Suvdaa's arrow gleamed in the night, the barbed arrowhead glittering with the light of the stars as she took aim for a second shot. But the wendigo was not kind enough to wait for her to fire again. With its strange, keening, howl it broke into a sprint, heedless of traps now as its red eyes smoldered with murderous intent, bull rushing the tree that the girl in the bear skin cloak was hiding in.

She shifted her aim, but even with its injuries the beast moved with a speed that was inhuman, and it reached the tree before she could snap off a shot. The wendigo hit the trunk with enough force to uproot the tree entirely, but Suvdaa leaped to the next nearby tree in a jump that would have been impossible for a normal girl, vaulting through the air and landing on another branch, on her toes before she spun around to send her shot off.

She was fast- faster than Mau had ever seen her move- and the wendigo struggled to keep up, shrieking in agony as another silvery arrow embedded in its other leg.

The wendigo wailed, a hideous song of pain, misery, and rage as it staggered on hobbled legs, but even still it refused to lay down and accept death. With strength bordering on Herculean, it uprooted another tree and swung it like a makeshift club. Mau watched with bated breath as it connected with the tree Suvdaa was in, but she was already gone by the time it made impact. Suvdaa hit the ground in a tumbling roll, skidding to a halt on her knees. Try as she might to get another shot off, though, the wendigo pressed her with another vicious swing of the tree in its grasp, forcing the silver-eyed raider to arch backwards, just barely ducking under the swinging log at the last second. This repeated several times, with the beast harrying Suvdaa, doing everything it could to prevent her from shooting it again.

What it had forgotten was that Mau was still there. And she still had one last firebolt in her.

Mau charged the tree-swinging monster, vaulting sideways over the hefty slab of lumber as it nearly caught her on a backswing meant for her friend, and she landed on top of it on her feet. Mau blitzed down the log before the Wendigo could even realize it was just ever so slightly heavier, and lunged for its face, palm outstretched.

"Firebolt!"

She unleashed the spell at point blank range into the wendigo's eyes as she somersaulted over its head. The thunderclap of the spell going off resounded through the woods as Mau landed behind the creature on her hands and knees.

"Suvdaa now!" Mau shouted.

But the wendigo recovered faster than either girl could have anticipated as it whirled around and belted Mau across the torso with a clawed hand. She could feel her ribs bruising as the sheer strength behind the blow dented the ill-fitting breastplate under her furs, and Mau landed in a crumpled heap in the snow, wheezing, winded, and stunned from pain.

"F-guhgck." Mau coughed in a breathless attempt to curse her failure, as another silvery arrow streaked through the air. The Wendigo jerked aside, turning a perfect shot that would have caught it in the heart into a graze across its meaty shoulder. It was on its last legs, but honestly so was Mau at this point.

Even Suvdaa was beginning to look haggard the longer the fight drew out, and she was forced on the defensive as the beast rushed her with flensing claws, attempting to shred the skin off her body in wildly flailing swipes and slashes, forcing her to back up rapidly in order to keep from being ripped apart.

Mau struggled to her feet, rasping as she clutched her side to try and stave off the pain from her bruised ribs. Stumbling, she staggered after the wendigo with absolutely no plan in mind on how to get its attention off of Suvdaa and no firebolt spells left on hand to pull its ire back to her, but if she just sat there and watched then they were both as good as dead.

It took her a beat to catch a full breath, and then Mau sprung into action, breaking into a hobbled run after the beast she did the stupidest thing she could think of... She leaped right onto its back.

Hooking her arms under its flailing limbs she sunk her sharp little fangs into its neck and held on for dear life. The monster hardly even reacted to the bite, only flailing harder to try and dislodge the annoyance from its back as Mau clung to it with every ounce of strength left in her body.

This was all the distraction both girls needed. Suvdaa knocked a silvery arrow to her bow and lined up a shot...

"DO IT!" Mau shouted while holding on as tight as she could.

Suvdaa hesitated.

"I SAID DO IT OR WE'RE BOTH DEAD!" Mau shrieked.

Suvdaa took aim once again...

The whisper of the arrow whistling through the air was all Mau could hear over the sound of her heart racing in her ears.

❧

"You... Become Od Tegri?" Mau pressed, confused and incredulous. "You become a moon goddess."

Suvdaa nodded. "More of a conduit for her, but yes. I lose all sense of myself and she takes over my body. I have no memory of the nights she comes, I just know that she goes out to hunt. She is the patron goddess of our hunters, she blesses our bows and our arrows, and gives us permission to hunt the prey made by the creator god Dai Ugan so that we may sustain ourselves with their meat."

Mau remembered what she had learned of the raider people's gods from their campfire stories, that they told the children at night. Dai Ugan was the creator and was represented by the sun. Od Tegri was his wife and represented the moon. Though they loved each other dearly, they were forced apart by circumstances beyond their divine control and roam the world constantly chasing each other's shadow, thus creating the cycle of day and night. Or so the story went.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Mau scratched her cheek thoughtfully with a finger. "So on the night of the full moon you become the avatar of a god and go out hunting for god knows what, and come back in the morning none the wiser of your own actions. ... It's not the strangest thing I've heard."

Mau had heard some pretty weird things and stories across her lives, after all. But Suvdaa hissed in annoyance.

"If you don't believe me then just say so, dumb cat." She spat.

But Mau shook her head.

"No no. Funny as it sounds, I believe you. So what you're saying is Od Tegri will be able to hunt and kill the wendigo." The kitten mused.

Suvdaa nodded.

"With her arrows blessed by the moon, she can deal a fatal blow to the beast." The raider said.

Mau slowly whistled through her teeth and took another bite of the fruit in her hand.

"Then I'll just have to get her the opening she needs to take that shot." Mau said.

❧

With a meaty thwok the gleaming silver arrow pierced the wendigo's hide, embedding deep in the beast's chest. Od Tegri's aim was true, her arrow pierced the monster's heart.

The wendigo jerked from the impact, and Mau could feel every muscle in the monster's back stiffen.

She could also feel where the arrow punched right through the beast and into her own chest.

Mau's vision blurred. She gritted her teeth as she clung to the wendigo's back as the beast suddenly went slack in her arms and began to teeter.

One final wailing cry to the night sky and the wendigo collapsed to its knees, clawed hands feebly scrabbling at the arrow embedded in its body that heralded its demise.

"H... How...?" It wheezed in disbelief. "Od Tegri...?" The monster hissed with its last breath as it toppled to its side, bringing Mau down with it hard to the ground.

"GUH!" Mau spat, coughing up blood as the arrow wrenched from her chest and she rolled away from the beast's rapidly cooling corpse. Stars danced before her eyes in bright flashes of agony as she quickly curled up into fetal position. Clutching the wound in her chest and rasping for breath, Mau rolled around on the ground in pain before she went limp.

She could feel her consciousness fading as the corners of her vision rapidly darkened into a tunnel. And at the end of that tunnel she saw Suvdaa crouching over her. Or... No. It was Od Tegri, silver eyes gleaming in the rapidly fading darkness.

"... Brave cat."

❧

Mau woke up to the familiar sight of the ceiling of a hide tent. She tried to sit up but was met with a sharp pain in her chest and decided that sitting up wasn't worth the effort. Slowly she shifted the plush fur blankets aside and glanced down at her chest. She had been wrapped in clean bandages, so she couldn't see the damage, but knew it must have been bad. The last thing she remembered was coughing up blood and feeling a lot of pain.

"You're finally awake... Dumb cat." Suvdaa's familiar voice made Mau's ears perk, head turning to face the other girl.

"You slept for three days." Suvdaa said. Mau... Wasn't surprised.

Cats sleep a lot.

"What... What happened?" Mau managed to ask, voice rasping.

Suvdaa shook her head. "... I don't remember. When I came back to my senses the wendigo was already dead and you were laying in a puddle of blood. I had to drag you and the beast's head back to camp. You are a lucky dumb cat. The arrow just barely missed your heart."

Mau didn't feel very lucky. But at the same time she internally felt like she got away with some kind of crime, by just barely cheating death the way she did, if Suvdaa was telling her the truth.

"I feel like shit." Mau said.

"Just don't throw up in my tent." Suvdaa retorted.

Mau shook her head, one hand brushing over her bandaged chest. "Nah. I'm not concussed, just in a world of pain." She said remembering the first time that she and Suvdaa had spoken.

"Yes, well," Suvdaa began, "when you're feeling up to it, my father has some choice words for you." She said frowning. "... He had some fairly choice words for me, too. But then we'll celebrate."

"Oh boy." Mau said, laying her head back. "I can't wait."

It was another day or two of resting before Mau was able to stand on her own power. Her chest still hurt thanks to the bruised ribs the wendigo gave her, as well as being shot, but she would survive and fully recover, so she at least had that going for her, as she hobbled out of Suvdaa's tent... And saw the Wendigo's skull-like head mounted at the entrance flap like a grisly trophy.

"Huh..."

The clan chief was not happy. Mau's ears splayed as she ate a lecture that lasted from sun up until sun down, but it ended with the man suddenly catching her off guard in a tight embrace that made her ribs ache.

If anything he was more worried than angry, she could understand that. Apparently, Suvdaa had gotten a similar verbal dressing down from her father while Mau had spent several days unconscious. But the clan leader was more relieved that the threat to his people was taken care of, and proud that it had been his daughters to do it, as he had apparently sometime over the course of their going missing to hunt the wendigo, decided to adopt Mau.

At first, Mau thought this might make things awkward between her and Suvdaa. Then she realized that things already were awkward with the other girl. This was mostly because she was pretty sure Suvdaa hated her guts. At least that was the impression that she had always given Mau, calling her 'dumb cat' and all.

The clan however was in high spirits upon learning that Suvdaa and Mau had, by themselves, defeated the terrible threat to their way of life, and that it would not be for a very long time before another such horrible creature reared its head to haunt them again, if ever. The celebration that followed began at sun up and went on long until after the sun went down; bonfires were lit, savory meat was roasted on spits, music played and the wine flowed freely from cup to cup as the raiders enjoyed their freedom and celebrated Mau and Suvdaa's victory over the terrible wendigo.

Mau sat in her usual spot, away from the center of attention, legs folded cross-cross as she sipped juice and slowly chewed on some smoked meat, when someone suddenly grabbed her by the scruff of the neck.

"Weh!" Mau mewled as she went limp.

"Dumb cat, what are you doing off on the side?" Suvdaa huffed as she hoisted the scuffed kitten and started dragging her towards the main celebration. "They are celebrating us, the least you could do is take part."

"That'd be easier if you didn't scruff me!" Mau squeaked, but try as she might her body refused to do more than wiggle impotently while Suvdaa had her grasped so firmly by the back of the neck.

Eventually, Suvdaa relented and relinquished her grasp on Mau's scruff, practically dropping her to the ground as she did.

With an irritable huff, Mau rubbed the back of her neck and stood up to the laughter of the clan, everyone clearly finding the moment all too amusing as Suvdaa had inadvertently made Mau the center of attention.

"... So now what?" Mau asked awkwardly.

"Dance with me." Suvdaa said.

Mau blinked, partially incredulous and partially bewildered.

"But I don't know how-" Mau barely finished speaking before Suvdaa had her by the hands.

"You'll figure it out, dumb cat." Suvdaa laughed.

It was a long, but fun, night.