplace, its black furred side rising and falling laboriously with each breath.
She sat next to the wolf, holding her hand over its face and closing her eyes in concentration. A calming aura flowed over the wolf's body, sedating him and alleviating some of his pain. Sapphire quickly got to work removing the arrows and applying medicinal poultices.
When she had done everything she could, she wiped her brow with the back of her hand and sat back on her heels. The wolfs breathing already sounded better; less like fighting for air and more like settling into a deep slumber. Sapphire stood, stoked the fire, added a few more logs and washed her hands in her kitchen basin. She tended to the rest of the day's chores, checking in occasionally to see that the wolf still breathed, deeply and in slumber. At the end of the day, she sat before the hearth, the wolf at her feet, still fast asleep. Before she made her way to bed, she sent the last of the days energy as a healing power into the wolf.
Adjacent to the main room she used as her kitchen and living room, Sapphire's bedroom was separated by a floor-to-ceiling set of shelves and a tattered curtain that was held back with a tie. She unfastened the tie, letting the curtain swish across the opening before she began to undress. She normally slept in the nude, as it was most comfortable to her, and tonight would be no different. In the little room, her bed took up most of the space, leaving room for a small dresser at its foot and narrow alley of walking space along the side nearest the entry.
Sapphire dropped her clothes, kicking them into the corner before sliding her nude body between her bedsheets and blanket. She sighed in comfort and drifted off to sleep.
*** *** ***
In the darkest hours of the night, the wolf awoke. He lay still in front of the fire, letting his fine sense of smell explore the room for danger before risking moving. Scenting that he was currently alone in the room, but not the house, the wolf opened his eyes and peered around. When he determined the room to be free of threats, he stood up and shook the poultices and dirt off his shaggy pelt. Then he began to shift. Fur and tail receded, limbs straightened, clawed paws turned into feet and hands, and before long, the shaggy black wolf was replaced with a man. Where black fur had been there was now smooth, tanned skin. His hair was long and black, done in braids along the top of his head with the lower sides of his scalp shorn close to the skin. Eyes that been yellow were now a rich, deep brown and rimmed with thick, dark lashes. They darted around, taking in the details of the room that he hadn't been able to take in with the mind of a wolf. There was not a single sign of injury on his lean, lithe form as he stood and inspected his surroundings, as naked as the slumbering witch in the next room.
The dramatic differences between the way a wolf and man experienced the world made it difficult to fully remember between the forms, but Skaldi knew his wolf had instinctually felt that this was a safe place, and the fertile human woman in the next room was someone he could trust with his life. As a man, he was a lot more skeptical. He searched around, nose still more capable than any normal human, for any signs of danger. His sinuses tingled as he smelled the collection of herbs, mushrooms and minerals that were stored in jars on shelves in her kitchen. The only piece of silver she owned was a small bell. She had several knives in the kitchen but nothing that screamed "danger" to him. Finding nothing of concern in the current room he padded quietly across the floor to just outside of the curtain blocking his view of the woman beyond. He paused again, listening to the soft, rhythmic breathing of deep sleep, before he reached out slowly and pulled back the curtain.
*** *** ***
Sapphire had begun to overheat in the warm summer night and had pulled her blanket down in her sleep until her entire torso and one leg lay open to the night air. Skaldi's eyes immediately set upon her exposed breasts, pale in the dim light of the half-moon through her tiny bedroom window, before he looked up to her slack, sleeping face, and then trailing down again to take in the long, shapely leg that threatened to fall off the edge of the bed. He looked back up, taking in the long brown hair that trailed across the pillow as he inhaled deeply through his nose, instinctually taking in the intoxicating aroma of a woman in her most fertile days. The pheromones she put off had an immediate effect on him, causing blood to flow lower in his body. He grit his teeth against the urging of the wolf inside him to ravage the woman in front of him immediately. He wouldn't belittle himself as a man to take advantage of an unwary female, but neither could he convince himself to turn away and leave the house entirely, like he knew he should. He had been on the run for so long, separated from his pack and hunted by wary villagers many times during his travels. He needed to get back to pack territory but the idea of a safe, warm place to sleep for a night or two was too enticing and the potential for a cooked meal and a friendly voice won him over. He sighed and was about to return to the place in front of the fire where he had woken up when his shift in weight caused the board beneath his feet to creak.
Sapphire's eyes snapped open and immediately spotted the figure in her doorway holding the curtain aside. She gasped, partially sitting up, before she relaxed back, letting her breath out in a woosh.
"The wolf." She said quietly, a smile starting to form on her lips.
