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intheheartTitle: Wolves
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Gail has always lived with wolves.
Warnings: violent death of an animal
Notes: I'm working out everyone's fairy tales. Apparently Gail is Little Red Riding Hood.
When she was a child a lone wolf circled the house in the winter, howling lost and mournful. She felt sorry for it then, packless and lost in the empty snow, when she had her family around her and a fire on the hearth. She used to leave tidbits for it when she went out to get firewood. She never saw it, but she liked to think it was grateful for the help.
--
When she was a teenager a rabid wolf appeared out of the forest, snarling and frothing and clawing at its own face. Cecily was playing by the sheep pen—she ran faster than she'd ever run in her life, threw the pen open and snatched up her sister and barricaded them both in the house. The wolf was still shredding one of the sheep when her father came home and killed it with one blow of the axe.
--
When she was a young woman a human wolf came to town, spoke sweet words and gave soft caresses. He singled her out right away, and she was too flattered to see what he truly meant. He lured her off the path and laid her down under the apple tree atop her red cloak, and the shivering pleasure that rolled through her wiped out her thoughts, emptied her mind of the consequences. By the time her belly rounded, he had long since moved on.
--
When she was an older woman she bore a little wolf cub, snarling and snapping even fresh from the womb. Her baby had no teeth but gummed everything viciously, fingers and hands and even the nipple—only once, thankfully, as screams startled even little wolf cubs. Her daughter grew tamer as she grew larger, but never lost that fierceness. It didn't surprise her to find her little cub could speak to the wolves.
--
When she was a mother she met a father wolf. He walked his son through the woods into her little village and straight to her door, to her mother the wisewoman and she the mother and her little daughter the maiden. The children played together in the backyard and he spoke seriously to her, and before six months had gone they were handfasted, mother and father of a wolf and a guarddog, their own little pack.
--
When she was a mother for the second time she knew this child was not a wolf. The baby eased gently, almost diffidently into the world, fragile and pale, almost a changeling. A lamb, born into a wolf pack—a receipe for disaster. And perhaps if her family had been like her wolf cub's father then the baby would have been consumed. But wolves are not always marauders.
--
She knows wolves. She's lived with them all her life. The lonely and the lost, the sick and the evil, the loyal and the protective, they are all her own—she threw back the hood of her red cloak and followed one off the path, and though he only took she has since found wolves who give.
--
There is a pack in the woods behind her house now. Sometimes she sits outside and listens to them sing.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Gail has always lived with wolves.
Warnings: violent death of an animal
Notes: I'm working out everyone's fairy tales. Apparently Gail is Little Red Riding Hood.
When she was a child a lone wolf circled the house in the winter, howling lost and mournful. She felt sorry for it then, packless and lost in the empty snow, when she had her family around her and a fire on the hearth. She used to leave tidbits for it when she went out to get firewood. She never saw it, but she liked to think it was grateful for the help.
--
When she was a teenager a rabid wolf appeared out of the forest, snarling and frothing and clawing at its own face. Cecily was playing by the sheep pen—she ran faster than she'd ever run in her life, threw the pen open and snatched up her sister and barricaded them both in the house. The wolf was still shredding one of the sheep when her father came home and killed it with one blow of the axe.
--
When she was a young woman a human wolf came to town, spoke sweet words and gave soft caresses. He singled her out right away, and she was too flattered to see what he truly meant. He lured her off the path and laid her down under the apple tree atop her red cloak, and the shivering pleasure that rolled through her wiped out her thoughts, emptied her mind of the consequences. By the time her belly rounded, he had long since moved on.
--
When she was an older woman she bore a little wolf cub, snarling and snapping even fresh from the womb. Her baby had no teeth but gummed everything viciously, fingers and hands and even the nipple—only once, thankfully, as screams startled even little wolf cubs. Her daughter grew tamer as she grew larger, but never lost that fierceness. It didn't surprise her to find her little cub could speak to the wolves.
--
When she was a mother she met a father wolf. He walked his son through the woods into her little village and straight to her door, to her mother the wisewoman and she the mother and her little daughter the maiden. The children played together in the backyard and he spoke seriously to her, and before six months had gone they were handfasted, mother and father of a wolf and a guarddog, their own little pack.
--
When she was a mother for the second time she knew this child was not a wolf. The baby eased gently, almost diffidently into the world, fragile and pale, almost a changeling. A lamb, born into a wolf pack—a receipe for disaster. And perhaps if her family had been like her wolf cub's father then the baby would have been consumed. But wolves are not always marauders.
--
She knows wolves. She's lived with them all her life. The lonely and the lost, the sick and the evil, the loyal and the protective, they are all her own—she threw back the hood of her red cloak and followed one off the path, and though he only took she has since found wolves who give.
--
There is a pack in the woods behind her house now. Sometimes she sits outside and listens to them sing.
