Chapter 15: The Face of His Father

"Listen," Aouregan says, snuggling closer to Farrell, "The sun has barely set and the Hunt is already howling. They seem more...agitated...than is usual. Even for a full moon."

"Why are you so frightened of Ametair?" Farrell asks, "What is he? What has he done?"

"They say he is part man, part wolf. He prowls the forests at night with his pack, hunting humans."

"How much of what they say is true?" Farrell asks, "Have you ever seen him? Have he's killed anyone that you know of? Or is this all legend?" If it weren't for MorcuCorp's documents claiming this Ametair as one of his ancestors, Farrell would doubt his very existence as no more than, well, the medieval equivalent of an urban legend. Even Moth's claim to be acquainted with this Ametair is not enough to make Farrell believe with some hard evidence to prove it.

 "I've never seen him," Aouregan answers, her eyes grown wide, "I would not be so foolish as to go out into the woods at night. No one is, and that's why there have been no deaths, not in centuries."

"So, your people have been handing these tales down for generations about a werewolf that prowls the forest, but no one ever sees him?" Farrell asks, more skeptical than ever.

"Healer!" a shout and a loud banging on Aouregan's door interrupts them. "We need you!"

"That's Treveur Brannon," Aouregan recognizes the voice, "It must be serious, if he's come all this way through the woods so close to moonrise"

"It's Trifine," Treveur gasps as Aouregan opens her door for him, "As soon as the sun started to set, something...strange...happened to her. Her hands have become claws, fangs have sprouted from her jaw and fur has grown all over her body. She tried to run out into the woods, but we locked her in  her room. She's become wild, raving like a lunatic, demanding we let her out."

"I have never heard of anything like that," Aouregan says.

"Please, healer, you must come," Treveur pleads, "You must help us."

"I'll do what I can, of course," Aouregan answers, biting her lip, afraid that there will be nothing she can do.

Farrell stands back, watching the exchange. This man is a Brannon, and therefore one of his ancestors, but he can see no resemblance at all. That's not surprising, really, given the many generations that have passed between them.

"Wait here," Aouregan says to Farrll as she gathers up a supply of herbs and elixirs, not sure which, if any, will be of any use when she gets to Trifine, "I should be back by morning."

The Brannons are farmers, but not poor. Their crops have long sustained this village, and made them prosperous, allowing them to expand their homestead into an estate over the generations that they have worked this land.

Gayle Brannon rushes out to meet her husband and the healer as they approach, "Oh, thank the Lady, you have come," she says to Aouregan, "Quickly, quickly! Herve stands guard by her door, but I'm afraid she might break it down all the same in her fury."

Herve blocks the door with his body as Trifine pummels it with her fists, screaming at him to let her out. He hopes the door holds against he assault, for he's not sure he could use his sword against his own sister if it came to that.

Trifine gives up beating on the door and instead rattles the lattice covering her windows, but she cannot break the iron, and cannot get free this way either.

When Aouregan enters she finds Trifine slumped on the floor beneath her window. It is as Treveur described, her hands have become like claws, sharp fange protrude from her jaw, and hair grows over her body. Aouregan kneels to examine her more closely.

Trifine lunges at her as she draws too close, growling and snapping at her like a rabid dog.

Herve steps in, pulling his sister back. "What is happening to you, sister?" he asks sadly as he struggles in his arms.

Perhaps wandering the woods on his own wasn't the best idea, Farrell thinks as the howling of the wolves grows closer. But he has all the pieces of the puzzle before him, a girl of the Brannon family sick with an illness that sounds suspiciously like tales of a werewolf transformation, and his own mysterious ancestor, Ametair, described as half man, half wolf...their union is the beginning of the line MorcuCorp traced through his family tree. 

"Ametair?" he asks in a hoarse whisper hearing the soft approach of...something.

In a flash, he's knocked to the ground.

Farrell understands on a rational level that this fanged, clawed man snarling at him as he pins him down could rip him to pieces, and that he should be very afraid. But he looks up into his face without fear. Despite the claws, the fangs, what he sees is the face of his father, his own face looking down on him.

Ametair's nose wrinkles as he sniffs this intruder into his domain. "Kin?" he asks in his growling voice, easing his grip on Farrell, "How?"

"My name is Farrell Brannon," Farrell says, sure that the name alone will mean enough to give Ametair pause.

"Brannon," Ametair says, tugging Farrell up to his feet, "You aren't the Brannon I was expecting to meet with tonight."

"When the change came on Trifine, her family locked her up. Her father came to ask Aouregan for help," Farrell explains.

"What do you know about the change?" Ametair asks, "Who are you?"

"What I know is just myth and legend, but I see some of it at least must be true," Farrell says, "I am your descendant, Ametair. I've come here from the future, looking for my past."

"My descendant...a Brannon," Ametair says, "My Trifine is your ancestor as well then. She...she is my mate. My...wife. She wanted to be like me, to join my pack. Because I cannot be like her, join her family. She was supposed to meet me here before the change took her, and stay with me."

"But her family has prevented her from coming to you. So we must go to them," Farrell says.

"I'm not sick," Trifine groans once they've calmed her down and got her to sit on her bed. "I'm like him now. Ametair," she says his name almost defiantly, knowing the superstition that makes her people afraid to even whisper it, in case the sound of his name might summon him.

Aouregan does back away from her a little, instinctively, but forces herself to stay by her side and try not to shudder.

"What did he do to you?' she asks in a whisper. The stories about him tell of monstrous depravities.

"He loves me," Trifine says, "As I love him. I asked for this, Aouregan. He told me it would painful, and that it would make me an outcast, but I insisted. I want to be with him, to be like him."

"It seems a high price to pay, for love," Aouregan observes.

"It's not," Trifine says vehemently, snapping, then backing off again, holding her head in her hands, "The transformation comes only at the full moon. The rest of the time, he is, and I will be, normal in appearance, and less wild. Please, healer, convince my parents that there is nothing wrong with me, and to let me go. I must be with him, and I must hunt."

Herve greets the intruders with a snarl. Nothing so fierce as what a werewolf can do, but it does convey his anger. "You dare!" he growls.

Ametair lifts the young man by the throat, growling, "You will not keep me from her, mortal."

"That's probably not the best way to get acquainted with her family," Farrell observes, "You should probably put him down."

Ametair shoves Herve roughly against the wall.

"Or, you can just force your way in," Farrell says wryly.

"He's here!" Trifine cries, rising from the bed at the same time as Ametair bursts through her chamber door. They meet in a tight embrace.

"Unhand my daughter!" Treveur shouts, his outrage overcoming the sheer terror of having his home invaded by the legendary monster he'd been taught to fear since before he could walk.

Trifine takes her lover by the hand and brings him to her father. "Ametair is my husband," she says, her chin thrust forward defiantly, "If you cannot accept him as a son, then I will have to leave you forever, for I will not be parted from him."

Questions and accusations come forth in a jumble as Treveur tries to come to terms with what his daughter is telling him.

Leaving the family to discuss their business in private, Aouregan turns to Farrell. "How did you know?' she asks. 

"I never believed werewolf stories, but I recognized the details in the symptoms Treveur described to you. Ametair is my ancestor, and I am a Brannon. This where it began."

"What if you hadn't been here?" Aouregan asks him when they are alone in her bed, "Without you, her family may have kept her from him, or maybe killed him. Or she might have slipped away from them and disappeared into the forest, and her descendants would not carry the Brannon name. Do you think you ensured your own existence just by being here to help see this resolved peacefully?"

"It's possible," Farrell answers, "There's so much I don't know, that I may never know, about what I'm doing here, what MorcuCorp wants from me, or how much of what I do is just part of their master plan," He wraps an affectionate hand over her buttocks, "Maybe Ametair and Trifine would have found a way to be together even without my intervention. Maybe the reason MorcuCorp pointed me to this time, this place, was not to find my origin, but to meet my future. To meet you."

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I keep forgetting to mention, the name Ametair is taken from a fae character in the game Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. In that game, he's a fae who is the embodiment of the hunt. Most of the names I use  for my dragons in Summerdream are Celtic, primarily Welsh, names but when Riain and Shayeleigh were expecting, I happened to be doing the mission involving Ametair in KoA, and the name, along with him being the Hunt embodied, really struck me. KoA also frequently uses Celtic names for its characters, but a google search for Ametair brought up nothing. The closest I could find was Amaethon, but he's more of an agricultural god than anything to do with the hunt.

Aouregan's name is Breton Celtic meaning 'shining gold'. One of the many variants of that name is Oregon, which is a name I frequently use for Sims. Though, lol, I always thought it was Native American in origin, like many of our state's names are in the U.S.

Trifine, Treveur and Herve are also Breton Celtic names.

I have no idea why my werewolves' eyes aren't glowing. They glowed fine in CAS, and toddler Ametair's eyes (in Summerdream, where he was born) glow just fine. My censor blur remover mod (Twallan's) is updated. The eyes also glow in their portraits, just not in game. So, forgive the non-glowy eyes.

I promised a copy of Aouregan to Heaven. She is saved with no Store or CC stuff, and her outfits are pretty random, as I assume anyone downloading her would want to dress her themselves. She is saved as a witch, so she does require SN. Download HERE (mediafire)