This month's last drabble uses the prompt 'forest paths' from Framing Device, bring us back to Meredith and Fraydich's (currently untitled) story. Fall has a arrived and with it comes the full moon. Fraydich's change is coming, but within the shadows of the forest he may encounter a rival for the position of apex predator...
~
Moonrise:
Meredith stood at her bedroom window, looking outside. Her small homestead was almost covered by shadows and only the very top of her home was still lit as sun completed its descent, already halfway vanished behind the western hills. In only a few minutes it would be gone completely. It would be a cold night, too. Another bitter chill of autumn. It was a cold fall and it would be an even colder winter. She could feel the temperature dropping, a sharp wind rising to cut through her night clothes and pucker the flesh underneath.
Despite the chill in the air, she hadn’t yet closed the windows. She’d been standing here since Fraydich had left the house, venturing back into the distant, dark woods that brooded in the distance like a sullen, glaring mob waiting to be spurred to violence. She’d watched him walk along the road until he vanished from sight. In her mind’s eye she followed him, step for step as he passed fields and meadows, heading towards the looming forest and the winding paths through it. She wanted very badly to go with him, but he had made her swear like no other promise she’d ever made that she would not follow him into the forest. Though it broke her heart, she had agreed. She wanted to run to him even now, but she wouldn’t. Not this time.
He was almost physically recovered from his ordeal, though he was not yet at full strength. Some of the injuries inflicted on his werewolf form remained as scars upon his body and Meredith feared they would never fully fade. She had asked around town over the last few days, but no one had heard of anything else going on in the deep woods. No stories nor sightings beyond what she had already heard. That should have been a comfort, but the niggling edges of uncertainty gnawed at the corners of her mind like rats upon a house’s timbers. The white werewolf might still be alive. It could still be out there.
Ever since the encounter, Meredith had had nightmares of the werewolf. Its lean, lithe body sliding through the autumn squall, the piercing blue of its eyes, the hunger that radiated from it and the lack of anything that could be called mercy or even humanity.
Fraydich was out there now and he might have to face it again. He’d barely survived last time. If it was still there...
Meredith held herself tighter. She wanted to be out there with her lover, but it was too dangerous. She’d been foolish the first night she’d come to see the beast, but she had been able to tame it at least to some degree. No... not tame. That was the wrong word. The werewolf couldn’t be tamed. Only the man inside could master the beast, but her presence helped pierce the haze of hunger and fury that the beast lived within. The man would not let the beast hurt her, and she even thought that perhaps the beast had begun to recognize her. Every month she had gone to find him in the forest had been a risk, but it was one she’d been willing to take for the man she loved and the curse that weighed him down.
She was very aware of how dangerous Fraydich’s other half was. Perhaps not well enough to leave him alone during his change, but well enough that, despite all the love she had for him, she knew that she could not go with him tonight, nor ever again until they knew the white werewolf’s fate. If it was still alive, then she could do nothing to help Fraydich. She couldn’t count on being so lucky a second time, either. At best, she would be a distraction. At worst, she would be offering herself up as a bloody meal.
So instead the young woman put her animals away, ushering the chickens back to their coops and the goats back to her small barn. She locked and barred the downstairs doors and windows of her home, something she’d not considered necessary for years, being as far from town as she was. She had even purchased a crossbow. He father had given her some basic lessons many years ago, but she had to relearn much before she could call herself proficient at its use. She was still saving for the silver to have smelted into an arrowhead, wondering how she could explain the request to the blacksmith. Werewolves could be harmed by ordinary weapons, but silver, Fraydich had told her, inflicted severe wounds and great pain.
Meredith couldn’t afford more than a single arrowhead, but that scarcely mattered – if she were to be cornered by the white werewolf, or God forbid, Fraydich were to lose control of himself, she would only have time for a single bolt, so it had to count. She had considered a dagger of silver, but that would cost much more and when she had put the question to Fraydich, he had laughed at her. Not in a cruel or mocking way, but with sadness. He had asked her how long his limbs were when he changed and how large were his claws. She understood; a werewolf’s reach was much greater than hers. Even with a knife, she’d have less chance of surviving than with the silver bolt.
The crossbow sat next to the window. It was more a comfort than a credible defence right now, but it gave the young woman some small sense of safety. Perhaps falsely, but it felt better to have it than to simply wall herself away and cower within her house.
Darkness spread across the meadows and low, rolling hills that extended towards the forest as the last of the sun disappeared behind the horizon. The moon was already risen, waxing towards the moment in two days when it would be at its fullest. Somewhere out there the man she loved was heaving in agony as his cursed body bent, broke and twisted within his tearing flesh, remaking him into the beast.
And, perhaps, a frightened part of her thought, another monster within those woods was undergoing the same change. She could do nothing for Fraydich but hope and pray that when the morning light came, he would return to her. Until then, all she could do was stay here and hope the proof of the white werewolf’s death would be soon in coming.
Meredith closed the windows and the heavy wood shutters, barring them shut from the inside. A small candle flickered on the edge of her bed and she climbed beneath the blankets, looking at the empty side where Fraydich would lay. She would sleep tonight, but she already knew she would find no rest. The nightmares would come again and the only thing that would stop them was the break of dawn and Fraydich’s safe return.