Insomniac Nightmares

She ran. It was times like this where she was most at peace with what she was. With the restraints of her position removed, with no one constantly looming behind her with her hand held in a vice or a possessive palm against her waist, having no need to primp and preen and endure hours of near torture to put on the airs of a respectable lady, she felt free. More than that, she felt alive.

Alive. Something she wasn’t even sure she understood the meaning of anymore. Not since Martin had found her, at least. She might have been in pain, ill, possibly dying. But she had at least felt something. Now, as she drifted along at his side, everything felt as though it was being pushed through a bit of gauze drenched in filthy water. No smell was particularly noticeable, no color vibrant. Even her own thoughts felt dull and muted.

But out here, when she ran free wearing thick, warming fur instead of choking silk, acting with instinct rather than carefully measured thought and planning, going where her pulse and nose took her instead of where Martin led her, she was someone else. She was herself, much as she might resist the admission.

Tonight was different, though. She had run, not because the animal in her had begged her too, not because the moon had called her to it, and not because Martin had told her to. She had run because some part of life’s former brilliance had bled once more into her human guise and she had not known how to process it. It had been a year since she had felt that way, had interacted with the world as someone who walked in it rather than through it, and she had been afraid.

To run as a wolf was simpler. Easier. Less to think about, nothing to worry about. It gave her an opportunity to exhaust herself and let her hot blood cool. To settle herself back to that comfortable grayness when she walked on two legs again.

Nicholas. It was his fault. If she hadn’t met him…

She paused, shaking her shaggy head and chuffing in an attempt to banish it. Even in a world composed mostly of smells and vague shapes, she could see his face clearly in her mind. He’d done nothing, really. Merely extended a hand and asked for hers, leading her to a dance that was so much more lively than those that Martin had taught her. Laughing, spinning, tasting things that had almost led to her cry at their sweetness, all at Nicholas’ arm. Never with him commanding it, always him asking, always her accepting.

No. It was not fair to blame him for it. She had made her choices. She could have – should have – declined his invitation to dance. Could have excused herself and clung to Martin for the evening before returning to their suite, none the wiser.

Unable to banish his face from her mind, she ran on. Stopping only gave those thoughts a grip. She ran faster, her pumping legs serving as pistons to shove his image aside.

After several minutes, when she thought she had left such thoughts behind her, she realized she had done no such thing. Apparently thoughts of Nicholas still held her in sway, even as she fled under the gaze of mother moon. She dug her claws into the soggy earth, stopping as she realized where her feet had taken her.

Nicholas’ estate lay below. She could still see the brilliant glow of the windows, and dim forms milling about in the courtyard, their shadows grown grotesque by the flickering lanterns set high on either side of the walkway. Her twitching ears could make out the sound of the band playing on, even though the revelry had ostensibly ended hours ago. She suspected they’d carry on this way until dawn at this point.

There. Her nostrils flared, and it was almost a physical pull on her snout that drug her gaze towards one of the second story window. Her eyesight in this form was not as good as it was when she walked among the sheep, but some scents were so strong to her that they became visible; the person standing in that window was covered in two such smells.

One looked to her a muted green, lingering mostly about the figure’s neck and arm. It was one she knew well; the same color trailed behind her in paw print shapes. Her own scent.

The other glowed to her, an orange that shone brighter than the lanterns scattered about the estate and was nearly as intoxicating as the rum-laced drinks she had sampled earlier in the evening. The only scent that had drug her out of the gauzy filter and drawn her interest. Nicholas.

She couldn’t tell what he was doing, beyond standing at the window. The sounds of the remaining partygoers drowned out anything that might be coming from his direction. She saw him stiffen, as though started, and glance over his shoulder; the colors of his scent sparked in a brief flash of red, before returning to orange once more. He seemed to shudder, though she thought he might actually have been laughing. A moment after, he turned back to the window and pulled it shut before snuffing the light within and cutting himself off from her senses entirely.

She wanted him. Without the clutter of her human thoughts, she could admit that at least. But he represented a life she no longer lived, an unsettling sense of normalcy that would forever be beyond her. And regardless of what she told Martin, a part of her didn’t want to return to normality, treasured the time she spent running on all fours, free beneath the cold light of the moon.

Part of her wanted to run to him, and use the gifts given to her to shred and claw and destroy the thing that had disturbed her so. Another portion wanted to go to him and make him like her, so she would not feel so alone. A third felt she should divorce herself of the night world, subdue all such wild urges, and seek him as a human woman might. She knew she could make him hers with unnatural talents – Martin had showed her how – but she wanted him to be hers in a more natural way… as she would be his.

She whined, tail tucking down behind her. It was too much. Too many possibilities, too many consequences, and all of them were too hard to think about in this shape. It felt constricting and cloying instead of free now, trapping her with circular thoughts and vague fears.

She bounded away, pausing to give one glance back to Nicholas’ window and giving a low howl that – thankfully – was not answered. She would run. She would hunt. And she would steer clear of him until this internal storm calmed.