by Noah Harris
“No offense, but how do I know that you’re the real thing and not really just some guy who snuck in here past the sentries to spout off stuff that sounds good?”
Talon nodded, as if agreeing, “Your pack was attacked through trickery not that long ago, wasn’t it? Allow me to tell you something that the spirits have told me, whispered in my ear since I walked into this place, something that may help you to believe.”
“Spirits, huh? Alright, what do they have to say?”
Talon’s eyes closed, his head cocking slightly to the side as if he were listening to someone just behind him. Dean couldn’t fully describe the sensation that rippled through him, but it was as if something had shifted, or been passed over. He wouldn’t be able to do what Talon was probably doing at this moment, but he could certainly sense that something was happening. Was it his powers again, or just his connection to this place that allowed that?
Talon turned, his eyes opening and settling on the center of the cairn. “It was there. There where you did battle with a corrupted one, one of my people no less. A shaman whose spiritual journeys took him down a path of ruin and deception. You didn’t even know what you were until it happened. His blood is not on your hands, but you helped to save him.”
Dean blinked, more than a little surprised at how in-depth the description was, “I… wouldn’t call it saving him. Mikael killed him after I failed to stop him.”
“You saved him from becoming a servant to a darker power. I do not know if he returned to be purified in the bosom of the earth, but I hope in death, he found a greater peace and freedom than he discarded in life.”
“So, kill all demons?”
Talon chuckled. “That would be the gist of it, yes. Even if you are not saving them, you are at least taking one more servant of the enemy away. An enemy that wants far more than the death of one pack, and one with a far greater and more terrible reach than any werewolf could ever hope to have.”
“There any way to save someone who’s been corrupted?”
“If it is their body, you may, one day, be able to. Just as you deal with the physical world, so too can you help with the body. I care and deal with the spiritual, and so a corruption of the soul would be something I would need to tend to. But either way, if the corruption is too strong, and runs too deep, nothing but death can prevent it.”
“Guess our people have a pretty close relationship then.”
“Yes, as it has been in the past, and I hope it will be so again.”
Dean let Talon step closer, getting a better look at him up close now. Talon was one of the largest people he’d ever seen, and considering it looked like most werewolves were large overall, that was saying something. There wasn’t a part of him that bore any fat or softness whatsoever; a walking wall of muscles. Even his square face was harsh in its lines and angles, dark eyes made menacing under the black tangle of his hair. He absolutely towered over Dean, and even Mikael would have had to look up to see his face clearly.
“So what happened to my people then? Seems like even though shamans are a big deal to have, they’re a lot more common than druids are. Hell, even being ‘loosely’ allied with our pack, you still left yours to come and see me.”
Talon looked down at him, seeming amused for a reason Dean couldn’t quite put his finger on. “Your people have always, for obvious reasons, been more involved in the doings of the world. Between the advancement of humanity, which killed the forests and thus numbed the call of the druids, and the wars of werewolves, your people have dwindled to a rarity. Druids have always been doers more than thinkers. Add to that the fact that they can heal wounds, and that made them a natural choice to be involved directly with their pack’s wars. As the druids died in pointless wars, their numbers diminished and many potentials were lost to the concrete jungles of man.”
So, he really wouldn’t have known what he was if he hadn’t come to live out here after all. It was something he’d suspected since the first moment he’d had to sit down and think about it. This was the first time, however, that he had actual proof to confirm it. It was oddly comforting to think that that one decision, to pick up his grandfather’s legacy, had brought him this far.
Talon leaned forward, closer to him with the sound of a deep inhale, startling Dean into shoving his hand into Talon’s chest to try and stop him. He might as well have jammed his hand into a wall for all the good it did him. The guy was so thick that it would probably take a truck to move him.
“Hey! What is it with you werewolves and a lack of respect for personal space?”
Talon continued to look amused, but leaned back to a more comfortable distance, “You are not afraid of very much are you?”
“I’m scared of a lot, but I get mad too.”
“Hmm, perhaps you have a bit of the wolf’s blood in you.”
“You’re not the first person to say something like that, but I can’t exactly ask anyone if one of my ancestors was a werewolf. Kind of the only person in my family who’s alive right now.”
“And mated to the next alpha of your pack no less. A pity.”
“How did you… oh right, the smell.” He had forgotten about that, and shifted almost nervously at the thought. It wasn’t like he cared if anyone knew about Mikael and him for the most part, but it was still a little odd to be called out on it by a stranger simply because of a smell he couldn’t detect. There was a whole world missing to him because of his normal sense of smell, and it was still a little jarring. At least when Mikael sniffed him, it was a little sexy.
“Hey, wait, why is that a pity?”
“Unless you mean to find an alternate method for you to have children?”
Oh, he hadn’t thought of that. Since he and Mikael had talked about the possibility of having kids, they hadn’t once talked about one or more of them being biologically Dean’s. In Dean’s mind, they would have been Mikael’s, to continue the family line in the most direct way. Now, with him being a known druid, it would be almost irresponsible on his part to not try to have a kid or two and hope that the druid blood was passed onto one to continue their line.
“I take it you never discussed this with your mate?”
“We… discussed kids of course, I just thought they would be his. Because unless we do it with human science, I wouldn’t really be able to do it the old-fashioned way. I’m a one gender kind of guy.”
Talon gave a slow nod, looking thoughtful, “It is something to consider all the same. Your kind are so rare these days, and if you should survive the days to come, the continuation of your line, and thus your kind, would be a great boon. By the time you had children, you would be able to train them yourself rather than relying on an outside source.”
Dean looked up at that, hopeful. “Does that mean you’ll be teaching me then?”
“I will teach you what I can; as much as I can. I have never trained a druid, and only a few shamans in my time. Our methods and means are quite different, even if they do both connect back to the natural world. I cannot promise how much help I can be, but I will do my best.”
“Which sounds great and I want to try that, but why would you help me? If your pack doesn’t ally totally with mine, why bother to waste your time training me?”
“It is said that all things spring from the same source, no matter how separated they may seem. In the days of old, shamans and druids worked closely together, and worked well. Though they were bound to their packs, their work involved more than just the matters of politics. Our kinds were once tied to one another, in ways I hope to discover once more, as I’m sure others will be when they arrive.”
“So, since you deal with the spiritual, and I deal, apparently, with the physical, that makes us future best friends, huh? Not the worst reason I’ve ever had someone try to be my friend. You willing to help move a couch?”
Talon shook his head as he made for the path leading back to The Grove. “I hope that sense of humor stays with you Dean, you will need more than just your powers to ge
t through the coming days.”
Dean watched him move down the path with a grace that he wouldn’t have thought possible from such a large man. He’d been expecting a longer conversation once he knew what Talon was, anyway. He had the distinct feeling that Talon had come to talk briefly with him only to take his measure and then retire. There was something slow and deliberate about the shaman, and Dean would bet that he was returning to his temporary quarters to think things over.
Dean eyed a rabbit as it hopped its way onto the path, stopping to sit on its haunches and gaze up at him. He sighed, motioning to where he had last seen Talon, “Certainly knows how to liven the mood, doesn’t he?”
With a twitch of its ear, it fell to all fours and patiently hopped its way back into the brush on the other side of the path. “And you’re even more help!”
“And now I’m talking to woodland creatures,” he sighed. “Well if you’re not going to talk to me, and if the trees won’t, I’m going back to my mate’s cabin and warming up by the fire.”
His side ached as he leaned forward to gaze more closely at the potted plant that sat before him. It was a fern, and it was doing what he came to expect plants to do, silently sit there. Dean squinted at the plant, cocking one ear toward it and trying his best to listen for even the faintest of whispers coming from it.
“Anything?”
Dean, annoyed, looked up to Talon who sat cross legged across from him on the floor. “Just your heavy breathing.”
Talon frowned, “You are trying too hard to hear it.”
“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be doing?”
“No, you are supposed to be listening.”
Dean groaned, straightening himself and earning a sharp twinge of pain in his back, followed by a jolt through his bitten shoulder. It had taken Talon a few days to show up on his and Mikael’s doorstep to begin their work. Dean had wanted to give the shaman a chance to think over things without having Dean impatiently pushing him along. To fill in the free time, since Mikael was still quietly brooding, he had taken to trying to learn some fighting techniques from Katarina. This proved to be a mistake, since he hadn’t learned much except that she was stronger than he remembered, and that he could hurt in some of the strangest places.
“Is this what it’s going to be like? I try to figure out what you want from me and you start spouting Zen wisdom at me that makes no sense? No offense, but you’re a bit young to pull that off without sounding cheesy.”
“The difference between listening and hearing should be plain and simple, especially for someone of your age, Dean. You may hear someone speak, but not understand the meaning of their words, or you may miss the intent behind them. When you listen, you can hear the meaning behind it; what part of themselves that they choose to infuse into the words. You know the difference; now you must apply it to your newfound abilities as well.”
Dean let out a puff of air, “You’re right, I’m sorry. I’m being a bit snarky, aren’t I?”
The corners of Talon’s lips pulled up in a small smile. “A little, but no worse than I have dealt with before.”
“Sorry, again. I’m a little… frustrated.”
Talon slowly nodded his understanding. “You are new to this, to all of this. I heard that you weren’t even aware of the existence of werewolves until a couple of seasons ago, and now you must not only make peace with the fact that druids exist, but that you are one of them. You are taking on a great deal of knowledge all at once. That you are resisting it, even if you aren’t aware of it, isn’t a surprise.”
“Can we tell my brain to get on board with current events then? Like, I’ve been dating, sleeping with, and am now mated to a werewolf. Hell, I even found out that there really is a force of entropic darkness out there, hell-bent on destroying everything. So, if it could just… accept what’s going on with the whole druid thing, that would be great.”
“It’s not quite that simple.”
Dean eyed him with a disbelieving look. “This, coming from the great and skillful shaman.”
Talon raised a thick eyebrow. “Oh? I wasn’t always what I am today. As a matter of fact, until my first change, I wasn’t even aware that I was a werewolf.”
Dean blinked, a little surprised by that. “Oh. That happens?”
“More than you would believe. What did you think they meant when others have referred to ‘orphans’?”
“Honestly? I thought it meant lone werewolves who didn’t have a pack and were adopted by one, or something along those lines. It’s not like the legends and notes I’ve read have given me everything there is to know about dealing with werewolves.”
Talon reached out, brushing a bit of dirt from one frond of the fern. “Well, that is what they typically are. I was born to a human family. Both carried within them the capacity to create a werewolf, though neither knew it. To them, I was an unruly child who grew to be an even more unruly teenager, with quite the temper problem. Pack-born werewolves are taught from birth how to control the wolf within them. Orphans such as myself have to make do with what little we have available to us. Most of us end up living on the fringes of humanity, oftentimes with anger issues. Some never realize the wolf within, fighting the transformation their whole lives until it drives them to some act of self-destruction, or they go mad from it.”
He hadn’t known that. “You… can go crazy from not transforming?”
“It is more that you can lose your mind by never accepting the wolf within. To deny half of your soul is to split yourself in two, essentially. Nothing good could come of that.”
“So, I take it the druid thing works differently, then? Because I never had those sorts of problems growing up.”
“Being a druid is not half of your soul. Being a werewolf is about having a man and wolf fused together within your very core. As with being a shaman, being a druid is… more like another color to the rainbow that is your soul. A rainbow is all those colors, just as your soul would have been before, but now that you have awoken, a new color— one you have never known in your life— is showing at the edges. Being a werewolf and refusing the wolf half is more like trying to call forth a rainbow without any light, or without water.”
“But you found your water, or your light, whichever?”
Talon nodded, and Dean watched as he fussed with the plant again, only realizing that it was a nervous gesture. “Yes. My… temper, was worsening by the day, and so was my rebellion. One night, during the full moon— which I’m sure you know is our most… passionate time— I got into a heated argument with my parents. I don’t remember what it was over, but it hardly matters. In that one moment, I gave into the animal that raged within me and transformed for the first time. That night, I killed my parents, and would have killed my siblings as well, if someone hadn’t heard the noises and called the police. Enough of my human mind surfaced at that point, enough to know I had to leave. I escaped into the woods, and was eventually discovered by my pack. I was half-mad in either form, wracked by the guilt of what I had done. They were good people, my parents, but they had unknowingly given birth to a child they would never understand, and it wasn’t something they deserved to die for.”
“Shit, I’m so sorry.”
Talon looked up from his fixation on the potted fern, attempting a smile. “Thank you, but it is… better now. You are no stranger to lose yourself.”
Dean stared. “Just how much information-gathering did you have to do before coming to me?”
Talon chuckled, bringing his hands to his knees to rest once more. “I didn’t really have to dig. The people of your pack are a talkative lot, especially once they saw I was here with your alpha’s blessing. You are quite the talk of The Grove, you and Mikael both, though more so you now. A new outsider as a pack member, mated to the expected future alpha, and now they hear that you have been blessed with druidism.”
Dean rolled his stiff shoulders, huffing in faint annoyance. “Doesn’t feel like much of a blessing.”
“
I said the same thing about being a werewolf, then I said the same thing when the voices of the spirits came to me just as I grew more accustomed to what I was. In truth, I never became comfortable with being a werewolf until I fully embraced being a shaman. Before that, half the time I fought being a werewolf, and the other half I would dive into the inner beast with an abandon that was not healthy for anyone. It took my own master — a rather stern but fair woman — to essentially hold me down and make me accept her lessons, for me to finally calm down enough to listen. Once I submitted to her instruction, with time, it all came together for me.”
“She sounds like a tough woman.”
“She was. She had to be; I was a stubborn ass back then. Still am, but at least I try to curb it when I need to.”
Dean opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off when the door behind Talon slammed open, letting in a blast of bitterly cold air. Mikael, standing tall in his winter coat, gazed down at them in surprise. The emotion softened the angry look that Dean had grown used to seeing lately, but only for a moment. As soon as Mikael realized what he was seeing, the dark look came back to his features as he stomped in, closing the door behind him with unnecessary force.
“Sorry, didn’t know I’d be interrupting.”
“Ah,” Dean began, trying his best to ignore Mikael’s attitude, “Talon, this is my mate Mikael, this is—.”
“Father told me already. Good to meet you Talon. Don’t let me interrupt, just stopped in to make something to eat.”
With that, the grumpy werewolf made his way back to the kitchen area, making noise the whole way through the house. Each thump of his heavy boots seemed to go straight to the center of Dean’s brain, reverberating obnoxiously. It was obvious that Mikael was still angry about what had transpired during the meeting with Samuel, but it gave him no right to be so rude. The least he could have done was pretend to be civil, rather than make a total ass out of the both of them.
