“Nievtala give me patience and wisdom. Nievtala bless me with understanding and strength. Nivetala give me victory and power. Nievtala make me whole. Nievtala give me patience and wisdom. Nievtala…”

Repeated enraged prayers brought me no peace, and I only felt my fangs grinding harder and more frequently as I paced and prayed. Such a blindingly stupid moment, and here I was, looking at the maddening tallymark as my rage continued to soar and I considered the events of the night.

The next full week of trekking through the marshes became boring and easy as we spent the days trudging through the safest waters the Wave Wolfstags could find and the nights feasting on crocodiles that continued to easily fall into our basic traps. Since the hunts had long since been specialized and fine-tuned so that none of the hunters would be in danger, I instead took to sleeping, sometimes with Trai in my arms. Foire generally preferred to sleep with the increasingly adventurous child, but sometimes she wanted to lie between Sybil and myself and once she made that apparent, neither Foire nor my mate and I felt like telling her no.

It could almost have been called an idyllic week if it weren’t for that night. When Trai had begged to sleep with Sybil and I, we hadn’t hesitated or thought twice about it. After all, she slept with us about one of every three nights, it was a little adventure for the child who had learned how to walk and climb in the past week, plus Foire begrudgingly enjoyed the time to himself. I’d woken in the middle of the night to the sounds of the hunt, keelish screeches and crocodilian bellows filling the air. I couldn’t see anything, since Solia hadn’t been lighting torches or other fires after the hunters learned the little tells that let them see the crocodiles with our heat perception. Even so, I could feel Trai’s absence, and I reached a disbelieving hand out to make sure that what I thought I felt was true.

As my hand met nothing but air, I couldn’t hold back the litany of curses as I shot upright. Surely she was with Foire? He slept nearby, and as I stumbled over to him, my eyes fighting to give me any information at all, I didn’t feel her at all with my grasping hands nor my slowly shuffling feet. I reached Foire and didn’t sense her at all. With a quick nudge of my foot I woke him and he immediately shot to his feet. I couldn’t see him at all, but I heard him yawning the sleep from himself as he asked, “What’s happening Alpha?”

“I don’t know where Trai is. I just woke up and she’s not nearby. Would you look for her since I can’t?” I had long since mentioned what I was doing to those of my elites, and they had taken my announcement in stride. Even knowing that, Foire couldn’t keep the instant panic from spiking in his voice.

“How long has it been? What happened? Where have you looked? Do you–”

“Foire, just look for her. She’ll be fine.” I cut him off and reached a hand out to his shoulder but instead smacked his snout with the backs of my knuckles. Though accidental, the punch he received shook him from his panic, and I could hear him take a breath and begin to search for his daughter. I didn’t know exactly how it was that he used his magic or skill or whatever it was to find things, but I knew the signs, and his focus was total and complete. He began to stalk off, following some hunch or information that he had gleaned, and I stepped back to where Sybil still laid asleep. Since she never seemed to sleep enough, I regretted it as I made the decision, but I leaned down and gently shook her arm.

Just like Foire, Sybil was quick to wake, though she gasped in surprise at my touch. “What is it? What’s happening?” She pulled her arm out of my hand and stood, her head whipping back and forth as she tried to find out what the pressing danger was.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Trai’s gone. Do you know where she is?”

Sybil looked down, then her eyes ran wild around us, looking for any sign of the tiny runaway. “No, I… the last thing that I can remember was you singing to her. I believe that I fell asleep before she did.” Her tone was somewhat embarrassed, but I raised a hand to keep her from beginning to apologize.

“Foire is looking for her, can you lead me to Shemira? Maybe Trai went to listen to her singing.”

Sybil wordlessly reached down to take my hand and quickly led me to Shemira, who lay sleeping no more than 20 feet away.

“Shemira, wake. Quickly!” Sybil’s voice was surprisingly and endearingly emotional as she thought about the possibility of Trai being in trouble, and she gently kicked her sleeping friend awake. As Shemira fought against the persistent call of wakefulness, Sybil’s kicks began to rise in strength, until, on the sixth or seventh kick, Shemira woke with a grunt of pain.

“What Sybil?” No trace of her teasing or good humor colored Shemira’s voice, just a frustrated tired question.

“Where is Trai?”

“Haven’t seen her.” I heard Shemira flop back onto the ground, and Sybil frustratedly kicked the larger female again, harder this time, and a snarl began to color Shemira’s response. “I haven’t seen her! What do you want me to say?”

At Shemira’s affront to Sybil’s superior position, I couldn’t stop the beginnings of a threatening snarl from bubbling out of my throat, and that mixed with the sudden rage Shemira had felt seemed to purge the last of the temperamental pique tainting Shemira’s rationality.

“Wait, what’s going on? Trai is missing?”

Nearby, Foire’s worried voice began to carry over the constant sounds of the hunt, and my tired mind put the possibilities together. Without a delay or hint of regret, I watched the 17/18 change to 0/18 behind [Improved Vision] and my perception was suddenly awash with a sea of blue and green, punctuated by the hundreds of warm red and orange keelish bodies. If Trai was near the water, or worse still, in it, she could be in immediate danger. With a quick turning of my head, I looked for Foire, and his head was tossing back and forth, looking desperately for his daughter. I ran over to him, disregarding the several tails I stepped on in my haste.

“No idea where she is?”

Foire didn’t deign to respond, and though a small part of me was slighted by his inattention, I viciously tamped that down and instead I tried to center myself. Anger wouldn’t serve me here. I steadily drowned out the sounds of the hunt, of growing concern from the keelish who began to wake around me, of the insects and nocturnal life that populated the swamp. Foire was looking as best he could, how could I assist?

The feelings that had steadily become more and more frequent popped into my mind, and I closed my eyes and my perception, instead focusing on the tremors that I had begun to feel from other things on the ground, the vibrations and waves that movement made, and smaller than that, the occasional thundering heartbeat I could feel in the ground. I spread my awareness around me, searching for a faster, weaker beat, the sound of a child. With my eyes still closed, I slowly walked around, my focus on finding the lost child. If she was on this island, I would find her.

As I stepped closer to the top of the hillock, where I had slept originally, I felt a slight disturbance under the roots of the tree in the center. Then, as I opened my eyes and looked more closely at where I felt this slight heartbeat, I saw a little mound of dirt. Under it laid a peacefully sleeping Trai, the very tip of her snout poking out of the dirt as her breaths disturbed the loose dirt.

I began to curse my haste in changing my perception as Nievtala’s laughter washed over me. It was pure exuberance, and the feeling nearly purged me of my mounting rage as the absolute presence of my goddess’s amusement quaked through me and made my soul unwillingly soar. As her laughter began to fade and I began to get some measure of control over myself, the Administrator decided I hadn’t been laughed at enough, and sent me her laughter. Then, to add insult to injury, I received a [System] notification:

[New Skill acquired.]