Luna turned a corner in the midnight dark castle, shielding her candle with her hand. She was getting taller - and hungrier - all the time now even with the second anniversary of her father's death approaching. Her meal portions had decreased again as Serena declared she was more than tall enough. But she had long exhaustive dancing lessons, would stand for hours declaiming poetry she'd memorized for the entertainment of the court. More of her maids had been dismissed for sneaking her extra food and if not for Sonette's quick wittedness in brushing the issue aside, even her head maid would have been replaced. Again. Luna pushed away the pain of Amelia's disappearance, hating that it was a feeling she'd grown accustomed to.
She rested for a moment on the sill of one of the windows that overlooked the gardens. Snow covered the sleeping landscape and tears pricked at her eyes. She'd once loved winter, it had felt like her own special time, her first memory was of her father rocking her and telling her tales as the snow fell outside the window.
Now the snow was only cold and wet - reminding her of the feeling of endless tears on her cheeks. Luna began to turn from the window but froze at the sound of voices in the hall. She quickly tugged the heavy winter curtain around to hide herself as she recognized one of the voices.
"My lady, have a bit of patience." But Jaeger's voice was full of deep, rumbling laughter that Luna had never heard before. It made her shiver and she wondered why. He laughed again at something the unheard woman was saying and Luna froze as she began to hear their footsteps closing in on her. She barely breathed. Jaeger probably wouldn't tell any tales to her stepmother - but who knew what his companion might do. All she'd wanted to do was sneak down to the kitchens for a bite, just enough food to let her sleep. Serena had forbidden the servants to give her second helpings and what was on her plate at each meal was half what she wanted to eat.
The fact that instead she was listening to her only remaining friend laughing with someone else in the middle of the night ached worse than her stomach. It made her years with her father feel like the life of an entirely different person. She missed Amelia so much her eyes pricked with tears. She pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle a sniffle and pushed the tears down and back. Jaeger was older than her. It was normal he'd seek out someone his own a-
Luna's thoughts stuttered to a stop as she finally heard the woman's murmuring.
"Oh come now, it's not as though Luna will catch us." Her stepmother's voice was husky, teasing and playful. Jaeger laughed again, the sound cut off midway and muffled.
Luna peered around the curtain to see the Princess Regent pinning her Royal Huntsman against the wall to kiss him. Jaeger's hands were around her waist to keep her close but as Luna raised her gaze she realized his eyes were open. A frisson of terror went through her. She wasn't sure if he could see her from his position.
The curtain dropped from her nerveless fingers back into place.
"Let's go to your room." she heard Jaeger whisper as he drew her stepmother away. She didn't mean to cry and she didn't quite realize she was until she touched her face and her hand came away wet. Tears seemed paltry compared to the icy cold that wrapped in the pit of her stomach and froze her heart.
For all that it was her season, Luna found she truly hated winter. Rage and grief boiled up inside her as she sat still on the window sill. Then it froze into one thought. She couldn't stay here. She padded noiselessly through the palace and instead of just stealing enough to staunch her hunger she took as much as she could manage - cured ham and the stale bread from the day before. A waxed round of cheese and a whole bag of apples.
Back in her room she stripped out of her nightgown and layered on her most practical winter clothing with a spare heavy gown wrapped around her food. Her old quilt she wrapped around that. All of that was stuffed as much as she could into a basket with a long strap so she could carry it. It was unwieldy but it would work well enough, she decided as she scooped up her mother's old journal from its hiding place under the mattress. It was even more well worn than it had been when she'd gotten it because she often sought the comfort of her mother's simple life when her own felt as though it was a prison.
She thought she was ready as she swung the basket over her shoulder and her long pale braid thumped against her back. The fire light turned her white hair pale gold in the mirror and Luna realized that she would be easily found by Serena's mirror. Serena knew what she looked like and if Jaeger helped her there would be no hiding. She needed to change something about herself quickly.
The scissors from her needlepoint basket were sharp and severed the braid at the base of her skull with unnerving ease. She stuffed her hair into the basket to drop somewhere it wouldn't be found. It wasn't much but it was what she could do now.
Almost running as the sky lightened Luna made for the back of the royal gardens. Hidden behind the ivy on the north wall was an unguarded door. Her stepmother might not even know about it. It hadn't been used in living memory. The door was for the royal family to escape by in emergencies. This was an emergency. Luna needed to escape. So out the door and down the overgrown path that led to a clearing with a dirt track vanishing into the forest.
The track must lead to a road. And a road was the last thing Luna wanted to be on. Instead she scrutinized the undergrowth for an opening. Any opening. And gathering her skirts close she carefully edged onto a game trail.
Pushing branches and bracken out of her path Luna felt the morning cold seeping into her hands and her face too. Her core was warm, wrapped in layers so much she was sweating but the ice in the air made her throat and fingers ache and go numb. So numb that when a branch whipped back and hit her in the face she didn't feel the pain and was surprised at the drops of blood staining her cloak and the snow. Luna pressed the back of her hand to her cheek and kept going.
It was mid morning when she realized something was watching her.
She couldn't exactly say what made her think that. If it was the hairs on the back of her neck standing up or if it was something in the silence of the winter forest. But she was certain something or someone was tracking her through the bracken.
This thought occupied her as she shuffled along, pausing sometimes to look around with her food clutched to her chest. Luna tried to be reasonable. She'd heard nothing and seen nothing. But as the afternoon light gilded the trees and snow in mockery of the winter chill the oppressive feeling grew worse.
Luna froze, staring around wildly.
"Hello? Who's there?" For a moment it felt like everything held its breath. Then a crack sounded from the way she'd come and Luna pelted blindly into the woods, gasping for breath. Her heavy bundle of food and clothing thumped by the wayside as she ran.
She ran until she noticed a dark bulk looming over her. Slowing her feet Luna stared up at the massive cathedral in front of her. It was slowly falling to ruin, moss and lichen creeping up the sides, the varnish had long ago cracked on the wooden doors that hung askew. When Luna pushed past them she saw a massive tree had fallen through the roof and the long empty room was covered in dry crackling leaves under the snow.
Feeling finally as if she were alone Luna walked past the rows of overturned benches to the altar. It was a beautifully carved effigy of a hooded woman and someone had clearly tried to remove it by the scuff marks on the floor. The thought of looters in this beautiful place brought tears to her eyes. She brushed them away as a thought struck her.
This was the cathedral where her mother had died. This was the place she had been born. Luna bit her lip slightly as she looked for a door out of the sanctuary. There was one just behind a moldering tapestry to the left of the altar and she burst through it.
The dimming hallway could have been part of an inhabited building if one ignored the broken panes of glass every few windows and the copious dust.
Luna walked down the hallway, peering in room after room that had been emptied of its contents. Finally, up a winding little staircase she came to a small room where a fire had been laid in the hearth and a musty feather mattress was still intact on a small bed. The last rays of the sun were red in the tiny window, the shadow of the branches on the wall making the sun into flicking flames. The sight only made her feel colder and she fumbled a flint and steel by the bed to light the tinder under the logs.
It took a few tries before she could light it, between cold fingers and inexperience. Finally once the fire was lit she sat in front of it warming her fingers. Her stomach ached from hunger but walking all day in the cold had been exhausting. Luna crawled onto the musty mattress and closed her eyes, asleep before she had time to register the clicking of claws on the stone stairs.
During the night, the little fire burned low - a chill creeping into the room. Luna shifted in her sleep as a new log was tossed clumsily onto the grate in the flickering dimness. She woke enough to register gleaming eyes reflecting the flames licking up and charring the fresh wood.
"Thank you." she muttered.
In the morning Luna sat up in the sunny room and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She looked around the room, her mind absently taking in the dust and dirt, the wolf sitting in the doorway with her lost basket at its feet, the cheerfully burning little fire, the birds outside greeting the -
She jerked her head around to the doorway so fast that she was dizzy. The wolf was gone but the basket remained just inside the room. Might she have imagined it?
The stairway beyond was poorly lit and appeared to be empty. It still took a few false starts for Luna to crawl off the dirty mattress and snatch her food. She nearly fell scrambling back with it. In minutes though she was bolting down an apple and toasting some of the stale bread with the cheese on a dusty fireplace poker. She ripped off a greasy chunk of ham with some trouble and replaced it on the poker to heat up a bit as she burned her mouth on the toast. Everything was finished off with another juicy, sticky apple.
Once her ravenous hunger was sated Luna winced at how grimy, and now sticky she was. Sighing she wrapped everything back in the quilt and pressed her hands to her eyes.
The tears came hard, hot fat drops onto her lap as she thought of her father's body still and cold in his big bed, of Jaeger's eyes, kind and warm and - with a sick twist in the pit of her stomach - of his hands on the Princess Regent's waist. Serena's cold eyes and knowing smile rose in Luna's mind's eye and along with that the lump in her throat choked her. Slamming her hands down on the bed Luna screamed. It was a long and lingering cry that hung in the air even after Luna fell quiet. The silence was piercing. And brief, an answering howl echoed from the lower floor. The howl repeated distantly as the whole pack took up the call.
This time there was no mistaking the click of the wolf's steps on the stone. Luna closed her eyes, breathing in quick little panicked breaths.The sound came to the doorway and stopped.
She opened her eyes, knowing if she wasn't quick she wouldn't have the courage to run. In the doorway was the largest blackest wolf she had ever seen. And in its mouth was a dried and tattered red rose. Luna sat still, the morning sun cold on her shoulders. Her heartbeat sounded in her ears, and for a moment she and the wolf were in a dream. Snow blew around them, and it wasn't one rose but as many as the wolf could wrap his mouth around. Blood from his pierced jaw and tongue splattered on the snow and the frost-coated marble of the headstone as he dropped his roses and raised his head to howl. There was no sound and the shock of it made Luna blink.
The two were back in the small warm room and the wolf was looking at her with tired blue eyes. Eyes she knew well from seeing them in her mirror every day.
Drawing her knees to her chest as childish imaginary protection, Luna could only stare. Those blue eyes were the same as she had inherited from her mother. The wolf cocked its head, seeming to try and appear as harmless as possible. It took a slow step towards her and Luna started. Seeing her fear it sat. She swallowed.
"Mother?"
She'd dreamed about the wolf so long ago, by her mother's grave. Her heart ached, tears welled in her eyes at the memory of the needle point project she'd flung into the fireplace after her father died.
"I dreamed about you."
The wolf made a soft noise and padded to her, nuzzling away her tears with it's damp nose. She stiffened but didn't push it away.
"Are you my mother?" Luna whispered. It chuffed softly and shook its head. She swallowed, wrapping her arms around the heavy fur of its neck ruff.
"Did… did you know her?" She felt more than saw the affirmative dip of its head as the fur rubbed against her skin Luna sniffed again and tightened her grip.
They sat like that for sometime before the wolf pulled back and with delicate tugs started rewrapping her bundle of food. Luna watched in confusion automatically tying the bundle off when it gave her an expectant look. Her strange new companion picked the basket handle up in its teeth and trotted to the door. She closed her eyes and let her brain rest for a moment.
Another deep ruff made her grab her cloak and hurry to the door.
There were seven wolves. Luna met them all as she followed the black wolf she'd decided to call Prince. He'd sat and scratched his ear when she'd said that and a punctuated howl had risen from the nearby bushes making Luna jump. Prince had dragged a gold and gray wolf out by his scruff.
The wolf had tocked his tail once and she'd declared him Knight with a tap of her finger against her lip.
There was also Mist, for her pale gray fur and way she drifted between the trees soundlessly; Amos who ambled out out the brush to sniff her hands curiously; and Red whose fur tips shown auburn as fall leaves in the winter sunlight. These five were her companions, breaking a path through the heavy snow as she stumbled along like a puppy behind them. Luna didn't see the last two, Amber and Midas, until they arrived at their destination. The two half grown and gangly pups bounded out to greet Mist. When they saw her they dodged behind Red who sighed and promptly laid down with a world weary look.
She hardly had time to take in the changes before Prince was pulling her by her sleeve into a solid and secure but clearly long abandoned house. She stared at the dust and disarray while Prince pulled an old armchair up to the fireplace with his teeth. He gave her an expectant look and she drifted over to light the fire with the flint from the cathedral.
After that he let her be for a while though she could hear the wolves outside, yipping and howling softly. Luna couldn't say when she slipped into dreams.