Private Tales Wolves At the Door

[Silver Romani]

"Oh.." was all that Silver could say as he said he'd met travellers. They were usually a bane of existence to other communities, every town and city they settled nearby upped their guard and kept a close eye on them, but it never worked. They bled the streets dry and were gone before they could be reprimanded. It was a life that she'd loved, and she'd taken her freedom for granted.

She rested her chin on her knuckles and watched him, amber gaze studying him closely. His question caused her lips to twist as she thought about it.. "Sometimes..." She tried not to. "When I smell blood, or dear.. Or when I hear something in the forest. When the moon is growing.. And when I smell you." she answered, her cheeks flushing slightly at how the latter might sound. "But I try to ignore it." she admitted.

 

[Jorg]

"Don't." Jorg said firmly.

It was counterintuitive, he knew that. Even letting the Wolf linger had terrified him at first. The monster inside was not something everyone wanted, or could face, but it was also the only way you could actually move forward with any of this.

"You need to know it." He said, taking the bottle back and half tipping it for a second and he considered how to explain this. Jorg wasn't a teacher, but he was trying his level best. "With knowledge comes control."

Even if there was fear behind it. "The better you can understand it, the better you know what it wants."

He leaned forward slightly and held out his hand.

"Now smell me." The look on his face was filled with a grin.

 

[Silver Romani]

Don't...

Silver frowned at him as she considered his instruction, her fear on the matter was obvious. She huffed quietly and nodded.. "I'll try.." she answered nervously and chewed on her lip. How exactly she was supposed to do this though, she had no idea. She thought of how she tried to push those little stirrings to the back of her mind, how tense her muscles always felt each time she felt a ripple or quake under her skin and she locked it away.

She splayed her hands out on the table and pulled in a deep breath as she listened to him, trying to let her muscles and mind relax. It felt strange, and suddenly she realised how tense she was and had been for some time as he shoulders and back physically ached as though she'd been carrying something incredibly heavy or wearing a corset too tightly.

She blinked at him as he told her to smell him, her eyes raising to meet his, and the grin on his face made her cheeks warm furiously. She tried not to appear as shy as she was and a brief frown touched her brow as she reached for his arm to pull it closer to her. She could smell him as it was, but she looked at him cautiously as she lifted his wrist to her nose and breathed in.

Her pupils dilated and she dropped his arm as her muscles contracted and burned, her jaw physically ached with the urge to bite into his flesh, and she felt the wolf's instinct at the forefront of her mind. She pushed herself back from him so far that the stool fell and she clattered to the floor with an 'oof'.

 

[Jorg]

Jorg jumped up immediately, letting his own chair fall to the ground but leaving the bottle of spirits on the table as he jumped over the table and landed just to her side.

He crouched beside her immediately. "Are you okay?"

His voice had a surprising amount of concern even though they had just met. A hand immediately went for her head, lifting it off the ground as fingers checked for cracked skull or blood.

When he found neither a sigh of relief left him.

Some teacher he was. First lesson and his student immediately threw herself into the floor out of sheer...fear? He wasnt really sure what exactly that had been?

"Do I smell that bad?" Jorg asked, crouching over her.

 

[Silver Romani]

Silver groaned with a pained frown on her brow, her spine aching as though it wanted to burst free of the soft cage of her skin. Her eyes opened as he landed beside her and she flinched, a brief wave of panic rushing over her as she thought for a moment he'd been about to hurt her. He didn't, though, and she stared up at him with mortification as he lifted her head. She tried to breathe through her mouth given his closeness, and she pushed the wolf back down.

She winced as she propped herself up onto her elbows and she nodded "I'm alright.. It worked I just. It frightens me." she admitted and sat herself up to rub at the back of her neck with a quiet laugh at his words... "No I.. Quite the opposite. I mean.." she frowned as she felt the ache in her jaw again.. "I wanted to bite you.."

 

[Jorg]

"Oh." It seemed that her Wolf had quite a bit of spunk. "So so it."

Jorg said simply.

It wasn't like she could really hurt him all that much. The Wolf kept most infections free of him and he healed better than any regular human ever would. A single bit wasn't really going to do much, plus it would help.

"Bite me." Jorg demanded.

If they were going to make any sort of progress he wasn't going to allow her to tip toe around this. It would already take weeks, maybe months to get her to reach her own deal.

Jorg wasn't about to let her get off easy. "And then see what the Wolf feels."

She needed to draw a connection. It was that simple.

 

[Silver Romani]

Silver's eyes widened at him and she blinked "What?..No!" her head shook and her voice was strained with dubiety. Her cheeks were a darker shade of pink now and her skin was so red hot to the touch that it radiated from her.

"I don't want to know what it feels. I can't control it when it takes over, I don't want to tempt fate." she frowned. "Ugh this was a mistake.." she rubbed at her face trying to hide her fear and embarrassment inside her palms.

The rain lashed hard against the dilapidated inn and Silver jumped as the wind caught the shutter and slammed it against the window. She was a nervous wreck, and her spine tingled with the wolf's desire to defend itself from a threat that wasn't there.

 

[Jorg]

Jorg sighed.

The stench of fear and embarrassement that rose from her was almost palpable. It was like a sickly sweet taste in his mouth, something that the Wolf at the back of his mind almost seemed to enjoy. A frown touched his lips, and he wondered if this was some kind of weird werewolf thing where it saw her as prey.

Lips thinned, and his head shook. "Look either you bite me."

He told her firmly.

"Or I'm going to bite you." He figured that would work just about the same. All he wanted was for her to trigger the wolf, to let that animalistic side come out without fighting it. It was a monster, but monsters had the same instincts, feelings, and hatred that they did. All of that was buried deeper for them, but still.

"I know it's scary. I know letting it take over is terrifying, but you asked for this. It's the first step. It's learning about it." His voice was firm. "Let it take you, sweep over you, but feel what it does."

Was he just a bad teacher? It felt like it. "Now bite me."

He waggled his arm in front of her.

 

[Silver Romani]

Silver looked up at him and swallowed nervously as he threatened to bite her. She doubted that being bitten by another wolf was going to do down well, but she feared that doing so might provoke his wolf into attacking her.

Still, the ultimatum had her reaching a tremulous hand to take his arm and she brought it to her lips, eying him as she pulled up his sleeve a little, opened her mouth and pressed her teeth against his wrist. She didn't bite down, and for a moment she just sort of sat there with his wrist in her mouth waiting for something to happen.

She had been about to let his wrist fall when she breathed in that scent again, and her jaws instantly locked against his arm until she tasted blood in her mouth. Her eyes flashed as though caught in the light and a low, guttural growl sounded in her chest. She bit harder, and the teeth in her mouth seemed to grow every-so-slightly to a point.

The taste of blood sent her mind to a frenzy and her spine cracked. Pain shot through her and she instantly let go of his wrist and reached to grab his clothes at the chest and force him into a pin against the floor with the strength of ten men, blood glistening on her lips as she stared down at him, breathing heavily with a look of fury.

 

[Jorg]

"Oh, Hello there." Jorg's voice was a token of serenity, but his eyes betrayed him.

The moment she had lifted him from the ground and thrown him against the door the wolf inside of himself reacted. Pupils shrank to tiny pinpricks, his teeth grew out, and the muscles in his body seemed to flex and tense under the pressure of her tough.

Fingers came up, wrapping around her wrists.

He could smell the lack of control of her, the frenzy, the taste for blood. His head cocked to the side as he breathed in more deeply. The change in her scent was clear, something more...dominant than before poking out.

None of that sickly sweet fear was there, not on the surface. "Are you still in there?"

He asked Silver.

"Or are you hiding?" Lips turned to a smirk, long canines showing as he did so.

 

[Silver Romani]

Silver heard him but only half registered his words. Her muscles were shuddering painfully and her pupils dilated, trained on his throat. She bit hard on her lip, revealing her own sharp canines as she fought for control.

She wanted to bite again, not the wolf, her. For the briefest moment she was the wolf. She let it in, and knew it's mind. She wanted dominance and the throat was how to gain it. The pain was overwhelming and she gripped harder as her muscles seemed to writhe uncomfortably under her skin.

His question made her blink and she lifted her gaze to meet his, the wolves stared back at each other for a moment before she let him go and took a few steps back, pressing her fingertips to her bloody lips with a gasp.

"Fuck... I'm sorry.." her hand shook as she looked at the blood.

 

[Jorg]

"For what?" Jorg said with a smile, his face still holding those strange canine qualities. Lips were quirked as he let go of her arms, fingers sliding over her skin for just a brief moment until he let them drop.

Blood dripped down his arm, but he did not seem to mind. "I told you to do it."

They had coaxed the Wolf from it's den, but Jorg wondered if they had learned anything at all. Had she managed to catch it? Even a little, or had she simply hid away in that tiny little hole in her mind.

"Did you feel it?" He asked, stepping around her to grab the spirit from the table.

Without a thought he took another long swig, and then proceeded to pour the same liquid over his bit. "Your mouth is probably filthy."

He said by way of smiling explanation.

 

[Silver Romani]

Silver frowned as she looked back at him and she nodded “I did..” she answered him quietly as she wiped at her lips shamefully. “I wanted to bite you again.. Not to kill you just..” she rubbed at her brow and shook her head “I don’t know..”..

She stared at him with fear in her eyes for a long moment before suddenly stepping closer to him and reaching to snatch the bottle. She took a long drink with a grimace at the foul taste. She coughed again, and looked down at his wrist with apology written on her face. “Please don’t make me do that again...” she asked, her scalding hot skin now slightly clammy with sweat.

 

[Jorg]

"It's alright." Jorg could sense the distress, no, he could smell it.

He'd had the talent before. He could do it with others too, but for some reason with her it was far more...there. It was like every emotion she had he could catch the scent of. His nose scrunched slightly. Was it because she was another wolf?

The only other time he had met another the man had tried to kill him. There had been no conversation, no talk, and certainly no teaching.

A frown touched his lips, and a spark of guilt ran through him. Had he pushed her too far too quickly? A hand reached out, and he softly brushed against her skin, knowing the move was likely far too forward but unable to stop. "Not tonight."

He said in a promise.

 

[Silver Romani]

Silver generally didn’t enjoy being touched, particularly since being mauled. Her scarred skin ran hot and she generally avoided being too close to people at all for fear that they noticed.. But she didn’t flinch as he reached out, and she found herself breathing the scent of his blood despite the aching in her jaw.

Her cheeks flushed at the touch and she gave a light nod as she let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.

“Doesn’t it hurt?...” she asked with a glance down at his bleeding wrist. She realised what that bite would do to any other human and her gaze fell.

 

[Jorg]

"What this?" He raised his arm with the bloody wound.

The bite had gone deep, deep enough that an ordinary man likely would have suffered quite a bit of blood loss by now. Luckily for him, Jorg was no ordinary man. His muscle was a bit tough, his veins a bit harder. After five years, the Wolf had taken root in his body.

That, and he suspected that the Wolf lurking in Silver had not actually been trying to kill him. Though he had very little proof of that. "Fraid not, love. You're gonna have to bite a bit harder to do that."

He offered her another smile, brushing his fingers over her for a second more before slowly pulling his hand away.

 

[Silver Romani]

Silver clenched her teeth together with a look of apology as she looked over the wound, but she sighed as he brushed it off as nothing and laughed under her breath at the ease of tension that came from his humour. "I'll refrain.." she gave a shaky smile, aware of his fingers still against her warm skin and she cleared her throat bashfully.

"So now what?" she asked as he pulled his hand away and she rubbed at her cheek. She could still taste the coppery taint of blood on her lips and she licked at it subconsciously and rolled her shoulder at a sudden ache.

 

[Jorg]

In truth he had absolutely no idea.

An ideal world might have seen them do some reading and research on lycanthropy, but that would've required books and an archive, something they did not have. They were in a crappy Inn in a crapy town with nothing to offer.

A frown touched his lips, and he slowly began to look around the room for something they could actually do. After a few seconds his eye landed on the fireplace, then slowly traveled to a doorframe in the back. Then slowly he looked at Silver.

Blood still covered the lower half of her face, and he could see the outright tension in her slender form. A frown touched his lips, and he said one word. "Bath?"

It was more a suggestion than anything else.

 

[Silver Romani]

Silver recoiled slightly at the word, her poor cheeks flushing even more furiously and she rubbed awkwardly at the side of her neck. "Together?.." she blinked at him. Silver may have been a gypsy, but she'd never been the promiscuous type and so the suggestion, if that was what he was suggesting, made her nervous, and yet she was looking him over as though considering her answer.

"I.. I'll give you your privacy. But a bath would be nice." she added with a nod and looked anywhere but at him.

 

[Jorg]

Laughter burst out from his lips. He had not meant the suggestion for them to bathe together, though the practice was common enough in Mallian. That was of course only in the Bath Houses, not common ins and taverns.

"I did not mean to suggest together." He told her, though a wicked grin touched his lips. "But I'm not opposed to it..."

Jorg smirk. "Ive never been a private person."

A fact that his mother and father despised. More than once he'd been told his behavior was entirely uncouth for someone of his standing, and more than once he'd told them both that he couldn't help being who he was.

It had been utter bullshit of course, half the time he'd gone blabbering on about family secrets just because he'd wanted to. Privacy of the royal family was entirely overrated.

The moment she either denied him and turned crimson as a cherry or accepted and turned as red as...well he wasn't entirely sure what was more red than a Cherry Jorg would stand up and get to work starting a fire and collecting the water they would need.

 

[Silver Romani]

Silver blinked as he laughed at her. Gods, ground, swallow me please... At least her cheeks were already burning, she could hide her embarrassment amongst the shy flattery and she offered a sheepish smile.. "Oh..Right." she chuckled nervously and stole herself away through the doorway, rubbing at her brow with a quiet muttering at herself as she left him to sort the water.

She opened the door to one of the rooms and looked around it. It was as run down as the bar, but a large battered tub sat in the middle of the floor and a comfortable enough looking bed in the corner as well as some drawers and a vase of dead flowers. Silver was mostly used to sleeping on the cold ground as of late, and so the bed despite it's dusty state would be welcome enough.

The room next door was visible through the broken and missing planks of wood, but as she peered through them she could see the rooms were of mirror image, meaning they could both have separate baths with enough privacy. It was compromise. She found some towels and spruced their rooms a little, ignoring the few leaks in the ceiling and the howling noise of the wind as it played through the windows. She lit the candles on the hearth in the bar, and dusted off her hands as the rooms looked at least a little more cosy, well, as cosy as they were going to get..

 

[Jorg]

He built the fire first.

There wasn't really much point to a bath if it was going to just be cold, and he doubted that this place had a hot-spring buried beneath it. Thus his first objective was ensuring that the fireplace in the main hearth was going, especially given the fact that the storm outside was still raging.

It took him some time, but eventually the roaring flame came to life and he found a few cauldrons that he could use for water. Nearly fifteen minutes after their conversation Jorg began carrying heated gathered water back and forth between the tubs. "Not a bad place really."

Jorg said as he finished filling the first tub to it's brim, the water hot enough to scald the skin.

"I don't know about you, but I've slept in worse places." He was still trying to talk, still trying to ease her into all of this.

She had been turned far more recently than he had, and from what she'd said...there likely hadn't been much socializing since then.

 

[Silver Romani]

Silver couldn't refrain from laughing at his words.. "I'm a gypsy...Of course I've slept in worse places. This is practically a palace." she mused. As he left again she closed the door behind him and slipped out of her clothes and ran her fingertips across the steaming surface of the water before stepping in. Although flames still burned her, hot water no longer seemed to bother her. Her blood ran too warm for her body to notice a few extra degrees and she sank into the scalding hot water with a sigh as it soothed her aching muscles. Hot baths were extremely few and far between for her, and she wouldn't take it for granted.

"Where are you from?.." she asked, her voice a little louder. She could still speak to him clearly given the missing slats of wood, and she turned her head to let her eyes peer over the rim of the tub into what she could see of the next room.

 

[Jorg]

What she would see was Jorg himself stripping down beyond his small clothes. Filling his own tub had gone faster than the first. He'd used multiple pots this time, and the room was a bit closer to the fireplace than Silver's.

"I'm from Mallian." He explained, glancing towards the wall for a brief second before he too tested the waters.

Blood still caked most of his chest and torso, and he could feel it beneath his fingernails. A frown touched his lips, but he lowered himself into the bath.

"It lays beyond the Wilds." He told her. "On the sea by the Isles of Sheketh."

Not many people from the West knew of his home, but there was a certain pride in his tone when he spoke of it.

 

[Silver Romani]

Amber eyes wandered over what she could see of his skin, though as he glanced toward the wall she turned her head quickly away and cleared her throat.. "Oh.. We never travelled past the spine, I've never been that far east.." she pursed her lips thoughtfully.. "What's it like?.." she asked, trying to make conversation as her fingertips danced across the surface of the water and her toes wriggled beneath it.