We all tend to have our 'walkers already knowledgeable of the general traits of most MtG classic races and creatures, but they must have learned about them at some point... sometimes the hard way.
Warning: my usual degree of graphic violence.
"It's not safe to travel at night," they had said. "The forest is dangerous."
Sharaka scoffed at the villager's worries as she strolled through the healthy forest, smelling the last late-autumn flowers and the life-filled underbrush, frantically hoarding resources for the coming winter. It would have been nostalgic, if Sharaka hadn't been so relieved to step into true wilderness.
"The forest is dangerous," they had said. Well, after what Sharaka had pulled at the ex-Duke's palace - she had arrived at the village before those news, thankfully - named cities and beaten paths weren't that safe either. She'd take her chances with nature, thank you very much.
To be honest, Sharaka was being prudent. The village smith told her of Ruka, a lumberjack living with his family deep in the forest. Her look had been eloquent, even for people who had never seen a viashino before, and the smith had added Ruka was a paranoid loner - except for his family, Sharaka thought - and a complete loon beside, so even the forest "creatures" knew to give him a wide berth.
The lumberjack's wife, however, was a kind soul that would give shelter to any traveler unlucky enough to find themselves in the open during sunset. So Sharaka would stop at their cabin before sundown, get a more accurate take on the forest dangers by people who actually lived there, and then she'd decide whether to ask for shelter or to ravel through the night. The cabin was right under the tallest pine of the valley, they said, so she had found a spot from where she could see the massive tree, memorized its position relative to the sun, and trusted her sense of direction to get her there in a straight line instead of following the half-beaten path.
So again, Sharaka was being prudent. She had even eaten at the village, spending the last of her coins instead of hunting in the supposedly terrifying forest. The hours before sunset had been refreshingly uneventful, and Sharaka had taken in the scenery and the smell of the plantlife, the insects and the prey animals so that she could spot any out-of-place scent.
She knew something was wrong before she came into sight of the lumberjack's cabin, the sky just beginning to turn red.
The smell of day-old blood and... distorted wolf musk made Sharaka frown. She didn't put hand to her dagger yet - anything causing that was long gone - but she slowed her pace, paying more attention to her surroundings.
The small clearing in front of the cabin told Sharaka of a small but extended fight. Two hobnail boots ripped open by fang and claw, laid amid bloody cloth scraps. A wood axe forgotten on the ground - unbloodied, surprisingly, the attacker must have caught the lumberjack by surprise. Although... the axe blade smelled, among all kinds of odd things, of older blood, but a kind Sharaka couldn't identify. The shredded clothes, on the other hand, carried a whole history: middle-aged human man, large and active. The sweat spoke of both hard work outdoors and... the painful end of a fight. The weird-wolf smell was strong, which made sense with the signs of a long struggle.
Sharaka eyed the axe and, after a moment's consideration, picked it up. She gauged its weight by bouncing it in her palm and tried a few slow, deliberate swings as she approached the cabin. Definitely not a battle-axe, so the head was much too heavy for prolonged combat use - but whatever killed the lumberjack, she wouldn't have minded some extra reach against it.
The cabin's thick door dangled from its lower hinge. Why make such a strong door and rely on shoddy framing? She smelled the hinges and frowned. The metal was standard human-fare for the plane, but there was a... silvery undertone to its smell. A faded enchantment, or actual metal? What use could it be, to add silver to cheap steel, of all things? She took a closer sniff on the axe out of a hunch - it did smell like the head was some weird silver alloy too, unlike any steel she had smelled in the village. It couldn't be a coincidence.
The inside of the cabin sported more mildly bloodied cloth - an adult woman and a child, both human and rather healthy - some broken crockery and worn furniture. Some human-scraping on the wooden floor. Dragging live prey to a lair? What fun - but there wasn't sign of dragging outside, so the attacker probably killed the humans before carrying them away somehow, suggesting remarkable strength. Not finding any more clues as to what happened here, Sharaka's eyes wandered to a sizable pane of wood, lovingly etched into a rather precise portrait of a large scowling man of angular features and short coarse hair, a stout woman with shoulder-long curls and a patient smile, and a small child with big curious eyes and short curls.
A nice enough family picture. Kinda rude of them to get killed right when she needed them, though.
...she mentally apologized to the family's spirits for the tasteless joke.
Sharaka stepped outside of the cabin and took everything in with a deep breath. A single attack taking the entire family, but no trace of large numbers or anything significantly bigger than a human. Probably one or two adult attackers, hunting to sustain weaker pack members - supposing wolf instincts, of course, but the smell wasn't that far off. Or maybe preparing for winter - wolverines buried leftovers under the snow to have a sort of winter larder, but... no, it was much too early for that.
She seriously considered 'walking out then and there, of course. But she had promised to check on Mina'val before leaving for good, and if her map was accurate she was less than two days away from her place - who knows where she would wind up if she just 'walked off and on again, could be weeks of travel. The cabin was clearly not a viable shelter, and she'd never get back to the village before dawn: her best option was pushing on. Keeping herself moving through the night - she shouldn't stay so close to the weird-wolves known hunting ground, and while the family had been probably attacked during the day - her money was on dusk - wolves were nocturnal hunters, so keeping awake was the smarter option.
Sharaka rummaged around the cabin until she found some rope - should she be too tired come next dawn, she could sleep secured to a big tall branch to earn herself, if not outright safety, at least some warning against an attack. Rope stashed in her backpack and axe in hand, Sharaka braved the incoming night.
Sharaka had no problem navigating the forest thanks to the bright starry sky - no clouds darkened the night, and the bright full moon bathed the valley in silvery light. She sent quick thanks of the spirits of the night sky - she doubted they were the same, so far from the Burnspine, but hopefully the local spirits would appreciate the gesture anyway - and kept her stride long, hoping to quickly put distance between her and the weird-wolves hunting grounds - she could spot faint traces of their scent all over the place now - to avoid being attacked.
Unfortunately, that wasn't to be.
* * *
It was well past midnight when the weird-wolves came within smelling distance.
They were silent enough, but their bloodlust came off in waves, like they breathed the stuff. At least two, close enough to be hunting together but far enough from each other for Sharaka to expect harrying. Wolf enough to use their tactics, it would seem.
Sharaka didn't try to hide - even if these wolves had a worse snout than hers, which she wasn't eager to bet her life on, her skin and equipment smelled too different from the rest of the forest for it to work. There was no clearing in sight that would allow her to make wide swings with her borrowed axe either - she would be confined to vertical strikes. She found a small flat patch of ground - so that she could blindly dodge back a first lunge without stumbling into roots or whatever - and turned to face her stalkers, axe resting on her shoulder.
The weird-wolves didn't bother to hide either. The two wolf-like humanoids with blood-crazed eyes and drooling mouths - not quite foaming, thankfully - seemed to be barely restraining themselves from rushing Sharaka, but they did do the smart wolf thing and split to surround her. Too bad, although she might be able turn their instincts against them.
Sharaka stood her ground, slowly raising her axe and gathering mana as she paid attention not to turn her back on either creature. Now that they were closer, she could tell the weird-wolves were a pair of mates - a male and a female, both adult and unfortunately healthy. The male was about at large as Sharaka and looked more limber than his size suggested, while the female was robust but significantly smaller. Sharaka had to make her axe strike count.
She turned to strike the male.
He leaned back as the female lunged.
Sharaka whipped around and struck her down, slamming her into the ground with supernatural force. The axe caught in the wolf's neck - Sharaka dove to the side to avoid the male's attack, leaving the weapon behind. She rolled on gnarly roots into a crouch, dagger already in hand, but the male was hovering near the female instead of pursuing Sharaka, eyes darting between the two. He smelled... she smelled all kinds of weird, fresh pollen and burnt fur coming from the axe wound - the metal was sizzling against the creature's flesh, making her squirm. Were they... vulnerable to silver, somehow?
The male cautiously touched the axe's handle, and the female twisted in pain. He winced back as if burned, but the burnt fur smell started to fade, the fresh pollen on growing stronger. What was happening? The axe was now sliding out of the female's wound, which was... closing? Oh hells no-
Sharaka spew a stream of banefire, engulfing the female before she could get back on her paws. The creature tried to crawl out of the cursed fire for a worrying moment, but eventually collapsed motionless on the ground.
The axe was now a misshapen lump of metal and a pile of ashes. The male, who had jumped back at the sudden inferno, now was circling Sharaka with hateful fury in his eyes. She slowly backed away, tail sweeping low behind her, to buy time - she had poured all her mana in the last blast - and the male howled, a chilling sound that was quickly answered by another. Cold gripped Sharaka's stomach - she had to finish this quickly.
The weird-wolf must have had the same idea, because he finally threw caution to the wind and flung himself into Sharaka. She tucked her head behind her arm so her armor could take the brunt of his claws and stepped away from his foul-smelling fangs - poison bite? Curse? - tripping the beast with her tail. He scrambled to his fours and went to bite her lowering hand - **** - and redoubled his assault. Sharaka had to use both dagger and tail to defend herself, stretching her focus to gather mana even more thin. She managed to send him to the ground a second time with a tail slam to his flank, and he tried to bite her tail even as he scrambled to his feet. Huh.
This time Sharaka went on the offensive, using her tail as a counterweight to dart around the creature's claws and jab at his snout. As soon as he leaned back to dodge Sharaka tail-swept the paws from under him and stepped in, dagger leveled at his throat - the wolf predictably snapped at her hand - she flung her arm aside and spat a sharp banefire blast to his head. The beast arched back in pain and Sharaka slammed her dagger's guard into his chest, pouring most of her mana into an explosive surge.
Eyes melted and breastbone shattered, it was relatively easy for Sharaka to pin him down and plunge the blade of her dagger under the creature's jaw, using the little mana she had left to shatter his brain from the inside. Healing or not, he wouldn't be in the condition of harming Sharaka anytime soon. Let the forest claim its own.
Sore all over, Sharaka wanted nothing more than dunk herself in a river then sleep in front of a roaring fire for three days straight, but she wasn't out of danger just yet. She slowly stood to her feet, ears and nostrils open for new threats. When none made themselves obvious, she conceded herself a single deep breath - some might call it a sigh - and returned to her original path.
A long, mournful, shrill howl echoed from behind her a few minutes later. Sharaka thanked the spirits no answering call came this time, but she still shivered as she pressed on through the moonlit forest. She hoped this third weird-wolf understood her gruesome message, but she didn't feel like relying on her luck just yet.
* * *
Unsurprisingly, a hour later Sharaka realized she was still being followed.
The smell was softer and fainter. Younger. It followed at a distance, wary of getting closer, but it was there. Sharaka sighed. She was only getting wearier as she went on, weighed down by the fading rush of battle - she couldn't outlast him like this. She had to either scare, maim or kill it. She stopped dead in her tracks, closing her eyes and broadening her other senses.
The weird-pup had stopped, keeping the distance.
Sharaka tried to hide and circle back, but her stalker backed away from her.
When she returned to her original direction, she soon noticed the smell following her again.
Sharaka mumbled something indistinct but undoubtedly foul under her breath.
She kept going, eyes open for any terrain suited for an ambush. The weird-pup might be looking for some place to corner her, or... for the help of another pack? None had replied its call, though, and the traces of weird-wolf smell were getting fainter and scarcer as she walked on. No other pack nearby, then.
The sky was coloring with the first hints of dawn when the ground grew uneven, a small hill raising on Sharaka's left. It would have been easy to climb on that side, but its other flanks were ragged and steep. She looked at it out of the corner of her eye, and started to walk into a wide circle in the opposite direction.
She waited until she smelled the weird-pup again, and this time turned sharply and strode toward it. The pup panicked, backing straight away from her... and quickly cornering itself up the hill.
The hill was rocky, with no trees, and Sharaka soon had line of sight on the beast. It was indeed smaller than the other two weird-wolves, healthy but increasingly scared as it realized its position - the hill wasn't that big, but still tall enough for a deadly fall. Even a weird-wolf would be taken out for a while, Sharaka suspected - and if it still looked a bit too lively, she could have been the one to give chase at that point.
So Sharaka climbed the hill to her prey, dagger out and filled with mana. She just had to keep it between her and the beast, ready to strike as soon as it either attacked or bolted. She could already taste victory, but forced herself to be cautious, as she was cornering a wild creature - getting overconfident meant getting dead. So she took step after careful step as the weird-pup bunched up on the very top of the hill, terrified eyes locked on hers.
The sun rose from the horizon, flooding the valley with the first rays of true dawn as Sharaka loomed over the creature.
As the sunlight hit the beast, its full body shuddered and deflated, fur retreating into pale unmarred skin and a mop of short black curls. Paws turned into shaking hands and feet, snout flattened into a tear-streaked face.
A naked boy stared with terrified and pleading eyes up to Sharaka.
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acceptance of destiny, though my own is of course much different, and the chastisement line made me laugh. That promise, though...
, with her sense of duty. What I found most interesting about Sir Ruth here is her taking on a mentor role for young Margot. I loved how she was mentally critiquing everything Margot was doing while outwardly having a simple conversation.
Another theme I'm embracing more is Elphimas having more heart that they credit themselves for as long as they earnestly try.
With how close HS Sharaka and HS Daneera are, I would not put it past either you or myself to introduce them at some point in canon, and I could see them "hunting" werewolves themselves, whether because they've become a problem or because they thought they could help them.