Winter Wolf

 this one is inspired by the video of a song called 'Blind and Frozen' which YouTube popped onto a list for me, which is why she is called Cecylia, as it means 'blind'

Winter wolf

 

Cecylia awoke with a start, and sat up.  It was cold, so cold, but she was wearing a thin summer court robe.

She rubbed her arms, wondering where her maid was.

Then she shivered in terror more than in cold, remembering.

She had been cursed, to fall asleep on her sixteenth birthday, and sleep for one hundred years when ...

When she would have to fulfil the conditions of a poem, during the hours of daylight, seeking a kiss to free her from the curse, and if she failed to do so, she would sleep for another hundred years.

And she had woken once and gone down to the courtyard, and he had been there, the man who had grown from the boy, the witch’s son, who had been bitten by a werewolf because he had been seeking her when she was lost in the woods.  She had refused to kiss him, to cure him with royal breath.  And the witch had been unable to cure her son, and had laid the curse. Cecylia had fled, embarrassed and frightened; he was a man, not a boy, scarred, with matted hair and beard, dressed in skins. She put her face in her hands, as she had run into her tower, and as she reached the top room again, and the sun dipped below the horizon, the door had slammed shut. And the snow started in her room, and weariness overcame her, and she had lain down to sleep again.

Cecylia shuddered.

She got up and looked in the mirror. She was unchanged. How would he look? But she must kiss him. She looked at the poem, though she knew it by heart.

 

Embrace the beast

And what is lust is lost

Will melt, the curse to cease

And bring an end to frost

 

 

oOoOo

 

Vahktang shook himself, and howled in agony as his body shifted ... changed.

He was human again.

Had so long passed?

Apparently, or he would not have changed back.  Only by living in wolf form could he tap the immortal energy of wolf, and survive to try again to persuade Princess Cecylia to be his. He had always loved her, from the first time he had met her in the forest, and showed her the small wonders of nature. He could have sworn that she loved him, until her mother sent her to a school for ladies for a year. It had spoiled her, made her draw away from former companions who were peasants.  And she would not kiss him to cure the curse ... but the amount of blood had scared her, too. And what a figure he had presented last time!

Vahktang had prepared himself somewhat for this time; before submerging himself in the wolf’s eternal sense of ‘now’ he had stolen clothes. Clothes one hundred years out of date, but what would she know? She had slept through any fashion crisis.  He had laid spell upon the clothing to fit him perfectly, and to be preserved; and he had a comb for his hair and beard, even if he might not shave for fear of disrupting the wolf inside if he had to live another hundred years.

He loped back to his cave lair, and unearthed the chest of clothes, soft leather trousers, boots, a shirt and  a rich robe over all. He combed out the tangles as best he might. He had not aged substantially, and he hoped he would be acceptable.

He read over the poem which referred to him, though it seemed graven on his heart.

 

Follow the snowbride if you dare

And make her chamber cold your lair

Silver frost trumps silver moon

The curse removed shall be her boon.

 

He would have precious little time to make it to the tower, and he ran, ignoring the stitch in his side. A man who was fit could outrun a wolf, not in speed, but over time, as a wolf would not take down prey which had not tired. He reminded himself of that.

The sun was past its zenith when he reached the castle. The open gate was eerie, and Vakhtang shuddered as he went in, wondering if she even still lived, or whether a skeleton lay in the tower without a door ... or rather, with a door once day in every hundred years, to stop him seeking her out, and in case of itinerant adventurers. 

 

oOoOo

 

The sun reached its noonday height, and passed it. Cecylia huddled in to herself, fearing that he would not come. Perhaps he had been shot by hunters, or killed by other wolves; perhaps he had decided to give up on the spoilt little girl, her basic values eroded by associating with those to whom outward display was all.

She felt unroyal tears prick her eyes, and blinked on them hard; he would not want to see her red-eyed and crying.

And then she heard the crunch of boots on snow.

Boots? Last time he had been barefoot.

She rose and went to the door, out onto the courtyard.  There was a well-clad stranger ... or was he a stranger?

“Vakhtang?” she said, uncertainly.

“Cecylia!” his voice was hoarse.

“You ... you have made an effort ...”

“Forgive me for frightening you ...”

“Vakhtang! Forgive me for being a fool ... come inside.”

He followed her in, up to her chamber. The sun was on the horizon, red and misty through the snow clouds.

She reached out her hands to him, and he drew her to him, into his arms.  And then he kissed her.  Just in time as the sun sank.

The sun sank and  they were both away, in their own forms, no clang of a closing door.

“We are free?” said Cecylia.

“Free,” said Vakhtang. “And if you wish, in the morning, I will take my leave.”

“No!” she clung to him. “I was a fool.  I ... I need you .... if you will have me.”

 

oOoOo

 

They lay together in a bed no longer cold, and the misty snowclouds lifted from the castle and the forest around it, and when they awoke, winter had passed into spring, with birdsong, bees, wildflowers and grasses growing.

And Vakhtang’s mother was waiting.

“Many changes have been wrought in the world,” she said. “Magic is dying. Now you have broken my spell, magic will die here, and I will grow old and die as well. My last use of magic has been to enchant a mirror to enable you to watch the passage of time, and prepare you for how the world has changed in two hundred years.”

“Mother ...” Vakhtang embraced her, and Cecylia knelt.

“I am sorry,” she said.

“You have learned,” said the witch.

It was fortunate that the treasury had not been ransacked, for though the couple learned of the time that had passed, it was easier to live quietly in a small town, rearing their children to be children of their own time, caring for the witch until she died; and then, living out their own lives, contented but knowing that perhaps, if they had managed to get together the first time, there might have been more ...

But they did not dwell on it, for the sense of ‘now’ of the wolf forgives all time that passes, and Cecylia knew that it was reaching for more which had lost her Vakhtang and all her family in the first place.