The silence on the stilled battlefield cannibalised any other noise. The only stir was the soft dance of feet mindful to crush none but grass, to disturb none but flies from their place. The very air felt thicker, tasting sharp with bitter blood and dew-drenched iron armour, a heaviness that implored any still twitching to abandon their struggling search for breath. 

Pacing through the wreck in a pattern like the farmer ploughing his fields, a tall figure in a once-white wool cloak and cowl surveyed the carnage. He moved with great care through the gore, meeting blank glassy eyes lost in lax faces. His hands were stained with old mud and fresh scarlet and the breeze tossed his greyed curls into his eyes, as if imploring him weakly to look away. He pushed his hair back into his hood and carried on. 

The forest clearing had been made a tapestry woven of fathers and sons, of women and children, any hir person old and strong enough to wield a spear and die for the feud that their great grandfathers had started. It had been a messy battle, short but fierce, the sort that bore no victor. The White Cowl had expected as much, but knew there was nothing he could do to interfere. Such was not his place. When the silence had come, he had followed in its wake, and alongside the bugs and the birds he went to his work. 

A few paces to his right, he noticed a trembling shape in blood-smeared green. He stepped in that direction, speaking low of gentle roads and easy travels in his mother tongue, scraps of lyric from far back in his mind. The trembling slowed to twitching. As he came upon them, the White Cowl saw they were a lad, closer to child than man, folded upon himself with a great slash splitting his chestplate and his hair slick and dark with blood from a wound to the side of his head. 

“Go on,” he urged in Soulspeak, words he knew the boy would not understand but would feel. “The fighting is over now. You are all done. You can leave this place. Go on.”

The boy’s eyelids fluttered and stopped half-fallen as the rest of his body went still. The White Cowl moved on. 

A few paces more and a small sound disturbed the dead quiet. Off at the edge of the fray, half-swallowed in the fog, came the shaky inhale of a sob. Turning towards it, the White Cowl spotted a figure not collapsed or splayed but hunched, one arm moving in gentle strokes over another shape lost in the grass. Both were large and looked out of place, halfway between the end of the carnage and the beginning of the woods. 

Creeping slowly closer, the White Cowl made out the shape of a hulking person, one who appeared to be of the hir like himself, but carved of bulk and muscle much more ample than his own body and looked as tall and strong as most fae. They wore simple rust-coloured layered robes that showed years of wear and dark hair grown long that hung in their face like the boughs of a willow. They shook with a gentle weeping, and as he watched the White Cowl discerned the form laid out at their knee to be that of a large black wolf. 

A slim arrow stood lodged in the wolf’s neck, its red fletching dancing languid in the breeze. The wolf lay lifeless beneath. The stranger wept. 

Captivated by this scene at the edge of the meadow, the White Cowl didn’t notice the stir at the heart of it, nor the near-dead archer shakily nocking one final spiteful arrow and taking aim at the only thing left standing on the battlefield. His sight was marred nearly to nothing and he could no longer discern friend from foe, but he was determined to fight til his very last anyway. 

The bowstring snapped and a deep burrowing pain clawed into the White Cowl’s thigh. He cried out in pure surprise, the blow taking his leg from under him and sending him down into the grass. The archer took no more shots. The White Cowl grabbed at his injured leg and scantly avoided impaling his hand upon the tip of the arrow peeking from his flesh, having sunk all the way through from the back. It had been a long time since he had felt so much engulfing agony. 

Wooziness circled him as blood poured from the wound. He could not move for the pain, and his attempts only scraped arrow-shaft against bone. The deep well of instinctual fear found him there and sharpened his every breath to a panicked gasp. He always waited until the fighting was over. He had not expected to become another red stroke in the horrid painting of the aftermath. 

The White Cowl began to slip from consciousness, and the last thing he saw was a large shadow eclipsing the overcast sky above. 

The White Cowl did not expect to wake up. When he did, becoming aware of a crackling fire and an unfamiliar place, he was confused, and a little annoyed. 

He tried to sit up and was reprimanded by a hot spear of pain across his body. He heaved a great sigh and blinked to get his bearings. 

He was laying on a bed of stacked furs atop stiff ground, his cloak removed and placed with his belts, boots, and sachets next to the fire to dry. A sizable scarlet bloom like a poppy’s head was painted onto his cloak. He was left in just his tunic and underclothes, finding his leg cleaned and bandaged, though not enough to hide the grim extent of the wound beneath. 

The fire was built a few paces inside a dim and shallow cavern, sheltered from the soft summer storm that drizzled outside. Upon it roasted three hares, each just beginning to char, and the rich smell of their lean meat cooking reminded the White Cowl just how long it had been since he had last eaten. 

As he puzzled his situation, approaching footsteps splashed and a tall figure ducked through the cave’s mouth. The White Cowl was surprised to see it was the weeping stranger from the meadow. They paused at the entry to shake some of the clinging rain from them before walking up to the fire, their dark eyes gleaming and attentive. 

“You,” said the White Cowl, almost a sigh. “What have you done?” 

No response was given as the stranger rounded the fire to kneel beside the bed of furs. They carried a hollow clam shell full of water in one hand and a fistful of fresh herbs in the other, glancing about to assess their injured visitor. 

Just as the White Cowl began to ask another question, the stranger held the shell to his lips, giving him no choice but to drink. The White Cowl was taken off guard but complied, only realising after his first sip how parched he had been. When the shell was empty the stranger settled into a seat and began to carefully pick apart the herbs with thick fingers. The White Cowl watched, a bit dazed by the whole predicament.

“Yarrow?” he asked, catching a trace of the scent of the flowers discarded in favour of the leaves. He nearly laughed. “You’re trying to heal me?” 

Again, the stranger did not respond. Their focus was on the leaves, which they now tore into small flakes and sprinkled into the drained clam shell. 

“You needn’t bother,” said the White Cowl. As a wave of nausea hit he winced and laid back down. Nothing enough to distract from the pain in his leg. “You should have just let me die.” 

They both stayed quiet as the stranger ground the yarrow leaves into a paste with a stone in the shell. They did not ask before undoing their wound dressings and applying the salve to the White Cowl’s leg. He harrowed to see it undressed—it did not look like the type of injury to heal well, if he survived it. Even if he did, it would be weeks before he’d be able to walk again. He felt dizzy. 

The White Cowl did not feel much like eating after that, and the stranger was less adamant that he do. They watched him with curious eyes as they tore at the flesh of the hares with their teeth, picking clean the bones of two and leaving one for him. 

Hours felt like days. The White Cowl began to feel a fever brewing in his head, and as much as his body screamed for rest, the pain kept him awake and suffering. When the light rain all but stopped, the stranger left the cave again, and on his own the White Cowl shed a few quiet tears, staring at the sparkling rocky wall next to him and shivering. 

He was more grateful when the stranger returned the second time with a skin of mead instead of water. He didn’t care where it had come from, and accepted it eagerly as the stranger helped him drink it. It did not do much, but enough to ease the pain and the cloying despair a little. It did nothing for his fever, which was pooling cold sweat in the corners of his face, and that too was comforting in a morbid way. Perhaps he would not be stuck as he was for very much longer. 

As the day began to lose its light and evening brought along its chill, the stranger took the White Cowl’s cloak and tucked it over him like a blanket. As they did, he spotted a mark upon the side of their neck—a patch of darker, redder skin upon the warm brown that made the vague shape of a star, four points reaching outward between their jaw and collarbone. The White Cowl stared, a tickle in the back of their memory. 

“I know you,” he said finally. The stranger turned their eyes to meet the White Cowl's but settled back down to their whittling on the other side of the cave without any alarm at the words, only that same mild interest as before. 

“I’ve heard tell of you,” he went on. “There are stories that talk about a child born with great strength, strength beyond that of any hirson, with a mark such as yours. The stories say that their village made a deal with the wolves of the wood to take the child away, because they feared a single being with that much power, saw them as an animal. They called the person that that child became Wulfheir—raised by wolves.” The White Cowl searched the stranger’s face. “Is any of that true?”

The stranger glanced over again when he quieted but they said nothing. Their ears had perked when he had spoken the name, so the White Cowl guessed it was at least partially true, and the many faint scars lining the stranger’s skin, snaking in and out of their clothes like roots from the earth, sang a similar song. 

“I know what it's like to be feared for what you can do, what you are. People fear what they cannot understand, and do not try to understand what they fear.”

For a long moment, the White Cowl regarded the stranger breaking down tree limbs thick as his arm like they were twigs to feed them to the fire. They collected the scraps into a pile and took up their knife again to widdle. 

“That wolf out on the field,” he began softly, his shivers chattering his teeth a little, “the one you wept for. Clearly you hold love in your heart for that creature. Was it a brother of yours? A friend, perhaps?” 

No response. Realising he had only tried speaking to the stranger in Glisc, he asked again in Eailhean, the faetongue, and then again in Drannokah, Stoutish, Lathylan, any language he could conjure. Amic? Ven? Dhrur? Dost? 

Friend?

Still no reply. 

“You don’t understand me, do you?” asked the White Cowl. “All this time, I’ve just been talking to myself.” 

“Talk too much,” the stranger answered in Glisc, their voice a gruff creak. It sounded like they had not used it in quite a while. 

The White Cowl couldn’t help but smile and breathe a little laugh through his nose. 

Evening waned and gave way to the heavy blue of night. Eventually, the stranger took what they had whittled—a small and intricate wolf figurine—and held it to their forehead a long moment before tossing it into the shrinking fire. Then they arranged their assortment of leftover wood and a collection of larger loose rocks at the mouth of the cave about a hand high, protection against the rain. The White Cowl let the silence stay as the stranger settled down to sleep upon the ground opposite to him, laying on their back and looking up until their eyes fluttered closed. 

The White Cowl did the same. He was restless, but the gentle glittering of the stone above in the errant moonlight and the shush of the rain outside the cave lulled him, and before he knew it he was falling asleep. 

The cave was not very broad, and the stranger was. They tossed in their sleep, twitching and summoning a deep guttural sound something like a growl right next to their guest. A few times, the White Cowl was woken by this, the stranger’s sounds blending with the thunder tolling outside. For the sake of their own rest as much as his, the White Cowl whispered a few words in Soulspeak.

“Be calm,” he coaxed. “Recall a comfort.”

Right away, the stranger’s movements settled, their brow unpinching and their fists unfurling. In a moment, their only sound was soft snoring. Satisfied, the White Cowl was right back to the edge of sleep when the stranger shifted and rolled over, casting an arm heavy across him and nuzzling close. 

The White Cowl froze. He couldn’t move much as it was, and as the stranger shifted near, there was no escape from their strong arm. His heart beat faster. He had not felt the touch of another warm body in a very long time.

Still, despite the trap and his nerves, the pressure was comfortable and the warmth soothing. Being able to feel the rise and fall of the strangers now tranquil breathing was succour against the rising howl of the wind outside as the storm thrashed more fiercely, and without much other choice, he welcomed it. 

The both of them were woken by a huge rushing crash. The stranger pulled the White Cowl protectively against themself on reflex, curling them into each other. When the great noise subsided, the dark had been brewed even deeper, too dark for the White Cowl to see. 

“What’s happened?” he asked, panicked. 

The stranger untangled and leapt to their feet. The White Cowl whimpered as his injured leg was disturbed, twisting to squint at the cave entrance. There, cast across the mouth by the storm, was a huge pine tree, branches lodged so thickly they nearly eclipsed the whole entry. The stranger heaved and pushed and strained with all their might against it, but could not get it to move. 

The White Cowl all of sudden felt a wetness soaking the furs beneath him. The fallen tree had broken the stranger’s rain dam, and what had pooled outside was now rushing into the cave—only it was more than a puddle. With a rising hiss, more and more water poured in through the pine boughs, the bleed of some swollen river fed by the relentless rain. 

They were trapped and the cave was filling with thick muddy water. 

“We have to get out of here!” cried the White Cowl, useless words lost in the discord of noise. 

The stranger grunted and gasped with effort as they tore limbs from the fallen pine, some as thick around as their neck, but could not break any of the biggest ones nor reach any that would set them free. In a frustrated burst of desperation, they bloodied their hands and bruised their shoulder clawing and throwing their weight against the trunk, but it did not budge. There were cracks of bones and cries of pain as they did, but they did not stop until the water had reached their knees and they could no longer stand. 

The White Cowl had dragged himself to the highest point at the very back of the cave where the floor and ceiling tapered together and watched all he could through the heavy dark. When the stranger retreated back to join him, clutching a broken arm and limping through the thick water, he was certain they were going to die. 

The stranger huddled next to the White Cowl in the tight space, the both of them wedged without anywhere to go, and wrapped themself around the White Cowl. He couldn’t be sure if it was to fit the two of them better in the taper or just to hold him, but he did not resist the hold, resting his head against their shoulder in spite of the pain flaring in them both. 

The rush of the water only quickened, gushing from any entry it could find in the pine and rising so quickly it frothed around them. It was painfully cold as it reached the two cuddled at the back of the cave, climbing up their forms in small lapping waves. They clung together in the absence of anything else, trying desperately to keep their warmth—the relentless instinct of the hir to survive even as any hope drained from them. 

When the water reached their throats, the White Cowl began to cry, drops lost in the growing flood, another immutable instinct. The stranger took the back of his head in fingers still gentle even frozen and pressed their foreheads together, the way they had done with the wolf carving, and gazed into the White Cowl’s eyes for a moment before closing theirs tight. The White Cowl did the same. 

Before the flood passed their mouths, he did the last thing he could think to do, knowing it would have no effect on himself.

“It is over now,” he whispered. “You are all done. Feel at peace and travel without pain. Go on.”