So she knows that about him now: when she scratches him, he just starts fucking her harder, panting and slamming into her and eating at her mouth, fucking her so much harder. That's good to know. Iris files that one away. She wonders how he likes getting bitten. If maybe having his ass slapped while he's fucking her turns him on. She wonders for a second, and then there's sex, and she isn't wondering anymore, she's just enjoying herself. They're quite entertaining, these bouts of theirs.
--
After, she scoffs at him. His pretense of being scandalized by wanting a washcloth like he didn't just make a mess of her. She rolls her eyes. She doesn't say aloud:
I'm Missus Dahlstrom and you're sweetheart. That they already have pet names for each other, after one night. A few hours. However long it's been.
They might have been here for weeks.
--
They wash up. They -- finally -- leave the bedroom, and they hold hands. They head for the stairs, and this time he had better be wearing a goddamn shirt because BOY HOWDY if he didn't. He has to get a job. He has to look respectable for once in his Gaia-forsaken life. Who is going to trust him to keep the grounds around here and fix broken pipes if he can't wear a shirt?
Which is the BOY HOWDY part.
They make it downstairs. By day, the bar down there is mostly empty. There is only one person there, an older woman sitting on a stool behind the bar, wearing spectacles. She's knitting. She's not old. Just. Older.
She glances over the rims of her spectacles at them as they come downstairs. Iris, suddenly nervous, looks at Coll and smiles. Winningly.
Coll MacCullochHe's sweetheart.
He's also bastard, limey son of a bitch, and -- when she's feeling civil -- Mr. MacCulloch. He is sometimes, in very rare, very special occasions usually involving arousal, he is Coll. He suspects in the future he might also occasionally be honey or sweetie or darling or jackass or jerkoff or shithead, mood- and situation-dependent. He think there might be cases in which rags and sponges might be thrown at his head. He can imagine, on some hot summer's day, blasting her with the industrial-kitchen-sink's spray nozzle as she walks by. Making her shriek, making her smack him repeatedly with her palms, at least until he catches her hands, at least until he convinces her that it's so much more interesting to be making out against the rack of clean dishes. He has amorphous and happy little ideas of the future, and it makes him amorphously happy to think of them.
Downstairs, then. The strange denizens of the night before have moved on. The strange denizens of the night to come have yet to show up. Just one woman there, older-but-not-old, knitting, spectacles: a little bit severe, perhaps, but not unkind. Her hair is grey; it is up in a bun. Her needles clack and clack and clack and clack, though she doesn't seem to be knitting a sweater, or darning socks, or anything of the sort. She's knitting some very long, very broad, very strange fabric: a complex weave of chaotic, multicolored yarn. Here a thread begins. There a thread ends. Here they join, and there they split; here they intersect, there they divide. Her fingers move. Her needles flash. Her spectacles catch the morning sun.
She looks, Coll thinks, exactly like the sort of woman you would expect to run a bed-and-breakfast-y inn
at the end of time.
--
Iris is looking at him. Coll blinks. He whispers, "I thought ye said you'd talk to them abou' us stayin' on," and she just smiles at him, winningly, and he plasters this grin on his face and then,
then the proprietress is looking at them, her knitting not missing a beat. At him.
"Er -- "
He rubs his thumb restlessly, uncertainly over the side of his fingers. A beat or two. Then he finds his courage, and his voice. He takes a few steps forward, Iris's hand in his.
"Goo'mornin'," he says, and no Iris he does not say top o' the mornin' to ye, he's not Irish, "I'm Coll MacCulloch an' I am a werewolf. This is m'wife, Iris Dahlstrom. We ha' been talkin', an' -- well, we were wonderin' if we migh' stay on here. If ye migh' ha' room for th' two o' us. We coul' help ye run th' inn."
The staccato music of the needles stops. The woman looks from one to the other; back.
Then, to Iris: "What can you do?"
Iris DahlstromOne of these days Coll is going to blast Iris with a spray nozzle while she's walking by and even though it's a hot summer's day she won't be amused, and that makeout session he 'convinces' her to have will end very painfully for him. One of these days he's going to squirt her with the spray nozzle and she's going to storm upstairs and lock the doors on him so he can't come home until he goes and gets her some flowers. Somewhere.
Coll is certain there are grounds to keep. He'll paint the exterior, but Iris doesn't remember what the exterior of this place looks like. She's not sure there's a garden. Or a little village nearby. She's not sure there's anything outside of this. Part of her affection for him is not telling him this just yet; part of her willingness to stay here is being afraid to leave. And that's not exactly the greatest reason to get married but she never said she was perfect.
Her thoughts about the future are a little more complicated, but no less amorphous. If that works.
--
When Coll whispers at her, Iris just shrugs at him. Smiles like that. And she is winning and he is won, so he grins and goes to the knitting woman and walks forward. Iris steps with him, his comely bride, et cetera et cetera.
She doesn't bat an eyelash when he says he's a werewolf. Nor does the knitting woman. She just pauses her knitting, lowering the needles, and looks to Iris to ask her what she can do.
Iris, true ulfsdottir that she is, straightens her back like she's been challenged. "I can work," she says, bluntly.
Coll MacCullochThe knitting woman, which is perhaps how they will come to think of her, flicks her eyes quickly, discerningly over Iris. Those eyes are very clear, very grey. No color; neither black nor white. She looks at Iris's hands, her eyes.
"There's cooking to be done. Steaks to be carved, vegetables to be cut, pots to stir, dishes to wash. We could use an extra pair of hands behind the bar, or waiting the tables. There's always floors to be mopped and tables to be wiped, shelves to be dusted, rooms to be freshened up. Things break and need to be fixed sometimes, if you're good with that. And Charlie comes by with supplies every week or so. You can help unload, though I suspect your werewolf here might be better at the heavy lifting.
"I don't have much to pay you with," continues the knitting woman. "You can keep your tips, of course, though you oughta know the customers pay with all sorts of things around here." She hikes a work-roughened thumb over her shoulder. There's an impressive rack of antlers over the hearth, the points dripping with necklaces, charms, bracelets, rings. Atop the mantle, all manner of whatsits: furs and smoked meats, sure, but also odder things: fine china, wristwatches, a handful of unfamiliar nuts, a vase of flowers, a set of beats headphones surrendered by some hip youngster.
"I won't charge for room, board and meals," she continues. "And I suppose if you could always tell Charlie if you needed something special."
Iris DahlstromIris, hearing all that, looks up at Coll. They haven't been married twelve hours yet but she's trying to ask him, telepathically it seems, what he thinks.
And if he can hear her -- telepathically of course -- it seems like this sounds all right to her. This could work. She wouldn't mind all that. She squeezes his hand, but doesn't answer the woman herself. After all: he has a telepathic question to answer.
Coll MacCullochWell, Iris, sorry to disappoint, but Coll has not evolved telepathy. He has, however, somehow through his twenty-some-odd-years gathered some amount of perceptiveness. He knows to look at her when she squeezes his hand. He understands, at least partly, the look she gives him.
And he squeezes her hand back. "I think we can manage any o' tha' 'tween the both o' us," he says quietly. "We can help out where we're needed 'til we find a niche amongst the rest o' the folks 'ere."
Iris DahlstromIris smiles at him. Between the both of them -- though he can't say the words correctly at all -- they can manage any of that. And it isn't much to ask. Loading and unloading. Carving meat, chopping vegetables, tending bar, waiting tables, cleaning up. Fixing things that break. Their tips may or may not include animal pelts and skulls, jewelry, meat, gilded teacups. Iris has taken similar things before as payment. And truth be told, room and board is plenty.
She looks back to the knitting woman and gives her a nod. "It sounds like a deal," she says.
Coll MacCullochThe knitting woman nods, blunt but not quite curt. "You can have your pick of the empty rooms upstairs. Cook's got one, Joe behind the bar's got one, I've got one, and we keep one for Charlie in case he wants a good night's sleep before he heads back out. Still plenty left. We don't clock hours here and no one's going to tell you what needs to be done. Just look around. When you're settled in, you can set yourselves to whatever you think ought to be tended to."
She returns her attention to her knitting. The rhythm of the needles resumes -- then pauses. She looks up again. Gives a small, faint smile.
"It's good to have a little more help around the place. The knitting keeps me so busy."
And that's it, really. No questions about who they are, where or when they're from, why they want to stay. No comment on where they really were, what's out there, where the path back to their world -- or perhaps their worlds, if they don't come from the same one -- might lie. Just a few words. A verbal deal, on their honor and on their word, as informal as their wedding vows.
Iris DahlstromThey never ask her name. Truthfully, Iris is wary to know it. She wonders if Cook is a woman, because if she's the only one around here other than Knitting Lady then she may just get a divorce, she's had quite enough of being the only woman for miles. She has a feeling that the knitting woman isn't always right there but can always, if you're looking for her, be found.
She reflects for a moment on what has become of her life in the last twelve hours, but really: what has changed that wasn't already in transition? She did not have a people or a place; now she has both. She wonders if she'll ever see her harried mother or her estranged sister again, or if one of her old boys will walk through the door one night and remember her. She wonders a lot of things, and then
she just needs to know.
"Let's go get some of my things from the truck," she says quietly to Coll, looking to the door and then back to his eyes.
Coll MacCullochThat makes Coll nervous. It makes him nervous, even though -- let's be honest -- if he couldn't ever walk out that door, if simply stepping out into fresh air would make him disappear back to whatever life or afterlife he came from, he'd need a divorce too. He's a wolf. He's a son of stag. Some things are necessary: love and passion and a good brawl, a good story, a good fire, a good strong drink. A song under the stars. Howling at the moon.
Still: nervous. And wary. And his hand in hers squeezing, holding tight. He asks the knitting woman: "Wha' happens if we walk out th' door?"
She doesn't look up. She smiles, wry.
"Guess you'll just have to find out yourself, won't you, boy-o?"
Iris DahlstromYou cannot ask either of them to stay under this roof for the rest of their lives, or non-lives, whatever they have now. No air, no light, no moon, no running, no hunting, no driving along a dark road for miles, nothing outside of these four walls and the roof. She, despite her wonky eggs that will never develop into babies, likes to make things grow and would like to learn how to garden, because she's never stayed in one place long enough to raise plants. He needs the moonlight, and not just through a window. He needs the air. He needs the night, even the nights that he'll spend out of her arms, keeping her bed and her body warm.
Before they go any further, Iris wants to know. She doesn't want to build a life with him here and then, one day, walk outside and find nothing. Find him gone. They are holding each other's hand tight now, as the woman tells them -- smiling, and smiling wry -- they should find out. They have to find out.
Iris looks up at Coll. And then, without another word, she turns and starts walking over to the door. When they get to it, she reaches for the handle, and looks over at Coll. This time she doesn't ask him to read her mind.
"Are you ready, sweetheart?" she asks him.
Coll MacCullochHe is staring ahead when she asks him that. Looking at the heavy door, its heavy hinges. Its heavy brass handle and fittings. She can see his throat move as he swallows.
He looks at her. "No' really," he admits, and then lifts her hand to his mouth. Presses a tight kiss to her knuckles. "Let's find out anyway."
His hand covers hers on the handle. And then they open the door.
Iris DahlstromSometimes she looks at him and he seems so young. Funny to say that when she's been asleep more in his company than awake in it. Funny to say that when she met him just last night, but that is what she thinks. The way he swallows, the way his throat moves: she thinks oh, you boy. It is tender and a bit aching and possessive. She doesn't let go of his hand, gives it a squeeze,
and he looks at her. Kisses her hand. Iris smiles up at him for that, the inherent gallantry and tenderness of the gesture. She doesn't kiss him. She doesn't want to start thinking of it as one last kiss, one more before they are parted forever.
His hand is warm when it covers hers on the heavy handle. Iris tugs, and Coll tugs, and they pull it open together.
--
The light outside is blinding. It dazzles Iris's eyes, makes her lift a hand to shade her brow. She sees her truck and the camper right where she parked it. She smells sweetgrass and dust, smells clean air and the middle of the day. She feels like she's stepped out of one place and into another, one time into another, one world into another. She thinks of getting back in the truck, driving onward. She hurts a bit.
She thinks of Coll, getting naked out of bed to propose to her. Of the way he recited his vows a second time, of how lightly he held her hand while he drew a ring on her finger. She thinks of a dozen such memories, tender and amorous and affectionate and exasperated. So many memories, for such a short time together. Tears come to her eyes.
Perhaps she knows better, but she looks down at her hand. The one that was holding his. And --
--
The light outside is blinding. It dazzles Coll's eyes, all gold and white for a moment before clarity starts to come back. He can smell game on the wind, somewhere distant, calling to him. He can feel bloodlust in his veins again. If he listens carefully, he hears a song somewhere out on the road, urging him onward, or back. So many hunts to go on, so many minions of the Wyrm to slaughter, so many women to seduce. If he looks behind him, he might find just as much as he finds before him.
Perhaps he thinks of Iris. Her fair hair, her bright green eyes, her soft breasts, her wry smiles. Perhaps he thinks of his vows, and what they mean now that he has stepped out of whatever life he used to live, whatever life led him to that tavern. Perhaps he thinks of her. Perhaps he feels something move in his chest, when he does.
Perhaps he knows better, when he looks down at his hand. The one that was holding hers. And --
--
Iris squeezes his hand again, tears in her eyes, a tight, aching little smile on her lips. She's batting her lashes, she's not going to cry, Jesus. She exhales, and it's relief and happiness that is growing so big and so rapid in her chest she thinks she might burst apart from it.
And then she is on him, throwing her arms around his neck and shoulders, leaping off the ground a little bit, hugging him as tightly as she held his hand. Tighter. Kissing him, kissing his face and his brow and his mouth, his neck, anywhere she can reach.
Coll MacCullochThe sun is bright.
The sun is bright and it is summer, oh, can't you taste it on the air. The smell of flowers in bloom and trees clothed in green; the smell of elk wandering the distant ridge, the smell of rabbits in the tall grass. Coyotes, too, and maybe wild wolves in the forest. Birds nesting, birds flying -- clouds that bring warm rain.
Coll breathes it in. He closes his eyes and he lets it move through him, the warmth of the sun and the warmth of the breeze and the warmth of the life all around him. He feels bloodlust. He feels the call of the road. He knows there are hunts to be chased, Wyrm to be slaughtered, women to be bedded, ales to be quaffed. He knows, and he knows, but god,
sometimes he's tired of it. The emptiness, the repetition of being so very carefree that he is careless, so very careless that he is shiftless, so very shirtless that he is anchorless.
And he tells himself it is okay, it'll be all right if he opens his eyes and his wife of twelve hours is gone; he knew it was a risk, they both did, and so
it's okay if his heart breaks, it's okay if he finds the very memory of her slipping from his mind, it's okay if his eyes adjust and open and he's back where he came from, back in the same world, back on the same path.
He lies; and it's not even a very good story.
--
But:
he opens his eyes. He looks down. And there, right there, is her hand in his. It's the hand he drew the ring on. It's the hand that held his as they both reached for the door.
He laughs aloud -- a surprised little gasp of a laugh. He can't help it. He squeezes her hand and he'd kiss it again, but then she is turning to him and flinging herself into his waiting arms; he is wrapping those long lean arms around her and spinning her in two wild spirals, her trailing feet flying up, her hair golden in the light. She hugs him so tightly; he holds her so tight. They are kissing again, showering kisses on each other.
Her heart wants to burst with relief and happiness. He thinks he might be physically aglow with joy. He thinks Gaia is kind after all: she must be, mustn't she, to set two wandering souls on the path they took, to bring two kind and bright but -- let's admit it -- slightly tired, slightly careworn, slightly raw souls together like this. To let them meet and laugh and love and wed, and to let them have each other. Here, in this little pocket of reality, this little waystation in the storm. Gaia must be kind.
Even when he's done spinning her around and around, Coll holds on to Iris. He holds her for a very long time in that warm summer sun. Through the open doorway, the knitting woman sends them a wry, fond glance. She smiles. She understands.
--
They get Iris's things out of her truck. Coll proves he can, in fact, haul things. He carries her things in, and she doesn't have very much but really: he has less. He has his battered wallet and his dented phone and his skateboard and a key on an old chain that opens a tiny little hovel of an apartment that contained a few changes of clothes and maybe some microwaveable dinners. He supposes he'll be evicted now, and doesn't care.
They find a room upstairs that has a tub. She puts her clothes away and he puts her toiletries in the bathroom. He opens the windows while she unpacks the rest of her things. She pins back the drapes. He makes a note to ask Charlie to bring him a few changes of clothes the next time he comes in. She stashes his skateboard under the bed. He 'borrows' that vase of flowers from the mantle downstairs and puts it on her nightstand. She sweeps the dust from the windowsill,
and he wraps his arms around her middle because of the way she looks stretching up like that,
and she turns and slides her arms around him, rag forgotten in hand.
--
It's not always summer, of course. Time is a little more fluid here. Sometimes the day stretches forever. Sometimes the nights, particularly when the guests are many, go on forever and ever and no one ever feels sleepy. Sometimes the sun rises on a summer day and the day ends in a gentle, quiet snow. Sometimes it pours out there. Sometimes the wind combs all the wildgrass flat.
And that grass -- lush and green, sprinkled with wildflowers. A treeline in the distance, a thick forest full of game. A distant stream running into a river; a river pouring from the mountains on the horizon.
There's a world out there. It's a small and quiet one, free of those overarching shadows of the War. It's a fantastical and mysterious one, where the farther they go, the stranger it gets. There's a little village with a general store that always seems stocked with what they're looking for. There's a little church that seems to celebrate whatever faith they need most. There are people who come every day or every night to work in the inn, though they don't seem to live there. There's a hunting lodge deep in the forest where Coll sometimes runs into other men, other wolves, other hunters from other worlds. There's a pale woman in white who only wanders the road on misty full-moon nights, and there's a tower with some mysterious master, a warlock or a wizard, and there's a mist that hides a lake that might just hide a legendary sword, and -- anything, everything, all the legends and dreams and thoughts that come to mind: there's the sense that they just might be out there, if only they looked far enough, wandered long enough.
The inn, though. That's the keystone, the axis, the center and the constant. The inn, and its road: that hard-packed dirt road stretching both ways into the distance, all but empty during the days but busy, so busy every night. Bringing to their door the explorers and the curious, the lost souls and the simply lost, the warrior-poets on their way past the Western Sea to the Homelands, the mighty wolves on their way back to Valhalla. Occasionally Iris meets one of her boys, seeking comfort and company or seeking the way to the Homelands. Occasionally Coll meets one of his battle-brothers. More often, they meet strangers, wanderers, new friends, old souls.
They help keep the lights burning. They keep the fires hot. They keep the stew warm, the beer cold, the walls strong, the garden kept. They bicker. They laugh. She calls him Irish and he insists that he is not, and she tells him it doesn't matter because he has terrible diction. He calls her a scold, she calls him a grump. Sometimes they argue, and sometimes they go to bed angry. Sometimes she throws rags at him. Sometimes he brings her flowers from the garden, weaves them into circlets for her hair. Sometimes,
most times,
most every night,
they retire together to their little room. They shut the door and close the drapes and wash up and undress, and he wraps his arms around her in their bed, and she laces her fingers with his. They never do get real wedding rings, but sometimes, when she holds his hand like that, he thinks he can feel one there all the same.
A band around his finger. A string from his heart to hers.
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