Dare Wild Strawberries

[Venla Thiel]

Somewhere near Astevale Monastery

There was no reason to take notice of the woman sleeping on the sun-warmed jetty, unless you were the curious sort. Or a dragonfly. Or the kind of woodland spirit that still lingered in old green corners of the world. The forest lake opened up in front of the small jetty, still and full of sky. The planks beneath her were smooth with age, dappled with moss and flecks of sun. She lay with her bare feet trailing into the lake, toes just beneath the surface where minnows danced like silver threads between the lily stems. Summer lay thick over the forest, sweet with pine and elderflower, buzzing low with bees.

Venla had picked wild strawberries that morning, the sweet kind that grew small and stubborn among the ferns. A linen kerchief lay beside her, tied at the corners and half-filled with the little berries, whose juice had left faint red smudges on her fingertips and wrists. She lay on her back, one arm tucked under her head, the other draped loosely across her middle. Her hair spilled freely down her shoulder and across the planks, catching glints of copper where the light touched it. A few strands clung to the edge of her lips and chin.

Here, the forest pressed in gently and green. The trees here were old and moss-bearded beeches and whispering willows with leaves like pale coins. Birdsong spilled like water from the branches, and somewhere deeper in the forest, a cuckoo called. A simple woven basket at her side, now half-filled with wild berries and violet-sugar herbs. A single dragonfly hovered above the lake surface, blue as lapis, and darted away. Somewhere, deeper in the woods, a brook chuckled at its own joke.

The night before had not been the most comfortable for her. Spinning thoughts had kept her awake most of the night. Tossing and turning. Now, who could blame her for falling asleep after a walk? The rustling of last year's grass, the blackbirds singing a ballad, the wind in the treetops, and the wild rush of the forest streams. The sounds in the forest were hardly disturbing. She blinked herself awake, slow and hazy, then stretched with a quiet sigh, her limbs heavy with sleep. Turning her head to the other side, she watched through half-lidded eyes as white butterflies fluttered lazily between the blooming reeds and open lilies, their wings catching the light like falling snow.

Venla sat up slowly, brushing her hair back from her face with one hand and blinking at the light. Her feet stirred ripples in the sun-warmed lake. Somewhere nearby, a frog plopped unseen into the lake. Leaning forward on her hands, her skirts slid down a little, bunched green wool brushing her shins, just above the water's surface.

The lake glittered just below. For a moment she sat still, hair falling around her cheeks, and tilted her head thoughtfully at the inviting water.

Should she?

 

[Jhimara]

If woodland spirits spoke, they communed with women like Venla. They sought her out, likely, drawn in as if by a secret spell from their old corners and cobwebbed caves, competing to worship at her altar. A hand-over-hand race to share the air she breathed, sinking like stones into water blessed by her bare skin. She was spirit nectar in an amberglass bottle, intoxicating with a glance, making mosquitoes drunk and sparrows stutter.

A nymph. A nymph in a sacred realm. That's what Jhima was certain she'd stumbled upon.

With only the absence of gravity between them, shore to shore, the lake became a bottomless portal -- a narcissistic reflection of the sky. Jhima had never beheld such splendour in her surroundings, so flawlessly composed within a single frame, like a poem she wouldn't ever know how to write. It was that very lack of understanding that held her back, kept her from calling out and startling the woman on her jetty. Revealing herself as the stomping, stilt-legged antonym to Venla's heavenly peace seemed like it would be a divine mistake. Thank the Eight she had the option to take on another form for their two entities to meet and match without tipping the scale.

As a beast, Jhima could at least pretend her presence at the lake was one of necessity, to soothe a dry bowl of thirst beneath the swelter of an overhead sun. She felt closer to belonging in this green-drenched backdrop with her paws in mud, and a nimble jackal tongue bucketing water into her mouth. Water flavoured with duck weed, and duck feet. Was this what the Elum elders meant by experiencing primal devahni wonder? Drinking wisdom from a nymph's aquarium? They were right about it. What bliss.

For Venla's part, Jhima would be clearly visible on the opposite bank. Being there was a nonthreatening act, but she was large and shaggy enough to invite a wary or even suspicious look. Hopefully, she liked dogs.

 

[Venla Thiel]

The breeze smelled of turned earth, woodsmoke, dripping sun-warmed pine resin, of green things growing and something older beneath it all. Venla sat with her skirts gathered over her knees, feet still trailing in the lake, stirring the water into lazy spirals. The lake licked softly at her ankles, drowsy and full of light, and tiny tadpoles, no larger than teardrops, darted between her feet. She had nearly decided to slip in, the thought curling around her mind like the sunlight on her shoulders. Then the hush changed.

She felt it first along her arms, a prickle under the skin. Something was watching. Her gaze drifted across the water, unhurried, soft as a yawn... and there it was. A shape on the far bank, where the cattails stood tall and the shadows grew long under alder and pine, something watched her. Large. Shaggy. Not wild in the way wolves are wild, but... a dog? No. Not really. Its eyes met hers, steady, dark, too full of thought to be anything ordinary.

The world was full of strange things, and not all of them meant harm. This one… no, it didn’t feel like danger. Venla straightened her back just a little. Her fingers rested lightly on her knees. Venla smiled, a small thing, a recognition. Yes. I see you.

“…Are you a good dog?” she wondered. Not mockingly. Just wondering, the honest curiosity of someone who still believed the world might answer kindly, if spoken to gently enough. Her toes wiggled in the sun-warmed shallows, stirring the water where the tadpoles danced around her feet. The sun kissed her knees like an old lover, fond and familiar, with a warmth that lingered. It touched the curve of her skin as if remembering every freckle, every summer they'd spent together.

"You may cross, if you like. I won’t run.” she said louder. Green eyes didn’t turn away from the shaggy creature. Instead, with a soft breath, she reached to her side and picked up the folded kerchief that lay beside her on the jetty, the one filled with wild strawberries she had picked that morning, red and warm from the sun, tiny seeds glinting like freckles.

She opened it carefully, cradling the bundle in both hands like something sacred, and held it up across the water, a wordless invite. Without really knowing what spirit dogs liked to eat.

 

[Jhimara]

An invitation like that couldn't be denied.

Still, Jhima let it settle over her like motes of pollinated promise, as if she were even capable of saying no. Debating it was a voyeur’s trick that bad dogs played, all panting mouths with salty breath, unblinking eyes, a flash of teeth before the lunge and bite. As a wrangler, she knew desire could turn to hunger, how too much of a good thing could rouse aggression. That knowing made her hesitate, made her see, clearly and coolly as the lake before her. While she had chosen this form to be seen without frightening, staying in it longer would betray her. So long as she had a wild dog’s hunger, she had no hope of being good.

She could be obedient, though.

The stillness stretched between them a beat longer, full of trapped heat and the lazy drone of diamond-winged insects, a feast for fat carps and dusk-feeding creatures waiting for sunset. Pink blooms shed from a bandit laurel interlaced with tufts of cottonwood seed, drifting to find their mate. Beneath it all, Venla remained perched on her pier like golden treasure at the edge of a map, the compass needle pointing to her in every direction.

A ripple passed through the lake. It might have been invisible, so small it was, but it was felt. It began with the flex of Venla’s ankles and settled at the dog’s haunches. From a sitting position, it unfurled into a forward motion, then slowly stepped into the shallows, swirling the mud beneath the bank. White fur feathered outward on the surface as it waded in, floating for a moment like the scut of a cloud above. Then the beast slipped beneath the water entirely, gone from view except for a berm of glittering wake that reflected back warped trees and a shadow twisting with every roll below.

Fur collapsed into skin. Limbs lengthened. Claws retracted.

A hardened human body took shape, one that wanted to be worthy of softness. And wild strawberries.

One that could barely hold breath as it crossed the lake, as it had been permitted to.

Jhimara emerged with a wet gasp beside the weathered boards of the jetty, where the sun had warmed the wood so thoroughly that droplets from her surfacing steamed like sweat on cedar, filling the air with a warm, sauna-like scent. Stronger still, was the scent of fruit that filled her lungs and senses and lingered just above the waterline where she tread. This close now, she could see the fine red stains on Venla's fingertips.

When she pulled herself up and leaned onto the jetty, the combined scents rose with her, clinging to her skin. Her arms folded on the boards, biceps taut. Water beaded down her shoulders, as she slicked her hair back from a face that still held the sharp line of the dog’s nose and the weight of its jaw.

She held no weapons or explanations, only a reverent gaze and a cautious grin. “Thank you, miss.” Jhima said, voice low and a little twangy. “For not running,” she added, glancing at her and the sweet offering swaddled in a delicate kerchief.

"Perfect day for a swim. Did I spoil your quiet moment?"

 

[Venla Thiel]

And then… the dog was gone.
Gone under the water.
What rose up was not.
A shapeshifter always broke trust.
It couldn’t help it.
But that was what it was.

It didn’t matter how gentle their approach, or how soft their voice. It didn’t matter if they wore the skin of a dog, or a woman, or something in between. The breaking came in the moment of change. The moment you watched one thing step into the water and another thing crawl out. Because trust was built on knowing. And a shapeshifter was a promise undone.

The summer broke around her like glass. She had felt like part of the lake, part of the forest, part of something safe and slow and known. She still waited to see fur, to see paws scrabbling against the boards. A strong shape hauled itself from the water, steam rising where droplets met sun-warmed wood. Venla saw muscle. Skin. The gleam of shoulders where fur should’ve been.

She pulled quickly her feet from the water without thinking, as if the water had burned her. Instinctive. Protective. Knees to her chest, skirts bunched high. The hem of the dress clung damp where it touched her skin, molding to her thighs as she sat curled in on herself at the edge of the jetty. Beads of nervous sweat now glimmered like morning dew on her throat and collarbones. Her breath snapped silent in her throat.

Her hands, finely chiseled, the kind that had once tied flowers into braid-crowns and plucked ladybugs from petals, trembled. Her fingers had closed hard around the handkerchief and the red berries. Held it like a white flag she didn’t know how to raise, while the crushed fruit stained the fabric, and sweet, red juice seeped between her fingers. Her mouth hung slightly open, the breath she’d meant to speak with trapped somewhere behind her teeth.

And here it was, dripping and steaming before her, wearing a human shape that still echoed the beast beneath.
It said thank you for not running.

Venla stared.

“I-I... I thought... ”

 

[Jhimara]

Yeah. Quiet moment spoiled.

Jhima knew better than to climb up and force friendship. That's how you broke horses, if you were drunk on malt liquor and didn’t care who or what got hurt in the process. She’d learned better tactics by now. Carried more self-respect than that.

So she stayed just where she was. Chest flattened against the edge of the jetty, arms folded, chin resting on her forearm like a bad dog that had been kicked out of the kitchen. She didn’t have the big, watery eyes made for pleading, but she did well at keeping her voice from a whine. Didn’t want to sound like she was begging for scraps.

“I know,” Jhima said quietly, words rippling soft like the minnows testing her toes. “I should’ve stayed a dog. They make better company.” She smiled, but not like it was a joke. Didn’t try to over-explain. Just told the truth, plain and a little sad, to soothe something scared. Even if being gentle and having two legs instead of four didn’t count for much anymore.

“You don’t seem like the type to stay fooled for long. You’d have figured me out sooner or later.”

Jhima tried not to let her eyes linger too long, but every glimpse of Venla caught her stare like dry grass in a wildfire -- goosebumps and sweat, a thread of copper hair sun-lit across her brow, her mouth still parted in some breathless gasp. And the fruit, crushed in her fist, pulp and juice draining like every last bit of trust squeezed out.

“I won’t come any closer,” she added. Sank a little lower in the water to prove it, suddenly feeling as old and weathered as the algae-lined pilings beneath the jetty.

“Anyone ever tell you that y'got good instincts?”

 

[Venla Thiel]

Little red threads began to creep into her vision, thin as spider silk. Weaving like whispers through the air. Her eyes snapped wide. One red thread slid out from the shapeshifter crouching over the dock, a slender pulse of thread alive and writhing. Others rose from the water, countless and shimmering, twisting upward like smoke in slow motion. Some drifted down from the sky, moving like lazy fireflies before drifting silently away. More crawled out from the shadows of the forest, weaving between leaves and branches like veins of unseen life.

What the hell is going on?

These threads were the secret language of the world, the hidden weave connecting all living things to the pulse beneath reality. She knew that, without really knowing. A cold knot tightened in her chest.

What would happen if she touched a thread?

Considering what happened to the horned creature in the woods a month ago, she didn't dare take any guesses. She swallowed hard, her gaze flickering between the shapeshifter and the shimmering threads. “Maybe.” she said, eyes fixed on the shifting weave she could see. “That doesn’t mean I’m not surprised when a dog walks out of the water as a woman.”

“I won’t come any closer.”

She nodded slowly, a fragile truce settling over the dock. Venla felt something flickering under her skin, the restless pulse of something wild stirring just beneath the surface. The red threads dancing in her vision tugged at her senses, threatening to unravel what little calm remained.

Steady, she told herself, swallowing hard. Venla blinked softly, a small, almost shy smile tugging at the corners of her mouth despite the weight in her chest. Her fingers toyed absentmindedly with a stray leaf caught in the folds of her skirts. "But having good instincts,” she continued, “...doesn’t always mean you know what to do with them right away." she murmured.

"Who are you?"