Trial of Fates

The Beginning

Dedicated to @Xerophthalmia for the cover!

She rode in and out of consciousness, days blurring together until her life felt like a stop motion film in production. She had been careless, let herself experience freedom, only to have it snapped away before her first night was done. Now she was trapped.

The cell was underground, an old tunnel, damp and dark and stinking of mildew. Her captors threw food between the thick metal bars twice a day, and shot her with a tranquilizer every so often. Less often now, she thought, they knew she had given up. She'd tried refusing the food entirely, let herself starve, she was no stranger to being hungry, but they hadn't allowed it. After a couple days, she'd woken to a tube shoved down her throat, food being forced directly into her stomach. So she ate. Even as the days dragged onto months.

She began to wonder why they kept her at all. It seemed as if she would be stuck there forever, imprisoned in the bowels of the earth, experiencing the same dreadful monotony over and over.

When the bars jerked open with a jarring screech, she thought it was a hallucination brought on by desperate boredom. Huffing, she curled more tightly around herself and shut her eyes. It was easier to pass the time by sleeping.

Something hard, and solid, slammed into her side, jerking her back to reality. A growl pushed its way through her throat, rusty from disuse. She heard a soft gasp and a scrabbling noise, and the thing, the person, that had crashed into her backed quickly away.

"Sorry," they sputtered, pausing to stare for a second. A sand brown wolf the size of a tiger wasn't something you saw every day, at least, not if you were human. Her nose twitched at the sudden fear scent, but it faded quickly enough. The human knew what she was. The wolf closed her eyes again, somewhat wearily, and sighed deeply.

Footsteps faded down the hall, and the newcomer went over to the bars, rattling them slightly. "What have you gotten yourself into today, Gretchen," they muttered under their breath as they searched the cell for... something. Did they expect a glowing exit sign?

She felt eyes on her, and blinked open her own, somewhat wearily. The human, Gretchen, met her gaze, and tilted her head, green eyes blazing with intensity. "Are you going to get up?"

The wolf bared her teeth in a weak snarl, she didn't have the energy to put any heat into it, and the human laughed in response. "Don't you want to escape? Surely you don't intend to stay here forever. Come-on, we're getting out of here." Hands suddenly wrapped around her midsection, squeezing against her sides, as Gretchen tried to heave her to her feet.

She let out a real snarl and snapped at the hands, grazing flesh without actually breaking the skin. "Come-on," Gretchen said again, unfazed, "you can't just lay down and die. Aren't you beast bound supposed to be tough? What's your name? Oh wait, I guess you can't talk as a wolf. Either way, hi, I'm Gretchen. Up you go."

She reluctantly got to her feet, shaking out her matted and bloodstained pelt, and grimaced at the way it pulled against her skin. She sat back down and thought of being human. The tightness slunk away as her human form slid around her, less than an instant from one form to the next. "Na-ack," she coughed, cleared her throat, it felt like sandpaper, and tried again, "Natania, Nat."

Grethcn grinned and nodded a greeting. "Any ideas to get out of her?" she asked, straight to business, like she hadn't just watched a two hundred plus pound wolf turn into a five foot six girl.

Natania sighed, walked stiffly over to the edge of their prison and ran a hand along the bars. A hissing noise filled the air, and when Natania pulled her hand away, a burn mark was visible along the breadth of it.