Chapter Two

You taste dirty water in your mouth.

You open your eyes to find yourself looking up at the sky. Your body feels cold and numb. It's past the point of hurting from the cold. Even your tail is frozen. You faintly hope that it doesn't fall off any time soon.

You don't know how long you've been running for. It felt like eternity. A creature like you shouldn't feel fatigue often but when you do...

Your stomach growls.

You guess you have to get food now otherwise you'd go crazy with hunger.

You sigh and try to move your stiff body. It takes some time but little by little, you regain some control and maybe a little warmth.

You start first my moving your fingers, then your hands, arms, legs, back, neck, and so forth. It takes a while as the hunger begins to burn in your stomach even more but you eventually find the strength to stand.

You stumble but catch yourself on a nearby tree. You brush the snow off from your fur coat with cold hands. Now that the warmth is coming back, your body begins to ache and groan with each and every movement.

Your tail? Well you're sure that's gone since you can't feel it anymore. You even reach back to find a bloody stub of what it used to be.

You sigh and look down at where you were laying last. You see the rest of the black frozen stick in the snow, small specks or blood surrounding it. You pick it up and bury the bloody snow deeper in the ground.

Hopefully the dogs are dumb enough not to shove their noses too deep. The group may still be hunting for you and you don't want to show any traces you've been here.

The memory of Müdr submerges in the back of your mind but you force it down.

You don't want to think about her. Not now. If you do, you'll be a crying, angry mess and then what use will you be?

She sacrificed herself for you. You don't want to make it worth nothing.

You pace to warm up your stiff legs and begin to march onward into the snowy landscape. You watch as the trees heavy with frost lean threateningly above as the bright eerie white sky blinds your view.

You have no idea where you are and you wish you did. But you never had a clue where you were traveling in the first place. You just hoped not to bump into any people who might have known you. Müdr didn't like confrontation and she especially didn't like interacting with people.

It must've been a Foss trait. As for you, you like to talk and meet people, not the bad ones, but the ones that seem decent.

You remember a few moons ago that you had wandered off once and found an old man in a rotting cabin. You could tell he was a Rali... or so you learned when the man told you.

- "Hello."

-"..."

-"Uhm... are you a Skreë?"

-The man shook his head at you with an amused smirk on his face. "Have you ever seen a Rali before?"

-You don't quite remember it but you feel you shook your head as he responded. "Well, that's what I am. Us Rali don't get along with Skreë very well. Thing... I have never seen a creature with such a tail. You're not a Skreë and you're too tall for a Foss."

-You remember explaining to him that you were from the Tar of Life. You weren't sure if you were supposed to give such information as you heard back in the city from seeds that people hunt Tar creatures for their meat, tails, or have them as slaves, but he wasn't a Skreë. He was a Rali, and Müdr never mentioned them being bad or even the existence of one before.

-The man didn't seem upset with this information that you would usually expect nor was he intrigued. You saw no greed in this man's eyes, but rather pity. For some reason, that angered you. "I'm sorry," he gave you a sad smile. "Must be hard for you out here. I hope you have someone taking care of you."

-You looked at the man with shock. You never expected such a gentle tone from anyone besides Müdr. "I do," you nod hesitantly.

-"Are they around?"

-"I'm... I think so."

-The man narrowed his eyes at you before he sighed. "Well... hopefully they come get you soon. I don't want them thinking you've been kidnapped if I took you in. It's pretty chilly out here and I don't think that old coat is doing it for you."

-You only nod.

-"I have one in my house my younger daughter used to have," his eyes softened and became cloudy as if he was in thought. "There's no one else to use it now so you can have it if you like."

-"I can't take your daughter's coat," you stammered. "This coat is fine. I'm not cold."

-"No, you can have it. Here, I'll get it for you." He gets up briefly and stepped into the cabin. You still remember the sound of cold breeze as you shiver, the subtle croaks of the man's weight against the floor boards. He eventually comes back with a brown heavy looking fur coat. It looked to be your size. He hands it to you. "Here, take it. She won't need it no more."

-You timidly take the coat and nod your thanks. "Why are you giving this to me?"

-He gives you another one of his sad smiles, his eyes suddenly glistening. "I don't want another childe neglected to the cold."

-You open your mouth to speak before hearing heavy footsteps behind you. You turn your head to find Müdr looking at you across the snowy field anger ridden on her face. As she looked up to see the Rali man she tensed.

-The man chuckled and waved his hand dismissively at her. "It's fine. I'm no terrible Skreë. I gave him a coat for the cold. It will be better this way."

-Müdr only nodded, suspicion burning in her eyes. She quickly motioned you over and you clumsily stumbled after her. You waved the Rali man good-bye and soon earned yourself a irritating scolding by Müdr.

You now hope that man is doing well... You didn't even get his name.

You tug your fur coat tighter against your body. You wish you were at least polite enough to thank him back then.

As you walk across the landscape of trees, the snow begins to get deeper. It takes every bit of energy to trudge through it. Eventually you give up and decide to hunt. Your stomach is already twisting with pain.

You look to the trees in hopes of finding a secure branch high enough to hide your stuff. You wouldn't want the hunters or animals to steal your things. You know snow bibs will have a hard time stealing it since it's so heavy.

You instinctively move your hand to your hind side. This may be more difficult for you to climb without a tail for balance, but you've seen tailless Skreë climb trees all the time. Surely if they can do it, you can too.

Right...?

You shrug your shoulders and sigh. Spreading your legs into a stance to jump as you shrug that coat off. You jump on the trunk of the tree. You feel yourself slipping and begin to dig your nails into the wood to prevent it.

Usually you could grow your nails into sharp claws so you can dig in more efficiently but your tail plays a big role in that. It's the only link to your body jam packed with beast-like hormones. Since it's been snapped off, there's no juice in the tank to spread to your body.

It will grow back though. It's not like you've lost it forever and usually food helps it grow even faster. That's another reason you're so determined to hunt right now.

As you climb up the tree, making sure you don't make the wrong move to slip, you wonder if you could grow other parts of your body to send the same hormones to help. Or better, your body having an endless amount about everywhere.

Müdr told you that when you reach of age, you'll maybe be able to have more beast besides your tail.

To be quite frank, you don't know if she's ever saw another Tar creature in her life. You're pretty sure the only way she was able to get that information was by word of mouth, and the words of mouth were riddled with fear from the Skreë.

You feel yourself grab into a thick low branch and pull yourself up with all your might. Your stomach growls violently as you do, almost making you lose your grip. Yet, you stayed.

You toss yourself over the branch and sigh with relief allowing an accomplished smirk cross your face. You take the ends of your coat and tie it to the branch before hopping back down.

'Finally,' you think. Now that you have that done, you can go find some food.

You sniff the air, immediately scenting rabbit. You feel your mouth begin to water and excitement jolt through your bones but you stop yourself. You can't become too excited or you'll mess up your whole hunt.

You take a deep breath and look ahead. The thought of Müdr telling you she wouldn't interfere left a soft spot in your heart. She wasn't wrong about not interfering, as messed up as the thought sounds. She kept her promise at least.

It saddens you though just by thinking about it. Why did they have to be that way? Why do people treat the different so cruel? They say you are the monster but you're not sure if that's true now. A monster that barely hurt anyone unless necessary? Is that what a monster is?

You know if Müdr was still here, you'd ask that question. You wonder what her answer would be...

You shake your head.

There's no time for that now. You need to catch that rabbit.

You kneel down on all your fours and sniff the air once more. It's close and it doesn't seem to notice your presence since it's uphill. You ready yourself, arching your back like a cat and race after it.

~~~

"Looks like it got away," mutters a low voice. In view is a tall man wearing a silver coyote mask. His black cloak is covered in snow, dried blood, and fur. "I didn't think she was willing to give up her life for it."

A shorter cloaked sliver coyote emerges from the tree line. Long blonde hair threatens to fall in front of its face. They walk into the large clearing. The fire gate is now nothing more than charcoal now.

The smaller cloaked figure sighs. "Yep, that's what it'll get you. She did catch us off guard though," she grumbles. She side glances a smoking dead cloak only a few feet away from them. "Didn't know she knew magick."

Her eyes are cold as she moves her view to the torn body near the gates. The dogs still seem to be chewing on it's left overs, a forest of blood surrounding the area, soaking up by the snow.

"Maybe you should have checked her background before pressing on," the tall cloak snaps.

"Ulla, you saw me do it. I DID check her background. There was nothing about her magick in the files. She must have kept it secret the whole time. There was no trace on her records." She tries to not sound irritated by the man's tone.

"Well aren't Rali supposed to detect magick from other beings? Couldn't you tell by looking at her? I thought you would know, Kallwe?"

"Of course a Screë would be so keen on assuming something they know nothing about..." she glares Ulla with a sneer.

"Whatever," he huffs, frustration clear on his face. "I can't report Yafadil being dead without getting my throat cut..." he stares at her expectingly. "Since you're the only Sight in this group and apparently didn't see a trace of magick, I guess you can tell them what happened."

Kallwe sighs, "that's not how my Sight works."

"You should still report. Not only did you not see the potential threat, caused our tracker his life, but you also initiated the attack. It's still your fault whether you like it or not."

Kallwe ignores him and walks over to her dead companion's body to check his corpse. There are burn marks on his chest and arms. She vividly remembers him trying to shield himself from the electric blast, only to hear his sickening cry and the crackle of electricity. Burning flesh was smelled instantly as he fell to the ground and begun to convulse only to stop moving completely in a matter of seconds.

The woman on the other hand was only losing her life around the same time he did, swearing that if they touched her "seed" that she'd make sure to make them pay.

Thinking about it, Kallwe nearly laughs at the woman's nonsense that spouted from her gurgled dying throat. She peels his cloak back to see the direct hit was his hearts. The blast wide enough to make both of them implode internally.

"Yep, Yafadil's cooked," she jokes darkly.

She hears Ulla curse silently at her joke, clearly not amused. "Just shut up and call your dogs back to the Whale."

She whistles a sorrowful tune as she looks over to her dogs. They all stop their eating, howling to her song before having a dark mist swallowing them into the ground. The only thing that remained left was the mutilated body of that witched Foss.

"Never thought I would dislike a species so much," Ulla mutters.

Kallwe gets up and walks toward Ulla, a twisted smirk on her face. "Screë dislikes anyone and anything that is not one of them. I don't see what you mean," she laughs tauntingly.

Ulla growls under his breath. "Yafadil was a Sulker and I liked him..."

"Sulker are subspecies of Skreë so that doesn't count. Also," she looks back at the body to the tall hooded figure with a grin. "He's dead now, so you have no one you like anymore."

Ulla says nothing and simply turns and walks away toward the forest clearing. After a few paces, he pauses. "You will report to 'them'. Take care of the bodies, too. We can't have wanderers panicking and telling the High Aspects, now can we?"

"Whatever you say, Screë."

He walks away.

Kallwe looks into the forest where you target has ran only a few hours ago. She thinks that he couldn't have made it far without his caretaker. Tomorrow after the morning report they will surely be able to track him again. They won't have their tracker but they do have their assassin and Sight. It will just make the job more tedious, but she's sure he's somewhere close by.

She walks up to the mutilated corpse near the gate. As she looks down, she sees her severed head looking up blankly in the sky. Agony and anger was ridden with dried bloodied tears. Her hair is silver and her pale complexion and eyes are beautiful.

It's pitiful that she chose something so stupid. If she handed the boy, she would have been able to walk away, maybe forgetting about him and have a beautiful family of her own. Unfortunately, she was a stubborn bitch.

'Good riddance,' she spat on her cold dead face and walks to the other body parts.

She gathers them all in a pile and begins to light them up with violet flame. Red smoke sails into the bleak atmosphere as burning flesh becomes potent in the air.