A Hope for Rauri Ch. 03

She held up her palm and did the best that she could, seeing something inside the smudge. What came out of her was Gaelic as old as she knew to make it as she said, “Hold” in a half questioning, half pleading tone.

The growls stopped, ending in a questioning note and the center of the smudge turned toward her waiting uncertainly.

Shauna really wasn’t sure about anything, least of all what she ought to do here, but the darkness began to solidify to a degree and she found a sigh escaping her throat and then with a quick look around to make certain that she was unobserved by anyone but that darkness, she let herself slide as far into her wolfen shape as she could, encumbered as she was in human clothing.

Wes was only five feet or so from the weeping woman now, listening to her soft sobs. The minister had finished his eulogy and was preparing to go, though he did his bit in offering what comforting words that he could to the five family members that Wes had been able to pick out. There was the widow or possibly the sister - he didn’t know for sure. Then there were who he guessed were the daughters and their men, judging by the few common facial features that he saw.

All of them were drifting a little in the direction of the road and wherever they’d parked their cars. He was thinking of trying to speak to the dark woman when the minster seemed to notice her and walked over.

Wes watched as the holyman tried to ask her if she was alright and did she need a ride anywhere.

For that, he received a look as though she was a little surprised, though she wept on and eventually shook her head, saying nothing.

At that point, she turned and began to slowly walk in the other direction, leaving the minster standing and looking a little uncomfortable. He appeared to almost shrug to himself as he began to head after the rest.

Wes continued to watch as the woman, who now was beginning to appear as more of an apparition with each step that she took began to move away. As she was just at the corner of the walkway where it turned out of sight, she turned her head and looked at Wes for a moment and then she was gone.

He began to follow her and when he reached the spot where she’d looked back, he saw no one there as he looked out over the majority of the cemetery.

At that point, Wes noticed that he didn’t see Shauna anywhere and he walked in the direction that he’d last seen her move in. As he neared the shrubs with the gap between them, he saw something dark which almost grunted in surprise and then it was gone.

Wes shouldered into the gap and he saw Shauna on her knees on the wet stones with her hand raised as though she’d been touching something which was no longer there and her face wore a strange expression.

“Hey, ...” he began softly, “Shauna, are you ok?”

She didn’t appear the have heard him at all. He just saw her on her knees looking wolfish with a rather vacant expression.

“Shauna?”

She seemed to come back to herself then and she saw him as though for the first time in this. “Huh? Oh... Uh, yeah.”

She got to her feet and she was human in her appearance the next instant.

“Are you alright?” He asked, “What happened there? You went wolf in here. In daylight. What was that all about and what was that shadow thing that was here?”

She looked back toward the corner of the shrubbery and then she looked at him for a moment, “Come on. Let’s go Wes. We need to talk, and I really need a cup of coffee, followed by at least two more of something hot. Let’s get out of here.”

----------------

As they drove through the rain, Wes tried to get something out of Shauna, but she seemed preoccupied in flipping through the shots that she’d gotten, looking at the display at the back of her camera.

She seemed dissatisfied over them.

“I looked past that tall woman and I saw something behind those bushes back there, so I went to see what it was. Wes, I saw a shadow and inside of it, I saw ...”

She paused there and Wes waited. Hearing nothing from her, he looked over and she shrugged as she looked out of the windshield at nothing, “... somebody wonderful.”

Wes waited a full three seconds as he drove before he looked over again, “Is that it?”

“I dunno,” Shauna said, “I had trouble seeing him at first, because he was hanging right at the edge of the space where I was. He looked like the slightest mistake that I might make would cause him to be gone the next instant.

I guess you could say that I saw a dog - a freaking huge one - and I can’t say that I’m sure of it or anything because of the darkness, but I’d just about swear that, ... ok, just concentrate on driving the car here, alright?”

She took a breath then and said, “It was really hard to see, but I saw right away that he wasn’t just a dog, no matter how big he was. Wes, there was a brain in there, no less bright than yours or mine and I could hear his questions to me.

He asked me who I was and what I was doing there. I ... I answered as best I could, though I didn’t tell him very much.”

She sighed then, not that it was loud, though Wes caught it and looked over.

“He let me touch him, Wes. I touched the side of his face. That’s when he must have heard you coming and he left.”

Wes said nothing, though he nodded. “Is that why you were there like that?”

She nodded, “I don’t know why, ... I just ... I didn’t want him to leave before I’d had a chance to really see him better, I guess. There was something about him, and I mean more than just what you’d see looking at a dog.

Next to you when you’re like that, he was the finest male that I’ve ever seen.”

Wes nodded at that, trying to fit things together as he drove.

“And in the darkness that he made to hide himself in, I could have sworn that he was a little green.”

He said nothing to that and when she looked over after a few seconds, she saw that he was smiling and trying like hell to keep it at that.

They both burst into laughter.

“I’m really not crazy,” she chuckled after the mirth began to fade, “I really saw that.”

He nodded, “I’m not doubting you. It’s just that what you said was about the last thing that I’d have expected to hear right then, that’s all.”

“What did you get out of staring at the woman?” she asked, “I saw you trying to do your best not to, and I guess that you fit right in with the way that everybody else was looking at her, since I’m sure that nobody knew her at all and they were wondering what the hell she was doing there, just like I could see that they were looking at us the same way.

She’s the one, isn’t she?”

He looked over and he nodded slowly, “Yeah. That was her. All this time, and I’d still know her anywhere.”

Wes and Shauna had known each other for such a lone time and there were no secrets between them at all. She knew what had happened to him all that time ago and she knew that he still sometimes had dreams in which a tall beautiful woman walked through his sight, never stopping and never answering his questions or even his attempts to get her attention. She just called it his fixation with tall dark redheads to lighten things up when he spoke of it because his expression often grew into a bit of a haunted look then.

She saw that he was wearing that look right then.

“Well,” she smiled with a little laugh, “I guess I might come to know how you feel, partner. I’ve just seen someone that I don’t think that I’ll forget anytime soon either.”

Shauna’s phone rang then and she looked at the number, “I’ll bet that the roaming charges are gonna be sky high on this job. From the number, I think this is Cleena.”

She answered and after a few moments, she looked over, “She wants us to drive to that place, ... Loudon Hill. Can we do that?”

While he was thinking it over and looking at the sky and then his watch, there was more conversation over the phone and Shauna disconnected, “She suggested meeting us there not long after about seven or eight tomorrow morning. I told her we’d be there.”

--------------

Right about the time that Shauna and Wesley sat down together in the dining room of the hotel to look at the menus and consider what to have for supper, Cleena - or Cliodnha as she was properly known, was sitting on her seat in her hall, lost in thought.

She raised her head after a moment, looking away down a long dark passageway as a faint sound came to her ears. She rose then and began to walk.

As she strode, the sounds of weeping came to her ears and she wondered a little. To her mind, no one here had much of any reason to be sad enough to weep over anything - other than one person and even that one didn’t really do much of that here in her queen’s hall.

She reached the door to a small bedchamber and she looked in.

There on the bed was the one, long back from the funeral of the mortal that neither of them knew. She hadn’t been crying by then anymore, Cliodnha thought, so what was the trouble now?

The woman looked up as her queen stepped into the room and tried to wipe her red eyes, not that it did the slightest good.

“What is wrong?” the queen asked.

“I have been thinking of what you said to me, and I was even coming to have a hope that I might see the one that you spoke of to me.” She reached for a handkerchief and wiped her eyes again, giving in at the end to blow her nose as discreetly as possible.

“I think that I might have even seen him this day,” she sniffled, “There was one at the grave where I was today who plainly did not belong with the others. I tried not to look, though I saw him clearly as I left. I know him - or at least, I can say that I remember him.”

“Did he look good to you?” Cliodnha asked with a small smile, “He is here from far away. I met him not too far from where he resides. I thought that he looked fine and handsome to my eyes. He is here with another looking for you as I asked him to. What is wrong?”

The one on the bed stared for a moment and then she burst into loud and mournful tears once more. Cliodnha sat on the bed and tried to comfort the woman, not understanding this at all.

“I found him to be ... as ... as you said, and I found a small hope in my breast that if I was ... if I was careful, ...

But I went to wash not long ago and ... and when I took off my dress, ...”

She stopped there, hanging her head to cry again. It was many minutes of Cliodnha sitting and stroking the dark hair before she learned any more. Finally, she asked what it might be that could be so wrong and the young woman looked up with her red eyes and tear- streaked face.

“I - I remembered what you said to me. ... I have done nothing. And yet ...”

She reached down and lifted the hem of her dress, “My queen, ... It is already too late!”

Cliodnha looked down and she stared.

There, where the woman’s feet ought to have been, she saw only the gray, fur-covered hocks and the dark and slight shine of a pair of cloven hooves, larger than what a doe might have and much closer to the ones worn by an elk.

“Can you hide them?” she asked, looking up.

The woman nodded, “Yes, but they remain there every time when I do not think of them. What am I to do? No one will want me and, ...” her lovely face began to contort as she fought to retain some composure, “I do not want to lie in the earth as a dead thing!

And now, “she sobbed, “Now least of all! My queen, ... please, ... can you help me?”

Cliodnha shook her head a little, “I did not do this. I must think on it. Do not despair yet. Let me think and ... I might know of one to ask.”

She hugged the woman for a moment, trying to offer a little hope and then she got to her feet and walked out of the room, talking long strides out of her haste.

She walked to the main part of her hall and then she called out in a strange way.

After moment, she heard an answering cry and she nodded to herself as she walked to her throne and sat down, thinking furiously and wishing that the time might pass a little faster toward the dawn. It would be that long at least before she saw the one that she’s called to, and it had not been a command.

It had been a respectful request.

After a time, she looked up and she saw the woman almost hanging against the side of the root-covered stone of the doorway and she beckoned with a wave.

When the red-haired one stood before her, she called softly in another direction and in a moment, the dark shape was before her as well.

“I hold it in my mind to see if things might go a little right this night,” she said to them both. “I know of what happened near the grave this day and I have thought of it awhile.”

She indicated the rest of the hall with a slow sweep of her hand, “Things have changed and things always will. To go on as before is to become little more than the ghostly echoes which disturb the sleep of the humans.”

She looked at them, from one to the other, “So I send you both forth this night. There are things which you must seek to know, not for me so much as for yourselves. Have a care what you do and do nothing which causes harm or hurt.

Learn what you can about what you seek to know and might find a wish for - and be back here in my hall before the first crowing of the cock.”

She felt the question there in the minds of both and she smiled, “The nearest cock, however many leagues that might be from this lonely place.”

She smiled in a way which was meant to offer her understanding and a little hope to the woman, “Try hard if you can to hold your tears back this night.

Now go.”

------------- Shauna was in her room, thinking of going to sleep and hoping that it wouldn’t be too long in coming to her since they had to be up early in the morning and driving if they were to arrive at Loudon Hill to meet Cleena.

She just had trouble with two things. One of them was the chill of the day and how wet she’d gotten out there. She’d already had a shower and it had helped, but it was nowhere near as long as she’d have liked to have spent under the stream of hot water. The result was that she’d felt a little better, but that it hadn’t been enough.

The other thing was the thought of the being that she’d seen out there and the way that the memory just wouldn’t leave her alone.

Well, she thought to herself, she might be able to change one of those things, at least. She undressed and stepped into the bathroom to turn on the shower.

--------------

Wes had his shower and got into the bed in his room. He was a little pleased that Shauna wasn’t there with him because he knew that if she were, they’d have one of their little moments.

He smiled to himself for a second as he pulled the covers up.

He had no way to classify the phenomenon, but there was something that he knew about his dear friend, and it was not fixable. Whenever he’d asked about it, she’d just told him in all sincerity that it happened because she was a woman.

If she had something going on in her head, she’d have a hell of a time getting to sleep.

Wes wasn’t like that at all. They could be in bed together with her talking to him and if she paused to think of anything for longer than about a minute and a half, well, he was gone then and already sleeping.

If she woke him or if she asked about it the next day, he’d smile a little sheepishly and say that she must have stopped speaking for long enough.

And of course, she’d hit him for it, though not hard and it was only out of her exasperation with him.

And he could make it worse, if he was feeling a little mischievous by putting on his best innocent and mystified expression.

“Don’t men ever stay awake and worry or think of anything?” she’d asked him at least several dozen times over the years, never being able to understand.

“I dunno,” he’d always reply, “I only know that if I think about anything, I might not be able to sleep - so I don’t.”

And she’d hit him again, every time.

Right then, he’d have bet pretty much anything that Shauna wouldn’t get much sleep at all tonight after what she’d seen.

He closed his eyes and tried not to think about anything.

--------------

Shauna shut the water off, feeling warm and comfortable at last as she stepped out of the shower and began to towel off. All that she needed to do now was to get her hair a little on the road to being dry . She’d worry about looking good in the morning.

But as she walked out into the rest of her room, she stopped and saw someone there who almost caused her to drop the towel that she was trying to wrap around her a little better.

He was there in her room, sitting on the floor by the bed, looking back at her.

In her best old Gaelic, she asked him if he’d come for her and he nodded as his thoughts came to her mind.

“Aye. To see you once more, I’ve come this far and could not help myself. I could not abide the waiting.”

He looked down, “I am sorry if I cause you shame by being here.”

Shauna had never been what she might have said was a fool. She also wasn’t what one might call shy in terms of her body - as far as her human appearance went, anyway.

What she looked like in her more wolfen form, ... well, that was another matter.

It wasn’t so much that she was shy even then, but what she looked like then certainly wouldn’t have necessarily been any normal human’s epitome of beauty. In strictly human terms, of course.

Her ears were quite normal - for a German shepherd, and her eyes had the same sort of yellowish brown color to the irises, though those irises were shaped much like the ones of a dog or a wolf.

Where it can be said that a human girl’s nose sticks out a little bit in front of the lips and mouth, Shauna’s when she was like this, well, one could say that they were almost about even, since her jaws jutted forward.

Her hair was still the same, though it also tended to look a little more like a mane and it blended well into the rest of her ... pelt. And aside from the effects of having just gotten out of the shower, there was nothing ratty or unkempt about her at all.

Her hips were still there, though she stood on long legs which were lovely in their way, though she could stride as a bipedal wolf on her large feet, and she had a bit of a bushy tail then as well. Her breasts were still there too, though as a wolf and not a nursing one at present, they were much smaller and a little flattened in a way as they lay covered in her soft fur. Her nipples were still there in evidence all the same. Her bosom was still a pleasant-looking swell - just not particularly large.

Sure, her hands were larger like this and were a sort of blend between a hand and a paw in a way and her arms were longer, but that all had to do with the adapted musculature so that she could - if she wished to - quite easily bound along on all fours, though not quite in the same manner as a dog would.

So if one were the sort of human who was prone to being easily shocked into fear or fright, then Shauna - like she was as a werewolf, was near enough in one sudden glance to stop somebody’s heart if she came at them from out of nowhere in the dark.

But it must be said that if one had the eyes to see it, she was still rather beautiful even then. She just didn’t look human at all.

But the one waiting for her wasn’t human either, not really. And he had his own canid shape, as large and powerful as he was. He was one who Shauna suddenly felt a bit of a desperate hope in her heart could and would like her that way.

So she shifted.

As he looked down to avert his gaze, she dropped the towel and walked to him.

He didn’t mean to, and indeed, he’d have said - if asked in other circumstances - that it might be a little rude to show some overt sign as his reaction.

But the sight of Shauna like that did have an effect on him and he gasped just a little anyway, completely taken by her beauty.

“I offer an exchange then,” she smiled as she reached to slip her fingers into the coarse fur on his large head, “I can let you see me in both ways, if you will do the same for me, since you seem to share what I feel about you. Do you?”