“And then she—Like a wild animal! I swear I had nothing to do with it, you have to beli—”

“Enough! Calm down. We’ve received the tithe from this village without issues for the last 11 years and your neighbors testified that you’ve lived here your whole damn life. All I want to know is where she damn went. Where’d she come from in the first place? Tell me that and you’ll be free to go.”

“I, I don’t really know, is the thing, sir. I just found her… in the woods about 14 kilometers out? She claimed not even to remember her own name. I’d been calling her Idelle; she was harmless, I thought she was touched in the head. Had a fever and didn’t do anything but eat and sleep and mumble nonsense—”

“I said enough! Your senseless rambling isn’t helping anyone. Owen, bring him some water and a chair, this might take a minute. Now, take a deep breath and start from the beginning.”

 

-Some Time Earlier-

 

A butcher walked through the forest, swearing loudly. The reasons behind his displeasure were many and mostly rather reasonable. But right then the biggest (and perhaps slightly less reasonable) one was the large bush he was having to push his way through.

“Damn wolf, imagine taking an arrow through the eye and still running off? I thought that kinda thing was just a myth…” the butcher grumbled to no one in particular. He was named Damon, and he was a ruddy-looking man with a loud voice and a marked preference for being indoors in his shop. His shop, of course, being a place where he could sit down, relax, drink a little of the cloudy homemade beer he occasionally brewed, and generally spend his time doing more butcher-y work than chasing the wolf he had recently shot through the undergrowth. Unfortunately for Damon, the group of soldiers raising levies had “recruited” several of the local hunters, and taken much of his village’s livestock for provisions on top of that. So here he was, culling the local population of small direwolves and deer and bringing back any meat he could reasonably retrieve.

“Honestly, if it ain’t one thing it’s always another. Anyone else would get a break after the first earthquake in five years nearly knocks the village down, but no, my house has to be the sturdiest one; so, of course, I get to go out and chase direwolves…” Damon eyed the bush suspiciously. Botany was not his specialty. “...Whatever this thing is. Fennel or something for all I know. At least it doesn’t have thorns.” The butcher continued to lament his tragic lot in life, seemingly more out of boredom than anything, as he finally pushed past the bush and came out onto a steeper, rockier slope. 

The trees were more sparse here, leaving patches of light scattered around the area. Part of the hill dropped away suddenly in an unexpected jagged way, with the entrance to something that might have been a small cave visible among the rocks. A furry body lay not too far away from it.

As he blinked his eyes at the sudden light filtering through the trees, Damon glanced down the hillside and let out a noise of equal parts triumph and annoyance. “Ah! Dumb thing had to go roll down a hill before it died, didn’t it! And now poor Damon has to lug it all the way back up… Thing won’t even taste good even if it is nutritious anyway... And it looks like a runt, maybe I should just leave—eh?” 

He paused a few steps down the hill, even forgetting to grumble in his shock. “Is that… a person? No one should be out here... Oi! Oi!, are you all right?”

The target of his shout, a figure mostly concealed behind the body of the wolf, was totally unresponsive. Damon quickly redoubled his efforts to get down the hillside. Nearly losing his balance at one point, he arrived next to them along with a small shower of pebbles and dust; the hillside was loose, devoid of the plant growth omnipresent in the rest of the forest. 

The figure was a girl, body small and gaunt, dressed in clothes that had long since stopped being anything more than rags. Her face was pressed up against the juvenile wolf’s body as if she’d been trying to nuzzle it—but the blood on her face and in her matted, blueish hair ruined any hint of magic the scene might have had. Damon kneeled beside her, his face confused.

“Who on earth?” He mumbled. His confusion was understandable, he’d lived in the village his whole life and yet the girl in front of him was a total stranger. No, more than that, she didn’t even look particularly similar to anyone he’d ever seen in his life. Her skin was pallid to the point of illness and her hair was an oddly deep hue despite the dust and grime. Her features seemed foreign and unfamiliar. And what was left of her clothes seemed to be woven from a finer thread than the wool and hemp clothes he was accustomed to. 

Throwing his uncertainty aside, he quickly checked her pulse. It was slower than he’d expected and barely detectable in her wrist. But nonetheless, she was alive. 

He pulled back in disbelief. His village almost never saw travelers outside of the military, much less this far off the road. And the girl didn’t look in any condition to be walking around a paved street, much less bushwhacking through a deep section of the forest as part of an army. Yet here she was. Could she have been traveling with someone who mistreated her and ran away? How would she have made it this far without falling prey to one of the direwolves or other predators? Was she just lucky?

He shook his head once to clear it. That could all wait. For now, his priority was getting her to somewhere safe. He groaned at the thought. It was nearly a kilometer back to the game trail where he’d left the little hand cart he used to haul back his hunt, and another twelve back to the village from there. 

Checking the girl once over for injuries, he carefully rolled her onto his shoulder and stood up. Her weight was lighter than he expected—how skinny WAS she? He started up the hill but paused suddenly. Turning back to the wolf he considered a moment. Direwolf blood WAS claimed to have restorative abilities. He hesitated a moment longer and then cursed to himself before kneeling down and untying the cord he had looped through his belt.

“I swear, if whoever’s taking care of you doesn’t reward me for all this, you better believe one of you is gonna be helping me out around the shop or something for a while. The things I gotta deal with…” Satisfied with how he’d secured the wolf, he started back up the hill, stopping at intervals to drag the body up behind him as he slowly made his way back towards his village.

 

…

 

Something was wrong.

The thought—if it could be called that—floated through someone’s head in response to the throbbing emptiness she felt. Her body felt hollowed out and painful. She tried to open her eyes, but somehow they wouldn’t, couldn’t open. There was a heavy feeling too, a deep pressure on her chest, and she felt panic welling up in her as she realized she couldn’t breathe either. She desperately struggled and felt her lungs fill with a little air, only for it to escape again. Where was she? What was happening? What was wrong? Where was she?

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. Someone help. Please.

A voice said something in the background, impossibly far away, incomprehensible. Please, she begged inside her head, someone help me.

Then, with a jerk, she inhaled properly at last. The heaviness on her chest seemed to vanish, and she let out a tiny muted whimper of relief as she exhaled and breathed in deep again. Her eyes opened, her vision blurry and confused. A figure? The figure said something again. Her name, it was asking for her name. She had a name. Her mouth opened.

“I’m, I— I mean, thank you, I’m…”

The wrongness of it ate at her. She had a name. What was it? What was her name?

“Where—where, who are you?”

The words that came out felt wrong as well, distant and half-forgotten. The figure, a man she realized, the man said something back but she didn’t understand it. He was talking slowly, softly, like she was a child, but it just didn’t make sense somehow. He paused for a moment, then again asked for her name, even slower this time.

“I, I, I’m—”

The panic that had so rapidly vanished when she managed to breathe was coming back. Her name. What was her name?

“I’m—I forget. C-can’t, um, can’t remember…”

The man muttered something under his breath, his voice harsh and fast this time, as her breath started to stutter and the next moment she was coughing uncontrollably. She felt a cold hand on her forehead and flinched back.
“Atch, sorry ‘bout that. ***** **** ******?” His voice was gradually becoming a little clearer, but she didn’t understand most of what he said regardless. Something about her head?

“No, I’m—”

She stopped trying to explain as the man put something in her hands. A deep bowl, filled with some kind of liquid? Medicine? No, maybe it was just food, a soup?

“Drink.” The man gently helped her sit up and bring the bowl to her lips as he said it. She obeyed, taking a sip that turned immediately into a series of gulps as a warm, rich, broth that tasted of iron and salt flowed down her throat. Her stomach twisted and gurgled, the knotted emptiness that still permeated her body coming to the fore again as she continued to drink. It might have been the best thing she ever tasted. 

She took another gasping breath as she finished the bowl. The man took it back from her and said something again. Big? Something was big?

“What?” Her confusion seemed to amuse him for some reason, as he let out a chuckle at that. What was so funny? He stepped away from the bed she was lying in, returning a moment later with a mug of water. He set it beside her. Oh, there was a table there?

“Sleep. Everything’s good, sleep.” The words were soothing, and she latched onto them desperately. Sleep. She’d feel better if she slept. Just don’t worry and sleep and let everything fix itself. She let her eyes close again. The hollow feeling twisted inside her, then settled down into a muted background. There was a dull pulse in her head, but she tried to ignore it. Just sleep for now. 

The thoughts and pain kept crawling around in circles, but at some point, she fell back into a deep sleep despite that.

 

…

 

When the girl woke up again, the pain in her head had intensified into a pounding drum. Her throat felt dry and parched. She opened her eyes and tried to turn her head, but the motion sent a wave of nausea and pain shooting through her and she let out a cry in response. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the pain, to will it out of her and into some distant place where she could forget about it.

A few seconds later, she opened them again, slowly and carefully this time. There was a glass of water on a table next to her. She thought about pushing herself upright but thought better of it, instead gingerly rolling half onto her side as she brought the glass to her face with a shaking left hand. The water helped, a little, and she slowly drank all of it.

The man was in the room with her again, and she hazily realized that he’d walked over next to her as she drank. He took the glass from her and spoke, slowly and deliberately.

“I’m Damon. Do you remember your name now?”

Damon. So his name was Damon. And hers?

She shook her head no with a jerk despite the pain. “I can’t remember, I’m sorry. I don’t think—I don’t think I even know…” The words wouldn’t come to her.

Damon seemed to shrink down a little and frowned. He said something, fast and sounding annoyed. Why didn’t she understand? She shook her head again, eyes wide. He sighed and pointed at her.

“I’ll call you Idelle, then. You understand? You, Idelle.”

Was that her name then? Idelle. The thought filled her with relief and she nodded and tried to smile as she repeated it back at him.

“I’m Idelle.”

His frown didn’t lighten at that, but she didn’t notice as her eyes were already drifting shut again. He stepped forward and touched her forehead again. His hand was cool against her pounding head, and she unconsciously pressed her face and hair into it. The hollow feeling was back, stronger than ever. She should say something. 

“Hungry....”

Had her eyes been open, she would have seen Damon blink in surprise before he pulled away and went to bring a bowl of somewhat colder direwolf blood soup from the kitchen.