She still picked petals from the basket, but none were left of much value. It irked her to see the potential of her labor wasted.
Joan was equally upset by the priest's timidity.
He pretended to know of love, yet seemed ignorant.
She had abandoned the pestle to work with her hand directly, mixing and mixing until the many colored petals started looking the same pale, creamy dust.
"If we had a meeting and I did not show up, would you cry?"
Brother Aymon, surprised again, immediately answered:
"Yes!"
Then thought of the actual question. The more he did, the lower his eyes fell, down to his robe and lower to his sandals.
"N... no." He admitted. "It would be normal, for mi... milady to, forget. About me."
It would hurt, said his tone, as it hurt just to stand around her and just gaze. It hurt, it seemed, no matter what he did.
Under her hand the dust was turning to a grainy paste.
"Then, what would it take for me to make you cry?"
His eyes went wide.
At first because all a human could expect from a beast was cruelty. The power to make a prey cry, even from their perspective, had to sound as ludicrous a quest as it was.
Then because he could not begin to fathom what dark schemes a devil like her could have for asking that.
Yet what truly pierced his heart and had him so agitated as to turn away was to imagine the answer.
"If..." He tried.
But the words would die at his throat, pressed by multiple fears all insurmountable.
"If you..."
In his head the answer was playing all too clear, a fantasm.
She felt it, his eyes getting wet.
But he shook it off, rubbed his face and breathed.
Around them the realm still stalled its awakening. Only at the farms were the first doors opening on the new day.
"I... I can't... answer, mi..."
He pressed on his chest to calm this silly heart.
"I think, nothing. Nothing can."
This was such a blatant lie that Joan didn't require observation or instinct to tell. But neither could tell her quite what that lie was for.
"If I couldn't forget about you." She tried.
"Even then..."
"If you feared for my life."
"Impossible."
"I am done."
She got up, offered the mortar in which a smooth paste filled the bottom. Not a trace of its origin remained but the smell of a bouquet.
He took a second before approaching his hands to take it.
"Give it to lady Mirabelle. They can apply it anywhere on their skin, just once, and they'll be beautiful."
"Yes." He nodded.
"Only them."
"I will tell her."
Brother Aymon had been relieved at this change of topic. Still his face kept the sequels of a storm still brewing in him at the thoughts her question had ignited.
To Joan this could not be love, but just a youth's delusion.
He realized that would be all, went to pick the basket as well and then, after a few more hesitations, the priest walked back toward the castle.
Wanting to look back the whole way while refusing to.
She watched him go just as the church's bell started to ring, turned her head in that direction, toward the village where people turned to their prayers.
On the road to the village was Grisval.
He failed to see her, no matter how much the low mist left her visible. Maybe the distance, maybe the fatigue or just this grey veil that still left only shapes for the eye had him so tricked.
So the hunter simply kept walking, so quietly, past the watermill and across the bridge.
If she waited here longer, Joan would even enjoy seeing the humans prepare their hunt.
So she wandered along the path, toward the stream, waiting to see a nascent agitation that would not arrive.
Instead the villagers turned out for their chores, to their shops and to the stream while the castle's gate was opened.
Then a couple sisters left the church while the others attended to their routine; they separated in the village to spray water on the doors. This was all. When horsemen left the castle it was to go on patrol, to the opposite side in the countryside.
Now her pride was boiling.
Those insolents, she fumed, disregarded her threat. But they had spent incense and now blessed their entrances, yet none would take arm to confront a beast?
And the farms, and the cattle, she was but baffled by such foolishness.
Once the sun truly pierced on the land, a silver dog turned around and left, back to the cache not a minute away.
There were the trees and here the rocks. From outside already she could tell the spread was still inside. The hunter had not closed the hole behind him, nor had the werewolf inside bothered to do it in turn.
She hopped down, grew into the beast she was and dragged it back herself.
The man had been sleeping. He woke up at her arrival less than at the sudden loss of light.
Their eyes crossed.
"Why are you still here?" She scolded.
"And why have you come back?" He imitated her expression.
"You need to turn during the night. If the curse won't manifest, force it."
"Make up your mind!"
As much as she liked her defiance, it was all the fake whimpers of trapped prey.
She approached him and pushed him back down with one claw, slowly until he was sit.
"Fight the curse and it will destroy you. Embrace the curse and it will consume you. Pace yourself."
"What does it... Sure, go on. What should I do?"
"Turn at night. This will exhaust the curse. It will be weaker when my blood wakes. You will also get used to the hunger. It will help keep you sane."
She unlaced his tunic and looked at the stars still drawn on his skin.
"This should hurt you."
"Yeah, it does."
"If you struggle, I can cripple you by drawing more." Her claw ran along the pattern. "But since you resist too much, it might be better to erase it."
He seized her hand, a firm hold.
"Don't!" His voice warned. "I would rather be crippled or have the castle put me to death! Grisval told me what awaits me well enough."
"What awaits you..." She chuckled.
Then she pushed him hard enough for his body to rebound against the earth wall. Her beastly muzzle approached his ear and he froze.
"You are amusing, human, with that pretentious face of yours. But you have no idea what it means to be doomed. In your head," her tongue clicked, "you are still an immortal."
"Get away from me." He whispered.
"But two weeks from now you will be rid of my blood. Aren't you lucky, little thing? So protect that puny heart of yours before I rip it for myself!"
Her claws were already in place to do so. He held his breath until the werewolf pulled back and walked away, hunched under the low ceiling.
She went for the entrance, slid on the wall and curled up in a ball, her side slightly touched by the thin ray of daylight.
Brenin wondered why she would wait in this hole their enemies now knew of. One of his hands was holding the chest where she had threatened to cut him open while the other rubbed his neck, right where her fur had rubbed him.
And when it dawned on him that she was a werewolf something clicked.
She too was a werewolf, no less cursed than him.