skinshifter, heartfire

Look who's laughing...

He'd come with the war. Come with the fighting, come with the other men who had chased away the bird song, the mouse chatter, the beetle crawl. The trees used to speak to her but they'd been silent, everything had been. Even the seasons, the growth and change, had stopped. For those months, they'd brought chaos and chaos had reigned. She was wild too though, at least, the wolf was. She'd survived. Carried on until everything had returned, settled, began again. They'd stayed, he'd stayed. She hadn't been ready.

She thinks of that now. That time had been hard but really? Really, it was nothing to what was to come.

There had been that night, she remembers it exactly, when she had left her skin at her feet and slept, in her house, in her woods. It had been just like usual. But he had been there. He'd taken her skin and hit her when she woke to reclaim it. That had hurt, in her woman form- the weakness that she used to see as beauty. She'd cried, cried as he tore her soul in two and took her wild skin, cried as he laughed.

Hahaha.

Man has wolf's skin so wolf has to marry man. Man tells wolf that, one day, she can have her skin back. Man sells skin, wolf is lost. Its a common tale, what happened next. She began with hope and ended up with child. The child ate the hope as he grew, there was none left.

Years had passed and the child heard whispers that his mother was a wolf. He'd asked her, she'd turned away. So he'd asked the father and he'd said yes. The child had wanted to find his wolf skin. She'd said only his mother could find it and only when she was a wolf. The child had cried at that. He'd laughed at him.

Hahaha.

He'd sent her to the village, told her to bring back new shoes for him. She'd gone, she'd had to. The village was cramped, crowded, she'd hated the people. There were too many. She'd ran away, sheltered under a window and seen it... her skin. She'd taken it and left. When she'd returned without the shoes, he'd hit her. She'd cried and he'd laughed.

Hahaha.

That night, she'd woken the child. She'd put on her skin, helped him find his. Together, they had taken back their wild. They'd crept downstairs, silent on four paws, instead of two feet. He'd never seen it coming.

Now she runs free. The forest in her eyes, it's leaves under her steps. The child is beside her. She is her own, now he is nothing. She has the world, the moon as her guide, blood round her teeth. He has his box. Look who's laughing now.

Hahaha.