if you were truly one of the old ones, i would know your name.

Conall

He does not know, and would never dream, that she began wanting him the night he came to her. He doesn't know when his own attraction began, or if it too was always there, latent, like a glowing ember at the heart of ashes. He doesn't know, either, that what she does now would be considered grounds for damnation by that new, fanatical Church. He doesn't know that humans are beginning to rule on what is natural and what is not, though he would scoff at the thought. He doesn't know -- though he has some inkling -- that what they do together, like this, is as ecstatic for her as it is for him.

He doesn't know her. Not really.

But he is beginning to have some inkling.

--

They sleep again, heavily, fearlessly, like the apex predators of summer they are. They sleep at first with the witch sprawled over the wolf, and later on their sides, half-tangled, warming as the day dawns. Sunlight reaches through the cracks where the mud-mortaring between the stones has chipped away, and through the gaps in the thatched roof. Neither of them wake the light, or the hour.

Hard to say what it is that wakes them. Not a sound, to be sure; not quite, and not yet. But suddenly he is awake, an uneasy for no reason he can say. He wakes her too: shaking her gently by the shoulder if he must. By the time she sits up, he's out of bed, pulling on his trousers, tying the crude rope belt around his waist. There are no windows to her hut -- that would be foolish, would let all the heat out in the winter. There's only a door, which he goes to but does not open. Presses his face to it, peering through the cracks in the wood.

Gradually there is a sound. An odd staggering rhythm; someone struggling unsteadily up the hill. The wolf gives a low growl in his throat. Says for the second time in not so long:

"Someone's coming."

Pause.

"It's the one from before. The angry one."

Órfhlaith

They stink. Of woodsmoke and venison, of berry mead and crushed grasses, of dust, of sex, of each other, of sweat, of her hut.

Well: he stinks. She wears scents in layers but none of them mingle with her own to produce that truly special reek that is inherent to being in a physical body. No wonder she and her mother fled, long ago: their inhumanity has this obvious tell.

He wakes first though, and reaches for clothing, covering, and she is drowsy as though still drunk, drowsy from sleep and sex. Feels him waking and smiles, turning to him, pressing her still-naked body to his, welcoming and searching. Again, the silent laughter of her smile says, and again, her hands on his chest say, though all she does is smirk and touch him and refuse to wake up.

But he is shaking her, something in him unreceptive and tense. She flutters her eyes open, breathing in, looking at him as he rises from her bed. She watches him go across the room, slowly sitting up, picking up on his anxiety without understanding it. Instinct prickles up her spine. She has forgotten Beatrice, and all her spells to try and seek out the thing that was inside of her. She has forgotten the trail, and the white stones around her home and his to protect them from harm. She just wants him to come back, be naked in her bed, hungry the way he is, fucking her.

No wonder

her mother fled

the company of all others.

Someone's coming.

The witch breathes in, and rises. She does not clothe herself immediately, but when she does, it is with one of her dresses, with their wide necks and long sleeves and coverage. It laces at the neckline but she doesn't do those laces up. She has wild hair and wilder eyes, and then she is sweeping past the wolf, pushing through the door. There is something fierce in her that makes the dust rise in swirling dervishes in her wake. Lightning flashes in her eyes.

Conall

He wants to stop her. Wants to pull her back, put her in his shadow. Protect. He recognizes, though, that he has no right. That she has every right: to be angry, to defend her home. To confront the enemy.

She sweeps out. He follows, scowling into the sudden sunlight. Almost automatically he reaches for some sort of weapon -- grabs the stout pole with which they sometimes carry their pails of water. The goat is awake; bleats hungrily at the sight of the witch, unaware or uncaring of the brewing confrontation. It is nearly midday. She's hungry.

They can see the intruder now. He is still far away. He is coming up the hill in bursts and fits, stumbling often, sometimes falling heavily to hands and knees. Sometimes he stays there for some time. Always he lurches up again, charges another few yards or feet. The closer he comes the more apparent it becomes that he is not well; he is not whole and hale.

Soon they can see the blood shining on his brow, half-dried from some gash on his scalp. Soon they can see the waxy pallor of his complexion. The way he weaves as though drunk. Soon he sees them, too. Starts shouting, hoarse-voiced, unintelligible with the distance. Starts running up the hill -- or trying -- skidding and slipping, falling, scrambling up again.

"What possesses him?" mutters the wolf, close by her side.

Órfhlaith

More than hungry -- she needs to be milked. The witch feels a stab of regret and guilt, shame for not caring for her friend. She casts a glance at the wolf, grabbing a pole -- does not blame him, but blames her attraction to him, her fascination, her wild desires. Takes a breath, striding outward, watching the way the man comes up the hillside. He is not well. She feels, as quick as the sharp pain of regret, something like pity for him. Also disgust. Also fear.

"Bring water from the cistern," she says in answer, staring at the man as he comes. She has no answer, so she doesn't try to give one. She thinks: he may be coming to kill her. And he may be desperate for help.

Steps forward, but only once. "Thomas?" she calls out.

Conall

"He means you harm," the wolf grinds out. "Why should we help him?"

And meanwhile: she calls out. The sound of her voice -- his name -- seems to throw the man into a frenzy. His shouting becomes screaming. He thrashes his way up the hill at his closest approximation of a run, and as he closes in she is finally able to make out the words amidst all the noise:

"You did this! You did this! Youdidthisyoudidthisyoudidthis YOU. DID THIS."

Órfhlaith

The man is charging, and she doesn't answer his first question. The man, the creature, comes at her, screaming, and she breathes in so sharply that her nostrils flare. Steps forward, in front of her land, her Con, and sweeps downward, picking up a handful of dust, throwing it towards his face to blind him. It's not magic, but it does something to him that is more than the painful grit of dirt in one's eyeballs: illusion. She tells him a lie. A stalling tactic, as all lies are. The truth inevitably wins. Whether you admit it or not.

What he sees, she can't imagine. Her intent is to distract him, slow him, keep him from attacking her or, worse, attacking Con, who would kill him in an instant. Then she will learn nothing.

She turns toward the wolf who is a man who is a wolf, and her heart almost leaps out of her chest. Awkward, strange, unwelcome thing to feel, this surge of emotion. Stupid body, stupid heart. She speaks urgently, dismissing those thoughts. The feelings. The distractions.

"What lives in him entered through his hatred, but it is still unnatural. I owe what I am to the balance of Nature, and cannot abide such sins against Her. That is why I would help him. Water. From the cistern. Please, and hurry."

Conall

Who knows what the man sees. Some illusion conjured up from his own mind, stained by his own heart. Who knows -- not Órfhlaith. Not the wolf she calls Con, Conall, strong wolf. All they see

is the man screaming as the dirt hits his eyes. Screaming with his hands clapped over his face, falling to his knees; and then -- falling into a stunned sort of whimpering, twitching now and then, groveling in the dirt. He half-sobs something. Names, perhaps. Words.

The wolf is staring at that miserable wreck of a man, teeth bared. There's little pity in him; little room for that in his wild, savage heart. His eyes are glassy with anger when they turn to the witch. He shakes his head once, clearingly, exhales a furious blast of air. Casts another distrustful glance at the man before he puts the pole aside and strides -- runs for the cistern.

The man has gone back to this mantra, muffled where he lies: "You did this. You did this. You did this."

Órfhlaith

Magic surges, blossoms around her. It is in the earth and it will also be in the water. It is in Conall's blood and bones, and she would not see that magic rush and flourish in the only way it can: to destruction.

So he looks at her with eyes gleaming with unspent rage, and she looks back at him with the saering, painful clarity that has been given to her, which curses her to live in isolation because no one can bear the truth of those eyes.

Frees her to live in isolation, away from those who live happily in their own ignorance.

Con goes to get water. And Orla turns from him, looks at Thomas writhing on the ground. Waits a moment, then says clearly, emphasis on her final word: "I did not."

Conall

There is no response. No indication that the witch's words are even heard. The man writhes on the ground, hands over his stinging eyes. Now and then there are words -- that old tiresome refrain, accusatory, hateful. Growing slurred. Growing blurred. Eventually the man is just moaning in the dirt, shuddering, feverish, wracked. It does not take a witching-woman to know he is not well, but she is one, and she knows it better than most.

The wolf returns from the cistern, pail in hand, icy-cold water pulled up from the depths of the earth. He holds the container ready, sloshing, about to pour it over Thomas's head when he shoots the witch a questioning glance: should he?

At that moment, something else from Thomas. Sitting bolt upright suddenly. Eyes wide; unseeing. Howling in a voice hardly human:

"Beatrice! My poor Beatrice. BEA--"

The wolf slams the pail -- sloshing water and all -- into the side of Thomas's head. It is an instinctive, near-instantaneous response.

Órfhlaith

She does not say it again. She steps closer to him, but not within reach, her brow furrowed.

With pity. Waits, and looks to Con when he comes back, carrying that heavy bucket, holding the water. And she is shaking her head no, that is not what the water is for, when Thomas begins howling. Con swings, and the witch shouts: "Con, no!"

but it's already done, and her teeth set on edge in aggravation. Storms forward and yanks the bucket, and whatever water may still be left in it, out of his grasp. "That helps nothing," she snaps. "He mourns! Have you never --" and bites the words off. He may have never. And if he has, she would stick her thumb in the wound. She refrains, and moves to check on Thomas: to see if he is conscious.

Conall

Shouted at, the wolf wheels, bares his teeth. Water from his pail spills again, hits the dirt is dry with summer; raise little puffs of dust. Perhaps the witch falls back at that too-evident threat, or perhaps, fearless, she snatches the pail after all. Either way the wolf does not lunge, and blood does not spill.

Except for Thomas's. There's a thin trickle of it at his temple, where the rough wood of the pail had laid him open. Quite unconscious, he sprawls limbs-akimbo on the ground. His chest rises and falls, so at least she can be assured of his life -- for now, at any rate. The man's skin bears and unpleasant, waxy pallor, and his breath comes too shallow, too fast.

The wolf flexes his heavy hands. Drops to an easy crouch, leaning over the man, sniffing.

"Smells of disease," he growls. "He is not right."

Órfhlaith

Holds her own. Spine-straight, even straightening, as though preparing for a staredown that would no doubt end with her blood on the ground. All the same she does, readying herself for an onslaught because she saw her mother calculate but never quite learned how to retreat without surrender.

Thomas is unconscious, and the witch is beside him, her palm on his chest to feel his heart beating, her hand over his mouth and nose to feel his breathing. She presses one hand to his brow where blood flows, stoppering it with her own palm as thoughtlessly as she checks for proof of life.

Looks over at Conall as he crouches. She's of a mind to send him away, banish him until she has done her work. Perhaps because of the night before, the cliffside, her bed, the way she woke with more on her lips this morning...

no. Definitely due to these things, she does not tell him harshly to begone. He tells her how Thomas smells, and she nods. "Wickedness has found its way into him. It will not be ousted with blows. Or prayers, I should think."

Wordless, then, she takes her hand from his brow, what droplets of blood she gathered from his temple cupped in her palm. Dips her hand into the water bucket set beside her, his blood opening in blossoming coils under the surface, floating upward, staining it all a faint shade of red. Her hand remains over his heart, resting on his chest, and her eyes close. The water slowly consecrates to the man's humours, the balance and imbalance within him. She listens through her fingertips on his chest. She opens her eyes after a time and looks into the bloodied water, slowly lifting her hand from it.

There are no ripples. No droplets fall from her palm. It is not red. It is not even wet. The surface of the water is motionless. She looks into it, waiting to See.

Órfhlaith

[FTR: she is trying to scry using his blood + fresh water to see what is wrong with him, though more hopefully, what happened between the last time she saw him and this. She's staying connected to him via his blood + his heartbeat, so hopefully she can hear as well as see.]

Órfhlaith

[per + occult: witchcraft]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 4, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Conall

"I wish you would not touch him," the wolf grinds out, but it's too late. Witch reaches out with her hands; those agile, nimble tools of her trade that healed as well as they harmed. She touches, she assesses, she gathers the very lifesblood from the man.

When her fingertips break the surface of the water, that blood swirls off her skin. Silently, slowly, and in long, lazy, hazy loops, the red dissolves into the clear. This is a time long before modern medicine, long after Hippocrates. There is absolutely no knowledge of what it is, exactly, that constitutes a man's blood. Still, perhaps the witch has some sense of it; some idea that blood is a liquid more viscous, more solid than water. See how it clings to itself, even as it spins out into nothing. See how it tries to remain whole, hale, alive.

Her hand lifts. It is dry, devoid of water, devoid of blood. Wolf sucks a short breath, and surely a man from the village -- Thomas himself, even -- would have attacked her for it, or at least run praying. Wolf sets a knee to the ground, silent, watchful.

--

The water is as a mirror. A red mirror; more thoroughly stained than one would think possible from a few drops of blood. There is no disturbance at all, as though the wind does not touch it. As though her breath does not touch it.

Then, slowly, an image coalescing in the depths. Shimmering just beneath the surface, blurred, shadowy. She has an impression of huts, hovels. No smoke sifting through the thatch. Nighttime, then. The village silent and asleep.

And then movement. Indistinct and smeared, quick, the impression of unmistakable malevolence. No face, no features. Just darkness, smoky and not-quite-visible, moving through the village, leaving on the ground a broad sweep of disturbed soil. It roves and it hunts. It finds a hut, pauses, thrums at the window. It seeps under the door.

Then it is morning. A door bursts open. A young woman lurches from the hut, wearing only her nightclothes. The witch cannot see her clearly, but there can be little doubt: this is Beatrice, she who the witch herself had saved so recently. She falls to hands and knees in the dirt. She vomits. It is bright red blood. There is Thomas, running out after her, shouting in alarm. He puts his arms around her. She spews blood in his face.

--

The water reflects the sky. Ripples in the wind. There is nothing else to see.

Órfhlaith

Her heart knows that he means only to protect her. To get between her and harm. To keep her safe, and apart, to see her unharmed. Her heart knows, but her heart's voice is the soft whisper of summer breeze over grass-tops, through the petals of dandelions. Her mind's voice is a thunder, roiling and strong and shot through with lightning. It speaks of what must be done, and she heeds its command. So:

Orla, witch, cailleach, ignores him utterly. She watches the water, and the blood in the water, and her vivid eyes become pale, and distant, horizon-lost. She lifts her hand and there is already magic building there, as surely and inexorably as gathering storms, as a woman lifting from the earth in her ecstasy. If there are words to be spoken, she says them only silently.

The water, dim at first, grows more red than a few drops should warrant. Red. Red. Nothing ripples it, though the wind moves her hair in an overly familiar caress. Images, for her, rise to the surface, unseen for the wolf because she does not wish to show him. She feels her mind slip, easily and calmly and drowsily, into the vision, as though into a dream.

In that dream she goes into the village at nighttime. Everything carries the red haze of Thomas's blood, and there is an undercurrent noise beneath coughs, animal chuffing, owls -- of his heartbeat, thudding away beneath her footsteps. She stands and waits, listens. Evil moves past her, sighing hungrily. Searches. And she follows in its wake, step after step, time rewound and slowed for her. She comes to the door, the heartbeat pounding more loudy. Rests her hand on the door, her breath caught, feeling Thomas's life behind it. His very heart.

The door explores outward, throwing her back, disorienting her. Outward, for the first time, Orla's body shakes in reaction to the vision. The surface of the scrying-water shudders in time with her, then -- as she reorients herself in the vision, as she steadies her will again -- it becomes placid once more.

Whispers: "Beatrice," in recognition.

Blood splatters across Thomas's face. There is a rush of transition, of movement, that goes through the witch. She hollows out to sense it, as though all the air in a room were sucked out. So when she blinks and blinks and pulls her mind away from the vision, she sucks in air as though suffocated momentarily. Color returns to her eyes,

and fades from the water.

--

Orla curls in on herself slightly, re-centering herself. Grounding. She will need to eat something, and soon, to return fully to her body. But for now she breathes, and nods at the water. "We need to bury the water," she mutters, hoarsely. "Far from a source. Beneath a tree. The largest hawthorn, down the hill. Not now -- before sunset. Yes."

She gathers twigs there. Branches. Sometimes she burns them. Sometimes she makes talismans. They have been there before, gathering wood. She has never told him what magic the hawthorn trees have, especially the ones in this area where she and her mother have lived. But magic they have: strong, pure magic. Magic of love and forgiveness, of cleansing. Bury Thomas's blood there. Bury her vision there.

She breathes. "What was in his wife was cast out. And entered him, instead, because I could not bind it." The very words fill her with wrath. She is rising to her feet. "It will not escape me again. Not this time." And gathering herself, she goes to her home, and begins to pluck white stones from the base of her walls, carrying them in piles to begin a circle around Thomas.

A very, very large circle. Thirteen steps across.

Órfhlaith

[stamina: resilient]

Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 1 )

Conall

Has she done that before? Perhaps; she did it so naturally, so easily. Or perhaps not. Perhaps magic is simply in her blood, as instinctive to her as the act of mating was to the wolf last night. Nonetheless, it is a disorienting thing, to leave one's body. To traverse time and space. To go to another place entirely, drawn and grounded by another's heartbeat, lifesblood. She does not see through his eyes, but still: for a moment, and incompletely, she shares his life.

Shares his terror, and alarm. Shares -- god help him, Jesus forgive him -- his revulsion, when that hot blood hits his face.

--

Her stomach turns uneasily.

Then it quells.

--

The vision dissipates. The wolf is at her side still, staring intent at her face, uneasy and silent. Even when she begins to speak, he stares still. Is reluctant to move. Doesn't until she does.

Then he rises. There's a soundless, savage sort of grace to him. Everything so finely balanced, so strong and true -- even if he is a wild beast, even if he hardly ever bathes, even if he is unkempt and barbaric and feral.

"For a moment," he says, "you smelled of something. Him. And foulness." He sniffs as she moves away. "It is gone now."

She starts to make a stone circle. He stands where he was, staring down at the unconscious, befouled Thomas. He is uneasy still.

"It would be easier to tear his throat out. You needn't watch. I can take him away from here, somewhere no one will find, and end him."

Órfhlaith

Con speaks as he does, and Orla holds his eyes. She does not try to explain. She places stone after stone, aware of Con, aware of herself, aware of Thomas's still-inert body. But what could she say to make sense of it for him? She goes on working, making sure each stone touches both of its neighbors.

"I told you," she says testily, "this will not be solved with blows. What leaves him will enter another -- you, perhaps, if you shed his blood and none other stands near. Or me, if it finds its way back here. Perhaps it could let you carry it back to me, back to my power, and enter me as your seed does. Then who knows what it would do?"

The witch glances over at him, her eyes darkened with knowledge of things that most god-fearing creatures would never say aloud without crossing themselves against the evil eye. The things she says are frightening, revolting, terrible things.

"Help me with the circle. You are as I am, and we are not fully mortal. If you want to lend your strength, send it into your hands, and will that your strength and mine combined will hold this wicked thing."

Conall

There is something hidden in her words -- a thoughtless assumption -- that arrests him for a moment. Makes him look at her again with those animal eyes. He seems pleased, heaven knows why. At any rate, he does not argue again.

Turns away instead. Goes to move stones. On the ground, Thomas stirs a little, groaning.

--

It takes them but a little while to complete the circle. A ring of white stones, removed from the foot of her walls, rearranged around this tormented, infected man. When it is done, the wolf stands back. The witch feels him shift before she hears or sees it; a sudden heat in the wind, a prickling at the back of the neck.

A moment later he is not man, not wolf, but something terrible and in-between. His fur is quite thoroughly white, but his nose is black, and so are his claws. His eyes are yellow. He sinks to a crouch, three paws to the earth, and waits.

Órfhlaith

She says terrible, freakish things.

He looks pleased.

The witch looks concerned. Pauses, then shakes her head and goes back to work. Which he joins her at, bringing stones from around her hut, his lean-to. Protective stones, white, gathered over a very long time. Creates a circle, large enough by her measure, and as she steps back, sweating in the morning sun and feeling even more light-headed than before, and then

he shifts, and she jerks away, stumbling back slightly from startlement. Stares at him, not even quite eye-to-eye when he's crouching. Her breath, momentarily halted, returns to her. She almost walks to him, almost touches him, but instead turns to go inside.

Comes out with two pouches: one of precious salt, evaporated slowly and painstakingly from sea-water by her mother and her mother's mother. She has only small handfuls of the stuff. Another is a mixture of herbs, smelling richly, almost astringent. First with the salt, she begins sprinkling it, not even sparingly, along the white stones. Walks clockwise, sealing and re-sealing the work of the boundary. When she has done, she walks over to Con again. She spits onto her fingers and rubs the saliva onto her brow. Daubs the salt there. Spits onto her fingers again and holds them, carefully, as though to anoint him similarly, if he will let her.

She is wary of him, in this form. "In case you follow me inside," she murmurs, if he needs her to.

Perhaps he lets her touch his brow with salt, leaving it in his fur to purify and protect him, to carry the boundary of the white stones with him in case he should enter impulsively, as she half expects him to do if she is in danger. Perhaps he doesn't. But anointed, she carries the herbs with her, stepping over the white stones and into the circle she has cast. Over to Thomas. If she can, she will force the herbs into his mouth, burn the spirit out of him, and escape outside the boundary again. She would rather be on the other side of it when the spirit leaves the villager's body.

Conall

Her startlement is noted, and answered: the great beast he has become lowers his head, softens the angle of his ears. Whuffs. His head turns to follow her into the hut. When she reemerges, he is staring at Thomas again.

She sprinkles salt. It is a precious, precious thing. Even the wolf knows this. He is a little aghast to see how she wastes it: sifts it between the stones, sprinkles it everywhere. Anoints herself with it. Approaches him, clearly wishing to do the same.

He crouches down lower. Bows his head. His fur, which looks soft, is in fact coarse and thick; weatherproof. When she is finished he pushes his cold, wet nose against her palm. It is enormous, much larger than a hound's; about the same size as the palm he nuzzles. Then licks: huge, warm, roughish tongue.

There isn't a lot of room in that circle. Still, he follows her in, sitting on his haunches, head as high as a grown man. There is little enough resistance when she opens Thomas's mouth. The man is slack, numb, limp, unconscious. She stuffs herbs in there. He retches a little, reflexive.

She darts over the boundary. The wolf follows her, pacing on all fours, more beast than man. Remains by her, tail moving low and wary, as they watch.

--

There is nothing at first. It takes so long that perhaps she begins to wonder. Begins to doubt. Were the herbs too old? Has her power waned? Was the mixture wrong? -- but no.

There is a reaction. It is slow. A trickle of saliva first, running from the corner of Thomas's mouth. It grows pink. It grows red. The man convulses, retches again, turns spasmodically onto his side. Unconscious still, he begins to shudder and quake, muscles pulling horridly taut, contorting his body. He vomits: it is blood. Then clots, great dark gelatinous clots, spewing out of his body, splashing across the dirt, flecking the white stones, staining the salt.

Never quite crossing the boundary.

Even across that border they can smell it, though: a wet, fetid stench, rotten and foul. The wolf snorts, shakes his head, snorts again, his sensitive nose assaulted by the scent. Just as the smell grows unbearable, a sheet of hot white flame suddenly erupts upward from that line of warding salt: instantaneous, blinding, roaring, ten feet high.

Through that chaotic wall, the witch can just barely make out the shape of -- something shapeless, really. Amorphous darkness, greedy and malicious. It has a voice, shrieking like steel on steel: mocking, howling, laughing.

DO YOU THINK TO HOLD ME?

Órfhlaith

He is so massive. Even in her wariness, she begins to see the way he follows her with his eyes, his muzzle, does not want to harm. It touches her, but she does not want to show it.

The salt smells of the sea. Miles and miles away, a long trek. She smiles a little, achingly, as he lets her anoint him. He comes away from her hand with salt stuck to his nose, left there from her palm. The witch, strangely enough in the midst of all this, laughs a little. He licks it clean, tastes the ocean. Does not know that this is magic, too: the way he absorbs it, the work it does within him, protective.

Follows her in. And out again, quickly. Back and forth. The witch takes a breath as soon as they're out of the boundary, which clings to her, as though the air around the circle -- the dome, as she sees it in her mind's eye -- has become viscous.

Outside the circle, Orla is settling in for a wait. She leaves, and goes into her hut, bringing out a small bowl of water, a hunk of dry and tough bread, a gnarled little apple. Sits with all these things in her lap, eating and drinking slowly, grounding herself again after the expenditure of her will. So much magic. So much working. She waits.

Watches.

She never doubts.

--

When Thomas begins to retch, she puts the bowl and apple core away. That is all that is left; her gut gnawed for more food. But there is still work to be done. So she rises again, watching Thomas as he vomits. Flinches in disgust, but watches. It splashes against the stones, but not over them: there are steady lines across the stones, one after the other, a marker of the pure air resting in a dome over him, a dome beneath him, a sphere of purification and control.

She was not expecting the fire, though. Flinches back, her hand going to the wolf, clenching in his fur. She holds tight for a moment, then exhales, forcibly slowing her heart with one of her silent words of power, meditation, magic.

"I do hold you," and then she says a name. Or rather, a word. A language the wolf doesn't know, but the spirit might. It means shit. It means, more specifically, the sort of runny, drippy, liquefied shit that leaves the body of the very ill. Diseased, watery shit.

That's what she calls it.

Conall

Immediately, a shriek of hatred, outrage. The sheet of fire flinches outward as something inside throws itself against that barrier -- pushes and strains. Beside her, the wolf's hackles rise, and so does he: uncoiling to all fours, huge teeth bared menacingly.

But nothing bursts from the circle. The wall holds. The thing in there falls back, slithering back onto itself. The witch senses patience now, a terrible sly intelligence.

Do you think me alone? Do you think yourself victorious? You dare not even step across that line, you little fragile sack of meat.

Órfhlaith

"I am meat," she snaps back. "But what are you? A bit of air? Fire without wood?" She makes a scoffing, snorting noise. "You are nothing but a bit of --" here another concoction of words from that other languages. Bloody vomit, this one means, more or less. In that language, it sounds very similar to 'afterbirth' as well. "-- are you not?" Snaps her fingers. "Gone like that."

Conall

I am not gone, little girl.

Within the circle, Thomas's inert form stirs. At first, it seems he might be awakening -- but there's something strange about the motion, stiff and unnatural, forced. He sits up. He stands; only it is not standing. He simply rises, as though lifted by some invisible hand, some hook dug into the back of his neck. Arms dangling, feet dangling. Rises until he float some six inches from the earth, blood streaking his face.

I am still here.

Thomas slams forward. As though propelled by some immense force, he smashes face-first into that wall of fire. Instantly, the terrible, delicious smell of cooking flesh -- and screaming, raw-throated screaming, poor Thomas shocked back from unconsciousness, arms flailing, legs kicking.

We are stronger than you dare dream, older than you dare imagine. AND HE IS STILL OURS! THEY ARE ALL! OURS!

Órfhlaith

She was never a little girl. Her mother called her many pet names, but they were flowers. Animals. All things that grow. She has only ever been called 'little girl', or 'little', or 'girl' at all, by men weaker than she is, men afraid of her. This thing is afraid of her, and if it were stronger than her, it would be out of the boundary by now.

The witch never flinches. The thing uses Thomas, hangs him like a haunch of meat on a hook, and hurts him. Burns him. The witch watches, divorcing herself from care for this man whose blood and breath were so recently on her palms. Whose life she walked into only a short while ago.

"Thieves own nothing. That is why they are so greedy. Even the man whose flesh you disdain -- he does not belong to you. If he did, I could not have forced you out."

She walks toward the fire. The smell of it. Of Thomas burning. Of the wretched blood and filth on the ground.

"You must not be very old, piss-drinker. You must not be very strong, rat-wife. If you were truly one of the old ones, I would know your name. My mother taught me all the names, as her mother taught her, as her mother's mother, and so on for generations. We are stronger than you, corpse-sweat. Far older. And my magic will hold you here long past my death, til these hills catch fire, til the world freezes, til the sky is red. You will stay here, trapped by my power, and you will never die but you will starve the ages away, you stillbirth of a pig!"

Conall

It is intelligent... but not very.

It is powerful... but not terribly.

It is old... but not that old.

And it is strong -- but not as strong as the witch.

Its patience snaps. Its low cunning, its crude slyness: the thinnest of crusts over a deep and churning marrow of simple hate, stupid fury. It must have thought to cow her. It must have thought to turn her stomach, reduce her to terror and dismay. It might have even thought to lure her into the circle, but she falls for none of its tricks. Challenged thus, thwarted thus, it simply loses its mind: flings Thomas heavily across the circle, smashing into a wall of flame, sliding down, lying still. Perhaps dead. No way to tell, no room to wonder.

WE ARE STRONGER THAN YOU KNOW! WE ARE OLDER THAN YOU COMPREHEND! WE ARE INNUMERABLE AND ALL-PRESENT, AND YOU WILL FEAR US!

The fell spirit inside flings itself next. Throws itself against that blazing wall, forcing it outward again, bulging it out like a weak point in a hollow organ. Yet the wall holds, and it falls back. Tries again. And again, and again,

YOU WILL FEAR US! YOU WILL FEAR US! you will fear us! you will...

diminishing each time,

...fear us...

shrinking, quietening, until finally -- at long last -- only a tiny, futile shrieking emerges from the circle. Only a miniscule, feeble fluttering. And then nothing at all.

--

The flames begin to die. The circle is empty but for unfortunate, charred Thomas, still clinging stubbornly to what miserable life remains to him.

Órfhlaith

The witch

rolls her eyes.

--

And then the thing, mad, screaming, throws itself again and again to the fire. She senses it shrinking, and cannot bear to hope that she should be so lucky. That its own madness will devour it for her. She holds her breath. But then the flames die. And she does not know whether to believe in hope. She goes over to Thomas, reaching across the circle to pull open his eye, stare into it.

She has to know if the thing is inside of him again, before she pulls him from the circle.

Conall

The wolf is at her side.

By now, she has perhaps grown accustomed to his presence, a shadow at her heels. She reaches across -- and he leans across. Sniffs while she looks. Thomas's face is terribly burned, blistering and raw; his eye staring and glassy and bloodshot.

But clear. Clear, in a way that it was not when he came lurching up the hillside. He barely breathes, but he is --

"Clean." A word that rumbles clumsily out of the great beast at her side. The wolf sits back on his heels, a manlike posture this time: one knee up, thick wrist balanced over it. The long muzzle turns toward her; the furry eyelids blink. "No stink. This one gone. But maybe more. In village."

Órfhlaith

Whispers to him, this man who hated her in name before he ever saw her. Whispers in that other language of hers, but softer now. Strokes his hair where his scalp is not burned and speaks to his spirit, which is always a small and trusting boy, fascinated by the wonder of nature: bugs and flowers, dirt and his very own toes. Tries to call him back with those words, murmured slowly. He breathes. He lives.

The wolf tells her, before she has to scry even, that the man is clean now. That the circle is clean. She breathes out, relieved --

til the next words. If she knew oaths more bitter than she'd already used today, she would employ them.

--

"Carry him inside for me, out of the sun," she says, a request by tone alone. "I will have to begin the healing for him. And then I need to rest. I am very tired, Con."

Conall

Even in this form, his eyebrows pull together. It is a furrow-browed look of naked concern, and a moment later he shrinks. Fur recedes, flesh reshapes, bones rejoin. When he is a man again, the wolf lifts the badly injured man -- not terribly carefully, one might notice -- but without complaining or arguing.

He carries Thomas inside. Lays him on the ground. As the witch bends to her work, the wolf lays his hand briefly on her shoulder.

"I go to bury the water," he tells her. "I will return before the noon."

Órfhlaith

When he is a man again, he is kissed. Quickly, and rather thoughtlessly: she puts her hand on his jaw and kisses his mouth, and then it is over, but even if she had not warned him about spreading evil spirits like sexually-transmitted diseases he might know from the way that kiss touches his lips that he is likely to be called to her bed again.

They part, and he carries Thomas. Not to her bed, and the witch does not ask him to. On the ground, then, recently swept. She begins to gather things: stoking the fire, heating the cauldron, pouring in water from her cistern. She will boil things until they are a thick paste. She will grind herbs until she can smear it on his skin, bind him with bandages. He will never be the same. But she does not want him to be a monster,

just because a monster once touched him.

To the wolf, the witch just nods. "Good. Thank you, Con."

But she is focused on her work already, again. She is wetting bandages in cold water and laying them over the man's face, carefully, readying him for healing.