thistlebackedwulver:

erinnightwalker:

the-golden-ghost:

whatamievensaying:

annabellioncourt:

There’s a lovely old English myth that if someone who truely loved and trusted the werewolf called it by name that it would turn back to human.

Others include throwing their human clothes at it and it’d turn back but that’s a bit less romantic

#ok i understand ppl would take the romancey route here#but imagine the werewolf’s mother#or grandmother#some wizened old woman or middle aged woman#with wrinkles or hands toughened from years of labor#just going out into the woods#where even the men with axes won’t go anymore#and facing down the ravening beast#and saying#it’s time to come home

I actually like the “throwing clothes at it” better cause now I’m picturing Grandma stomping out of the house at 3 AM in her slippers, arms full of clothes and facing down this horrible, snarling beast.

And then she just starts flinging clothes at it like “GODDAMN IT JEFFERY IT IS THREE IN THE FUCKING MORNING YOU GET YOUR PANTS ON AND COME BACK INSIDE RIGHT THIS MINUTE”

Everyone knew that the Widow Grumly’s granddaughter was a werewolf. She was bit by one and the prayers from the priest held it off for a little while, but she started going strange. Started saying things that didn’t make sense. And the next full moon… she was gone.

We all expected blood and murder, but for a while everything was mostly normal. The hunters and woodsmen, they’d see a big damn wolf sometimes, and find the leftovers of deer, but nothing came close to being what everyone told us a werewolf would be. No livestock dead, no attacks on people. It was a mercy, for the Widow Grumly asked after her grandchild every chance she could. Poor thing kept asking for her grandson; bedridden as she was, we hadn’t the heart to correct her. They’re fine, we said, not hurting no one.

Not until the wolfhunter came.

Talk spreads, as talk will. And he followed the talk, the hunter in the fancy clothes and the cape of scraps of wolf fur. Were-wolf fur, if he was to be believed. He offered to kill it for us, and we declined. He decided to kill it for himself, and we declined. Didn’t matter much- he set out anyway, calling for Jemma. That was her name, Jemma.

We found him dead as a doornail, throat ripped out as neat as you please.

Well, a man turns up dead and Authority will poke it’s nose in. Doesn’t matter if it was self-defense. No one listens to a werewolf, much less a peasant werewolf, not when a wealthy fool gets himself killed. Soldiers combed the woods and found nothing. Eventually they gave up, figured she had moved on.

She hadn’t.

The evening the soldiers were all cleared out, the Widow Grumly coerced the blacksmith’s sons to carry her outside, to the edge of town. She had a bundle of rags in her hands, shirt and trousers that had seen better days. We tried to tell her that Jemma might not be Jemma no more, and that killing people can turn the nicest were’ crazy no matter the reason.

She said nothing.

When the moon came up, the whole town heard her calling from her nest of blankets and pillows, there in the road.

“Jeremy! Jeremy, you come home now! I’ve been patient long enough! If you don’t come home for your birthday I will come get you with a leash!”

Those with windows facing the road watched the black shape come forward. Watched it nose the clothes the Widow held. Watched it change.

He goes by Jeremy, now. The Widow had family connections to a local pack, and when her grandson didn’t want to pretend any more, she called in a favor. Apparently, if you’re willing to wait a year or so, you can change how you look, a little at a time. Jeremy has hair now in places Jemma didn’t, and his voice broke a couple months back. The priest don’t like it, but he doesn’t complain too loud. Not after the hard winter, when Jeremy was bringing in the only meat the town saw. The hunters still say they’d trust his nose, four-legged or not.

With each change back from wolf, more of the man shows through. And the house of Grumly has never smiled more.

I’m gonna cry
♥️