Howling in the Caves (Fenrir)

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The cave was certainly something to sneeze at and the ghost story it much more interesting. Lorelei liked ghost stories, anything horror related or anything tragic, anything that led to another person's spirit haunting something, she loved it! The cave was her refuge, no one really went there. Sometimes on Halloween stupid teenagers would dare their friends to walk in and stay the night. Other than that, no one really came. Which made Lorelei especially happy to be there. It was early evening the sun was starting to set, her favorite time of day. All was bliss and right with the world.

What was she doing there, you ask? Lorelei liked the caves especially for the reason that the acoustics inside it were just magnificent. She liked singing and playing inside them, hearing her voice reverbrate off the walls, the echo was cool! She picked a little ways from the opening and sat on a protruding rock and started to warm up on her pipe. She played a few notes before setting it back down and breathed deeply, letting the silence envelope her for a few moments before starting:

Someday,
When we are wiser.
When the world's older.
When we have learned.
I pray,
Someday we may yet live to live and let live.

Someday,
Life will be fairer.
Need will be rarer
And greed will not pay.
Godspeed,
This bright millenium
On its way.
May it come someday.

Someday,
Our fight will be won and
We'll stand in the sun in
That bright afternoon.
Til then
On days when the sun is gone.
We'll hang on if we wish upon the moon.

There are some days, dark and bitter.
Seems we haven't got a prayer.
But a prayer for something better
is the one thing we all share!

Someday,
When we are wiser.
When the whole world is older.
When we have learned.
I pray
Someday we may yet live to live and let live.

Someday,
Life will be fairer,
Need will be rarer,
And greed will not pay.
Godspeed,
This bright millenium,
On it's way,
Let it come,
If we wish upon the moon.
One day, someday...
Soon.

No audience to hear her, sometimes she liked it like that. What she didn't know was that she did have an audience. Hopefully, one that wasn't completely unwelcomed.

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Fenrir liked the cave for similar reasons, much like the forest it was a secluded place that could be relied upon to remind him of home - not that his memories of home were all particularly pleasant, but as long as there was no heather around he was happy enough (as much as he was ever happy), and it was nice to be away from the modern hustle and bustle of the school.

He had tucked himself far back from the entrance, deep amongst the rocks, and was just enjoying the quiet solitude - until he heard footsteps. He had stayed hidden, hoping that she would leave or at least stay quiet and away from him, but music seemed to be her aim. Her song was pleasant enough, but he had come here for quiet and solitude and she was allowing him neither. Counselling himself to not get angry, he decided he would simply leave and seek it elsewhere, so he stood and started to make his way towards the mouth of the cave, hoping she didn't notice him.

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The sound of movement in a corner alerted and startled Lorelei. She gasped and looked toward the place and found a boy standing there. Taken very much aback, she started to blush a deep, deep red, one for being found out, two for interrupting someone else's time, and three because he was a boy. She got along with boys well enough, but she was really awkward around them, unless she was playing. "I am so sorry, I thought, I-I-I..." she tried to get out. "I didn't see you and I thought, I-I...!"

Her head was just screaming at her to stop talking and to just run! You're going to be a Pied Piper and you can't even speak to a boy your own age?! she thought furiously. But she couldn't deny that all she wanted to do was to get out and come another time. Before she did that, she took a deep breath to calm herself. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you, and I usually come here to practice, but I'm sorry I bothered you, and I'm just gonna leave," she said, her eyes were trained on the ground the whole time and her blush did not fade at all.

Lori bit her lip and grabbed her pipe and cloak and started to walk out of the cave, embarrassed beyond her life and pretty sure she would be beratting herself later for not staying or at least introducing herself. Because as she started to walk away, she started to think that he was kinda cute and he looked nice enough. She didn't feel any strange vibes off of him, only the slight annoyance, but not the usual dark and overwhelming feeling she'd get around "bad" people, people that everyone should stay away from. But she didn't feel any of that.

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Fenrir stared at her blankly as she started speaking. He was attempting not to get annoyed, but he dearly wished she would just let him leave without attempting to engage him in conversation. Noticing her awkwardness, he sighed inwardly - misinterpreting her shyness as fear, assuming she found him intimidating as so many others did. He had yet to realise that it wasn't so much his form as his demeanour that was somewhat intimidating these days; though well-muscled his human form was still not nearly so imposing as the giant wolf he had been before.

When she said that she would leave instead, he sighed - though a very large part of him was happy to let her go and for the cave to just return to the comforting emptiness it had held before, he was vaguely aware of some convention of politeness that was necessary here. Besides, there was a sort of logic to insisting she stay, there was no point in them both leaving after all, and he could find his solitude anywhere. She clearly desired somewhere appropriate for music.

"I already volunteered to leave, you may stay," he said, perhaps a little more bluntly than he intended.

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Lori smiled, but hid it away from him. Even though he seemed gruff and angry, he was trying to be polite. She brushed her hair away and looked to the ground. "No, I should go, I mean you were here first," she said and started for the opening. "Just a small question, what are you doing here, not that it's any of my business or anything, I was just wondering," she said again stumbling over her words.

This boy, he just seemed so, high sturng? No, tense would be a better word. She could tell he didn't want to stand around talking to her, he didn't seem like the type to stand around talking to anyone! Well, he didn't seem like the type to make friends easily. Especially if he spent most of his time around here. She was friendly, but if people didn't want to have anything to do with her then she wouldn't impose very long.

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Why did humans insist on making things more complicated? He had chosen to leave first, he had assured her that he would leave, why was she still arguing the point and continuing the conversation more than was necessary? Particularly when she asked him why he was here, did all humans take such interest in everybody around them? Was that how they made friends? Was he supposed to be asking those kinds of questions as well? They just didn't come naturally to him.

"I just enjoy the solitude," he said eventually, hoping that if he just gave her the answer she sought and moved on, he would be able to go and find that solitude somewhere else. Perhaps he should just allow her to leave and be done with it, but he'd always been rather stubborn, and he had intended to leave first, now that his mind was made up he wanted to stick with it.

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Lori smiled. Well he was straight forward. Seems like he expected it of everyone. "I can understand why, I'm not one for crowds either, animals I can handle, but people?" she said and shuddered comically.

She figured appealing to his better nature would make him open up a bit more. On the other hand it might make him clam up more and make him think that she was weird. She sighed and shuffled her feet. "By the way, my name is Lorelei or Lori if you want," she said, she wanted to giver him her name so that they coulld actually have a first name basis.

"And you?" she asked. "You see familiar."

He seemed familiar, in a way that she thought she should know him. But for some reason his name just wouldn't come to her.

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Fenrir made a tiny noise of amusement in the back of his throat when she mentioned prefering to be around animals to people. Technically speaking, he was an animal, and a lot of the time he felt a lot more like a wolf than a person, even when he was in this form. Perhaps that was why he had such a hard time connecting to them, but then they were also mostly midgardian, and he was not that either.

"Fenrir. I do not believe we have met." he replied to her query bluntly, eyes flickering to the entrance of the cave. Perhaps he should have just kept walking and just ignored her when she spoke, but while he wasn't particularly sociable, he didn't want to actually be rude.

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Fenrir... the name struck a chord of familiarity. What was it, Fenrir, FenRIR, Fen... Fen. That's it! A god, the wolf god, the one that was chained up too prevent Ragnarok. Lori always found that story to be a self-fullfilling prophecy. The Gods were way too confident about keeing their place in the world that soon they were hurting the things that they thought would bring them down. Things or people that were quite harmless at first, but then turned into murderous, vengeful beings that eventually did bring the Gods crumbling down.

"Yeah, no we never met," she said softly. "But I know you.

She didn't know if she should've shared that, but it seemed like she couldn't stop herself from saying it . "I mean I just know the myth, again she didn't think that was the right thing to say.

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Fenrir tensed again when she mentioned that she'd heard the myth - the last time he stumbled across someone who apparently knew his story, they'd ended up fighting. He just hoped whatever version of his tale this girl knew wasn't inclined to make her dislike or antagonise him the way Astrid had.

He nodded slightly, though he wasn't sure what else to say in reply, so he simply waited, watching her warily and wondering what opinion she may have formed of him. That was the problem with a place like this, where people already knew your story, depending on the variation or their own interpretation, they already had ideas and opinions about who you were and what you were like. Given that the gods were likely to be perpetrating the stories about him, he couldn't imagine they were particularly encouraging - most likely everybody would be left thinking of him as the gods did, as violent and untrustworthy.

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Lori shuffled her feet in the dirt with obvious embarrassment. She swallowed and looked at him. "I feel sorry for you," she said.

That hung there between them like a limp rope that was held between them. The words rang in the cave like a gong. She did feel sorry for him. His guardian let him be bound and she couldn't imagine the kind of guilt he could feel for hurting his guardian as well. Just because he lost it one time, he was now branded for life as one of things that would bring about the end of the world. She blushed and bit her lip. "I mean, well, that's not what I meant," she tried again. "I'm sorry for what happened to you."

Again she knew he wasn't bad. However, his temper could snap and he'd just storm out or worse lash out at her. She wouldn't necessarily blame him, the last thing anyone would want to hear was that they pitied them. "It must've been hard to be chained up and to be blamed for something that hasn't even happened yet," she explained.

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Fenrir stared blankly at her, her reaction wasn't something that he'd ever expected, while he often railed against the injustice of what had been done to his siblings and him, he never really expected anybody else to feel the same way, or to feel sympathy for them. He didn't want her pity, but he couldn't quite bring himself to actively reject it, not when he was so unaccustomed to that sort of response.

"It was." he said eventually, not really sure what else to say. Sympathy and understanding were sort of alien to him, when it came from anybody but his sister anyway, so he wasn't actually inclined to lose his temper just yet, he was in a somewhat calm state of slight confusion.

"But now I am here," he added, hoping that would stop the confusing and unprecedented kindness, it wasn't that he didn't want people to be kind to him, he just didn't know how to handle it, so the sooner it stopped the better as far as he was concerned.

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Lori nodded and smiled. She walked up to him timidly, as if he was wild animal (though for technicality's sake he was). She put out her hand and gentley placed it on his shoulder. "I understand your pain, I've had my share of blame," she said. "I've been looked at as the bad guy a few more times than you think."

She really did. Apparently being turned into animals wasn't that desireable and when they clearly asked for it, she was considered the evil one. It wasn't her fault that their inside was conveyed in such a way that it was embarrassing or demeaning. Granted her "powers" weren't that developed yet, but she still got in trouble for someone growing a rat-tail or whiskers. However when her assistance was needed, everyone praised her for doing the "right" thing.

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He flinched slightly at the touch on his shoulder, even though he was expecting it, the experience of somebody else touching him without meaning him harm was just so unusual that he wasn't sure how to react to it. Again, it was different with Hel, he was used to that, but anybody else?

It did make him slightly uncomfortable, however, so it was only a few moments before he stepped away from the touch awkwardly, trying to make it seem like a natural movement, nodding at her words. He wanted to respond to cover up the movement, but he didn't really have anything else to add and he wasn't the type to talk just for the sake of talking, so instead he fell silent, glancing over at the entrance to the cave and wondering how best to escape this confusing situation.