The rain was coming down hard overhead, and mist was rolling in from the sea. The night had set in quickly amid the downpour, and brought with it a fearsome chill that would have left even a dwarf from Dun Morogh bristling at his whiskers a little. On a night like this Sibyl should have been in... several different places. She could have been in manor, reading the boys tales from their big books of fables as they drifted off to sleep. She could have been in her own quarters, nestling into her quilts and dozing off to the sounds of the other gossiping servants. On a good night maybe she'd have been swept into someone else's bed after a night out on the town.
But tonight she had none of those comforts. Tonight she was just trying to survive. Tonight crazed monsters roamed the land, some of fur and fang and others of unholy and blighted flesh. Hours ago she had been sent scurrying from her last hiding place near the Reach when a band of those feral brutes came rushing through, ransacking the abandoned homes in their search for prey. Sibyl still wasn't sure how she'd managed to sneak out without them taking notice. Perhaps it was just a lucky turn for once in this whole sordid affair.
Still, if it had been lucky then, she surely wasn't feeling it now. She'd found an old shed while fleeing through the woods. It was part of what looked like an old hunting lodge out here among the forested thickets- remote, abandoned, and a roof overhead. She'd picked the lock, got inside, and started a meager fire to warm herself as soon as she was sure she wasn't being tracked. That first moment feeling the heat rush through her body, the hot ash coating her hands as she set her kindling alight... it was rapturous, after being soaked to the bone in the freezing rain. But it wasn't enough. Not for lack of ability of course- Light, if she were able she'd have lit all of the old clutter in here up in an instant. She'd have set the whole damned shed on fire if it meant being warm. But... too much light would draw attention.
So she stood there, shivering, shaking, her teeth chattering as she tried to gather what warmth she could from her fledgling flame.
And then, out amid the rattling rain came a sound. Snapping twigs. A snarl. It was one of the beastmen. Sibyl's blood ran about as cold as her soaked skin, and her eyes winced shut. With a regretful sigh she ashed out the fire, a plume of warm soot washing out through the shed... before settling and being replaced with the oppressive cold once again.
She heard it coming closer. It was moving slowly. Searching for something? For her?
She waited. The sound came from the lodge nearby. She'd tried to get inside herself earlier, but it was too sturdy a lock for her half-baked skills. Now there was a worgen scratching at the door to it. Perhaps it was for the best that she hadn't ended up in there after all.
More knocking. Then more scratching.
Sibyl closed her eyes and sunk down. She tried to make herself as small as she could manage. If she was lucky the beast would be on its way soon enough.
The minutes ticked by. The knocking subsided after a while, but he was still there. Still pacing around. So she kept waiting. Eventually she felt herself on the verge of sleep, somehow.
She woke to the thrum of the driving rain, the biting cold of the night... and a whimper. Cautiously she crept along to the edge of the shed and eased it open, peering out into the darkened wood around her as the pitiful noise carried on. The worgen was still there, curled up against the door to the lodge and shaking like a leaf. She could see it pawing idly at the door, its sharpened claws raking against the hardy wood.
She had to have been standing there for a good ten or fifteen minutes- partly processing what she was seeing, and partly... well. Deciding what it was that she'd even do about it. None of these things had shown any sense of reason so far. They'd just came barreling at her, claw and fang ready to tear her to shreds. But then... This one was all alone. And even if it was frightening, it looked pitiful.
Her lips curled into a grim frown. She set a hand on the pistol holstered at her hip. She stepped out into the rain with a shivering gait- this time not just from the cold- and began to approach. As the shed door creaked open she could see the lupine beast dart up. Its glowing eyes narrowed at her, and she could tell it was poised to break into a sprint. She gripped the hilt of her pistol a little harder and slowed her steps, her shaking lips fumbling open to speak up.
"'...Allo. Please don', uh. Get angry or nuffin'. I ain' gonna hurt'cha." she assures him- though to her that much was obvious. If anyone was in danger here it was her. "Y'look a bit miserable out 'ere. ...Y'cold?"
The worgen stared her down. Its eyes were tracking her every move. But... it didn't charge her or bare its fangs. Did it understand her? She knew... what they were, more or less. She had seen the tattered clothing clinging to the bodies of some of the other ones, but she'd long given up on there being any person left inside the things.
"Well. I am too. Rain's soaked me t'tha bone." she continued, her teeth chewing anxiously along her lower lip. She came to a halt just short of the lodge's porch, still a few fair paces from the furred creature. So far it had yet to act. So... she kept on. Her fingers, cold and numbing though they were, flexed carefully as sparks of fire flickered over them. She felt the heat washing down from her hand as a fighting flicker of flame began to lap up through her digits, growing upon her palm and beginning to drift out, until the porch was illuminated in that comforting glow.
The worgen began stalking its way towards her, rushing quickly down half of the porch, hurrying towards that fount of warmth. Sibyl immediately shrank back, her arms raised defensively as she saw the creature's scarred, bestial visage closing in. But, as she drew back, it stopped. It waited. As her guard lowered it pressed itself up onto its legs, its hulking frame padding closer with a much calmer, slower gait.
"Sorry. Spooked me a bit." the gnome mutters back. She holds her glowing hand out as the worgen draws to the edge of the porch. She's half expecting to get it bitten off. But instead the cursed man hunkers down near it, letting out a throaty growl of approval as the warming rays run over its damp, dirty coat. "Y'can't... talk, can ya?"
It glances up at her briefly, then dips its head back down, sunning itself in the glow of the gnome's fire. That seemed like a no.
"Figured not. Would make fings too easy. I'm gonna come up under here too. Outta the rain. Keep calm for me, arright?"
She walked along to the stairs, trying to ignore the lurking form trailing behind her. With a sigh of relief she stepped up into the shelter of the lodge's awning, quickly seeking out one of the braziers beneath it. With a flourish of her hands she lit the remaining kindling within aflame, stoking the fire with her magic until a cloud of ash began to rise out from her hands, and the blaze had crackled into a hearty, roaring hearth before her.
The worgen watched, distancing itself as the gnome displayed her magic and sent the flames into a frenzy. Sibyl's eyes drew towards him as she left the fire to burn, and despite a nagging voice in the back of her head she ushered him nearer. "Nah. S'fine, see? Nice an' toasty." she assures him, holding her hands out over the blaze, even managing a genuine smile as she felt the heat crawling through her chilled body. "...Y'look all, um. Big. A-an' ferocious an' such. Y'just stand here an' keep lookin' that way."
She nods as he takes a cautious few steps closer to the fire. She has a hard time reading what's going on behind those glowing, alien eyes. They frightened her just to look at them... but she thought, fleetingly, that she saw something akin to relief in them. "We'll make a deal'a it, yeah? Y'keep me safe," she starts, gesturing out into the dark forest around them. "An' I'll keep ya warm."
The worgen hunkered down next to the fire, his fur bristling as his tight, tense form sagged and relaxed before the fire. With a shaky sigh Sibyl felt the tension in her body fading too. "Deal it is, then."
