“No buns today, I’m afraid,” Scoresby said as he returned from the wagon with his supply of travel food and offered me what looked like dried meat. “Millie, my daughter, she’s not fond of baking like my dear Marlen.”

“Oh, I see. That’s okay.” I replied, unable to keep the disappointment out of my voice. That sweet bun was a treat for my starving taste buds and a caress for my hurt soul.

‘Who doesn’t like sweet stuff, right?’

Yet, my mouth watered just looking at the dried meat in the old man’s hand. And no wonder. For three days, I had nothing but vines and a few nuts - after some bargaining; the squirrels let me take the ones that fell on the ground.

“Thank you,” I said, taking a bite of the offered food even before I had finished speaking. The tang of the salted meat melted on my tongue, sending my taste buds to new heights. If I didn’t have Sage wrapped around my waist, protecting my privates, I’d be wiggling her behind me, happy as ever. Seriously, this was the best morning I had in a long, long time.

Good food, no agonizing pain, a fire crackling in the old hearth of the inn warming my body, someone else treating me like a human being and not a test subject to talk to, not to mention this whole place. Sure, it wasn’t a five-star hotel, but neither were the stone walls of a poorly lit cellar, seen through the iron bars of a small, cramped cell.

Speaking of iron, nothing was restraining my neck, nor my mind. That damn collar now lay who knows where in the forest. And thanks to Scoresby, the same was true of the suppression chains. Though, I didn’t throw those away. I really, really wanted to. But instead of getting rid of them, I put the shackles away on a crumbling wall, ready to be used as nutcrackers.

‘Oh, and best of all, I didn’t turn into a beast.’

Simply the best morning I’ve ever had in this world.

Another bite of dried meat, and I purred with bliss.

‘Bloody fucking shit! Did I “speak” too soon?’ What came from deep inside me was a purr, a real purr - the kind that cats make when they are happy.

“Well, well, I wish all women were that easy to please,” Scoresby remarked, amused and clearly blind to my horror. Of all the things I got rid of, the beast was not one of them. Mercifully, though, after waiting a bit while ready to flee at the slightest hint of the urge to pounce on the old man sitting within arm’s reach of me, I threw myself at the rest of the dried meat instead. The beast part of me was just happy, nothing else.

“Seeing you, girl, it’s a shame that this is all I can offer you. But lighting a fire here in Esulmor is as far as my courage allows, let alone daring to cook anything.”

“Lest you disturb the forest, right?”

“Exactly. Better not to push your luck too hard.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

That the fire wouldn’t disturb the forest still struck me as odd, but I guess when Scoresby talked about it, he was referring to its “caretakers”, the mossbears, not the trees. It wasn’t hard to imagine then that the smell of food roasting on the fire would attract more than one here - after all, the mere thought of tender roast meat made me drool.

“Ehm...about that,” I said and, after wiping the drool away and eagerly taking another piece of dried meat from Scoresby. “What do those mossbears actually eat? I haven’t come across any other animals besides the squirrels.”

“That’s because nothing else lives in this forest.”

“They hunted down all the animals?” If so, it made even less sense that the one I met didn’t eat me.

“Well, who knows? For as long as I can remember, Esulmor has always been the domain of the mossbears and nothing else. I mean, what else would want to live here except for critters that the beasts don’t care about, right?”

With my mouth full, I gave him an awkward shrug.

“Oh, forgive me, no offense meant. But I have to ask: Were you planning to live here, Korra?”

Swallowing a bite, I shrugged again. “Would that be so bad?”

“That depends,” he said, a sorrowful gleam in his eyes. “As a father of a daughter, it would break my heart to know she lives like...like some beast. But I’m not your father, Korra, and if living here makes you happy, then stay here.”

‘Shit. Damn you, old man.’ That hit me so hard that I lost all my appetite. The only solace I could think of was that my father and I were separated by who knows how many light years. It would take a hell of a leap in interstellar travel technology for humanity on Earth, or the bug’s mercy, for him to know how badly his daughter fared.

“Well, it’s not like I wanna stay here. But where else could I go?”

Scoresby grinned as if that was the question he’d been waiting for all along. “You could come with me to Castiana, girl. It’s a Labyrinth City west of here. While not far from the border with the Kingdom of Arid, I’d say it’s one of the safest cities in Sahal - I know of.”

“A city?”

That sounded like a lot of people, strangers the thought of which terrified me - something Scoresby didn’t miss.

“What about Granhill, then? It’s a town at the other end of this Old Road, much smaller than Castiana, but garrisoned by Imperial soldiers. You wouldn’t have to worry about your safety there, either.”

‘Soldiers?’ On the one hand that sounded tempting, on the other I had no idea about this Empire or whatever. For all I knew, this could have been the very country under whose nose Dungreen carried out his atrocities. And even if that wasn’t the case, there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t be interested in me - or rather my messed up body. After all, even that bitch thought it was rare for a human to have a beast core in their body.

“D-do you happen to know a place with only a few people... and even less soldiers?”

Scoresby chuckled. “That would be the town where my daughter lives, Brose. A very nice place, north of Grandhill at the foot of the Granora Mountain Range.”

“But?” There was an unmistakable but in his voice.

“Well, I kind of understand your caution, BUT if you want to live in Sahal, you can’t do without a Citizen Card. And only a few places in the Egerton Barony are permitted to issue them. Actually, Castiana and Granhill are two of only three.”

“You know, living here doesn’t sound so bad.”

“I’m sorry, Korra. I really am. I wish it were simpler, but these are not easy times. If you want, I could take you to Castiana right now. However, I won’t be passing through Granhill to Brose until next week.”

Biting down on my lower lip, I pressed my wings closer to my chest. “I see. I think I’ll need...c-could you give me more time to think about it?”