However, one night I found myself pursued by a dragon, and so – perhaps instinctively knowing I was likely no match for it alone, but more so because I had no healing potions, magic, and so on – I fled. I know not how long or how far I loped in beast form ere I suddenly found myself once more human, and realised I was in trouble: Finding oneself completely naked, weaponless, and standing in the middle of a giant’s encampment can generate solemn questions about life’s priorities – but I would have to ponder them anon.
Fortunately, giants seldom attack without provocation; unfortunately, what was most likely to provoke them was coming too near their camps or mammoth livestock. Fortunately, before attacking they tended to make threatening gestures, such as stomping, grunting, roaring, and beating the ground with their huge clubs (apparently mammoth leg bones), just as this one was. All of which gave me the opportunity to flee, albeit not before an observation oddly came to mind that Vilja had made some while back, about having once seen a giant without its loincloth – or ‘loinclothes’, as she had endearingly put it. “That was scary,” she had added.
Thus, despite my predicament – or likely because of it – I was laughing, which caused me to become out of breath much quicker than I normally would have, even in human form. As a werewolf, I could have run half the night – which I almost had, apparently – but again, luckily for me, giants were disinclined to pursue a threat once they had chased it off, unless it had done them harm, and that I was not about to do.
In any case, I was able to stop after a very short sprint – thankfully for my poor bare feet – and, finding myself near an inviting pool, relished the opportunity to relax, catch, my breath, and at least bathe the night’s filth away. I had not counted on the slaughterfish.
Savagely bitten on both legs before I managed to get out of the pool, I retrieved a stick and smashed the two voracious, ugly predators to paste as they tried to attack me even on the shore. I fell to my naked rump in the grass, slumped supine, exhausted. This was not good. Yet, I was still in pain and bleeding, and so I turned to my seldom-used magic to heal myself; at least I did not need anything on my person to be able to cast simple healing spells.
As it betided – again, most fortuitously – I was able to orient myself and found I was only a league or so from camp and safety. Even so, as I reflect on this adventure I should admit that I was quite lucky (again); I could have run into the middle of another bandit camp, this time naked and unarmed; been run down by a pack of wolves or a sabrecat; or any number of similar predicaments, few of which would turn out well.
Ever more to consider, it would seem, as I had further thoughts about my choice.
Although the questions I continued to deflect from my companions were not direct, they were becoming more and more difficult to answer, especially without a blatant lie.
“Tell me honestly,” Vilja enquired one day. “What do you think of my cooking?” Although I replied that I quite liked it – which was the truth – she continued, “Then why do you refuse every time I offer to cook something for you?”
I quickly thought back on the past few weeks, and realised she was probably right. An answer to this would be more problematic without, at best, stretching the truth. “I am just not hungry, I suppose. Or, I have just gotten myself something. Or Lydia did.” I knew my housecarl would not gainsay me; indeed, she avoided looking at me, instead busying herself getting the axe out of her saddlebags and ostensibly going off for firewood.
“That’s not it at all,” Vilja remonstrated. “I think… I think you are lying to me, and I don’t know why. There is something… something wrong, I jest know it.” Her cute Nord accent, and something else, thickened her words.
I looked up from moving large stones into a circle for the campfire. She stood stiffly, still in her form-fitting leather armour, arms folded, crying; I felt as though I had been kicked in the stomach.
“I…” I began feebly, but could not finish.
Yet, it seemed I would not have to, as she turned and fled – though it was not long until circumstance forced the truth from me.
VIII All is Revealed
They were upon us before we realised we were under attack. We had just despatched a cave troll, encountered suddenly as we travelled in the hills along the Darkwater River near Lost Knife Hideout. Our first indication that we could not yet relax were screams from the horses, which had fled as we came upon the troll just as we rounded a bend in the road. Luckily for the horses, the werewolf skinwalkers and a couple of their wolf companions were intent on attacking us, and so our mounts merely bolted farther away as we turned toward the sound of their terror.
Ere I realised what was betiding I had taken on beast form. I assume it was part instinct, part outrage that my so-called ‘brethren’ would dare attack me, let alone in company with my friends; and so I would show them just what they had taken on. Yet, perhaps they realised they had made a mistake, for as we slew the wolves and one of the skinwalkers immediately, the remaining two fled back across the river. I was in no mood to let them be, although, since my companions were not able to ford the fast-flowing course as quickly as I was in beast form, I caught and tore apart one and then the other before my friends were able to cross. It was only then that, even as a beast, I dimly realised what I had done.
Up into the surrounding hills I fled, lest I lose control or my compatriots, not recognising me, attacked. As I could not feed on the skinwalkers or the wolves – or, since doing so would not serve me well – and I was not fortunate enow to stumble upon any corpses, I was thus unable to maintain beast form for long. Therefore, once more I soon found myself naked and unarmed, as well as wounded, this time across a significant river from my party.
It need be said here that it is nigh impossible to ‘normally’ shape change whilst clothed, let alone in armour; clothing will inevitably be shredded as it is suddenly outgrown, and to do so in full armour would be near suicidal, as most armour will, of course, not ‘shred’. Even if it did, it would soon become expensive to keep replacing. Aela warned me of this on that first night, and so I have since ensured that I am completely unencumbered prior to a hunt. This time, to be sure, I had had no time for any such planning. Thus, I can only attribute my sudden change to the Ring of Hircine I had acquired in a prior quest to kill a werewolf named Sinding, whom, in beast form, killed a little girl and escaped custody for the crime in Falkreath.
I will not relate that tale, except to say that I chose to spare Sinding and defy the deity Hircine – even though the Father of Manbeasts told me I served him regardless, and bade me keep his ring. In any case, it allows one to take beast form more than once per day, and so it somehow must allow one to shift out of one’s accoutrements at the same time. Regrettably, it does not do the reverse. Thus, all I recall is that when I slunk back into the camp that Lydia and Vilja had set up on near our recent battle – doubtless not knowing whence I had gone and when I should return – my two companions had gathered up my shed belongings, intact, and stowed them for me.
It was well after dark when I returned. I had been obliged to turn to my magic once again to heal, keep from freezing, and to find my way in the night, not to mention cross the river, which I was able to do using the whirlwind sprint Shout, which moves one in the blink of an eye several man-spans. It cannot compensate for steep terrain, but otherwise it will move one over quite significant gaps or obstacles, such as traps. Or rivers.
Returning to my tale, then, I do not believe that either Lydia or Vilja slumbered as I crept, shivering, into the bedroll they had set out for me in our tent, but I would be unable to avoid their questions – verbal or otherwise – beyond morning, I knew. Thus, somewhat past dawn the next day, I told them I would speak with them both.
Amid the purple morning mists, we sat round the campfire for a stretched silence, aught but its occasional crackle and the rustle of the nearby river to intrude upon the uncomfortable quietude.
“I am a werewolf,” I finally admitted, although I did not suppose it came as any great shock.
Vilja, holding herself stiffly, began to sob, eyes downcast at her boots shuffling nervously in the brown grass. Lydia regarded me warily.
“I… I do not know what more to say,” I added lamely.
“But, w-why?” Vilja cried. “H-How did this happen?”
“I… did it myself.”
“But… why?” the blonde repeated. “Why would you do something like this – become a… a m-monster?”
“‘Monster’?” I countered sharply. “See you a monster before you now?”
“Well, not now, no. But—”
“I am stronger, faster… I can stay up and… run all night. I… I feel more alive, like I can do anything.”
“Anything but sleep and eat like a normal person,” Vilja countered.
“Normal? What is ‘normal’?” I did not know why I was so defensive – or perhaps I did.
Choking back more sobs, the Nord girl shook her head. “No… Shrelle, you cannot possibly like what you are – what you have become.”
“Why not? What would you know about it?”
“I’ll make you a cure diseases potion,” she offered.
“No. It will not work.” That was true, but I had no wish to admit that I did not want a cure.
She looked at me helplessly; something twisted inside me. “Lydia, please,” she entreated the darker Nord. “Help me.”
“I… It is not my place.”
“Yet you have an opinion,” I conjectured.
“Yes, my thane.”
“I bid you give it, then.”
“I… dare not, my thane.”
“Why not? I release you from my service, if that will help.”
She rose. “My thane, I am at your service, to release as you please. If you dismiss me now, I’ll await you at your home in Whiterun. Should you wish still to release me upon your return, that is your right.”
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