The Lupine Curse: A Tale of Netherway

Sitting on his bedside, Fenris buttoned up a tunic he had acquired from a traveling merchant. The color matched his eyes, went well with his dark trousers, and the fabric was the softest he’d ever worn. During his stay at the inn, he’d gained reputation as something of a storyteller. Working alongside the bard, they were a strange duo, and brought in enough extra coin for Evara to live more comfortably than she had in a long while.

For the most part, the plot of Fenris’ stories revolved around how he earned his scar. Anything but the truth would typically satisfy the listeners.

The bedroom was brightened by the late morning spilling in through half-drawn curtains, parting them with a chilly, autumn breath.

When he left his room, he found the inn almost entirely vacant, except for a Moon-elf, presumably an apprentice mage, who was unconscious, drooling over a book he had evidently neglected, and Ash, who was scrawling out a poem. Somehow, he managed to do so while simultaneously enjoying breakfast, rather noisily, and messily, as crumbs spilled from his mouth and littered the (formerly) clean bar.

Evara was watching, sighing, with a rag she’d just used to wipe off his crumbs.

Fenris went to the kitchen and caught her off guard, embracing her from behind, swept away by an untamable mood.

“Good morning, traveler!” she laughed to him. Fenris twirled her around, not minding that she was dripping dishwater all over him, and kissed her innocently on the cheek. She was out of breath and blushing after he pulled away. “Want something to fill that poor excuse of a belly?”

“The best idea I’ve heard,” he replied, all but gliding towards the front door.

“Where’s my kiss on the cheek?!” Ash called before he shut the door behind him.

Then he left the inn, past the small gates, and down the path that led to a large willow tree.

He could sense the beast stirring in him. Every morning he awoke to a healthier body, the emptiness filling up with Evara’s hospitality, Ash’s blind faith in him, the laughter and revelry that the patrons brought each night. It was building him up for a terrible fall, or at least he suspected. Happiness does not feed on happiness, Fenris thought to himself. No one can stay content forever. Happiness starts at the end of a road called misery, continues on for a short while, and sputters out. And again, over and over. Like seasons.

He sat with his back against the tree, pulling up his shirt and vest to examine the scar. The area around it seemed to glow red, and the nearby veins were darker than the others, as if the blood there had spoiled. With a grimace, he tucked in his shirt, buckled his belt and buttoned the vest.

Just looking at it almost disintegrated his good spirits.

Evara emerged from the inn shortly after, with a bowl of eggs and a few odd-looking vegetables. As he ate, he resolved to enjoy the day—his last day at the Hallowed Harvest—without thinking anymore of his Curse. Until he was alone again on the roads, he would savor the company.

“I don’t want to say it aloud. I’d rather just slip away,” Fenris said after he finished eating, looking up at the passing clouds.

“You don’t have to,” Evara replied, sitting beside him. The mere fact that she understood what he was talking about without a proper introduction only made him want to stay longer.

“Thank you.”

He was only able to keep his hand caressing the back of hers for a minute or so, before he fell asleep—head resting against the bark—breathing deeply through scarred lips.

“Evara?” Fenris mumbled sleepily, reaching next to him. Night had fallen. There was a wool blanket wrapped around him and a pillow tucked under his head. Besides an owl hooting somewhere above, he was alone. So much for savoring the company.

He shook out a mess of small insects and leaves from his hair, and strode drowsily toward the Hallowed Harvest’s windows humming with music and candlelight, carrying the blanket and pillow.

As he yawned and stretched his legs, he felt the tremendous pleasure of strong limbs trembling after being unused for hours. Just as well, his bones didn’t feel so hollow anymore. The physical aftereffects of the transformation seemed to have worn off.

It frightened him.

He was beginning to understand the nature of his Curse. Perhaps it was not this way with others, but Fenris knew that he would not feel the urge to shift while he was weak. If his human body died, so would the beast’s. It would wait for an opportunity like this to take advantage of. Then, it would tear him to pieces, and make him work just to make up for what was lost.

Cycles and circles.

His shattered illusion of going an entire evening without ruminating on the Curse left him frowning. He’d really only been awake for an hour of the day, and still it was all his thoughts could conjure.

Pulling on the handle to the inn, Fenris was observed by both new and old visitors. Some had seen him resting by the tree upon their arrival and thought nothing of him, while others had already heard a few of his tales; a few tankards and whoops were raised while he entered. He grinned and raised a hand of greeting at them.

Candles were lit as they usually had been; some bright, others burning to their last, feeble glow. The air was permeated with scents of meat-pie, warm cider, and dried blood on steel. Fenris had never felt more at home, especially when two or three adventurers took turns brawling with each other, drunk, guffawing, cursing and making true fools of themselves, to their own delight.

He himself was less of a sore sight, lately. Sorrow, although it lingered on his countenance, was not the cloak that shrouded his demeanor any longer. His expression found a happy medium between contemplation and contentment.

But the beast was there, again. He could see its fire smoldering along the edges of his shadow as it flickered on the wall. Its claws were digging a hole with which to pull itself out of his chest, and where his nose was, a snout had sprouted, sniffing, ravenous and dripping.

He was already feeling lost and without direction. Evara tugged on the sleeve of his tunic. “You know, the inn’s crowded tonight. Good for business. You want to tell a few tales? What’s going on up there?” She tapped his skull with her finger.

There was a familiar look on his face as he shook his head, and combed his hair back with his hand.

“I’m sorry, Fenris.” It was the only thing that felt appropriate to say. “Perhaps you should have some hot cider, something to warm you. You were out for awhile, there.”

He nodded, and Evara vanished into the kitchen.

Ash was plucking away at his lute with a melody that quickened the steps of the dancers. Another elf broke out a flute and accompanied the bard. Someone had a drum. The trio quickly picked up something daringly catchy.

Evara pushed a sloshing, warm tankard into Fenris’ hands. “It’ll chase the cold from you,” she promised.

He forced a smile with a ‘thank you’ and brought it to his lips, not in the slightest worried about the cold in his chest, rather the fire sparking. Usually intoxicatingly sweet, this time it was tasteless. Something in him had closed out all his senses. The music in the air, Evara’s gaze plucking at his heart, and the vibrations as someone in steel boots stomped the wooden floorboards to the beat. Everything blurred. He felt sick.

It was coming.

His heart started slamming. He felt nauseous, angry, and light-headed all at once. More emotions came before he could sort them through. Soon he was fighting just to keep an even breath.

“You’ve been in such good spirits lately,” he caught Evara saying through the blur, “I thought for certain that rest you took under the tree would’ve made you brighter than ever.” She took one of his hands off the tankard and held it in hers. The her eyes widened

“Fenris … your hand. It’s ice.”

“I need to leave. Now.” He could hardly meet her eyes when he said it. Suddenly, all he could think of was killing. Anyone.

Evara reached across the bar and cupped his face with a hand, caressing the scar with her thumb. “Everything will be all right. Do you want me to pack any—”

A loud crash stopped the clapping, and the inn went silent. Someone had tipped over a table and all its contents. A slender figure had Ash by the throat with a curved dagger. There was no mistaking the malicious intent on the scoundrel’s curved lips. He had made it to the door of the inn before anyone in the room could do so much as draw a sword.

Ash tried to struggle, but failed, even if the thief was a head shorter than him, he was practiced in stealing from live, squirming bodies.

The long, bouncing ears of the Moon-elf teetered as he dragged Ash around.

A burly man with a shaven head and thick beard got up from his stool. “Put the bard down, lad,” he said. A long-handled battle axe hung from a leather harness on his back.

“Fools!” the cutthroat hissed, his eyes as serpent-like as his manner. “You may believe what this highborn told you, but I won’t! He’s just another traitor to his brethren, just like the rest of them! But he’s softened your hearts, corrupted your minds into believing something different!”

An older gentleman drew from his pipe thoughtfully, unimpressed by the dramatic display. “So, are you going to kill him, then?” he asked, after blowing several perfect rings.

The whole inn was silent. It appeared the cutthroat hadn’t prepared for this amount of attention. He was nervous. “Well …”

Fenris looked down at his hands. There was something underneath the skin twitching, like a dreamer underneath blankets undergoing a nightmare.

One of the brawlers stepped forward, “If it’s coin that you want, I’m sure we can all put some in a purse and send you on your way. We don’t want any trouble, lad. Rather give the likes of you a full barrel of coin then have the bard’s blood on our hands. ”

“I’m not a ‘lad’! I’m a respected child of Afimer. My kin have been on these lands for centuries. I own an estate in Calan’s Fall! What is a High-elf to you, let alone a bard?”

“An estate of beggars and whores?” someone offered.

The whole inn burst into raucous laughter.

“We don’t want you to spoil a good evening anymore than you’ve already done,” the adventurer pressed further. “Whatever you want, we’ll give it to you, so long as you skip away right after. You can run back to your estate and tell your … friends all about it.”

Not everyone was particularly comfortable with that statement; few had barely enough in their purse to pay for the drinks they were enjoying.

“It’s not your wealth I want! It’s his!” He pressed his dagger a little tighter against Ash’s neck. Blood dripped from the cut. “He’s the one who’s got his pockets brimming with gold.”

Ash responded by pulling out the linings of his pockets. Another round of laughter was earned from the room. The only thing that fell out was lint.

Behind the wall that separated the stairs and the kitchen, Fenris and Evara were hidden from the thief’s view. When Fenris leaned over to see, it was clear Ash’s head was blocking the cutthroat’s vision of him.

“Dagger?” he whispered. For now, he could ignore the Curse just a little longer, while the excitement kept most of it at bay.

Evara reached into a crevice under the bar and handed him a steel dirk. He tossed it from hand to hand, got familiar with the weight of it.

“I’m not leaving here until you surrender the heaping stack of gold I know you have piled up in your room. I won’t be fooled by a highborn, least of all not by a bard. Someone go, now! Or, would you rather he be without his throat?”

Evara was clutching Fenris’ tunic as he began toward the edge of the bar. Don’t go, she mouthed to him. Fenris grabbed her hand and looked at her reassuringly, before crouching to the wall.

He could hear the fear building in the elf’s voice.

“Do you know what it feels like to be stabbed?” someone asked the thief.

“Why, I can’t say I have,” he said mockingly. “Perhaps this sad excuse for an elf, will … that is, if someone doesn’t go to his room, and fast. I want his gold.”

His words became more vicious by the moment. The patrons had noticed Fenris now, and were struggling to keep their eyes off him.

“You’re mad. That elf’s as poor as any of us, mark my words.”

“Aren’t any of you curs listening?”

Fenris was within arm’s reach of the elf, now. He was on all fours crawling toward him. Ash’s head was keeping the cutthroat’s peripherals blind. All the patrons tensed.

I’ve never taken a life before, Fenris thought, catching himself before lunging. Or … not in this form, at least.

He crawled closer. I wonder how much pressure it’ll take to push the blade through. How far must I drive it in? How many times?

“Fools! Why are you all just standing there?”

He could smell him now: stale alcohol and bile. Will anyone miss him?

“This isn’t your day, elf,” the man with the pipe said as he saw Fenris take the final step. “Let go of the bard, or by the gods’ and their wills, you’re going to feel a sting you’ve not known before.”

“Who are you, old beggar, to make threats to—”

Fenris rose and thrust the dagger into his side. He pushed until the hilt would go no further, until he pulled it out, and the steel breathed again with a fresh coating. Fenris stared coldly at the elf’s shocked expression, and stepped back, the candlelight shimmering in the black of his eyes.

Ash pried himself loose and held his neck. A thin line of blood started seeping down.

“Are you all right?” Fenris asked him.

“Just a scra—Fenris!”

He dodged the attack. The elf regained himself, and swiped at where Fenris’ neck had been only moments before. “You’ll pay for that, vermin!” he spat at him. The cutthroat advanced with his blade, making a flurry of maneuvers and stabs at Fenris. They were wild, and Fenris dodged them easily enough. Only once did the thief manage to draw blood, cutting a shallow line across the boy’s palm, before the favor was returned with a fury.

Fenris saw an opening and cut the thief’s forearm. The replying wound was much deeper, and caused dagger fell from his hand. Blood spattered the ground.

The cutthroat was defenseless. He backed himself against the door and held up bleeding hands. “S-spare me.” His malicious persona melted into a pitiful puddle of stupidity and innocence.

No, Fenris decided in that instant, no one will miss him.

The Curse smelled the blood on the ground. He repositioned the grip on the dagger, clutching it with two hands, and drove it deep into his chest, repeatedly, stabbing over and over.

“Fenris, stop this!” Ash tried to stop him

Fenris threw the arm off and pushed the dagger in for the last time. As he stepped back, he watched the hilt throb with the last of the thief’s heartbeats.

The whole tavern was silent. Even the wind outside stopped howling.

Fenris raised his heel and kicked the elf hard enough that the door gave way behind him, and the body tumbled backwards, hitting the moonlit grass with a thud.

“A fitting end, I think,” the smoking man in the back said, with a dark chuckle, before blowing more rings.

They drifted up, and up. And before the first one had reached the ceiling, the elf was dead.

Evara was the first to join Fenris outside, who was staring at the body with an empty expression. That did not feel good, at all … he thought to himself. No, in fact it was wonderful, another voice replied.

Fenris knew better than to linger. He broke his stare and walked across the grass, looking out at the mountains, the dark, star-littered sky, the waxing moon. The rest of the patrons pooled out of the inn to examine the body.

Evara ran to catch up with him. “Fenris, stop. You didn’t do anything wrong. No one will ever hear of this.”

He was silent. It didn’t matter either way.

“Fenris! Please, you must let me wrap this,” she begged, clutching his hand.

“It won’t do any good,” he said. Something cracked—not his voice. A bone.

“What do you mean?” Even as she asked that, she felt his hand twitch in hers. But that wasn’t what scared her so much. It was the look in his eyes, as if even he, too, was deathly frightened by what was about to happen. The look someone has before they die.

Another crack. A loud series of snapping issued from his body. “Go, Evara. Please.”

Like him, she tried to keep her emotions at bay, to hold onto sanity as long as possible before fear reigned over everything else, controlled every instinct, and decided survival.

It seemed that even the clouds were parting away from him, the trees bowing, creatures skirting off to their nests and twiggy homes, to hide behind something and watch with curiosity, and an equal terror, at what was about to occur.

“Y-your clothes, Fenris. You will need clothes, food, something to keep you warm. Oh, please, gods, not now. I can run to your room, I will be fast. Let me help you,” she begged him.

“I’ll be a-alright. I’ll—” Fenris grunted. One of his ribs gave way, repositioned itself. His right hand trembled while a claw started to protrude from the skin of his forefinger. He covered it with his arm so Evara wouldn’t see, and began treading backwards. The dark magick was gathering inside him. Tendrils of it leaked out from the cut on his hand and swirled around him, thick as shadow.

“I can leave your other clothes beside a tree, hide them under a boulder somewhere. Please, Fenris, anything! Tell me anything and I will do it. And return here afterwards … I beg you.”

“I won’t … return. Can’t.” It became difficult to speak. “Goodbye Evara, and thank you.” He turned his back and started away, running as quickly as he could. He had a limp. One of the bones in his legs had changed locations.

The moonlight was dancing on the grass, taunting him, seeing how far he could get.

There was a whole crowd surrounding the elf’s body, murmuring, wondering why Ash’s savior was running away.

Ash was several paces behind Evara, and as Fenris sprinted, he started after him with long, elvish strides.

“Ash stop!” Evara screamed, but he ignored her and sprinted faster.

Panting and enraged, Ash grasped Fenris by his shoulders and spun him around. “Why did you do that, Fenris? You could’ve stopped. That day I met you, I could’ve killed you, but I didn’t. Has that taught you nothing? That wasn’t like you. It wasn’t human.”

One of his eyes was alight with a smokeless, emerald fire. Fenris turned away—something difficult to do when the elf was beginning to look like a nice meal. Just when he did, Ash grabbed him again and shook him by his shoulders. “Stop!” he cried. “Just stop!”

Fenris shook his head. His hands were red with both the thief’s blood and his own. It was too much to resist. “I am not yours to forgive, Ash! Go, before I kill you, too.”

“Just stop and suppress it, damnit! Don’t be so weak!”

“You only tempt me!” Fenris’ struggled to subdue the shaking in his arms.

But Ash’s stubbornness was profound. He shouted at Fenris, held him there while the creature went on its knees and the transformation returned like an old nightmare to consume the boy. Bristly hairs protruded through the pores of Fenris’ skin.

Ash, delusional, stood his ground, continued to tell the creature itself.

Something of his human self lingered, even as his flesh fell off in pieces. “You can’t forgive yourself by trying to help me. Don’t you understand? Your past is your … curse, not mine. It’s not for anyone else to … bear, but you. Stop pretending like you can heal the rest of us when you can’t even—” Fenris screamed in pain and tried not to look at what horrors warped his leg. “Run, fool!”

When Ash didn’t go, Fenris brought the back of his hand across Ash’s face. By now, it wasn’t a human’s arm, and the extra weight sent him stumbling backward. Finally, the bard backpedaled.

Fenris crawled on fours in retreat from the inn. From Evara’s view, he was just a shadow writhing on the grass.

“Everyone get inside, now,” she urged the motley group of tipsy adventurers.

“Inside? What about the body, and the boy? Someone going to take care of ’em? If some guard on patrol sees this, he’ll ask questions … and we’re all well in our cups now. Might as well—”

“He’s one of the Cursed, can’t you see it? Does that shadow look like a man’s anymore?”

That statement sobered most of them up. A few people yelped in fear, others began murmuring prayers. “Gods have mercy, she’s right. Look at him!”

“What should we do?” another asked.

“Let us slay him!” the man with the battle-axe shouted, unsheathing the weapon.

“Aye. I have a crossbow, and more than few bolts,” another offered.

They were transfixed. Fenris lurched to his feet, back hunched, spine growing, reshaping. He growled and stamped his hind legs.

Ash stumbled inside, too depressed and too drunk to think properly. “Fools—the lot of you.” It was the man with the pipe. He puffed on it. “The creature you speak of ‘slaying’ there saved that bard. Think on this for a moment: you want to kill a boy who saved someone before your own eyes, risked his own blood and, quite literally, now, his own hide.”

There was a good deal of silence after that, interrupted only by a half-scream, half-howl.

“… Suppose not all the Cursed are bad,” someone said.

“Maybe he won’t hurt us.”

“It’s settled then, everyone inside. Anyone who disagrees, good luck out here … we’ll be bolting the door shut,” Evara stated. She ushered them all inside and did as she promised, bolting the door.

Rain pattered against the werewolf’s back, washing away the blood, the old skin. Cold droplets doused the heat of his body, and dampened the rage it felt.

Fenris struggled with contrasting images flashing in his head: the thief’s body, the head of the Cursed that Boran cut off, its claw, the nail, that runed blade, then, Deidre, Evara, the way their hands had felt in his.

Fenris could feel himself shrinking. The werewolf shook the memories from his mind. Hallowed Harvest was still aglow with candles. Drawn by the light, the creature crawled over to it, and howled at the white-faced patrons inside. Much to their dread, they soon heard clawing at the door. The marks were deep, and splintered the wood.

“Are you mad?” one person asked from the inside. There were protests, a scuffle that the creature heard behind the door. Then, a muffled voice, a woman’s: “If you don’t hear me knock in the next few minutes … keep the door locked, and don’t come out until morning.”

The door opened. Evara was just barely able to hide the shaking as she inched through the crack, and stood there, alone, only inches from the werewolf’s face, while she heard the heavy bolt behind her slide into place.

“F—Fenris? You can hear me, can’t you?”

The werewolf growled. Inside, Fenris felt a jolt of consciousness, like someone pushing you gently during a deep sleep, and stared at the innkeeper through drowsy eyes, yet he could feel his jaws opened slightly, hungry and dripping.

“Please … Fenris.”

He bit the air just an inch in front of her. She winced. His breath left beads of condensation on her face. She looked into his eyes, saw through the terrifying gaze, caught the person she’d cared for.

“You poor thing,” she said. Evara raised her hand to his muzzle and caressed it. The snout was trembling as it growled. For a moment, the growls got progressively louder, more violent as she continued to stroke the fur, so much so she thought it might bite her … until she remembered something he’d said to her a long while before:

“You are not yourself. Remember? You told me it was so.”

The growls subsided. Fenris awoke himself from that sleep, lurched through the veil. The flame in his eyes still burned, but it was not with the cold, detached observance of hungry animals.

She sighed, and grinned with closed eyes. She continued to run her hand through his fur. He is still here, she thought to herself. “I’m sorry for what you had to do to that elf. If he lived, perhaps he would’ve killed someone else, or robbed a starving family. What can you expect from people like that? Ash was wrong to yell at you. But that doesn’t mean you should feel good about it.” Evara breathed deeply, shuddering. There was still fear—more than she’d ever felt, before—collected at her spine.

“You know, I see a lot of different travelers passing through my inn. It’s not an odd thing, to be greedy, violent, or malicious. That troubled elf that came here tonight will be forgotten like all the rest. He would, even if he hadn’t died.” Evara looked down at the creature’s hands. His claws. Limp, as if he did not want to carry them anymore. She picked them up, the limb heavy in her arms, and brought the upturned paw to her face, to kiss it.

She heard something of a whine. Fenris crawled away from her. There was terror in his eyes: for himself, and what he might do to her.

“There’s a certain divinity in defying our darkest natures. If you want to succumb to yours, be my guest, be forgotten. You’ll destroy yourself in the process. All I hope is that you struggle with it for as long as you can. I know that the Curse is strong, overwhelming … but if you can kick and scream and resist, by the gods, do it.”

The words tore him apart. Fenris went to his haunches while the Curse boiled beneath the skin. Evara put his massive face in both her hands and kissed the scar on his left eye as she had done before. All the while the creature’s claws were digging into the ground … resisting the urge.

“It has been a pleasure having you stay at my inn, Fenris,” Evara said.

He did not know how long he could contain it. Grunting, shaking, burning, he turned away, and sprinted as far from the Hallowed Harvest, as quickly as his legs allowed.

That night, he clung to the fresh memories of Evara and the inn. Fenris did not wish to be corrupt again. He could be lost, he could be wandering, but he wanted no business hurting anyone.

Through the fog of awareness and sleep, he recalled storming through long stretches of forestry, occasionally clipping through onto roads, and once, at the heart of a town. Some plague or stroke of misfortune had left the homes barren, the crows feasting. The beast felt hungriest when it sniffed through the last house, finding nothing but dusty memories and ghosts playing with the draperies.

The sadness brought Fenris back to his senses. He decided to travel down the road that left the desolate town, sprinting until he felt the sun on his back. At which point, his dark form exhausted itself; he crawled slowly into a forest, shed off his hide, and stumbled naked as a human once again.

In a delirium, he spotted a rather large, lavish house with another, smaller dwelling beside it. He stumbled towards them, convinced it was a dream, and hoping to discover what was behind one of the doors.

Just as he reached for the handle, he felt his body teeter and collapse at the doorstep, where he took to drooling, snoring, curled up like a fetus, dreaming the dreams of a beast in famine.