Elder's Meeting

But really, a surprising amount of things happen in a village of 1,000 or so in a singular week. The first thing on the agenda is usually a summary of the daily things that might happen. For example, one of the females just gave birth to a litter of bunnies, and two of the elderly had died. (Apparently, the shock of the female going into labor and producing rabbit kits was what killed her grandmother, and seeing his wife keel over like that made her first mate have a heart attack…to be fair, they were rather old.)

With six pups in the litter, the population was boosted by 4.

As compared to last week, where the population dropped by 6 due to the loss of several Wolf Guardians attempting to curtail a stampede shortly before my arrival. It makes sense in hindsight regarding how on-edge they all were.

They were also beginning to harvest en-masse a few of their crops and it was looking as though they were going to come up a little short, though how they counted what got harvested and kept track of everything was beyond me, and frankly a little bonkers. How they determined what to give to whom and how much was on a family-to-family basis and whatever scraps were leftover went to the unmated males in the central village. It was more important than ever that we needed paper.

I ended up slapping my palm against my forehead and Fredrick got mad again, huffing in the middle of his report.

"Oh, I'M sorry. Are we BORING you, Princess? Or, perhaps, you are just going to take issue with how we do things, again?"

I literally would have loved to just straight-up squash this old, little bug, but Gharret squeezed my arm gently (which he'd had a lazy hand on this entire time) as a warning, so I bit back my original scathing comment and had to recalculate how I was going to go about this conversation.

"No…and yes. To each question in turn," I replied simply, then beamed a pure ray of fucking sunflowers at his dumb, old face, with the brightest smile I could muster. He grumbled and it only seemed to piss him off more.

"Well? Do you plan on sharing? Interrupting us more than you already have?!" he snapped at me again.

I swallowed back a hard lump of curses and insults that had tried to crawl out of my throat, cleared it, then smiled and shook my head.

"Not at this time." I beamed at him again. It kind of worked…?

He smirked and stuck his nose in the air and gave a haughty snort.

"I see you've finally learned your place, then, Outsider."

Oh hell, it worked TOO well! THIS old bastard thinks I got reprimanded by Gharret or something. To the point where I'd be content to be verbally abused by this dusty, old, wrinkly, dried up, broke-ass WALNUT. I'm over here trying to be CIVIL and NICE, yet his crotchety butt decides he's gotta go throwing his luscious mane of MALE-PATTERN OLD MAN BALDNESS thinking he's goddamn Fabio like he OWNS my ass.

I opened my mouth to repeat last week's session of WHIPPING…

"You've crossed a line, Fredrick. I'm putting my foot down," Vernon growled before he stood up. Caroline was right beside him in getting up out of her chair.

"How dare you speak to my daughter like that, anyway?! Have you no respect? She's trying to display reverence and yet-"

"She deserves it! I still don't trust her! She ran me out of the last meeting and now she's corrupted our chieftain and who knows what manner of secrets she may be funneling to the Empire?!" I yanked my arm free of Gharret's grip and jumped to my feet, stomping the heel of my boot on the dais so that it echoed.

I found out entirely on accident last week that that dais is actually fairly hollow and built to be less of a stage and more of a giant-sized gavel for whenever Gharret needed to get everyone's attention. It's kinda genius.

The BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!!! of my heel echoed loudly in the hall, silencing everyone in the wake of the explosive sound.

"Enough," I growled, before glancing to Gharret, who took that moment to stand and looked as though he were about to shield me. Instead, I placed my hand against his chest, applying the gentlest pressure and giving him a smile. "Gharret…remind everyone who you are."

"Zion…-" he started, frowning. I only smiled at him until he sighed and bobbed his head. "I am Gharret, Chieftan of this village." I nodded.

"And who am I to you?"

He paused for a moment, blinking at me. He wasn't sure what I'd meant until I laid my hand over my heart, where my mark was. He swallowed hard.

"My mate."

There was the soft sound of a handful of gasps and I did the honor of pulling the collar of my dress down enough that the mark could be seen on my chest. Fredrick went pale.

"And who rules…YOU?" I asked, though my voice had become pointed… Gharret seemed to interpret it slightly differently as he blushed slightly. I reached my hand out, pressing my palm against the bare skin of his left pec.

"Y…You. You rule me. You are my chosen mate…and you have accepted me." He swallowed hard and I smiled even wider.

"I rule you…and you rule this village…that means…I'm above Fredrick in the rank of importance, right?"

Silence fell heavily on the hall as everyone stared in sudden realization at the monster that had been created. They seemed to have forgotten that I am no ordinary female and I refuse to sit idly on my ass all day just to pump out babies for them.

Fuck. That.

I ain't no factory.

I turned my attention back to Fredrick, who gasped. The look on his face was one of absolute terror as I smiled widely at him.

"Thank you, Fredrick. With everything else on my plate and significantly more important things to do, I just have forgotten MY PLACE...However, you enlightened me. I thank you."

There was a long beat of silence before Fredrick slumped back in his chair and passed out.