“Sofia? You called?”
“Sit with me. I will not bite, my dear kü?ük tav?an.”
Anya lowered herself onto the picnic blanket where Sofia sat, reading a book titled Leviathan. It looked dreadfully boring.
A blank blue sky stretched above them, and the sun offered little warmth. On the field before the two of them, Yvon, Alain, and Renee were engaging in another round of hunting practice. Renee and Yvon stood in their circles, the wolf worrying at his still-broken jaw with an absent-minded hand.
“Should Yvon be doing this? His wounds need more time to fully close,” Anya asked.
“No, he should not. Alas, the tourney is too close to put out of mind, and he is attempting to make up for lost time.” Sofia seemed displeased.
“What did you wish to tell me?”
“Yvon secured an appointment at the reliquary of St. Jeanne. He will not be accompanying you on your little adventure, but you have a pretext to enter the building. I imagine dear Renee will have no trouble with the rest.”
“She seems good at that kind of thing,” Anya replied.
And at snapping necks.
“Alright, go!” Yvon shouted.
Renee took off, her long body becoming a sinuous blur through the grass. She veered left, but broke right the moment she saw Alain raise his blade. Vines burst from the soil around her, but she easily evaded the encirclement.
“A certain wolf and ram have also volunteered to join you. The wolf in particular was quite enthusiastic,” Sofia said.
Anya felt a clenching sensation around her heart.
“Wouldn’t a smaller group be better?”
“Do you have an objection? He is genuinely interested in you and your arts, and his own may prove useful.”
“There are few men in Gaul whose interest I would more abhor.”
Alain stabbed his sword into the earth, and his vines caught up to Renee in a surge of growth, setting a dense snare ahead of her. She merely smiled, beginning to weave over and through them. Her paws hardly seemed to touch the ground.
“Then you must abhor him a while longer. If there is a chance that Mr. Clary’s newfound fascination leads to reconciliation between him and my husband, we must take it.”
Sofia sighed, evidently finding the discussion finished.
“There they go again, falling for every feint she deigns to throw them. I can excuse the beaver for a deficiency in carnal instinct, but that my own husband should join him in-”
“ARGHHHH!”
Yvon’s foot caught on an upturned root as he made to follow Renee. His body seemed to float in the air for just a moment, limbs flailing like a tangled marionette, and then he crashed belly-first into a dense patch of thorns.
“Oh dear. Little rabbit, go make sure he’s still alive,” Sofia said.
Anya felt the wind in her ears as she rushed forwards. Alain did something with his sword, and the vines began to retreat, writhing into the soil like spooked snakes. Yvon screamed as they did, a horrific, gravelly sound - some of the thorns must have been ripped out.
“Yvon! Don’t move, you’ll reopen your wounds!” Anya reached his side. His sporting-clothes were torn, and a thorn had lodged in the gash in his jaw. Blood flowed outwards, spreading across the dewy grass.
She gingerly placed a paw on his arm. The thorns were not barbed, at least, and were sturdy enough to make internal breakage unlikely. They would be forced out if she just closed the punctures. Still, best to first desensitize the nerves-
“Spare me your eyes.” Yvon curled up, turning his head from her.
“What?” Her knife found her palm. Renee had reached them; she wordlessly offered Anya her arm.
“Go away!”
Yvon lashed out, his claws missing Anya by inches. His arm ended at an unnatural angle, and he whimpered in pain.
“Yvon! What are you doing?” Alain tried to secure Yvon’s shoulders, but the wolf twisted away. He rose unsteadily to his feet, splattering blood around him.
“Why is it burning? It is wrong, all wrong, all wrong,” Yvon muttered.
Yvon broke away, rushing towards the lake on all fours. He fell into the water, and a stain began to spread around him.
“I thought he couldn’t swim?” Anya asked.
“He can’t. St. Gawain’s codd, we need to get him out. Come on, come on!” Alain said.
The three rushed over to where Yvon flailed, his snout and ears soon entangled in hornworts. His clothes were ruined, and he seemed to be trying to rip them off to claw at his own chest.
Kneeling on the stone floor, her hands stained crimson. Ripping at her belly, as if it were a leech that had taken root.
Renee pounced, her jaws clamping on Yvon’s neck. She flexed her back, forcing his head above the water. Alain and Anya took one of his feet, Sofia the other - when had she arrived? Together, they hauled him onto the bank. Renee pushed a hand into his chest, and he coughed up bloody water.
“Yvon, my dearest Yvon, speak to me! What demon has possessed you?” Sofia got on her knees, cradling his head in her lap.
“…Ants under my skin, they will not stop burning…”
“Psychological contamination from arts?” Alain asked.
“No, I would feel it. I believe I understand what is occurring. A moment.”
Sofia tapped her husband’s head, and he went limp.
“Anna, heal him. Alain, give Anna the blood she needs. Renee, go to the manor and tell the other servants there was an attack. They need to go to their quarters for their own safety. Determine if anyone saw what occurred, and do whatever is necessary to keep him or her silent. Go, quickly. Anna. Anna? The man on which your security depends is hurt. There is no time for hesitation.”
Anya’s hands trembled as she pulled away Yvon’s shirt. Alain took her knife from her and cut into his carotid artery. He showed no reaction to the pain.
“Rabbit, leave not a single mark. Whatever amount of time or blood you require, so be it.”
“Um, alright.” Anya began with the jaw, cradling the wolf’s fractured snout with her hand. Bones were always tricky - there was life in them, but it was muted, difficult to set aflow. She closed her eyes, and dipped her fingers into the currents of vitality that formed Yvon’s body. The jawbones began to reform, fractures uniting under her delicate touch.
Sofia stared down at her. Her breath quickened. She slowed the growth. Going too quickly would result in asymmetry.
“I’m sorry, I’m not so good at fine details. In the army, we only did the bare minimum to restore functionality, and let the body’s own restorative systems finish the job.”
Sofia cocked her head.
“Your work is of sufficient quality. There is no need for self-denigration.”
Anya nodded. She finished weaving capillaries and forming new skin, and moved to the neck. The thorns made unpleasant sucking noises as they were dislodged.
“You said you understand why Yvon did what he did,” Anya said.
Silence. Sofia’s eyes reflected the murky lake. She absently brushed the matted fur on her husband’s ears.
“If you refuse, I will tell her myself. She has a right to know,” Alain added.
“Very well. Yvon suffers from certain masculine insecurities, centered around his existence as a wolf. The hunting tourney tends to bring these insecurities to the surface.”
“Because he is a poor hunter.”
“Because he feels he is a poor wolf, or not a wolf at all, depending on the night,” Sofia replied. “In some sense, it is to be expected. Socially and physically, he straddles the borderline between hunter and grass-eater. Ambiguity breeds a need for delineation, demarcation. His body becomes a grotesquerie in his eyes, and so he cuts it in twain. As with most male neuroses, he blames his father.”
“I…don’t think I understand.” Anya moved to Yvon’s chest.
“What does it mean to be a female? Your body, your self, becomes a signifier. Pleasure lies here, between these yielding legs. Take me. Use me. Give it long enough, and you forget how it chafes against your skin.”
Anya did not respond. She felt stifled, as if her mouth was filled with cloth.
Around an hour passed. The temperature dropped, and Sofia wrapped Anya in her mantle. Alain grew somewhat faint from loss of blood, and was forced to leave them be. At last, Yvon was whole.
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“Wake up, my dear.”
Sofia kissed his forehead, and the wolf’s eyes flicked open. He rose slowly, taking in his tattered garments and wet fur.
“I let myself go again, didn’t I?”
Sofia moved to hold him, supporting his back with her arms.
“What am I to do with you? What may be done to ease your pain?”
“No matter what I do, how I try to change, I only hurt you more. Whatever pain I feel, surely I deserve it tenfold. I am a pathetic creature, fit only to squirm upon the earth.”
He turned away from Anya as tears welled in his eyes. His torso convulsed in short gasps.
“Yvon, Yvon, my loup-loquace, for you I will bear any burden, if only you will open up your heart.”
Yvon leaned into her for a moment, but then a shadow came across his face, and he pushed her away as he stood. He muttered something about needing to keep it in, and began to walk towards the lodge.
Come on, do something.
“Um, Yvon?”
“Yes?” He did not turn his head, but the venom had drained from his words.
“Maybe next time, you could try chasing me? It might be fun, you know? I’m sure I’m much easier prey than Renee.”
He opened and closed his mouth, as if remembering how her neck felt in his jaws.
“It might be worthwhile. If you wish.”
He left the two of them alone. Anya waited for Sofia to get up, do something, say something, but she merely regarded the lake with hollow eyes. The blood had faded, and it reflected only the empty the sky.
“Sofia, what do-”
“Rabbit. Embrace me.”
“What?”
“Please.”
Anya moved closer, fitting her body into the goat’s slim torso. Warm tears fell onto her head-fur, seeming to steal the cold from Anya’s meager form.
“Like this?” She placed her hands on Sofia’s back, feeling the definition of her angular spine.
“Yes. Like that.”
Sofia brushed Anya’s ears. Her fingers left wavering patterns in the fur.
“I am sorry you had to witness this. A consort should not bother herself with such things.”
“You mean Yvon, or…?”
Sofia did not respond. Her warmth was faint through her layered dress, but it may as well have been a roaring flame.
—
“Are you ready?”
“Yes, just a moment. It helps if I can feel the earth between my toes.”
Anya crouched down, shifting her weight and kneading her paws into the soil. She wore a pair of old men’s culottes Renee had given her, and was shocked at the lightness they granted her steps. Behind her, Yvon clawed restlessly at the ground.
“Alright, here I go. And…now.”
St. Georgei, let me be strong, and swift as the wind.
Anya let her legs spring outwards, and launched across the field. Her hands threw up droplets of dew where they hit the grass, and her dangling ears flapped upwards with every bound. It was an unseasonably warm day, and the sunlight turned the wet grass before her into a stream of glistening light.
She heard Yvon’s long strides approaching, and planted one paw upon the ground, using it to push her momentum to the left. She turned at the last moment, and felt a rush of air as Yvon slid past her.
Mother showed me how to do that, once. In case Kazankin caught my scent.
“This way, stonepaw!” She flagged her tail and darted for an open patch in the treeline.
“Ack…even a clumsy rabbit…” Yvon panted.
She heard him closing again. She would fake him out - but no, some ancient, instinctive part of her brain had already commandeered her legs, and it knew only one trick, the dodge from before. She felt her left paw descent, felt her mass jolt to the right-
“Got you!”
She felt his shadow first, blocking the sun’s warmth. His hands found her torso, and his teeth pressed into the skin of her neck. The bite was gentle, just enough to chain her momentum as they tumbled forward together, and he tucked her against his chest to shield her from the ground. She wiggled a bit, feeling it was what she was meant to do in this particular situation, and his jaws constricted just enough to immobilize her. After a few moments, he let her go.
“I caught you! I really caught you! Sofia, look! I - wait, you are not hurt, are you?” He smiled, his tail wagging in excitement, before his expression shifted to concern.
On the other side of the field, Sofia took her head out of her book for a moment to give a thumbs-up.
“No, no, not at all!” Anya rose to her feet. “Your bite felt much different from before. Did you have Renee teach you?”
“Well, in fact…” Yvon looked down.
What was different about it? Oh.
“Your jaw! By the saints, I’m so sorry, I can try to put it back to how it was!”
They were near the edge of the lake; Yvon walked over, squatting to regard himself in its waters. He ran a hand over his pristine jawline.
“No. I like this.”
“I shouldn’t have changed you. Even by mistake.”
“It is of no matter. I should have had you fix me the moment you stepped foot in Gaul.”
He began strolling towards Sofia, and Anya followed. Gears seemed to turn in his mind.
“Anya. The queen in the ballet, Tatyana. She is notionally your ancestor, is she not?”
“Um, yes, I think. If twenty generations of Rusyn queens slept only with their husbands.”
“The business with making a monster of Kazankin. Could you do something of that sort?”
“What?”
“It is a serious question. I merely wish to know the extent of your capabilities.”
“The closest thing I’ve done is exaltation, back when I was in the army. We’d take dying soldiers and turn them into violent beasts, though their new bodies were only designed to last about a day. The procedure could be modified and extended, I guess. But I swore I would never perform those rites again.”
She remembered a metal leaf-emblem, vanishing beneath formless snow.
“But it would be within the realm of possibility.”
“Yes.”
“What about a reversal of the metamorphosis? Kazankin was not so fortunate, but surely modern blood-arts are far more capable.”
“You have never before expressed much interest in my arts.”
“Those arts have saved my life twice over. I think curiosity is warranted.”
Pride flickered in Anya’s heart.
“You could probably use a stigmata. It’s an mark elite soldiers get, sort of a map of the body made with arts. Gives us a template if they get dismembered we need to regrow an arm or something.”
They reached Sofia. She was still reading her book, occasionally pausing to add a note to the page.
“Sofia! Did you see what I did?” Yvon exclaimed.
“Yes.”
She did not look up. The wolf’s ears drooped.
“I would like to pose to her the matter we discussed last night.”
“Then do so. That is between you and the rabbit.”
Yvon sat next to her, placing a questing arm on her shoulder, but she shifted out of his reach.
“Sofia.”
“The consort is over there. You and I have nothing to discuss.”
Yvon turned away, evidently stung by her tone. Anya shivered, as if the sun had momentarily lost its warmth.
“Anya, I have a proposal, though you have every right to refuse me. I would like you to be my partner for the hunting tourney.”
Her tail flagged in shock. Behind his back, she caught the tip of his own flick in anticipation.
“Why? I could knock out the doe or the other contestants, but I have nothing to offer in terms of speed or martial skill. I imagine I will trip on a rock and bash my head in before we have even entered the woods.”
“The role I have in mind is more specific.”
“Then?”
“I…well…ugh, this is a terrible idea. Better that it be stillborn.” Yvon looked away.
“You have come this far. Spit it out, dear,” Sofia interjected.
His amber eyes locked with Anya’s.
“I want you to use your arts on me. You will be as Tatyana, and I will be your Kazankin.”
“What.”
“I mean it. Together, we will win the tourney.”
“Did you fall asleep during the play?! She wound up dead, and he ran into the deepwoods with twenty silver spears lodged in his back! Why would you want to do that?”
“Is it not obvious? Yvon Clary will never win the hunting tourney. A beast crafted from his flesh may have a chance.”
“You ask me to push my arts beyond my limits.”
“Am I? You said yourself that it was possible.”
Anya cursed herself. The wolf cracked the hint of a smile.
“In all that I have practiced and learned, there is no blueprint for what you ask. I am a physician, not a natural philosopher.”
Yvon sat down before her. There was a mania to his movements, completely at odds with his usual decorum. Anya felt a twinge of fear.
“Did you consult your charts and tables before you slew a draugr? Did St. Raphael content himself to paint by schema? If there is no blueprint, make one!”
She touched her knife. Exaltation, even modified, would not be suitable, and was in any case designed for rabbits. But she had seen diagrams in old books, of the greatest blood-beasts crafted by the old masters of Rus. The legs from Vladimir of the Black Paw’s siege horrors, plus the efficient lungs crafted by the Matriarch Irina of Moskva…
Here is power, if only you are strong enough to reach for it.
“Sofia?”
“As long as he is presentable by the next day. ” The goat barely looked up from her book.
“Have you both gone mad?”
Sofia violently slammed the book shut, and Anya leaped back in alarm. When the goat spoke, her words were as sharp as the north wind.
“Little rabbit. Since you are evidently lacking in insight, I will speak plainly. Certain latitudes have been afforded to you, and yet at every turn you test the limits of our generosity. This is your master’s heartfelt desire, and you are his consort. If you will not perform, then there is little reason for you to hold that knife.”
A strangling feeling, pressing against the base of her neck.
“Aren’t you worried about him?”
“I have worried, rabbit, so much that at times I thought my heart might burst. I have worried ever since my first night in Gaul, when I realized my husband was not the man I thought him to be.”
Her eyes fixed on Anya.
“I have faith in your arts, and in their wielder. Understand that I do not do so lightly.”
Sofia returned to her book, while Anya fell to her knees. Thoughts roiled in her mind, tangling up into knots that seemed to scrape against her skull.
“Um, as you wish, Sofia.”
No response.
“So,” Yvon interjected, “when can we start?”
“When you begin taking this seriously.”
His ears flicked back in an instant.
“We can start with the stigmata. I know how to do it, and it doesn’t take much blood. Supposed to hurt like St. Catherine on the wheel, though I’ll try to deaden the nerves first.”
“It will hurt?”
“You have asked me to stretch your organs, reweave your muscles, break your bones and make them anew. Before that, I must make a map of every vein and artery in your body. Are you having second thoughts?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Take off your shirt. I’ll make the stigmata on your back.”
“Is there no way you could-”
“Are you like this with every doctor?”
“Yes, he is,” Sofia remarked.
Yvon mewled in shame. He unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a body with no muscle and more than a touch of flab.
Anya drew her knife and placed a hand on the wolf’s back, spreading her fingers beneath his thick double coat. A mental image of thousands of threads unraveled before her. Each pulsed with vital blood.
Must we go through with this? The very concept of the stigmata is obscene. Flesh is meant to transmute. To be liberated from the rigid confines your world imposes.
“I don’t exactly have a choice, alright? Be quiet, and overlay with the wolf,” Anya whispered.
“Quarreling? You should keep your draugr on a shorter lead,” Sofia idly remarked.
Enkidu’s spectral hand descended, pushing into Yvon’s body. Guts, lymph, hard-pounding heart. There was comfort, familiarity, in the damp recesses of his form.
“I’m ready to begin. Yvon, lie down, just like that. I’ll need a bit of blood, and now your back should be numb. Nod if you can feel my hand pressing down. Alright, here we go.”
Anya raised the knife. Her arm trembled. With her other hand, she touched the icon resting on her chest.
These are my arts. By my hand, he is made anew.
She plunged the knife into his back.
He moaned, and she shifted her weight onto his back, levering the knife into him with both hands. Blood spurted upwards; her fur was stained red. The shape of his body crystallized in her mind. Enkidu’s fractal consciousness touched her own, realizing the image into undulating runes.
“Now! Engrave!”
The draugr’s claws scissored into Yvon’s back. Lines began to spread, each an impossibly vivid crimson. Bit by bit, the wolf’s form was copied, translated, rectified. He bucked in pain, and Anya struggled to hold the knife into place.
“By the saints, Yvon, breathe! Just a little longer!”
Anya bid her mind to stillness, let the wolf-image become clear as light. Enkidu’s claws flew like shuttlecocks. At last, the work was complete.
Anya removed the knife, catching a squirt of hot blood nearly in her eye.
“All done, all done. Wait, don’t roll over, you’ll contaminate the scars. Come on, sit up.”
Slowly, she helped the shocked wolf sit up. He opened and closed his hands, as if marveling that they still functioned.
“That’s it? It felt like hands, forcing my insides open,” Yvon said.
Anya nodded.
“What does it look like?”
The rabbit looked back, examining her work. A vaguely wolf-shaped cloud of roughly organized strands, suspended in interlocking circles of tiny Sumer-runes. They were raw, and a few leaked blood or pus. It seemed to float off the skin before her, reorganizing into a simulacrum of Yvon’s body.
“Like you, in a way.”
“Is it, well,” Yvon hesitated. “Crooked? Malformed?”
“What do you hope I will say?”
A pause. Sofia had returned to her book.
“I realize I am unsure.”
“It is unremarkable.”
Yvon ran a hand over it, and stared at the blood now smeared over his claws, as if it were remarkable that his body could produce such a thing.
“Oh. I see.”
Who would win at Settlers of Catan (Cities and Knights expansion, six player version)
