03 Daughter of Fury

Fate Intervenes

Eventually the hour grew late and boy had to guide me from the secret cave and back toward the square boulder.

I couldn’t help the disappointment climbing through me as we drew closer to the isolated hut on the outside of the pack.

I hate when these adventures end. I wish I could live closer to whichever hut is his home. I imagined a future where one day he and I would love next to each other. And always be close.

I was scanning around me, past the flashes of yellow weeds, green trees, and blue clouds until I found his darker silhouette. I squinted hard, trying to see more of his features. I’d love to know what he looks like!

He leaned over my hand and gallantly kissed the back of it. As if I were something precious.

Rather than a ragamuffin pup in a small camp. It was something that he always did when we were saying goodbye.

I took in every detail I could. His height and the precise roundness of his head, though even that was hard to make out. Knowing that he was telling me goodbye for the afternoon.

I didn’t want him to go.

He was the one thing that was mine. My best friend, my way of seeing the world and all the wonder I got to experience.

He is everything. I thought mournfully. I like him so much!

I giggled and held my hand out with curling fingers as I struggled to find his head so that I might ruffle his hair. I wanted to feel its texture, because it was a feature I could learn. It felt thick, straight, with maybe some small curls near the back. And it was a little coarse.  

More like wolf fur than hair. I thought. It reminded me how different he and I really were.

He is more wolf than I am, even in human form. I was sad.

I stared hard at him.

I heard the rumbling tones with rising notes toward the end that told me he had asked me a question.

“I just wish I could see you…”

He murmured something soothing back. The words were longer so I could tell he was comforting me. He caught my hand to give it a reassuring squeeze.

I listened to the faint sounds that told me he was walking away. I watched his shadow as it grew smaller and blurrier. Until I could no longer make him out, which was only a few steps away.

I sighed.

***

The boy was my only friend, and he meant the world to me. He was the only one, beyond my mother, that I was close to.

I imagined how magical it would’ve been to call him by name. Or to speak to him as he often tried to speak to me. But his voice was just out of the range I could hear well which meant I never knew quite what he said.

I don’t even fully get to hear his voice.

Higher tones like my mother’s sharper pitch were easier. Still garbled and muffled, but easier.

I picked up the long stick I kept by the boulder and fumbled my way back down the hill toward the shack.

“Deva!” Mom cried from a distance away.

I assumed she was in the doorway of the shack.

“I was so worried for you! It’s nearly dark.”

“I couldn’t tell.” I said dryly.

“You’re not funny.”

I shrugged. I saw her silhouette, and the lighter shine of her hair as I got close enough to peer up at her.

“Did you have fun?” She asked, calming as I neared her.  

I knew that a vibrant smile brightened my face as I thought about it. “Yes.”

“I know how much you love it out there.” She came over to lean down and hug me. “Just be careful sweetheart. And remember-”

“Never turn into a wolf.” I said the familiar words with her. Knowing that my pronunciation was probably not right because I had not learned to properly say them from hearing others.

Don’t be outside too long. Don’t go too far. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t let them see you, they may try to hurt you. I replayed all the things she’d told me over the years. The endless stream of worry that often emerged from her mouth when I wanted to leave the shack.

I knew she was always anxious when I left.

Sometimes I wished I wasn’t so broken.

***

It was many moons later, countless days spent on new adventures with boy, when fate decided to intervene in my life.

It was a sunny day. Warm with only the faintest breeze to kiss along my cheeks. As if the heavens had reached straight down and dropped it into my pack, in human form. Solely for me to find.

And from that moment, I would be forever changed.

Fate came to me in the form of a woman. ‘The Spark’, to be specific.

That’s what they called her anyway.

It started because I had gone to the ravine and waited hours for Boy to meet me there.

He never came.

Then I had remembered how morose his voice had sounded when he said goodbye yesterday, so I believed he had tried to tell me he couldn’t make it today because of something happening within the pack. 

I had been so curious as to what would keep him away that I couldn’t resist creeping deeper into camp. I won’t bother him. I just want to see what is so important he can’t come be with me.

I chewed my cheek, clutching the partial loaf of bread I’d stolen from the shack in hope of sharing with him as I peered around the corner of a structure to see the jumble of movement nearby.

That was when some of the other pack pups had spotted me.

“What is that!” One boy cried.

The next thing I knew a rock had struck me in the head.

“It’s a monster!” A couple girls squealed in horror.

“It’s scary! Look at its eyes!” A younger pup wailed.

More rocks soon followed.

I hurried away. Running so fast that I tripped over a root and crawled much of the way. I heard them behind me. Another rock struck me in the back.

“Please! Stop!” I wailed.

“It talks funny!”

More rocks followed.

I looked up and saw the looming outline of a huge building. I couldn’t see anything further away so I stood to run along the wall, fumbling until I found a handle. I slid it open a crack and slipped in.

I was small, thin and short so I didn’t need much space to disappear. I hurried into an empty stall. Despite the smell of horses and sheep I hid there. Cowering against the wall for fear that the pups would find me again.

And hurl more of their rocks. Blood oozed down through my hair and dripped on one of my shoulders. The spots where those rocks had hit me stung, but nowhere near as much as the emotional pain I endured at knowing they would hate the sight of me so much that they would harm me.

I was awash in my hopelessness. I sat in there trembling. Worried that my mother’s worst fears would come true.

She had always believed my life would be cut short, either by wolves that refused to accept me in their pack or by the malady that had always made me less than the other wolves. It would be dreadfully sad to die alone in this stable.

And to let down the one person that wanted me to live more than any other. Despite that even she had little faith in the prospect. I reached up to touch my ringing head and looked down at the red smears coating my fingers.

I was drawn from my thoughts when I heard the door crack open a little further and the thump of someone stumbling into the wall next to me.

I cowered behind a high mound of hay. Trying to tuck my small frame fully from view as I saw a shadow near the opening of the stable.

Still, the woman spotted me.

I think it was the partial loaf of bread I was clutching that drew her to me.

She put a hand on the horse leaning over from the next stall and peered around his long neck to see me crouched behind the hay.

For a moment my heart dropped. Until she whispered, “Might I hide with you?”

I was struck by the sweetness in her voice. And the echoing loneliness I felt rising from her.

She’s sad. Like me.

“Y-yes...” I said hesitantly. Hugging the bread tighter as if it might protect me if she changed her mind and moved to hurt me.

She crowded into that corner of the stall with me.

I moved to scoot over and nearly bumped her shoulder.

She jerked away as though I had the pack plague.

The hurt must’ve shown on my face. “My illness is not contagious.”

I had a hard time pronouncing the words, they weren’t ones my mother used beyond when she read to me. Having not heard it said a lot, I wanted to get right because I had the urge to impress this woman.

Perhaps it was her hair that made her seem so striking to me. It was a startling copper shade, a color unlike any I’d ever seen before.  

“It’s not that.” She leaned to whisper to me secretively. “I am contagious. You mustn’t touch me. Never touch me.”

She shook her head solemnly. There was so much severity in her voice that I had to take her seriously.

I chewed my cheek skeptically.

“Truly.” She reassured. “It’s not you little one. It is I, that is not whole...I am a Spark, you see?”

“Spark?” I tried to peer at her. Overwhelmed with curiosity. “But that is not your name?”

“No.” She said slowly, impressed. “Most don’t care about my true name.”

At first the term didn’t mean much to me. Not at the time.

I’d heard the lore and mother had spoken of what a Spark could do, so I had some idea. But no firsthand experience at that time.  

I understood that there were few beings that carried Spark blood. And even fewer that ever developed the power to trigger one’s beast into a frenzy. But a pure, true, Spark was something incredibly rare. With one touch she could bring monster blood to the fore and force any creature to change into its purest form. It was a fascinating legend.

I’d always imagined that speaking of the Spark was like speaking of my father. It was done, quietly, reverently, and only in dark corners where others couldn’t overhear.

The difference was that I understood what Fury, the original wolf, was. Mother had spoken of him as if he were the greatest creature to walk through Ferus. Which had always left me wondering why he had never come looking to see if I had been born.

She said she didn’t tell him she had a daughter but didn’t he want to see what she had given birth to?

Or did he just not want me? That always made my heart fall.

Mother refused to elaborate on it.

I could tell it pained her to talk about it. But I would’ve loved to know more about the curse that had taken an average wolf and given him the power to take human form. While in the same breath, prohibiting him from ever siring a daughter.

Mother believed that was what made me the way I am. Because I was never supposed to be to begin with.

All of that combined to make me a very lonely adolescent wolf. Unable to bear that sense of isolation, this morning, I had crept too close to the pack in my longing to be near Boy. I’d just wanted to spend a moment with him.

To share some bread and maybe see where he lived. That terrible curiosity was what had landed me here.

Hiding in this stable from pups that throw rocks at me.

With her…