Author's Notes: So most of the AUs with daemons also tag the actual series, but I'm still unsure of how to tag things and I don't want to get in trouble, so I'll just stick with Justified. This is my first and likely to be only fic of this series, but I love it something fierce. I've only seen up to half of season 3, so I apologize for any canon discrepancies or OOC tendencies. I'm trying to keep that to a minimum. I think I spent more time looking up names for daemons than actually writing this. I don't know how long it will be. This is kind of like an writing exercise for me. And I'm loving every second of it. The title was taken from Bon Iver's song "The Wolves (Act I & II)".

Also, this was completely inspired by zihna's work on ao3 called "i followed fires" - my all-time favorite fanfic that is The Walking Dead retold with daemons. It's absolutely perfect and beautiful so go read it!

Disclaimer: I neither own Justified or His Dark Materials. But I wish more than anything that I could have a daemon.

(see end of work for more notes)

someday my pain will mark you (harness your blame)
part one

No one ever says that there's a common theme about people in law enforcement and what their daemons settle as.

But there's a goddamn common theme about people in law enforcement and what their daemons settle as.

Dollars to doughnuts, you spot a person sporting a badge or a gun on their side; they've got some sort of dog daemon trailing behind them, tongue lolling out innocently or teeth gleaming ferociously. There's something painfully stereotypical about a law enforcement officer and their dog daemon, but it happens all the time. Even more so, the type of dog seems somewhat determined by what type of law enforcement a person ends up joining. A lot of local and state cops with German shepherds, ATF agents with bloodhounds, SWAT with Doberman pinchers… The list goes on and on.

Of course it varies. There's that random ass FBI agent with a fucking poodle daemon. Like hell you want to be in the NSA with Jack Russell terrier. He once knew a detective with a Welsh corgi daemon. Strangest thing though. It's like the daemon knows shit the person doesn't know about their future. A kid's daemon settles as a dog at ten, twelve, fourteen years of age – and then ten years later they're wearing a badge or prison blues.

Because of course not everyone with a dog daemon joins law enforcement. It's strange how many people whose daemons settle as dogs take a completely opposite turn and end up behind bars. Dopey dogs, vicious dogs, rabid-looking dogs, and a few wild-eyed coyotes – a lot of convicts end up with daemons like that.

His father's daemon is a Rottweiler named Mara. As a kid, he was so terrified of that massive snarling mess that he and his Aella would hide in the closet whenever his father was too far into his cups. Sure his mother protected him most of the time, but there was only so much her orange tabby cat daemon could do to protect Aella from Mara. She was wild and crazed, just like his father, and sometimes she'd tear into Aella so hard that her pain made him cry out. He'd get smacked for that, told off for crying like a little sissy, and Aella would rub up against his shiner as a black cat while he smoothed her fur down.

Dogs are thought to be good creatures, nice animals. There's all that saying about how dogs are man's best friend and they show loyalty and are good through and through. Maybe the animals are like that, but daemons are different.

Daemons are souls and souls aren't all that good in the world. He knows this firsthand – seen it with his own eyes as a kid and now as an adult. Being in law enforcement allows you to see people and their daemons at their very worst, turns you cynical as all get out, makes you not able to trust anymore, even if they've got a golden Labrador daemon, even if their daemon is a rabbit. A specific daemon doesn't mean a person is good or bad. He's met people with awful-looking daemons that are genuinely nice and kind and people with sweet-looking daemons that will gut you like a fish without a second thought.

You don't trust people based on their soul, but you sure as hell judge them.

And every man and woman in his entire adult life that has seen Raylan Givens walk into a room, hat tipped down just enough to shade his eyes, gun holstered at his waist, Marshal's badge gleaming on his side, knows to take a step back when they catch a sight of his Aella. You don't want bother a U.S. Deputy Marshall with a propensity to shoot and kill the people that try pulling on him.

But you just don't fuck with a man that has a foreboding black wolf daemon at his left.

The first time he steps into the Miami office, people actually take a step back. He sees Chief Deputy Dan Grant stand up in his office, probably hissing a "shit" under his breath, and a few other Marshalls cast him disbelieving glances.

What kind of officer of the law's got a fucking wolf daemon? he can practically hear them thinking.

A damn good one, Aella responds as she pads next to him fearlessly.

He's always loved Aella for that. The moment she settled, all the fear in her was erased and his vanished into thin air. No longer was he the boy afraid of getting hit by his father or the boy that ran just a bit faster than all the others after school so he wouldn't get beat on for mouthing off to them. He didn't run away anymore. He stood his ground and dared anyone to come at him, Aella snarling at his side. She grew as he grew and people learned to be wary of him just as much as they were of her.

Almost playfully, Aella snaps her jaw at a convict handcuffed in a chair. The man lets out a yelp and jumps back so hard that he falls out of his chair, shouting, "Keep that thing away from me!" His little rat daemon ducks back into his shirt, squeaking so loud that it sounds like a squeaky toy being chewed on.

"Glynco warned me about you," is the first thing Grant says to him by way of greeting, his bobcat daemon swishing her tail inquisitively at his right.

All Raylan can do was shrug his shoulders to that. Unlike the dog daemons of most law enforcement officers, Aella does not sit respectfully at Raylan's left side. She doesn't heel like a trained pup. Instead she walks around the office, far as she can go, and investigates the place on her own. All of the other people's daemons stay out of her sight. They'll come out eventually, but for now, the place is hers. He can feel the tug deep inside of him as she strays further and further, but refuses to show it. If she doesn't like this place, then they won't stay, simple as that, and she makes her judgments just as quick as he does.

"With all due respect, I just came here to work," Raylan finally says.

Grant snorts and starts back for his office. "I heard how you 'work.'"

And that's it. Raylan goes to his assigned desk and sits down just as Aella walks back up to him. Her head his held high, bright blue eyes shining, and even her shoulders look set back, as if she's walking straight like a man in the Marines. He still can't tell whether she's yet to get out of the habit or if she just like walking around like she's the leader of the pack.

Between you and me, we both know I'm the leader, Aella tells him cheerfully.

Raylan just smiles in return and starts to set up his computer while Aella presses her front paws against the window and looks attentively out at their new surroundings, tongue hanging out just so slightly. She's a wolf through and through, but she knows that she has to make people comfortable. And it's easy to make people comfortable when you act like something you're not. Law enforcement officers like dogs, and so even though she can't pass as a dog in looks for shit these days, she can act like one pretty convincingly.

It's Raylan's idea to dig coal. He hates the thought of it, hates the smell of coal, hates the flames that lick it, hates the dark and the small spaces, but he likes money and it pays better than most jobs in Harlan County. When he talks it over with Aella, he's already set on it, but he likes getting her opinion. When she tells him that it's a dumbass idea, he nods his head, agrees with her, but fills out the application anyways. All he wants to do is get out of this godforsaken town, but he kind of needs money to do that.

Now Raylan has known Boyd Crowder all his life. They've gotten into scraps before, stuck together like glue against the other boys without meaning to be, and a lot of the time they'd been in the same classes as well. Boyd always got into trouble, probably from the time he was born. Raylan was no star student as a kid, sitting in the corner of the classroom dreaming over better days with Aella sleeping under his feet in gentle collie form, but he'd at least been a deal better than Boyd. That boy's middle name was trouble and his daemon was equally mischievous.

Raylan could remember every time that Boyd was called into the principal's office or his father was forced to come pick him up from school, Boyd's daemon would shift into the most innocuous thing ever. There was Boyd, hair sticking all up, an innocent look on his dirty face, and he'd be clinging to a rabbit daemon or a field mouse or a kitten or a sweet little bird. "I didn't do nothin'," he'd insist as they dragged him out of the room.

But of course Raylan knew better. He knew that Boyd was guilty of everything he was accused of. It was a goddamn miracle the boy graduated. Then again, it was a miracle that Raylan had too. While Boyd just stopped showing up to school or was busy slinging drugs, Raylan just didn't give two licks and Aella hadn't cared to motivate him much either. Being cramped up in a building in a small room with too many other kids and their tame daemons did not fit a wolf at all.

He meets up with Boyd again in the coal mines, covered in soot from head-to-toe. Even his daemon is dirty. It's almost impossible to spot the red in the fox's fur; he's so dirty. Still, Boyd grins and his white teeth gleam through the dark. "Raylan, that you?"

"Hullo, Boyd."

Boyd reaches out a gloved hand and they shake. Shaking a man's hand can tell you a lot about the person as long as you pay attention – the way they shake, how hard they grip your hand, how long they prolong eye contact. Boyd's handshake is firm, strong, and he never looks away.

(Looking away is a show of subservience.)

"Well shit, I didn't figure I'd find you in these mines," Boyd laughs as they walk back to the surface together.

"To be honest, I didn't either," Raylan replies.

"None of us ever do." Boyd takes his glasses off and rubs them on his shirt, but it only manages to smudge the dirt on them even more and make them more useless. "I wouldn't have even recognized you if it wasn't for your daemon. A man can spot you a million miles away with a daemon like that."

He's right, of course. No other person in Harlan County has a wolf daemon, not even the hardest of criminals. Every man, child, and woman knows that Boyd's father Bo runs most of the crime here, and he's got nasty old pit-bull daemon to prove it.

Behind them, their daemons fool around with each other. Boyd's fox daemon nips at Aella's ankles while she leaps gracefully out of the way. Aella could easily break the fox with one bite – she could do that with most daemons – but she knows how to play well. Most daemons tend to find her too intimidating to rough house with, but Boyd's fox has always been up for it. For the life of him, Raylan can't remember her name, though he's known Boyd for his entire life. Makes him feel a little dumb when he's almost certain that Boyd can remember Aella's name. He knows that Aella knows, but she won't tell him. She never tells him a person's daemons name, makes him beg for it or find out from the person themselves. Little shit, she is sometimes.

Raylan glances back at their daemons just as they walk into the sunlight. "I guess we do sort of stand out."

"It's a little more difficult down in the mines," Boyd concedes, "what with her being black as night. Takes ages to get the dirt and soot out of Atha."

Athaliah, that's what his daemon's name was. Something akin to a grin splits onto the fox's face. "You could be dirty as hell and no one would know the difference," she tells the wolf.

Aella shakes once, dust blowing off of her coat in a little cloud. "At least I'm not as dirty as you."

"Still the same old, same old." Boyd rubs at his watch on his wrist and gives it a quick look. "What say you we get a drink?"

"It's only lunch break," Raylan points out. "We still have to go back in there."

Boyd starts for the parking lot and turns around, the same fox-like grin on his face, Athaliah bouncing lightly on her feet at his heels. "Why do you think I suggested a drink?" he says with a laugh. "C'mon, stickler, I've got a shot of bourbon with your name on it."

Raylan goes to look back at Aella, but she's already in front of him, halfway in between him and Crowder. She tilts her head at him, looking more like a dog than a wolf for a second, and he can feel her desire tugging him forward to head in Boyd's direction. It's no secret that neither of them is particularly fond of most people in Harlan County and there are even fewer daemons that Aella actually likes. But she likes Boyd's sneaky, little fox daemon, he knows that much. She's quick to fire back and will tumble in the dirt despite being considerably smaller.

He's eighteen. He doesn't know any better. He hates this shithole town and pretty much everyone in it.

But Crowder, for all his antics and wild nature, he's alright.

"What else are we gonna do?" Aella says as they hurry to catch up with Boyd. "S'not like you brought food for your lunch break."

"Bourbon ain't food," Raylan points out.

Aella tosses her head back, some more soot coming off of her black fur. "But it's more'n you've got. And I hate it down in those mines. Maybe a shot will make us both feel a little better."

He should've known – Aella was right. She was always right.

It's because of Aella that he and Winona even get together in the first place.

Years after their divorce, when he's hunkered in sunny Miami, Raylan can still recall the moment he first met his future ex-wife. He'd been testifying in a court case and there'd she been, sitting off to the side, doing her job as a court stenographer. She'd looked so fantastic that he could barely keep his mind on the task at hand, putting a man that had shot at him and killed two other people in jail. If it hadn't been for Aella nudging him forward in his mind, he might have stopped talking altogether and stared at her.

After the trial is over, Raylan and Aella step onto the elevator, prepared to head back to the office, until Winona and her sleek daemon step inside, leaving just the four of them alone. The damn thing is so hot that Raylan is tugging on his tie like an altar boy getting caught with pot in his pockets by the priest.

Aella takes a good, long look at the other daemon and then abruptly asks, "What are you? Some kind of miniature leopard or a weird-looking housecat?"

Raylan spends the next few seconds choking on his own breath as Winona looks down in surprise. He's only slightly relieved that she doesn't look terrified that a wolf is asking rude questions.

"Aella," Raylan finally manages.

But his daemon just looks up at him all naïve-like. "What? I was just asking."

"He's an ocelot," Winona answers, which is strange, since people don't really talk to other people's daemons, not unless… Well, not unless their lovers or family or really bloody close. Raylan could count all the people that talked to Aella on two hands – and all the people Aella talks back to on one.

Raylan looks at the woman in the elevator. "You're from Kentucky?"

The surprise is fading from her face, but this time she blushes slightly. "How can you tell?"

"Well, not many people in Salt Lake sound–"

"Like a hick?" she counters dryly.

"Now I wasn't gonna say that," Raylan says. He smiles sheepishly at her. "Raylan Givens."

"I know," she replies, a knowing smile on her own face. At first, she doesn't say anything, like she's not going to tell him her name. The doors open and she steps out, her ocelot daemon slipping in between her legs as she turns around. He wants to ask her what her name is, can feel Aella nudging him in his mind, but won't open his mouth out of stubbornness. "I'm sure I'll see you around, cowboy."

And then the doors shut.

Aella lets out a huff. "Fuckin' pussy."

Raylan gives her a look. "I didn't see you askin' that for that fancy cat daemon's name."

"I'm not the one actin' like they're in heat," Aella points out, raising her snout up in an almost snotty manner.

Everyone remembers the moment their daemon settles. You can ask a person in their nineties lying on their deathbed and they'll recall with a broken smile that moment. It's the one thing that even insane people remember. It's the first time most doctors will ask a patient with head trauma or when they've come out of surgery after asking their name. For the most part, the day is unremarkable, is no different from the rest. It's just one day your daemon can change shapes at the drop of a hat and the next they can't. It's weird shit that no one questions. But you always remember it despite the plainness of the day.

For Raylan, it's a day that neither he nor Aella like to recall. It is unparticular from most of his childhood days, though others might beg to differ.

As a young child, he loved the way that Aella could change at any given moment. Whenever his father would come stumbling in at night, smelling of booze and growling almost as much as Mara, Aella would be able to change into something tiny as a moth and hide in his shirt. If they did get into a fight, she could change into a bird and fly away, hiding on a shelf where Mara couldn't reach her.

He is ten years-old, a scrawny piece of shit as his father says, and he goes to bed with Aella curled partly underneath his neck and on his shoulder in a ferret form. His mother tucks him into bed, despite his insistence that he's too old for that, but he lets her anyways. (Truth is, at his age, he wants her to tuck him into bed for the rest of his life, because then he'll know she's safe and alive and okay.)

"Goodnight, cowboy," his mother says.

His mother's daemon, Cemil, licks at Aella's nose and then leaps off of the bed silently. His tail just narrowly misses being caught in the door as his mother shuts it.

Before he can even say goodnight to Aella, he's out like a light, the day having exhausted him.

A few hours later, he wakes up to the muffled sound of his mother crying out in pain. Raylan's eyes shoot open and he sits up. Aella is already at the door in a collie form. She looks back at him and even in the dark he can see the look in her eyes, knows what she's thinking. He grips his blanket tightly, sitting completely still, when he hears his mother make the same sound again. He can even hear the smack from his father's hand, if only in his head.

"Raylan," Aella breathes out, her ears pinned back on her head.

He's heard the fights before. They happen most nights when his father finds his way home after spending the night in a drunk tank or after getting collared for some petty crime or another. The next morning, he's always apologetic to his wife, kissing her and holding her even as she sports the bruises. Raylan will watch her through a sliver of his opened door as she puts on make up to cover the bruises. He's even been the victim of his father's rage, tearing through the house as his mother screams for the older man to stop.

Just thinking about all the fights, about his mother getting hurt by the man she loves, the man that is his father, makes Aella whimper and tuck her tail between her legs.

He hears something glass break and that's when he snaps. He rips the sheet from his bed and storms towards the door, jerking it open so hard that he nearly knocks himself in the face.

Raylan can feel Aella's hesitance to jump into the middle of the argument pulling back on him. Truth be told, now that he's out of his room and can hear the shouts even more, he would like nothing more than to crawl back into his bed, hide under the blankets, press his pillow over his head, and pretend that he can't hear a thing. But this is his mother and he feels sick to his stomach to hear her hurt. He can feel it in his bones, aching in a way no child's should, and he can feel Aella hurt as she thinks about Cemil's torn ear and messed up paw.

Fumbling his way down the stairs, Raylan makes his way through the house until the screams are almost too much to bear. Screams of, "Raylan is sleeping – just calm down!" and "Don't tell me what to do, woman!" and "I'll tell you what to do when you're acting like a wild dog!" take him in the direction of the living room.

His father loves his mother, he keeps telling himself. Dad loves Mom. He just don't know how to show it. Or at least that's what his mother always told him.

Careful, Aella says from behind, her nose bumping into the back of his already wobbly legs.

It shouldn't surprise him, what he sees. It shouldn't really scare him or shock him. He's seen his father hit his mother before. He's seen what sort of violence his father is capable of. Knows the man is nothing good but a bastard that knows how to screw people over.

But when he sees his father Arlo holding his mother Francis by the throat, pressing her up against the wall, and Mara damn near chomping down on Cemil, well– Something explodes inside of him, something shatters and reassembles itself inside of him into something solid and cold and hard.

"Let go of her, you bastard!" Raylan howls at the top of his lungs, shooting across the room and throwing himself at his much larger father.

In that same moment, Aella, little border collie Aella, sweet Aella, kind Aella, sensible much smarter Aella, reclusive and quiet Aella, turns into a big black wolf mid-air and thuds so hard into Mara that the Rottweiler flies into the coffee table and breaks it.

Maybe it's the sight of his son's once cowering daemon's jaws shut tight on his own daemon or maybe it's Raylan himself who is punching and kicking as hard as he can, but Arlo lets go of Francis and he stumbles to the side and falls to the ground. Raylan doesn't relent. He's on top of his father in a second, pounding on him, screaming curses at him, using up every last bit of anger and resentment that he's held in his heart for a whole decade. Aella is even more relentless. Mara puts up a good fight, being slightly larger, but Aella is vicious and all wild. There's not a tame bone on her body, not like in Mara, and her snout is already covered in blood.

Arlo manages to get up just enough to knock Raylan to the side and he tumbles into the fireplace, his head smacking into the brick. "You little piece of shit!" the man snarls, rearing a hand back to smack him into another county.

He doesn't get the chance though. Aella bites into Arlo's arm and jerks him back onto the ground, startling everyone in the room.

"Aella!" Cemil gasps out.

Raylan experiences something very strange in his dazed state. He's slumped against the wall, watching the whole thing happen, watching Aella drag his father into the next room, and he feels the painful tug as she puts more distance in between them – but then he feels her teeth digging into cloth and flesh, can taste his father's own blood in his mouth, can feel her heart racing as manically as his. For a few seconds, he's not Raylan but Aella and she's cold and firm and set in her ways.

Aella spits out Arlo's arm and the man falls and clutches his bloody arm. Mara limps over to him and licks his face, as Francis and Cemil stand back in horror. Baring her teeth, she snarls, "Don't you ever lay a hand on Raylan again or I'll rip your throat out."

While everyone stands in shock at what has just happened, Aella turns on her heels and walks straight towards Raylan. She pushes against him, letting him dig his hands into her black fur, until he's back on his feet. He keeps holding onto her, feeling unsteady and strangely firm at the same time. When he looks her in the eyes – blue eyes, bright like a sunny day sky – he knows in his bones that she's done. She's done with everything – all this shit, all this hollering, the petty crime his father does, the drinking, everything.

I won't let him hurt you ever again, Aella tells him with those eyes of hers.

And she's wild, so wild, so untamable and crazed with rage. She's got blood almost dripping from her teeth, but she gently licks the blood away from the back of his head. He can feel it in himself too, this wild thing that will never be able to be controlled.

She's a wolf. He's a wolf.

"Raylan," his mother finally says in a timid voice, "go back to bed. I'll…I'll be up there in a sec, alright, darlin'?"

He doesn't even recall walking back up to his bedroom. He just finds himself standing there in the dark, blood on his pajamas and his knuckles torn up and his head pounding and body aching. Aella pushes him carefully towards his bed and he falls into it. In the morning, he'll wake up to blood on his sheets and freak out a little, but for now, he doesn't care.

Aella, he pleads in his mind.

And she comes without hesitation. She's larger than she's ever been, as if the anger flooded her so much that she had to grow to make space for it, but she jumps into the bed with him and presses her body against him. Her fur is softer than it looks and he buries his wet face into it, clutching onto her so tightly that it must hurt her. She licks his face some more.

"I'm settled," she tells him in the dark. Most daemons and kids are unsure at first. They feel settled, but there's that feeling of self-doubt as well. After years and years of being able to change at whim, it's a bit difficult to understand the feeling of being settled. Aella does not need that though. There's a bit of sadness in her voice and he can see the fear in her eyes where fury had burned just minutes ago.

"I know."

"Are you…?"

Raylan presses his forehead against hers. "If you're a wolf, I'm a wolf."

END NOTES

givens family: raylan givens - black grey wolf - aella: means "whirlwind" in greek
arlo givens - black rottweiler - mara: means "bitter"
francis givens - orange classic tabby cat - cemil: means "kindness" others: boyd crowder - reddish grey fox - athaliah: means "afflicted with yahweh" in hebrew, name of the daughter of ahab and jezebel that later became the queen of judah
winona hawkins - ocelot - charon: means "fierce brightness" in greek
miami deputy chief dan grant - bobcat - fallon: means "leader" I'll add more as more people show up in the story.