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Published:
2019-07-30
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377
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across the hallowed ground

Summary:

Erik is living alone as a metal worker at the edge of the Wood when the wolf comes padding up to him. Charles is running from his past and powers to the one person he trusts, who doesn't remember him.

Scenes from an unfinished AU.

Notes:

An inverted version of this prompt from the kink meme, written back in 2011 but never posted. Title from Florence + the Machine's Howl.

Had this continued, this would've included peripheral Alex/Hank as Beauty and the Beast. It would've also been made clear this is a powered AU, with Charles as a wolf because he can't read thoughts in that form.

Work Text:

The wolf appears one autumn day out of the wood. Its coat is a deep russet, the color of the few trees who leaves fall on the edge of the wood. It makes no sound; Erik is fetching tinder for the fire, and when he turns around there it is, watching with keen eyes.

Eyes so very, very blue. It makes no move, and neither does Erik. It sits still, not even a twitch of a tail. Erik goes back into his house, and when he looks again, the wolf is gone.

“I am looking for my brother,” the woman says. She looks normal enough, with her sleepy gaze and blonde curls, but her jewelry sings in a way only sorcery can.

He knows he shouldn’t tangle with witches, but he’d rather lay everything bare than play games of lies and deceit.

He pulls on her metal charms, and she smiles. Her body changes in a surging ripple until her body is blue and scaled, hair the scarlet of cardinals.

“Witch-kin,” he names her. For only a witch’s familiar, grown powerful enough in its own right for its own freedom – a witch’s crowning glory – would have such an appearance.

“As I said,” she continues, “my brother. I’m searching for him, and he’s been here.”

The young man comes wandering into his shop wearing clothes ill-fitted. Erik, who does not go into the village anymore, not when they come to him trading for his metal-work, does not find it strange he has not seen this boy before.

“I hear,” he says, “you are the best blacksmith this side of the wood, or any side of it.”

Erik nods.

The stranger looks at him with eyes the color of the sky at winter. “Can you forge a band of pure silver?”

After the young man leaves, after they have discussed the design of the necklace, the boy having surprisingly few specifications for such a personal piece, but adamant about the few he has, Erik realizes it is not so much a necklace as a collar.

“You smell like home,” Charles sighs against his neck. Erik doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing at all. He merely holds Charles until his body goes soft with sleep.