Five Love Stories

Damsel. 
Once upon a time, when I was Catholic…

Chapter Three: Five Love Stories

Baron Braximus, for all his reforms, and bread-Sundays, free bath-houses and baby kissing every-days, is an evil man.  I know because my father sold me to him.  It was not a trade, actually, I’m passionate about this you see, when we had no other choice.  But there was an agreement, a contract, an expectation.  I was to marry Baron Braximus at the end of the month, and then my poor father could keep his shop.  But when it was all said and done, Braximus was a fool.  He was an idiot because he gave me time to think it over.  And where he allowed me free will, I saw a way…

It was the first time I felt truly ‘cleaned up’ as they say.  Ironic, I know, because it was so indecent to stay unmarried in a strange man’s house, especially with a man your father sold you to, but evenso, I felt lovely with the ribbons in my hair, the gold shells on my ears, and the yellow dress.  Well, no, it was not that happy with Braximus.  Let’s say that the dress was muted…burnt orange, like the rude backside of your horse who insists on grazing so near to me, ugh!

Well then, now that I’ve moved over here and got a new handful of berries, I would like you to imagine what it is like to be a girl of that age.  My true age?  Then, or do you mean now, and why, Sir, are you so insistent?  Well, I’m not telling.  But, I will reveal that I was between the birthday where you get your first set of heeled slippers, and then the other one where you hand over a white herd of goats to your new mother-in-law.  That is where I was, dreamy, free, and I also felt lucky. I used to smile back then.  Baron Braximus wanted me to eat apples at his table and put on the weight of a wife.  He called me a Lady already, though I hadn’t earned it.  He showed me all the precious things in his home and asked which of them I would like to touch.  I feared that he would ask to touch me, in return…I felt sure that he would, one day.  So, I waited.  But back then, I thought that fear was love, and that my hesitation was a woman’s modest humility for those sorts of things.  All of that I was meant to forget in time, when I agreed to marry before a monk, and in the eyes of the Chapel, god, and all the angels, that stuff.  Because Baron Braximus couldn’t force a holy hand, you see, especially with every religious miner in the Mountainlands watching, but it is far easier to warp a child’s mind.

Sylvestre was the name of the Baron’s pet stallion.  Not a mount, mind you.  There is a difference between the functional brute you rode in on, and the petted and preening oily black thing Braximus sang to like a lover and fretted over like a daughter, though technically Sylvestre would have been a son.  I had never before seen such an amazing creature.  It was like a piece of a dream, or the vortex of a nightmare, I didn’t know which.  But I wanted to ride Sylvestre.  I wanted to own that strength, I wanted to… Well, I wasn’t entirely sure until I stole him.  When the two of us were alone in the woods together, he grazing, and I unable to do anything but stare, I suddenly found myself gone philly—truly.  I mean truly turned into something like that, Cymen Ruecross, do you follow?  I was madly in love with a creature that was not my make, and so I made myself into kin of that creature.  Fool I was, thinking that it would be enough.  No, Sylvestre wanted his master, not a mare.

And perhaps now I have alarmed you.  Well, rest assured that I paid the crime for falling in love with a most majestic creature, more noble and winning in spirit than my affianced.  I brought back the horse—dressed and as myself again, of course—but also heartbroken and sorry.  Braximus took a whip to my backside—all of the back of me—like the thief he said I was.  And I was also a whore.  And a witch, and a waste of his money.  I tell you, the sun did not set on me in that land.  I fled with tears in my eyes, the moment Lord Braximus set me loose. Down to the foothills and then the coast.  Oh, poor father…

My second love was a more accessible spirit, thank goodness.  He was tattooed in the arms, and a little round in the gut, but that was from being merry and impressed with life.  He was a sailor, one of the best.  Commodore Jarshaun could travel as far as the edge of the world and back.  He promised to take me with him one day, when I wasn’t filling drinks at the tavern.  I, of course, being some ways past the age of giving goats to some mother-person believed him.  Only, he took far too long to get at it.  So, I went to get passage on his grand ship next tide.  Would he resist me if I was the only lovely thing on board?  Yes, actually.  But before even that, he missed me because I missed the boat.  And all that happened because I’d been up the night before worrying whether or not I should run off again with a man.  But Jarshaun was not a horse, and so I came a bit late… an obvious conclusion that took its time coming.  I waded into the water, then swam at the lessening vessel… and finally decided my legs were not good enough to swim so I gained a fish tail.  And I wound in circles like an eel for leagues and leagues trying to catch them. 

A storm found them before I could.  It was nasty and spanned every inch of the firmament.  Lightning sparked at the corners of its mouth, and it salivated over everything on its palate.  The boat was well on its way to the throat of it, and as a fish I knew this, but did the men realize where they were headed?  No.  Below the water, it looked and felt awful, but above the soft crash and whirlpools which drowned fish, there was only a stretch of gray cloud on the horizon.  It horrified me to think of flopping on deck, and making bubbles at the Commodore Jarshaun in an effort to explain what I knew, so I made a plan to turn the ship around myself.  I would be a kitten of a storm, enough to send them away, but not harm them.  The warning they would never get, otherwise.

It was a bad idea.  The tentacles were a bit much, it turned out.  I ripped the ship apart in an effort to guide them properly.  And my one whorling eye could not make out Jarshaun from the rest.  He dove overboard, I found out later.  Well that was horribly done, and I raged, oh!  I felt so awful.  Still, I pulled the ship from the brink of the storm and set it to rest in two pieces on a deserted island where no one could see it.  Afterward, I found Jarshaun floating on the return trip.   Sea monster was no good, it caused him to make the water around us to go instantly warm and… amber.  A fish had no arms with which to carry her love.  In the end, I became both.  When we reached shore, I let him rest against me.  I wished we would never leave that beach.  But he woke when we were trespassed against.  Fishermen with a net and spear intent on me.  Again, rather than explain, I went off to be a kicked creature, rather than a whipped and burdened one.

And now for the fourth man.  Perhaps you think I went through all of this ordeal without feeling, but that is not true.  First I was hopeful, and then second, enchanted.  With Jarshaun, yes the Lord counts as two, lift up another finger Cymen, and Jarshaun was lewd while I was a half-fish—oh!  I hadn’t explained so much to you, forgive me.  But the next man I came across was clever.  Even today, I wish I could think his thoughts.

At that time, a few years ago, it was not yet clear whether Axes Valley had taken its name from the caverns on the southern edge, or if the dragon had taken his name from the people he dined on who lived just north of him, fighting in the valley.  Either way, I was something of a show-off by then, as a trade.  These people in the Valley across the Sea liked my guile and sought me out for tellings and fertility dances.  And, of course the Commodore Jarshaun story.  For some reason they finally believed that I could win against the dragon, named Axz.  So they dressed me in white and dragged me into the deepest dankest cavern with torches.  They said to exorcise him and left to guard the entrance until it was done.  Well, I didn’t believe in dragons.  I was busy trying to feel around in the dark for a way back out when I found out how wrong I was about the minor and major Scriptural manifestations in this world.

I knew at once that Axz was male because he smiled at me.  Sideways, sort of, and polite too.  No teeth, just the strong muscle of his jaw stretching tight.  And then his crystal iris expanded until I could see myself as he did me.  A living, breathing bauble among his collection.  I am sure I said something to him like,

“Oh.  So you are a dragon?”

And he responded, I remember, “And you are definitely a woman.”

Then Axz lay down on his back and showed his belly to me.  I don’t know why I felt the need to, or even believed it would matter, but I went over and scratched it.  My hands were tiny in comparison and they did little good, but he relaxed and purred as if it was the kindest touch of his life.

“No, I don’t think I will eat you afterall.  Shall I lick you then?”

Oh, I was frightened again.  Charmed, and frightened.  But this was in a different way than with Baron Braximus.  So I let myself laugh and hurried backwards to wait against the wall.  We were silent for a long time, and then we suddenly found something in common to talk about, and could hardly part with that topic.  Fire.  I wished that I knew how to conjure it, and he breathed it like nothing.  Axz lit up the sky of the cave for me… well, only a little while, he said he wouldn’t be able to breathe if he made too much smoke, and he worried about me as well, being so small.  Then, I went and put a tiara on my head, from his horde, and Axz threatened to lick me again.

“Suppose I enjoy it, and I’m not offended at all?”

And then he… well.  I’ll leave that part out.  But that was the finest evening I ever spent with a gentleman.  And I never felt more safe, either, than with a kind dragon.  In time, the villagers wanted a dead dragon and shouted as much into Axz’s home.  And he wanted, badly to eat them, but asked if any were my kinfolk first.  How kindly!  I said no, but then I begged him not to eat my customers.  He really liked that response for some reason.  Axz wanted to make a deal, in that case.  He promised not to eat my patrons if only I agreed to stay with him for all time.

That was…you would disagree, and look at you, you’re already shaking your head—but it was sweet, somehow.  It was not a fair arrangement at all, but that caused me to believe that he wanted me with him more than he could admit or measure, or ever hope to put a value to.  But I told him about Baron Braximus then, and how his people still wanted to whip me some more, because of the contract, and Axz set his snout at my feet and shut his eyes.  The dragon man said that he understood and so could never ask me to stay against my will.  There was another tunnel out, I could escape the fury of the mob that way.  And to lessen my shame, he promised not to attack Axes valley again.  And, until this day, I hear the gold dragon will burn and rake every place else with his claws, but never the valley.  What a romantic.  Sadly, I don’t think I shall ever see him again.  Not just because of our arrangement, and the impossibility of him being a monster.  His greatest dream is to burn the world to ash, and I’d like very much to continue living in it… so there was that.

Oh me.  Now I’m finally to my last unhappy and distressful situation.  There is a rogue here, who steals from the rich and gives all of it—really, most of it—to the poor.  All because the King’s brother was left in charge and he taxes the people as if they were pigs and wallowing mud weren’t free.  A righteous man, but also a scoundrel.  A dragon in manageable miniature.  I certainly liked him, and I was wild so I joined with him.  But the monk with them—a necessary sort who offered the unofficial sanction of the Chapels, named Tucker—did not like my stories of being a mermaid and running off with stallions to graze.  I warned Robin—well, I wasn’t supposed to reveal his name, oh well—about a plot against him, archery contest, I think it was, and Tucker threw a bag over my head, dragged me off in the night, and when I woke up, I was tied above those sticks a little ways off.  The stupid holy man was dancing about with his torch and cackling that Robin had chosen a respectable woman of the faith with connections and good breeding—gold, that is—that would better suit Robin’s cause.  Well, I was angry to have been jilted.  When did he even have time to meet such a fine lady?  And then some other fellows I recognized came along and screamed about a rigged archery contest and Robin being thrown into prison, and wouldn’t he come help them rouse the parishioners or at least raise back some money for Robin’s bail? And take the torch, we can’t see without it, la la la, do you see?  Then they left.  And that is when you found me, a few days later.

Now Eve rubbed her stained hands on grass at either side of her dirty gray skirt.  “There you have it.  I am not someone to be saved, but someone from whom others need saving.  That is not my choice, for others to come to calamity when I am around, but it is fate nonetheless.  I am running, still from Baron Braximus.  I have a more than understandable fear of horses, I can’t eat fish either, and I might be a friend to dragons if I’m not watched attentively.  Most recently, I am wanted by Robin and his merry idiots and their intercessor with the faceless god.  And if you think you can save me in some less decent fashion when this spell wears off, I warn you, Cymen Ruecross, that I have sworn off men, male creatures, and minerals and vegetables for that matter.  I’m completely through.  And if you don’t believe my stories then fine.  You’ll be happy to learn that my greatest wish these days is to be left completely alone, so that doesn’t trouble me in the least!” she stood.

Cymen tugged his reluctant horse along, “… but evenso, Eve, why should you be alone?”

“You can’t fix me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“No, but I can comfort you… as a friend if that is what you wish.  I hardly know you, Eve but I worry for you.  If I were to assure you that, come what may, I could protect you once and for all, would you travel East with me?”

“That’s impossible, when no man can absolutely guarantee another’s safety if you truly think about it.  I am so very exhausted with Barons, Dragons, Commodores and Kings all offering me the same.  What do you intend to do, Cymen Ruecross, marry me?  I won’t have it, just because you saved me.”

Cymen clapped a fist to his breast. “I vow here and now that I will not hurt you, Lady Eve.  I will be a friend and a gentleman to you all the days of your life, if only you will come with me and let me protect you on the journey East.  For, where I am going, near to the Fringe, there is a one and true King over Kings who offers rest to all men, women, and creatures who find themselves lost.  His comfort is a joyful peace that I carry in my heart with me always.  He wishes his followers to share this spirit of welcome, simply because it is so perfect.  That is all I want to do for you, Eve.”

“I don’t believe in the Chapels or anything like that, I don’t care if they’re in the East or the West, on the godless Fringe or whatever.  Nor am I going to buy your Chapel’s holy book.  Does it look like I have money?”

“Yes, I know it sounds a bit prescribed, but that is what the King taught us to say.  Poetry aside, Eve, I am a man sworn to honesty, justice, chastity, and to seek and save rare things for my savior and King.  You are such a treasure.”

Eve let a breeze pass by her while she narrowed eyes painted with smeared khol and stared.  “Chastity?  As in… abstinence.”

Cymen coughed a little, then mounted his horse and offered her a hand up.

“Oh no, I want this explained, Sir.” A flicker of smile, “There is a difference between the two, namely that a man—or woman—who practices the first could only reasonably do so after having never deviated from the latter in his entire life.  Am I correct?  Cymen Ruecross, are you trying to tell me that you are a virgin, and that is why you are able to make this grand vow of pure friendship?  I don’t believe you.”

Cymen replaced his helmet, a winged corona with sweeping silken white cowl beneath.  And then after all this preening, he frowned at her.  “It’s a requirement of the Order.”

She laughed.  Oh, how Eve laughed in his face, and stuffed her hands in the pockets of her apron to control herself.  Failing there, the chapped knuckles went beneath Eve’s arms, her long tangled hair slipped loose from its braid (is her hair braided? It was out before), she bent over with it.  She blushed, breathless, while Cymen flushed with shame.  Eve laughed so loud and horrid that she didn’t recognize the fateful sound of horse’s hooves at first, and so squealed and fled behind Cymen when six riders were almost directly upon her.

Six knights, all in gold, saluted Cymen, whom they hailed as ‘Captain’ and then immediately removed crowned helmets when Eve crept from her hiding place.  Each, in near unison, offered protection, salvation, and assured his virtue to the damsel in distress, on that very spot.

“I am either a fool… for believing in you, Cymen Ruecross, or for refusing to pass up such vile entertainment at the risk of my health, I’m not sure which.”  Then Eve took Cymen’s hand, pulled back when he tried to lift her into the saddle, and shook it instead.  The result was a woman squatting indecently for a moment, and nearly falling over.  But then she walked out in front of the seven gold horses and they followed without question through slashes of pale sunshine, or even a loose chuckle behind black naked backs of the bright-moss trees.

That Knights of the Harmonic Gold Order allowed Eve the dignity of being a singular person moved her onward.  She walked stiff as a scarecrow with wide-painted on eyes at the shock of it, true, but that she continued going ahead, at her own pace felt like some kind of reward.

Captain Cymen Ruecross noticed his men making silent and desperate gestures in every cardinal direction, from head to heart to shoulder and shoulder as they rode gently for the woman’s sake and watched her sway from behind. 

“And we all thought finding the Grail was difficult enough…”

---

Chapters
1 Tie Me to the Tree :: 2 But First, a Snack of Strawberries :: 3 Five Love Stories :: 4 Robin in the Hood :: 5 Even Crispy Children :: 6 A Good GAFE  :: 7 Last Chance through the Flames :: 8 On the Rogue, Damascus :: 9 White Wall :: 10 Saint-Makers and Uniform Wearers :: 11 Tempering the Ruecross 12 Miccolangiolo's David :: 13 Dragon's Den :: 14 Away to Arusalem, part I :: 15 Away to Arusalem, part II :: 16 Sorry—several sad turns of the hour glass you can't ever get back :: 17 Adam and Eve :: 18 The Mist Maven, part I :: 19 Mist Maven II - Of Flirting, Folly, and Fairies :: 20 Mist Maven III - Revenge of Prince Poas

Love your love songs

No, I am not going to just change my update day.  Because, then, Thursday would turn into Friday, and so on and such and such...

Another technique you must master

Besides embracing animal-you and making peace with your need to be with other wild animals in this workaday world, the second thing that must be done in order to master the Art of Eating One's Self: survive each day, with your heart in tact.

The hard and fast concrete jungle isn't so friendly to those wearing exposed, warm-beating flesh, and controlled environments don't give us enough room to make our mistakes.  Insulated rowhouses don't make it easy to live out loud.  And, what was once grabbing a woman and holding onto her by the fire--or having him finally catch you after breathless chase, is now a gamble of high-stakes win trust or lose it, and then it's as if women and men are evolving into their own separate species when we are afraid to be who we are, and can’t get back to where we started.  Being a master or a mistress of Carnivory in the love department is to recognize that sometimes love sucks even more due to modern trappings, but then still succeed at it.

How to remain capable of love when he or she &*@# -ing hates you

When life is hard and love is a necessity, should a true Master of Carnivory go for the one they want by indulging wolfish deception and creative sneak-attacks as would Thatan and Ammerwind?  Or, should a Mistress of the Art of Eating One's Self keep her heart safe as she hunts by going all-in and having vicious fun like Rhune, even when pursuit hurts?  Well, it’s definitely not clutching the silent phone to your breast and cowering in a fetal position through the night as would Frank Hearwynn (haven’t we all done it—to a certain degree?  Anyone?  Seems the crickets have).

The second rule of Carnivory is to stay human, though your wild heart may break:  Be tough in love, by having fun through those inevitable romantic regrets. 

To Recap...

DO--Write an awesome song about your pathos.

Do NOT--Get into your car and mow through people, like so many Lego Star Wars targets.

Good luck <3

Up next: Reading Donald Maass' Chapter Five: Characters* should help with advancing human traits while reigning in this wolfish cast...

*Writing The Breakout Novel by Donald Maass, (2001, Writer's Digest Books).

Carniv 3, Call him back, already!

Frank Hearwynn, image: Ian Kahn

Chapter Three

“I would like to suggest if you do not have a moment of unexpected tragedy or grace in your novel, you consider where you might put it in.” –Donald Maass[1]

The Dhamshee promised she would one day return, because she did honestly have a great time and loved Rhune desperately, blah blah blah... But we’re not getting our hopes up again until she returns our phone calls first.

Did you tell her about me on your date, Hearwynn?

Oh, Dana likes you.

I don’t exist, but Dana likes me.  You do exist—and even now after your first real-life date with her—we’re still not yet sure whether Dana likes you.

She likes me too, Rhune.  Maybe Dana’s just busy.

Dana doesn’t like you, and so you take my woman away.

I can always write you another one, Rhune.

No, you’ll write up another girlfriend for yourself, which is going to be bad for me if you have one more miserable evening alone, and so decide to snatch her off again.  Though, Hearwynn, in your earliest morning hours, it might feel good for you…

I’m learning to write a little bit of both the good and bad—wait.  Shut up, Rhune.

Rhune rubbed his warm, snotty meddler’s nose against a tight fist, then set out to enjoy this new life.

Do you see how he just goes back to narrating, to keep me quiet?  It’s like my author never listens to me anymore…

The Humans wandered throughout their new world unburdened.  The excessive fertility of the Dhamshee left roses without thorns and fruit that was easy to reach, growing above the roots of trees.  Nor did fruits have any skin.  Perfect for sinking flat teeth into.  Not one stone was sharp at this place at the Edge of the Story, nor could no hike uphill wind one.  People understood clothing but did not always need to wear it.  They ate no meat. They knew no fear nor true frustration, craved nothing of their neighbors.  Rhune lived among them, learning to be a man from them, and the only way he knew, the deceitful carnivorous way of the wolf, seemed useless and he forgot that he even had teeth.

When the trees died out or became hard to find, how did Human animals get their food?

Rhune liked wearing pants sometimes, because that meant he could curl his fingers into fists and put these deep into pockets.  Hands were wonderful fun to play with.  Then, Rhune would use his two legs (only two!) to walk up and down his sunny and green land, observe other funny two-leggers, discover his own answers.

A few times, he curled lip and stayed back while watching Human creatures hold funerary rituals for finished pieces of fruit.  A grave would be dug first, then place the corpse stripped of its orange flesh inside the dirt.  After, cover it over, place a stick or something to know where it would rest for eternity.  Finally, mark the spot. 

Another observation—Humans did not have enough urine for properly marking their whereabouts, which Rhune did miss.

Human beings always poured water onto the graves of dead fruit seeds, therefore. 

They’d come back each day as might do a lupine (he supposed they inherited that part from their father), inspect the place, get low enough to sniff at it and then pour water again.  Again, and again and again, until finally the cleared ground went back to trees’ time (making so much tender effort without any real commitment, Rhune decided, his children got from their can't-even-pick-up-a-friggin-phone-mother).  Forest would begin to grow back on the spot.  Eventually, another tree would grow up on that same place, then they’d pick that fruit and eat it, and bury seeds all over again.

Who the hell wasted their time on something like this?  And now, Rhune was not just perplexed, but one of these crazed, toothless creatures.

“This is the art of agriculture, Father Rhune.” One of his Human children tried to explain.

“Another art of survival?  Does Agriculturey settle feuds?  Does burying seeds in the ground and pouring water, rather than pissing on it, establish dominance?”

“No, why would we—?”

Rhune turned his back and went the other way.  Please, let this not be a Human instinct.  What an annoying one to have… Carnivory was when a creature was so successful a hunter that his sharpened teeth could be used as daggers to take down any animal who opposed him whether he was hungry to eat it or not, or that his skill at stalking prey for days behind sheaths of grass and downwind, became a skill at disappearing into the Howling Beyond.  Wolves were cruel, but they’d got that right, at least.  Now, as a man, Rhune did not always feel motivated to hunt.  He liked to wander in pocketed pants and bare feet.  He liked to observe and try to make sense of how odd or stupid his new family-pack of people were behaving.  So then, with this lack of teeth, this gurgling, bored bloodlust, and plenty of time to do nothing about it, would he would he one day give into mastering the fool-craft of Agriculturey?

“Hearwynn?  Story, is this your idea of a new good or bad adventure?  This fleabitten rot is so monotonous, I swear I’ll pull all my fur—hair—out.  For scratch’s sake, give me something damned else to do!”

And so, Hearwynn tried again. 

On the very next day, men and women began to wander back into the Great Wilderness and again witnessed the old wolf-world.  The top predators had gone, the Bears were sleeping, but the savagery and beauty of Hearwynn was left still, reserve for a next great scene.  The people went to go play in all that hadn’t happened yet, but found they couldn’t enjoy the story for more than brief moments before meeting with the latent violence and misfortune that was also part of a fictional life.  It took Rhune some time to think to count his people, and much longer to draw the horrible conclusions to disappearances.  It was an even more painful process for Rhune, after indulging fists in his pockets, pacing, worrying, then observing the worst, to finally decide to impress the first law on his people.

Grovel if you are the lowest.
You cannot mate if we don’t like you.
Eat last if you are the worst.

These were wolf laws.  Rhune hated to give people rules, he’d hoped that the Dhamshee had re-made him into a creature that would be free of them.   Well, he would only be enforcing it, as the one on top.  Secret consolation.

“My children,” Rhune said softly and climbed up ontop of a conveniently-sized and placed rock at the choice moment.  The sun also rushed overhead in the sky, and Rhune worried that Hearwynn was planning something more.

“…I must ask something from you, and you must do it because I love you.”

His people came from all over the vast, mostly flat fields, from among the few shade trees, and came to meet him, smiling. 

“Yes Father?” One of them asked.

"You must not go beyond our lands at the Edge of the Story anymore.  Here, new things are being written and so it’s safe to look forward.  But, back in the Great Wilderness, is old content, events that have been drafts, or scratched out, re-thought and never to be revisited again.  Please, stay here with me.  That place behind us is now forbidden.  Do not be curious.  If any of you disobey this law... I will be forced to punish you."

But the Humans did not know what punishment was.  Rhune flagged a bit, he sensed that while he was off making them with their mother, some remarkable advents had occurred, towers raised, fires died back out again… he’d have to go this far? 

Also, why were they standing in groups, each behind standard bearers who held odd objects up on poles?  An old burying rock, an ancient hollow chewing-bone, some scrap of… oh, that pretty thing Dana had been wearing—nevermind it.

Rhune crossed an ankle over his bare knee.  No pants today.  So worried, that he forgot.  "A punishment is when... I bite you, because I love you."

This started a rash of mates leaving teeth marks on one another's necks and thighs.  The children cried when they saw it.  Rhune was forced to make another rule.

"My people.  Do not bite one another.  Only Father Rhune shall bite you, if you disobey him."

"Oh!" they exclaimed, as if seeing color for the first time.

As soon as the three tribes departed, Rhune hastened off of his royal seat and went into an old grotto covered partly by a morning glory vine.  Rhune had started it long ago, intending to live in a den, then became embarrassed when he noticed other Humans making houses of wood, or clay and stone.  Now, it was a crude hideaway nobody else appreciated.  He hiked down and down and down, then shouted at the stalactites.  “Is this all Humans are capable of?  I can’t hunt, I don’t really want to.  There’s nothing interesting worth smelling anymore.  So, what am I going to do to entertain myself with these simpletons, Hearwynn?  What happens if after all this time being left alone here, waiting for you to return, waiting for you to grant me a good life again, after dealing with all the wolf-bitches in my life as violently as you had me thirst for, then after betraying my own kin when you showed me how easy I could sneak at it… What if after allowing myself to make love to woman who turned out to be loose and foolish, some fantasy scheme of yours… Suppose your favorite son loses his will to advance through this half-assed plot?  Biting people, really?  Enough of silly meandering with fruits and transparent sex-jokes.  Hearwynn, I need you to do better!”

Fast and high up the mountain, through the top of the cavern, where the sky pierced through, Hearwynn brought the night fast with a crescent moon that rolled as if its center were truly a black pupil, finally annoyed enough.

“Shatter your protagonist with a tragedy, or give her an unexpected gift.  These things happen in real life, and in a novel they lend an enlarged perspective, a sense that the universe is paying attention.”[1]

But, if I will be so literal, then will we also need another protagonist She?  Nothing about grossly multiplied subplots and rampant hordes of secondary characters was learned from the previous chapter, in any case…

Exactly one month later, a young woman with red hair that at first fell from her crown's peak in black strands, pointed beyond the Edge and whistled that it was clear to sneak across.  She was good enough to merit two doting lovers, and the group of them rushed away into the forbidden beyond, laughter was hushed.

"Will Rhune truly bite us, do you think?" Asked one man.  He wore a talisman round his neck that looked like some dirtied strip of red lace.  The second man wore two earrings made of hollowed goat’s bone.  Just… do not ask me how.

The red woman, the leader answered.  "Of course not.  Misbehaving feels good, Bone-Man, so then it cannot be wrong."

"But Father Rhune has got big, sharp teeth in his mouth, different from ours.  What if it is as he has said, that they were made, 'the better to teach you with, my dears?'" said Strange-Negligee-Man.

The woman shrugged and said nothing more.  She felt her eyes doing much the same dance she had observed of the moon, a month ago.  Curious.

Hearwynn opened a field of red grass to them.  Broad blades that were sharp and cut when they passed.  The people did not like this.  Next, Hearwynn dropped the ground, and playful lovers tumbled into a ditch.  The people clambered onto their feet again, spitting out dirt and muck.  A breeze came and swelled, then roared, like laughter.

"We should turn back--"

"Never!" shouted the whipped-headed woman.  "Further, further still.  We have a right to smell what there is to smell and see what there is to see.  This whole place has been given to us--"

Now she stopped, because they had come to a great blue sea.   The young woman dashed into the surf, screamed that she loved the feel of it.  Her men came along, more wary, trying the vast, warm water with their toes.

"We have only seen streams and rivers before, never anything so deep?" tried Bone-Man.  Woman stopped this complaint with a kiss.

"Suppose it gets above our heads, what then?" Another kiss from her, and Strange-Negligee-Man felt emboldened as well. 

So, the people wandered deeper, then waded, then fired again and again at swimming.  The Humans found they could learn and do it well.  A pleasant day at the beach.  Hearwynn brought another strong wind, but this did not frighten them into something more interesting.  Next, the story made an earthquake far far away from them, on the other side of its cover, perhaps, and that caused a powerful wave to crash over the people's heads.  They cried out, but rode through it, recovered into relieved giggling.  Hearwynn did not know what else to do.  He even tried swelling the sun, but he not could evaporate the water or boil so much of it fast enough.  Finally, Hearwynn decided that it didn't matter what the people expected, a story or storyteller could do whatever he wanted, to get out of a fictional fix.

And so, nearby the most tanned, robust looking man (interesting, it was the one wearing the negligee), the water suddenly caught fire.

"Aaaargh!"

Now, three naked Human beings flailing about, trying to get back to the beach.  The beach, however, was so ice cold it burned the skin off the soles of their tender feet.  The world quaked once.  Hearwynn was so glad, he must have fallen over with laughing.

The lone woman looked up at the sun burning so happily in the face of her struggles, then made a decision.  She seized one of her lovers, the one with the earrings, why not—by the hair and threw him into the way of the flames.  After she scrambled over him, she yelled at the second man to help her heave his screaming, burning body onto the ice, and they stepped on him and pushed and ferried themselves across the ice, to return to the safety of soft, temperate grass again.  Here, Hearwynn quieted.  There had not been a creature willing to do something so cruel in a very long time.

The world was waiting.  The world watched.

"Go back for help, Strange-Negligee-Man.  I'll... I'll mind him."

Her last friend was already so terrified, it wasn't hard to startle him into running away.  When this last man returned to the village he told the story of their truly angry world, and the burning sea, his woman who had melted then scraped raw a fellow on an ice-beach in order to get them to safety.  Now, they had to run back and save her from whatever greater evil the story Hearwynn and the Great Wilderness might do.  Before all the other people, Rhune stepped down from his simple stone seat, shoved the man down with both hands upon his shoulders.  Then, Rhune craned the neck of Strange-Negligee-Man, snagged aside the snatch of red lace cloth, and sank his teeth in deep.

"She will be left in the wilderness!" Rhune shouted with bloodied mouth, "As for the rest of you, look and see what I have said I will do, and am unafraid to trespass against those who do not listen to your King!"

The Humans had not known before, what a King was.  There had been village heads and elders and chieftans… But they could not forget it now.  They cried out and ran in all directions.  Rhune was ashamed of himself and angry at what had happened, but he could not take it out on the story Hearwynn.  So then, King Rhune dragged off his first criminal to a cave, and indulged a deeper lupine instinct, to finish Strange-Negligee-Man off.  Or, was it a Human impulse, to hide pain and so prevent despair from infecting his peers whom he loved and needed—did he love these fools?  He did not need them to hunt alongside, but just to be with, to touch and be near to, and grow on, like some disease?

The woman who had survived by throwing her mate with the carrion-accessory into the fire, now walked alone in the darkness. 

Thatan and Ammerwind flashed moonbright fangs alongside her scuffed heels.  So taken with dark and unrepentant things, was she, that this woman did not even know death was on her.

"Will I become your dinner?" she said, half-absent.

"What?  Is it that she loves for death to be closeby?" gravelled Thatan.

She continued to walk, and the wolf spirits think, after a time.

"A better revenge, than hunting Rhune's children, Thatan, is to make our own, from one of his women."

A shocked bark, "And then...?"

Ammerwind clarified his prose.  "Stay your hunger, wait a while, last brethren, and we can forge our own dark heaven... Lady, would you stay a night with us?"

The stripe-haired woman stopped then said, "I am a doomed person.  My father surely hates me, and I can never go back home.”

“What if we were to give you a home?”

She thought about this for a long time.  She smoothed black hair at the peak of her round skull back, back, until it crossed with the red.  “Whatever sort of home it is, I must be its queen.  I will make the laws.  Others can suffer from them."

Thatan was able to press his chill nose against her calf because her flesh was beginning to like his spirit.  "Do you know, that those words have been spoken before?”

Ammerwind agreed.  “Do you know what we must call you, woman?  Alpha-bitch  Loveater."

"Queen Loveater." She insisted.

"Slight difference, not a hard adjustment to make.  Ammerwind and I shall remember it.  My greatest mate was the one, who once had such a name."  Now, the three creatures moved in a line, together.  Shade paws flared when they attempted to touch ground.  Fine hairs of her skin pricked, when her skin brushed against their plasma souls.  The Howling Beyond could not come fully into the world of life, the wolves were by now drenched in the power of Carnivory, though tried their best to risk being smelled by Rhune and fully return.  "I am certain, Ammerwind, that Rhune will be glad to know the Loveater lives again."

"Walks again.  Talks again.  Bleeds again."

"We will show you how to brew your favorite puppy-wine."

"Oh, will you?  That sounds horrific.  I love it." sneered Queen Loveater.

Thatan and Ammerwind raced around her, howling, twining gray sheer of their nightmare all over her, round her hips as she turned, licked and kissed her feet, twisted the air between the trees until these even stretched and bent, dried out in so much night without the sun, crisped and cracked, encased this girl, made her raise her arms, glad.  A wind came, this was not a hurricane but a tornado, born of dryness and dark clouds wanting to war with each other, lightning, black air, eye of the storm.  Not racing playfully along the water until it aroused and lost control, but galloping over the ground, swelling and arguing, raising, sharpening its point, until it found where it needed to punish and blasted apart the old ruins of some lost ancient home of some ancient lost people, dug out, then sent in a woman with back curved, spine moon white, panting, swatting tired-away the wolves that wanted her.

Queen Loveater knew that the wolves’ revenge was not the same as her own.  The animal with the sharpest tongue wanted Father Rhune silenced, and the one with the sharpest ears wanted Father Rhune to finally hear as he did, that the howling of the dead she-ones still carried on, that they were furious and tortured.  The old Mane Grey bitches were not done with him yet.  All Loveater wanted was to be able to go back home and be with her brothers and sisters, she confided this to herself in those last white moments.  How good, to live without fear of being eaten for breaking Father’s laws.  But, she had committed the sin of curiosity for venturing back into the old story, then showed pride in believing her own story might be better than Rhune’s.  Last, she wielded savage ingenuity to survive when there was no plot for her… All of these were natural gifts of her species.  Why didn’t Father Rhune care enough, to try and understand how hard it was to stop being curious, determined, agriculture—ous? 

Here and now it felt that… when he’d promised to bite them for doing wrong, and then did… when he dragged trespassers off to his cave, and nobody ever saw them again… however he settled up their sinning… Perhaps, not one spasm of Father Rhune’s old graying heart ever regretted it.  What tragedy to get left out, but good grace gifted a gate-ope for getting girl back in.

“Oh beautiful and vicious one, let us breed you.”

Confessed, next, through teeth clenched.  “Only if I will no longer be Rhune’s daughter.”

And that is how the Wolf People began.  Loveater’s warriors would be so different from old King Rhune's Toothless Ones.

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[1] Maass, Donald, Writing The Breakout Novel, Mass (Writer’s Digest Books) 96.

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Chapters
1 Who I Am :: 2 A Really Good Woman :: 3 Call him back, already!