Haley Thistle
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Knute the Werewolf (special preview)
🕑 Added 2022-03-19 21:00:02 +0000 UTCAnja Belland was the eldest child of Tor Belland, a wealthy rancher and trader that my family often did business with. Anja was born with high expectations upon her shoulders as the eldest child. She was expected to marry well, she was expected to have a good head upon her shoulders, and she was expected to continue the Belland bloodline.
I remember the first time I saw Anja as a little boy; she was in the arms of her father like a little bisque doll. Her eyes were a shimmering hazel, lined with the thickest, longest lashes I had ever seen. She was chubby with cheeks like apples, and her hair was braided with red ribbon to match. We were the same age back then, but I knew I was looking upon the woman I would someday marry.
I didn’t have much of a chance. The Belland family wasn’t that well-to-do mind you, but they expected the best for Anja. I was...fine by all standards, but not the best. My family was much more rural, more earthy than the usual folk that Tor did business with. My family were trappers and hunters, as well as guidesman through the harsh woods. My father led long expeditions off the mountains while my mother hunted for fur and meat.
When I was still young my father was killed on one of these expeditions, and this caused wild rumors to pop up about our family. My mother didn’t let me in on the secret, not wanting me to think anything beyond love for my father.
“What happened to him was a mistake,” she whispered to me. “I won’t let that same mistake happen to you, my pup.”
Luckily Tor was a good man who was friends with my father, so our business didn’t suffer. But my mother still thought it would be best to move us further into the woods with my uncle’s family as a way of protecting ourselves. I only got to see Anja every once in a while after that, but every time I did she grew more beautiful than the time before.
“Stop staring at me, Knute!” She snapped at me during one such visit. “Every time you come here you put those big ole’ eyes on me.”
I touched my fingers under my eye. “I can’t help their size, Anja.”
Anja pouted at me, her long braid swinging out behind her like a scorpion’s tail. “That’s not the point! You will make my future husband very angry if you keep staring at me like that!”
That didn’t make sense to me, considering that the future husband she was talking about was going to be me. “You’re very pretty though, I won’t mind people looking at you, Anja.”
Anja tensed up, squeezing her small hands into even smaller fists and bunching up her shoulders around her ears. “When I do get married, Knute Tobiasson, I am going to have my husband beat you up!”
I wasn’t the most sharp witted boy, mind you, so I wasn’t quite catching onto her. “You’ll have more than one husband?”
Anja snarled and stormed away as my mother was finishing business. She watched little Anja stomp away as she came to fetch me.
“Flirting, my pup?”
“I think she wants more than one husband, Mama, is that okay? Do I have to marry him too?” I asked.
Mama chuckled and patted the top of my head. “That’s a discussion fit for a few years from now. Let’s go home.”
Most children go through changes in life that take them into their first steps towards adulthood. They begin growing in strange ways, but I began showing signs of my father’s lineage. Now, this meant several things, most of which weren’t obvious right away. My father was a big, tall, hairy fellow, which I was showing signs of. I was having growth spurts that ached like a hammer had been taken to my limbs. I started growing patches of hair in the most embarrassing of places. I was eating more than I think my mother could keep up with, which led to me filling out like my father.
Something else about my father was that he descended from a bloodline that some might call corrupted. It was what led to the rumors about him upon his death, and why my mother chose to move us further out towards his side of the family.
“I’ll train you just like I trained him,” Mama told me. “I won’t have you getting shot, or worse.”
“Can’t you just chain me up or something when it happens?” I asked her.
Her look was severe but sad all the same. “That would be as cruel as caging wild animals and keeping them alive. It’s not right to do that to them, even less so to do it to my own child. What happens with you every month is as natural as the flow of water, the sun rising, and the moon that wills you.”
I wasn’t so much afraid of this change as I should have been, more so annoyed at it. I didn’t think Anja would enjoy having a husband who would be useless during the full moon. I wanted to be a present and useful husband to her, and this would be a challenge to any marriage.
When I was fourteen, Tor hired me to help guard his ranch. I was just one of many extra hands he brought on to protect the place as he had some of his livestock go missing and mutilated.
“There are beasts out in those forests, and they know what savagery winter will bring before it shows itself. So they come out to hunt where it will be easiest,” Tor said.
I was probably the youngest of the group he hired, but even at fourteen I was taller than most. I was also trained by my mother, something Tor took respect with. After giving us a small lecture and some gear, we dispersed out around the grounds to wait until nightfall.
At my post I saw Anja returning from school. She was riding on the back of her favorite horse, and she looked like a goddess upon the saddle.
Comments
idaofinfinity
“What happens with you every month is as natural as the flow of water, the sun rising, and the moon that wills you.” That line is so beautiful. Eagerly looking forward to the rest of the story,
