by Martha Woods
His jaw dropped, absolutely affronted, but he had to do something to prevent the laugh from bubbling through. “I’ll have you know that I’m a very good fighter, and I sincerely hope that you never have to see me prove it.”
“Yeah, now that I think about it the circumstances for that would be pretty shitty wouldn’t they?” Picking up the bread and breaking off another chunk, she popped it in her mouth before smiling at him. “You can put all that talent into making sure that we don’t end up killing each other, how does that sound?”
“That sounds like a worthy use of my time is how it sounds,” He said, getting to his feet and pushing the rest of the bread towards her, “Take it, consider it my gift to you. You can bring me something next time if we don’t have to fight each other.”
“Oh a meal for a meal huh? Are things really getting that desperate over there?” She held the bread in her hand, raising it in thanks before turning to look back at the sun, or at least where it should have been. “Appreciate it, I’ll let you know if anything changes on my end.”
“And how will I know that you want to talk?” He said, pausing in his steps, letting some worry seep into his voice, “If things go south then… how will I know?”
“Same way that you knew today,” She said, smiling up at him, “You’ll just know.”
Chapter 3
Throughout the entirety of their conversation Jennifer could swear that she’d forgotten to tell him something, something very important that had managed to slip by her in all the shock of the previous night. It wouldn’t be the first time that details had been lost in such an intense situation, this was far from her first rodeo when it came to stupid plans, but this one was starting to get to her. Long after he had left and disappeared back to his camp, she’d stayed in place on the cliffside watching the clouds drift by, waiting for the thoughts to come back to her before she decided that it was useless, there wasn’t much good to be done sitting around not doing anything.
“This is going to piss me off for days, I can feel it,” She said to herself, pushing herself up onto her feet and starting the trek back to her territory. The air was chilly, even to someone who ran as hot as she did, actually garnering a shiver from her for the first time in what must have been years.
In times like this, the best thing for her to do was to warm herself up, and there was no better way to do that than to kill some stress doing what she loved most. Looking around to make sure that she was alone, not wanting to alarm any nearby bear shifters if they’d managed to wander by unaware of her presence, she knelt on the ground and felt her bones shift beneath her skin, a low growl rippling up through her throat and tickling across her tongue, pupils turning to slits and clothing disappearing beneath a layer of fur that started off thin and then blossomed into something thick and sturdy, so heavy that for a moment it weighed her down completely before her muscles grew and shifted in their place, the old Jennifer gone completely and replaced with something grand, pure. And if you were watching from nearby, absolutely terrifying.
Leaning her head back to stare up into the sky, she howled so intensely that it shook the branches around her, paws digging into the dirt and pushing her off with such force that it dug small craters into the ground. She was a dark grey blur, darting in between trees and over streams with such ease that you could hardly say that she was trying at all, every single detail of these forests melded into her mind to such detail that she could almost tell when the leaves were going to be falling that day. Animals fled in her presence, the trees seemed to sway just to get a little bit more out of her way, she was a force of nature in just about every sense of the word.
This was what she wished to do forever, this was what she was born to do, she’d known that ever since she was a little girl. It didn’t matter to her where she was, or how she was living, she just knew that she wanted the freedom to be able to be the real her, without having to pretend for anyone else’s protection, herself included. When she thought about it she was certain that the only thing keeping her in the forest was the loyalty that she had to the clan and to the protection of the land, not so much the desire to genuinely stay there forever. She would be sad to lose her home of course, for the most part it had been the only one that she’d ever known, but she wasn’t so foolish as to think that she wouldn’t be able to thrive in other circumstances, in other locations. All she had to do was get the chance to do so in the first place.
The smell of blood caught on her nose, eyes going wide with the accompanying scent of cooking coming from the camp miles away, the Elder likely taking cooking duty for the day in order for everyone else to go out and hunt to the best of their abilities. Wolves were known for their sense of smell, but Jennifer had been a peculiar case of having perhaps a too keen sense for it, able to sniff out prey that the others hadn’t even noticed miles away, guiding them right to them without failure every single time. It had managed to creep out a not small number of her fellow shifters, but over time they’d managed to see the extraordinary use in it, though by that time she’d caught on to how they’d thought of her at first when she’d managed to stand out of the pack. It hadn’t taken long for them to stop calling her out on hunts, when she’d decided to get payback and lead them on a literal wild goose chase that ended with everyone else frustrated and tired, and her with the biggest grin that she’d ever worn.
The Elder had managed to find it funny, but that was the last time that Jennifer had ever really seen her laugh.
But now the scent of cooking was coming from that very same humorless woman, and Jennifer could tell that she was one of the few actually in the camp right at that moment. This would be a good chance to actually talk about what they’d spoken of the previous night, without danger of riling up anyone else who could potentially do something very stupid. The last thing that they needed was for any other shifters to do something monumentally stupid.
“Jennifer, about time you showed up,” The Elder said, not looking up from the open fire, “Where were you today?”
She thought for a moment about lying, but that likely wouldn’t do any good. She could probably smell the bear on her, and if nothing else she’d come back with bread that she hadn’t left with. “I met with the wolf, Orson. We’d agreed to meet to discuss the details of the deal that he proposed, after we brought it up to the others.”
“Oh? I don’t remember asking you to do that.”
“I think that cancelling on him would tip him off pretty quickly to what you were planning, don’t you?” She couldn’t help the snip in her tone, but she wasn’t going to lay down and be treated like a child. Perhaps she’d been a touch too impulsive in her dealings with Orson, but she wasn’t a child. “Anyway I don’t know if you’ll have to worry about them planning anything, he said that his partners had refused to have anything to do with it at all. Apparently they all still hate us.”
“Understandable,” The Elder said after a moment of thought, stirring the pot in front of her as she added, “Did he tell you this first? Or did he only say it after you informed him that we had refused as well?”
Jennifer knew the real answer to that, but she also knew that Elder Sarah could very well just be looking for another justification of paranoia, a chance for her suspicions to be vindicated and confidence in ordering an attack justified. So she decided to lie. “He said it first, he seemed really disappointed by it to be honest. If I didn’t know better I’d say that he was genuinely hoping that we’d actually be able to get along, but I guess everyone’s determined not to leave the past in the past huh?”
“I’ve warned you before not to hold that tone with me Jennifer, others would have already been dealt out a punishment. Do not test my patience.”
“You keep me around because you know I’m the only one who’s going to be honest with you, let’s not bullshit each other. I get away with saying these things because you know that I’m the only one who actually will, not just go along with everything that you say.” Jennifer stepped closer, ke
eping an eye on the fire and the metal spoon in her hand. “Do you want me to tell you what I actually think here? Or do you want me to just kiss your ass?”
Elder Sarah huffed, though for a moment Jennifer could swear that she saw a hint of a smile on her face. “Fine then, tell me exactly what you think, in detail, if you wish.”
“I think that you’re being completely paranoid about this whole thing, I don’t think that you’re wrong when you say that there are bears in that group that want nothing more than to put our heads on top of sticks, but you’re wrong when you think that it’s all of them. There are good, hardworking, caring people in that group, just the same as ours. I just don’t think that you want to see that.”
The elder looked at her in genuine surprise, humming in the back of her throat before setting the spoon down on the small table next to her, gesturing to the seat on the other side of the fire for Jennifer to sit. “I want to tell you a story about this land, if you don’t mind too much.”
She was unsure what the sudden motive was for this, but if it could help the Elder get something off her chest then that could only help with negotiating, right? She took her seat on the other side of the fire, seeing the orange embers dancing in the reflection of her eyes, a haunted look passing through them for just an instant before it was banished.
“A long time ago, when I was a very little girl believe it or not, we were running low on food much like we are now. We didn’t have enough space to grow food, not enough people with the knowledge to do so, but too many mouths to feed everyone every single day. Do you know what it was like?” Jennifer shook her head. “It was some of the most horrifying months that I’ve ever lived through, and my memories of the war are detailed and plentiful. The things that many of us did in that war cannot possibly compare to what we were willing to do to not starve for another day. To this day I could give you an accurate assessment on the best way to strip a wolf, to make sure that everything of use is properly gathered and prepared, I could recite it back to you like the instructions were written on each individual strand of muscle. And do you know why it was that we found ourselves in this situation?”
“Why?” Jennifer asked, shifting uneasily on her seat.
“We were there, because the bears kept raiding our fields, looking for any food and saplings that they could find. Their growers were spectacular back then, much better than ours, but they still needed to replenish the stores of viable seed that they had just in case of a major catastrophe. We all did it, but they were by far the kings of it, and as a result of that after a particularly unforeseen cold snap we found ourselves without any food to last us just about the whole season, and we were not going to abandon the land for them to snatch up.”
“So you started starving,” Jennifer said, “For pride? Because the land was that important?”
“It may sound foolish, and that’s because I can now see that it was. The reasonable thing to do would have been to pack our bags, move out to another stretch of land, or even just to the city to build something new. But we were run by prideful people, and they raised us into prideful people as well, just as the bears did for their young. The people that we lost that winter were forever ingrained into our memories, and it was a large part of why we chose to fight in the first place when we had finally had enough. And though many of us died, just like the bears who took the food from us in the first place, that hate still persists in our bones.”
“But doesn’t that mean that you can just give all of this up? All this hate, and all this fighting, if you know what it does? If the only thing that it’ll result in is more pain and death, then what’s the point?”
“The point is, that as long as that hate still exists in any of us that still live, we’ll never be able to forgive each other for the things that all of us did. Our first thoughts will always be of violence rather than aid, death over life, and there is nothing that we can do to change that,” Elder Sarah sighed, “Much as I would like to believe that we could cooperate, and I truly believe that this Orson may actually have the best of intentions, he is still the enemy in all of our minds, and so are we in all of their minds. All it would take is another snap to make us go through all of that misery again, and they are thinking the same thing if they’re in as desperate a situation as we are. The only thing that we can do to ensure a future for our people is to expand ourselves, and focus on protecting ourselves rather than them, and unfortunately that means that the land that they rest on must become ours.”
Jennifer shook her head, standing up from the small log and pacing around the fire, hands wringing together while she tried to think of something to say and coming up with nothing meaningful. “So we’re just… going to let them all die, is that it? We’re just going to go in, steal everything from them, and just watch them die out rather than try to cooperate.”
“It’s the only way that it could possibly go, at least this way we’ll be alive to feel guilty about it.”
“No, no you won’t feel guilty about it, don’t bullshit me! If you’re going to try and make me a party to this sort of sham at least tell me the truth about it!”
Elder Sarah stood, arms outstretched in hopes of an embrace but knowing that it wouldn’t be received. “I truly am sorry about this Jennifer, I know that you care so much about everyone, but there is no other way that this could possibly go. The scouts have already come back with information, and I’ve already giving them their orders.”
“Scouts?” Jennifer asked, “What, what scouts?”
“The ones that I sent to find Orson’s siblings, the ones that would actually be able to stop us from doing what we need to do. It wasn’t hard to find them, they haven’t exactly been subtle in where they’ve gone, but the others have already been dispatched to… take care of them.”
“Take care of them?” Jennifer’s eyes widened, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. “You’re talking about murder, you’re going to murder them!”
“You’re no stranger to the act itself, you fought in that war just as all of us did, this is no different to that.”
“It’s very different to that, the fact that you can’t see that is…” She let her disgust be plainly known, a guttural grunt her only answer as she turned away and stared out into the rest of the village, the others starting to come back from the forest a few miles away. “I can’t believe that you’re really trying to do this, you were supposed to be a good guy for all of us to look up to.”
“I’m the Elder, that means that I have to make the hard decisions sometimes Jennifer, even if you don’t agree with it, or like it. I don’t relish making a decision like this, no matter what you may think of me, I would love to solve this with as little violence as possible. But let’s not pretend like we don’t remember that war, all the bodies that piled up so high that we could hardly see over the top of them. They’ll do anything to make sure that they have a future, just as we would, that’s why we have to make sure that they can’t come back from what we do.”
Jennifer shook her head, running her hand through her hair and already making up her mind on what she needed to do. “You are so full of shit, you just don’t want to try and do something with a bit of risk, you’re just so certain that the only way to solve this is through violence that you’ll do anything to make sure that you get to do so. I remember fighting against people who were acting just like you are now.”
“I know,” Elder Sarah said, her voice changing in a way that made the hair on Jennifer’s neck raise, “That’s why I’m sorry.”
Before Jennifer could make another move an arm was slipped around her neck, squeezing down so tightly that she could feel her spine creaking in her body, so caught off guard that the instinct to shift was nonexistent, taking her back to the primal urge to scratch and claw her way away from the danger. Lights started to pop in her vision, going black around the edges as she slipped further and further into unconsciousness, and the last thing that she heard before she was gone completely was the Elder’s apolo
gy.
“I’m sorry Jennifer, truly I am. One day… one day you will understand, and I hope that you can forgive me then…”
When Orson made it back to camp he could tell that something was strange, the others looking at him with something approaching a mix of concern and contempt, parting to let him through like he was carrying some rare kind of disease. He knew all these people, had known them for years, so what could they possibly be thinking right now that would give them those faces?
Opening the door to his cabin and feeling the eyes finally turning away from him, he breathed a sigh of relief and took a look over the campsite, screwing his brow up at the feeling of still being watched even as the rest of them disappeared into their houses, staring out for one last moment before he shut the door behind him and walked into his kitchen. Rolling his sleeves up and preparing to make something else to show off to Jennifer, he sensed the creak in his floorboards before he heard it, stepping to the side quickly just in time to avoid the swipe of the claws into his countertop, right where his back had been. His foot shot out, hitting a solid wall of flesh and making his attacker stumble back, grunting as they impacted with the wall behind them.
Shaking out his shoulders and pushing away the many questions burning in his mind, Orson lifted his hands to protect his face and surged in, sending his knuckles cracking against their cheekbone with an audible snap, the impact spinning them around perfectly to deliver a retaliatory punch of their own to his chest. Orson gasped for air, the momentary lapse of his guard enough for his attacker to grab him by the hair and throw him across the room, smashing through his table and laying there for a moment in a daze.
Through the fog that had taken up in his mind, he realized that he recognized the person who was attacking him, a little older than he remembered, though he didn’t see him that much to be up to date on that. Noah, one of the men that often volunteered for guard duty, one of the people that Orson had grown up with in fact, blood on his fists and a lack of care on his face, defiant as he stared down at the still stunned form of Orson.