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moutainrusing · 6 months ago

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wolf wilder

As the upper-class, influential family that the Blacks were, they owned a lot of land, a lot of money, and a lot of slaves. All of the slaves were werewolves. This was for many reasons. In their wolf states, werewolves needed to be tamed and muzzled, restrained with chains, which aristocrats glorified as necklaces and jewellery. They were forced to remain still and stiff through injections and drugs, as if they were taxidermied museum displays for people to gawk at and laugh at, or stuffed toys for people to dress up ridiculously, or statues for people to lean beside as they blew cigar smoke into the wolf’s unblinking eyes.

But Sirius knew that the wolves were alive and breathing and human. Because after the full moon was over, they’d return to their human forms, with aching bones and reddened eyes and quiet anger, bony bodies, knobbly joints, weakened postures; and immediately, with no rest break, they were threatened into manual labour and menial jobs.

Sirius knew for a fact that slaves were mistreated, and that slavery should be illegal. He also knew that as the sixteen year old heir of the Blacks, it was his responsibility to rectify it. Then again, as the heir, he wasn’t allowed to do anything except be obedient or face the consequences, which included his parents screeching at him twenty-four seven, locking him in his room, rationing his meals — trying anything and everything to make him listen.

(It didn’t work.) Which is why, tonight, he was climbing down the dusty old stairs to the dungeons, where the werewolves slept each night, beaten and battered and bruised. They had only the cold, stone floor for a mattress, and there was nothing to heat them up as they shivered on their backs through the entire night. So Sirius had cleverly shrunk a bunch of blankets and pillows, and smuggled them down inside a handbag, expanded with an extension charm.

Upon seeing Sirius traipsing into the dungeon, the werewolves stumbled back, right to the far corners of the cell.

Despite their widened eyes and tensed bodies, Sirius grinned at them, upturning the contents of his dead great aunt’s handbag and casting an enlargement charm on them. “Brought you blankets!”

The werewolves began murmuring to each other, in voices so low that Sirius couldn’t catch what they were saying. Finally, one of them, who was slightly taller than the rest, with tawny curls hanging low over his eyes, and an awkward, bendy posture, stepped forward, and continued to step forward even when arms reached out to pull him back. He simply shook them off, and looked up to meet Sirius’s gaze, with critical, murky brown-green eyes.

He coughed slightly, “What do you want… Master Black?” He looked very reluctant to call Sirius that, and likely only did it due to the fearful eyes boring into his back, begging him to be subservient.

“Don’t call me that,” Sirius waved a careless hand to brush him off. “Call me Sirius. Although only when it’s just me, or my parents’ll probably beat you.”

All the werewolves flinched at that. The one with the murky eyes glowered at him, and suddenly the eyes were stormy, like dark blue-green waves crashing over a splintering, wood-brown ship. “Don’t bring it up,” he hissed.

“Oh,” Sirius’s eyes widened. “Sorry. Do you want the blankets?”

The werewolf looked at him, all while crouching down to sniff at the blankets. He turned to the people behind him. “All fine,” he assured quietly but firmly.

Sirius snorted. “What, you think I poisoned them?”

The werewolf turned to face him, looking very unimpressed.

Sirius gaped at him. “Dude! I wouldn’t!”

“Yeah. Well. Thanks. Bye.” He began to pick up the blankets, probably expecting Sirius to leave.

But Sirius also crouched down, and began furnishing the cell as well. “Look,” he began to cast disillusionment charms over the cushions. “This way no one’ll see them, so you’ll always be comfortable, okay?”

The werewolf blinked at him and smiled, and Sirius realised he should probably stop calling him ‘the werewolf’ in his head. “What’s your name?”

He hesitated, looking at Sirius with those swirling, forest-like eyes. Finally, he smiled softly, and murmured, “Remus.”

Sirius grinned. “Nice to meet you, Remus.”

Remus’s eyes seemed to light up in amusement, shining even though there was no light in the dungeon. “Nice to meet you too, Sirius.”

Then Sirius went back up to his grand, overwhelmingly huge bedroom, still thinking about Remus. Maybe he should offer his bedroom to the werewolves, as it would provide more space for them to rest. But then his parents would check on him, see the atrocity, give the werewolves even more beatings, and lock Sirius in his room. So no, Remus couldn’t rest in his bedroom with him. Even though he was Sirius’s favourite.

He was braver than the others. And expressive, and through his eyes alone. Those eyes could bore into Sirius’s soul any day and he would appreciate it profusely.

And so he kept going down, for a few minutes each night, just to see those eyes. Remus probably didn’t appreciate it the way Sirius did, but at least he still engaged in conversation. Sirius would tell him how awful the noble life was, and Remus would look at him with a complete blank face and deadpan, “Yes, must be much worse than the life of slaves.”

And while the werewolves behind him would all huddle around each other and natter on about how Sirius was untrustworthy and their brother Remus should stay away, the corner of Remus’s eyes would crinkle and his lips would twitch up, then both he and Sirius would be in tears laughing about how much life chewed them up and spat them out and trampled their bodies and shattered their ribs.

Remus would then say they couldn’t compare each other’s suffering, because suffering was suffering, so Sirius never felt bad complaining, even if Remus always made a joke out of it. Actually, it was better when Remus made jokes.

But as their minutes together augmented, the days until the next full moon reduced, until it was finally there, and the wolves were all drugged and shackled and muzzled, dressed in gold chains as they stood in their fixed positions in the Blacks’ ballroom. Sirius had been locked in his room for hours, because he’d protested against the guards going down to inject the werewolves, desperately blocking their path.

His parents had curled their lips at his hysterics, and with one of their hands on each of his wrists, they’d pulled him kicking and screaming into his room.

Now, they let him out, because the party was starting and guests were arriving, and it would be much too disgraceful if the heir of the Blacks wasn’t there to greet them. But instead of fulfilling these duties, Sirius instead hurtled down the stairs and pushed past guests, searching for Remus Lupin’s glassy forest eyes.

And when he found them, Sirius pressed his wand to the chains and sent them clattering to the ground. He wrapped his arms around his wolf, two times bigger than himself, and ran out of the doors through which outraged guests were entering. He didn’t care; he just ran.

They shot spells at his back, and he kept running. He didn’t want to let go of Remus to get his wand out, so he kept running, and tried to cast a wandless shield charm.

“PROTEGO!” He yelled on repeat, squeezing his arms around Remus’s waist tighter and tighter, until suddenly, a barrier formed around them, and the beams of light from malicious spells were deflected away.

He sighed heavily in relief, and looked up at Remus. And, to his surprise, Remus blinked. Oh. Not that it was bad, but if the werewolf was mobile, then Sirius would probably end up permanently immobile. Dead.

Carefully, he placed Remus on the ground and gingerly removed his muzzle. He couldn’t help but notice that werewolves were extremely large and very capable of killing, but it was all fine, but also not fine, because the drugs were still flowing through Remus’s system, and apparently, he could only blink.

Which is what he was doing. Keep blinking, Sirius thought, heaving Remus up again and running further, until their surroundings morphed from open land into thick, dense forest.

He placed Remus down again, and sat next to him quietly, not sure if he was watching for danger from people around them, or from the wolf. Looking at Remus, he decided that honestly, this wolf could never be dangerous (well, he could, but Sirius wanted to be blindly ignorant to the danger because he wanted to be closer to Remus).

Which is what he did. He shuffled closer, and tried to arrange Remus’s stiff limbs into something more comfortable. How did werewolves even rest? He took Remus’s hind limbs, grinning at how the knee joints were as knobbly as Remus’s knees in human form, and tucked them into the wolf’s soft, white underside. Then he took the wolf’s front limbs, and tucked them into Remus’s chest, so that Remus was comfortably curled up on his stomach.

He ran a hand through the coarse grey fur on the wolf’s back, enjoying the feeling of it tangling within his fingers and brushing against his skin. Right now, it was short and cropped, supposedly elegant and more pleasant to look at for spoiled elitists, but Sirius decided he’d prefer the hair if it was unkempt and wild, allowed to be loose and free.

After some time of him shuffling so close to Remus he was practically hugging his back, stealing the lycanthrope’s crazy body heat, Remus began to twitch. Sirius startled backwards as Remus slowly stood up on shaking limbs, turning to tower above him, each step closer looking painful, for both Sirius and the wolf.

Sirius reached out to steady Remus’s shaking body, placing a hand on either side of him, gently running them along his back, and the wolf collapsed to the ground, murky eyes narrowed and teeth bared. Hoarsely, as if struggling to speak, Remus growled at him, at first in an attempt to be aggressive, then pitifully.

So Sirius reached up to caress his snout, to reassure him that he would never be drugged again. In fact, after this, Sirius was going to try his utmost best to ensure all werewolves were free from all this abuse. He stared into Remus’s beautiful, human eyes, and tried to channel every comforting thought he had. Remus stared back, and Sirius thought he saw his emotions being reflected.

And suddenly, the wolf’s front limbs were wrapped around his waist, squeezing tighter and tighter, and Sirius wasn’t sure whether he was being killed or revived, but either way, he squeezed back. Around them, a glimmery shield formed, similar to the invisible Protego, but stronger, more intense.

Remus opened his jaws, and howled, right into Sirius’s ear, rendering him practically deaf. Then the wolf was licking his face, letting him go to look at him eagerly, tongue lolling out of his mouth. Right. Sirius burst out laughing, and wiped his sticky face on Remus’s back.

Remus nipped at him, and Sirius dodged. So Remus began prowling towards him, eyes glinting, and he leapt on top of Sirius. And then he opened his jaws. Sirius placed one hand on the upper jaw, and one on the lower, and firmly stilled them, because he was not about to become werewolf prey.

Remus began drooling from keeping his mouth open, huge globs smacking Sirius’s face, and he firmly shut his eyes and sealed his lips away, grimacing. With his eyes still shut, he wriggled further underneath the wolf, and wiped his face on Remus’s underbelly, the white fur smoother and softer than above. Remus whined at the touch, seeming to ask for more. So Sirius gently rubbed the wolf’s delicate belly, until Remus fell asleep. Then he hugged him until Remus woke up as a man.

#sirius black #remus lupin #marauders #wolfstar #remus x sirius #microfiction #fanfic #short story #alternate universe #werewolves #are cool #inspired by the wolf wilder by katherine rundell #yes that's a kid's book #but you should read it #the wolf wilder #katherine rundell

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urtrickster · 11 months ago

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ok hi <3 i am choosing kate as the target of my confusing wrath, so buckle up because we're in for a mess of thoughts all shoved together into one post and it isn't gonna be pretty.

i don't think kate will ever truly get over mark's death, especially if she abandons him on the boat. to me, they're like... soulmates. they are each other's other half, even if those halves aren't perfect.

i think the guilt eats her alive, and i think she has nightmares about him almost every night. she already struggled with sleep, but now that mark haunts her dreams, asking her why she left him, it's as if sleep has completely abandoned her entirely. but she deserves it, doesn't she? it's what she gets for abandoning him. that's what she thinks, at least.

and what's even worse is that mark never gets a proper funeral. his body never washed ashore, so they were forced to bury an empty casket. kate hates herself. he probably would've survived, had she stayed on the boat. there wouldn't be an empty casket. there wouldn't be a funeral. she wouldn't be wearing black, and she wouldn't be crying the way she is if she weren't such a selfish coward.

or maybe she would've died with him. honestly, that probably would've been better than being forced to live without him, y'know?

the others tell her that it isn't her fault, but it was. it is. she could've done something to save him. she should have done something to save him. she's the reason he's dead, even if they don't want to think that she is.

and after his death, i can see her wearing his clothes to feel a little closer to him. they're a bit big on her, but they're his, and it's the closest she'll ever really get to being held by him again.

his death makes her realize all the things she took for granted. you'd think she'd learn to cherish people more after what happened with shelby, but it seems like she's yet to learn her lesson. she'll never get to see him smile again. she'll never hear his laugh. the only time she'll be able to hear his voice is when she listens to old voicemails she saved or when she watches old recordings of him.

he'll never be able to live out his dreams, and it's her fault.

and i think she keeps all of his old cameras. on particularly bad days, she'll look at all the old photos he's taken and she'll always cry because a lot of them are of her. or the rest of the crew. she'll never be able to see his collection of photos grow.

she'll never be able to tell mark that she loves him.

#the thoughts.#breakdancing as if i'm not posting horrific angst #the devil in me #tdim #mark nestor #kate wilder #katherine wilder #mark x kate #markate

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