#also finally making these made me stare at soldier-henry eagerly coming for his man for way too long and i'm weak

[charlie-rulerofhell]

"I'll be back. I promise you. And everything will be alright."

[louhilainen]

Henry fan art and fic

I had a request over from Fire Emblem Amino to draw Henry so I decided to post it on here as well. I had an inspiration to write a fic based on the drawing too... I’m a bit reluctant to share the drawing as the quality is reaaally bad. My partner’s scanner makes the lines too light and the photo isn’t that better either....

About 2000 words long, warning about the fic; child abuse (not graphic)

The Wolf and the Boy

”Caw, caw!”

”Nyahaha, wait for me!”

Henry was gleefully stumbling after his crows. Due to his excitement, the dark mage hardly noticed how far he had come from the man-made trails. The forest had gotten thicker and he advanced very slowly among the overgrown bushes and wet tussocks. He was probably a good way from the safety of the camp and thus, from Shephards. Oh well, he wasn’t too worried for his safety. Henry peered into the empty sky save for the clouds covering the sun. Crows had probably found whatever they were looking for and had landed.

Poor Ricken had had a very confused look on his face, when Henry had simply left him in the middle of their practise and ran after his black flock. His small friends took off from time to time to find food and Henry was determined to see what they had found. It could not be a body of Risen as even crows avoided the sullen flesh of the undead soldiers. Maybe they had found some other unlucky soul? Rotten flesh, guts teared from the belly… He could hardly wait!

He heard a mixture of sounds nearby; his crows cawing loudly and some other animals snarling.

The noise became from behind a thick row of bushes. The black mage pranced to them giddily and squashed himself between the bushes. Taking no time check what was waiting for him, he almost fell through the bushes to relatively flat ground.

The crows had found the meal they were looking for. Too bad it belonged to someone else. A pack of wolves was gathered around a carcass of a deer. Few wolves were tearing away pieces of what was left of it while snapping their teeth to crows who dared closer to their prey. Other wolves, five of them, Henry calculated quickly, lay on the ground, perhaps waiting for others to finish their meal.

It had been awhile since Henry had seen wolves.

“Oh, hello! Don’t mind me!” The mage waved his hand like he had stumbled upon children’s game, not to hungry beasts which could tear him apart in a few seconds.

Wolfes raised their heads in alarm and few of them bared their teeth.

“What? Are you thinking of eating me? Don’t even think about it! I don’t want to hurt you, but I can give you a nice curse… How about a curse where your teeth fall out from your mouth? Nyahahaa!”

Henry took quickly a tome from his bag and placed his hand on it and for a while, neither the mage nor wolves made first move. The crows hanged about around the carcass, waiting for their change.

A big wolf, one of those that had been resting on the ground, relaxed and lay back on the ground. The other wolves followed the example one by one and the ones that had their meal interrupted, directed their attention back to it.                                                                                                                

Henry wasn’t surprised about this. The animals had a good scent who to pick fights with and he had always been better with animals than humans from his very childhood. He put his tome back, and sat on the ground, watching fascinated as wolves devoured their meal. They reminded him of his first friend. Well, more like his mother when Henry thought about it. Wolfie, he had called her. The wolf had visited him almost every day and it had even brought prey to him. She had probably thought that he was hungry. Henry chuckled at the memory. There were some parts of his memories of Wolfie that seemed…. hazy. Like he had forgotten something very important. The mage shook his head. It was no matter. Wolfie was long dead, murdered… At least he had made sure her life hadn’t come cheap.

Henry realized suddenly that one wolf’s gaze never left him. He looked at it curiously. It was the same one that had been the first to react. The staring was certainly unusual behaviour for an animal.

It was a big wolf, probably the leader of the pack. It reminded him of his lost friend. Same size, similar grey-brown fur. Even the gaze was the same. Surprisingly human-like, but still animalistic enough. Like it knew something he didn’t. If he didn’t know better he could have thought it was his friend brought from the dead.

The wolf rose from the ground and very carefully, made its way toward him.

Henry opened his eyes startled. He watched confused the advancing wolf. It stopped close to him, as if waiting for something from him.

“Umm, hello? Have we met before? I’m so sorry, but I don’t remember you at all! I’m pretty sure I would remember you.”

The wolf stayed in its place. It didn’t look it was going to attack him. Henry rose and took a few small steps to the wolf.

“You know, you look really familiar. Have you ever met perhaps my friend Wolfie? Well, it was a name I gave it to her but she looked really like you so…”

Henry met the wolf’s eyes. They were exactly the same as Wolfie’s, expect… expect…. This wolf had a white spot its right eye.

His head spun.

“No, wait, I know you! You’re… you’re…!”  

***                                                                                                                                                    

Henry sat on his usual place with a magic tome on his hands. Under the huge oak, on the meadow near the forest edge. It was his favourite spot. Well, anything was better than that his home, even the streets. But the best part was that villagers rarely ever ventured to this side of the forest. A perfect place for meeting his best friends.

The only ones he had.

Meeting them every day made his life bearable. After playing with them he could easily manage few days with his parents. His father throwing him out, his cheek on the cold, wet ground, the door shut tightly… Never to open to matter how hard he pummelled the door... In the end, Henry finally stopped trying. No, no, Henry didn’t want to think about it. If he dwelled on memories things too long, he was afraid he would… summon something. He could feel the terrible lump throbbing loudly whenever he was most desperate to smile.

Finally a large wolf jogged from the forest with four cubs following closely on the bigger wolf’s paws.

“Hey!” Henry waved his hand and greeted his friends relieved to have their presence save himself from his thoughts. The bigger wolf started to lick his face as soon as she arrived to Henry. “That tickles, haven’t I said you don’t have to wash me!” The boy laughed as wolf’s coarse tongue licked every corner of his face.

Snow and Froggie started to wrestle like they always did when they weren’t eating or sleeping. Snow had gotten his name due to his fur. Well, his fur was more like grey than white, but Snow sounded better. Henry had started to call the other puppy Froggie when he had tried to make a frog his prey. He had been startled when the frog had started jumping higher than Froggie himself was.

Blackie and Spot nibbled and growled at each other around Henry’s legs. They both wanted to climb up to his lap.  Blackie had gotten his name because he had a black snout. Henry had named Spot immediately when he saw her for the first time. She had a white spot under her right eye. Otherwise she looked very much like her mother.  

“You’re getting so big!” Henry picked Spot up and she happily gnawed his arm. “Auch! You’re getting sharper teeth too…”

The boy placed Spot on the ground and picked up a sturdy branch from the grass. Blackie rushed to it and sank his teeth to it. He tried to pull it from the boy with his tail wagging furiously. Spot joined her brother gnawing the branch from the middle.  Mother kept watch on her cubs; on a wolf and a human alike, as they played together. Laughter from the human boy and high pitched snarling and yelping from the wolves filled the meadow with happy sounds.

***

“Well, I’ll be damned! I’ve never seen such a huge wolf before!”

“And it was near the village too! To think it could have attacked someone… That thing could easily just carry a child like it was nothing!”

“Speaking of children, didn’t it have cubs?”

“We haven’t found them yet. The mother must have left them on a den, but we’re going to find them and get rid of them. We don’t want four grown wolves roaming near the village.”

Henry hardly heard the buzzle of the small crowd gathered in the centre of the village. He fell on his knees to the ground beside his death mother. Her side was full of huge arrows. Blood had coloured her beautiful fur with red among the corners of the hole that the arrows had made. Her tongue lolled outside the mouth, her features forever locked in an agonised expression.

“What’s wrong with you, boy? Never seen a dead wolf before?”

“Why the hell is he smiling like that?”

“You’re shaking so badly, are you alright?”

The small boy didn’t hear them. He only heard the lump beating, filling every fibre of his being with vicious power that longed to be released. The lump purred and whispered to him.

Let me take care of this. After that…. You will smile like you never have.

“Hey, what in Naga’s same is he doing…?”

Henry let darkness swallow him.

***

“How… how could I forget you..?” Henry fell on this knees reaching for the wolf. Spot came eagerly to him and the black mage rubbed Spot’s fur with shaking hands.

“I’m so… happy to see you!” Henry always felt happy. But this time… this time he felt like he couldn’t contain his happiness. Like it would burst out from him.

But at the same time… it hurt so much.

“Nyahaa…. What’s… wrong with me? I feel so happy, but it also really, really hurts…. in here…” Henry grasped his shirt, just under where his heart was. He felt moist in the corner of his eyes and touched his eyes. “What’s this? Are these… tears..?” The mage watched his wet fingers in wonder.

His lost sibling began licking his face.

“Aaah, that tickles!” Henry laughed. The tongue felt as coarse as had Wolfie’s years ago.

He made a rare kind of smile; a genuine one. “I’m glad you survived. Even if it was just one of you…I’m glad.”

Spot’s mother had lost her life and her siblings probably as well… Only because she took him in to their family. If he had never visited that place… then… then…

“Hey, can you forgive me?” Henry took his hands off. ”It was kind of my fault your mother was killed. If only I had stayed away from that place and from you…” His voice faded away.

Spot tilted her head and simply commenced licking his face again.

“Haha, I guess I’m forgiven!”

Animals truly were amazing.

The rest of the pack had finished with the carcass and was restlessly moving around, probably wondering why their leader was behaving so oddly around the human. His childhood friend raised her head.

“Is that your pack? You seem to have done good in life, nyaha!” Henry petted her head gently.

“Hey, you know. I have kind of pack too. They’re called Shephards. Although I’m from Plegia and they’re from Ylisse, I feel like they’re my… family? Kinda like you guys were to me. I don’t think they quite understand what’s so great about curses… But it feels like I’m at home when I’m with them.” The wolf’s gaze was on Henry as if she was listening attentively.

“Both of us should be going. You with your pack and I with Shephards. Knowing them, they must be getting worried about me. I wouldn’t want them to start searching from me. Last time Ricken came after me, but then Risen attacked and boy, was it was fun to send them back to afterlife! Nyahahaa! Well, for me at least, Ricken started crying after we made it to the camp…. He really is bad with all this killing stuff.”

“So, good bye, Spot.” Henry scratched around her ears. They weren’t as soft as they were when she had been a cub… But they were still Spot’s. “If you ever need someone dead or cursed, come find me! I’ll send them to hell sooner than you can imagine… I’ve had a much more practise lately!” The dark mage added more cheerfully.

His childhood friend gave a last lick to Henry’s cheek and turned around with a single tail wave. She jogged to her pack. Crows rushed cawing happily to the pitifully small remains of the deer carcass. The dark mage waved his hand in goodbye as the pack slipped to the darkness of the forest.

“Bye bye, Spot! Be safe!” Henry shouted after them. “Huh, what’s this? My eyes are wet again…”