WOLVES WITHOUT TEETH ( geralt of rivia.. )

000. prologue..

Arboreal murmurs sang on the wings of the wind, rustling away fresh spring leaves. They clung to sturdy trees, to strong woods bound to creak and bring the forest alive around the river banks and the soft clearing. The light of the sky was beginning to fade away as the afternoon neared its glorious ending, hidden as it was in ocean blue turning pale, then red and bruised, to supplement the dark and the first sprinkles of stars, direction to the north.

A brisk air sharpened the nostrils awake and the last grace of a warmth on her cheeks called out Azaras' sigh.

With her eyes opening, the grass her head rested upon danced alive; it has been anxiously waiting for its mirror and kin, long forgotten into the map of her eyes. Spread across the bare ground, caring not about the mold-like stain the stay will imprint upon her day dress, Azaras awakened as from a dream.

It has been a good dream.

The nature about turned to a faraway music, allowing her attention to focus to whom she turned her head towards.

Azaras, the first born daughter of the Lord of Arcapan, a small keep right under the Dragon Mountains curve towards the Blue Mountains, a kingdom of the North which stood as an ally of the kind that could always be overlooked and forgotten. It gave the people there a peace riddled with a crippled, almost poverty. Their agriculture and resources were limited, but sufficient and constant; it was the prospect of conflict with any bigger monarchies, or lord forbid, a call to arms from their liege which pressured them a guillotine.

And Azaras had a brother, younger by just a few years, Sylvain. This day was theirs, because it was the last day of the week and the warmest weather they have had for a while now. The winters froze their river and it was only today that some of the ice began to melt, releasing the waves, the thrill, the life.

Sylvain and Azaras were alike in many ways beyond their stark features or the ebony strong hair. The tiredness of court and thirst for freedom rooted them to trust each other with these rule breaking days, with hours on end of letting loose of formality and living their youth with the joy they should have had all along as children, without boundaries.

While she was staining her dress, becoming one with the gentle newborn grass, a cold, sturdy blanket to ever lay down on, Sylvain was knee deep in a stone cold river, drenching his trousers. Their mothered cared more about these useless objects, clothing, jewelry, carpets, than she ever did her children. And though the old Lady of Arcapan was senile for the most part and hardly to blame, a taste of rebellion was welcomed.

Sylvain was bent over his knees, hands amongst the tumbled rocks, digging and searching, sometimes even flinching away from a little fish following the course of the river or being diturbed from its home by his curiosity, nurtured from childhood. He liked to find the most colorful rocks.

So far, in over ten years of genuine search, he had gathered almost all the colors. The odds were against him for ever finishing his little project, but just then, it was a purple rock he was looking for.

Azaras loved the watch. There was so much noise in the castle. Were it not the pushy servants, then surely it was her courtesy teacher, followed by the arguments of parents and even whispers she could not tolerate. Her times of silence were rare, but easily enjoyable, no matter how short. Baking, joining Rodkah in the yard and... this.

She still remembered so very vividly how happy Sylvain was when he had found, by some odd miracle, a ruby clear rock, tumbled by the river and surrounded by fish. He could not contain his smile for days in a row, theorizing at dinner discreetly how perhaps it was a sorcerer's stone.

"We'll have more luck next time," Azaras' voice carried melodious over the breeze, meeting halfway the sigh of her brother. She had sat up, grass braided and rangled into the hair she had so carefully brushed through in the morning. Factually, it was known that Tyma would not be happy to have to wash her mistress hair once more, of all the dirt unsuitable for Arcapan's royalty.