(Fanfiction) The lord protector survives the fall and becomes a Wolfwalker, Chapter 1
This is the first chapter of my fanfiction which i’ve uploaded IN FULL for the community and fandom, especially since not everyone reads wolfwalker fanfiction on AO3. so i decided to upload it here since it’s more likely that i’d get feedback from y’all.
ao3 fanfic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85035171/chapters/224512186
Chapter 1
- ”And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” - matthew 7:3 (KJV 21st century)
”Remember those who are in bonds as though you were bound with them, and those who suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.” - hebrews 13:3 (KJV 21st century)
Goodfellowe’s teeth sank slowly and painfully. His teeth sharply stung with a potency that could only be matched by those of supernatural matter. Not that the bite didn’t sink any less hard into him as hard as any other animal can do. however pain was deeper and fouler. Such pain came and latched onto one with no time for mercy or respit for him, best likened to a parasite in one’s body. Such a parasite could not be seen by him like Revenants, vampyres, or dæmons, what force of nature that pressed into his skin was couldn’t matter at this moment. All he knew was that a singular Wolf’s bite struck somehow everywhere at once, while the wolf had only aimed at one part.
All that he saw in his dim vision, as his eyes were tortured by whatever that had infected him happened to be a blistering red, in front of him was an invisible spirit with a bright hue and color. His view beheld a red and rusty color. Decay and wither jumped onto him without notice. Putrefaction that decayed a man’s soul, with unseen bites swarming over and under his muscular body and finely polished armour. Then his helmet was suddenly gone, heading into the pitch black night with the wind itself.
all that had left his head vulnerable to forces whose nature fought against the benevolent Will of god, faces filled with a burning desire. Their eyes reeked of ill intentions in how cruelly wrathful they were. Goodfellowe’s teeth clattered against themselves, sharpening each other.
Nothing in the holy scriptures put into words or could explain how ugly an experience that was a man’s Humanity decaying with each passing fathom, minute by minute, second by second, fathom by fathom. Surging deep into his very body and mixing into the essence of his soul.
His eyes balled up in rage and filled with tears as he silently cursed that damned red-haired irish she-wolf.
In a twist of fate and even crueler happenstance, time and space moved slower. Color and space oozed together into a strange mix that crossed reality over with fantasy, leaving him deeply vulnerable as a spectre Haunted him, this spirit planted itself into his body with horrific speed.
Moving at a snail’s pace, Goodfellowe took a few steps. The Lord protector shakily Held up his sword as the wolf got ever closer to him.
Time’s clock seemingly moved slower, pumped like the waves on a beach. tick tick tick like a beating heart. Red blood rushed through his veins, pumping itself deeper and boaring itself through cavernous sinuses. Tick tick tick, the clock ticked faster, faster and faster, move or your soul will be undone
Poisonous teeth dripping with unheavenly power meant that Goodfellowe’s bite had an intoxicating effect on the brain and fiddled around with his organs. With a great and mighty bang ripped spirits open his body, pressing itself into him with wild abandon. They danced and partied in him like a man abusing his wife in every possible way. Nothing could push into true enough words what animalistic fervor the Spirits pressed into him, like a printing press.
Unheavenly power rushed up and into his cold soul, choking him with contradictory, both tender emotions and unholy imagination with ideas and concepts that God had abandoned. which despite logical convention that he’d been tought faced him with a paradox. Even with judicious minds such as his (or he thought himself as) On his very first contact with the illogical entity his mind nearly broke, not being able to make up a reason as to why it had a form that broke the rules of God.
Why did it have a perceivable form, yet he couldn’t see the form or even touch it? As if it was an outline of something that is real, or a concrete mold from a factory. Like a mold, ready to fit him and just him.
It was like a coffin, just for him.
Struggling against it, his nostrils absorbed a putrid sense that smelled of dying carcasses and rotting meat newly hunted. Yet there was within the very noxious fumes permeating his atmosphere which reminded him of another quality, a quality which he’d learned to deny.
An unsettling foreboding feeling that had been trenchant in him for some time suddenly raced back. That which he’d learned to deny lurched up and grabbed onto his shoulders, whispering like a mother does to its son and ever so sweetly seducing him. When he heard her voice speaking to him words, words of deep encouragement, words encouraging another to Step into the abyss below. Sharp rocks dotted the walls of the ravine below, pointing with increased ferocity the more he’d stare.
by what he saw, standing in front of him appeared to be some detestable animal. Upon further view Cromwell’s mouth was agape as Both Goodfellowe and this wretched dog moved in step with each other, mirroring each other and with uncanny likenesses. Pulling his hand both to his hand and belly, two invisible arrows lined up against him as his neck suddenly felt much more delicate.
He delicately caressed his neck like a girl when gauging his appearance, even as Goodfellowely furiously stared him down with gnashing teeth stained by a fluid whose color had an ugly combination of Brown and Crimson that dotted the teeth.
He (what gender he had not power to inquire into), presented themself as a strange masculine animal… why how tall it was!, it’s appearance looked to be a wolf, broad and maned. His features carried an air of humanity through an animal body, Cromwell was impressed by how unusually strong and handsome by a wolf’s standards, the face’s structure resembled something closer to a human’s… humanoid at that!.
Nothing made a stronger impression on his imagination than at which ease his eyes got accustomed to staring at the animal, leaving a lasting impression on his psyche. For some reason this wolf gave him a feeling of seeing it before, and not just that. Somehow, somewhere, it stared at you like a mirror. While chained up by the peculiarly horrendous spell, Cromwell was barely able to snap out of his spell as he prayed to his God.
While he still tried to make out whatever living animal walked in front of him, his eyes were sunken in, only able to make out the faintest outline of the whatever he saw. Confusion petrified him as its appearance had ample qualities, qualities that made his mind unable to conjure up some explanation, not even one from God.
”Oh Lord, Why doesn’t it look like a dæmon, how is it moving in that strange manner? Nothing like this has been seen before, but how?” Oliver Cromwell thought in a fit of panic as Goodfellowe tussled with him, engaging in a battle unlike anything he’d ever seen.
Somehow a dæmonic entity and one of supernatural substance hadn’t conjured up the Idea of Spirits in his mind that he was taught at seminary. Known facts including appearance, aggressiveness, and everything Else were aggressively taught and drilled into his mind by many puritan priests in serious tones that ”these teachings contain all knowledge against demonic and hellish creatures”.
Cromwell’s body surged with yellow, golden pleasure, pleasure that broke through an invisible little Wall in the cracks that formed up a great Wall in his soul. strings of invisible energy pushed itself through the door and formed up a great and mighty chorus that yelled at him with resounding unity, ”welcome home!”
soon he felt, somewhere where his soul was. In cracks and crevices that juvenile emotion which father had beaten out of him. It was indescribable when surging out and into him, letting out a deep sense of love for everyone around him. That empathy and love for others which had been forgotten suddenly came back with gusto. Despite everything about his emotions conforming to God’s virtue, they’d told him that this was demonic, that everything They did were bereft of humanity. How?
Notwithstanding all the bubbling questions in his mind was clearer then that whatever this foul demon did infect him with, that heaven would forsake him.
Prayer and forgiveness? Will the lord simply forgive him for having devil-blood flowing in his very veins? Why hath the lord given command for its existence if it has done such harm to innocent men, women and children?
What manner of grace and mercy did our heavenly father have?, thought the lord protector as his inner mind stung with a stunted anxiety that was potent and filled with terror, where images of a cruel and uncaring god whose faced laughed in his face, telling him in an unnaturally human voice that he was going to burn. Foreboding terror filled his eyes and body, leaving his eyes to feel as though they had been Held up to a flaming torch.
He thought to himself as he imagined the world to be created by some cruel chance, God himself punished him for his insolent terror at a putrid enemy. Was God’s cruel punishment to make him into one of THEM, had his life been predestined? Had everything up until this point been on purpose, as some kind of divine punishment?. Tsk tsk tsk, so many questions, and no voice to respond.
The punishing numbness filled him like red, bloody wine entering a bottle. Then he felt how the bottle cracked and became Brittle, right as blood became as hard as steel in his body and subsequently in his very soul. His indescribable horror danced, beween a painful Brittleness akin to freshly blown glass right out of the factory, alongside how his body began to grow deeply hard. It was like an invisible outer shell slowly built itself and subsequently hardened onto his soft skin.
less than a fathom passed before an excruciating sense in his legs, arms and torso plagued his muscular yet flabby skin. Drilling into them with surgical precision went on as he felt helpless to try and stop what was going on. Upon and under cut a knife into and surgically yanked skin, supernaturally feeling them replaced.
To human eyes nothing had changed with Cromwell’s body physically, yet beneath the skin and deeper within there was something Else boiling up and rearranging themselves.
His mouth licked subconsciously for any liquid, even in heated battle. Some demonic entity born of red ash and flame picked at his head, sucking at his neck with all of his friends, bloody and hungry. Yet their teeth were too dull to sink, which meant that it only stung.
What force was there felt less sharp, more blunt. ”Push push!” was the sound he heard while his feet perilously dangled off a cliff, rocks fell off the cliff as Goodfellowe’s teeth soaked his breastplate as his blood and puss mixed into a viscous ooze with the supernatural force dancing together.
As if it was a knife which one generous smith fashioned to him when as a lad he was an apprentice to the very same smith who’d made it. When just a lad he’d been with him for some time, since father was often gone and the smith generously offered to apprentice him.
Unfortunately as he was gentry and regardless of their status, a life of being a smith he would not fit. Father was angry that day.
His mind scavanged every room around, up and down, right and left. In the distance came a scythe with a pale skeleton in the distance might as well remember the good times when he was a lad thought the lord protector.
The lord protector thought back as pain ruptured every nerve ending in his torso and parts of his muscular arm. When such pain became too overwhelming even for a man with enough combat experience as he had, he stumbled backwards with one foot in the grave.
in him his belly ached and whined for something, anything to consume!. Like a bee enraged and whose entire hive was destroyed. Reminding him of when his head hurt after not drinking enough water, right as another force put itself inside him.
Flinging itself onto him and ferociously he struggled with it, until the newly emboldened wolf flung his gray and putrid fur in his mouth. Cromwell’s throat bloated and turned a pinkish red as his cheeks puffed up, before coughing fur and spitting them back in Goodfellowe’s canine face.
Goodfellowe’s enraged expression blew up and turned into full blown fury as he lined up his paws against the craggy stone, which dug into his soft skin and left scars. Pebbles shook and bounced as the lord protector grabbed his sword, his face stuck in a mix between furious religious fervour and trembling hands shaking in face of such a monstrously huge Wolf.
Suddenly, the lord protector’s eyebrows were raised as another person entered his view.
Surprise! She was short, had rough blonde hair and had a dainty body that didn’t show on her face, which was a mix of justified fury and whose eyes blazed with the Divine fury. No discernible emotion could be read in those cold eyes as she locked her crossbow and aimed one of the arrows at his unsheathed sword.
Like Lightning it flew and struck his sword, causing it to fly off the cliff, and soon the lord protector’s face boiled up with a red color similar to a boiling tomato.
Why was there a girl? He thought in mixture of shock and rage. Girls were never meant to act in this manner, fighting with her father as part demon. Forgive her!
Oh Lord, bring her back to the side of good! Yelled the lord protector in his head.
Why is for a man to purposely spill a girl’s blood. Why oh why oh yeah why?
Oh lord, forgive me for what i have done! Thy forgiveness which is bountiful and whose wisdom prevents iniquity!.
I beg thee to strain thy voice and give me something to remember, even if it is only the wind. Not a Word is needed, no sound at that, just anything to give me respite! The lord protector’s voice cracked and his eyes became watery as the cliff was perilously close, while the dog had nearly sunk his teeth into his flesh,
His mind strained to find answers where there were none. Then he thought back to all those judgements that his teachers in England told him, their voices were silent. Suddenly his entire being felt empty and sucked, like all his blood had been drained. It had an effect on his brain as this pernicious force drained whatever commanding force allowing him to fight back mentally.
All gone. drained and lapped up by grinning dogs.
All the answers he got, well he received no answers. No voice from above or below, not kind and soothing, nor angry and with judgement.
Bearing teeth with length and sharp at each end. Hobbling backwards, a Crimson colored air clouded his eyes, made it impossible for him to see the wretched hellhound. Then and with panic building deep in his very lungs as the Wolf opened teeth were sharpening maliciously, eyes red like hell’s very own fire thought the Lord Protector.
As The lord protector held his arms up against his head, he’d unwittingly left the torso neglected against frontal assault, which is directly what happened as Goodfellowe dove in and stared him dead in the eyes. In only a millisecond He’d seen how the wolf pounced upon him and opened up its jaws and bit into his chest one more time.
Goodfellowe’s bite hit differently and made the lord protector yelp in pain and agony as teeth sunk deeper into his skin, leaving him to grit his teeth while pushing against Goodfellowe.
Cromwell absorbed the sensation of Crimson blood leacking out in small spots as an invasive mass planted itself inside him. A yellow energy flew into his body and through the lungs, veins, and everywhere he could reasonably feel something.
The lord protector’s eyes nearly bulged out of his sockets as his muscle nerves began to transmogrify, became eyewateringly weak and his pain receptors simultaneously strengthened. Compared to how his downward momentum pushed with greater force than before, Cromwell’s face lit up as the bite settled into his soft and pliant flesh.
For whatever horrid reason and primarily due to his donward momentum, Goodfellowe’s bite pushed deeper into his flesh than before. Yet Goodfellowe’s face only showed determination, while his eyes showed a complete lack of desire for his skin.
They tussled and traded heated blows as rain poured down on them, leaving the stony ground even more wet. Cromwell suddenly realized with all the edge of the cliff and only Goodfellowe’s hard bite was the reason he held onto it.
Coarse breath blew over them as they came to a standstill at the edge of the cliff, a total and all consuming silence consuming everything that blew between them. Goodfellowe’s eyes were not fixed at his enemy, but shifted back and forth between his wounded daughter and the one who’d caused all his pain.
Biting his teeth while his torso stung with an oozing sense of foreboding, The lord protector’s eyelids felt how they were forced to push down, which then revealed something that had changed. Where there used to be pitch black darkness that painted the darkness like obsidion was replaced by flowing golden lines sorrounding every piece of nature sorrounding them. Brilliant colors swirled around his eyesight and penetrated every individual noon and cranny, sorrounding them like an aura.
Then he saw Goodfellowe’s body, his human body. Not his Wolf form, but his human face and a body that was clear as a cloudless sky. The lord protector’s eyes trembled, post-haste opening and closing while he kept rubbing his eyes, over and over and over again until something else could possibly pop up. It was all in vain, for some reason he kept seeing these visions as blood pumped in his veins, yellow streaks flowing up and down where his former Soldier stood.
In surprise, he yelped as Goodfellowe’s human body returned. For a brief moment a genuine smile turned up on his lip, until he realized what had happened. That’s when horror hit him.
Goodfellowe’s grip held onto him stubbornly but didn’t see how his breastplate could be detached. He gazed fixed at the Lord protector, his eyes looked to almost want to… invite him into something, like a prodigal son returning home.
As the sun went down and shadows lengthened upon this dark valley, Oliver Cromwell, the lord protector of the realm.unfastened his breastplate.
he told Goodfellowe ”i commend myself in thy name, o Lord” before letting himself go, tumbling into the watery ravine below.
Falling.
Falling
Down
dow-
***