Entry: Wilderness -- see below.
Gaia Name: Coronaviridae
Media Used: Written Word
Is this your first entry? Yes.
Referred by: Kimie Kitty
There is a wolf in me
... fangs pointed for tearing gashes ... a red tongue for raw meat ... and the
hot lapping of blood--I keep the wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and
the wilderness will not let it go.
--Wilderness, Carl Sandburg
Wilderness
"You will stay here, in this spot, until the fire burns
down."
"And if I become hungry?"
"You'll become hungry. You'll suffer pains in your belly and
weakness in your limbs. The beast within you will come to you and ask to be let
out, and you will deny it. Then, you won't be hungry anymore."
"But--"
"Wait until the fire burns down, pup. Then return to
us."
---
Desperation and boredom became his companions long before hunger
did. Anxiety formed a knot in the pit of his stomach before Many Moons had even
left the plateau, disappearing from Ambrose's sight into the waving grass. Only
the Gray Runner's familiar scent remained, and smoke from the hungry fire was
quickly erasing that. Soon the silent birds would go back to their chirping and
the little rodents to their digging, and the last memory of anyone in this
place save Ambrose would be gone.
He didn't like the thought of being alone. He liked the thought of
being alone, without food, on this godforsaken rock, even less.
Rising awkwardly--still not used to these legs, those too-long
legs, wolf-legs, bent oddly at the joints and made for running--Ambrose paced
from one edge of his open-air prison to the other. For all the smoke and heat
the fire made, it cast a very tiny circle on the bare and rusty-colored stone
of the plateau. He paced its edged, counting his footsteps and marking how much
longer his stride was on these strange legs and feet.
When they'd been children, before Father's pride and favoritism
had cut them apart, he and Sebastien and Dreu had delighted in every inch
grown, in longer arms and greater strides and imagining the day they would soon
be men enough to follow their father at his work. Then Ambrose and Sebastien
had abandoned the dream and it was Dreu alone left to sit at Father's right hand,
his favorite child--
He clamped his teeth on a bestial growl, shame closing his throat.
He would have done anything to be in Dreu's place, given anything to have their
father say he was proud of him, Ambrose, his youngest and best son, and to
think-- To think--
A dejected whimper replaced the growl in Ambrose's throat and he
sank to sit before the fire, folding his legs beneath him. "How could you
have done that, Dreu?" he asked aloud of the fire. How could you
have--? Been anything less than the perfect gentleman. Been like a common
city boy, putting on airs during the day and diddling the whores at night. Ha!
Even in--that--Dreu had apparently excelled Ambrose, with an unmatched
sexual appetite and a talent for dodging the pox. It filled Ambrose with bitter
pleasure and immediate shame to wonder if his perfect, handsome brother had yet
picked up the English disease and begun rotting away from the inside out.
Maybe then Father would realize his darling child isn't
all he's been made out to be, Ambrose mused. A
cold, sharp wind trickled in off the plains, digging its fingers into the
werewolf's fur and making him shudder. And then he'd--he'd-- What?
Sebastien had long ago disappeared into a monastic life, and Ambrose--could he
really delude himself into thinking that Father would want this, this beast,
this mangy lump of fur and instincts to carry on the Maurlias line--! That was,
if they ever managed to get home, and that all hinged on him surviving this
ordeal and making it back to the Gray Runners in the first place!
The impossibility of it all rushed up on Ambrose like a great
yawning mouth. He bent double, digging his fingers into the hair and fur of his
head and biting his tongue. How could he ever have had such hubris! How could
he have ever believed that he'd survive this ordeal and get out of this
godforsaken place! He had already lost his honor, his pride, his
self-respect--and now he would lose his self-control and probably his life when
the beast inside began to starve and took over, and--
Emotions boiled in his gut and climbed tooth over claw up his
throat until Ambrose surged to his feet. "I SHOULDN'T HAVE COME
HERE!" he howled to the uncaring sky. "I SHOULDN'T HAVE COME!"
He should have followed Many Moons back, should have been more careful, should
never have left home...
Words eventually deserted him, and he simply howled. Head back,
throat open, eyes shut, hands clenched into fists as he shaped all of his pain,
his frustration, his anger, his grief into a single howl. Ambrose howled to
make the stars weep, howled and howled until it seemed that liquid noise had no
beginning and no end, just one continuous note threading its way through his
life. He howled until he had no more breath and trembled with the resonance of
his own singing, until his knees gave out and he sat shaking on the stone of
the plateau.
After what seemed to be an eternity he could breathe again,
raising his head enough to watch the fire burn. He felt a little better, and
the scant warmth of the flames blunted the edge of the cold. Off in the
distance, the evening songs of the Gray Runners echoed, braiding the last
echoes of his tremendous howl into a gentle lullaby.
Ambrose listened and picked out the voices he knew until he grew
too tired to keep his eyes open. Then he sniffed once, turned a circle, and lay
down with the brush of his tail over his nose.
The slow turning of the earth rocked him to sleep.
---
On the second day, Ambrose dreamed.
---
"Why would God do this to me?"
It was late. Dark. Warm. Redolent with the scents of a dinner
they'd finished alone together, he and Angelina, after the others had gone to
bed or dispersed for merriment. Even if Ambrose was too much of a gentleman to
so much as think of her indecently, he treasured these moments of privacy. She
was his, grumbled the beast within. His mate, his bitch,
and though he shuddered to think of gentle Angelina as a she-wolf, he dreamed
of no one else running beside him. Just her, with a coat as white as
swan-feathers and a scent--
He swallowed and shook his head, turning aside from the thought.
"Do what, 'Rose?" Angelina interrupted with impeccable
timing, and he was glad the dark hid the sudden flush in his cheeks.
Still, he was silent, unable to quite put voice to his feelings.
After a time he heard her chair creak as she turned to face him, then held out
a hand. "Why would God do what, mon cher?" she asked again. He laced
his fingers through hers, grateful for the contact, and looked down.
Even though he could no longer believe in a God who cared much for
his fate individually, blaming that same God still felt wrong to Ambrose. He
was hesitant to put his sacrilege into words. "How could He--put this
beast in me, this horrible, ugly beast--this, this b�te noire--how could He
put such a thing into a man?"
Angelina leaned back in her chair, and he thought somehow she was
smiling at him. "It seems more like a b�te grise to me, cher, Monsieur
Wolf in his handsome gray coat." He didn't appreciate the pun, feeling it
to be at his expense, and he shook his head.
"It's not something to poke fun at," he said, perhaps
too sharply. He sensed more than saw her smile fade, and frowned a little
himself. Instead of stopping as he should, though, he kept on it: "What
good is a wolf, anyway? Stealing chickens--"
"You're confusing him with M'sieur Reynard the fox,"
Angelina interrupted, with wan humor.
"--stealing something from an honest farmer, chickens
or sheep or babies right out of the cradle, attacking hunters--their pelts are
barely big enough to make a decent coat from, and you can't even eat the meat!
Howling at all hours--I'd rather a mangy, rabid cur on my lands than a wolf,
any day."
Ambrose knew he'd made a faux pas when Angelina drew her hand back
from his and looked away from him. "Is that it, Monsieur Maurlias? Is an
animal only worthwhile if he stays out of your way, or if he's good to eat or
you can make a warm coat from his hide?"
"God did make Man to have sovereignty over the animals,"
Ambrose replied, voice tight. "It wouldn't hurt if they kept out of our
way or at least made themselves useful! Wolves are just--beasts! Evil,
gluttonous beasts!"
It came as some surprise when Angelina slapped him. Her voice went
very cold, and Ambrose was very silent as she spoke: "God also made all
the things that creep or walk on the earth before he made mankind, and of all
of them I can think of no more noble animal than the wolf. He is not lazy
like the lion but spends most of his time hunting to feed his mates and his
pups. He is loyal to his pack, he does not kill for sport; he is quick to
forgive an offense made against him.
"You should be proud, Monsieur Maurlias, that you
should have such a creature within you. Most men can aspire to be little more
than rats or hares, and a wolf is a great blessing indeed."
Ambrose touched a hand to his stinging cheek as Angelina stood
with a rustle of cloth. "But Nathan Timothy, and his wolves--the men of
that land--," he began, uncertain and trying not to show it.
"Those were not WOLVES, m'sieur. Those were creatures lower
than men, lower than dirt itself, and you should be ashamed to think of
yourself as being anything like them." She strode to the door, wrenching
it open and slamming it shut behind her before he could even process that
thought.
He sat in silence a long time after she left, rubbing at his
stinging cheek. Had the words "tree-hugging hippy" existed to be in
his vocabulary he might have used them now. Bereft of them, he had only a
voiceless frustration that she could treat things so lightly.
---
He woke with a start on the third day to a still-burning fire and
his first pangs of hunger. Angelina's scent lingered on the rocks around him;
he breathed in deep to find it merely illusory. She'd been but a dream, along with
the sight of anything familiar. Hell--as much as the man irritated him, Ambrose
would have given quite a bit to see even Jerrard here with him. But to have her...
The wind brought the scent of rain and lowering clouds. Somewhere
(his ears told him), a mother bird was beating out a hollow in the grass with
her body, preparing it for the eggs she was heavy with. Rabbits skittered
hither and thither as they foraged. The fire danced in colors he was sure he'd
never seen as a human. Every hair on the back of his neck prickled with static
electricity.
He shot to his feet, unable to bear the cacophony of sensation.
There was no boon in sharp senses when they told him of a world he couldn't be
a part of, not while that fire still burned. He thought of kicking dirt over it
and nearly did--
You will stay here until the fire burns down.
The restless motion crawled up his arms and he clawed at his ears,
his hands, his face to escape the sensation of other lives out there. Once he
had seen a man act just like this, screaming about the blood-river as the
gendarmes dragged him away--now Ambrose wished there were gendarmes to drag him
away, a quiet cell to sit in away from the restlessness.
There was sense enough in him to stop scratching before he tore his
own skin open. The Gray Runners weren't the only ones to hunt the plains; he
had learned respect for bigger predators than he in the time he'd been with
them. Perhaps, he thought bitterly, it would be the only lesson he learned.
Many Moons had asked him to do the impossible. It was just as unnatural for a
man to go without food for so long, to starve himself like some kind of ascetic
on one of the high holy days.
He paced to the other side of the plateau and returned. Sebastien
came to mind unbidden--his cipher of a second brother. Sad, how it had always
been Dreu on his mind, once his other older brother had been banished to
a monk's cell or an abbey somewhere. He certainly would have done better at
this task than Ambrose was. Musketeers were expected to fight with the sword
and the rifle and look handsome in uniform, not dedicate themselves to some
faceless god worshipped by savages.
Hunger would not back away before the sting of a sword. The beast
within had never been hunted by men with rifles, and scoffed at lesser weapons.
Not even a taste of cold steel would beat it back if he got hungry
enough--certainly all of Ambrose's iron will and control were giving him no
edge over it now.
He turned a sharp corner at the plateau's edge and marched back the
way he came. Of course, at any time, he could always choose to leave the fire
behind him and make tracks. This torture would all become an unpleasant memory,
heaped upon the other indignities the curse had forced upon him.
But he had chosen to come. Discomfort drew icy fingers down his
spine; he thought he could hear his father scolding, his tone distant--as if
even a little anger would be wasted on his youngest son. A failure, a nothing,
a nobody, not even a gift to the church, but oh what he could become if he
embraced the wolf within him--!
Honor and duty would triumph. Ambrose clenched his hands until
claws raked furrows in his palms, kept pacing. He had given his word. He would
stay until the fire had burned down, even if it meant pacing for an eternity
until he should collapse from weariness.
So long as he had the strength, he'd keep pacing; he'd drive that
voice out, muzzle the wolf, and become his own man again.
Maybe then his father's voice would be silent.
---
It rained on the fourth day.
He thought it was the fourth day. The beast in him didn't care for
time, only the chance to ease a throat parched with thirst, head tilted back
and jaws wide to catch the raindrops. Thunder grumbled in the distance as he
bent to lick water out of the hollows of the rock, grateful for the moisture
despite the grit and dust it brought with it.
The fire sizzled and crackled, snapping at the raindrops, and he
thought of Angelina sheltering sparrows from a storm.
---
Hunger and nightmares brought the fifth day to a close. There were
dreams of blood and fire and heat, pursuit and being pursued--a baby's foot
smeared with blood, meat from unknown hands, a woman (a bitch) winking at him.
The moon cracked like an egg over an unforgiving horizon and spilled out silver
light that made his skin catch flame.
He was a man on fire, a part of the flame he awoke to stare into,
to see anthracite eyes, burning coals, laughing eyes. He was a flame, hunger
eating at his strength from within. Fiery teeth gnawed his limbs, made holes in
his resolve. The wind whispered of the fear of tiny animals, stroking the
flames higher within him until acid hunger sat on the back of his tongue and
whined to be let loose.
Nightmares brought hunger but not for meat, though his stomach
churned and clung to his backbone with emptiness. He sat up, shuddered, curled
up and wished for hands pushing through the bars of his bad dreams to pet the
snarling beast into submission. Hands that trusted, ears that heard, who could
leash that b�te noire and silence it.
He was a man in the fire, looking up into those phoenix-tail
sparks and feathers clawing at the sky, breathing gray smoke through his nose
as his gray ears flicked back and forth. The beast within rumbled and drew back
from the flame. Fire meant nothing but danger to an animal. Fire was man's
territory, man and God and the lightning strike owning it for themselves.
Thunder grumbled in the distance. The wind played with the tips of
the flames and brought along the scent of rain. He found he could draw breath
again. His mouth watered at the scent of pheasant and rabbit running wild in
the grass, but the beast checked at the sight of the fire and backed down.
Ambrose took another breath, savoring the scent of the open sky above him.
---
The realization came slowly as he watched the fire. His golden
eyes traced sparks toward the sky, lingered on the banner of smoke undisturbed
by the wind. Omens knotted together in serpentine coils, unwove, retied
themselves in new patterns of warp and weft. He continued to breathe, sitting
unawares as the feeling of great change crept up on him from ambush.
It felt good to be alive and breathing tonight. Above him, the sky
flooded with stars. The air around him was faintly electric in its clarity,
like a bit of amber rubbed against the night's black felt. Breath whispered in
and out of his lungs in time with the beating of his heart.
Ambrose closed his eyes to savor the night more fully. The light
running its fingers along the skin of his eyelids began to die as he did so; he
scarcely noticed it had until he opened his eyes and realized the fire was but
glowing ashes.
...until the fire burns out.
Our greatest victories do not come in the heat of battle or the
noise of a storm, but in the quiet of our own hearts. Ambrose let out a breath
he had been holding and found the fire inside him gone as well.
He wasn't hungry.
There was little left in him for a triumphant whoop to the sky;
there was no parade to escort him back to the camp. He had only a lightness in
his step, like that of a prisoner freed, as he placed paw before paw on the
trail back. It felt to him as if he'd carry a part of this night wrapped around
his heart permanently, stored up in a locket as a charm against failing again.
You should be proud.
Oh, if only Angelina could see him now--! Before he knew it he was
smiling, then laughing--then running, weak-kneed as he was, back to the camp
like a reckless child. Adrenaline made him dizzy, and one thought pounded in
his blood:
I should be proud.
There was a wolf within him, and Ambrose Maurlias could be no
prouder of it than he was on this night.