fic: tracks (Ginger Snaps 3, 1/1)
No one writes Ginger Snaps 3 fic, probably because it’s not as good as the first two. But it’s *there*, dammit, and this is my story for it.
Also, the movie has Hugh Dillon as a fire-and-brimstone preacher. Hugh Dillon, people! In muttonchops! You can’t entirely dismiss a movie that has Hugh Dillon in muttonchops.
tracks
By Gale
SUMMARY: There are ripples. Spoilers for GS 3. For Northlight, in the way that all my GS stories are for Northlight, because she does it better than I ever could.
It is like the Wendigo, Wise Woman tells Heart-of-a-Bear in the course of the girl’s training. If it touches you, you will be destroyed forever. Your soul will never go to be with Great Mother in her home in the sky.
“But you said they keep walking,” Heart-of-a-Bear says. One day Wise Woman will go to be with Great Mother, and she will give up her own name and become Wise Woman, but for now she is just Heart-of-a-Bear, youngest child and only daughter of White Bird and Kicking Elk. “That cannot be.”
”But it is,” Wise Woman tells her. “The Manitou will destroy your soul and steal your flesh, changing you into a wolf. This wolf will travel the roads and kill men without fear, eating freely of their flesh. It fears nothing, because it knows its bite is deadly. Only one who has been chosen by Great Mother can stop it, and then he risks his life to do so.”
”Has this ever happened before?” Heart-of-a-Bear asks.
Wise Woman does not meet her eyes. “Only once,” she says.
*
As it turns out, Wise Woman isn’t exactly right about the soul of the Manitou being destroyed forever. But she’s close enough.
*
The winter is a hard one, and a bad one, so no communication comes to Fort Bailey until deep in the spring, almost summer. The soldier who rides the message out throws up twice before mounting his horse and riding back to base. When a group rides out to check his story for themselves, he does not go with them.
Corporal Darwin and Lieutenant Fitzgerald examine the grounds thoroughly before deciding that - judging from the hole in the wood fence surrounding the outpost - wolves broke through and killed everyone in camp. Unfortunate, to be sure, and surprising, but not unheard of. Someone dropped a torch and, unchecked, it burned most of the buildings to ash and timber. A tragedy, but not strange; especially not in the depths of winter, when even the stoutest heart can fall before fear.
They wait until morning to ride back to headquarters, settling in to one of the less-burned buildings to sleep and eat their cold stew and flatbread.
In less than a hundred years, people will rebuild Fort Bailey and turn it into a historical attraction, something for school children to visit on field trips. Tour guides in period dress will talk about what day-to-day life was like in Fort Bailey, and the children will be very interested in the story of What Happened at Fort Bailey - how the winter drove everyone a little mad, and how wolves broke in and killed everyone.
”There were no survivors,” the tour guide always says at this point, very dramatically, and the children look at each other and grin.
*
Black is dimly aware she was not always like this. She walked on two legs, not four, and she spoke to Red in other than growls. Her name was not always Black, and Red’s name was not always Red, but they were still pack.
Other than this, Black will not remember anything. Her brain cannot handle information that complex; she is, after all, only a wolf.
Also, the movie has Hugh Dillon as a fire-and-brimstone preacher. Hugh Dillon, people! In muttonchops! You can’t entirely dismiss a movie that has Hugh Dillon in muttonchops.
tracks
By Gale
SUMMARY: There are ripples. Spoilers for GS 3. For Northlight, in the way that all my GS stories are for Northlight, because she does it better than I ever could.
It is like the Wendigo, Wise Woman tells Heart-of-a-Bear in the course of the girl’s training. If it touches you, you will be destroyed forever. Your soul will never go to be with Great Mother in her home in the sky.
“But you said they keep walking,” Heart-of-a-Bear says. One day Wise Woman will go to be with Great Mother, and she will give up her own name and become Wise Woman, but for now she is just Heart-of-a-Bear, youngest child and only daughter of White Bird and Kicking Elk. “That cannot be.”
”But it is,” Wise Woman tells her. “The Manitou will destroy your soul and steal your flesh, changing you into a wolf. This wolf will travel the roads and kill men without fear, eating freely of their flesh. It fears nothing, because it knows its bite is deadly. Only one who has been chosen by Great Mother can stop it, and then he risks his life to do so.”
”Has this ever happened before?” Heart-of-a-Bear asks.
Wise Woman does not meet her eyes. “Only once,” she says.
*
As it turns out, Wise Woman isn’t exactly right about the soul of the Manitou being destroyed forever. But she’s close enough.
*
The winter is a hard one, and a bad one, so no communication comes to Fort Bailey until deep in the spring, almost summer. The soldier who rides the message out throws up twice before mounting his horse and riding back to base. When a group rides out to check his story for themselves, he does not go with them.
Corporal Darwin and Lieutenant Fitzgerald examine the grounds thoroughly before deciding that - judging from the hole in the wood fence surrounding the outpost - wolves broke through and killed everyone in camp. Unfortunate, to be sure, and surprising, but not unheard of. Someone dropped a torch and, unchecked, it burned most of the buildings to ash and timber. A tragedy, but not strange; especially not in the depths of winter, when even the stoutest heart can fall before fear.
They wait until morning to ride back to headquarters, settling in to one of the less-burned buildings to sleep and eat their cold stew and flatbread.
In less than a hundred years, people will rebuild Fort Bailey and turn it into a historical attraction, something for school children to visit on field trips. Tour guides in period dress will talk about what day-to-day life was like in Fort Bailey, and the children will be very interested in the story of What Happened at Fort Bailey - how the winter drove everyone a little mad, and how wolves broke in and killed everyone.
”There were no survivors,” the tour guide always says at this point, very dramatically, and the children look at each other and grin.
*
Black is dimly aware she was not always like this. She walked on two legs, not four, and she spoke to Red in other than growls. Her name was not always Black, and Red’s name was not always Red, but they were still pack.
Other than this, Black will not remember anything. Her brain cannot handle information that complex; she is, after all, only a wolf.