queen.

Queen

Nightfall comes earlier now. No more stretches of daylight into nine, ten o'clock. It's been dark for hours, and all the good working folk asleep for tomorrow's brand new day, and the bars have all closed so even the hipsters have had to go elsewhere, and those who had no elsewhere to go to keep away from the church these days. Sometimes they get a feeling over there. Not a good one. Not the protection of god. Sometimes they hear things, as though from another room,

or another layer of reality.

--

In that other layer of reality, a semi-solid wall of a confessional is shattered, releasing a thousand soft voices, whispering sins, their guilt and shame rising in half-transparent clouds like dust. What crashed the wood wall is only part-real itself, but has enough heft in this shadow to make a difference. Spindly thing, its hide black and gleaming as polished leather, or stretched tar. A long, swanlike neck topped with a head too big for its body, a beak like a toucan lined with unhappy teeth. Its tail is a whip. Three arms, one from its chest. Four legs, one of them too short to be of much use. But all those limbs are tipped with wickedly curving claws, which have left their mark on the creature that threw it into the confessional.

It is as black as its enemy, but does not shine in the darkness. Melts into it, soft and velvet and holding a strange stillness despite the dripping blood, the slow growls it unleashes when it drops to all fours, stalks over to the scrambling creature, and grabs hold of one of its back legs, yanking it across the dusty, shadowed floor and wrenching that limb entirely away. The thing, having seen its equally misshapen but entirely dissimilar siblings die in the name of true absolution, lets out a shriek that sounds like the real emotion behind all those escaped confessions: terror. Terror of eternity, whether blissful or fiery. Terror of punishment. Terror, and of course what lies beneath it even in the hymns sung in this place:

resentment.

The limb comes free, and the werewolf has now dragged it far back enough that it can grab the thing's beak, lift its entire body into the air, and slam it down. ONE,

TWO,

THREE,

and the thing is as shattered as the confessional booth, though perhaps they were always equally warped.

Rafael

The thing exits this life with such noise and chaos that the immediate aftermath seems silent; soundless. Only gradually does it become apparent: there is a sound after all. It is a growl, low and long and uneven.

The once-empty door of the cathedral, semi-solid even in this plane, is now shadowed. A large white wolf-monster stands there bristling, eyes fixed yellow and distrustful on the newcomer.

Queen

Some of the corpses have feathers. One has a human face, and a beautiful, saintly face at that. Most of them have claws. One of them had a terrible voice, reciting prayers. One of them had enormous flaps of skin which it would part, revealing a turgid, forked member. They were all sins and terrors, collected here under pews and in the walls and even those beautiful windows. There are six, all of them dead, most of them torn to bits. Impossible, given their makeup, to tell which bit goes with which monster.

By comparison, the other two monsters currently in the church look almost beautiful. White and black, with their golden eyes. The black one, in warform for the reach it gives, rises up from all fours to stand on its hind legs. Tail swishes. Eyes glitter, staring at the white one.

His scent is all over this place. She knew that when she came in.

There is silence for a moment between them. She blows air out of her nostrils. Already the corpses are beginning to crumble, as thought dried for eons in the sunlight, becoming dust themselves. Maybe in another twenty years they will coalesce again, become ever stronger versions of what they are. Or weaker. There are no oracles anymore to tell the people which it will be. She does not revert to a smaller shape. She does not come to him in supplication, belly to the ground, throat open. She just stays where she is.

Rafael

For a moment wolf stays where he is. He is more wolf than man, one shift closer to the beast than the newcomer: a great hulking thing of thick shoulders, big paws. She rises, but neither approaches nor retreats. He lifts his muzzle, eyes narrowing as he sniffs.

Then comes down from the doorway. Paces heavily but near-silently amidst the chaos. Sniffs at one dead-thing, then another: wet black nose near the carcasses, eyes ever on the newcomer. His path takes him closer, closer, winding, circling. When he has investigated all the dead-things he lifts his head and faces her, forepaws braced wide. He is a stone's throw away now; near enough to span with a single leap. His, or hers.

My territory, he growls. Agitated, his tail whips side to side once. Who are you?

Queen

The massive head it wears tips to one side. He growls and her lip curls back as though she might challenge him for it, but she restrains the urge to snarl. Her rage has been spent, more or less, but she is still potent, still furious, and yet possessed of an eerie sort of control, a long view.

She gives him her name. Level, firm, uncompromising. Unashamed. If he can smell at all or trust his eyes, he knows her tribe, sky-lashing and bristling at the suggestion that they might be dominated. Could ever be dominated. But she does tell him her moon, just shy of his. And her rank, just past.

As for his territory, she does not address it. They both know that it is.

Rafael

It doesn't quite put him at ease. It just relaxes his aggression a notch. Tunes back his wariness. A moment ago he stood with paws apart, head level with shoulders to show the bristle of his hackles. Ears back. Eyes glaring. Teeth on the verge of baring. Now, armed with a name, an identity, he shakes out his fur -- disgruntled. Pink tongue licks out, all the way to his nostrils. His ears come forward. The set of his head changes, softens.

Cold-hollow-pale-sunrise. It is a loose, literal approximation of his name. And then his rank, just shy of hers. And his moon, just past.

He moves. He sniffs the carcasses again, moving from one to the next, taking more time now. Letting his eyes leave the newcomer, if only on occasion. When he has finished investigating the carnage he raises his head again.

Six of them. One of you. It is a statement of fact; neither laudatory nor scornful. You tracked here?

Queen

Found.

She watches him. She knows what he is. Could smell him all over this place. Sees it in him, that pristine fur, the visible strength that on some level more instinct than reason, she cannot help but acknowledge.

Just as she cannot seem to help but goad:

In your territory.

Rafael

The insult is doesn't fly past unnoticed. Instantly his ears turn forward, aggressive; instantly he holds his head higher, stiffer.

Here, aren't I?

Queen

One heavy, round shoulder lifts. Falls. She just shrugs.

--

There is a noise, a moment after her shoulder falls. Up by the altar. Something trying to be quiet; failing. Her head whips around, nostrils going that direction, flaring, body heading that direction.

Seven.

Rafael

Immediately -- ungraciously -- the wolf bolts for the altar. Actually cuts her off, this newcomer, this new wolf. His weight pounds past on four paws. He passes close enough that the tips of his fur brushes hers.

Surges up into his own monstrous shape as he reaches the altar; dashes the tenuous half-substantial fibers of that structure apart with his great handpaws. Exposes the seventh and -- in the same breath -- leaps upon it, all teeth, all claws.

Queen

This does not threaten her. Or even surprise her. She has killed six. When Rafael bolts forward, dashes for the altar to find the creature that awaits him, this newcomer pulls back a bit. She keeps moving, on his heels, but doesn't snarl at him, butt him aside. She hangs back, ready to lunge, as he tears open the altar to find -- god.

They don't even see it, he's on it so quickly, gnashing his teeth on rubbery flesh and what might be fat if these things knew how to eat. Tears it to pieces. They are not terribly strong, though they are wily. This one could only hide for so long, blubbery and yet hiding spikes in its gut, on its back, on its palms. Stabs at him, drawing precious blood, but only a few bats of pain before it is a corpse,

empty, dry, crumbling, like the religion that breeds its kind into the world.

The black one never steps in. Doesn't try.

Rafael

It's

unsatisfying. Thing dies so easily. Not a threat at all; never was. Cowardly, pathetic thing. Could almost feel sorry for it if wolf weren't simply overcome with disgust. And unease.

When the thing is a corpse he gives the scraps a few more ferocious shakes. Then drops it: limp flesh, greasy blubber. Tongue licks in and out a few times, distasteful -- literally. Then the thing is turning to dust. Ashes in his mouth.

There's a growl low in his throat. He stands over the dry ruins a little longer. Turns away after a time.

Why are you here?

Queen

They're all threats. Not to him, maybe. Not to one like her.

But that isn't the point.

She senses his ... disappointment, perhaps is the word for it. Does not remark on it. She remains in her warform, watching him shake the thing like a rag doll, like a dog. She waits. She does not slink out, sneak out. That is not her way. She should never have to.

Because I want to be.

Rafael

His eyes blaze. Tail lashes.

Find your own territory, he growls. This one is protected.

Queen

The long view. The days and weeks, months, years that stretch out so much more infinite than the ones before them, except it isn't true. The days remaining are the last drops of melted wax. The time she has left is short, compared to all the years she's lived so far.

It is not hard, in that ratio, to see well enough into the future to know better.

So she doesn't snarl at him, challenge, fight. Doesn't goad him, mock him. She lowers herself to all fours. And in that motion she becomes something else, something almost lost suddenly in the darkness and the shadows: a wolf, now smaller than he is, but still stocky, indelicate but for the softness of her paws on the insubstantial ground. Matte black and golden-eyed, she stands where she is, watching him, saying nothing in response. Watches him, still, as she passes by him.

But turns her back on him, unafraid but not unwary, when she heads out the door into the night.

Rafael

Truth is she may very well be the stronger. Certainly the laws of their Nation say so. She is the elder, the wiser, the more respected in the eyes of wolves and spirits alike.

But time is short. Life is shorter. And where another wolf may have accepted the implicit challenge, began the eighth fight of the night, this one does not.

Simply moves into a different form. Walks away. Does not deign to engage. Left in her wake, the wolf watches: wary himself, careful of some trick, some tactic, some ambush.

It does not come. Soon enough there is only him. In his territory. Where she hunted and killed six creatures that would threaten it before he ever showed his face.