Chapter Text
The countryside is beautiful. Gold light shines through the lush green canopy overhead, birds flit their wings and chirp sweet songs as they dive between branches. It's--at first--a wonder that the trees don't hold any snow, but you suppose the wind is strong enough and the needles adorning their branches thin enough to explain their bareness. Snow reflects the sun's light, bounces it across tree trunks and foliage. Every step you take is punctuated by the satisfying crunch of powder snow and the cracking of twigs beneath it, soft and yet stark in the airy, melodious symphony of the forest and its inhabitants.
The rifle in your hands is heavy; its metal parts clack and jostle against its wooden body and add to the volume of your trekking. Your muscles ache from carrying it, burning nearly as intensely as your lungs are, as caused by the frigid air. You've been walking alone for hours now, supposedly tracking a bachelor herd of roe deer--though you haven't seen a single sign of them since setting out. It doesn't make a difference; even if you catch up to them, there's no chance you would be capable of dragging one back on your own, and before dark. Wolf tracks void the option of leaving it for the morning.
You keep walking because you know that the later you return, the more effort you'll appear to have put in--and, because you cannot stand to remain in that camp any longer. Being forced to live in isolation from the rest of the world is bad enough, but the company of your pompous father and his equally unpleasant followers is far, far worse than any degree of loneliness. You're constantly treated as nothing more than a housekeeper, always condemned to such boring and horrid chores as darning socks, doing the laundry of countless--and ungrateful--other men, and washing dishes before you even have time to finish your own meal. Your infrequent (and unreasonably humble--for all that you do) complaints are always met with the same excuse of your youth--as if your age is your own fault and any indicator of your worth especially in competition with such unmannered and utterly useless slobs as these. It's always reasoned that all the men, the fur trappers and hunters, have "earned" (and by what effort of their own?) the leisure granted by your practical slavery (to be, perhaps, slightly dramatic). It's torturous. On top of that, all the men look to your father for his "nobility" and "bravery"--facets with... questionable authenticity, and yet ones he has never missed an opportunity to boast about. The truth of his character, in your perspective, is that of a bitter old man; but, at the very least, he's no liar when bragging of his marksmanship. The truth of that matter is that he can hit a boar's hair with his eyes closed; an ability that you, unfortunately, did not inherit and a fact he constantly berates you for.
As the only son, you're expected to honor your family's name, your father's name, and yet--as you're told daily--you fall short. Unlike your father, you have poor coordination and little to speak of in the ways of natural leadership; and you're not much better in regards to your mother, who is a strict, apathetic woman valuing a level of education you struggle to reach. To say your familial relations are poor is an understatement.
Your teeth begin to chatter as a drift weaves through the trees, cutting through your outer layers to whisper against your skin. Yet, the wind doesn't dissuade you from walking on. You find that it's nothing compared to the exasperation and shame you're daily rewarded just by daring to exist in the small camp you're prisoner of.
The distant howling of wolves, however, is a different matter entirely.
Your hair stands on end, your pace wavers, and your eyes widen. You knew there were wolves in the area when you set out, but had you known they were so close, you would've turned back. You stop, your hearing sharpened by adrenaline as you listen for the direction of the howls, watching for movement in the trees. The sound ceases before you can locate it, leaving only the whistling breeze and creaking birch trees behind. You curse under your breath.
It's been a rough few weeks, but this may be the most dread you've felt thus far.
For a moment, you stay standing, tightening your grip around your rifle and cataloguing your surroundings. When you turn, your tracks are still visible in the snow behind you, a hopeful sign for your retreat. But--the thought takes you--what if you don't turn back? What if the howls had come from behind you? What if the wolves had already reached your camp? What then?
You know the thoughts are irrational, that they're simply a product of anxiety, and yet, you feel utterly taken by them. Not with fear, not with worry for your life, but with the prospect of escape.
What if you don't go back?
You shake your head. It's a ridiculous idea. If you aren't torn apart by wolves, you'll surely freeze to death before dawn. But it tempts you, and you find yourself walking on. Just a little farther, just to see what's ahead. Maybe you'll stumble upon a cottage, maybe another camp, or a distant farmer's herd of livestock. Besides, the sun is still light in the sky, and the forest is lively with woodland creatures. Surely they aren't so close as you thought.
------
Walking on was a mistake. It should've been obvious. Had your time in camp really been so horrid as to distort your sense of reason this much? The sun is waning at the horizon, and the snow falling slowly around you is well on its way to covering your tracks completely.
You're probably going to die.
If not at the hands--or maws-- of the aforementioned wolves, then at the hand of the biting cold. Your muscles still ache, but the pain is nothing compared to the panic searing your nervous system. Every sound, every movement just out of your range of sight, triggers a surge of adrenaline in your blood. How could you be so stupid?
You speed up. Every other tree you find yourself knocking into, twice you trip on a root and nearly fall on your face. At least you can be thankful for your balance, the split on your cheek--a result of your father backhanding you for 'disobedience' earlier that day--is sore enough without the impact of a fall.
Noise begins to fade, birds settle down in their nests, and voles in their burrows. What's left is the whistling of the wind and distant howls. To say the absolute least, it's disheartening.
For now, stumbling through the woods, you don't cry. You keep your mind off the gravity of your situation and push forward. Crying will only waste energy and worsen the burn of the cold night against your skin.
--
Cloaked in the last rays of light, you hear it.
A howl. Close. So much closer than the others.
You freeze. Your breath quickens and you stare, wide-eyed, into the darkness ahead.
Another follows, echoing in the night air.
Another--then a growl, a snarl--they echo as if the trees enclose the sound, and you cannot distinguish from where they come.
The sounds continue, they reverberate deep in the animal's throats, growls that indicate they've locked onto something. Spotted something--someone.
What can you do? You're alone. You have a rifle, but it takes almost a minute to reload--at least when there is light--and you're no match for a pack of vicious wolves.
A sinking thought hits you. It's not the first time you've thought it tonight, but it hadn't weighed you with the same carnal dread it does now--You're going to die.
The sounds wilt into silence, you try to breathe, but feel suffocated. A snarl cuts through the quiet--sharp, seething and ferocious--you squeeze your eyes shut and hope for something, for anything, to save you, or for this all to be a horrible dream you will wake up from.
Through the blackness comes another sound. A loud, wet, tearing. As if a soaked rag was twisted of its water and torn.
A crack, something slides against the dirt and you hear a whimper. It occurs to you now that this is all farther from you than when it had begun. You open your eyes, though it's not much lighter, and nervously survey what's around you. There's no movement, nor is there another sound. Whatever those wolves had spotted, whatever had made those sounds just a second ago, it had nothing to do with you. At least not yet, and if that is a blessing or a curse, you don't stop to ponder it.
Your fear is still tangible in the crisp air around you, you're still lost, and so you walk forward, cautiously, looking for signs of shelter, anything.
At first it's only darkness, more of the same, then--there!--a flicker, like candlelight.
Your heart pounds--another person? A refuge? It flits in the dark, wavering like it may disappear any moment, and suddenly you break into a sprint. There's no telling how cold it will get in the blackness, and your direction is utterly lost.
If it is your only chance, as it very well may be, you have no choice but to take it.
Your mind is blank of everything but pure, instinctual fear and urgency.
The wind burns your skin and the air your lungs, but you keep running. Your muscles ache, but the light draws nearer and your pace only quickens. Trees scrape against your arms, your rifle smacks against branches and slips from your grasp with a clatter, but you keep running.
At last, you see it. An illuminated window set in the shadow of a building.
At first, you have no gauge for its scale, but as you finally break from the trees, you see its size in full. Only one window is lit, but you see that it's one of many. It's a large house, not quite a manor, but larger than anything you'd dream of in the city or otherwise in the poor countryside you're accustomed to.
Your gaze is torn by a dull crunch.
Your head snaps to the left, fear drowning your relief at the sight before you. Even in the dark, it's unmistakable.
In front of you is a man, at least twenty feet away in the gaping entrance of a barn, his figure is obscured by his clothes--layered like your own--but the terror the scene elicits comes purely from what's around him. Lying in the dirt are four wolves, motionless. Blood drenches the dirt beneath them, their coats matted and caked with it, and even from here, you can see how they've been brutalized. Jaws torn off, skulls bashed, hides partially torn from their bodies. You feel sick.
The man is facing you, completely still and cloaked in shadow. It's impossible to make out his features, or to know whether it's the dark playing tricks on you or if he's truly as massive as he seems.
He steps forward, nothing more than a silhouette in the darkness. You jolt at the sudden movement, making to run back from where you came, but his voice stops you.
It comes as an unnaturally low and hoarse sound, an almost animalistic rumble of the word "Wait," As if the cold earth itself had been given a voice.
You stop, wavering between your options. If you run, you're no better off--almost certainly bound to freezing--but if you stay, what will become of you? He answers without your asking,
"If you leave here now, there is no telling your direction in the dark. You'll freeze before midnight. I can shelter you until morning." He speaks from his chest, rumbling like the growls of the wolves, like the rolling of waves.
You know he's right. Despite the sight before you, the terror of it, and the fear you've been taken by since the sun had set. He can't be any more deadly than the cold forest at night. However, danger is another being entirely. Man has long fostered horrors incomparable to those birthed by nature.
"Did you do this?" You ask, surprised by the wavering words even as they leave your lips. He seems to understand, looking around at the carnage before him.
"Yes," He answers, a tone overtaking his voice, something you liken to pain, sorrow, despite the foreign nature of his voice. "They... they hurt something very dear to me. I didn't have a choice. They wouldn't let go." His voice cracks. Not with hoarseness, but something else.
"I'm sorry."
He looks up again, lets the silence fill between you, then utters, quietly, "I'm sorry, as well."
he looks to the house and says, "You should come inside. It will only get colder." He walks forward, towards the towering building. His steps are measured, long, powerful strides--you can tell even in the dark.
You look back to the scene before following, at the spot where he'd stood only seconds ago. It's hard to make out, but you're sure there's something on the ground behind where he would've been standing. Maybe another animal, something fairly small.
You follow him to the front of the house silently. Whether it's the right choice, you've made up your mind to take it either way.
Evident by the stone structure, ivy creeping up its sides and winding around windowsills and into the grooves between bricks, the building is old. It's undeniably a thing of beauty, ornate in its architecture and warm in its maintenance.
As it turns out, what you'd seen was only the back of the house. At the front of it, ahead of the massive double doors and stone steps, is a sprawling field. You hope to see more of it in the light. Then, hope, quite cynically, that you will live to see the light again, at all.
Your curious gaze leads back to the man, finding him already at the top of the steps you'd only just begun ascending. He opens one of the large doors, the metal hinges whining and the wood groaning, before stepping aside to wait for you. At least he's well-mannered.
You reach the doorway, glance up at him--all the way up at him, as you have to crane your neck quite a lot--and murmur "Thank you," as you walk inside, trying to conceal your shock at his sheer mass and height. It had been hard to gauge from the distance you'd originally seen him at, but now you find that you only reach the lowest half of his chest. He must be at least 8 feet tall, and the mass of him is no more human than his height.
He says nothing and shuts the door once you enter, giving you little time to familiarize yourself with the room around you as he walks on through a dark hallway and enters a room spilling with light.
What you do observe is the warmth, the faint smell of dust and metal, and the abnormally high ceilings--fitting for a man of his stature. The floor of the first room is stone, but the next turns out to be wooden. The sight of the space fills you with awe. The entrance is as wide and tall as the ceiling. At the farthest wall, there's a grand hearth, roaring with warm flames. In front of it is a daybed with a beautifully intricate wooden frame and leather upholstery, matching the two other chairs in the room pushed into the table at its center. At both opposite walls are bookcases spanning to the ceiling, and at either side of the huge entrance frame are two equally ornate end tables, one housing a globe and the other, a phonograph. It's more luxurious than anything you've experienced in a home, let alone one belonging to a single man. You wonder, then, is he alone? Surely not with a home so large and so far from any town.
He approaches the fire, your gaze fixed upon him as he does so, and picks up an iron to stoke the flames with. When he returns to his full height, there is a perceptible moment of hesitation before he turns to you. Here, bathed in the firelight, you get your first real look at him. His clothes are tattered, torn in places, and mismatched. The furs adorning his broad shoulders are no better, appearing as if they'd been thrown together at random, all different colors and lengths, differently distressed and worn. His hair is long and somewhere between black and deep brown, clearly cared for based on its silken appearance. His face--the sharp features adorning it--catch your attention the most. His nose is sharp and angular, the bump of bone at its bridge visible beneath his skin, his cheekbones similarly sharp and pronounced, as is his jaw. His lips are thin and dark, and his eyes--his eyes are nearly doe-like, dark and full and framed by equally full and long lashes, standing out against his pale skin. The ridge of his brows is as pronounced as the rest of his features, and, like all of them, is riddled with scars. Large, defined scars mapping each of his features as if connecting them, like stars truly connected into their constellations.
It's captivating, fascinating, and slightly frightening. You've never seen anyone like him. You think he must've been a soldier, injured in war, and so you don't ask. You understand it's a sensitive topic for many, and it's not like he's the first you've encountered; many men of your camp were mangled in battle and left with the scars of their sacrifice--you only wonder what exactly his was.
When he speaks, you nearly jump. "You may sleep here. The fire will keep you warm."
"Thank you," you respond, absent-mindedly, still transfixed on his face and the slight twitch of discomfort on his features. As many questions as you have, you don't know which to ask.
Along with the cold, winter brings dark evenings and late mornings. You must've woken less than 12 hours ago, the day still young for all its darkness, and so it's not surprising that he says, "You must have travelled quite far. I'd be happy to share what food I have with you." His words confirm your suspicion of the land's isolation. His tone carries something like uncertainty.
Nonetheless, you don't feel as unnerved as one would expect to--as far from society and familiar faces as you are. "Yes, I came from a camp of trappers, uhm..." you think, struggling to gauge what direction you'd walked in to reach here, but ultimately blanking. "I'm not sure in what direction from here, but some ten miles away, I think."
"You were lost, then?" He inquires, a light hint of curiosity gracing his tone as he walks away from the fire to continue down the hall.
You follow. "Yes, I..." Why had you gotten lost? And how much to tell a stranger? "I was following a herd of deer, but the snow covered my tracks, and it was dark before I could find my way back."
He doesn't respond with words, but grunts in acknowledgement. It's as low and animal of a sound as you've heard from a human. At the end of the hall is another door, still taller than those found in an average home, and when pushed open, it reveals a decently sized kitchen. It's similarly ornate as the rest of the house, but also lived in and somewhat homely. There's a smaller doorway on the same wall, but on the opposite end from the one you entered, that goes out into a dining room. The house seems truly lavish by your standards.
"Does anyone else live with you?" you wonder, still observing the room around you idly while the man takes cloths of bread and cheese from the pantry and produces a jug of goats' milk alongside them. The question is partially out of a desire to quell your nerves and a desire to engage in real conversation--to actually get to know someone and feel like an equal, rather than an inconvenient errandboy.
"No, I am alone, here," he answers simply, as if the fact was one he'd accepted long ago.
It's not what you expected, considering the size of the house. "Oh," as much as one would assume, you aren't taken by fear, yet. Instead, you ask, almost empathetically, "It must be rather lonely out here, is it not?"
"Sometimes," he muses, pouring a glass of milk and setting it before you on the center island between you. "But it does not bother me."
"Do you have any family?" you continue, taking the glass and sipping from it slowly. Your ease of comfort in a stranger's home could be questioned, but it's far from the first time you've been sheltered in another's home while traveling. Your current occupation can attest to the fact. Besides, there's nothing intensely frightening about the man or his home--which, you're particularly lucky for, given how vulnerable the situation has rendered you.
"No, I've never..." He ponders his words, seems to test them in his head for a moment, "I've never had one."
Well, that's... awfully sad. You say as much, even without meaning to let the words slip.
"That's... I'm so sorry," You say quietly, sympathetically.
"What for?" His head tilts with curiosity, quite reminiscent of a dog.
"I can't imagine how hard that must have been," you explain as gently as you can think to phrase it, expanding with, "raising yourself without the support of a family."
He seems to understand. Looking away, his gaze is almost sullen. "Perhaps it was the easier way for things to go. My... father was not much in the way of support, even in life."
Somehow, you feel like you understand, looking down at the piece of bread in your hand as you think, chewing thoughtfully.
"It's Northeast," He says suddenly. When you look up in question, he confirms, "Your camp."
"You know it?" You ask hopefully.
"There's not much else inhabiting these woods. There is a town twenty miles south, but that is all besides your camp. I can lead you there at dawn, if you would like."
Your hopeful expression falls. The reality of returning hits you. The same grueling work and poor treatment for months to come, and for what? But where else could you go?
"Perhaps," You start, looking around as you think of what to say. "Perhaps you could direct me to the town, instead?"
"You do not wish to return?" There is something in his tone that shocks you. You can not name it or recall it, but know that your heart is faster than it was. If it's fear or just the feeling that you've said the wrong thing, you stutter on before you can figure it out.
"Uhm, No, it's just..." You think, trying to come up with some excuse that wouldn't involve spilling the truth of your shortcomings and cowardice regarding the lifestyle set for you. "We need supplies," You finally conclude, meeting his gaze with a newfound confidence. "If I should not return with the deer I'd intended to, then I should, at least, replenish our necessities."
He hums, seeming to consider your response. There's something in the gleam of his eyes that reveals emotion more complex than those he puts behind his words. "I shall guide you, then. It is a difficult path to follow without knowledge of its intricacies, and I intended to go soon enough."
His response brings you a great deal of relief, not only because he's willing to guide you there, as a twenty-mile trek on your own to an unfamiliar place seems entirely laden with opportunities for misfortune, but because it guarantees more time away from that godawful camp and from your father.
"Thank you, that's very kind, uhm..." You pause, realizing in the short time you've been here that you'd never once thought to ask the man's name. "I never asked your name."
He regards you with a sharper gaze than previous, the light from the candles flicker and his eyes appear as a cat's in the moonlight. "Adam," he tells you, in the same deep rumble that is distinctly his own.
"Well, thank you, Adam, for your kindness."