"Sorry, can I ask you some stupid question?" WingedMonstrocity87691 wrote in chat.
"Shoot away, but I don’t promise that I will answer it." Annie typed on a keyboard, rolling her eyes. Tons of weirdos were asking her… not very pleasant questions about the Tribe. She wondered if this one was one of them. The nickname sure is checking out.
"Is it true that wolfkins have breasts?" Words came on the screen, and Annie sighed. Yeah, you sure sound like some weirdo.
"Yes, we do, but we rarely feed our cubs with milk from them." Annie wondered why she was doing this. It was her job, yes, but some topics were… unpleasant for her, "You see, females in our Tribe usually have five to seven cubs. Twin tits just ain’t cut it to feed all of them. For this, we have a set of organs at the sides of our bellies. If you want to, I can send you a link to a description of our anatomy, but in short, after successful mating, our bodies begin the production of milk. In the Tribe, it is one of the first signs that wolfkin will bear cubs. Really, our breasts are mostly a redundant organ, a quirk produced during toe." Annie cursed slightly, after she wrote "toe" instead of "ToE" which stands for Time of Extinction. Evening was coming and she was getting tired.
"Yes, send the link if you can. You see, I rarely leave the house, but I am trying to write a book about the abnormals and normies of the Ravaged Lands, about societies here and traditions and stuff like that. Will it be okay if I visit one of your villages? I mean, will I be safe?"
"We don’t eat travelers)))" Annie wrote in response, thinking that, unlike normies, wolfkins at least had some standards, "But be warned though. We have no hotels, almost no place to stay, and barely anything to see. There are no shops either, but if I am still around, and the village is still here, I can show you around."
"The village can go missing?" came the question from WingedMonstrocity87691.
"It can be relocated, yea. We are always looking for a better place to breed cusacks, our main source of meat." Another redundant thing. Wyrm Lord provided the Wolf Tribe villages with aplenty of food. But old traditions refused to die out.
She heard the door opening behind her and allowed the chat bot to take over from here. She had better hurry to leave the place, or Zero will be angry at seeing her work this late again. She swiveled her armchair to greet the newcomers. The warlord came today in full armor, even wearing one of her cloaks. Another warlord came beside her, Dragena herself. The second warlord was dressed in a simple white shirt without sleeves and camo shorts, but she wore no boots on her feet. Twin belts ran across her waist, holding a single sheath with a blade in it.
"Annie, from this day onward, you will serve Dragena. If you want to transfer, of course." Zero spoke calmly.
"Have I done something to anger you, warlord?" Annie hurriedly jumped off the chair, bowing low to the newcomers. The spacious room was suddenly small when two such large beings came inside. Annie desperately bared her neck to the warlords, trying to look as submissive as possible.
"Nothing like this. You handle your job quite admirably, in fact." Zero walked to the terminal, checking recent posts about tribal celebrations and traditions. Of course, some things, like the number of deaths in pits, were hidden from outsiders, but slowly, ideas of Zero were coming to fruition. Much to Annie’s frustration, normies became frequent visitors in the village. Where before they were afraid to come and trade in the village, now they were coming wide open. Shamans grumbled at this, coming into righteous fury each time they saw cubs coming to talk with traders, but admitted outsiders for now.
Zero wanted outsiders to stop being afraid of the Wolf Tribe. She wants the Tribe to accept normies and other new breeds. Why exactly she wanted it, Annie had no idea, but what Zero wants, Zero will get if this is within Annie’s power.
"But I have eyes," Zero giggled lightly, pointing at the solid surface of her helmet, with no lids or lenses for eyes, "I can see that you are unhappy here. Dragena has a spot open in her pack. It will be hard, Dragena is as cruel as every other warlord…"
"Lies," Dragena snapped, sizing Annie with her brightly lit amber eyes. Power was rich in her, it set her eyes aflame, turning her pupils into bright orbs of fire. Her hair was cut short to match the length of the rest of her fur. Not a single scar marked her snout, "Never in my life had I laid a claw on a subordinate. But the rules in my packs are the same as in others. You will be tested. Your rank will be challenged. Others will try to dominate you. You will be beaten and might even lose your rank, ending with you having to claw your way back to the top. Is this what you want?"
"Yes!" Annie said, feeling a mix of fear and excitement rising in her. Field! Actual work in the field! A chance to become a soldier, a chance for revenge!
"One thing to clear out. I admit that I spied on you for a few days," Dragena casually admitted, and Annie shuddered in surprise. Surely the warlord was jesting. No one so big could have stayed hidden, right? "I saw that you act strange, each time you are near humans from outside our Tribe." Dragena leaned her huge body forward, looking directly into the eyes of Annie, "Will this be a problem?"
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"I don’t know." Wolf hag Annie answered honestly. She dared not to lie to this sea of flame in the eyes of Dragena.
"We shall see." Dragena nodded.
"Just keep in mind, if the situation becomes unbearable, you can always come back. There will always be a job for you here." Zero added quickly, raising her paw as if to put it on the shoulder of Annie, but then stopped.
****
"And you are supposed to be a wolf hag?" Kayleen laughed as she heard Annie introduce herself.
"That is correct. From this day on, I am your commanding officer. Pleased to meet you all." Annie responded with worry.
They were on a military base, some fifty kilometers away from the village that served as home for Annie for so long. Base was a weird place. In areas controlled by normies, discipline was pristine, everyone spoke with respect and duty. Soldiers were positioned on walls, patrols were heading out into the wastes on their daily routine.
In the areas controlled by the pack of Dragena, the situation was different. While each wolfkin becomes a disciplined soldier in the presence of the warlord, when wolfkins have any free time on their paws, they spend time dominating each other. Strong dominated weak, prompting weak wolfkin to head out for training, determined to reclaim their pride in the next scuffle. Bruises and wounds covered wolfkins, healed in a few days, only to be received anew.
Annie was given a smaller pack to lead, with fifteen members in total. Dragena warned her that she would be tested. Annie just did not expect that she will be tested on her first day here.
Kayleen, scout of Annie’s pack, stepped forward, as the rest of the members of the group formed a circle around the fighters. Kayleen had spotted fur, not that much unlike Annie, she wore no shirt or boots, just military style pants. One of her breasts was missing, a huge scar was in its place. The lips on the right side of her snout were covered by thick scar tissue. Kayleen put her left hand behind her back and beckoned Annie with her right paw, inviting Annie to attack her.
Annie swallowed drool in worry, taking a stance, raising her paws before her snout. Wolfkins in Dragena’s pack do not use claws and fangs. This was one of the rare rules that Dragena always imposed on her pack. Claws and fangs leave torn wounds, forcing soldiers to be out of service for too long.
Annie punched with her right paw, aiming to make a feint. She intended to allow her fist to almost reach the jaw of Kayleen, then pull her fist back and punch with her left when Kayleen will be distracted.
Instead, Kayleen caught her by the wrist, twisting the hand of the wolf hag as she dragged her closer, following with a kick into the left knee of Annie, forcing Annie to fall on her knees from pain. The wolf hag gasped from pain, when Kayleen released a hold on her wrist, just in time to beat aside a weak punch from the left arm of Annie. The scout followed up her fluid movement with an elbow to the snout of Annie, causing the wolf hag to throw her head back in pain. As the elbow moved back, the palm came in, landing a heavy chop into the throat of Annie, taking away the ability to breath from the wolf hag for several long moments. All this time, the left hand of the scout was behind her back. Just one hand and one leg were enough to utterly destroy Annie.
Annie fell on the stone floor, gasping for air desperately, as Kayleen stomped on her back. One, two, three, and four kicks were delivered, each kick was hard enough to crack the stone floor with the body of the wolf hag, forcing Annie to groan from pain against her will. Finally, the beating stopped for a moment, and Annie, still breathing badly, raised herself on her knees once more, looking into the merciless eyes of the scout.
"Weak." The left paw of the scout finally left her back, slamming her fist into the temple of Annie and sending her flying across the room.
Annie was splattered across the stone wall, slowly falling onto the floor when she heard the steps of Kayleen.
She is going to kill me! Annie thought, in a state of panic and embarrassment. Dragena brought her in just a few days ago, and yet Annie has already failed her warlord. Some soldier she is…
"Enough already, the cub learned her lesson." Kayleen came to a halt, turning toward the entrance, looking worried for a moment. Her fists trembled slightly.
A gorgeous-looking wolfkin lazily stepped inside the room. Her silk shirt and black pants were doing little to cover the impressive muscles underneath her blue fur. Black paint was used to make the eyebrows look more visible. Rings, made of actual gold, were on the fingers of the newcomer. Her smile was warm, yet her eyes betrayed only boredom in her mind. Moving like a figure made of water, she walked toward Kayleen.
"I am just making sure that the newcomer knows her…"
"Yeah, yeah," The blue-furred wolfkin raised her paw lazily, interrupting Kayleen's sentence, before looking down at Annie, "Hey, there scared cub. You want to quit and run back to mommy Zero, or will you move on?"
"I will become stronger. I will endure any burden." Annie tried to stand up, but fell as her left knee gave in. Both wolfkins before her grabbed her under the shoulders, lifting her up and holding her steady for a few moments.
"You?" Kayleen laughed in her face, sounding more like broken gears in a vehicle than a human being, "You will never be stronger. Etch this into your skull, before you force me to break you. Your position is mine. I am the strongest and the bestest! And this is how it always will be!"
"Wolf hag, please show warrior Annie to the shower, she needs to clean up the blood. Also, since you were the one who fucked her up, you will also take responsibility for teaching her how to properly clean and treat her bruises. After this, lead her to me." The wolfkin with blue fur said, before turning around.
"Wait," Annie managed to push the words out of herself, her voice sounding hoarse and rough. She struggled to stand on her own, prompting Kayleen to help her again, "What for? Who are you?"
"What for? Unless you missed something, the wolf hag intended to break you and your bones, knee and all. And yet here you are, almost fresh. You have endurance, kiddo, we will work on your form next. As for your second question… I am Carty. Just a lazy scout around here.", Carty sent an air kiss to Annie, before turning around and leaving.
At the age of thirteen, Annie had lost her rank and became a warrior in Dragena’s pack. Ever since that day, she trained for two years under the guidance of Carty without a single complaint.