𝕯𝖆𝖓𝖈𝖊 𝖎𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕸𝖔𝖔𝖓𝖑𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙 (𝒮𝒶𝒷𝑒𝓇 & 𝐻𝒶𝓇𝓂𝓁𝑒𝓈𝓈𝐸𝓋𝒾𝓁𝑅𝑜𝒷𝑜𝓉)

[Saber]

Change was a funny thing. People say change is inevitable, that it's the law of life and that it can cause discomfort. You can't stop change. When reading the inspirational quotes and enduring lectures from family, Kaya Northman didn't take any of it seriously. Her parents and grandparents had been very adamant that when she turned fourteen, she would need to start taking things seriously. Of course at that time, she didn't understand. She was just a kid and her life was orbited by her social life. It would've been helpful to know that her change would be so literal. It would have been nice to know that her family carried the lycanthrope gene and once you hit puberty, you experienced your first shift. After ten years of learning to control it, lust for a human life started to fade away. Her days now were spent learning about her ancestry and avoiding certain situations. Learning how to be a werewolf.

On this night under the full moon, Kaya was meandering through the forest as she did every month. Normally she was with a cousin or her parents, someone from her pack, but tonight she was alone. Shifting wasn't necessary under the etheral force, but it helped with the anxiousness that would bubble and itch under her skin. Nocturnal creatures were scavenging along the forest floor, trying to find their next meal or a safe place to hide from predators. With the moon in full bloom, the mystic force drew out other creatures into the night as well, not just werewolves. Creatures that crept from the shadows to worship her supernatural essence.

Tonight was more focused on remaining human. Even after almost a decade, knowledge of her other self was still a guessing game as the modern day werewolf knew little about themselves, even with other wolves in her family. Legends and knowledge had been diluted over the centuries. Kaya did her best to live a normal life, but being a lycanthrope threw a wrench in her day to day activities. She never willingly put herself in situations where she might shift just to be safe. That meant not many friends outside of her family, and definitely no gatherings where there would be a lot of people or high energy environments.

Needless to say, Kaya didn't have much of a life. Just thinking about it caused the young woman to get frustrated and her train of calming thoughts were starting to get overrun by the regrets she had living a very sheltered existence. She got so distracted, she didn't notice the shift in the air or the sharp scent of metal that wafted into her nose. If she had, she might've noticed the disturbed foliage on the ground that camouflaged the bear trap that was lying dormant. The clanking of the pressure trigger caught her attention as the jaws closed around her leg. The first thing she'd felt was a massive pressure engulfing her calf before falling to the ground. She looked at the sharp teeth sinking unti her flesh, almost in disbelief.

"Fuck!" She hissed as she reached down, her hands touching the metal trap to attempt to pry it open, but she recoiled, her skin sizzling. "Silver? You've got to be kidding me." She growled softly as her leg began to ache and burn. A silver trap meant someone was hunting something supernatural. Whether it was a werewolf or not, she had the misfortune to stumble upon it.

Another frustrated snarl as her more animalistic instincts began to creep into her mind. She pushed down the urge gnaw off her own leg as the silver began to weaken her. It'd grow back, but it would take a few months and she wasn't that desperate, yet. Her eyes searched around for something, anything nearby that she might be able to force the trap open, but tree branches weren't going to do much good. She frantically dug in the pockets of her jeans and sighed. Of course she'd left her phone at home.

"Is anyone out here?" Maybe she could fake being human if the hunter was sulking around. "Please, I stepped into your trap!" No response. No indication of anything living around, actually. "Anyone?" She shouted and was met with her own voice echoing off the trees. Maybe she would have to bite her leg off.

 

[DamnTheStyx]

No-one liked a witch, plain and simple. Not even witches liked other witches, most of the time. There was always some power struggle between some usurper and the constantly fluctuating leader of one of the larger covens, where most of the time, both losing and winning meant getting hexed inside out within the first couple months. The longest someone had actually stayed a leader was, surprisingly, ten years before letting her daughter take the reigns. Said daughter was almost immediately gutted by the torrent of curses both from casting at the event and from the occasional homebody sorceress turning a doll into a pretzel. In the mountains overlooking both the remote town and the forest , the coven that resided there were known as ‘The Hourglass’, an awfully pretentious name for a bunch of vapid, bickering witches more obsessed with getting top spot then actually doing anything productive. Not being one for the life of assassination and madness, Reya Morrow had quietly slipped out of her dear Mother’s den and squirrelled herself away in the forest at the foot of the mountain.

One particular night, the moon was at its fullest for the month. With the giant hunk of semi-magical stone in perfect position, many a fascinating thing would be either hopping about or growing. Reya had decided to take full advantage of that. Her house was stuck by a cliff face, looking a bit like a pair of glowing eyes from a distance, with a small gate around the front of it. The Witch sat in a chair under a blanket by the front gate, checking her watch for it to hit Midnight, with all the lunar-dependant creatures being pulled out under the Moon’s apex.

The hands of her watch eventually met at the top, and she was out her garden, under the warm black cloak she had made for herself after it became apparent that the forest was somehow colder than the top of the mountains. The trees were dense most of the time, opening at random to reveal a glimpse into the deep blue sky, dotted with specks of white. Reya took a second, while passing through a clearing to look up at them, basket slung on one arm.

Living in the middle of nowhere could get a little lonely at times, not that she minded much. She practically only had herself or her possessions to talk to most of the time, and striking a conversation with a teapot had lost its appeal after she realised she was, in fact, talking to a teapot. Even with all the unregulated magic she could ever cast at her finger tips, she couldn’t just conjure someone out of thin air, either. First, she’d need their hair, and that would require finding someone and then cutting of their hair, and it might’ve just been easier to ask them if they wanted to come visit her or…

Reya’s thoughts trailed off as she continued down the dirt sliver that could barely be considered a path, straying off it occasionally to grab something that glowed from around the roots of a tree. There was a frog or two that she had to get a little creative with, but otherwise nothing remotely exciting. That was until she heard something.

It was just a peep at first, maybe just a bird sound, but still, she waited a half-second to make sure. It didn’t sound entirely right… It was dead still for a second, before she heard it again. No, not a bird sound, or anything natural for that matter. That was a bona-fide, gen-u-ine, 100% legitimate call for help. Was she a people person? Not exactly. But she also wasn’t an ass who would just go about her night knowing someone was getting screwed over by something. Reya turned on the spot for a second, trying to track down the direction of the call. A beat passed again. The witch swivelled towards it after another repeat, walking cautiously off the beaten path towards where she heard the noise. Approaching a sparsely wooded area, she finally saw what was making the noise.

A woman was stuck, no doubt about it. It was how she was stuck that was more alarming. Leg-first. In a bear trap. And seemingly taking it REALLY well for having the teeth of a trap digging into her leg. “Who the hell left this here…” she muttered, running out of the tree-line and dropping her basket to one side. “I’m gonna try to get this off of you, alright? I guess stay as calm as you are now.” She said quickly to the woman, crouching down to have a look at the trap. It was silver, oddly enough, but that wasn’t super important. What was important, was the opening part of it. She’d run into a few traps, hell, she had one at her house just in case she ever needed to use it, if it ever came down to that.

The jaws of the trap loosened, and Reya pulled them off of the woman’s leg as painlessly as she could (very very very carefully). After the were off, she gently nudged her foot away and let the trap snap shut, before kicking it away. She turned back to the woman. “That was probably meant for a Werewolf, ‘cause it’s silvered. I have no idea WHO has decided to start setting traps for Werewolves of all things out here, though.” She told her, before hesitating a second. “Do you uhh… do you need help? I have a place about a three minute walk away, if you’re willing to take a couple shortcuts.” Reya asked, a little wary of inviting someone who was so calm about getting a bear trap around her leg.

 

[Saber]

The last thing Kaya was expecting to see was a young woman coming to answer her cries for help in the middle of the night. She heard the rustling of the dirt before the steady breaths from the woman approaching. Whoever it was had an interesting scent. Almost as if she were a being of the trees mixed with an aroma of some sort of spice or flower. It was different than most other scents she'd ever encountered with a human, but at this point, she wasn't going to question a strange smell. She needed any sort of help this woman could offer, so she kept her mouth shut as the brunette began to work the silver jaws open. Kaya knew that most traps had a release lever somewhere, but the trap being made out of silver hindered her own rescue. Ideally she would've preferred to not run into another person tonight. Even though she was in control, the silver did make it hard for her wolf to remain contained.

"Right." Kaya grunted softly as she felt the sharp teeth exit her leg. She could already feel her flesh knitting back together as her healing began, though much slower due to the silver. Of course she couldn't let this woman see that. Kaya ripped the sleeve off her shirt and tightly wrapped it around her wound that was thankfully, still bleeding to continue the ruse of being injured. "Thank you." Kaya sighed when she finished tying the knot and she crawled backwards away from the trap, as if it was going to attack her. Her caramel eyes glanced up at the other woman and cleared her throat when she'd mentioned the trap being meant for a werewolf. "I didn't know there were any werewolf hunters in these woods." She muttered before making a struggled (faked) spectacle at standing. Of course her leg did actually hurt. The silver affected her body like having an allergic reaction. The wound throbbed even as the silver was working out of her system.

Normally running into another person would cause Kaya to make some sort of lackluster or awkward excuse to leave, but at the present moment, she was injured and denying help might seem overly suspicious. "I would be grateful for the help." She limped towards the brunette and offered her hand to her. "I'm Kaya Northman."

It was rare that Kaya would actually introduce herself to anyone, but since she was in the predicament she was, she thought manners was something she should at least make clear that she had. It had to have been strange to hear someone calling for help in the middle of the forest. If Kaya had stumbled across the same situation, she couldn't say that she would've been as willing to help given that she wouldn't have known the origin of said person. Though trust wasn't something that Kaya was very practiced in, she could play an open personality if it depended on her survival. Keeping to herself over all these years had caused her to build a massive wall around herself, even with dealing with other werewolves. No one in eyes could be trusted, but the cleaning of her wound was needed at this point if she didn't want to spend a week with a throbbing, itching scar.

"You're very brave for helping a stranger caught in a bear trap." Kaya continued as she exhaled slowly. Her wound starting to itch as she cleared her throat again. "I can't say I'd do that same if I were you." The moon was still hanging high in the navy blue canvas as Kaya looked up to see the time. She wouldn't be expected home until dawn, so she had plenty of time to play the victim for now. "You mentioned your home wasn't far from here? How long have you lived in the forest?" Kaya thought she had explored the entire forest in this territory and she'd never come across a house at any point in her life. Although she did only venture out on the full moon.

 

[DamnTheStyx]

Upon being asked about Werewolf hunters, she shrugged. “Dunno what or where exactly they’d be, if they are even around these parts. I haven’t seen heads or tails of them beyond this. Didn’t even think the population of them would be big enough to warrant any hunters. But, I suppose if there’s money involved, people will take advantage of it.” Reya thought for a second as she helped the woman up to her feet and offered her shoulder to lean on. She was only so well versed in the werewolves dotting the area because they kept her up at night during the times where the moon was at its fullest. Reya Morrow was a woman who valued her sleep, and having an unknown number of lycanthropes howling at god-only-knew o’ clock at night wasn’t good for said sleep. Her urge to find out how to deter them from her earshot had turned quickly into a fascination with knowing all she could about the more concrete parts through research after it became apparent she didn’t have the materials to drive them away. At least, not without getting either mauled or infected, both of which would significantly complicate her life.

Reya shifted her weight to the other foot, avoiding stumbling into the twigs and leaves. Even if she was a witch, and a pretty good one at that, she wasn’t a Herculean specimen by any stretch of the word. She had to wear glasses a lot of the time, for gods sake. You didn’t see legends about a great warrior who was a bit hard of sight and had to use reading glasses to avoid hurting his eyes when consuming a dense book. “Kaya, huh? That’s a good name. You certainly look like you’d be called a Kaya.” The witch replied somewhat awkwardly. Another small issue with living along was that you didn’t have a whole lot of people to master your social skills with. “I’m Reya Morrow. You appear to have caught me inspecting the moon. Apparently, there’s supposed to be a blue moon in, what, two months time? That’ll be fun.” She said, before leading them between a specific pair of trees.

She subtly tapped one of the runes she had carved into the tree years ago, beginning the process of making sure that they could get to her home at all. Reya’s home in the woods was covered in turns and sigils that did everything in the book to prevent her home from being found, from inflicting endless dread upon whichever poor soul got too far to one side, to summoning an illusion of any manor of animals. Her favourite was a particularly nasty one that summoned a cloaked figure just in the peripherals of whoever was unfortunate to come in on just the wrong side. On top of that, the way back to her house was linked together by gateways that joined two points of space, similar to a teleportation spell, but a little more permanent.

Reya turned her attention back to the conversation, smiling, a little sheepishly after being called brave. “Ah, you must have me confused for someone else. I’m not a particularly brave soul, I’m afraid. I can make pretty good food, though.” She replied, offering an attempt at a warmer smile. She tapped a particularly round stone with her foot, discreetly lowering the defence that would plain and simple prevent them from seeing the house. Usually, it was automatic with her walking around so much, but bringing a guest took a little extra care. “Yeah, my house is just up ahead. Been living here for about six-ish years? It’s a nice place, I think I made. Took a while, though…”

She wasn’t lying, in that case. It HAD taken her a while to properly enchant the pieces to stick together, and longer still to install protection. Almost as soon as she said that, the warm flickering glow of Reya’s home faded into view. Stepping onto the well-worn path, she lead Kaya down the much flatter pathway. Her house, set against the face of the rocky cliff, peered down at them as she entered, unhitching the gate and leading Kaya inside. Once past the front door, the house was quite pleasant. Two stories, with a small kitchen looking over the garden and a living space in the back. The stairs by the door lead up to what was presumably the bedroom. Everything was made from some form of tree nearby or stone from sticking her house slightly into the mountain. There was also the door that lead down into her practicing area hidden as a bookshelf on the stairs, but that wouldn’t be important. Almost every surface was covered in books or some strange trinket.

“Sorry for the mess…” Reya muttered, sitting Kaya down in a larger wing-chair by the coffee table covered in a mess of carving tools, next to a deformed-looking bear carving. Strangely enough, the fireplace at the other end of the room was already on. Reya left to go rummage through some cabinets, before bringing out a metal box with a Red Cross painted haphazardly on the top. Putting Kaya’s leg up, she gently rolled the bandage off, before making a small face. “Good lord, what on earth are your pants made from, you lucky Bugger… Doesn’t seem like the teeth got very deep at all. Which is quite good, because I’m not great at broken bones.” Reya told Kaya, looking slightly impressed by the other woman’s pants. How on earth did she get off so lucky?

 

[Saber]

As Kaya was hobbling through the woods with Reya's help, she couldn't stop herself from inhaling quickly, only once or twice. The odd blend of scents she'd caught before were stronger now, but there was...something else. Something that was almost effervescent that Kaya hadn't ever experienced before. It almost tickled her nose to the point that she thought she was going to sneeze. Thankfully, with a dramatic wiggle of her nose, the sensation disappeared and Kaya could focus on the conversation at hand. Which was getting a bit harder with the quickly closing wounds trapping the silver that was still burning underneath her skin.

"A blue moon?" Kaya's ears twitched subtly. To supernatural creatures, a blue moon meant an increase of its essence and possibly, a more difficult time for werewolves. "That will be interesting." It wasn't that Kaya hadn't ever experienced a blue moon. They came along roughly every three years or so, but the most recent one she'd ran, she couldn't remember. It was one of those cliché moments in the cinema where the transformation was almost painful and her memories were patchy at best. It wasn't something she wished to experience again. So she made a mental note to possibly stay with the pack that night so she at least had some record of her escapades.

As they continued their trek through the forest, Kaya listened to the shorter woman speak and tried to ignore her growing anxiety. The annoyance of her wound was fading, but the looming dread of her being discovered was growing heavier. "You've lived out here for six years?" How had Kaya never stumbled about her house? Sure she was usually more concerned with other things, but still. She'd ran this forest for years, statistically she should've at least seen the house once. Before long, Reya's house came into view and Kaya blinked as they walked through the gate. It was a decently sized home, and it wasn't that it was securely tucked into a thicket of trees and brush, it was rather out in the open. Although it was camouflaged very well being tucked against the mountain. Perhaps Kaya had extreme tunnel vision.

When they entered the home, Kaya's senses were almost bombarded with the sight of books and bobbles, and a pleasant scent of worn parchment. Of course that might've been something a normal human wouldn't have picked up on. Usually when Kaya entered someone else's space, it was filled with their natural oils and pheromones, but this house just smelled like the forest which helped keep her from sniffing around too conspicuously.

"You have a lovely home." Kaya muttered quietly as she looked around, examining every worn leather cover within readable distance. "Do you live by yourself?" When she plopped softly in the chair, she couldn't help but follow Reya with her eyes. A trait of her inner beast that was hard to control sometimes, especially when she was curious. When Reya returned with a first-aid kit, Kaya winced softly as her leg was lifted, no so much due to pain, but irritation. When her her pants leg was rolled up, Kaya inhaled deeply, ready for a bombardment of questions as to why her wounds weren't more severe, but they never came. Instead, the brunette just commented on how she wasn't great at handling broken bones.

"Guess I just got lucky." Kaya offered a lopsided grin and rubbed the back of her neck. "Perhaps I have tougher skin than I expected." Regardless of the fact that her wounds were eighty percent healed, the inflammation from her body trying to fight off the silver had set in and Kaya was fighting the urge to itch. "Do you think it's infected?" Play dumb. Kaya knew her leg wasn't infected. At least infected in a way that human medicine could cure, her own immune system would take care of that in a couple days.

 

[DamnTheStyx]

Reya shrugged as she looked at the injury. “Well, it looks just irritated to me. Best guess is either your skin didn’t enjoy the friction and it’ll clear up in about twenty minutes, or they’ve started putting chemicals on the traps, whoever laid the, out. Either that or you really pulled the short straw and got yourself a mild allergy to silver. Last options should take maybe a day or two to clear up with my knowledge. You seem like a toughie, so I’ll be willing to bet you’re gonna pull through with nothing more but a story about some weird lady who lives in the woods.” The witch had a small laugh at her own joke, before applying a small binding ‘Just in Case’ and leaving to put her stuff away.

She rummaged around her cupboards for a minute, before responding to Kaya’s questions. “Just me, I’m afraid. Gets a bit lonely, really… Nothing I haven’t gotten used to, though.” Reya explained, shutting the wooden door with a satisfying thud. She poked her head around the corner quickly, “Hey, so, I figured I’d make tea. Would you like a cup?” Reya asked, holding out a slightly chipped mug. Before she ducked back, she made sure to add “Oh, and you’re welcome to stay awhile. It’d be a bit cruel to just toss you back out into the woods. The couch is a pull-out, I’m pretty sure…” She trailed off, before getting back to what she was doing.

The witch watched as the kettle sat on the stove. The fact it could just sit there and NOT get boiling almost immediately, when she couldn’t even wave her hand through a flame without getting seriously burnt annoyed her. It could just sit there on the flame and not boil, all smug and slow. Reya quietly sidled over and made a small gesture with her hand to immediately boil the water, taking it off the stove quickly. She hoped she wasn’t being too obvious… She didn’t exactly have a whole lot of people to test it out with.

Finishing the two mugs, she came back out into the sitting room and offered one to Kaya before taking her spot by the fire. “It’s a pretty decent place, I reckon. It’s clearly not a full eight person family thing, but it’s cozy and not very flammable. Not exactly filled with riveting stories for living out in the middle of nowhere, though. What about you? If you don’t mind me prying, what’s going on in your life?” She asked her guest.

 

[Saber]

Kaya was relieved to know that Reya wasn't the prying type. The bespectacled woman seemed happy with her vague, lackluster answers and she wasn't going to try and add any extra fluff to her story. She watched carefully as the woman mentioned the allergy to silver and she tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a snort. Reya bandaged her healing leg and Kaya offered a small smile. "Thank you." This situation was strange, to say the least. Having a complete stranger tend to her injury and then offer her tea was not how she had planned her night to go. Of course she also hadn't planned to get caught in a werewolf trap, so she supposed nothing after that could be ordinary.

"Uh, sure." She answered as she heard Reya rummaging around. "I like tea, and thank you for opening up your home to me. I promise I'll be out of your hair as soon as I can walk. I don't want to impose on your any further than I already have." It wasn't that Kaya wasn't grateful to the woman, but she also didn't feel completely safe either. There was always her instincts that kept nagging her when she was around strangers. She didn't know Reya, and as nice as she seemed, it was still better to be cautious instead of letting her guard down. So for the time being, she would drink the tea that was offered her and try and make conversation. Maybe this person was just someone helpful who lived alone in the woods, but that was very unlikely.

"Oh?" Kaya sipped her tea and it helped her relax slightly. "My life? I'm afraid my life is rather boring." She chuckled a bit as she stared into her mug. "I'm sure it doesn't seem that way because you found me in werewolf trap in the middle of the forest in the dead of night." She was talking too much. If she kept talking she could give away what she was. "Normally you'd find me holed up at home reading a book or something similar."

That was partly true. If Kaya wasn't out running, she was usually home researching. Learning about her lineage, about her ancestors and werewolves in general. Modern myths were often right in some aspects, but more often very incorrect. Still, it never hurt to document when she could for the future if she ever had any children of her own. Or in case she happened to turn any humans, which was a more realistic scenario.

"What about you?" The wolf asked as she finished the rest of her tea, setting the mug down gently on a side table. "What brought you out to the live in the forest all by yourself?"

 

[DamnTheStyx]

Reya bit gently on the lip of the cup, contemplating her answer. She didn’t think she’d actually get to talk much more if she up and told Kaya she’d been raised by witches. Usually there was a lot of unwanted attention on her followed by either violence or her beating a hasty retreat somewhere even more remote, if her mothers stories were too be believed. Placing the cup on the table, she pieced together a response. “Eh, mostly just wanted to get somewhere a bit more peaceful. Found a nice spot, pitched a tent and assembled a house piece by piece. This room is the oldest, as it happens. Then the kitchen, upstairs and the garden which I finished about a year ago. It’s not all lonely, though. Don’t have to pay taxes or really worry about money beyond whenever I make the trip down to the town to pick up a new book or something. The peace and quiet is honestly phenomenal. It isn’t for everyone, though.” Reya replied.

It was a fib. A blatant fabrication, in other words. She’d finished her house within the first two months, and had mostly spent her time practicing her abilities. She’d actually gotten quite good, as one would expect from six years of practice. The burgled tome downstairs certainly helped speed things along a fair bit. Most magic did, if you were willing to bend it in the right way. The witch was mostly hoping that it wasn’t as clear on her face as she thought it could be. Kaya seemed a bit skittish, she didn’t want to spook the poor soul more than she already likely was.

After a brief spell of silence, Reya finished her drink and got up. “Alrighty. Make yourself at home! I’m headed upstairs now, so call out if you need me for anything. Wouldn’t want you messing up your leg even more…” She told Kaya, leaving the room and heading down the short hallway and up the stairs to her room. The room was directly on top of the sitting room, consisting of a bed to one end and a desk at the other with a pair of windows over both. The roof was sloped along with the actual top of the house with shelves hanging off of most unoccupied space. Reya took off her shoes and laid them by the foot of the bed before falling backwards onto it. What was she supposed to do now? Was she supposed to bring out like a board game or something? She was pretty sure there was a dinged-up copy of scrabble hidden away in one of the shelves or cupboards somewhere… Reya sighed and resolved to just wait until she was called upon.