Ivar Hjalmarsson adjusted his quiver on his back, checked his belt for the third time, and then stepped out his door. At once, he turned his head to look at his destination – the deep, tangled wood where he could bring down a deer to take to market.

In many ways, the place was still strangely intimidating. Ivar had been born and raised in the north, and while the tall, black pines near his childhood home might have held no insignificant terror, they were still nothing like the vast, primeval tangle that swallowed most of the area of the Heartland, threaded by few roads and cleared only for fields and townships surrounded on all sides by the darkness of the trees.

But Ivar was a hunter. While the wooded hills and glens had never known fire or axe to tame their tangle of twisted, broad-leafed trees, they had known his tread, their creatures his bow. As much as some part of his soul, bred beneath the Aurora, could dread the darkness, he walked it freely

Still, he didn’t have to go out of town right away. He thought of an errand or two he could do, then turned away from the black forest and walked into town.

In his youth, Ivar would not have imagined living in such a place as this. There were, perhaps, a hundred souls in the whole town. For some, the buildings were close against each other and the town center, but most of the farmers had their separate houses and fields along winding paths, perhaps so far that the smoke of their chimneys would not be rightly seen from the town center.

As Ivar approached the market, admiring the slopes and angles of the southern buildings that had not yet become familiar, he reflected on how much of his life he would never have imagined as a child. His father, though a woodsman, had told Ivar to shun the forest. His mother, when she was in a warmer mood, told him about him about how he ought to choose a wife – let her be tall, with a strong sword arm for troubling times but a firm and steady manner for good, and snow-white skin and golden hair for beautiful grandchildren. In short she was to be nothing like Vivianne Thatcher.

When Ivar entered the bakery, Vivianne was already there. She was small and wispy-thin of frame, with rusty brown hair, peach skin marked with countless freckles, and her demeanor was no more solid nor imposing, at least on the surface, than her looks – Vivianne bent but never broke, though her nimbleness of mind was accompanied at times by a cutting wit. In short, she was everything wrong in a woman as Ivar’s mother would have had it, and Ivar loved her.

“Fancy seeing you here, stranger.” She said with a wry smile.

“Ah, Vivianne, is it really that strange?”

“I thought you were out hunting today.”

“I will be,” Ivar replied, “But I needed to buy some bread for the trail first.”

“Really, Ivar?” she asked, “You’ve got some appetite if you’ve finished what you bought yesterday already.”

Ivar laughed and shook his head. “Excuses aren’t doing me any good, are they?”

“Hardly.” Vivianne said, leaning forward across the counter and resting her head in her hands, “Now maybe you’ll tell me why you really came? Surely not to see this shining face.”

Ivar laughed, “You’ve figured me out, Vivianne. You’re like the sun to me. Couldn’t live without you.”

“Well, then, how will you bring home a good kill?”

“As fast as I can.” Ivar replied. He took a deep breath and sighed. “I doubt it will be enough for your father, though. It never is.”

Vivianne rolled her eyes. “Father is taking things with a surprising amount of grace lately. I think he’s finally come to terms with me being a woman grown, and now he’s working on the idea of me being married come winter.”

“Ha!” Ivar barked, “Perhaps he’ll deem fit to speak with me when I’m his son-in-law.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.” Vivianne replied with a weary sigh. “So, do you need the bread anyway?”

Ivar nodded. “A hard biscuit or two. Something that will keep if I have to stay out overnight, and it rains.”

“I think I have some.” Vivianne replied, and quickly recovered a few of the biscuits. Ivar reached for his coin, but Vivianne laid a hand on his shoulder.

“You coming by is pay enough.”

“Ah!” Ivar sighed, “If you think like that, I’ll eat you out of house and home.”

“Well then,” Vivianne replied, “Return with some venison, and we’ll call it even.”

“Whatever I catch,” Ivar said, “You’ll be the first to know.”

“How could I not?” Vivianne asked, “You already caught me. Now go on!”

And with that, Ivar departed for the depths of the woodlands.

Ivar knelt over his kill. It was a small deer, but it was more than good enough, and a large one would be hard to bring back to town along the route he had taken into the woods. As he worked at letting out the blood and dressing the carcass for travel, a voice caught his ears.

“Exhilarating, isn’t it?

Ivar turned swiftly, and saw a young woman perched on some rocks above. Her long skirt covered her feet, flaxen hair loose about her shoulders, flowing from under her hood.

“Who are you?” Ivar demanded. He had never seen the woman before, but liked not her manner.

“It’s the thrill of the hunt.” She said, as though she hadn’t heard him, “But what a slow and taxing end. I bet you’d like to just tear into that and have your dinner now, the way it’s supposed to be.”

“I asked you a question.” Ivar said firmly. There was something strange in the woman’s intonation that made the hair on the back of Ivar’s neck bristle.

The woman sighed wearily. “You can call me Kaja.” She replied. “I don’t mean you any harm, so there’s no need to be so rude.”

Ivar sheathed his knife hefted the deer onto his shoulders.

“Perhaps I’m just a rude man.” Ivar growled, unable to shake his perturbation at Kaja.

“I doubt it.” Kaja replied. “I know a good trail for you, if you’d care to follow it.”

Ivar shook his head. “I know my own way back home.”

At that, Kaja frowned deeply.

“You’re not ready.” She said, sorrow in her voice. “I need you to be ready.”

“What in Light’s name are you talking about?” Ivar demanded.

“You’ll understand some day. Some day soon. Forgive me, we’ll meet again”

And with that she stood, and bounded off into the shadows, leaving Ivar to haul his kill back home.

All the while, he couldn’t quite shake the strange feeling the encounter had left him with.

A week later, Ivar was in the forest again. He told no one of his encounter with the strange woman, and had indeed done his best to forget it ever happened. Likely, she was mad, and had strayed from some other township to find her death among the trees sooner or later. It had been strange, but it was over.

Or so he thought.

Ivar was stalking, from the tracks, a wild goat. He had followed it for miles in the dark, but had not seen it, nor tell of any easier prey. The tracks were intermittent, but they were very fresh, leading him through a strange trail, until at last his ears caught it, rustling just to his left. Bow in hand, he whirled, only to come face to face with the curiously smiling Kaja.

“What are you doing here?” Ivar shouted, not yet losing the tension on the string. Kaja reached up and placed two fingers on the arrowhead, pushing it slightly aside.

“You’re on the path.” She said.

“What path?” Ivar demanded, “Are you just a madwoman, or do you have something of value to say.

“Put that away so I know you won’t shoot me,” she said, “and I’ll explain.”

Ivar let the bow slack and quivered the arrow.

“Alright,” he said, “Explain.”

“Have you ever felt you were special, Ivar Hjalmarsson?”

“How do you know my name?”

“I asked my question first.”

Ivar shook his head. “I’m a man, like any other.”

“You’re not. And that’s how I know you. You’re a very important man, and I and others have been looking for you for a long time. I need you to follow me, Ivar. I need you.”

Ivar stepped back a bit. Again, he felt very strange in Kaja’s presence, but this time it was not entirely fearful or unpleasant. Unnatural, certainly, and no human feeling he could place, but not unpleasant. His eyes focused beyond her, on the goatpath through the woods, and there was a deep longing, then, to see what was at its end. Not curiosity – the same part that wanted to go already knew what was there though his conscious mind did not, but longing.

“There we go.” Kaja said, “You’re beginning to understand, deep down. Come, we’ll talk as we walk.”

Ivar took a couple steps forward, and Kaja smiled, cruel and triumphant. She reached up, and unclasped her cloak.

“No need for any more disguises.” She said, and laid it aside.

And at what was revealed there, Ivar was shocked back to his senses, and leapt away, for upon her head were the small horns of a nanny goat.

At this, distress crossed Kaja’s face, and Ivar took up his woodsman’s axe, dropping his bow and hefting the better weapon in both hands.

“Monster!” he bellowed, “You’ll not have me!”

Ivar stepped forward and swung, but Kaja leapt out of the way with inhuman nimbleness. Her cloven hooves alighting on a nearby rock before the folds of her skirt concealed them again.

“This is for your own good!” she called, “As well as ours, Ivar! You are chosen! You have a destiny!”

Seeing the satyr out of reach, Ivar took up his bow again.

“I have a life.” He replied, “And I’ll not sell my soul for promises of another.”

At that, Kaja’s face contorted with rage.

“You think you’re alive, cowering behind walls when the sky grows dark?” She hissed. Ivar loosed an arrow at her, but his aim was far off. Still, she bounded away, through the brush.

“You think your destiny is to be owned and collared by some miserable human wench? To lie at her feet like a tame hound?”

Ivar took aim and fired again. To this arrow, Kaja responded with a grunt of pain, hand clasping her thigh where blood was slowly beginning to stain her skirt.

“Stop this madness, Ivar!” she shrieked, “Stop trying to deny what you are!”

Seeing his foe crippled, Ivar prepared his axe again. It would be a cleaner kill, and more sure, though this one he would leave to rot in the forest. He raised the rune-carved blade, but as he was about to bring it down upon Kaja, there was an emerald flash, and the axe bit deep into a wall of woody roots and vines that had exploded from the earth. Swiftly, Ivar ran around the barrier, but when he saw behind it, Kaja the satyr was gone. Ivar picked up his bow and his axe, and swiftly began to retrace his steps home. It didn’t matter that his hunt was empty handed; he would stay in those woods not a moment longer than he needed.

When Ivar arrived in town, he did not stop at his own home, but went straight to Vivianne, and told her of what had happened, the story of his first, unwitting meeting with the satyr, and the second that had sent him fleeing from the darkness without so much as a rabbit for the pot.

And to this all, Vivianne listened very solemnly, for she was not so impish as to fail to notice the dire nature of the tale. And when it was ended, she nodded somberly.

“We’ll move.” She said, “Go right away, and charter a boat to the north. Even if we’ve nothing but the clothes on our backs when we arrive, under the Aurora we won’t have to be afraid.”

Ivar nodded solemnly.

“I… I thought about it myself, if I could ask you to follow me. It won’t be easy, you know. I’ve done the crossing the other way, and that was probably simpler.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Vivianne replied, “And I don’t see the reason to wait. Look on the bright side – we could have a big, traditional wedding in Rettrborg. Start a new life the right way.”

“You’re sure?” Ivar asked, “After… after all I’ve said?”

Vivianne nodded. “After all you said happened to you, you came back. You didn’t leave me, so I won’t leave you.”

Ivar smiled slightly. “It will be good to see the north again. How soon can we go?"

At that, Vivianne thought. “I’ll… If we’re going to make it, we’ll need a week, at least, to sell everything we aren’t taking with us. Longer and we could have more to start out with, but,” she sighed, “I don’t want to wait any more than we have to, you understand.”

“I’d leave tonight if we could.”

Vivianne opened her mouth, then stopped, and finally spoke.

“Well,” she said, “You could.”

“Viv…”

“You could go ahead to the coast, and find us a ship. I’d be a week behind with the money.”

“I don’t want to leave you.” Ivar pleaded.

“And I don’t want to lose you. Here-“

She began digging through one of her jewelry boxes, and pulled out a necklace, a thin ribbon with a glowing pendant.

“This is Aurastone.” She said, “It’s supposed to ward off evil. And when you get to the city, safe and fine, you could trade it for room and board.”

Ivar took the necklace, and looked at it carefully. The prismatic glow was comforting as the Aurora he remembered dancing in the skies when he was young. But even feeling that comfort, he remembered some of what Kaja had said, how the satyr had known not only of Ivar, but of Vivianne as well. He leaned forward, kissed Vivianne softly on the lips, but rather than cupping her slender face in his hands, clasped the necklace around her neck. When he pulled away, he whispered to her.

“If one of us is going to be safe,” he said, “It had better be you. You’re my sun, if anything happened…”

“You think I don’t feel the same?”

“I know you do, but I’ll have cold steel at my side.”

“My northern lord, through and through,” Vivianne sighed, “All right. You’d look ludicrous wearing it anyway.”

They spent an hour or two into the night making plans for their future, determining what little they could bring and what would be sold or left to gather dust and be forgotten, and under the gibbous moon, Ivar rode out upon a swift horse, along the road to the coast.

It was in the second hour, riding the winding, dirt road through the overhanging trees, when Ivar’s horse stopped cold. The creature could not be induced to go farther, no matter how Ivar cajoled, cursed, or kicked it. Whatever fearfulness was ahead, the rider knew speed was the best for getting through, but before he could do anything else for the matter, the panicked animal bucked and threw him into the roadside ditch before bolting blindly any direction but forward.

Ivar went to rise, but then he caught sight of her – Kaja, the satyr, stepping out from the shadows. This time, she wore no disguise, nor indeed a stitch of clothing save dark strings of beads about her neck that hung over her cream-skinned torso like a wide-mesh net and a crude leather belt at her waist from which strange tokens dangled.

“Ivar,” she said, “I’m giving you another chance.”

Ivar hefted his axe, for it was more at the ready.

“I thought you’d take an arrow to the leg for my answer.”

“I forgive you, Ivar.” She said, “You hurt me, but faithful service to our master has its advantages. The hurt is gone, and thus I’ll make amends. Come with me, walk the path that is meant for you, and you’ll finally understand.”

“I’ll take your head this time.” The hunter growled, but remembering her nimbleness and her magic, waited for the opportunity to strike.

“I’m flattered.” The satyr replied, half mocking, “But I’m afraid you’re a bit late for my maidenhead. Don’t worry, though, I’m still all yours, all you lust for and more.”

Ivar’s arms quivered. He knew what this was, had heard stories since coming south of beastmen, and indeed beastwomen that damned souls with debauchery in the dark, but a part of him couldn’t help but drop his gaze for a moment to a level somewhat lower than the satyr’s eyes.

“You must understand, Ivar, because you’re important to use I’m being very generous, but your stubbornness is making it very hard. Lay the axe aside, and finish this foolish game the right way.”

And at that, Ivar sprang to action. The faun’s words were poison – cut out her tongue and be done with it.

Kaja leapt aside.

“Damn you!” she spat, “Why are you making this harder than it has to be?”

Ivar didn’t answer, but pressed the attack. Each time, Kaja dodged, nimble as a dancer, goat legs affording her great leaps and bounds.

“Enough of this!” she called between narrow escapes. “Soldiers, arise!”

And at that, the sides of the road exploded. Ivar could count four Ulfr, and gods knew how many others there were waiting for the first ranks to give them room to advance. He held his axe defensively, trying to ward them off, but they lunged with unholy rapidity, and Ivar could not even swing once against them.

And yet, the worse than being overwhelmed was what followed – The ulfr did not bite, did not savage. Instead they tore away his weapon and held him down, one massive beast pinning each of his limbs as Kaja approached. She knelt by his head, over him, and shouted upside-down at the helpless man.

“Why do you have to make this difficult!” she spat, “Your first transformation, your ascension to holy being!”

Tears filled the Satyr’s eyes. “It should be a moment of utter joy! Liberation from the bonds laid upon mankind! And now look at you! Look what you’re making me do for you!”

Kaja took a knife from her belt, and leaned farther forward. As Ivar watched the best he could, the satyr worked some vile incantation. The bone blade cut the air, and empty space bled hideous ichor down upon Ivar’s form. She cut open his shirt, and he could feel the strange, dense mist of magic, cold and burning, weightless yet heavy as lead. As soon as it touched his skin, Ivar felt its malevolence, knew its hunger. Even the Ulfr, the one at his left foot that he could see, appeared frightened by whatever was manifesting above Kaja’s horns, just out of view.

“Now,” she said, “This is going to hurt. But only because you just had to fight it like a child…”

Kaja plunged the dagger into Ivar’s chest.

The wolf knew hunger – hunger that had never been felt by a mortal soul. Hunger beyond the pains of starvation, beyond the excess of gluttony. Impossible, all-consuming hunger. And the wolf scented where to began sating it.

The wolf ran through the forests, and knew of every root and branch. Every obstacle vaulted over, every flower trampled underfoot. It was the wolf. This was its domain, and it knew of everything there. But the wolf did not know those things the way it knew hunger, and so it did not care.

All around there were howls, but they were mere echoes of the wolf, no matter from where they came, the baying of the wolf sounding off the distant mountains or the wolf’s little echoes baying beside it as it ran, as they failed to keep pace with its ravenous pursuit. The wolf did not care. The wolf knew hunger – it was all the wolf truly knew.

And then the wolf found its prey, red and hard against the sky, tall angles. It smelled but a little prey, knew fewer. One scent it knew. One scent drew it. The scent of the sun, that was what the wolf hungered for. What could possibly match the wolf’s hunger, unless it was the limitless fire of the sun.

And thus the wolf knew by scent which wall to smash to splinters, what to dig at with its black claws, what to close its jaws of yellow teeth around. The wolf felt the stings of arrows as it worked, but this was not pain, not when the sun was so near.

And then the Wolf’s relentless hunt brought it the sight of the sun. She stood there, but the wolf did not see the thin-framed human girl, more bone than meat. The wolf did not hunger for meat. The wolf saw the sun, knew the sun, and knew its hunger had to be appeased.

But the sun raised another light, dim next to the sun’s own radiance, but it hurt. Yes, the light hurt as no mortal weapon hurt, and the wolf snapped its jaws, large enough to swallow the sun in a single bite, furious and wild, for the light’s presence battered the wolf.

And the wolf knew rage, rage at the denial of its hunger, that bottomless hunger, rage at the tiny light that would prevent it. And the wolf had but one answer to rage, and when the rage overwhelmed the sting, the wolf lunged forward, and in a moment of blood and fury, its jaws closed around the sun, and the wolf swallowed the sun, tiny offensive light and all.

Then the wolf truly knew pain.

Pain! The sun’s fire, the light’s fire, they burned inside the wolf, and all the wolf’s hunger was sated with pain, and the wolf’s rage quenched with pain. Madly the wolf turned on the little things of flesh and bone that struck its hide. And snapped at them, and devoured what flesh and bone it could catch in its maw, hoping to drown the fire inside in blood.

But the fire burned still. The pain would not be soothed. The wolf ate, and howled, and finally when no other balm for its hurts was in plain sight, the wolf ran. It did not care where it ran, for it ran from the pain that was inside it, blindly, through the night, until dawn, the rise of the bright and pale orb in the sky, at last stilled the wolf’s aimless flight.

But dawn did not ease the pain.

He walked a long time, in pain. His gut burned with the fire of the sun. His soul burned with the hunger of the wolf. His mind burned with the knowledge of his deeds.

On the trail, he found his axe, and dragged it along. In the ruins, he discovered clothing to cover his hide, a crust of bread to sate the mortal part of his hunger. He found splinters, ash, and rubble.

And there, in the ruins, Kaja found him. She walked up to him, smiling with satisfaction.

“Well, Ivar-“

At that, he stopped her with a guttural growl.

“Ivar is dead.” He said.

“In that case,” Kaja replied, “Let us get… properly acquainted. What may I call you?”

And his mind found the answer, carved into his soul.

“I am Skoll.” He said. The wolf that swallows the sun. There could be no truer name for him.

“Now free of your mortal bonds, to enjoy the grace of our lord, and your great purpose. Ah, Skoll, how long we’ve waited.” She paced closer, “And how honored I am to-“

At that, Skoll pounced upon her, and bore the faun to the ground. And if she would have relished that, she saw the fury in his eyes, and knew to fear.

Skoll spat upon her face.

“Purpose?!” he barked, “It’s you who doesn’t understand. You don’t know what you made.”

“Skoll?” she whimpered, “Skoll, my l-“

He grasped the beads around her neck, twisted the strand and pulled, choking off her endearments.

“I am Skoll!” he bellowed, “I have swallowed the sun! And now…”

His mind turned to his pain, the pain that would never leave, even if the aurastone was cut out of him, the pain that seared every fiber of his being. The pain that made him what he was.

“Now I’m a mad dog.” He growled. “I don’t have masters! I don’t have purpose! All I do is what a mad dog does!”

And there were so many choices. In his mind’s eye, the wildness within him saw carnality, and it saw bloodshed. It saw consummation, consumption, and revenge. He twisted the beads again, and stared into Kaja’s eyes as she gasped, open mouthed, up at him. A heartbeat passed, another, and then Skoll loosened his grip. Air flooded into the satyr’s lungs and she coughed, but then Skoll struck her round the temple, and grasped her by the horns, twisting them back to the ground, forcing her to arch her back beneath him lest her neck be snapped.

And let her see his face, see the fury and the pain, and when her whimpering protests were replaced with mute terror and absolute attention, Skoll spoke again.

“The only reason I don’t rip you open to find your withered little heart is because I know there would just be another like you on my heels after. I let you live so you tell your lord and master, your kith and kin, what you have made.”

Skoll let his message sink in, watched the wild terror in her eyes be joined by comprehension.

“And if I see you again,” Skoll declared, “I will eat you.”

And at that, Skoll let Kaja free, to run into the forest, as Skoll turned his hard eyes along the lonely road.

How does a mad dog live? And how much stranger in a man’s body?