Elizabeth Mortimer, called Kate Percy (
tiltingwithlips) wrote2012-11-14 10:36 am
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The Battle of Shrewsbury [Werewolf AU]
The day of the battle dawns cloudy and cold. The men on both sides form up as the sun rises behind the clouds, facing each other across a field of gray snow in orderly ranks.
When battle is joined, most semblance of that order disintegrates. The leaders of each army range here and there about the field, directing their troops, and soon the snow is churned and brown with mud and blood.
Most of the soldiers are too busy fighting for their lives to notice the gray wolf creeping around the edges of the battlefield, crouched low to the ground, her hackles raised and lips pulled back in a snarl. Kate has never seen a battle. It's not exactly what she was expecting.
When battle is joined, most semblance of that order disintegrates. The leaders of each army range here and there about the field, directing their troops, and soon the snow is churned and brown with mud and blood.
Most of the soldiers are too busy fighting for their lives to notice the gray wolf creeping around the edges of the battlefield, crouched low to the ground, her hackles raised and lips pulled back in a snarl. Kate has never seen a battle. It's not exactly what she was expecting.
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"I know thee!" he cries. "I know what you are!"
His voice cracks -- anyone's would, and let that man who would deny it be given the chance to demonstrate. Hal's heart thrashes within him. Let her not pierce the skin!
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Kate turns towards Harry, and her snarling dies down to desperate whimpers.
The smell of a dying human is not that different from the smell of any other dying beast.
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He tracks her with his eyes. Even voiceless and without words, all he can say is her name. Oh Kate.
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--Oh.
It's an awful, terrifying idea.
(Falstaff has long since abandoned pretending to be dead -- although he's not entirely sure he's awake. God's blood, even in his wildest, drunkest dreams, he never thought to see anything like this!)
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But of all the ways he ever imagined himself dying on the battlefield, none of them have been so slow.
There is nothing left for him to do, lying here heaving in the mud, and if the end would just -- come, with Kate here -- oh, but if she would show him her face again --
Something in his chest begins to rattle.
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She bares her teeth and sinks them into the thick leather collar around his neck, ripping it away; it's tough material, and her yanking jars him more than she'd like.
But his throat is exposed, that's the important part.
Because then -- with an apologetic nudge of her nose under his chin -- she can open her jaws and bite him.
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Harry's heart begins to race. His eyes shoot open: he knows that shock of adrenaline, but he's never felt this -- this scream in every last fiber of his body. Something is -- warring in him.
His fingers curl and scrabble against the ground; now he fights for breath, and a frightened moan builds where Kate holds him.
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'Swounds, but he's heavy to drag, though. If she can get him out of plain sight, she'll settle. It won't do to have anyone coming along to finish the job Hal started, though.
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At long, long last she has him at the edge of the tree, and she stops there, panting. Is the battle ending or simply moving away? She can't tell.
She bends her head and licks Harry's cheek. It's all the comfort she can think to give him right now.
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A sound behind them makes her turn.
And who should be clambering to his feet and trying to sneak across the clearing but one fat, armored fool name of Sir John Falstaff?
When he spies her, he freezes. "A-avaunt! Avaunt, I say!" He makes a hasty Sign of the Cross. "Take thy Hotspur, and to Hell with him -- but I am an honest man, unless to be fat be sin--"
Kate curls her lips and snarls at him, beginning to stalk forward.
"Avaunt!" Falstaff tries again. The wolf snaps its jaws, and Falstaff abruptly decides that devils and demons are surely better left to priests than to him. And that being the case, he had better go find a priest as quickly as possible.
Kate barks once after him as he turns tail, slipping in the mud, and flees.
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The Prince of Wales, thanks be to God, has found his brother, John of Lancaster, and both hobble over the field toward King Henry's camp. John frowns, not only at Hal's weight slung about his shoulders, but at the figure that swift approaches. "Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?"
"I did," says Hal slowly, staring. "I saw him dead, breathless and bleeding on the ground." He halts, and hails the monstrous knight, moving at speed towards them. "Art thou alive? I prithee, speak: we will not trust our eyes without our ears!"
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John still looks extremely dubious and unimpressed.
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Falstaff is suddenly uncharacteristically serious, peering at Hal.
"I fought today with none other than the devil come to drag Percy to his reward."
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"To say a thing is the devil, Jack, is a grave undertaking."
John's brow furrows deeper. "What's this?"
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Hal sighs. "I met a beast when I felled Percy. My armor is the proof, though I think more it was his flesh it was after."
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