He aches for her. The daylight seems too sudden, too abrupt, and when the night falls again it’s black. Too black. The orb is gone from the sky, hidden from view at the lowest point in its cycle, the new moon is a haunting reminder of what his life could lack. He’s listless and tired. Without any drive or ambition. His persona undulates like the tides, low to high, and when the moon returns to the pinnacle of her splendor, Fenrir is ready for her. He thirsts for her and grows more and more impatient. His anger spikes like flashes of heat lightning on an overly warm summer night, stark and noiseless but just as vicious as the kind that came riding in on a peal of thunder. She’s like a lover that teases, and when the sun begins to lower in the sky on the night of the promised full moon, Fenrir is happy to see it go. He shuns it, their star, because it represents everything he can never have. He lives his live by the light of the moon, and the moon alone. The wolves are restless and he can hear them just outside. They’ve been fighting all afternoon and he’s glad that tonight they will get their release. The pack leader stood from behind his desk- it’s constructed of milk crates and a wooden door because what kind of werewolf does any sort ofactual writing? The desk exists only because that’s what you put in an office. He stood still, as still as he’s been in a long while, and idly adjusted a piece of paper so that it lies with its edges parallel to the door’s edge. He looks out the window where his men are beginning to line up for their rationing of Wolfsbane.
Cowards, the lot of them.
How could you truly expect to reach your full potential if you didn’t embrace the full spectrum of your lycanthropy? Dulling the pain or making any attempt at easing the process was a cop out, and Fenrir saw that as weakness. A finger tapped slowly against the desktop and he turned away. He would not shame them this time. Merlin knows most of them remember his last outburst. He can feel his blood vibrating within his veins and he slips out the back door, hiking across an empty lot and slipping through the part of the chain link fence that’s been rolled up like a tent flap. The asphalt is chipped and milky white, bleached by many years in the sun and not enough money to repair it. His shadow stretches long in front of him and he walks quickly, with purpose. The sun glows orange and then red, as if sending up a flare before it finally slips beneath the horizon. Fenrir likes to imagine that it’s drowned, and that it won’t come back. An eternal night would not be a bad thing, he thinks, his eyes trained on the spot where she will appear. He quickens his pace. He wants to be in the forest and ready for her.
He moves methodically, once enshrouded by the leafy branches- careful to have picked a spot where the trees are young and will not shield his view of the sky. His shoes are first, socks next. They are shed one at a time, left and then right, for both. Trousers are next with the fallen hems and the waistband so stretched from failed elastic and stitching that his belt has two extra notches in it that weren’t there last year. He discards his shirt after that, not taking much care to fold any of the articles of clothing in his anticipation. He’s stark naked when the moon finally rises, coming out from behind a thick blue cloud in all her glory and he bathes in the silvery hued light as though it’s a rainstorm and he’s been dying of thirst. The pain is welcomed, bones cracking up and down his spine while it arches and grows. Leg bones are snapped and reformed, lengthening and he grows larger, each painful burst endured for her and it builds like ecstasy in his chest and in the pit of his stomach. Claws and sprouted hair are last to come in and they’re thrust forth like millions of tiny needles and he yowls, the completion of his glorious transformation on the horizon. The wolf pauses, then, heaving over the grass already beginning to collect dew and he takes in his form- familiar to him, always, but somehow new and clumsy each time.
The werewolf lifts his gaze to the goddess above and he can sense her pride- how could anyone not want to worship such a thing as this? Fenrir bares his teeth, taking in a gulping breath. He throws back his head and howls in return, a psalm devoted to the beauty and glory of his goddess, the moon.