[Kenash Auction Hall] Help Wanted

[Haeli]

Haeli laughed lightly as the wolf bounded around excitedly. She'd seen nothing like it. Everything about Roric was wolf she understood suddenly, even though he could wear a human guise and speak human languages. His body movements were strong, sure, and though she could see he was lean of frame, his spirit had been starved far more for freedom. And it gave her a certain power, one that she had never felt before, knowing she was the one that caused this happiness. Haeli watched as he did circles, leaping and bounding in joy as she'd often seen wolves in the wilds do. In a way wolves were all but humans in fur, though they lived much simpler lives. They had families and children and cousins and brothers and sisters that all stayed together. She could not imagine how hard it must have been for him away from his own kind. And she knew, here in Kenash, there were even less of his kind.

And knowing that, it was no surprise to her when he came up and nuzzled her leg, bumping it. She reached her hands down, dragging her fingers through the long silky fur, and smiling without showing her teeth. He made her laugh again as he moved off and took to eating the stew having to stand on his hind legs and rise up to the table like a human. When he settled and studied her, she let him for a while before she rose, refilled the bowl, and left it down between his massive forepaws. "Eat more. You are much too thin, Roric. If we are to get off this island tomorrow and go hunting like it looks we both need to do, then you'll need your strength." She said softly, settling back down and moving her foot over so it touched his warm furred side. She knew from those months in Lhavit where she'd studied the wolves that they touched all the time, seemingly connecting to each other by body language and song. Haeli could not vocalize like they could, nor did she know their language through body motions... but she figured she could do her best approximation.

"I have to warn you. I know nothing of having slaves nor wolves in my home. I put forth coin for you because I had hoped to find someone to help me unpack and lend extra hands around here. I wander often, outside in the swamp and under the stars. Sometimes the walls close in on me and I cannot abide them for long periods of time. Caiyha calls me to duties as well, and I follow her whims and have since I was little. A little company and protection would be welcome. And too I would like someone to run with occasionally. I know your shape, at least a little, and can hold it for some hours if necessary. Maybe you'd like to run sometime with me, out past the crops and plantations and big houses and out onto the grass where the stars out number the people a million to one?" Haeli said thoughtfully, leaning back and studying the massive white form at her feet. He was so different than Brim. Brim had a fearless curiosity born of never being hurt, hungry, or abused. Roric knew the dark side of humanity, and he wore his caution like a mantle. She guessed, today, his personality was not really what it would turn out to be over the long run.

New place. New situation. New fears. She hoped they would be friends, fiercely hoped, but she knew there was no guarantees in life about anything, especially not with people.

[Roric]

Her kindness overwhelmed him. He watched impassively as she moved to refill his bowl. Eat, she said. They were to go hunting tomorrow. Roric struggled to comprehend this. Haeli, as she was called, was no wolf. She was no animal, as far as he could tell. She couldn’t know how he liked to hunt. This woman could not possibly know the joy of running, or tracking or fresh meat dewed in blood. But he could not deny her. Roric vigorously devoured another bowlful, shivering as her foot pressed against his side. What a glorious feeling. He’d not had such a kindness in months.

He listened as he ate, his brain racing to make sense of it all. She was just as his Mother, then? Was she a witch then, too, or just a woman of the wilderness? And what baffled him further was talk of knowing his shape and holding it for hours. It sounded different than him; having beast and man all wrapped tightly together. It sounded intentional, forced even. He licked at the bottom of the bowl.

She offered to run with him. Perhaps in humoring her, he’d gain answers to what he wished to know. He was loathe to shift back to his human form, at least for the moment, so he simply gave a small vocalization – a little bark – and rose, trotting over to sit next to the stairway. That would suffice. Roric was becoming more and more confident that she’d understand.

He then puzzled over her words. He bristled at the implication that he was still a slave, but wondered at it, still. Yes, she had rightly bought him. But then she’d set him free. She wished to run with him, to hunt with him and all she asked in exchange was help around her home. Roric could not understand her, but in the lack of understanding, he was drawn deeper. She was beautiful, merciful and animal. It was a strange, heady mix for a human female.

The wolf licked at a paw and relished in the freedom to do so. It was wonderful, being as he was meant to be. It seemed she liked it more, too. Haeli feared Roric the Man. So he would be Roric the Wolf for as long as it pleased her. It seemed to please him, too.

[Haeli]

Haeli felt a little strange talking to the wolf in her home. Had she been howling or running with him under the moon, she would not have felt so out of place and small. But here, in Kenash, it was one of those larger than she situations, and she needed to get past it. So she had talked until she ran out of words and had nothing else to offer him.

And he looked like he needed a break from the events of his life and his past. With no collar on, he could go or he could stay. Haeli hoped he'd stay but she understood if he left. Walls were cages and even one like she was grew restless. So Haeli did him the only kindness she could. She let him be, moving in and out of her chores, leaving a door open so he wold not feel so confined and so he could go run if he so felt like it. The witch was used to kelvics, having once upon a time bonded to one that had lived his short life with her. Haeli still missed Brigg. But there was nothing she could do about that.

So instead she moved forward with her routine, letting the wolf be a wolf if he wanted. She picked up the bowls and took them to the sink and pumped the hand crank there to fill a pot to boil water on so she'd have wash water. Then she carefully washed the dishes once the water was hot enough to clean well. Then the girl moved about her space, barefooted and in her worn dress. There was so much work to do. Most of it involved unpacking and setting up displays below. The witch was quiet as she worked, not saying much and used to being by herself. There was a shyness in her that made her glance only a few times at Roric, otherwise her hands on her plants and in her tinctures as she moved between garden and lab, intent on mixing her lotions and soaps.

'Haeli had no social graces and didn't realize she should perhaps entertain Roric. She wouldn't know the first thing about how to do so anyhow. So she kept things normal for her, which was silence filled with humming or an occasional lecture to a plant to stop sprouting that direction or to please bloom that direction. When she took flowers and leaves from them, she thanked them carefully and took as little as possible so as to not damage the plant. She had earth under her fingernails and smudges on her cheeks. And still she worked until it was late into the night by lamplight.

Somewhere after dark she offered Roric a pile of warm blankets and some carefully selected advice - if he'd still be there. She left the blankets a decent distance from the fire so they would be warm but not catch from a stray ember. The advice she offered awkwardly to the air. "These should make a comfortable enough bed. Sleep anywhere you'd like. There's plenty of room and it does get chilly so by the fire is fine too." She said without preamble and without elaborating. She simply offered him a smile and then when it was late and her exhaustion was creeping, she snuffed the lamps that kept the interior of Fire Island Herbs and Essences lit, and sought her bed.

In the morning she'd promised him a run or a walk - a trip at least - out into the swamps.

[Roric]

Roric watched her silently for the better part of the night. He observed the nuances of her expression as she washed and worked, the way emotion played across her face. And for each time she regarded him, wearing that look of hers, he flushed with pleasure. It was intoxicating, to get lost in her mellifluous voice or watch her deft hands as they uncoiled a piece of twine.

Emotion did battle with reason. In his mind, it was a war of attrition between staying and leaving. She seemed content enough to let him go and this might be his only chance! But then he’d never see this woman again, who’d bought him and set him free. He’d never know what might’ve been with Haeli of Fire Island. He cursed himself for his humanity; wolves were meant for the wilderness. They were not pets or slaves. They were predators, masters of the hunt. But he was not just a wolf. He was a man, too. And this Haeli might provide an opportunity of another kind, one he’d not dared to dream for some time.

The way she looked at him with those wide blue eyes, fringed with thick, dark lashes. He watched as her creased lids hung low, beckoning him to know what feelings they hid. Her full, petite mouth turned up a bit at the corners, into the ghost of a smile. And then she looked away, again and again.

He would stay. He could not leave, not now, with Lhex dragging him forward. He wanted to see her hunt, if such a thing were possible. He wanted to know how it could be between them. And so silently, when his choice was made, he shifted back into the skin of a human and began to work alongside her, helping her open this or that, standing silently, careful not to menace her with his proximity. And when bed finally arrived, he nodded slowly before shifting back, turning back to his wolf-self and curling up near the crackling hearth, his eyes on her retreating form.

He wanted – no needed – to follow her. It worried at him as he laid, head upon his front paws. Gods, what was this woman? She could not be just a simple human, after all. He wanted to look after her, to make sure she didn’t come to harm. So for the rest of the night he did not sleep. Instead, he brooded in silence, wishing desperately for the morning to come.

And when it did, he was waiting. Were she to seek him, he’d be in his wolf-seeming, watching and waiting with those lantern eyes. How irritating, that she affected him this way! He bristled in silence, yet looked on her with affection, the combination unfathomable and intense.

[Haeli]

When she woke the wolf was still there. Half of her was surprised and the other half of her grateful. He'd stayed last night, even helped her a bit, and that had earned her gratitude. So when she woke in the morning, just before the sun emerged up over the horizon, she remembered her promise and aimed to keep it. Skipping most of the routines that women of her age should be doing - brushing her hair, her teeth, putting on clothes - she instead wrapped her unadorned body in a warm wool cloak, ignored the rumpled mess the bed had made of her hair, and forgot about shoes. It would be hard enough keeping track of the cloak and getting it back where they were going.

Haeli eyed the wolf, grinned at him feraly, and whispered... "Ready to go catch some breakfast?" She asked, already headed to the door. The morning was rife with mist, promising a cold start. Lands surrounding the island weren't visible and neither were the pathways too far ahead of them as Haeli picked her way carefully on a trail that headed past the other two businesses on the island and out onto the bridge. She crossed from her island to another, leading the wolf, then kept moving south until they were walking by the Traveler's Complex and out into the countryside past the main gate of Kenash. There, she stepped off the road, moved deep into the swamp, and threw off the cloak.

Her skin wasn't the pale of a normal woman's flesh that never saw the sun. Instead, it was deeply tanned from perhaps too much sun. Bronzed, there were no lines where clothing had etched its permanence into her skin. Haeli rolled and tucked the cloak into a deep V in a tree, half climbing it to do so, then hunched down to concentrate. Her skin was marked, but nothing bespoke abuse or captivity. There were scars from battles and evidence of skinned knees, but overall the girl was lean, well muscled, and fit. She had full breasts that marked her as female but they were not as substantial as the Dynasty women that pushed and shoved their assets to make them seem huge and appealing. Hair trailed in a tangled mess down her shoulders and her mischievous grin seemed to come from her whole body, not just her lips. He could smell her scent, coming from all across her skin and the light dusting of pale brownish blond hair between her legs.

And as she watched, her skin rippled and twisted. Bones rearranged themselves. Her hair retreated and other hair sprouted. Her face twisted in pain as the bones rearranged themselves. She lost her stance on two legs and fell to all fours as hands became paws and her face gave itself a snout. The change took time, for Haeli was neither well practiced at her wolf form nor was she particularly suited to it like she was her bird or croc forms. In recent times, Haeli had even shifted to people rather than animals in a pallid attempt to blend into Kenash.

But the form came and slowly a cinnamon she-wolf emerged from the girl's once human form. Her coat was double thick, as if she'd learned to shift in the high mountains among Rorics kin in Kalea. She was a pale color, dusted with golds and browns that made her coat a beautiful warm hue of almost yellow gold. She had the pale luminous eyes of a Kalean Wolf and the big feet with splayed paws that were best going over snow. Fortunately they were also decent for mud and muck as well, as the same principles applied. Haeli wagged her tail in excitement, half cow-hopped playfully, went down on her forepaw and bit at the bottom of his jaw, enticing him to play, to run with her. Then she leaped up, gave a bark of pure joy, and set out at a run.

Haeli knew Roric had long been confined. She knew he needed to run far more than he needed to eat, so she made that her priority and drove him on with the flagging of her tail and the barks of challenge she issued as she took off on the all but unseen game trails that criss crossed the swamp. Her paws hit mud, reeds, and standing water but the she-wolf didn't let it stop her. She had mud halfway up to her chest before she'd gone fifty feet, but the joy emanating from her wasn't reduced. The swamp was her home. Those silky waters were her sanctuary. She knew the place, knew it well, and sang to it as the two furred beasts streaked by. Haeli lead Roric on a intermittent path, sometimes taking to fallen logs, sometimes jumping shallow waterways, and once even plunging straight into standing water and paddling across. She lead him on a circular path, a territory he realized, that was marked with her scent the whole way.

The two of them flushed birds and snapped at frogs that normally Haeli would have stopped to hunt. But instead she kept leading him deeper, growing quieter and quieter until she finally skidded to a halt on the edge of a grass meadow. She took two steps forward, crouched down, and if he did the same soon he could hear them too. The meadow was overrun with voles, delicious, fat, very tasty voles. Wolves were opportunistic feeders and would hunt for larger game. But by and large they were also lazy feeders, and stalking voles in a tall grass meadow was just as an appealing meal as say a fat hare or bringing down a young buck.

Haeli glanced at Roric, trying to judge if he was up for a little game of stalk and pounce with her to fill their bellies before they started their leisurely way back.

[Roric]

Roric heard her stirring well before he saw her. As she left the bed his ears twitched, then stood straight. The night had gone so quickly. Throughout he’d wrestled with ideas of staying or going, still paralyzed at the notion of either. Humans were not to be trusted. His first and only experience with them had taught him that. But there was something deeper in his heart that whispered secrets. It did so often, ever since he was old enough to listen. The voice told him to ‘stay with Haeli.’ So he remained. If there was any one thing he understood in spite of his mire of confusion, it was to rely on instinct when all else failed.

When she came into view, he sprang up from his place by the fire. Haeli was endearingly disheveled and in some sense, she looked more natural this way. His mind couldn’t help but marvel at all the possibilities of what laid beneath her rumpled cloak, but as always his focus was drawn ever back to the brightness of those cerulean eyes. Roric indulged her, tilting his head quizzically in response before loping along in her wake, eager to see exactly how she intended to take and hold a wolf’s seeming.

As they crossed the threshold, he could see the early-morning mist as it crept lazily over the frozen ground. Haeli led them across the island and away from the city proper. Roric felt anticipation tighten in his gut. The further they went, the closer he felt to freedom. He quickened his stride, walking beside her rather than behind her. It was only when they passed the gate that his felt the urge to break ground overwhelm him. The muscles at his flank felt as if they had a will of their own.

Once they were far enough away and with no preamble whatsoever, she took the cloak off. Roric sat back admiringly, taking in the details. Her complexion was rich and bronze, presumably from many days out in the sunlight, with no telltale lines of modesty dividing the supple expanse of her flesh. He liked the way her nut brown hair cascaded messily over the bone birds of her shoulders, ultimately hiding nothing. But most of all, he was intoxicated by her smell; sans clothing, Haeli’s aroma was completely unadulterated. The brine of her sweat from a long night’s sleep. The earthen scent of her hair. But most of all, the heady scent the emanated from between her thighs. It was darker, richer now that she’d slept all night without bathing. His nostrils flared greedily, drinking it in.

Her body shuddered. He took a reflexive step back. The crunch of bone lanced through the turgid air of the swamp as she changed. This was no Kelvic transformation. In both horror and fascination, he stood paralyzed as her head shortened, lengthened. He watched as she grew a snout and fell to her knees. Before long, she was sprouting fur. This was different in some way, touched he knew, by magic.

His very first thought as he beheld her wolf-shape, was that she was as different a wolf as she was a human being. Roric had met many of his kind but he’d never seen one quite like her. Haeli looked back at him with large, pale eyes and for the very first time in his entire life, he felt near to being understood by another person.

Haeli knew just how to speak. As she nipped at his mouth, he snarled playfully in reply before lunging at her bodily, looking to get a bite at her hind end. Inside, he was suddenly buoyant. All of the previous agonizing over whether to stay or to go seemed inconsequential. With a flourishing bark, she leapt and took off. He followed close behind. This was what they both were waiting for, he suddenly realized. With every stride they took together, his heart swelled.

They tore through the countryside together. Mud splattered across both their fur as they ran up shallow banks, paddled across little inlets and scattered the smaller beasts of the land. Haeli moved with a competence through the territory that he did not yet share, so he was content to let her lead the way. Roric was used to running the grass. The peat and fog was yet unfamiliar to him. But it was quickly becoming so, especially given the joy he felt as he tasted the cold, sodden air. It all carried that same scent, the smell that unbeknownst to him, would soon come into a new meaning. With time, Haeli would be synonymous with home.

At the edge of a clearing, his companion skidded to a halt. He followed with caution. Within yards, he could smell it. There were ripe little creatures hidden in the grass, nestled away in their verdant little burrows. It was an easy meal, considering. Haeli seemed to know this and looked at him with the question in her eyes. Roric let his tongue loll, grinning in the way of wolves and laid his body against hers with gratitude and affection, before turning his full attention to the rodents hidden in the grass.

His ears were fully erect and his head tilted to and fro as the two of them carefully picked their way across the clearing. There was a particularly fat one nearby - he could hear its plump little body wriggling as it wound its way deeper into the brush. Roric silently approached until he was very nearly overtop of it. Then, with a short hop he lunged into the patch of grass and wrest the creature from its home with powerful jaws. With firm pressure and a quick snap, its squeals were reduced to silence.

That signaled that the game was on. Roric and Haeli drove the meadow mice from their shelters and caught all that they could. It wasn’t terribly difficult. There was a practiced ease to hunting, once you knew how. Plus, voles were nervous creatures and not very fast, considering what they were up against. Roric caught one by the rump as it fled from a nearby burrow and another by the nose toward the end. Those he did not catch would live to see another winter’s day.

When all the commotion died down, he stopped and fed. While she seemed to have gotten plenty of her own to eat, he didn’t begrudge her if she wished to share. Roric tore the entrails out of the fattest of them and heartily devoured all that he could. The fresh kill tasted like liberation and the joy it brought him he hadn’t experienced in all the months of his captivity.

When they were done Roric looked up at her with those dark, copper eyes, licking his chops. It was settled. He’d follow her back to the shop on the tiny island, amongst all the people he hated. Quietly, he approached and nudged his head against hers, saying thank you.

He'd soon discover that wherever Haeli was… That was the place he wanted to be. The rest of it ceased to matter.

[Haeli]

Haeli always felt drawn to be other than what she was. Whether it was from the Caiyha mark on her arm or whether it was from never truly finding a fit in the human world, she couldn’t exactly say. But she was a Witch as well and it was her job to serve Caiyha and serve her well. It didn’t matter if that meant doing such a simple thing as clearing a meadow of voles so the green could return and the voles themselves wouldn’t starve come the cold season. With as many as there were here, disease would come surely and so too would starvation as they stripped the meadow of its food and overran it. They would have to move or die off. Being hunted, truthfully, was a kindness.

Haeli said a quick prayer to the Wild Goddess thanking her for the meal and the ability to make a small course correction for the swamp she was caretaking by hopefully leaving the meadow with a belly full of voles. She could eat them at the rate that humans ate popcorn. Then she glanced at Roric and added his name to the thanks, happy Caiyha had put her in the path of the kelvic wolf who was keeping Haeli such good company on the bright and beautiful morning.

They waded into the meadow with its grass as tall as their chests, and began the hunt. Hunting was technical, though to a casual observer it might have seemed easy. As a human, Haeli could have knelt in the grass, parted its long strands, and revealed the super highways of worn trails the sheer massive amounts of voles had beaten into the earth in their travels. The grass was gnawed away on these pathways and then beaten down by tiny feet until just dirt paths remained. The tall grass was left on either side of these inch wide trails, arching overhead to protect them from raptors and other aerial hunters. The trails were invisible from anywhere but ground level unless a hunter or the curious sort parted the tall grass and looked. Then they’d see what equated in a vole’s life to a city with crowded streets all well and alive with voles.

The wolves had to be careful. Walking softly, tipping their heads to listen, while deep inside their brains their neurons did complicated math problems that told them where and when to leap. And leap they did, listening, deciding, timing it right and then jumping sideways, forwards, backwards, honing in and trying to pounce on the delicious snacks. Sometimes they caught them, paws crushing tiny bodies and snuffing out the life force within before their tiny brains could even register what was happening to them. Haeli was quick to bite. Voles took some chewing. It would be like a human eating a warm meat roll or a steaming pocket of dough filled with something delicious. Two or three bites were best but chomping and swallowing whole were acceptable too.

Haeli wasn’t a greedy feeder. She’d eat until she was satiated and go no further. She didn’t like the feeling of being overly full. The only variable on her mind was the point she felt full. Being a mage she used energy, a lot of it, and sometimes that fullness didn’t come without a significant meal. This was one of those times because she wasn’t in her own form and hadn’t been for a long while today. They’d also run, first for the joy of it and second because it felt good packing up regardless if you weren’t really a just a wolf but something more which was the case of each of them.

Ten voles later, Haeli wasn’t ravenous anymore. Eleven and she was full. They hadn’t made a dent in the Meadow population, but Haeli noted it because she knew if Roric decided to stay they’d come back again.

Feeding in itself was something of a game. He killed, she killed, and he killed again. Haeli felt no competition, not really, other than the need to keep up with him. He was a fine hunter and had a strong wolf’s body. She could match it with magic, but hers would never be real. His was. And she wondered for the first time if he liked being a wolf better than a man or if he preferred being a wolf. Haeli hated her human form, truthfully hated being born human. To her it was a weakness, growing up with a Dhani. Ozantha, her Dhani mother, hadn’t approved of her being human and so when she was just old enough to talk and understand, the Dhani had inducted her into morphing and forced upon her scales. Later, a tail had been added until Haeli had a full Dhani form and that was the form she was allowed to take and use among the swamp. It was safer, the woman claimed, and she had been right. But consequently Haeli hadn’t grown used to her human form. In a way it was utterly alien to her. But she was learning. Kenash was full of humans just as Lhavit had been. Dhani weren’t so common a thing to see on the streets.

But they’d fed and it was time to go home… or at least head back to the old fort where Haeli made her home. She led the pair in a circular path that took them back to where she stashed her clothing so she could shift and dress again in the robe that was almost nothing as is. When she was shifted back she’d ask the wolf carefully. “Is there anything else you want to do while we are out? I have work to do at home and things to make to sell the people here. Now that we’ve ran and fed I should get on with it. You are welcome to roam out here or come with me to my home and stay as long as you want. I can teach you things there or we can learn together. Kenash isn’t always pleasant, but I like the land around it. It’s very comforting to me, so I plan to stay here a long time.” The girl said to the wolf. She turned then, if he had nothing he wanted in the swamp, and headed for home. He was welcome to stay wild or follow. She’d always give him a choice.

[Cocoon]

Greetings!

This was a very interesting thread I really enjoyed. It took me some time to read and reread again, and these are the rewards for your work!

 

Haeli

Skills

• +3 Socialization
  
• +2 Observation
• +2 Morphing
  
• +1 Philosophy
• +1 Gardening
• +1 Land Navigation
• +1 Running

Lores

• Always a price to humans
  
• Kenash: Slavery’s Horror
  
• Roric: The Pale Wolf
• Haeli: Beauty in the rough
• Hunting: Voles
• Keeping nature’s balance… with murder

Comments

Really well done! You've managed to capture the Kenash psyche perfectly, with all the crudeness and blatant realism that could be expected. I really enjoyed the first posts in the Auction Hall, yet you also presented a very interesting scene both at Haeli's shop and the meadows themselves. Your writing is good, easy on the eyes and really immersive. Good job!

 

Roric

Skills

• +3 Observation
• +1 Intimidation
• +1 Running
• +1 Hunting
• +1 Endurance

Lores

• Pain of Slavery, Joy of Freedom
• The smell of lust
• Haeli: Chosen Master
• Intimidation: Looks and Attitude
• Hunting: Voles

Comments

Oh my. While the first half of the thread you had no choice but to remain obedient and only react to Haeli's posts, the way you did it impressed me a lot. Your vocabulary is very rich, and the way you write about Roric's inner battles had me fascinated. You managed to capture the basic instinct that is so strong with animals in a way I've personally never seen before, and for a moment I was really convinced I was inside your character's mind with the way you described it. That's a good Kelvic right here.

It is for that your grades are slightly lower than Haeli's, yet I know that in a next thread Roric will not be so restricted as he was in the first half of this thread. Really well done, I'm very impressed. I hope I can see more Roric around.

 

Click me

Conclusion

Excellent thread, you two! Although somewhat slow at first, it quickly escalated into something really exciting. Haeli's shyness combined with Roric's aloof attitude (in which all sorts of philosophical battles roared inside his head) completed the thread in both fronts. While Haeli's scenes were very immersive, Roric provided some very intense insight on the basic instincts of a wolf which I can only praise. I really hope I can see you two working along in more of these threads. There's potential in both characters, and I think they work together pretty good.

Remember to PM me if you think I've missed something, or have any doubts about this grade.