Letting someone, anyone, root around in his mind was an uncomfortable thought. Even if Marshall were someone that was completely innocent, wasn’t this risky? Still, he had to know. He had to know everything. The fury touched his mind and slowly but surely everything that had been repressed or taken over by the wolf started to come flooding back, starting with the most recent events and moving backwards. There was this man who’d bumped into Marshall on the street, shouted some obscenity and caused the change. A group of people tormenting something defenceless that caused another, endless thrashing of chains as Marshall writhed and struggled under the light of the full moon. Reinforced metal bit into his skin and reflexively Marshall winced at the memory of the pain and the guttural sound of bones snapping over and over and over again. Months of agony came flooding back until at last Marshall came upon a night he spent with his boyfriend in his family’s cabin back in Maine. Self-assured laughter, warm breath on his skin, then the pull of the moon as Marshall was made to shift for the first time. All that the other man wanted to do was help him, and in response the wolf had torn him to shreds. Splattered the walls with blood. Further back still and the young man stood at the end of an alley, cello case in hand as a pair of yellow eyes watched him from the dark. Is someone there? Marshall called out, a low growl made him hesitate and take a step back, he tried to run but the wolf lunged at him. Teeth and claws tore into his skin, the origin of the long, jagged scar across Marshall’s thigh as the wolf tried to drag him into the dark. He got free - and he ran.
Marshall collapsed on all fours in front of the fury, his skin a thick sheen of sweat as his haggard breathing came hard and fast. Tear-stained cheeks formed small pools in the earth as the man’s hands curled like fists into the dirt. He remembered everything, the face of every person he’d hurt, and every traumatic instance that surrounded their deaths. Marshall felt like he was going to be sick, and a moment later he was as the horrid sound of retching permeated the space around them. Hard sobs broke the night air as grief and self-loathing took the place of anything else. He wanted to be alone, he didn’t want to be a monster anymore. He needed to fix this, somehow Marshall needed to find a way.
She sees it all. Everything that goes through the man’s head, plays out like a film reel for the fury. The horror and the pain, no longer shrouded to protect his mind, but pulled into daylight with no dark corners to hide within. It fills her with both a sense of pity and appall, her empathetic nature at war with the fervent pull of retribution that guides her life as a fury. It is clear he is going through pain, yet it’s weighed against the memories of all the pain he has caused others, unintentionally or not. In the end, her sympathy wins, as Ophelia carefully sinks to her knees beside the werewolf. She does not reach out, does not touch him, that is a line between people more familiar than them and she will not cross it. “I am sorry,” she says, dark eyes lingering upon the wretched look against his face. “The shift is a hard thing to control, particularly for those that have no guidance. But it can be learnt. I believe the Argos could assist you with such.” For him, a pack could be the difference between life or death. She rises to her feet, then, deciding her presence would likely offer him no more good in the moment. “My name is Ophelia. If we meet again, I hope it be under better circumstances.” For his sake, the words hang in the air, implied but not stated. Because next time, she will not stop short. It is with that, that the fury turns and walks away, out of the forest and back to the city.
