A girl

The howler looked about him in the darkness, knowing it was dangerous to be out here hunting even for a large animal. These plains of Ptead. He had done his best to stay away from the scents of the larger animals but his chances of finding prey had been diminished and he had dismissed the idea, keeping to the shadows as best as he could. Not only was he in danger from larger predators, he feared walking into a trap. He remembered being trapped in a tiny cage, unable to leave . He shuddered at the memory of standing in his cage with a thoroughly cleaned bone from his captor and a few scraps to keep him alive. The memory of that particular time still haunted his dreams, and it felt like he was reliving the nerve racking experience whenever he thought about it.

Presently, he feared running into a werewolf the most. Werewolves in the planting season were purported to be much more aggressive especially when the blood moon was all in its fullness; he did not wish to run into one, much more be surprised by one. It was nothing if he saw it first, the problem was if it pounced on him from behind. He had seen it first hand to not entertain any hope of survival.

He touched a paw to a suspicious patch of grass, retreating with the reflexes of a cat. He had seen the telltale signs of a set trap and thought he had come to it hopeful of making away with the kill before the owners arrived. He looked around for a stone, and finding it, lounged unto the patch.

The trap sprang around the stone. He jumped out of the way to avoid the bamboo spikes which missed him narrowly. Sometime ago, out-manoeuvring such a set trap would have brought him a pat on the back; he could still hear laughter in a distant memory that did not feel real anymore, more like a taunt now.

That was enough for one night. He turned on his way back to the cave they were camped, choosing to go around the swamp in hope that by some chance, he would find a fish in the mud to take to the girl.

He did not like to think much about her if he could avoid it. She was like a hollow filled up by the rain to disappear when the sun was high. He did not believe the witch's promise of unswitching her either. She, like him was taking advantage of the girl's desperation to get what she wanted.

He pushed the thought aside, unwilling to entertain the shreds of guilt that always gave him cause to rethink his plans, and he was unwilling to do any of that, not even for her.

His eyes moved absently about him in a look out for predators when he saw the dark figure ahead of him, right in his way. He wondered what it was and advanced, looking the darkened form from all sides to know what it was, cautious lest it was pretending to be dead.

Itwas a girl. He looked about him for any other presence, sniffing the air once, and then again. Swish. He lowered himself beside her, shaking her lightly, and when it failed, hitting her lightly on both cheeks intermittent. She did not stir. He looked around, hoping that someone else was about, but not finding them, returned to her side to check for a pulse. She was still alive. Unsure what else to do, and unsure of a worse idea than leaving her to the first animal to find her, he hefted her unconscious body from the ground and carried her with him.

He arrived at the cave, the girl over his shoulder, sweat gathering on his brow from the effort of lifting her all the way up. Kwase came over to him as he laid her down by the fire.

"Who is she?" "I don't know. Found her by the way like this."

"Wild animals?" She looked up at him from her position by the girl's side.

"Doesn't look like it." He felt her body for blood and without warning, ripped the front of her dress.

"What are you doing?" Sheila said between clenched teeth, putting her hand forward to stop him. She was staring hard at him and for a moment he stared back.

"I am only looking for bite marks or any kind of bodily harm."

"Sorry," she said, embarrassed at her reaction and turned back to the girl.

Close to her hip was the image of a lotus; almost invisible in the dim light of the fire was a clean suture, running across her stomach slightly above her navel, and up towards her ribs. He ran a finger over this. The girl did not move, neither did a moan or wince escape her lips as he had half hoped.

"What happened to her?" Sheila whispered despite their being alone. There was a single indecipherable word on her left arm in black ink.

Tera knew she had being branded, for what exactly, he did not know. He examined the ink; quite fresh, and recently done. An outcast. A convicted thief. A slave. She could be any of those. Of all her markings, the lotus imprint with the wind bore more significance to him. He looked closely. Not seeming to remember what the imprint meant no matter how much he tried, he got up and headed outside. Sheila hurriedly covered her and threw her fur trimmed cloak over her to keep her warm.

"What's the matter?" she asked him but he made no answer as he went out in a bit of a hurry.

The light from the tiny fire they had made lit his back in partial light as he sat at the mouth of the cave gazing down at the water below.

Turned from the light, his face was not discernable. From time to time, Sheila cast a glance at him, his back to them; there was an air of melancholy about him that affected her by much. She got up and went to him. He did not seem to hear her come until she was beside him, and he looked up at her a little startled by her appearance.

"How's she?" he asked. Sheila cast an imperceptible glance into the cave where the girl lay.

"The same as when you brought her in. What do you think is the the problem with her?"

Tera did not speak for a while. An imprint of a lotus in the wind had a meaning only now he could not remember. Red lotus. That signified life; Lotus in the wind brought up nothing. He thought about the crude stitches that suggested she had freshly been cut open. Nothing stirred in his memory and he wandered if being a wolf had done something to his brain.

"I'm not sure. I don't know why anyone would do that to a girl. "

She sat beside him. "Does her tattoo..., you know, her imprint have any meaning? You gave it quite an examination."

"I thought it would give us a clue about her but nothing."

There was a heavy silence and Sheila let her eyes wander to the water below, illuminated by the light of the moon giving it a glistening surface that shimmered lightly. The cave which they now camped was on a high cliff with steep sides and sitting so close to its edge made Sheila's head swoon lightly. She kept her eyes from the steep fall as she sat bedside him, but could not avoid the jagged glare of its side, and although she did her best not to think of falling from it, her mind would not let it go; wondering if the water below would break her fall if she tumbled over, or it would all end like it had with Sarun. She almost found the idea quite tempting, but averted her gaze to look at Tera, noticing at once the slight pointedness of his ear which she had not noticed before. Those deep black brown eyes still looked distant and aloof.

"How long many seasons have you lived?" He cast her a look devoid of expression but answered anyway.

"I have seen fifty four seasons of life. And how old would you be, Princess?"

There was a hint at scorn in his voice which made Sheila hesitate, wondering if he actually meant for her to answer.

"I am eighteen. I mean, I have seen thirty six seasons... Where I come from, we say years. That makes me eighteen."

He looked away from her, uninterested in her explanation.

"This is the longest I've seen you retain human form." He grunted in response. There was a time he would only take the wolf form to outrun an escaped prisoner who happened to be on horse back, or to attack or ward off one. He did not want to think about that; it only brought him regret - a restlessness on the verge of insanity that had engulfed him since his banishment. Now that he had finally gained admittance into Axtek without any detection, he did not want to think about a life that would soon be in the past. It had not been ingenuity on his part to fall in right after the Switch; hoping that the old portal would keep open long enough to let him through once she was through and it had succeeded.

"Don't you want to get some rest?" Sheila shook her head absently, staring as far as the darkness could permit.

The night sky was almost starless, the tiny blood moon finding it hard to keep the darkness away. It hid beneath the clouds momentarily to appear again, casting faint glows of red light. Compared to its harvest brother who shone brightly, this was a shy one.

Some of the loneliness that enveloped her most of the time was finding its way back as she sat in the dim light thinking of shy moons and seasons. There was not a room to hide in and cry.

"My mother and brother," she started, her voice a little hoarse with emotion. "I only hope she will be nice to them." She wanted to say more but couldn't, and instead, shut her eyes tight, willing the tears to keep ffrom falling. He heard the catch in her voice and turned to look at her briefly. Swish. Wolf. Swish. Man.

"It takes a lot to keep the form. I have not been able to keep it for so long since I left Axtek." He said in an attempt to take her mind off whatever was going on in there. He just could not deal with a weeping girl.

"Did you have any family?" Her voice had regained most of its control, although it still sounded forced to his ears. He inhaled deeply.

"A brother. Just a brother."

"Do you miss him?" His brother was the reason he was here, why he was locked out in the first place.

"No." He lied effortlessly. Secrecy had always been a weapon that served him well; the less she knew, the better for him. She startled him by laying her head on his shoulder. There was a time when such contact, especially from a woman of her beauty, would have been welcome. Now, he felt nothing more than an inclination to shrug her off, yet, he did not move.

"How does it feel like to be a howler?" Her voice was soft, almost dreamlike.

"It's great most times. I get to sleep in the King's bed when he is out." He half-smiled at the thought. "I try to accept my fate." His fate, he thought. Perhaps he had accepted it indeed. There was a time when he was bitter about being unable to transform at will and having to deal with the feeling of powerlessness he had afterwards; to be trapped almost completely in the body of an animal, but it all seemed like some distant memory now that he had made it it. He had been caged for sunrise after sunrise he ceased to count, by a hunter, and fed bones which were already licked clean. The thought of it always churned his inside, save for the memory that he had stalked the man and killed him. It was the first time he had eaten human flesh.

"I'm not sure I could do that," she said startling him out of his own thoughts.

She was much younger and could not understand that sometimes you had no choice, he thought. He'd had none. Hers was fortunately or unfortunately different. He inhaled once again choosing his words thoughtfully.

"You couldn't accept this fate even if you wanted to. A Switch has its time limit unlike a Morph. A Switch usually ends up badly." He thought it was better she knew what her chances were, and saw the effect it had on her. Some part of him felt sorry for her.

"You should go see if she is doing okay," he said, wanting to rid himself of her and her questions.

"Are you not cold?" She stood, looking down at him.

"I'm a howler." Swish.

The girl was still asleep when Sheila came in, and she peered into her sleeping face, fussing over her, tugging the cloak in places to make sure most of her was covered as much as possible. It gave her something to take her mind off the many worries that burdened her heart and made her want to give up. As she worked, her attention was drawn to the girl's cheeks which got hollow making the bones in them stand out. Before her very eyes the girl's plump face thinned considerably. It was to Sheila as though she was watching the decay process in fast forward; even the eyes were sunken and fluttered as though she was about to awaken. Sheila let out a scream