Gwen
I felt tired. Worn. Spiritually and physically exhausted.
But dinner was cooked - chicken this time, simple olive oil and seasoning rub. The sun set while the chicken baked. I didn’t have enough steak to give Vicky one every meal, but I sliced a piece off of a cut of sirloin and fried it, timed so the two finished close together. I needed to save most of the steak for treats, but she did deserve a treat after our activities today.
Hopefully I wouldn’t run out too quickly.
I plated our dinners before lifting the little spray bottle marked D. My stomach sank at the thought, but I had already started down this path, and it was the first real progress I had made with her. Giving up now was the same as killing the town myself. I wasn’t even sure if the diluted version would work, the book didn’t say anything about weakening the effects. Hopefully it brought pleasure without inducing that overwhelming heat.
I wanted Vicky to feel good. I wanted her to feel safe, cared for, and loved.
Convinced, I dabbed some of the diluted potion on each wrist, behind my ears, and spritzed the air again, walking through it just as I had done before. With the plates, I headed downstairs to see my wolf.
“Evening, Vicky.” I called to her as I walked down the stairs, I hadn’t checked the cameras first, I wasn’t even sure if she was awake. “Got dinner for us.”
“Not Vicky.” There had been a pause before she answered, but she didn’t sound groggy, she didn’t sound like she had just woken up. My heart sank as I turned toward the cage and saw the eviscerated teddy bear. It hurt, I hadn’t really expected her to do that. She was destroying the comfort I was trying to give her and an important piece of my past in one act. “I hate that nickname. I’m Tori.”
She watched me intently as I moved to the folding chair and sat down, putting her plate on the ground and digging into my own meal.
“Tori.” I nodded. Her sharing that was a balm on the wound that was my destroyed Fuzzy Bear. Her eyes glanced to the other plate, by my feet, just out of her reach. “Thank you for telling me.”
Sharing her preferred name was a step in the right direction, it was proving that I was on the right path. I had called her Victoria plenty of times without her saying anything at all. I was glad I had called her Vicky mostly in my own thoughts, not so much out loud - but I had said it a few times during…
“Well?” She sat up, turning her body toward me.
I took another bite, playing dumb. “Well what?”
Her face scrunched up in frustration. She didn’t want to say it. “Aren’t you going to give me mine?”
“This is your culture, Tori.” I took another bite, chewing before I continued. “The Packleader eats first. The rest of the pack eats when she is done.”
Of course she wouldn’t know that, she hadn’t spent enough time around her own kind. She probably hadn’t spent much time around other wolves at all. Even River’s pack observed this tradition.
She didn’t argue though, she just sneered. "Was… that part of your training or was that just you using me?"
I didn’t answer right away, taking a few bites while the question hung in the air. “It’s hard for it to be part of the training when it wasn’t expected. You were the one that asked for it.”
Instantly, she was upset. Offended. “I didn’t want it!”
“Part of you did.” I kept her eyes, eating the last few bites without looking, my eyes never leaving hers. “The wolf in you did.”
“I don’t care if that’s what the wolf wants,” she snapped at me. “I don’t want it and I refuse to be a slave to those instincts!”
I put my empty plate and fork on the floor to my left, sliding her plate forward so she’d be able to pull it through the slot in the cage. I watched her as she took that first bite, turning her words over in my mind, along with something she had said the day before.
"There's a difference between being a slave to instincts and embracing what you want. You're only a slave to them if you reject what you want. If you embrace them and accept them as part of you then you're just accepting yourself."
She pulled her plate in the cage with her, growling. “Like you know what being a werewolf is like.” She had said something similar the day before. She was right, there were a lot of things she understood better than I did. But she was rejecting her wolf, a big and integral part of herself, and I wondered if that had some effect on her transformations.
"Tori? Do you think that maybe the fact that you're rejecting what it wants is why you transform so slowly?" I kept my voice calm and curious, not challenging and not accusing.
“I’m not rejecting it!” She hadn’t complained about not getting a fork this time, another good sign. She picked up the chicken breast and tore a bite off with her teeth. "I love being a wolf. I love being away from humans, I love roaming the wilds. Humans are awful, destructive monsters. And I don't transform slowly, that's perfectly normal."
"Humans are a lot of things. Just like werewolves are a lot of things. Plenty of humans destroy things. Many create and preserve. Just like werewolves aren't all monstrous killers like the legends say." I shrugged. A black and white view of a very gray issue was a problem, but it would take awhile to help someone like Tori, who had developed with no guidance, get a more nuanced view of the world. "And, you do. I could put what you're wearing on any Packleader and I bet it wouldn't stop them. It's the fact that you're slow that allows it to work. A more experienced wolf can transform midstep from one form to the next with ease. It's as natural as moving an arm or wagging a tail, it just happens."
Her eyes narrowed when I mentioned wagging tails. I could almost read her thoughts, insisting that she never had and never would.
She’d look adorable with her tail wagging.
"Shut up. You don't know anything about me. Even if my transformation is slow, I don't reject my wild side. I embrace it. Shifting is just becoming myself in a different shape." She stuffed the last bit of chicken in her mouth.
"You're right, I don't know much about you. I know a lot about werewolves and how they work, though. I doubt rejecting the things the wolf wants is gonna help with getting more in tune with that side of you." River had explained that those who denied their instincts had problems. Those who didn't want to hunt and refused to either had problems reaching their wolf form or sometimes they got 'pent up' and would shift at an inopportune time. As they started to accept themselves, the change was easier. "But perhaps you'd share more about yourself before we have an important conversation. Tell me, Tori. Were you even heading anywhere specific?"
She was thinking, preparing some lie, hiding it under the guise of chewing her steak. Before the sigh built, I stopped myself. She still had barriers up. I could see the wheels in her head turning, some anxiety tying her tongue.
Her answer took me by surprise.
"Fuck you. I said that you don't know me, not that I'm going to tell you. Why should I tell you anything at all? You're keeping me prisoner in a literal cage. And I don't care if the wolf wants to fuck you, you ever touch me like that again and I'll kill you."
The death threat was actually a little funny given that she could have killed me at several different points today and chose not to. Her hostility wasn’t a surprise, her being difficult wasn’t a surprise, but she had abandoned whatever lie she had been forming altogether.
That was actually a good sign.
"Well, that cage part is the important conversation." I leaned forward a bit to put our eyes at the same level. To make her feel like it was a talk between equals, as much as it could be while she was in a cage, anyway. "I wanted to discuss when you'd get to leave."
I didn’t miss the way her eyes lit up for a moment. She decided to answer my question after all. "I'm a white wolf, I like the cold and the snow. I don't really have a plan, just wherever my feet take me." She set the plate from her lap onto the ground, looking at me directly.
"So you just wander wherever you want without a plan? Surely you can spare some time to just stay here for a while before returning to wandering."
Tori wasn’t amused by my suggestion. I hadn’t really expected her to take it, but I really was hoping that when the time came, she’d choose to stay.
Flatly, she asked, "When am I getting out?"
I wasn’t sure whether she thought she'd actually be allowed to leave or not. "There are two options. When River’s pack comes back, you can join them, learn from your own people. Otherwise, you stay with me until either River or I think you’re safe to roam. But if you end up liking it here, you're free to stay - without the cage."
She looked skeptical. Of course she wouldn’t consider the possibility of staying at this point. “When was this River coming back again?”
“When the flowers bud and bees greet them,” I recited. “They come back in the spring.”
"The spring!?" She was angry again, I was hoping it would be short-lived this time. I never expected to remove anger from her completely, but if we had been making progress the way I thought, it shouldn’t last as long as before. "Are you fucking kidding me!? I just said I like the winter and you want to keep me in a cage until spring!?"
She crossed her arms, turning away, looking away from me - submitting, not challenging, not threatening, not demanding. The way she huffed, the way her cheeks puffed up ever so slightly in her frustration… it was adorable.
I kept the smile from my lips, it would only anger her further.
“Hopefully, we won’t need the cage anymore by spring. Hopefully we’ll be getting along, that you’ll be a good girl.” I probably shouldn’t have prodded her, but I was curious how she’d respond to the phrase after our… activities.
The perfume didn’t seem to be having much of an effect so far, but I had also been closer to her with the full strength version. Maybe if I got closer…
"Fuck you."
"Again so soon? You have a lot of stamina." I couldn’t help myself. She was so cute when her eyes were twinkling with anger. Also, it was a good joke, dammit. "The way I see it, you don't have a lot of choice. Unless you can do magic and teleport out of here, I've told you how long we'll be working together."
"Raaaggh!" She roared suddenly, smashing the plate against the bars and rushing me, swinging a shard of plate like a knife. I sat up, scooting the chair back, pulling my legs back as she screamed.
“How cute.” I was slipping back into the previous method of handling, but she was forcing my hand. I had taken her, she had begged me for it, it was a matter of time before she submitted - but I had to hold the top position until then. "You made a weapon out of the things available to you instead of using your claws and teeth. How human of you. Unfortunately for you I have real weapons while you're working with a broken plate."
I walked over to the cabinet and pulled out a tiny box. I opened it and held it out so she could see it. My whistle. I couldn’t just threaten, I had to prove that she was at my mercy. I held eye contact with her as I took a deep breath and blew into it.
The effect was immediate, she dropped to the floor, the plate piece clattering to the ground as she covered her ears with her hands and screamed.
Once her makeshift weapon was out of her hand, I returned to my seat.
It was so hard not to comfort her. I wanted to pull her into my lap, to pet her and tell her everything was going to be okay. She was forcing my hand, she was making me use force against her.
"I'm sorry I had to do that. Taking swipes at me with sharp objects isn't okay. There was more I wanted to talk about tonight, but I'm not sure you're in the right state of mind to discuss it," I sighed. "This was what I was talking about when I said you were a slave to your instincts. You either don't understand or don't care that I'm outfitted to protect myself from your kind. You've seen just a few of the many ways I have to protect myself. What you've seen so far are the least painful options I have available."
Her eyes went immediately to the cabinet that held my spear, but only for a moment.
“I’m not a slave to my instincts!” She shouted, her fists balled and her face red, proving yet again that she was a slave to her instincts. “I don’t want to be here! I want to be outside, I want to run through the snow, you rotten bitch.”
“You will. Eventually.” She wasn’t attacking, but I was still holding the whistle. She glanced at it more than once. "Like I said, I have a lot of ways to protect myself. We'll head outside at some point. When you've calmed down for a while we might be able to move onto that step. I know you want to kill me. I know you think you can. But I want you to remember this." I leaned forward again to show I wasn't afraid of her. "Even before you were in that cage, I could have killed you at any time if I wanted. You underestimate humans and that's why you're here."
Tori narrowed her eyes at me, but she dropped her gaze to the floor in submission quickly.
“Good girl.” I gave the praise genuinely, without condescension. I didn’t want her to see those words as mocking, I wanted her to crave them. "Now, how about you push those plate shards and the gutted teddy bear out of the cage so I clean then up? Apparently I need to bring you a tougher toy."
"I don't want toys." She complained, but obeyed, pushing the shards and what was left of my bear through the hole in the cage. "Leave me alone."
I picked up the bear, setting him gently on the workbench sadly. I wanted to tell her the truth, that the bear meant something to me, that he had brought me comfort and that I had truthfully wanted her to get comfort from him as well. I wanted to tell her how sad it made me that she had hurt him, but that would only give her something to use against me, a foothold. So I had to deny myself an avenue of connection, of compassion, to prevent losing progress. Someday she’d understand. I hoped, anyway.
“Who doesn’t want toys?” I grabbed a broom and swept up the plate shards. I wasn’t going to give her anything breakable for a while. A plastic bowl was smarter, but she’d no doubt throw a tantrum about it. “Or are you just trying to cut yourself off from any human comforts?”
"I am not a child or a puppy. I don't want toys." She sounded tired, flagging and uncertain.
I sighed again. "Rejecting toys doesn't make you an adult. Plenty of adults have toys. Many have comfort items.” The truth dawned on me and I sat down after dumping the dustpan. “You didn't have things like that growing up, did you? Or you did and they were taken away from you."
When she looked up, there was a fury in her eyes, but not at me. For the first time, her anger was directed elsewhere. But much more than anger, there was hurt in her eyes.
“Humans can sense us, remember? What do you think?” I had apparently pushed on a very sore spot, and I wanted nothing more than to find out what childhood toy had been denied to her and find it. To give it to her, to show her that she deserved that kind of love. “I don’t want your toys, or your pity. I want my freedom.”
She spoke without fire. There was that weariness again.
I wanted to hold her so very badly. I wanted to protect her from the humans who had hurt her, to keep her safe and close, to pet her hair, to pet her fur, and to love her.
There was that word again.
But this was progress. I didn’t have time to analyze my own feelings. I had to help Tori with hers. I had to help her see what I saw. A stunningly beautiful girl with so much heart who deserved kindness and good things.
"I don't believe you.” I spoke softly, still longing to take her hand and give a squeeze of reassurance at the very least. “I think there's a lot of things you want that you've spent your life convincing yourself that you don't because others have said you can't have them. I think it hurts less to pretend you never wanted them."
She looked away, her posture changing, her body language crying in pain even if she wasn’t showing her tears.
My heart broke for her.
“Tori, do you want the TV tonight?”
She didn’t look up. I could hear the lump in her throat, the struggle in her voice. "No. I don't want your human propaganda. I'm done with your world. And one thing you've taught me is that buying jerky isn't worth the risk. I'll keep to the wild."
I shook my head, walking to the storage room, talking to her as I went. Not that I was sure anything was going to get through to her tonight. She was shutting down. But we had made some progress all the same. She had told me the name she preferred, she had shared some bits of her childhood, and she had shown the sadness that lurked underneath all of that anger.
"It’s kind of hard for something to be human propaganda when the people making it don't know that the supernatural exists." I grabbed a movie from the shelf, holding up the case for her to see, making sure I was out of her reach if she decided to rush the bars again. “I have some wolf 'propaganda'. Ever seen Balto? Story of a wolf that shows he’s just as good as everyone else and saves a little girl in the process. The moral of the story is basically 'look how great wolves are'."
She laid down, turning her back to me.
But she didn’t say no, and that was good enough for me. She’d had enough time to ponder her situation, she could use a distraction. I wished I could give her more, but I couldn’t trust her with anything.
So I started the movie.
"I'm going to go get a bit of work done. I'll check on you one more time before I head to bed." I had been hoping for an easier conversation this time, but I was going to take what I could get. "You don't have to watch if you don't want to, but it's there. See you later."