Spice and Wolf (c) Isuna Hasekura/Brains Base/Marvie Jack/Flying Dog/IMAGIN/MediaWorks/Pony Canyon

Author's Note: I never knew a guy could be so wrong, and this story, both in novel and animation form, was done well enough to let one see how things could change so completely with just a shift in viewpoint.

Well, with Spice & Wolf II Episode 6 just over, I can laugh at myself and say it's been an interesting experiment. I got some things wrong (like Dian simply ignoring Horo's request to spread the fake Yoitsu story instead of verbally sparring with her over it, and stemming from that, how tragic Dian's past really was-she didn't seem too unhappy at the end of Episode 6. Then again, things always look brighter in the morning, and she is still alone-how could what happened to her be anything but tragic, if we assume that she never slept like Horo did and chose to remain by herself all the time?), and some things I guessed correctly (there wasn't any room to hide downstairs-no large shelves, the curtain was too close to Lawrence and Dian's chair had a cutout at the bottom, so Lawrence would've seen Horo if she tried to hide behind it-so I put the apple-loving wolf girl up the spiral staircase. And I was right! Teeheehee) This story will probably stand as is-I can't change this to match the TV episode and still be able to retain the revelations about Horo and Dian. Consider this an AU, if so. It wouldn't be the first blunder I've made-there was the matter of spelling "Jikkingen" as "Gikkingen" for an entire fic, and the little notion that in never snowed in the Valley of Wind, and the layout of Studio Ghibli . . . but oh, what fun! I can't wait to see what happens next in Horo and Lawrence's story.

Summary: Dian Reubens receives two nighttime visitors.

Wolf and Bird in the Night

Normal people shunned the alchemists' quarter of the Proanian city of Kumerson for many reasons. Some were wary of the alchemists' pursuit of goals both questionable and unapproved by the Church. Others were fearful of a possible catastrophe invoked by their endless experimenting. Still more looked down at them, pariahs of mysterious intent when they ventured out of their homes to conduct business in other parts of town.

Yet all recoiled at the foul reek that wafted from the district. It changed on different days—sometimes it smelled oily and fishy and extraordinarily rank, sometimes it was heavy and suffocating, but most of the time it was as if the bowels of Hell had come up through the earth and exhaled forth the smelliest brimstone as a gift, high walls notwithstanding.

But the person sitting in the high-backed wooden chair in the middle of the cleared space inside Dian the Chronicler's house was no ordinary person, no mere alchemist to deride or shun. Four hours after nightfall a knock summoned her to the door, to find this unique someone standing there. Shrouded in a borrowed dark brown cape, with a cowl falling around her flaxen hair and a loose white cap of Southern fashion sitting on top of her head, she looked distinctly uncomfortable.

"Are you alright?" the raven-haired woman asked in her soft voice, leaning a little forward in her canopied seat. "You look ill."

"It is the smell of this place," her visitor replied in a snappish tone, her reddish eyes wandering over the piles of old books stacked throughout the room, over the numerous feathers scattered on the ground. "I don't know how you can stand it."

"It's easy. I don't have your nose. I've gotten used to that stench."

Her visitor smiled, a predatory rictus of recognition complete with fangs. "So we do see each other with true eyes."

Dian nodded. "It has been a long time since I met someone like you. I get so few visitors, I usually encourage them to stay. But you seem in a hurry. Now that we've settled the matter of the pyrite, might I know of your second request?"

The figure straightened against the old wood. "Lawrence told me you collect old stories."

The chronicler blinked. "I do."

"I would like to ask if you could tell him . . . if you could have someone pass on to him . . . that you've also heard tales of Yoitsu not being destroyed."

"Why would I do that? Were he to learn the truth about it, my reputation would suffer. I am a collector of legends, not a bearer of lies."

In the dim candlelight her visitor's eyes flared with anger. "The stories of the living are more important than the legends of the past!"

"Indeed they are, but legends remember more than some of us do," returned Dian evenly. "Wouldn't you like to keep memories of a world that was, in a world that is forever changing, while we do not?"

For the space of a heartbeat they stared at each other across the room, blue eyes meeting amber, sleepless ice meeting smoldering fire. In the end, the ice quenched the fire; the visitor averted her eyes.

"That depends," the troubled woman said. "But this request I do not make lightly; it is of utmost importance. Otherwise I would not have bothered you."

"I sense you are in some trouble. Perhaps if you told me all about your situation, I might figure out how to better help you."

Dian could see the turmoil on the other person's face. Pride battled with despair, vexation with humility. She could see her visitor knew, knew she was being maneuvered into a trap ready to be sprung. The need must be great, for one of her kind to continue onwards. "I cannot tell you everything. I am in a hurry. If I stay too long, someone might come looking for me."

"Who? Lawrence?"

"No." The soft voice was tinged with regret.

Aha! the chronicler exulted. There was the reason for the nocturnal visit to this evil-smelling place; there was the source of the troubled manner in which her guest acted."I have my price," Dian said. "I do not give help for free. I have already done much in allowing you access to the pyrite held by the alchemists; I'm afraid you're really asking more than I can give now."

With a great sigh her visitor slumped. "Why would you need to know?"

Dian leaned against her chair's backrest and steepled her fingers. "Because I collect stories."

-oOo-

Half an hour passed as the visitor told her what she wanted to hear, pausing now and then when emotion overcame her. Dian waited patiently, occasionally asking a few questions. By the end she had most of the information she wanted.

"And that is my tale. Will you grant my request?"

Dian suddenly sat upright. "Listen," she whispered.

The hat on her visitor's head fluffed up. She nodded, looking anxious.

"I've heard those footsteps quite recently," Dian said in a low voice. "The churchmen say that to talk of the devil summons him. No doubt your friend is coming to this house—unless, of course, you know any other reason he would be here in the alchemists' quarter at night."

The visitor stood up. "He must not see me!"

The door knocker tapped twice, its metallic sound echoing in the silence. From without, a male voice called.

Dian stood up and walked to the door. Pausing in her stride, she looked back to tell her visitor to seek shelter, only to find herself staring at an empty room. She shrugged and waited for a few seconds before replying.

-oOo-

The visitor listened and watched from her hiding place as the man entered. Sandy-haired, wearing that traveler's outfit she knew so well now, he wore a serious expression as he spoke to the chronicler, who sat in her seigneurial chair upon the dais and was able to intimate that she was being imposed upon without so many words, and did not offer him the courtesy of an invitation to sit down. She saw as he looked around, then sat on the straight-backed seat she had vacated mere minutes ago. She could go to him now. She could reveal herself, explain, and everything would be fixed. But if she did, he would never learn, and in his ignorance would likely continue to hurt her in a similar manner in the future. Regrettably, there were also some indiscretions whose forgiveness merited more than a simple apology. She had her pride.

Deciding to remain hidden, she listened as Dian hinted that he wasn't her only recent visitor and seeker of pyrite. The chronicler inveigled the merchant into telling her of his request and his reasons, and said she would do her best to help him. With the visitor's acute hearing, it was no problem for her to hear every word that was spoken, even when the man took his leave and he and Dian had moved to the door.

"Ah, it's just . . . I have a question," he said.

"Please ask, by all means."

"Are there any legends . . . of pagan deities and humans becoming paired?"

It was some time before Dian replied, "Many." It took some time for the visitor's heart to stop fluttering like a caged bird.

"Really?" His eager footstep sounded on the threshold, but Dian shooed him away with a chuckle and a reminder that he was in a hurry.

"Good luck," she whispered as she shut the door.

The visitor remained in place as the whisper-soft crunch of boots faded away into the nighttime. Dian turned from the door, a black-robed figure on black.

"He is an audacious one."

"You must not underestimate his thinking." The brown-cloaked figure quietly came down the spiral staircase on one side of the room. "He can see through a wall in time, as we used to say back home. Your words could have aroused his suspicions."

Dian slowly returned to her chair, a thoughtful look on her face. She gestured for the visitor to resume her place. The visitor got as far as standing beside the seat, but she gazed a moment at it, and chose to remain standing.

"I have decided," announced Dian. "I am afraid I cannot grant you your request."

"What? Why not?" asked the visitor in a tone akin to a wail, in a manner alike to human eyes as to a spoiled child's. The back of her skirt switched to and fro, to and fro.

"He seems a resourceful person, and determined to achieve his goal. Let us put him to the test. Let us see how he will act without this avenue of approach you wish to give him."

"I do not see the need."

"I do. He was talking about you, wasn't he?"

"Yes, but you do not understand how things are!"

"You explained them very well to me, I think. Now come," Dian said, raising a palm and forestalling the outburst that was about to erupt from the visitor's throat, "and waste no time in reproach. If all else fails, you may revoke the marriage contract, am I correct?"

The visitor nodded. "But if Lawrence fails in his gambit, his pride and his resources will suffer a great blow. It need not to come to that. A merchant like him has little more than his guts to rely on to make a living. I do not want him to lose his self-confidence over this misunderstanding. Nor do I wish to treat Amati too harshly."

Dian tilted her head, her hair framing her features as she considered all she had heard. "But Lawrence will still end up with a sizeable amount of money, unless I'm much mistaken. And with that and you, I'm sure time will heal that wound, if things go that way. It is up to you to be his safety net. Now you must go, as I must prepare for what I need to do for your friend."

Though she seethed with frustration at having had her plans frustrated—how easy it would have made things, to give the man a valid reason to approach her!—the visitor nodded in agreement. She had been gone quite a while. The young knight who adored her was shrewd and a word or two about her being seen in this vicinity could cause him to divine her purpose. The festival would make people unobservant, but if he ever heard the slightest about these events, the consequences could be serious not only for Lawrence but for her as well. She mulled over this briefly, then bent and gathered some of the feathers from the floor.

"I shall help myself to some of these, with your permission."

"What for?" Dian seemed surprised.

"A sign, one that I hope he will be smart enough to read."

Dian accompanied her to the door. Opening it, she said, "It was nice to see someone from the old days. Please feel free to return at a more propitious time and tell me how things have gone."

The visitor stepped out onto the quiet street. The full moon was out, illuminating everything with an ethereal silvery-yellow radiance. She wrinkled her nose as the terrible smell once again assaulted her hapless nostrils. "I am sure you will hear it soon enough from your sources."

"True, but there's nothing like hearing a story first-hand. I find this an interesting one." The smile was respectful. "He seems a decent fellow."

The visitor snorted, her gaze momentarily turned inward, as if remembering something. "He is a fool! My dignity has suffered several times before because of him."

"And yet here you are, suffering another indignity."

"He never did return to the inn. He is impudent and unreliable at times."

"And yet there he is, risking all for his precious cargo." Dian smiled.

"There is that." Petulantly, the visitor remarked, "You did not need to make things more complicated for me."

"Ah! But isn't it the custom of your people, that only the fittest male may pair up with the highest-ranked female?" Dian chuckled. "I was only trying to be helpful. Wasn't I?"

"Not really. It would lighten my heart if you would accede to my request about Yoitsu."

Gently shaking her head, Dian laid a white hand on her breast and inclined her head forward for the briefest moment. "I'm afraid I cannot do that. Forgive me."

"You find this amusing, don't you?" There was no hiding the irritation in the visitor's voice.

"Somewhat. He is running around like a beheaded chicken when he has no need to." In Dian's voice the visitor heard the same predacious tone she knew existed in hers, which she sometimes used to tease and sometimes to threaten the merchant with. "Have you no desire to see the extent of his capability?"

"I do not need a display of his masculine ego! More important matters demand my attention now."

Dian regarded her for a time. "If I were in the business of advising you," she ventured, "I would tell you to think carefully about this merchant and what he means to you. The years roll on and on for us, but humans are like spring flowers, existing briefly in the season in which they're set. You may regret your actions if you're not careful."

There was something in the words that reminded the visitor of the distant past, as if a faraway dream of hers awoke from its slumber. "Time may be a grindstone that wears away our memories," she said as she put her cowl on, "but you . . . I remember hearing of you now. Dian, is it not?"

"I would prefer Diana, but you may call me Dian. Twixt us, it may be so."

"Dian, there's no sense in living in the past, hiding behind dusty old tomes." The visitor's voice was soft and gentle. The look in her eyes showed that she understood the situation completely-what the cloistering-in of self, the silent vigil, the gathering of legends, and the unkempt home in a shunned part of town were all for.

The chonicler's pale face was devoid of emotion. "You and I are bound to different fates, I guess," she said in a quiet voice. "Good night. Watch your young man." The door shut noiselessly.

Horo of Yoitsu, conscious of the silent shapes perched on the eaves of the buildings lining the narrow street, imagined hearing the sound of a great bird flapping its wings coming from the inside of Dian's home as she gathered her cloak about herself. At the mineral trader's tomorrow, she thought as she hurried away. She cursed Lawrence's bad timing and the chronicler's intransigence. But as she squeezed through the broken gate and raced back to the inn, she remembered his determined voice talking about his valuable cargo, and his hesitant question at the door, and her heart trilled until she felt she was glowing as brightly as the moonlight that lit her surroundings.

She wished she could stop and howl out loud.