The Savage and the Sacred is a supernatural-horror web novella by VineLightnote , and the prequel to The Kindness of Devils. It can be read here
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1563: An immortal woman pursuing a dangerous trail happens upon a werewolf queen in the aftermath of a brutal supernatural war. Together, the two are thrust against a dangerous cult that leads to them discovering much about one another and themselves
The work contains examples of the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Both Aisling and Thorunn are among the finest combatants of their own respective species (Seers and werewolves) and both take several opportunities to showcase this against the hordes of Radzig.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Radzig and Thorunn are the leaders of their people and the strongest of each side.
- A Father to His Men: Radzig's followers are little but extensions of his will but he loves them all the same.
- A God Am I: Implied by Radzig, given the way he has a statue of Jesus altered to be a werewolf.
- Ax-Crazy: Cardinal Radzig believes Jesus was a ravenous alpha predator, the true path to Christian enlightenment is found through murdering and eating the flesh of the innocent, and that the world belongs to the strong and savage. While he's more affable and respectable than Siegfried, Radzig is perhaps even more out of his gourd to the point Aisling and Thorunn quickly realize reasoning with him is impossible.
- Battle Couple: Downplayed, as Aisling and Thorunn are Friends with Benefits (with romantic undertones) rather than a full-fledged item during the time of the story, but the two end up fighting together against Radzig with synchronicity Thorunn hasn't even demonstrated with Hardestadt.
- Big Bad: Cardinal Radzig is a Dark Messiah to the werewolves, leader of a force of revolutionaries and the chief villain of the story.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: Much of Thorunn and Aisling fighting Radzig is mental, with Radzig having immense psychic powers able to even devour a Seer.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Thorunn is briefly taken into Radzig's flock and controlled by him towards the climax.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Radzig contrasts with previous werewolf antagonist Siegfried from Under The Cold Moon and Le Chevalier. He lacks Siegfried's sadistic and prideful tendencies, instead seeing his goals as a holy mission. He deeply cares for his werewolf followers, while Siegfried had no problem threatening and killing them, including his daughter.
- Dark Messiah: Cardinal Radzig fancies himself a prophet of his own religion, out to lead the werewolves into a new age.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: For as insane as Radzig and all his followers are, his care and respect for his followers is entirely genuine.
- Fantastic Religious Weirdness: A dark example. Radzig's interpretation of Christianity through the lens of a psychotic werewolf is interesting; Radzig believes the Christ was the embodiment of the savagery Radzig worships, adorns the statue of Jesus in his church with fangs, and sees himself as a messiah bringing in a new and bloody future for the werewolves.
- Foil: Cardinal Radzig is one of these to the last notable werewolf Arc Villain, Siegfried Gunmarsohn. Siegfried was a brutish sociopath who ruled over a gigantic pack he had mostly bred, terrorized and enslaved into loyalty, barely even capable of putting up a pretense of civility. Radzig, on the other hand, is no less insane than Siegfried but is genuinely affable, rules over a smaller but much more genuine and devoted pack, and is capable of commending his enemies as WorthyOpponents. Radzig is also genuinely—psychotically—devoted to his own cult, and it gives Radzig powers that Siegfried had to deal with a Great Old One to get.
- Friends with Benefits: Thorunn and Aisling become close friends during the course of the story, as well as involved with one another for mutual comfort.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Radzig was once a humble nobody of a priest. He's now the strongest werewolf who ever lived and hellbent on conquering Europe.
- Genki Girl: In a good mood, Aisling is spirited and energetic, a fierce Irish spirit and the epitome of a Hard-Drinking Party Girl.
- Hidden Depths: Aisling and Thorunn present as a fun-loving party girl and wandering hero as well as a noble, proud queen. Both reveal incredibly vulnerable and sadder sides. Part of what brings the two together is the loneliness both women share.
- Aisling hides pain over all the centuries she's been alone and on the run, separated from her true love Eliza by the devious Shadows' Consultant. Underneath her free-spirited demeanor is a woman with trust and abandonment issues who opens up to Thorunn since she's the first person in years to truly open up to and befriend Aisling.
- Thorunn, meanwhile, puts up a tough, ferocious facade in order to cope with the pain haunting her from the tragedies and injustices the Clans have faced, including the death of many of her own family members at the hands of her evil brother Siegfried and her former lover snapped and turned into a mass-murdering warlord before regaining his marbles.
- Knight Templar: Cardinal Radzig believes in an uprising by the lower classes to overthrow Europe's order, with a new equality of flesh-eating werewolves and others farmed for meat.
- My Greatest Failure: Aisling mourns having left her lover Eliza Cortly behind so many years ago when the Shadows' Consultant targeted innocents as long as they remained together.
- The Nondescript: Radzig looks like a man who could vanish when surrounded by only 3 people, entirely average and completely unremarkable.
- Not Staying for Breakfast: Aisling has a habit of leaving beds before dawn, being afraid to ever stay with a lover.
- Really Gets Around: Aisling, separated from her love Eliza, tends to sleep about a lot to dull that pain.
- Sinister Minister: Radzig adopts the title of 'Cardinal' and the trappings of the church for his own bizarre blend of Christianity and Nordic/Germanic paganism.
- The Unfettered: The mistake Aisling and Thorunn make is assuming Radzig has limits, when his fanaticism lets him justify any decision he makes as a righteous one.
- Visionary Villain: Radzig aims for a complete uprising of the lower classes against the aristocracy and church, to create a werewolf theocracy he truly believes will better Europe.
- Worthy Opponent: Radzig truly respects Aisling and Thorunn both, beliieving they have been sent by god to be his 'tribulation.'
