Who’s Afraid // Natalie & Fenrir feat. The Pack
Afternoon, Second Saturday of January
Natalie thrust her hands in her pockets, the chill of the day reaching through her gloves to freeze her fingers. Her breath came out in a thick cloud, obscuring her vision in the already dense forest. She didn’t know what was worse: the cold creeping into the depths of her soul from her skin, or the anxiety gnawing at her from the inside out. She forced her steps forward, but she felt like her heart was somewhere in her throat. She looked for the trees, the stones, the markers Thorfinn had mentioned when he had suggested she make her way to a clearing in the forest. Merlin, she was going to murder that boy.
She shouldn’t be going, but when a number of suspected Death Eaters had been attacked at the beginning of the year, Natalie knew she needed more training. She’d been over at Thorfinn’s the other day and expressed her desire, and somehow he had convinced her that going to see Fenrir was a good idea. With his excited encouragement to go see his friend, Natalie thought it was something that would help her to defend herself. Now that she was walking toward the known werewolf, she was feeling more like the main character in a muggle fairytale Amelia had told her about once. This silly girl who went into the woods to visit her grandmother and instead got eaten by a personified wolf-person. It had seemed ridiculous that a girl would venture into the woods to find a wolf, but now here she was. What a silly, foolish girl.
She saw the final marker, a mossy-covered rock that looked like the hump-back witch statue back at Hogwarts, and turned to the left and continued walking. Theoretically, if the instructions Thorfinn had given her were correct, she would run straight into the clearing that Fenrir often spent time with his pack... She stopped walking for a second, the idea of a whole pack of those... creatures.
If she were honest, werewolves were terrifying. She had been raised on stories cautioning her of the beasts, the people that once a month lost themselves and became these monsters. But Fenrir... Fenrir was a different sort. He almost shed his humanity like a cloak, choosing to remain the monster even in the daytime, for the whole month... His characteristics and appearance were more creature than human, but for some incredible reason, Thorfinn seemed to think a lot of the man. So she found herself walking into the heart of the forest, straight to the lion’s den.
Having been lost in thought, Natalie hadn’t heard the crunch of leaves around her, hadn’t felt the pair of eyes trained on her. She crossed her arms, trying to warm herself, when a muscular brunette suddenly jumped out of the trees, straight into her path. Natalie’s eyes grew wide, her mouth dropping open. The cold air felt paralyzing on her vocal chords as she struggled to speak. The girl looked at her, the same murderous, animal instinct in her eyes that Natalie had seen in Fenrir’s.
“Erm. Hi. Please don’t hurt me... I mean can you please --” she took a step backward, trying to appear far more confident than she felt. “I’m here to see Fenrir. I have some business to discuss with him.” She cleared her throat, uncrossing her arms and standing as straight as she could. “I’m here at the suggestion of Thorfinn Rowle? Perhaps you might know him? I know that Thorfinn and Fenrir are... understanding of one another.”
