The Hunt 5/?

[soncnica]

Title: The Hunt 5/?
Author: soncnica
Rating: 'NC-17' later, but 'PG-13' for now
Genre/pairing: Jared/Jensen AU
Characters: Jared, Jensen
Word count: cca. 5.600 this chapter
Summary: It's the time of The Hunt again. And this year Jensen has to participate. Jared is a werewolf who hasn't found his mate yet in all the years he's been participating in The Hunt. But this year... he smells something he wants.
Warnings: *takes a deep breath* werewolf!Jared, bloodplay, branding, barebacking, biting, mental links, chuffing/presten, scenting, skitish!Jensen (but not too much, he is a man after all), language, dirty talk, knotting, death of minor character(s), age difference (Jared is 28, Jensen is 18), NO CHARACTER DEATH (Jared and Jensen survive, he), NOT UNDERAGE, NO BESTIALITY (that means no wolf!Jared/Jensen okay a little scene, but it's 'you blink and it's gone' trust me), and a lot more warnings to come. I'll post warnings with chapters, so THIS CHAPTER: no warnings me thinks...
Disclaimer: I seriously only own the grammar/spelling mistakes. Everything else is not mine! NOT MINE! ALL IS FICTION! FICTION I TELL YA!!!! 
Art: YESSS ART!!! Go HERE and check it out... the super awesome witchcraftx13 made it for me... it's umm how Jared lookes like when he's a wolf. SO PRETTY and EXACLTY how I picture him to be in my head. THANK YOU SO MUCH!
A/N: Writen for this prompt at spn_hardcore animalistic behavior meme.

GO CHECK OUT THIS AMAZING ART that witchcraftx13  MADE FOR ME!!!!! Thank you again so much, sweetie!!! THAT IS EXACTLY HOW I IMAGINE JARED'S WOLF TO LOOK LIKE!!!!!

I was sick all last week and so.. if you find any MAJOR mistakes in this chapter... it's all my fever's fault! Sowwy! 

Enjoy...

He was fourteen, muscles forming everywhere where they needed to be the most; arms, stomach, calves, back, thighs. Bones stretching flesh, agony at night when growing pains were the worst. His mother tried to massage his legs and arms, but her rough fingers were anything but soothing on his flaming skin. If anything, they made him feel even more pain. But she was his mother, trying to help.

He was trying to be quiet, not wanting to wake up his mother, biting the inside of his lower lip and clutching the tiny straws of hay underneath his hands thinking that there were worse pains in life then that.

The pain of working on the fields; with hot sun burning his skin, making him lightheaded, the tools slipping from his sweaty hands. Digging potatoes out of solid, dry earth; pushing the hoe into the dry dirt, his shoulders burning with strain, getting dirt behind his fingernails that dried up so fast it left his nails stretched.

Pulling and pushing the rake up and down the meadow, trying to catch every little grass stem that he could, to put it into piles to be dried on hot, burning sun and warm wind; to later make a new bed, feed the cows or to give it to the horses…

… all that work brought with it pain. Bleeding palms, backache, headache, shoulders hurting, feet aching, eyes burning.

Those were true pains.

And lying in bed after a hard work on the fields… legs stretching, arms aching… those were the best pains and at fourteen he experienced them all.

And thinking about The Hunt?

Was a pain he never shared with anyone. Not the Elders, not with his mother, not with his friends and especially not with the other men in the village.

He was scared.

But proud.

He was afraid.

But he felt honored. Honored that he would be a part of something so great, something that would protect his village, his mother and his friends from the werewolves.

He dreamed about the man with the color changing eyes.

He dreamed about him a lot.

Every night, ever since he had stepped out of Zehas' cottage feeling like he might pass out again; thirsty, lightheaded and sleepy. He'd said goodnight to his friends, to Zehas and went to bed, grateful that his mother was already asleep and had no questions for him… because he knew he had no answers for her.

The things that had happened to him in Zehas' room… the things he had seen, the things he had felt, the story or Raki, the story of how the pact had been made… how would he… explain that to his mother?

Every night since then he was haunted by the man's face leaning over his and every time he saw and felt and smelled new things… the way someone had pushed him to the floor, how someone had made Cira disappear from his line of sigh, how someone had been on top of him, staring down at him… sun burning the leaves, pressure on his chest… and then once he even smelled the coppery smell of blood.

He woke up screaming after those dreams, the smell of blood still deep in his nose and patted himself down, trying to feel where he was bleeding and when his mother came to him, all bleary eyed and tired to whisper: "'s alright, baby. 's alright." he grabbed her arms and tried to breathe.

Being fourteen was awful and when he turned fifteen… things didn't really improve much.

His fifteenth birthday?

He spend lying sicker then sick in bed, seeing the forest behind his closed eyes and wolves hunt down bigger animals then themselves, saw then take down a wild boar like it was nothing. He saw a cave so huge, so beautiful with a green lake and snow white walls that he just had to reach out his arm to touch the water. But his fingers didn't touch water; they were touched by something else and tugged on until they were placed back down on a prickly surface.

He didn't remember much about it though, not really. All he did remember was what he saw when his eyes refused to open and his lungs refused to fill up with air.

But his mother told him everything that had happened when he asked about it a few months later.

She told him how he was hot as a furnace and how she was scared to touch him a lot.

How he was sweating and moaning, gasping and crying out the word 'kiddo' over and over again.

She told him how she was scared that the Gods were speaking through him, because as much as that would be an honor, it would also bring him death because the Elders would see it as a sign that the Gods wanted him up there on the moon with them.

He wanted to tell her that no… the Gods weren't talking through him… it was just… but he didn't know what it was. Not for sure.

She told him how she put butter on his chest and a warm linen cloth over it, to make the noise in his chest whenever he breathed go way.

He remembered that; the smell of melting butter chasing away the smell of blood and fresh grass and the tickling sensation when the butter ran down his side under his armpits.

She told him how the Elders hadn't known how to cure whatever he had. They had said it wasn't a cold or anything they've ever seen before. She told him they all felt helpless and when the Elders took him away from her to take him in their own cottage… she told him she begged them and pleaded to leave him alone, to leave him with her, but all they said to her was: "If he dies, we'll come for you. If he survives, he'll come to you."

She told him… she was scared for days on end. She spent nights out on the meadow praying up to the Gods on the moon to save her boy. To allow him to walk back to her soon.

After that talk, other kind of dreams started to haunt his nights.

Dreams of a dark room, linen under his skin; hot, wet, smelling like nothing.

Dreams of candle light illuminating only a few parts of the room, and leaving others in complete darkness for his feverish dreams to fill with images of monsters and werewolves, wolves and spirits that would eat him alive, tore off his limbs and leave him in a bloody mess.

Dreams of pain and crying, screams and moans.

Dreams of eyes watching him, hands touching him, him screaming and fighting and strong hands grabbing his.

Dreams of murmured words all around him, it was as if he was floating on them.

Dreams of voices that were scared: "You heal him, you hear me, or I'll rip you apart, I swear!", hopeful: "He'll make it, I know he will, he has too. He's mine." and gentle: "You'll be fine, alright. Just sleep. Sleep it off.", giving him strenght: "You hold on now, you hear me?", giving him hope: "You're fine, you're just fine.", relaxing his limbs and head into the bed.

Dreams of words whispered over and over again, the breath from the mouth of whoever was speaking them, like cold wind on his hot forehead, so soothing: "Hey kiddo. You're gonna be just fine. You're mine, ain't gonna let anything happen to you. Alright, kiddo? You just hang in there."

He woke up drenched in sweat, with those words echoing in his head.

Was that…?

Couldn't be... it couldn't be, because how would the werewolves come into the village? Why would they come? 

No... it was probably just the Elders talking around him and his fever and pain somehow turned their words into something he wanted them to be.

Because... it couldn't have been... the man with the color changing eyes... couldn't have been him.

Could he...?

He wanted to go and ask the Elders what happened to him, what was happening to him, what did it all mean, but… he was afraid. He didn't wanna give the Elders any reason to think, that the Gods were favoring him. They would kill him.

For sure.

And his mother said to leave it alone: "Leave it alone Jensen, whatever you're thinking of doing… leave it alone. You came back, you're alright now. They made you better."

Only Jensen wondered who was the 'they' that made him better.

There were white clouds travelling slowly across the sides of the mountains in the distance, he could see it through the small window, where the straw hanging from the roof left some space for the dusk to fall into the darkness of the cottage.

It was gray outside, the sky cloudy, the sun hadn't made its way through the thick clouds in days, the grass outside was wet and there was mud everywhere you looked; on the paths from cottage to cottage, on the paths leading to the meadow, on the paths leading to the centre of the village, simply everywhere. He came home in the evenings and the first thing his mother said to him was: "You leave your shoes outside, they'll be keeping the cats warm."

There were still some patches of snow; not white anymore, but dirty from animal's peeing in them; they were hiding in some corners of the cottages in the village, near the walls where the wind couldn't reach. Snow that probably wouldn't melt anytime soon. Maybe in April, if they would be lucky.

The cold fog started to move faster, the wind pushing it up and up and over the peeks of the mountains; it was catching on the tips of the trees growing at the side of the mountains, revealing them… like small dark islands in the sea of white.

Jensen wanted to go there someday… climb those mountains, touch those trees and see their little village from the top of the highest mountain.

But that was just a dream; a dream he would never get too…

… it was just a dream.

Those mountains would stay there forever, even after he would be gone, the trees would stay there, swinging in the wind even after he would be gone.

The mountains would stay, watching over the village, even after everything would be gone.

The mountains were timeless.

He was not.

He sighed and pushed his spoon in more zhgance, swirled it around in the warm mix of corn flour and cooked potatoes.

"Here's some milk."

Jensen didn't look up when his mother poured some hot milk over his dinner, he just nodded his head and pushed more zhgance into the milk, bringing the full spoon to his mouth.

It was hot, burning his tongue, but after the day he had, he needed the warmth, he needed something to warm up his belly and send some blood through his veins.

And zhgance was just the dish for him. He had cut his finger while peeling the potatoes, and used all the remaining strength he had to mix the flour in the cooked potatoes, grunting with the effort to make the dish hard like dried mud and without any of flour bits remaining. He hated those because when you bit into them they were flour uncooked. It was disgusting.

His mother sat down on her bed with a sigh, joins popping and bones hurting.

"Eat, Jensen. You're too skinny, you need some strength. You'll need it to help on the fields soon."

"Yes, mother."

And he did. He finished his dinner, whishing so badly that they'd had some pork fat to spice the dish up a bit, but they didn't slaughter any pigs that year. It was a bad year.

He'd been fifteen for a few weeks now and the winter was just not easing up even if it was late spring already.

The spring days brought with them the cold fog and as long as it was just the fog, Jensen was okay with it. He wouldn't be able to stand more rain or Gods forbid even snow.

He had enough of the winter to last him a lifetime, but… winter would always come again.

It really always did.

But there was work to be done in the fields, the horses were getting restless, whatever seed they saved from last year would only last for so long and if it would go to waste… but the soil was still frozen.

It would be a late harvest. It would be a late everything.

They would probably have to starve a little in the summer too and he wasn't looking forward to that.

He was a growing boy; a boy becoming a man and he needed food, he needed the fuel for his body to work and think.

But the weather didn't care for all that. The weather kept the soil frozen and there was nothing he could've done about it.

Just wait.

Snow and gray days; snow and late mornings and early evenings. His fingers were getting tired of doing things with the wool, with the linen… the pads of his fingers were getting almost bloody with all the knitting he did, and when he complained about it, his mother said to him: "You'll freeze if you don't do this. You need clothes. Now go fix that chair."

He loved doing stuff with wood though. Anything to get away from the women chores and if making things out of wood was the way to do so, then by Gods…

He was good with his heavy hammer, a few sharp nails and a chisel.

He fixed the table they had, their chairs, his mother's bed and even the neighbors soon started bringing him stuff to fix.

He loved running his hands over the smooth surface of the wood, of the carvings he did, of the head of the nail he so carefully placed exactly where it needed to be.

He was a boy becoming a man with Zehas' words always on his mind…

Whenever he gripped the hammer tight, he remembered Raki, the brave warrior, whenever he chiseled out some symbols on the wooden handle of the men's knives, he remembered what he would have to do one day.

How he will join the men in this village, or leave them behind for good.

The Hunt.

Whenever he slid his palm over the roughness of tree bark, the wood beneath him begging him to do something with it, he remembered those gentle eyes changing color before his, those dirty fingertips so soft on his eyelids and that whisper of a voice calling him 'kiddo'. He remembered bits and pieces of that same voice calling him 'mine' while cold breath soothed his feverish forehead.

Whenever it all became too much, the thoughts, the memories, the dreams, Zehas' story, his destiny… he missed a nail or two and made one of his fingers black.

He had three fingers black and a strip of skin flapping around on the side of his palm where he cut himself.

He was good at what he did.

But he wasn't that good.

The Hunt.

He thought about it late at night, when he was lying on the moldy hay keeping his back warm…

… what would happen…

He thought about it late at night, when he couldn't sleep because the moon was shining right into his eyes…

… would he meet the man with the changing eyes…

He thought about it late at night, when his mother was snoring on her bed…

… who would take care of his mother, if he left…

He thought about it late at night, when there was silence all around him…

… would it hurt…

He thought about it late at night, when the darkness was hurting his eyes…

… would he return…

He thoughts about it late at night, when his belly was aching from hunger…

… would he stay with the werewolves…

He thought about it late at night, when his palm was lying on his heart…

… would he die?

He thought about The Hunt a lot.

He thought about it through the hot summer, through the windy fall and through another cold winter.

He thought about it when he turned sixteen and was sitting in the village's tavern, the night outside so dark, starless, the bench under him hard and warm and the smell of beer and wine heavy in his nose.

He had been inside for hours, taking about how the grass needs to be cut and how pigs would need to be slaughtered early that winter, but he had questions to ask, questions not really concerning the village's life, but his.

He cleared his throat, put down his glass of beer and whispered: "What happens on the hunt?"

The table went silent. There was only breathing and wide eyes, thin lips that held a lot of answers peeking from thick bushes of beards.

"It's an honor, Jensen."

"I know, but… what happens when you're… you know… there?"

He thanked the Gods that all the men were drunk already and answers came quickly, because alcohol loosens anybody's tongue even the most silent types. And... he was drunk a little himself too.

It was a man named Preha, with red beard reaching all the way to the middle of his chest that licked the beer foam from his upper lip and spoke with a deep voice, making the silence in the tavern go even more silent: "You're there for days sometimes, in the woods. Night and day, boy. There's not difference. It all becomes fear in the end. A wish to… fulfill… the pact, be honored. But in the end it's all fear."

Jensen swallowed and looked in Preha's eyes, the flicker of many candles in the room making them dance with sparkles.

"But you came back…"

"Indeed I did."

"But many didn't…"

He was scared to ask all these questions, he was shivering from fear, but the men were drunk… they were drunk enough.

"They were foolish, Jensen. They…"

Preha stopped talking and Jensen was sure he would get a few hits on his behind for speaking so openly, for asking so many questions.

Another man from the other side of the long table spoke, his voice a whisper in the small room: "…attacked the werewolves… they went after them with rocks and sticks and weapons they made from the wood… they made the werewolves angry. I saw," he stopped and shook his head, his long blond hair falling in little puddles of wine on the table, "I saw my friend attack a werewolf with a spear, he made from some branches. The werewolf howled and ripped the… the spear out of his body and…"

Jensen gripped his glass tighter, his fingers slipping in beer he spilled over a few minutes before.

"… and the werewolf attacked him, he… it ripped my friend's chest wide open, I could see… there was blood, just splashing… and his… insides, they… spilled to the floor. The werewolf, it… howled and picked up my friend's body and went. Somewhere."

Jensen couldn't breathe; the smell of wine was making him dizzy, making him wanna throw up.

He pushed away his glass of beer, couldn't even look at it anymore.

He wanted to say: but the werewolf was protecting itself.

He wanted to say: why did the man attack it?

He wanted to say: but, but, but… he called me 'kiddo'.

He wanted to say: he called me 'mine'.

He wanted to say: no!

He wanted to say a lot of things, but all he could do was ask: "And others?"

"Others?"

"Taken, they… did they attack too?"

It was Preha who answered that: "No, they didn't attack. They were chosen. Didn't fight it, really. Just… I only saw one… we scattered all over the forest, you see… days and nights spend hiding, running… and… but… I saw one get taken. It was the strangest thing. He… didn't fight the werewolf. It was like the boy just… I don't know… it was like he was under a spell, I don't know how to describe it. He went with the werewolf on his own free will. Just… went."

"The werewolf didn't… hurt him?"

"No," the man took a sip of his red wine, "didn't hurt him at all."

"And others?"

"Boy, you ask a lot of questions."

But, as it turned out when he turned eighteen, he wasn't asking the right questions at all.

"I…"

"I was there. I saw."

Jensen turned to where the words came from and saw a man, not as old as the other men in the tavern, he was younger. Maybe somewhere in his twenties, maybe older but Jensen didn't know him. He didn't know everyone in the village, he shied away from some men, he hated some others and then some men just… never talked to him. He wondered why he never noticed this man.

He swallowed down his excitement and asked calmly: "What did you see?"

The man leaned forward on his chair and put his elbows on the wine stained table, the candle's flame in the centre of the table flickered with the breeze his move created. His face was in shadows, but Jensen could see black hair on his forehead and a scar going from his chin to someplace Jensen couldn't see.

"I was chased. I feel down, broke my leg. I can still feel the pain, hear the crack the bone made when it broke, still can see it poking out from my pants. It was…"

The man stopped talking to take a breath.

"… it didn't hurt at first, probably all the adrenaline in my veins kept the pain away, but… then I saw… and I tried to crawl away… the creature…"

He paused to shake his head and take another sip of his beer.

"… it was big, tall, skinny, hairy. Black eyes, as black as the night's. It came towards me and I tried to kick at it with my good leg, but it was stronger… it came towards me, I was so scared I think I forgot how to breathe for a few minutes."

He spun his glass in his hands and took another long sip of the beer that was probably getting warm by now.

"What happened next?"

Jensen couldn't help himself… this was his chance to find out, his chance to understand, to know…

"… it came to me, grabbed my head… its," he raised his hands up, looking at his palms, "hands were warm, smelling like…," he watched his palms like they were something he had never seen before, "like the forest… it grabbed my head and looked at me. It just looked at me and I got lost."

He put down his hands, palm down on the table and Jensen could see the man's fingers be thick, dirty, long.

"Lost? Boy, you're drunk."

Preha said and Jensen wanted to yell at him to let the man speak, because… because he knew how it was, how it felt like...

… to get lost…

… in someone's eyes…

"Its eyes," he made same vague gesture with his hands right before his eyes, "were black, but… light black, they were… sucking me in, I don't know… but next think I know I was lying back there with my leg all fixed and not a scratch on me."

Jensen couldn't breathe.

"The werewolf… it didn't…"

"I don't know what it did, if it did anything. It… his eyes. I got lost in them and I don't remember anything else, just… waking up on that same spot with my leg all fixed and wearing new pants and I don't know."

The men were silent staring at their drinks after that.

When he finally managed to fall asleep that night, drunk and with a headache, he dreamed about tall, hairy werewolves, with claws dripping blood, eyes bulged out and shining black, huge feet, skinny legs and teeth sharper then his chisel and longer then his nails. He dreamed of those claws ripping him apart, spilling his guts to the floor.

And then the dream changed just like that and he dreamed of blue-orange-yellow-green eyes, soft touch and a voice telling him to close your eyes, kiddo.

Kiddo.

He still didn't know what that meant.

Kiddo.

A strange word from a stranger, but it made him feel… warm, safe.

You're mine, ain't gonna let anything happen to you. Alright, kiddo?

Those were words burned into his soul.

March was his birth month and when he turned seventeen it was hot. It was hotter then it should've been and he feared that when the heat would go down and more snow would fall, because even in April snow still falls, all work they already did on the fields would go to waste.

But as it turned out, there was no snow, just heat. Unbelievable heat.

The grass grew like crazy, the fields grew green over night it seemed...

... his mother served dandelion salad every day for lunch and dinner with lots of cooked potatoes and garlic. She said: "Eat your garlic, 's healthy." Yeah it was healthy, especially for his digestion.

... his mother served stinging nettle sometimes too instead of spinach, becasue the spinach just refused to grow that year, but there was plenty of nettle around...

... and when the rainy summer hit… everything was soaked, rotten, moldy, completely uneatable.

The Elders had to unlock the food chambers, because everything on the fields was rotten… there would be no harvest that year.

Being seventeen… wasn't fun. He was starving most of the time, he tried to keep himself busy with working with wood but that only got him so far and his stomach grumbled and protested every day that it went without food.

His mother and he tried to eat everything that they could find on the meadows; sorrel, wild berries, wild potatoes if they could find it, drank tea, drank milk, ate butter on old bread, eggs if the chickens had any, killed birds that were more bones then meat, set traps for rabbits, but only caught eight the whole year. They tried anything that would fill their stomachs a little.

They slaughtered as many animals as they could to get some meat for a few months yet still leave some for next year, they almost completely emptied the food chamber but when next spring came; it was only by luck given to them by the Gods that it was rainy and snowy.

That meant that the summer would be hot.

He turned eighteen on a rainy day. It was just rain, no storm, no lightning and no thunder, just soft rain falling on the ground.

He was a man now with his hair dark blond; the sun made them that way, and short, not long like many of the other men did.

His voice had deepened just like that, one day he was still squeaking and falling over himself and the next day his voice was deep, catching the girl's ears.

His shoulders were broad, his stomach rock hard, muscled, thin waist, strong thighs, strong calves, arms muscled and shoulders too.

His palms were rough, old blisters making his skin hard and strong, like his mother's.

He was still thin as a birch's trunk; his mother said to him one day and put more zhgance on his plate. But he wasn't white like it… his skin was brown, colored by the sun drying his sweat when he worked on the fields.

His nose and cheeks had freckles that he couldn't hide no matter what he did and they only got worse when he was outside for too long. Mikan loved to play connect the dots with them, tracing them with her fingertips.

"Stop that."

"No." she laughed.

"It tickles."

"Tough."

He grabbed her by her waist and spun her around, her back colliding with the ground, her head inches from the big oak's tree trunk. He landed on top of her, raising himself up so that he wouldn't crush her. She wasn't skinny, she had a lot of meat on her bones, but her face was the most beautiful one he had ever seen. Even if her eyes weren't as beautiful as the color changing man's eyes… no eyes were that beautiful and that soft… he still loved to look at her.

"Jensen, you mustn't… Jensen..." she gasped at the sudden change of position, her face scrounged up in fear. Not disgust, but fear. Fear of what the Elders would say, fear of what would happen to them if someone would find out.

He bended his elbows and let his head fall between her breasts, breathing in the smell of her skin. He wanted to run his tongue all over her, kiss her, touch her, feel her… he sighed: "I know. 'm sorry." She smelled so good.

He must stay pure for the ritual that would happen in June, pure to go to the forest, pure to be honored, pure… just pure.

He was pure.

He would stay pure.

The big oak tree, his hiding place, the place where he always went to, to think, to feel free and alive and at peace, was still as tall as always.

It was a place where he didn't have to work or think about working, a place where the animals weren't making any noises and Lara wasn't poking him in his leg. A place where he could be as close to the forest as he could and was still safe.

The tree trunk was hard behind his back, the moss growing on it providing no softness, and the little ants that had a road from the bottom to the top of the tree were hurrying up just a little to the left of Jensen's shoulder.

He never disturbed them and they never disturbed him.

It was nature.

Everything had its place in it.

He was staring into the distance, his eyes roaming over the meadow that he, just a few hours ago, helped to scythe.

He loved doing that… just holding the scythe in his hands, moving his body with precision. His body twisting from right to left, moving the scythe blade along its length in a long arc; because one wrong turn, one wrong move and the grass wouldn't fall right – wouldn't fall to the left side – wouldn't be cut right – would just be chopped or hacked - and the meadow would look like sheep were let loose on it.

It was a skill that he learned through years and years, but it was a skill he had and with the movements so precise; right to left, right to left, his left hand holding the top handle and his right on the central handle, arms straight – no bending, you bend you lose – he could only think about moving and holding the scythe blade parallel to the ground. There were no other thoughts that could be in his mind then, no thoughts about The Hunt, no thoughts about the man with the color changing eyes, no thoughts other then move the blade closes to the ground, slice, not chop.

The meadow was full of patches of cut grass and when the wind blew just right he could smell it, so fresh. Like all the juices in the grass smelled like the finest perfume.

The sun was low on the sky, it would be dark soon, but he didn't care… the forest on his left was inviting, leaves rustling, tree trunks rubbing at one another in the wind. It was a perfect summer evening, warm, breezy, smelling of cut grass and a hard day's work, the sky orange, turning red slowly, shining in his eyes, but he didn't care. It was beautiful and he never wanted it to end.

He was tired, bone deep tired, but he couldn't not sit there in the silence. Couldn't not think about the fear gnawing at his insides. The fear he felt every minute or every day. The dreams shortening his nights, making him wake up in sweat and hungry and thirsty and catching his breath.

He was scared, but he wouldn't confess… even if they'd torture him.

He wouldn't say it.

He wouldn't be weak.

He wouldn't be a coward.

But he was terrified.

… of going into the forest, into the unknown where werewolves lived. Werewolves who… kept some of the men from the village.

Werewolves who… killed.

Werewolf who called him 'kiddo' and 'mine'.

He shuddered and pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them.

The forest didn't look all that scary. It was just… there was a lot of trees there, a lot of bushes, animals, leaves, branches… and when darkness fell… the noises… could be deafening.

He was scared.

But he wasn't a coward.

He wasn't.

He leaned his head back on the tree trunk and closed his eyes. Breathed in and breathed out.

Memories flooded his mind; how many times he had ran to the tree to cry his eyes out when he was beaten inches from his life, how many times he had ran to the tree after his mother yelled at him for doing something wrong, how many times he had ran to the tree when his father had been killed to beg the Gods to never make him a drunk like that, how many times he had ran to the tree when he was scared, lonely, starving.

The tree with its long, twisty branches was his best friend. His silent friend who always listened and never judged. Who was there, standing tall and proud when Jensen felt himself be weak and lonely.

No one knew he liked to go there… it was too close to the forest for other's, but for him… he was just closer to the one who called him 'kiddo'.

He would meet him soon.

The ritual was tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

He was terrified.

TBC...
 
P.S.1: All the food in this chapter is very real... from zhgance (Žganci in our language) to using stinging nettle as spinache and dandelion for salads (I ate this salad every day for the past week) and other stuff too.. and all the remedies are used for real too... like butter on chest with a warm peice of fabric over it... we use all that all the time... actually I just had zhgance for lunch yesterday... so yummy, with warm milk over them and some pork fat. GAH, YUMMY!
If you'd like a recipe for anything... don't hesitate to ask, but I'm sure you know these things already. :)

CHAPTER 4 _II_ CHAPTER 6