1

Avian heard it before she felt it.

The sharp whistling of the wind like a breath of warm air glazing her cheek as the thin cane landed horizontally over her left knuckles splayed wide and limp on the desk.

A gasp lodged itself in the ball of her throat; a pathetic sound that ultimately eked out as another as she startled upright, blinking rapidly past the film of sleep that had briefly obscured her vision. Belatedly, she began to withdraw her vulnerable hand from the table when the cane landed once more, aimed with military precision over her interphalangeal joints.

A tremendous shock of pain ran up her hand, and she clenched down on her teeth to prevent making another sound that might upset him. 

“Proverbs twelve, twenty-four.” The voice demanded from her side, dry as autumn leaves from years of use.

Still grappling with the fog of sleep that hovered above her consciousness like a lid, Avian blinked in open bemusement at the scroll laid before her. The last Latin sentence she had written had not stopped abruptly but trailed off haphazardly: each word irregular looking as evidence of her nodding off right before the final e had been dragged out by the feathered ink pen that now rested inches from the scroll.

I fell asleep. Avian realized in alert fear. 

Her tongue darted out nervously to circle her chapped lips. She swallowed the sticky paste of sleep, her slender throat jerking in the process, and suddenly yearned for a glass of ice cold water with condensation clouding the walls of it.

“Psalms twelve—“

The cane landed twice in succession; rapid strokes wielded by a hand gnarled as wood and liver-spotted.

“Proverbs twelve!” Hastily correcting herself, she curled her throbbing hand into a fist, as if to make the pain small, and continued, “proverbs… twelve, twenty four —” her heart was flying against her ribs like a caged bird. 

The figure shifted alongside her periphery and the cane lifted. 

“The hand of the diligent will rule, But the lazy man will be put to forced labor.” The words tumbled past her lips in one breath, and she held it, steeling herself for another brisk discipline.

The cane did not land.

It was nearly impossible to see his figure at her side, so she willed her body to remain still, the lithe muscles along her bony shoulders drawn taut at the long parentheses of nothing. The silence was maddening. It created room for doubt, and her mind began to leap at random conclusions for his quietness.

Did he specify King James Version? Or was it 1588 Geneva? 

Was I to narrate in Hebrew? Latin? 

Douay-Reims English Version? 

Did I even speak?

The cane flashed south, this time making contact with the stub where her smallest finger once was; now cut down to the knuckle.

“Who will rule?” The high priest demanded with another punctuated thwack.

Avian choked on her words, “The diligent—”

“Who will rule?” His voice rose an intonation, mingling with the heat that formed a soupy layer in the compact room.

“The diligent!” She replied dutifully as heat spread beneath her eyes. 

Thwack. “And who will forever labor?”

“The lazy.”

“Who?”

“The lazy!”

Thwack. Thwack. He gave no room for reprieve, reigning terror down on her left hand as if whipping a dog. The skin of her knuckles suffused with color, a red hue beneath the burnished bronze. “And who are you?” He asked in reproach.

Avian bit her tongue, “Lazy.”

Thwack. He hit bone. She flinched back, earning another round of consecutive lashes that spread up to her knobby wrist. “Who. Are. You.”

“Lazy, master. I am among the lazy. I will forever labor.” She was breathless now, 

The heat that suffuses the room forms a soupy layer of near-translucence. 

Avian blinks long and slow in the dimness, her aching eyes glittering like glass as they flatter open and shut in a struggle to bring into focus the yellow parchment scroll sprawled before her. 

The muggy air presses on her sepia skin like sparked ashes, kindling it with a mellow heat that suffuses her cheeks and gathers sweat –a parody of glass-shaped beads– along the seams of her scalp and tracing a single rivulet down her temple where it collects along the line of her jaw.

Plop. The ball of sweat dissolves into the parchment paper as silent as the white cloaked figure that drifts about the archive room.

Dimly, Avian is aware of the brackish voice sweltering around her like the heat itself, joining as one to form a thin membrane over her that unhurriedly narrows the world to an incoherent hum of white noise. 

I’m awake, she mouths for the nth time in that hour.

Her eyelids grow heavy with the leisure passing of time. 

Her tongue slurs with exhaustion over muted words. I…I’m-I’m… her throat swells with a yawn that pops the mandibular joint of her jaw. She shakes her curls thoroughly. Awake.

Avian’s head droops forward slightly only to jerk back as if some invisible string had been yanked from her nape. She blinks into the jaundice candle light and lowers her gaze once more to the paper where her inked handwriting had filled the pages over the past thirty hours.

He had spoken in English and she had dutifully translated it to Latin. A neat curling handwriting that had been beaten efficiently into her sloppy one until near-perfection had been attained.

Her fingers, bruised with gradients of black ink, flex back and forth to relieve the cramps of holding the feathered pen. The writing callus on her writing digit had softened to a smooth painful pink, like the exposed underbelly of a lizard.

I need to wrap that. She thinks then pauses. After I sleep.

The murmuring voice in the background grows in frequency and she realises in dismay that he had not yet tired out like her. They had been up for thirty hours, cramped in the small archived room for scholars. He had dictating, debating and murmuring to himself while she hummed approvals and wrote in silence, head bent over the scrolls, squinting into the jaundiced candle light.

Emotions had run wild between now and then; excitement, disbelief, discontent, rage, and now a thoughtful silence pervading the four walls like a thick blanket that lulls her back to the bay of sleep’s arms.

Avian dips the feathered tip into the glass bottle and carefully lowers it onto the page where she had left, just beneath the grotesque sketch of an original Lycanthrope she had attempted whilst still in the throes of energy.

“… Average of ten feet tall, five hundred pounds of muscle and fur that is impervious to the war instruments of man.” The high priest stands at the front left, his cheeks like emptied udders that tremble with each breath, “tapetum lucidum…” highly sensitised night vision, “eyes the colour of amber.. or yellow—“

Like urine— Avian’s hand stills as she stares at the words she had mistakenly added. It was an unconscious mistake, yet the sight of it set her calm heart skittering. Casting a clandestine glance in his direction, she crosses the words once then twice until it is no longer legible.

Focus… she mumbles, writing the little of what her mind-addled brain could muster of the priest’s words. 

“Five fingers, distal phalanx, claws the length of ten inches on average…” focus… almost done… “length of jaw is ten inches, forty teeth… eight incisors, twelve canines, twelve premolars and ten molars—“ Avian pauses and blinks at the mathematical error. The priest had passed the mark by two extra teeth. Even in her lethargic state she could make out the glaring error.

She peers up at the cloaked figure pacing across the room with an open leather-bound book in his palm. “Their known speed is sixty to eighty miles per hour…” tentatively, she draws her lower lip into her mouth and sucks it thoughtfully. 

Should I tell him? Surely he would not be angered by the correction.

As if in reply to her question, her gaze lowers to the right side of the table where her right hand lies, palm down and slightly curled into a loose fist

But the thought of being corrected by a scant could incense anyone in the pack hierarchy, omegas included. Her gaze lowers in finality to the paper and, warily, she crosses over the error before writing over it.

“Their appetite is known to be that of wolves—” the priest halts at the centre of the room, the skin of his sunken cheeks drawing taut in . Eleven years as his slave had familiarized her with each action, both large and minuscule, 

The heat that suffuses the room forms a soupy layer of near-translucence. 

Avian blinks long and slow in the dimness, her aching eyes glittering like glass as they flatter open and shut in a struggle to bring into focus the yellow parchment scroll sprawled before her. 

The muggy air presses on her sepia skin like sparked ashes, kindling it with a mellow heat that suffuses her cheeks and gathers sweat –a parody of glass-shaped beads– along the seams of her scalp and tracing a single rivulet down her temple where it collects along the line of her jaw.

Plop. The ball of sweat dissolves into the parchment paper as silent as the white cloaked figure that drifts about the archive room.

Dimly, Avian is aware of the brackish voice sweltering around her like the heat itself, joining as one to form a thin membrane over her that unhurriedly narrows the world to an incoherent hum of white noise. 

I’m awake, she mouths for the nth time in that hour.

Her eyelids grow heavy with the leisure passing of time. 

Her tongue slurs with exhaustion over muted words. I…I’m-I’m… her throat swells with a yawn that pops the mandibular joint of her jaw. She shakes her curls thoroughly. Awake.

Avian’s head droops forward slightly only to jerk back as if some invisible string had been yanked from her nape. She blinks into the jaundice candle light and lowers her gaze once more to the paper where her inked handwriting had filled the pages over the past thirty hours.

He had spoken in English and she had dutifully translated it to Latin. A neat curling handwriting that had been beaten efficiently into her sloppy one until near-perfection had been attained.

Her fingers, bruised with gradients of black ink, flex back and forth to relieve the cramps of holding the feathered pen. The writing callus on her writing digit had softened to a smooth painful pink, like the exposed underbelly of a lizard.

I need to wrap that. She thinks then pauses. After I sleep.

The murmuring voice in the background grows in frequency and she realises in dismay that he had not yet tired out like her. They had been up for thirty hours, cramped in the small archived room for scholars. He had dictating, debating and murmuring to himself while she hummed approvals and wrote in silence, head bent over the scrolls, squinting into the jaundiced candle light.

Emotions had run wild between now and then; excitement, disbelief, discontent, rage, and now a thoughtful silence pervading the four walls like a thick blanket that lulls her back to the bay of sleep’s arms.

Avian dips the feathered tip into the glass bottle and carefully lowers it onto the page where she had left, just beneath the grotesque sketch of an original Lycanthrope she had attempted whilst still in the throes of energy.

“… Average of ten feet tall, five hundred pounds of muscle and fur that is impervious to the war instruments of man.” The high priest stands at the front left, his cheeks like emptied udders that tremble with each breath, “tapetum lucidum…” highly sensitised night vision, “eyes the colour of amber.. or yellow—“

Like urine— Avian’s hand stills as she stares at the words she had mistakenly added. It was an unconscious mistake, yet the sight of it set her calm heart skittering. Casting a clandestine glance in his direction, she crosses the words once then twice until it is no longer legible.

Focus… she mumbles, writing the little of what her mind-addled brain could muster of the priest’s words. 

“Five fingers, distal phalanx, claws the length of ten inches on average…” focus… almost done… “length of jaw is ten inches, forty teeth… eight incisors, twelve canines, twelve premolars and ten molars—“ Avian pauses and blinks at the mathematical error. The priest had passed the mark by two extra teeth. Even in her lethargic state she could make out the glaring error.

She peers up at the cloaked figure pacing across the room with an open leather-bound book in his palm. “Their known speed is sixty to eighty miles per hour…” tentatively, she draws her lower lip into her mouth and sucks it thoughtfully. 

Should I tell him? Surely he would not be angered by the correction.

As if in reply to her question, her gaze lowers to the right side of the table where her right hand lies, palm down and slightly curled into a loose fist

But the thought of being corrected by a scant could incense anyone in the pack hierarchy, omegas included. Her gaze lowers in finality to the paper and, warily, she crosses over the error before writing over it.

“Their appetite is known to be that of wolves—” the priest halts at the centre of the room, the skin of his sunken cheeks drawing taut in . Eleven years as his slave had familiarized her with each action, both large and minuscule, 

The heat that suffuses the room forms a soupy layer of near-translucence. 

Avian blinks long and slow in the dimness, her aching eyes glittering like glass as they flatter open and shut in a struggle to bring into focus the yellow parchment scroll sprawled before her. 

The muggy air presses on her sepia skin like sparked ashes, kindling it with a mellow heat that suffuses her cheeks and gathers sweat –a parody of glass-shaped beads– along the seams of her scalp and tracing a single rivulet down her temple where it collects along the line of her jaw.

Plop. The ball of sweat dissolves into the parchment paper as silent as the white cloaked figure that drifts about the archive room.

Dimly, Avian is aware of the brackish voice sweltering around her like the heat itself, joining as one to form a thin membrane over her that unhurriedly narrows the world to an incoherent hum of white noise. 

I’m awake, she mouths for the nth time in that hour.

Her eyelids grow heavy with the leisure passing of time. 

Her tongue slurs with exhaustion over muted words. I…I’m-I’m… her throat swells with a yawn that pops the mandibular joint of her jaw. She shakes her curls thoroughly. Awake.

Avian’s head droops forward slightly only to jerk back as if some invisible string had been yanked from her nape. She blinks into the jaundice candle light and lowers her gaze once more to the paper where her inked handwriting had filled the pages over the past thirty hours.

He had spoken in English and she had dutifully translated it to Latin. A neat curling handwriting that had been beaten efficiently into her sloppy one until near-perfection had been attained.

Her fingers, bruised with gradients of black ink, flex back and forth to relieve the cramps of holding the feathered pen. The writing callus on her writing digit had softened to a smooth painful pink, like the exposed underbelly of a lizard.

I need to wrap that. She thinks then pauses. After I sleep.

The murmuring voice in the background grows in frequency and she realises in dismay that he had not yet tired out like her. They had been up for thirty hours, cramped in the small archived room for scholars. He had dictating, debating and murmuring to himself while she hummed approvals and wrote in silence, head bent over the scrolls, squinting into the jaundiced candle light.

Emotions had run wild between now and then; excitement, disbelief, discontent, rage, and now a thoughtful silence pervading the four walls like a thick blanket that lulls her back to the bay of sleep’s arms.

Avian dips the feathered tip into the glass bottle and carefully lowers it onto the page where she had left, just beneath the grotesque sketch of an original Lycanthrope she had attempted whilst still in the throes of energy.

“… Average of ten feet tall, five hundred pounds of muscle and fur that is impervious to the war instruments of man.” The high priest stands at the front left, his cheeks like emptied udders that tremble with each breath, “tapetum lucidum…” highly sensitised night vision, “eyes the colour of amber.. or yellow—“

Like urine— Avian’s hand stills as she stares at the words she had mistakenly added. It was an unconscious mistake, yet the sight of it set her calm heart skittering. Casting a clandestine glance in his direction, she crosses the words once then twice until it is no longer legible.

Focus… she mumbles, writing the little of what her mind-addled brain could muster of the priest’s words. 

“Five fingers, distal phalanx, claws the length of ten inches on average…” focus… almost done… “length of jaw is ten inches, forty teeth… eight incisors, twelve canines, twelve premolars and ten molars—“ Avian pauses and blinks at the mathematical error. The priest had passed the mark by two extra teeth. Even in her lethargic state she could make out the glaring error.

She peers up at the cloaked figure pacing across the room with an open leather-bound book in his palm. “Their known speed is sixty to eighty miles per hour…” tentatively, she draws her lower lip into her mouth and sucks it thoughtfully. 

Should I tell him? Surely he would not be angered by the correction.

As if in reply to her question, her gaze lowers to the right side of the table where her right hand lies, palm down and slightly curled into a loose fist

But the thought of being corrected by a scant could incense anyone in the pack hierarchy, omegas included. Her gaze lowers in finality to the paper and, warily, she crosses over the error before writing over it.

“Their appetite is known to be that of wolves—” the priest halts at the centre of the room, the skin of his sunken cheeks drawing taut in . Eleven years as his slave had familiarized her with each action, both large and minuscule, 

The heat that suffuses the room forms a soupy layer of near-translucence. 

Avian blinks long and slow in the dimness, her aching eyes glittering like glass as they flatter open and shut in a struggle to bring into focus the yellow parchment scroll sprawled before her. 

The muggy air presses on her sepia skin like sparked ashes, kindling it with a mellow heat that suffuses her cheeks and gathers sweat –a parody of glass-shaped beads– along the seams of her scalp and tracing a single rivulet down her temple where it collects along the line of her jaw.

Plop. The ball of sweat dissolves into the parchment paper as silent as the white cloaked figure that drifts about the archive room.

Dimly, Avian is aware of the brackish voice sweltering around her like the heat itself, joining as one to form a thin membrane over her that unhurriedly narrows the world to an incoherent hum of white noise. 

I’m awake, she mouths for the nth time in that hour.

Her eyelids grow heavy with the leisure passing of time. 

Her tongue slurs with exhaustion over muted words. I…I’m-I’m… her throat swells with a yawn that pops the mandibular joint of her jaw. She shakes her curls thoroughly. Awake.

Avian’s head droops forward slightly only to jerk back as if some invisible string had been yanked from her nape. She blinks into the jaundice candle light and lowers her gaze once more to the paper where her inked handwriting had filled the pages over the past thirty hours.

He had spoken in English and she had dutifully translated it to Latin. A neat curling handwriting that had been beaten efficiently into her sloppy one until near-perfection had been attained.

Her fingers, bruised with gradients of black ink, flex back and forth to relieve the cramps of holding the feathered pen. The writing callus on her writing digit had softened to a smooth painful pink, like the exposed underbelly of a lizard.

I need to wrap that. She thinks then pauses. After I sleep.

The murmuring voice in the background grows in frequency and she realises in dismay that he had not yet tired out like her. They had been up for thirty hours, cramped in the small archived room for scholars. He had dictating, debating and murmuring to himself while she hummed approvals and wrote in silence, head bent over the scrolls, squinting into the jaundiced candle light.

Emotions had run wild between now and then; excitement, disbelief, discontent, rage, and now a thoughtful silence pervading the four walls like a thick blanket that lulls her back to the bay of sleep’s arms.

Avian dips the feathered tip into the glass bottle and carefully lowers it onto the page where she had left, just beneath the grotesque sketch of an original Lycanthrope she had attempted whilst still in the throes of energy.

“… Average of ten feet tall, five hundred pounds of muscle and fur that is impervious to the war instruments of man.” The high priest stands at the front left, his cheeks like emptied udders that tremble with each breath, “tapetum lucidum…” highly sensitised night vision, “eyes the colour of amber.. or yellow—“

Like urine— Avian’s hand stills as she stares at the words she had mistakenly added. It was an unconscious mistake, yet the sight of it set her calm heart skittering. Casting a clandestine glance in his direction, she crosses the words once then twice until it is no longer legible.

Focus… she mumbles, writing the little of what her mind-addled brain could muster of the priest’s words. 

“Five fingers, distal phalanx, claws the length of ten inches on average…” focus… almost done… “length of jaw is ten inches, forty teeth… eight incisors, twelve canines, twelve premolars and ten molars—“ Avian pauses and blinks at the mathematical error. The priest had passed the mark by two extra teeth. Even in her lethargic state she could make out the glaring error.

She peers up at the cloaked figure pacing across the room with an open leather-bound book in his palm. “Their known speed is sixty to eighty miles per hour…” tentatively, she draws her lower lip into her mouth and sucks it thoughtfully. 

Should I tell him? Surely he would not be angered by the correction.

As if in reply to her question, her gaze lowers to the right side of the table where her right hand lies, palm down and slightly curled into a loose fist

But the thought of being corrected by a scant could incense anyone in the pack hierarchy, omegas included. Her gaze lowers in finality to the paper and, warily, she crosses over the error before writing over it.

“Their appetite is known to be that of wolves—” the priest halts at the centre of the room, the skin of his sunken cheeks drawing taut in . Eleven years as his slave had familiarized her with each action, both large and minuscule, 

The heat that suffuses the room forms a soupy layer of near-translucence. 

Avian blinks long and slow in the dimness, her aching eyes glittering like glass as they flatter open and shut in a struggle to bring into focus the yellow parchment scroll sprawled before her. 

The muggy air presses on her sepia skin like sparked ashes, kindling it with a mellow heat that suffuses her cheeks and gathers sweat –a parody of glass-shaped beads– along the seams of her scalp and tracing a single rivulet down her temple where it collects along the line of her jaw.

Plop. The ball of sweat dissolves into the parchment paper as silent as the white cloaked figure that drifts about the archive room.

Dimly, Avian is aware of the brackish voice sweltering around her like the heat itself, joining as one to form a thin membrane over her that unhurriedly narrows the world to an incoherent hum of white noise. 

I’m awake, she mouths for the nth time in that hour.

Her eyelids grow heavy with the leisure passing of time. 

Her tongue slurs with exhaustion over muted words. I…I’m-I’m… her throat swells with a yawn that pops the mandibular joint of her jaw. She shakes her curls thoroughly. Awake.

Avian’s head droops forward slightly only to jerk back as if some invisible string had been yanked from her nape. She blinks into the jaundice candle light and lowers her gaze once more to the paper where her inked handwriting had filled the pages over the past thirty hours.

He had spoken in English and she had dutifully translated it to Latin. A neat curling handwriting that had been beaten efficiently into her sloppy one until near-perfection had been attained.

Her fingers, bruised with gradients of black ink, flex back and forth to relieve the cramps of holding the feathered pen. The writing callus on her writing digit had softened to a smooth painful pink, like the exposed underbelly of a lizard.

I need to wrap that. She thinks then pauses. After I sleep.

The murmuring voice in the background grows in frequency and she realises in dismay that he had not yet tired out like her. They had been up for thirty hours, cramped in the small archived room for scholars. He had dictating, debating and murmuring to himself while she hummed approvals and wrote in silence, head bent over the scrolls, squinting into the jaundiced candle light.

Emotions had run wild between now and then; excitement, disbelief, discontent, rage, and now a thoughtful silence pervading the four walls like a thick blanket that lulls her back to the bay of sleep’s arms.

Avian dips the feathered tip into the glass bottle and carefully lowers it onto the page where she had left, just beneath the grotesque sketch of an original Lycanthrope she had attempted whilst still in the throes of energy.

“… Average of ten feet tall, five hundred pounds of muscle and fur that is impervious to the war instruments of man.” The high priest stands at the front left, his cheeks like emptied udders that tremble with each breath, “tapetum lucidum…” highly sensitised night vision, “eyes the colour of amber.. or yellow—“

Like urine— Avian’s hand stills as she stares at the words she had mistakenly added. It was an unconscious mistake, yet the sight of it set her calm heart skittering. Casting a clandestine glance in his direction, she crosses the words once then twice until it is no longer legible.

Focus… she mumbles, writing the little of what her mind-addled brain could muster of the priest’s words. 

“Five fingers, distal phalanx, claws the length of ten inches on average…” focus… almost done… “length of jaw is ten inches, forty teeth… eight incisors, twelve canines, twelve premolars and ten molars—“ Avian pauses and blinks at the mathematical error. The priest had passed the mark by two extra teeth. Even in her lethargic state she could make out the glaring error.

She peers up at the cloaked figure pacing across the room with an open leather-bound book in his palm. “Their known speed is sixty to eighty miles per hour…” tentatively, she draws her lower lip into her mouth and sucks it thoughtfully. 

Should I tell him? Surely he would not be angered by the correction.

As if in reply to her question, her gaze lowers to the right side of the table where her right hand lies, palm down and slightly curled into a loose fist

But the thought of being corrected by a scant could incense anyone in the pack hierarchy, omegas included. Her gaze lowers in finality to the paper and, warily, she crosses over the error before writing over it.

“Their appetite is known to be that of wolves—” the priest halts at the centre of the room, the skin of his sunken cheeks drawing taut in . Eleven years as his slave had familiarized her with each action, both large and minuscule, 

The heat that suffuses the room forms a soupy layer of near-translucence. 

Avian blinks long and slow in the dimness, her aching eyes glittering like glass as they flatter open and shut in a struggle to bring into focus the yellow parchment scroll sprawled before her. 

The muggy air presses on her sepia skin like sparked ashes, kindling it with a mellow heat that suffuses her cheeks and gathers sweat –a parody of glass-shaped beads– along the seams of her scalp and tracing a single rivulet down her temple where it collects along the line of her jaw.

Plop. The ball of sweat dissolves into the parchment paper as silent as the white cloaked figure that drifts about the archive room.

Dimly, Avian is aware of the brackish voice sweltering around her like the heat itself, joining as one to form a thin membrane over her that unhurriedly narrows the world to an incoherent hum of white noise. 

I’m awake, she mouths for the nth time in that hour.

Her eyelids grow heavy with the leisure passing of time. 

Her tongue slurs with exhaustion over muted words. I…I’m-I’m… her throat swells with a yawn that pops the mandibular joint of her jaw. She shakes her curls thoroughly. Awake.

Avian’s head droops forward slightly only to jerk back as if some invisible string had been yanked from her nape. She blinks into the jaundice candle light and lowers her gaze once more to the paper where her inked handwriting had filled the pages over the past thirty hours.

He had spoken in English and she had dutifully translated it to Latin. A neat curling handwriting that had been beaten efficiently into her sloppy one until near-perfection had been attained.

Her fingers, bruised with gradients of black ink, flex back and forth to relieve the cramps of holding the feathered pen. The writing callus on her writing digit had softened to a smooth painful pink, like the exposed underbelly of a lizard.

I need to wrap that. She thinks then pauses. After I sleep.

The murmuring voice in the background grows in frequency and she realises in dismay that he had not yet tired out like her. They had been up for thirty hours, cramped in the small archived room for scholars. He had dictating, debating and murmuring to himself while she hummed approvals and wrote in silence, head bent over the scrolls, squinting into the jaundiced candle light.

Emotions had run wild between now and then; excitement, disbelief, discontent, rage, and now a thoughtful silence pervading the four walls like a thick blanket that lulls her back to the bay of sleep’s arms.

Avian dips the feathered tip into the glass bottle and carefully lowers it onto the page where she had left, just beneath the grotesque sketch of an original Lycanthrope she had attempted whilst still in the throes of energy.

“… Average of ten feet tall, five hundred pounds of muscle and fur that is impervious to the war instruments of man.” The high priest stands at the front left, his cheeks like emptied udders that tremble with each breath, “tapetum lucidum…” highly sensitised night vision, “eyes the colour of amber.. or yellow—“

Like urine— Avian’s hand stills as she stares at the words she had mistakenly added. It was an unconscious mistake, yet the sight of it set her calm heart skittering. Casting a clandestine glance in his direction, she crosses the words once then twice until it is no longer legible.

Focus… she mumbles, writing the little of what her mind-addled brain could muster of the priest’s words. 

“Five fingers, distal phalanx, claws the length of ten inches on average…” focus… almost done… “length of jaw is ten inches, forty teeth… eight incisors, twelve canines, twelve premolars and ten molars—“ Avian pauses and blinks at the mathematical error. The priest had passed the mark by two extra teeth. Even in her lethargic state she could make out the glaring error.

She peers up at the cloaked figure pacing across the room with an open leather-bound book in his palm. “Their known speed is sixty to eighty miles per hour…” tentatively, she draws her lower lip into her mouth and sucks it thoughtfully. 

Should I tell him? Surely he would not be angered by the correction.

As if in reply to her question, her gaze lowers to the right side of the table where her right hand lies, palm down and slightly curled into a loose fist

But the thought of being corrected by a scant could incense anyone in the pack hierarchy, omegas included. Her gaze lowers in finality to the paper and, warily, she crosses over the error before writing over it.

“Their appetite is known to be that of wolves—” the priest halts at the centre of the room, the skin of his sunken cheeks drawing taut in . Eleven years as his slave had familiarized her with each action, both large and minuscule, 

The archive room had grown stu