It was strange to be in a place of such life, people bustling about, doing their errands, seeing their loved ones, sending cheerful greetings to their friends and neighbours alike. There was a reek of life that churned Wulfstan's stomach, but, despite his fear of hurting a human, he felt no urge to attack, to harm, tear to shreds, kill.
He felt normal; as normal as something like him could. In such a large town - not a simple village or hamlet – no one spared a single curious glance at Wulfstan. There were always new faces in such a lively thoroughfare, apparently a place called York, so it was nothing new to them.
Wulfstan liked being invisible.
Following John, Richard and Thomas, Wulfstan peered around, shocked by how modern all of the buildings were. They were much larger than the homes that had populated the village he'd grown up in. The roads weren't just dirt anymore; they were cobbled, the horse-drawn carts and carriages no longer becoming stuck in wet mud. Such a large change made him feel even more out of place – despite everything that was inhuman about him, Wulfstan was still just a simple farmer from 200 years ago.
"Why d'you look so wonderstruck? There's nought special about this place." Richard, the youngest, said, appearing next to Wulfstan with a playful look on his face. He was hardly a full-grown man, childish inquisitiveness still part of his nature. "You never seen a city before?"
"No." Wulfstan responded, looking down at the young adult. It felt weird to be talking so much after so many years of silence, but he was getting used to it. "I grew up in a farming village in a fief, barely a hundred people. There weren't any greater settlements nearby." He was sure the life he had experienced 200 years ago was still common, but Richard didn't seem worldly enough to know of other lifestyles than the one he had in this city and the nearby woods. "How old are you, laddy?"
"19 in the coming winter."
He was so young.
Wulfstan remember when he had been that age; it had been the year before he'd discovered the truth of what he was and the last of his childlike innocence had been shattered.
Looking at Richard, he made a silent promise – if he was to know this boy for any measure of time, in the human regard, he would do his best to help preserve the joyous glint that never left the boy's warm eyes. With a slight hint of a smile, all that he could muster up, he went back to looking at the bustling street around him. "That's an ideal age. I remember when I was in the prime of my youth, I had the person I… I still had my family surrounding me." Misery surged through him tenfold. Talking to the boy had distracted him from his grief for a moment, but somehow he'd managed to circle back to it. "To be young is a gift, yes." His light voice trailed off, becoming even less tangible than air. "A greater gift is to become wizened and white-haired with those you love still beside you."
Richard, keeping pace with Wulfstan with some difficulty due to the man's long-legged steps, stared at the side profile of the stranger, his brows furrowed. He chose not to speak for a moment, unsure how to respond. Knowing only how to hunt, to skin and butcher his prey, and provide for his family, the boy had no space in his mind to understand the ruminations of someone older and wiser than him.
Simply taking those words at face value, that it was just solid, but oddly timed, advice, he swiftly bounced back to laugh. With a laugh at the edge of his words, he asked, "You grew up a farmer? Then why d'you sound so much like a lordling educated in all them books and manners? Speaking all proper like."
Unexpectedly, Wulfstan stopped in his tracks, looking down with a sombre expression. It was like the question had struck him dumb, knocking all the life out of him. A moment passed before he could formulate an answer. "Numerous hours of empty time that I couldn't just spend idly."
And that was that.
Wulfstan walked on, staring straight at the backs of John and Thomas, not waiting for Richard to start moving or catch up at all.
-
"Here's where you'll be staying. I hope you don't mind sharing, but we don't have the luxury of another spare room." Thomas said, hanging his quiver and bow from a hook on the wall.
The room was small, one bed tucked against the left most corner, and a small wooden cupboard for Thomas' belongings. Light spilled in through the window, though it was dim, half-blocked by the closeness of the house next door.
Wulfstan politely smiled. "Of course not, I'm appreciative that I'm being given a roof over my head at all." It was fortunate he had no real belongings, because it was clear there was no space for it. The cavern back in the forest was certainly a safe place to keep his secrets, away from any potential prying from his new roommate. "All I need is a blanket, and I can take the floor as my bed."
"Don't be ridiculous. There's space for another bed." Thomas dismissed the idea of Wulfstan sleeping on the floor as soon as the words came out of the man's mouth. "We can get the carpenter down the road to fashion one for you in the next couple days. I sleep on my side anyway, there's space, so we can share until then."
"Share?" Wulfstan was stunned by that offer. To offer to share the bed with a stranger, a strange man, at that, was outstandingly selfless. Only twice had he shared a bed before, but he wished not to remember it too much. He looked at the blond man, unable to read the man's facial expressions, the reasoning behind his actions. "Are you sure?"
"We're both men. It's the same as what soldiers do in war time, nothing to think about." Thomas shrugged his shoulders, before leaving the room without looking back. "Come on, John's wife is cooking dinner for us. Don't be late – it's rude."
Wulfstan forgot he'd have to pretend to need eat if he lived with people. At the very least, he knew where the outhouse was so he could purge whatever food was put in his stomach before he suffered for too long.
"Alright, I'm coming."
-
Thomas snored liked a warthog, his mouth agape, leaving drool to pool on the worn pillow below him.
At the very least, it made it obvious when the man was soundly asleep so Wulfstan could slip out of their temporarily shared bed without any questions. That didn't help how unpleasant that racket was so close to his ears, for even just a short period of time. It left a dull ringing in his head as he slipped out the window and dropped to the soft ground of the alleyway between this house and the next.
He didn't really know what he wanted to do, his mind wondering to nowhere in particular.
Tugging in his chest, though, belied where his feet were trying to take him. He could tell he was in close proximity to that soul, though it wasn't overwhelming and demanding like it had been when he'd been in the forest. Maybe because he wasn't fighting the connection now, he was allowing it to take him to whoever was on the other side of the tether.
That tether grew taught, closing in on the end.
In the next few moments, he'd see him.
Digging his heels in, Wulfstan stopped himself before a squat shopfront that reeked of animals. The distinct human scent was buried below the scent of burnt meat and the metallic tang of blood. A butchers shop, the dark maw of the door beckoning him in with the stench of death.
If he went in, went up the stairs he knew were waiting beyond the door, snuck to the first floor, where he could hear the sound of breathing and heartbeats, he would see the man his soul had become. It would kickstart the rest of this life, unknowingly to the sleeping man.
Wulfstan hadn't asked what year it was. He didn't know how old his soulmate was now, if he was boy or man. If he already had a family, a wife, children. If he was happy, contented, in a world without the monster lurking out the front of his house. If his life would be cut short by meeting Wulfstan. There were far too many unknowns.
He didn't go in.