defiant of a road
title: defiant of a road
wordcount:
rating: PG-13? Ish?
summary: The story's done, the wolf is gone--but what happens to the girl? She makes her own ending.
notes: Uhh so this is fic for The Wolfman (2010). I KNOW, I know! Look, I didn't even intend to see this movie in the first place, but then betweenthebliss had to come along and be so persuasive, and . . . now there is this. Which. Um. Yeah. IDEK, okay, I give up. XD Title and cut text from a poem by Emily Dickinson.
-
Gwen shot him straight through the heart.
No pause to think. Not that she could have, just at that moment, but such realizations come later. No pause, then--the pistol was tangled in her fingers already, and Lawrence's head in her lap, his blood seeping into her skirts. Aberline was howling, so she raised her hand and shot him through the heart. There was a wolf before her, and her hand rose, and the shot rang out, that was all. That was all. Easy. Automatic. Quick drop off a cliff, clean shot; clean shot and he dropped like a stone.
She watched him fall and did not quite believe she had made it happen, but there it was. There it was. She set the pistol on the ground, her hand shaking.
The moon was still making a clean path of light over it all. The woods around them were as silent as woods could be; the noise of the manor burning was far away. It was cold. She was cold. She knew these things in the back of her mind, yet still felt none of them. She swallowed, heart beating loudly in her ears.
The men ringed around Aberline looked down at the body and up at her again. She knew their unease, saw it in the way they stood--wondering how a lady could come to be such a clean shot--but her throat was dry and her lips were numb and no words would come to her, not a single thing to say. She had killed a wolf, or a man, and they knew; she felt their thoughts crawling over her, cold, as the wind whipped up her hair. She had succeeded where they could not. They did not know what to make of her. They watched her. She stared back at them, mute, dumb. Needing words but having none--her head blank, her body afire. Lawrence's blood on her hands.
It was that, in the end, that brought her back--opened her heart, cleaved it apart and reminded her of sorrow. Lawrence was dead. Lawrence was dead, and she was alone once again. She curled over his body, helpless as a child, and the tears came, and she could not hear what the man said when he came to put his arms over her, to pull her away, to bundle her in a blanket and into darkness.
The way after that was blurred--all she could remember was the blood on her skirts, drying slowly to brown in the carriage ride, and the rawness in her chest. The doctor's words. Lawrence's body, cold as it had never been in life, and her own, wracked with shivers.
The rest of that night was buried somewhere, messy and dark. Perhaps that was why she took to fever; she could not reconcile it, so she fled into a dreaming world where she did not have to, and remained there for quite some time.
-
The first weeks, she barely woke. The room was dark, and she tired easily, her thoughts spinning to uselessness quickly. Sleep offered little comfort. Her dreams were filled with fire and the smell of blood, and Lawrence's eyes. She could not get the wolf of him out of her head, and it made her heart and stomach sick. For ages, she could not think of eating; afterwards it was broth for a long time. She never hungered. She never felt much of anything.
Her heart was slowest to heal. Long after her body began to improve, and she began to sit up in bed, the ache stayed in her chest. First Ben, then Lawrence; too much in the space of a few months, too much after her father and sister's deaths the year before. Her thoughts repeated themselves mercilessly: I should have saved him the most prominent, though she knew she could not have. I should have saved him. I was useless. I shot Aberline, but was not fast enough; so much of my life gone to that damned manner, all burned up now, Ben, Lawrence--and more and more, till there was no room in her for anything but anger, anger at the whole cruel thing.
Then one night was the thought that drew her out of it: I wish no one would ever have to lose what I have lost.
It almost made a noise in her head, like a bell struck or a stone skipped plunk-tock over a pond. She sat up straighter, blinking. She had the beginnings of knowledge, she mused, fever-bright, lightning-sharp--much more than Aberline and his cronies had ever had, anyway, much more than the average man. Could she do something with it? Could she use it, and this anger burning to coal inside her, this restlessness?
"Mary," she called. Her voice sounded weak in her own ears, but she went on. "Could you bring me something to read?"
The girl in the corner, a plain thing, curtsied without comment. "What would you like, miss?" she asked.
Gwen closed her eyes. "There is a red leather volume in the desk downstairs, quite old," she said, mind racing. "If you could bring it to me?"
"Yes, miss."
When Mary brought the volume, Gwen traced her fingers over the cover. A Compendium of Beastes, it read in letters at least a century old.
She opened the book and began to read, her body tiring already but her mind whirling with possibility.
-
It was not easy. The books were often old, and difficult to understand, no less obtain. Much of the information was wrong or incomplete, and it took her a long time to piece together what was correct or useful. It was a good occupation for illness, however--she had purpose now, burning in her. She struggled at first, unused to the level of mental stimulation after her sleeping weeks, but soon the business began to heal her mind, and her body followed.
She read of wolves and men and silver; of tides, and moons, and curses. She read story upon story, and collected information about armories and anatomy. Subjects unfit for women, by most counts, but having a shop was useful in that way. She could acquire purchases for it without raising suspicion, and it served her well. She devoured anything on the subject she could find.
After a while she began to feel that she had learned most of what there was to know, and then she started to have the papers sent to her, too. Any paper, all the papers she could afford. She read obituaries and news of wild animal attacks, carefully cross-checking them with the moon. Learned and read till she felt she would overflow or burst with it, and then kept watch, waited and waited and waited.
For a time, there was nothing, and she began to think of her practice as an obsession, or a fancy--something to keep her out of madness, she wondered in her darkest moments?
Then, in August, there was a spate of attacks in Hemleystone that coincided with the full moon.
She arranged a business trip to the town for September, and with careful preparation she was in the woods at moonrise, waiting. Later, she would think back on that night and see how lucky she was to have survived, how careless, how stupid she had been; at the time, she merely gripped the pistol and shot when the wolfman came before her. Clean shot, nice and easy. Quick drop off a cliff. There it was; his body before her, bloody and dead, howlless as the moon rose.
Breathing hard, she walked back to the inn and slipped into bed, hardly believing what she had done.
In the morning, there was news of one man dead. Triumph was a living thing in her, but she kept it to herself; hid her pistol and quietly went to the bookshop dealer to execute her business.
She made a habit of it after that. It was difficult, and dangerous, but eventually the tally of deaths in her journal grew long enough that she was proud. She improved: she learned to wear trousers at night, and to use charts. She learned how to question the villagers to determine whether the attacks were supernatural. She learned to draw maps, and mapped out the population of wolfmen when she began to suspect some of them ran in packs. She learned how to make her own silver bullets, and kept a supply in her shop from then on. She learned, and she excelled.
It was not easy. But it was a life, and it was hers. For the most part, she was content. There were many things to be said, after all, for owning oneself. She rode out over the moors, the wind through her hair, and thought, I made this. I am whole.
-
"Is there a cure?" the girl demanded. She clutched her knees, seated at the edge of the chair Gwen had offered her. Her eyes were afire, her back straight, and her mouth angry--lover, Gwen thought, or fiance, or wife. Gwen's heart shifted with old pain long scarred-over. So young, this girl. So young and full of flame and passion, the conviction that her love could conquer all.
Is there a cure? She pressed her lips together and did not look at the girl for a moment. Lawrence's eyes in their final moments flashed before her; she realized, guilt prickling her palms, that she could no longer remember what color they were. Only the pain in them in those final moments, the pain and regret and relief.
"There isn't," she told the girl. Cleanly. Plainly. A shot through the heart, a mercifully honest shot through the heart. The girl stiffened, her knuckles whitening, and Gwen opened the drawer of her desk and pulled out a box of silver bullets. She placed it on the table without ceremony, and opened it. The bullets gleamed in the light.
"There is no cure," she made herself say gently. "I can give you a choice--you can do it yourself or I will. But there is no cure. It must be done."
She raised her head and met the girl's gaze. The girl's mouth was twisted, like she was keeping too many words inside her, and her eyes were welling up with tears. "But," she said finally, words trembling and raspy-wet, her eyes pleading with Gwen-- "but that isn't fair."
"No," Gwen said quietly, "it isn't."
She reached across the table to give the girl her hand, offering what little comfort she could. Some things would never change or be entirely cured, she knew now; the best she could do was fight them for those who could not fight themselves. That was enough.
I will make it be, she thought.
wordcount:
rating: PG-13? Ish?
summary: The story's done, the wolf is gone--but what happens to the girl? She makes her own ending.
notes: Uhh so this is fic for The Wolfman (2010). I KNOW, I know! Look, I didn't even intend to see this movie in the first place, but then betweenthebliss had to come along and be so persuasive, and . . . now there is this. Which. Um. Yeah. IDEK, okay, I give up. XD Title and cut text from a poem by Emily Dickinson.
-
Gwen shot him straight through the heart.
No pause to think. Not that she could have, just at that moment, but such realizations come later. No pause, then--the pistol was tangled in her fingers already, and Lawrence's head in her lap, his blood seeping into her skirts. Aberline was howling, so she raised her hand and shot him through the heart. There was a wolf before her, and her hand rose, and the shot rang out, that was all. That was all. Easy. Automatic. Quick drop off a cliff, clean shot; clean shot and he dropped like a stone.
She watched him fall and did not quite believe she had made it happen, but there it was. There it was. She set the pistol on the ground, her hand shaking.
The moon was still making a clean path of light over it all. The woods around them were as silent as woods could be; the noise of the manor burning was far away. It was cold. She was cold. She knew these things in the back of her mind, yet still felt none of them. She swallowed, heart beating loudly in her ears.
The men ringed around Aberline looked down at the body and up at her again. She knew their unease, saw it in the way they stood--wondering how a lady could come to be such a clean shot--but her throat was dry and her lips were numb and no words would come to her, not a single thing to say. She had killed a wolf, or a man, and they knew; she felt their thoughts crawling over her, cold, as the wind whipped up her hair. She had succeeded where they could not. They did not know what to make of her. They watched her. She stared back at them, mute, dumb. Needing words but having none--her head blank, her body afire. Lawrence's blood on her hands.
It was that, in the end, that brought her back--opened her heart, cleaved it apart and reminded her of sorrow. Lawrence was dead. Lawrence was dead, and she was alone once again. She curled over his body, helpless as a child, and the tears came, and she could not hear what the man said when he came to put his arms over her, to pull her away, to bundle her in a blanket and into darkness.
The way after that was blurred--all she could remember was the blood on her skirts, drying slowly to brown in the carriage ride, and the rawness in her chest. The doctor's words. Lawrence's body, cold as it had never been in life, and her own, wracked with shivers.
The rest of that night was buried somewhere, messy and dark. Perhaps that was why she took to fever; she could not reconcile it, so she fled into a dreaming world where she did not have to, and remained there for quite some time.
-
The first weeks, she barely woke. The room was dark, and she tired easily, her thoughts spinning to uselessness quickly. Sleep offered little comfort. Her dreams were filled with fire and the smell of blood, and Lawrence's eyes. She could not get the wolf of him out of her head, and it made her heart and stomach sick. For ages, she could not think of eating; afterwards it was broth for a long time. She never hungered. She never felt much of anything.
Her heart was slowest to heal. Long after her body began to improve, and she began to sit up in bed, the ache stayed in her chest. First Ben, then Lawrence; too much in the space of a few months, too much after her father and sister's deaths the year before. Her thoughts repeated themselves mercilessly: I should have saved him the most prominent, though she knew she could not have. I should have saved him. I was useless. I shot Aberline, but was not fast enough; so much of my life gone to that damned manner, all burned up now, Ben, Lawrence--and more and more, till there was no room in her for anything but anger, anger at the whole cruel thing.
Then one night was the thought that drew her out of it: I wish no one would ever have to lose what I have lost.
It almost made a noise in her head, like a bell struck or a stone skipped plunk-tock over a pond. She sat up straighter, blinking. She had the beginnings of knowledge, she mused, fever-bright, lightning-sharp--much more than Aberline and his cronies had ever had, anyway, much more than the average man. Could she do something with it? Could she use it, and this anger burning to coal inside her, this restlessness?
"Mary," she called. Her voice sounded weak in her own ears, but she went on. "Could you bring me something to read?"
The girl in the corner, a plain thing, curtsied without comment. "What would you like, miss?" she asked.
Gwen closed her eyes. "There is a red leather volume in the desk downstairs, quite old," she said, mind racing. "If you could bring it to me?"
"Yes, miss."
When Mary brought the volume, Gwen traced her fingers over the cover. A Compendium of Beastes, it read in letters at least a century old.
She opened the book and began to read, her body tiring already but her mind whirling with possibility.
-
It was not easy. The books were often old, and difficult to understand, no less obtain. Much of the information was wrong or incomplete, and it took her a long time to piece together what was correct or useful. It was a good occupation for illness, however--she had purpose now, burning in her. She struggled at first, unused to the level of mental stimulation after her sleeping weeks, but soon the business began to heal her mind, and her body followed.
She read of wolves and men and silver; of tides, and moons, and curses. She read story upon story, and collected information about armories and anatomy. Subjects unfit for women, by most counts, but having a shop was useful in that way. She could acquire purchases for it without raising suspicion, and it served her well. She devoured anything on the subject she could find.
After a while she began to feel that she had learned most of what there was to know, and then she started to have the papers sent to her, too. Any paper, all the papers she could afford. She read obituaries and news of wild animal attacks, carefully cross-checking them with the moon. Learned and read till she felt she would overflow or burst with it, and then kept watch, waited and waited and waited.
For a time, there was nothing, and she began to think of her practice as an obsession, or a fancy--something to keep her out of madness, she wondered in her darkest moments?
Then, in August, there was a spate of attacks in Hemleystone that coincided with the full moon.
She arranged a business trip to the town for September, and with careful preparation she was in the woods at moonrise, waiting. Later, she would think back on that night and see how lucky she was to have survived, how careless, how stupid she had been; at the time, she merely gripped the pistol and shot when the wolfman came before her. Clean shot, nice and easy. Quick drop off a cliff. There it was; his body before her, bloody and dead, howlless as the moon rose.
Breathing hard, she walked back to the inn and slipped into bed, hardly believing what she had done.
In the morning, there was news of one man dead. Triumph was a living thing in her, but she kept it to herself; hid her pistol and quietly went to the bookshop dealer to execute her business.
She made a habit of it after that. It was difficult, and dangerous, but eventually the tally of deaths in her journal grew long enough that she was proud. She improved: she learned to wear trousers at night, and to use charts. She learned how to question the villagers to determine whether the attacks were supernatural. She learned to draw maps, and mapped out the population of wolfmen when she began to suspect some of them ran in packs. She learned how to make her own silver bullets, and kept a supply in her shop from then on. She learned, and she excelled.
It was not easy. But it was a life, and it was hers. For the most part, she was content. There were many things to be said, after all, for owning oneself. She rode out over the moors, the wind through her hair, and thought, I made this. I am whole.
-
"Is there a cure?" the girl demanded. She clutched her knees, seated at the edge of the chair Gwen had offered her. Her eyes were afire, her back straight, and her mouth angry--lover, Gwen thought, or fiance, or wife. Gwen's heart shifted with old pain long scarred-over. So young, this girl. So young and full of flame and passion, the conviction that her love could conquer all.
Is there a cure? She pressed her lips together and did not look at the girl for a moment. Lawrence's eyes in their final moments flashed before her; she realized, guilt prickling her palms, that she could no longer remember what color they were. Only the pain in them in those final moments, the pain and regret and relief.
"There isn't," she told the girl. Cleanly. Plainly. A shot through the heart, a mercifully honest shot through the heart. The girl stiffened, her knuckles whitening, and Gwen opened the drawer of her desk and pulled out a box of silver bullets. She placed it on the table without ceremony, and opened it. The bullets gleamed in the light.
"There is no cure," she made herself say gently. "I can give you a choice--you can do it yourself or I will. But there is no cure. It must be done."
She raised her head and met the girl's gaze. The girl's mouth was twisted, like she was keeping too many words inside her, and her eyes were welling up with tears. "But," she said finally, words trembling and raspy-wet, her eyes pleading with Gwen-- "but that isn't fair."
"No," Gwen said quietly, "it isn't."
She reached across the table to give the girl her hand, offering what little comfort she could. Some things would never change or be entirely cured, she knew now; the best she could do was fight them for those who could not fight themselves. That was enough.
I will make it be, she thought.