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stragglewort · 5 years ago

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Greymouth -- “A Little Warning”

Picture by Christy “Goldenwolf” Grand Jean, 2010 - https://www.deviantart.com/goldenwolf/

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It was an all too familiar feeling, waking up and knowing time had been lost. From night to morning, Lycanthropy had a great way of destroying his sense of exactly how much time had passed.

But this time around was different. There were witnesses.

It took a bit to realize he was even alive, let alone that he had turned. Some guards or bandits, whatever they were, had ambushed the party. Obviously servants of the land's lord. With their blackened iron armor and stench of undeath, their loyalties were unmistakable. But he only remembered them confronting the group, rising from the shadows and cornering them. Fighting wasn’t his forte, sure, but he usually managed to do it without the help of claws or teeth. He just knew that this lapse in memory had something to do with the full moon that was then barely a day away.

But something was different. Usually after turning he would wake to all those tell-tale things he'd become acquainted with: the ache in his joints from the beast's stretching, the nausea, the hunger. All those he'd accepted as a truth of living.

It didn't take long to realize that he actually felt quite… content.

A shot of panic blew through his already exhausted body. The realization, sharper than any arrow speared him. "…Amare?" He called out to the paladin whose face he could barely realize. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was so close, he probably wouldn’t have been confident enough to ask so specifically. The second understandable words left his mouth, the second she realized he was awake, she bolted upright and shot to grab him. Whether that was something worried or angry – he couldn’t tell. But her hesitation and fallback were more than enough for him to regret ever wondering. At this point he’d only just started traveling with these people – they’d gone through so much together in such a short time, he knew he’d have to tell them about his condition at some point or another –

He only wished it hadn’t been so soon. So sudden. And so completely out of his control.

She responded, though his hearing failed to catch as he found himself distracted by their makeshift battlefield. There was blood, no doubt, that he could smell. Though he couldn't see any bodies. Reeling back from transforming, his senses where always heightened. Touch, smell, hearing – never sight, though. Everything was so blurry – shifted to a foggy grey that took his vision like cataracts – he couldn't tell what was what. He knew there were people standing around him – he could smell and feel their anger, their fear. He hoped it was just the fight that’d shaken them so much. Amare was unmistakable, though, with her bright green tunic and yellow trousers he could spot her from a mile away. She said something again he didn't quite catch, though he knew it was directed at him.

"...Okay?" She ended, kneeling to his level to catch his full attention.

He stared at her bewildered. She’d gotten close enough he could see the worry that tracked over her face. At least – at least – it wasn’t anger. He prayed to whatever god could hear him at that moment it wasn’t. The woman's peppered hair fell in locks past her neck, unkempt from the combat. But that was nothing he could focus on. As he stared, all that came to his mind was the bittering taste of blood left on his tongue. It was sweet. Awfully, horribly delicious. It made him panic. He pulled himself away from the woman with no real logic over why – it was just that the pungent, viscous sour that coated his mouth terrified him.

The woman, taken aback by the weary man's sudden jolt went through with her original idea and grabbed him by the shoulders. Reassuringly – though sternly – pinning him against the tree he was slumped on.

"No…” He shook his head and pawed at her hands weakly – “Please – what happened?" The words finally came to and fell fluttering from him incomprehensibly. "Wh- what did I do? What did I do?" He knew the taste, could smell the metallic pang off his own breath and a-thousand ideas flew through his mind over what or who it might've been from.

"Ardolf, calm yourself."

"Wait, wait –“ He counted Amare, he counted the wizard – Feek. He saw the rogue who’d gone to picking at those lumps of metal and dark he knew were bodies. What he didn’t see were the two little ones they’d taken in after a mishap with some hags in a bog. He loved those kids the second he saw them – he needed to make sure they were okay – and the moment his thought became his own again, they were the priority above every other blasted thing. “Ms. Amare, please, where are the children?" He knew to the horrible beast that two defenseless sacks of meat would be more than palatable. He tried to move from his spot against the old twisted bark of whatever tree he’d taken – but Amare held him down.

She hadn’t exactly hesitated but any time between question and answer was torture. "The children are safe." She said. Her voice was stifled, held back and angry. Oh, she was angry. But as she looked over the horror in the doctor’s face – saw the budding tears at the edges of his tired, shadowed eyes, she softened.

“Thank you – thank you – oh, gods – thank you.” He muttered, slurred and tired, but whole-heartedly genuine.

Amare curbed what was usually a firm, strong tone of voice for something softer. He appreciated the effort; his ears were ringing in a whistle – something painful – and her newfound softness helped break the tune. "Ardolf, what was that?"

“Do I have to say it?” He wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a joke. It felt like one, but no one laughed. He didn’t even laugh. Just sighed and looked up at the brimming dawn sky just hoping the moment would end.

Her hands curled into his shoulders involuntarily, it was a bit painful. She forced down what terrified anger vied to boil up to the surface and spoke again, in a mimicked cool. “…Why had you not told us?”

“Gods… I –“ His voice came out in a scathed whisper. “I wanted to – I was about to –“ He shook his head. “Did I hurt anyone?”

“No.” That, though, was an obvious lie – they both knew that much. Amare, in all her good graces, wasn't the best liar.

"Who did I -"

"No one, Ardolf. No one you should worry over."

The words struck him. The truth from someone else's mouth. He appreciated the newfound honesty, but it didn't hurt any less to hear. “Feek, Austere – they’re alright?” He relented to the tree and fell back into it.

“Stop being a doctor for just one second!” Amare laughed, a bit shaken, but lighthearted.

“But I –“ He started to interrupt, but she shushed him.

“Ardolf we’re fine – you’re the one whose bones we could hear breaking from a furlong away! I’ve heard of wolves but that was a show all on its own –”

He blinked. It was all he could do for that moment as he watched her worry and anger melt into something joking. Whatever worry she had in her own mind, she’d managed to diffuse. He just had to do the same for himself. “A furlong?” He asked.

“I don’t even understand how you could fit all of that into all of you.” She motioned, exaggerated.

He laughed. Mostly out of confusion, sure – and by the gods it hurt to do – but he had no control over it. Short, breathy chuckles left his throat and things almost felt… better. Just better for that moment and that moment alone. He heard Austere yell from the other side of the field with something or another about how, for some reason, the undead guards had pouches of gold. And that, coincidentally, the party now had new wallets. He looked back at the rogue, over to the wizard who’d been eyeing him but had said nothing, and lastly to Amare. The paladin. Who read the confusion like some petty poet’s scroll.

“You’re not shunned, Doctor –“ She started, letting him go. “Just a little warning would be nice next time, yeah?”

He laughed. “I had thought the very same thing.”

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Another Ardolf one-shot! I swear he’ll get a full, proper story at some point or another. By this point quite of bit of his stuff is more in concept! Ideas that end up getting thrown to him because, man, he’s a fun character to write. This one’s set a bit before the Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Staff™. In the future he might get some stories sans-party, so if he ever ends up alone for some reason - know Amare and those folks are all alive! They’re just subject to a non-existent timeline!

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