Help Me, Help You - Part Two
Fenrys x F!Reader
Summary- Embarking on their journey, Y/n and Fenrys slowly start to learn a little more about each other, to Y/n’s utter annoyance.
Warnings- none
Series Masterlist
Part Two
Y/n follows the golden male, her own pack strapped to her back. Only the essentials, clothes, weapons, and gold, if she needed anything else she could buy it along the way.
They walked for what felt like eternity, the road was well worn into the forest floor, coated in dry fallen leaves, winter would hit here soon. The wind held that chill, bringing it from the northern point of the continent, a familiar feeling on her skin.
The nearest port city would take them nearly another whole day to walk to, and who knew how long after that to get passage to the southern continent.
Y/n had been half tempted to shift and run to their destination, but she stuck to Fenrys, after all she’d sought him out for a reason. As night soon approached, Y/n found herself walking closer to the male’s side. Her brother had told her many stories of the creatures that lurked in the shadows.
“So,” Fenrys says, breaking the long silence they’d fallen into, “If you don’t mind me asking, where’d the cat form come from? Vaughan is the furthest thing from feline.”
A question she’d heard most of her life, one she dreaded deeply.
“None of your business,” Y/n says, and there’s a bite to her voice that she can’t hide.
“No need to get testy, kitten.” The nickname had stuck long after they’d left that little village to her utter dismay. “Just trying to get to know my new partner in crime.”
She glares at him, “We have different fathers, that’s all you need to know.”
It was the simplest version of the story, the only one she was willing to share.
“See was that so hard?”
The male is grinning at her, the expression pulling uncomfortably on the large scars that adorned the side of his face, from his brow to his jaw, just barely missing the onyx eyes that examined her just as closely as she did him.
“Why’d they send you out to look for him?”
Fenrys raises that scarred brow, “I volunteered.”
She hums, looking back at the path before them. The sun was starting to set, turning the sky a deep orange.
“We’ll set up camp here,” Fenrys says, taking his small pack off his shoulders, “Start the fire and I’ll find us something to eat.”
He didn’t give her any time to respond, shifting in a flash into a brilliant white wolf. Y/n took a step back from the to large creature, her heart leaping in her chest.
Her brother had told her of the Moonbeam twins, of their opposite colored forms that could tear men in two with a simple snap of their jaws. She didn’t want to find out what those teeth would feel like around her throat.
The wolf stared at her, a knowing look in those onyx eyes. He turned, darting into the woods, leaving her alone, leaving her to figure out how to start a damn fire.
It didn’t take him long to hunt down a few rabbits, Fenrys was already on his way back before the sun had turned the sky a deep purple.
He’d expected to find a small fire, not Y/n glaring intently at a bundle of sticks and some dried leaves. She clutches another small stick in her hand, holding it tightly enough that it bends beneath her grip.
“I don’t think you can threaten it into starting,” he says, “Though I’d sure love to see you try.”
She startled, looking up at him with wide eyes, her posture rigid, like she was ready to bolt. It takes her a second to really look at him, to realize he’s not a threat, before she relaxes, turning her glare back on the little pile of sticks.
“I can’t get it to start,” she says, throwing that poor bent stick down on the ground.
“Staring at it isn’t going to help,” Fenrys laughs, “Do you even know how?”
Her glare shoot up to him, snapping, “Yes.”
The way she says it, the harsh tone, the self conscious edge to it, tells him that, no, she doesn’t know how to do it.
“What? No one taught you any survival skills, kitten?” Fenrys asks, “I would’ve thought dear old brother would have at least shown you the basics. He always was the outdoorsman of the group.”
Y/n doesn’t snap back like he thought she would, only glares back down at that little pile, as if she could will the fire into starting.
Fenrys sighs, kneeling down in the dirt beside her, taking one of the larger sticks into his hand, placing the slightly sharp edge against one of small pieces of tree bark. Using both his hands to turn the stick back and forth, pushing down with each turn to create more friction. It only takes a few moments for the bark to start smoking, and then a small flame catches, spreading to the dried leaves packed around it.
Fenrys glances at the female beside him, those keen eyes watch his hands closely, like she was trying to memorize the motions.
She seemingly feels his gaze, her eyes jumping up to meet his own, he sees the embarrassment as soon as it hits.
“I haven’t left home much,” she explains, “No one saw fit to teach me.”
She shifts uncomfortably beneath his gaze, so Fenrys looks away, turning his attention to their dinner. He sees her watching in his peripherals as he prepares the the little creatures to be cooked. Her eyes are intently on his hands, watching each cut of his knife. Fenrys takes his time, slowing the motions down, silently teaching.
Fenrys throws the meat onto the fire, “I don’t know much about your brother if I’m being completely honest.”
“Not many do,” Y/n answers, those eyes still on the roasting rabbit, “He’s always been very private, even at home.”
“And where’s that?” Fenrys asks, “Home?”
Finally, those keen eyes look up, lit up by the fire, they look even more cat like than usual.
“North,” she says, quietly like the information was a secret, “A very small village in the Cambrian Mountains.”
Fenrys wouldn’t ask the name of the village, it’s likely he’s never even heard of it, “How’d you get so far from home?”
He didn’t add the fact that she didn’t know basic survival skills, yet the narrowed eyes tells him she heard the unspoken words.
“I traveled much in my other form,” she explains, “The Oakwald Forrest Cats are well used to the cold.”
With the long thick coat he’d seen, it wasn’t a surprise.
“I knew I’d recognized that cat,” Fenrys says.
He’d seen them near Terrasen, yet he’d never seen a fae shift into one. Though many of the fae of Erilea had been long hunted down, the few that remained, the ones he’d found to help them, there hadn’t been a cat among them.
“A gift from my father,” she says blandly, an edge to her voice like the last time he’d asked about her family. Seems her father was a sore spot for her, he tucked that knowledge away for later.
He hums, turning the stick holding his dinner to roast the other side. She did the same with her own, staring into the flame intently for several long minutes.
There was a familiar look in her eyes, one he’d seen in his own many times, like she was lost in a memory, lost in the emotion it came with.
So Fenrys took his dinner from the fire, nudging her own towards her, “Eat up.”
Without even looking at him, or looking away from that spot in the fire, she took her food and ate silently, methodically.
Once she was done, she shifted in a bright flash, curling into a small ball by the fire, her back to him. A clear statement, I don’t want to talk.
He knew the feeling all too well.
They arrived at the small city just south of the Naval port around midday, far quicker than she expected. Fenrys had gone to the docks to look for passage, leaving Y/n to wander the city by herself.
It wasn’t much, yet it was bigger than what she was used to, louder too. There was many voices, vendors hawking their goods, children playing, musicians singing and dancing to music played on improvised instruments.
Overwhelming, Y/n could only stare at it all in her cat form. Moving through crowds and over high beams, dodging hands that reached to pet her soft coat, hissing at to curious people who tried to grab her.
“Here, kitty kitty kitty,” a voice behind her, familiar and annoying.
Fenrys stood there, the human crowds parting around the obviously fae male. He was smiling devilishly at her, holding out what seemed to be a piece of ham from the wrapped sandwich in his hand.
She hissed at him, swatting the offering.
“Awe, come on,” he coos, “Don’t you want a treat, kitten?”
A man walking beside them fell straight on his ass when Y/n shifted, growling at Fenrys.
“Stop calling me that.”
“What? It suits you,” he leans closer to her, drawling out the word, “Kitten. Hey!”
He yells as Y/n rips the sandwich from his grasp. Turning on her heel to stalk away from him while she took a pointedly large bite.
“That was mine,” Fenrys whines, catching up to her in a few strides.
“And where’s mine?” She asks with a raised brow, taking another bite.
“I asked if you were hungry earlier,” Fenrys sighs, throwing his hands in the air, “You’re the one who said no.”
Y/n shrugs, “What’d you find at the docks, anything?”
Fenrys sighs again, turning his gaze away from his stolen sandwich to glare at the sky. That wasn’t good, Y/n thought, they’d be stuck here for weeks waiting for a ship to take them across the sea. Vaughan could be well on his way to the other side of the vast southern continent, and she’d never find him.
“Nothing?” She asks, lowering her hands from her mouth.
Fenrys moves quickly, snatching the lunch from her, “No, actually we leave in the morning.”
She gapes at him, “That was-“
“Mine actually,” he cuts in, biting directly where her mouth had just been, “Did Vaughan not teach you to always keep your guard up either? That was like taking candy from a baby.”
Y/n snarls at him, and Fenrys just laughs. She tries to grab it from him, but the male just held it high above his head, far far above her own.
“Oh quit with the hissing, kitten,” Fenrys laughs, “I’ll get you your own, we need to stock up for our trip anyways.”
“Quit calling me that, you oaf,” she snaps.
Fenrys smirks, patting her head with his free hand once, snatching the hand back as she went to swipe at him.
“Quit reacting so much and maybe I’ll stop.”
She doesn’t respond, only bearing her teeth at him, to which he only laughs, turning on his heel to saunter through the market. Y/n quickly realizes he wasn’t going to wait for her, assuming she’d just follow.
Swearing under her breath, she did just that. Jogging to catch up to the male, who still had that insufferable smirk on his lips as she settled into step beside him.
“I thought you were going to sit there and pout all day,” Fenrys says.
She was half tempted to claw at his smirking face and give him a matching scar on the other side.
“You owe me a sandwich.”
He laughs, “Someone’s mean when she’s hungry. Good to know, I‘ll pack extra snacks.”
“Shut up.”
They spent a several hours traversing through the vast city markets, stocking up on dried meats and cheeses that would hold well on the trip down to the southern continent. Once their bags were packed to the brim, they made their way to the ship, where they’d spend the next few weeks. It was set to leave first thing in the morning, so they hadn’t bothered to find an inn to stay the night in.
Fenrys had been relieved to find a ship that would take them, let alone one that was headed straight to the continent. And in his time on ships, he could say this was one of the nicer ones he’d been on.
The owner was a merchant, one that traded in silks and thread, he claimed to have tailored for Hasar herself. Knowing the female, Fenrys highly doubted she would let the sniveling man anywhere near her.
Fenrys had more than enough gold to pay for the trip across the sea, and enough to splurge on a private room away from the shared hammocks below deck.
He dropped his heavy pack onto the small desk by the door, falling face first onto the small bunk pressed against the wall with a satisfied groan. Fenrys appreciated the gentle sway of the ship beneath him, mostly because it was about to take him far away from this suffocating continent.
Behind him, Y/n quietly shut their door, carefully arranging her bag onto the opposite bunk, much more refined than his careless approach.
Fenrys turned his head just enough to see her. Either she didn’t notice his gaze or didn’t care, her focus stays on her bag, on the clothes she dug out. She methodically arranged her items, something Fenrys noticed she did a lot, she’d done it that morning when they packed out their little camp, later in the market when she stored away her things. Like there was something soothing about the repetition, like it calmed whatever was happening in her mind.
Fenrys would like to learn something similar, if only to stop the endless thoughts and emotions that, even after several months, still ran constantly through his head.
Her eyes finally turned to him, catching his stare. Suddenly he felt like he wasn’t meant to be watching, and the embarrassment of being caught had his cheeks darkening. There was really no reason for it, it wasn’t like he’d been watching her change.
“I’m going to go freshen up,” she says casually, her eyes not missing the blush, “Don’t miss me to much.”
She moved to the door, and Fenrys found himself tracking the movement, pushing up to rest on his elbows. She moved silently, like she always did, that feline grace that would put the silent assassins of the red desert to shame.
“I miss you already, kitten,” Fenrys sighs dramatically as she opens the door.
A hiss, a slam of the door, and she’s gone. Fenrys smiled to himself, settling back into his bunk. The gentle sway of the ship had him yawning before to long, the somewhat comfortable bunk didn’t help either, compared to the last few sleeping arrangements it was like laying on a cloud
As he drifted off to sleep, he saw keen eyes watching him, directly through his mask of confidence and swagger, staring into his soul, broken and dark, yet not seeming to care. Fenrys could only stare back, wishing he could see past her own shields.
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