Lycaon's Lament

The first thing you remember of your son is his voice.

His cries, specifically. Loud, powerful wails that echo through the leaves. The sound scares birds away just like it pulls you in; a wounded beast is a dangerous beast, one that must be fled from. On the other paw, a wounded prey might be an easier prey, and you, lone wolf, packless wolf, starved wolf, are desperate enough to try that gamble. You stumble by the river, teeth bared, ready to hunt or defend yourself, and you see-

A pup.

A human pup, mind you. Two legs. Opposable thumbs. A scrawny little thing even more miserable than you are.

You cannot see its parents around. You cannot see any other human, actually. It’s alone. Defenseless. You could kill it with one snap of your teeth. You take a step forward to do just that, opening your maw, and-

It speaks.

It’s a funny thing, a human voice. They have such a wide range of vocalization. You cannot understand the ideas they convey. It’s all just sound to you.

But you understand fear. You understand hope. You understand-

(Once upon a time, you had been a mother, too; had nursed many in your belly and fed them to adulthood; and that voice, that voice, human but a pup, just like, just like-)

You close your maw. Tuck your teeth in.

And let the pup walk closer.

The pup comes by often.

It’s strange. Humans never come this deep into the woods. And those you see at the edge of the forest are never dressed like this. They always carry sticks, or blades, or fire, or a hundred other things you cannot describe but know for a fact are tailored to kill you.  

Then again, the pup differs in many ways from regular humans. He’s not afraid, for once. Once, he even offers you his bare wrists to sniff. As if it wouldn’t take one bite to tear them off.

From that single act of trust, you learn the following things:

• The pup has magic in his blood. His skin smells of shadows, of rainy nights, of deep caverns where the winter itself cannot seep in. It might be why he is so reckless. Those who wield magic have nothing to fear from the bluntness of a fang.
• The pup smells of other humans, but… weird. It feels like he lives next to them, but not with them. As if he were surrounded by other humans, but none ever touched him.
• The pup is alone. 

That last fact fills your chest with pure rage. The pup is alone, in and out of these woods. On his own to wander in dangerous places, on his own to get lost, on his own to starve. Because you can tell, he’s thin, he’s small, even by human standards, he’s thin and small and hungry for food for affection for everything.

You bring him a hare, once. A gift. A test. A proposition. 

He devours it whole, bones and fur included.

He’s mine, you think proudly, watching him dig through raw flesh with bare fingers, he’s mine, he’s mine, my pup, my son, mine, mine, mine.

You teach him all that you know. How to shield yourself from the rain. How to track a prey down. How to kill. How to hold onto the object of your desires with all your teeth and not let go.

Your son absorbs it all like a sponge. Under your care, he grows bigger, too. His limbs stay lithe and frail, and his body still looks fragile, but eventually he does get taller than you.

He is a strange one, your son. His teeth are dull and his claws are flat. But you love him, this human pup, and you believe, really, that he would make an excellent wolf.

It’s on you, really.

Your son never stays the night. He sometimes comes as early as sunrise, sometimes comes multiple days in a row, but he always, always leaves once the sun sets.

You’re worried. Can you be blamed? Your son always goes back to a place that pays no attention to his needs. You just wanted to see him. You just wanted to make sure he was okay.

It’s on you, really.

The pitchfork digs through your fur, digs through your flesh, digs through your neck, and everything fades to black.

You wake up with a start.

Immediately, you spring back on all four. You are in danger. They’re trying to kill you. You take a deep breath, ready to make a run for it-

When you realize that you have no lungs.

Oh.

Slowly, very slowly,

you look around you.

Oh.

The settlement is filled to the brim with human corpses. You recognize the man who killed you, slumped against a wall. His flesh is… you don’t know how to describe that. It’s like it was burning. It’s like it was rotting. It’s like acid has been poured over his chest, gnawing rivulets inside his muscles. He is not bleeding. There is no trace that he has ever been alive at all.

All the bodies are like this; charred, decayed, except for-

Yours.

Here it lies, that majestic wolf that used to be you. The sole spot of red in the entire village. Here it lies, your body, and kneeling next to it is your son, hands inside your chest, repeatedly shoveling mouthful of your flesh between his jaws.

Oh, you realize, this is what you taught him. How to hold onto the object of your desires with all your teeth and not let go.

You let out a whine, and his feast stops. His head turns right and left. He cannot see you, you realize. Of course he can’t. You are dead. 

You whine again, and this time, his head stops to look in your general direction.

He cannot see you, but he can hear you. Of course. Of course he can. You are part of him, inside of him, you can never leave him. He has devoured you, and now the two of you are forever tied. Of course he can hear you. Of course.

“Mother?” He calls, and at long last you can understand his tongue, coated in your blood.

My son. You step closer, rest your head against his shoulder. It phases right through him. He cannot touch you. My son. My son.

He smiles, and you know that if nothing else, he knows that you are by his side.

They send your son away in a castle of stones and magic.

You hate this place. You hate this place and your hate its smell and your hate its people and you keep barking and snapping your teeth and rising your hackles leave my son alone don’t touch him don’t hurt him leave and it does not do a thing because you are dead.

“It’s okay, mom. It’s okay.” Your son repeats to you, to himself, stuck in this dark dark dark cell. “It’s okay. I’ll survive this.”

And he does, of course he does, because he is your son and you taught him well, but you still hate that he has to survive in the first place, you hate what this place is turning him into; he has never been a wolf, not really, but as he grows taller and older you can tell that he is no human either. He does not emote like them, he does not behave like them, this place is molding him into something that belongs nowhere and with no one.

At night, you lie close, and hum by his ear. This is the one comfort you can give him. This is the only thing you can gift him.

Eventually, your son leaves, and throws himself into the battlefield instead. Every time he heads into a fight, you feel concern churning your guts. Every wolf knows this; a prey needs to get lucky many times. A hunter only needs to get lucky once. Every strike might be the last your son will live through. Every spell on his fingers a nail on his coffin.

But here, at least, he is happy.

He laughs. He smiles. And though you cannot share his joy in the carnage, you howl with his every cackle.

Your son is no wolf, no, even less a human. But at these times, he reminds you of a crow; clever, scavenger, striving amongst dead bodies. He is no wolf, even less a human.

But he is your son, and you love him, and you want him to be happy. Even if this is his happiness.

Your son switches side mid-battle. You don’t particularly pay attention. Blades are blades, no matter which side they strike you from. The only thing that matters to you is that he does not get cut by his current enemy.

That’s why it takes you a while, to notice. That your son is changing.

Oh, he’s still very much of a crow. But at times, you can see a bit of wolf flashing through him; a hint of teeth as he speaks to a fellow soldier, a possessiveness he did not have before. Love, you believe. Your son is learning how to love.

It’s here, amongst these people, that your son meets her.

You hold no fondness for humans. Their gangly limbs look awkward to you. Their every movements are clumsy and shallow compared to yours. But this woman, this woman- you can scarcely believe she is human at all. She is the wind given form, she is the dew on the leaves of an olive tree. She dances, and even if she cannot see you, you can’t help but dance with her.

Your son is not human, and never will be. But by this woman’s side- this is the closest he could ever come to one.

Your son has a child of his own.

It is a glorious day. He laughs, lifting the infant up, and you howl with him, happiness washing over you like a stream.

“Look at him, mother!” he grins, in that way that shows all his teeth, “look at Inigo!”

You press your nose against the baby’s chest. He cannot feel you, obviously. But all the same, you swear that you would do anything for your grandson.

The kid grows up painfully shy.

That’s understandable. You have never been fond of humans either, and neither is your son.

(Your son laughs at you for this thought. I think it’s more of his mother’s heritage, he says. Is it? You will have to trust him on this. Despite everything, he understands humans better than you.)

The kid grows up painfully shy. You take to staying by his side to reassure him; though he cannot perceive you in any meaningful way, your son does tell him that you are here to protect him.

Slowly, the kid learns to open up. He gets in touch with his body through dancing, and you dance with him. He gets in touch with fellow humans through speaking, and you hum with him. Slowly, the kid learns how to function, and though you don’t think his anxiety will ever fully go away, it will be enough.

For a while, things are good.

And then it all goes down in fire again.

She dies.

That woman, the wind-woman, your son’s mate. She dies. She dies, and you’re on the run with your son again, your grandson under his arm.

The three of you flee into the woods. Here, you hunt, scavenge, and plan. Then living corpses find you, and you flee again. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Every time, heading further and further up north.

Food gets scarcer. Your son is grown, now, and strong. He can survive it.

But the small one won’t.

He needs to eat something substantial. Even if it’s just once. He needs to eat or he will die.

“I’m going hunting,” your son says, and you know he is lying. “Stay with him.”

You wish you could come with him. You know what his plan will not be easy. But there is only one of you, and of the two the little one is the one who needs comfort the most.

Your son comes back an hour later, stumbling. He holds a sack of meat in one hand. His other one is gone.

“I ran into a bear,” he says “he got my arm, but I got his!”

Your grandson is young. Your grandson is hungry. He does not question how bear claws could slice an arm so cleanly. He does not question why a wounded man would take such care to scrape the meat from the bone before bringing it back. He does not question, and so your son does not answer. 

He eats it all, your son’s gift. Then the two of them lie down to sleep, and your set your head on your grandchild’s arm, and he startles.

“What is it?”

“Something- something touched me.” He stutters, and you can understand him.

“That’s your grandmother. It’s fine.”

“Oh.” He says. Slowly, he raises a hand, then sets it on top of your head.

He falls asleep threading his fingers in your fur.

You do not see your son die. He yells at you “take him far away!” and you clamp your teeth on your grandson’s pants and run.

You like to think that he went down as he’s lived; covered in blood, laughing, and happy.

It is hard, to teach someone how to hunt when you have no body and no voice of your own. More often than not, your grandson loses his prey, and he has to go hungry for the night. But every once in a while, he manages to get- a rat, some roots, some eggs. Sometimes it’s not enough, and he collapses in the snow; but you nip at his collar until he has no other choice but to get back up again.

Your grandson will live. He has to. Even if you have to make him into a wolf, a crow, a monster to that end. He has to.

At night, you lie close, and let him hold onto you. This is the one comfort you can give him. This is the only thing you can gift him.

And then, by some- twist of fate, miracle, feat of strength, stroke of luck- your grandson manages to go back.

Back when things were good. Back when the world was warm and food was plentiful. Back.

It is a wonderful thing, to see your son again. He cannot hear you, just like you cannot see the version of you that must be shadowing his steps. But you can tell that he knows you are here.

Things aren’t perfect, obviously. There are still fights to be had. There are still difficult times ahead. But things are improving. And they will continue to improve.

And they do improve.

Until your grandson throws it all away, that is.

You want to scream at him. You want to maul him. You want to throw him down and claw at his chest and tear off his face and howl how can you leave them all behind, you finally had a family back, a pack back, warmth and food and freedom, how could you, how could you, how could you?

But your grandson cannot hear you, he can only touch you. Though, you don’t think he would have listened either way. You bite into his ankle and tug, tug, tug, yet he still looks at that dragon in the eye and shakes his hand. Traitor. Traitor. Traitor. Traitor.

The new world is wrong.

Every smell has an afterscent of ore and metal. The light is too dim, even at noon. The humans have hearts that beat too fast and blood that is too dark.

You hate it here. Not as much as you hated the magic who took away your son, but it’s a close thing.

When no one else is around, your grandson speaks to you. You suppose he must be craving familiarity, too.

“Grandma?” He calls. “Are you still mad?”

You bat at his hand with your tail. Yes. Yes, you are. You are angry, pissed, rageful, you want to tear him apart, you want his hands as far away from you as possible.

Still, you are not cruel enough to let him believe that he is alone. So you bat at him poke him, answers when he calls. You loathe this place, but you will not leave him. 

The new world is wrong. You will never call it a home. But you can get used to it, you think.

Your grandson does, at least. Slowly, he’s bonding with his new allies. A man who carries dragon blood in his vein. (Powerful. Dangerous. Human, your grandson says, and thus malleable. ) A woman coated in curse. (You still aren’t sure if she can see you; but there is a present discomfort when she speaks to your son, and she her eyes keep shifting around when you get closer.) A beast in human skin. (Not a wolf, despite what he may claim; still, you wonder, if you could give such power to your son, if he could have lived long enough to see this world.)

Here, your grandson meets Her.

This woman is the opposite of his mother. Broad. Strong. She is not he graceful kind, but she has knuckles for teeth, and that alone is enough to get your approval.

Your grandson has a child of his own.

It is a glorious day. He laughs, lifting the infant up, and you howl with him, happiness washing over you like a stream.

“Look at her, grandma!” he grins, in that way that shows all his teeth, (for your grandson may be human to the bone, but he still carries wolf blood within him.) “look at Soleil!”

You press your nose against the baby’s chest. She cannot feel you, obviously. But all the same, you swear that you would do anything for your great-granddaughter.

They cannot keep the kid.

“It’s too dangerous,” your grandson tells you, “a battlefield is no place for a child to grow.” And what he means is: look at what this did to me. Look at what this did to father.

You give the child’s face a lick. We will meet soon, little one. You will personally guide her father out of war. We will meet again soon, and it will all be okay.

And for a while, it is. Your grandson heads into fights, and you shadow him. You cannot lend him any strength; but you can push him out of the way when an unexpected blow comes up, and you can add force him to wake up and eat even when it wears down his mental.

Ah, but alas. 

Every wolf knows this; a prey needs to get lucky many times. 

A hunter only needs to get lucky once.

The blade pierces, through his armor, and his flesh, and his lungs, and your grandson falls.

You stay with him until he finally draws his last breath.

And it should be the end of it.

And it should be the end of it.

But it is not.

Magic, foreign magic, dragon magic invades his body. You try to chase it away, bite his limbs where the energy tries to force its way through. But it’s too potent, a flood you cannot drink whole, and-

The body opens his eyes.

But it’s not your grandson.

You scream. You beg. You tackle and claw and bite. Wake up, you growl, wake up, you please, you of my blood, you of my flesh, you have to wake up.

The body does not hear you. The body does not see you. It only has ears for these draconic whispers echoing in its empty skull. 

And you are powerless. Powerless to stop this body powerless to save your grandson powerless to save your son powerless useless fucking mutt as you have always been.

You howl. You howl, as only wolves do; with your whole being, with your whole soul, with your everything. You howl two generations worth of pain and two generations worth of grief.

You lost it all. Your world, your family, down to your own life. You have nothing left, and you are not even left the simple decency of finally dying.

And it should be the end of it.

And it should be the end of it.

But it is not.

A bunch of humans come. Pups, really. Young scrawny things wielding blades taller than they are, facing an army of undead legends, and-

She is here.

You recognize her in sight. It’s her. It’s her. It’s her. Your granddaughter, she of your blood, she of your flesh. It’s her.

Leave! You scream, circling around her, leave, you will die, you can’t die, you have to live, leave, girl, leave!

But she cannot hear you, and so she does not listen.

They fight, the girl and her father, your great-granddaughter and grandson. You dive into the fray, bite at the man’s wrists, deviate his blows so he does not kill his own daughter,

Leave, leave, girl, you have to leave, we are doomed but you can survive this, leave, leave, girl,

The girl’s sword shatters against her father’s armor.

She’s going to die. She’s going to die and you will do nothing, just as your son died, just as your grandson’s died. Here, look, this cursed body is already reaching out to grab her. She’s going to die. She’s going to die and you wish, you wish with every fiber of your being that you could help her, but there is nothing in this girl’s soul for you to grab onto and she is going to die-

The girl opens her mouth, and bites her father’s ear.

The body does not wince, does not startle- for it is a corpse, and corpses do not feel pain or emotions. But it pauses, for a second, meeting an action he has no script for- and the girl whirls her head around, tearing the flesh off the body. There is meat between her teeth and blood on her lips and that, that you can grab onto. 

You reach out. Your son had devoured you, and your grandson had feasted on him, and here she is, your great-granddaughter, accepting the full weight of that legacy she knows nothing of. You reach out, and your son could hear you, your grandson could touch you, but you need something more, something bigger, you need to make her live. You reach out, and you think of the beast who was also a man, and you think of the woman coated in curse, and you think,

This is my curse. This is my blessing. This is my gift. This is three generations of pain and grief and despair, this is three bodies paving your way out of this. This is the one thing I can give you. This is the only thing I can gift you. Take it and live, girl.

She is a human. She is a wolf. She is a crow. She is the sun. She is all of these and none at all, and her soul pulses, feasts on that heritage like she feasted on that ear. Her soul pulses, and so does yours.

Briefly, you feel her confusion. Her fear. But you do not stop. You cannot stop. Your teeth. Your claws. Your fur. Your everything. Take it all, girl. Take it all and live. We each died to give the next one a chance, we all died to allow you to live, so live, girl,

She opens her mouth again- her maw, your fangs, three generations worth of wishes and desires- she opens her mouth again, and snaps it shut on the man’s head. With a crack, the skull caves in, and the body falls.

And here stands the girl, human and wolf and crow and sun, alive, and you think: this one might actually live through this. Comments