Nelacar

Part Two

The fool didn’t retreat.

She knew this from the way the trees murmured. She knew in the way the breeze stirred, like a slumbering beast about to wake. She knew because his scent grew stronger, that awful city smell of unnatural cleansing and tainted magic conscripted by modern words.

He had been warned. They all had. Not to enter the sacred grove of her lady. Yet he came anyway, stealing from the forest. Not even her howl, meant to fear the unwary of how far they had come, had deterred him.

So he had to be removed.

Prowling closer, she picked up the traces of uncertainty in his scent. It had an odd flavour to it, not dissimilar to the other chosen wood elves of the grove on the day of their ascension. That concern of consequence… mingled with the thrill of the hunt.

The defender moved closer to the intruder. Once she had held a name. Been known for her tracking skills. Then the briarheart had come to her, offered her something far more precious. She would not be an insect among the undergrowth anymore. She would become one with the nirn, one with soul of the woods.

She had laid herself down upon the slab willingly, reeking like the tall, golden traveller with mixed excitement and trepidation. The ritual was not pleasant. First they had bitten her, fortifying her, the surge of wild wolf flaring through her veins. As she laid there, Hircine himself looked down upon her. His mask hid it, yet she knew he smiled as he drove his spear violently into her heart. She did not belong to him, despite the venom in her veins. He had set her free.

It could never be understood by an outsider what a blessing it is to have your heart replaced by the wilderness. To feel the forest pulse through where mere meat had been prior.

When the ritual was done, she rose. No pain wracked her. No unsteadiness took her. She was as strong as the ancient heartwood, as sharp as briarthorn, as fast as the wolf, as wild as the tempestuous winds.

She was whole.

And now she prowled her home, both abode and part of herself, to make sure the intruder either left or fed the ancient spirit that resided here.

The wolves in the area moved as one with her, pacing forward, howls and growls replaced by the unnatural silence of hunters about to pounce.

The wolves in the area moved as one with her, pacing forward, howls and growls replaced by the unnatural silence of hunters about to pounce.