author's note: this story involves characters from pluto's traces of the beast, which i highly recommend. this was written as a christmas gift to her, and i only hope i did justice to her fabulous characters. of note: in finnish mythology, the werewolf is a man cursed into the wolfshape, who wanders until someone speaks his name and he can reassume his "true" shape. "ihmissusi" is the finnish word for werewolf.

ihmissusi

Anya is suited to the winter, or so her friends tell her. This morning, however, she is alone, sitting on the lip of an empty park fountain, one knee drawn up to her chest. Snowflakes catch in her pale eyelashes as she watches the snow fall, unblinking, and it seems her very skin is a fine layer of frost, colorless and cold. There is something silent about this season, all the City buried beneath a blanket of snow; something that her friends see echoed in her quiet eyes.

Some winter days, Pacifica seems the only place on earth: the whole world eclipsed to one small park, one lonely frozen pond, one morning bright with snow. Times like these, it is easy for Anya to forget that she is something more or less than human-- easy enough to lift her face to the dawning and shape contentment with her small hands.

Easy to forget, that is, until the stranger approaches her.

She is wearing a long brown coat, her hands in her pockets to shield them from the weather, a scarf wrapped around her neck. There is little skin that is visible save her face, and that is startling in comparison to her dark hair. Anya knows she is staring; knows she is being watched in return.

Even without the tang of her scent, Anya knows in an instant that she is another werewolf. There is a feral, ancient wisdom in her eyes, and the taut angle of her shoulders tells Anya that she, too, senses that kindred.

Which is not to say there is an accord between them.

Too long alone, Anya has forgotten the way that the smell of a wolf can linger beneath the scent of human flesh; she has forgotten the way that recognition can be like fire kindled in dry brush, spreading all beyond control and far too fast.

Too long alone, she opens her mouth to greet the stranger, and makes instead the wolfish sounds of challenge, of promise. The first words they exchange are not words anyone else might hear, but in the language of gesture and movement that is second nature to them.

The woman circles her warily, raising a dark eyebrow. Her eyes are like gold, or foxfire, bright without warmth, and Anya feels colder in her presence than in the darkest of winter nights. Fitting that they should meet, like this, when the world is the color of snow or moonlight, painting the City in shades of grey. The hour is early; no one else will come to this tree-lined spot until the sun is considerably higher in the sky. Anya feels her skin shivering, feels her hackles rise. Anything might happen here, without anyone the wiser.

She wonders how far she could get, if she were to turn tail and run. She wonders if she is a coward for thinking that way.

"Wait," says the stranger, and they both go utterly still, Anya with surprise. "I know you," the woman says abruptly, and her laughing smile reveals very white teeth.

And something about that smile triggers a memory, and Anya's hands clench one another in her lap. Jessica. Yes. She thinks that she remembers, though perhaps the human-tongue sound of that name is fading from her mind. "Jessica" is age, and strength, the shoulder roll shrug of lupine agility, and the sharp compelling smell of bitter memory. "Jessica" is that tang on the back of her tongue, a flattening of ears and the baring of teeth just so, a hundred moonlit layers of meaning that no mannish tongue could convey.

Anya wrinkles her nose, wondering how many mornings will pass before the scent of Jessica fades from her mind.

Jessica is Hekatoi, of course. No one who knows so many songs as she does could be other. But underneath that weight of history on her shoulders, there is the blood of birth and not of choice; Anya knows the line that bore her, knows her by her laugh. And always, in those golden eyes, she sees that laughter; the lips pulling back in a wolfish grin, that smile that carries nothing of goodwill.

Small wonder that Anya withdraws into herself, shuddering as though the silver shadows of the morning burn her skin. "Yes," is what she says aloud.

"What is someone from the Plachuyushiye doing here?" Jessica seems to wonder aloud. When Anya gives her no answer, her laugh turns mocking. "Ah, sweet melancholy girl." She tilts her head, the motion of the alpha concerned about her beta. "Ihmissusi. Have you been walking this world waiting for someone to speak your name?"

Anya starts, shaking her head. "Of course not, you should know those human legends are--"

But Jessica is tossing her head with a laugh, all that rich brown hair lifting from her neck, the heady scent of her spilling all around them. Her scarf has fallen open. Like expensive spices, or Spanish wine, the trace of her sweat stains the air with its aroma. Anya's pulse quickens in spite of herself, her breathing stutters. There is blood, now, unspoken in their eyes, and neither knows if it will be the blood of battle-wounds or of the chase.

"Are you waiting, ihmissusi?" Jessica asks again. In her speech she is almost the wolf, the consonants slipping and the word nearly lost in her throat, and her smile is simply a feral baring of teeth. "Wanting the burden lifted from you?"

It is not anger that makes Anya wet her lips, though she is angry. Her voice does not falter, though softer and higher than the other woman's. "If I wait," she says carefully, "it is for the best. My name is not something I will fight for."

"Isn't it." Jessica's lips curl. "What then, is worth fighting for? By the logic of your kind, we will all pass into obscurity, named and contented, with no fire left in our blood."

"The people will not forget. It is their memory that bears our hope." Anya lowers her voice, but not her eyes. "There is no shame in wanting to hear your name from someone else's mouth."

"You would kill us all." Jessica is still a woman, but only barely, something shifting beneath her skin that makes her seem larger, more ferocious. "If we would forget how to name ourselves."

She wants to shout, "I have not forgotten!" Instead, she stands, and shapes the wolf before the first snowflake hits her abandoned seat. In wolfish, with the curl of her tail and the breath moving uneasily over her tongue, she speaks: Is this what you want me to say? this-- this is who I am, this beast, and that woman both.

Human lips parted in laughter, Jessica spares only a moment before she too is a wolf, brown like burnished copper and gold.

Of course, they are both still women; neither is afraid of blood. But now they are wolves as well, and the scent of it is sharp in their senses, making their mouths water and their eyes sting. In a moment one of them will act, and the other reciprocate, and there will be teeth and claws, and the realized promise of blood. In a moment one will lose, and the winner will stand over her panting, their eyes meeting across vast snow-covered distances.

But right at this instant there is only the heat between them, and the terrible sweetness of expectation.

Who lunges first, neither can say. Each going for the other's throat, they tumble in self-defeating circles; Jessica on top, then Anya, then Jessica again. The Hekatoi is heavier, the Plachuyushiye quicker, but the advantage is clearly in Jessica's favor. Is it self-defense that pulls Anya's muscle taut, that pours the heat into her veins? Rational thought escapes her; it may be the last burst of desperation that bids her fight when she knows she is outmatched. You will understand me--

She aims a swipe at Jessica's eyes; Jessica aims low, and catches her in the throat. Pain explodes behind her eyes, silver fireworks and a roaring in her ears. Though she falters, and goes to her knees, she does not whimper; the worst of it is knowing that she cannot fight any longer. Something flickers in the panting silence between them, and something moves in Jessica's eyes, beyond the anger and the adrenaline.

Then without warning, Jessica says, "Anya!"

And Anya falls into her humanself again, all pale frostbitten skin and small, cold hands. It is over, and they both know it, alpha re-established, the loser in proper submission.

Jessica stands over her for a moment, wolf-breath white in the bittercold air. Without her voice, she says, Say my name. It is a question, a challenge, a dare. Name me, ihmissusi.

Anya's throat works, once, breath without sound. She is not sure, however, if she would speak, even if she could. And so she responds only with silence-- the lift of her hand and her curved half-smile more wolf than woman, expressing not mirth but weariness and loss.

Jessica tilts her head to howl, that ageless sound, exulting after the hunt, or crying in the darkness of the moon, speaking the mystery's name and bidding it enter. The note that Anya cannot join seems to thrum beneath her breastbone, latent and dull. What remains of her broken song is mournful, and dissolves quickly into coughing.

Then they run, each in opposite directions, each leaving bloody footprints in the silverwhite snow. Abandoned now, the park fountain quietly fills with snow.

~fin~