Okay don’t panic. What do we know? We’ve met exactly two people who can use magic. Bastok pretty much seemed capable of destroying us as an afterthought. Nadeen seems like she might not count. This guy…

I was frozen on the spot. Every instinct in my monstrous body told me to kill and eat this man. Every rational thought my mind could produce said ‘run the fuck away’. We decided to meet in the middle which apparently meant standing very still.

“Erwin, what have you brought home with you?” the man asked. His voice was deep and resonant, and unlike Erwin, Nadeen and basically everyone I’d been eavesdropping on as we made our way here, who had English accents, he sounded almost Scottish. Until this point I had just been ignoring everyone's accent because frankly I couldn’t do anything about it. Actually, it should have occurred to me earlier but why does everyone in this place speak english?

‘Ugh. I fucking hate all this magic crap. Need a manual or something.’

“Ah, yes. We found Lady Binder here during one of our patrols.” Erwin said, clearing his throat a touch nervously. The other man, Thane, finally turned his gaze away from Nadeen to fall on Erwin.

“Get her a tent and see me after dinner.” Thane said, his tone of voice almost a whisper. Then he turned away from us.

That was apparently all my pea sized brain needed because the minute he was looking away from me I leapt at him. It was a completely involuntary reaction, something I did so completely without thought that I didn’t have the time to convince myself it was a bad idea. One minute I was sort of standing there, and then I was sailing through the air with my jaw cracked so wide I could feel it bumping against my chest.

‘Shiiiiit.’ was the only thought I managed before Thane - seeming to notice my approach, spun around with much more grace than someone that large should have. He lifted one clenched fist and - instead of punching me square in the face, which probably wouldn’t have worked but definitely would have been my first instinct if you ruled out ‘curl up into a ball and cry’ - he thrust his forearm into my maw like a crossbar.

Where I had been expecting the soft give of flesh as my teeth tore into it, instead I was met with an unexpected resistance, and my sawlike teeth barely penetrated at all. Instead, the force of my leap and my newfound relationship with the immovable object slammed my body forward. Again I was saved by my skulls questionable relationship with my spine, as my head remained fixed in place by the pry bar that was Thane’s arm while my torso whipped up and around.

Thane’s eyes glinted in the midday sun and the etchings on his necklace began to burn. That was the best way I could describe it. It wasn’t a glow, or any visible kind of light. There was no true visual effect that I could discern. But suddenly I was unable to look away from the intricate carvings as a sense of ignition washed over me.

Then my head hit the ground, as Thane leaned forward, trapping my still futilely gnawing mouth between his arm and the ground. I thrashed wildly, kicking and bucking with all I could. I scrabbled useless at his bicep, and when that didn’t work, tried in vein to angle myself to kick him square in the gonads. Before I could complete the motion Thane’s face hardened and he raised his other hand in a fist, preparing to bring it down on my head in a spectacular hammer blow.

I froze, imminent and sure death apparently being more than enough to help my mind switch tracks from ravening hunger demon to rational thinking man. Thane saw the change and his fist, still poised in the air above me, paused. Slowly, I raised my hands over my head in the universal sign for surrender. The muscular man above me squinted at the gesture, as though unsure of what he was seeing, so I gently tapped his forearm twice and pointed behind him - to where Thing Two had both of his fists raised overhead.

You know, in a lot of stories you hear people talk about measuring tense moments in heart beats. ‘Between one heartbeat and the next’ is a popular one. Those people are idiots. Anyone who has the wherewithal to measure their own heartbeat as a time gauge definitely isn’t in nearly enough danger to be worth listening to. Every fiber of being being was focused on Thane. Focused on searching out that feeling of ignition, that spark of something metaphysical happening. And then Thane grunted and carefully lifted his arm out of my mouth. I widened it as best I could so he wouldn’t get grazed as he did so, more because I wasn’t sure what the taste of blood would do for my self control than because I cared if he got hurt.

I made a gurgling noise at Thing Two, who lowered his fists to the ground, visibly stumbling as his unnaturally large upper body changed his center of gravity. Nadeen’s legs hung limply over one of his shoulders where he’d apparently lodged her like a particularly fleshy cell phone.

There was a telling silence in the camp, while the locals waited for their leader to say something. Thane pulled a ragged cloth from his belt and dabbed at his forearm where tiny portions of his skin had been scraped by my teeth, his other hand passing quietly over his necklace in the same motion. It looked like a practiced motion, like a swordsman checking their blade before a battle, or a cops hand falling comfortably on the handle of their gun. My gaze flicked from his forearm to his face as I contemplated my predicament. I had bitten through truck sized snakes made of bone like they were made of butter. My mouth might as well be a power tool for how much damage I could do to a living body I got my teeth on.

But this guy had only gotten a flesh wound. I might as well have stabbed him with a toothpick. Suddenly, I really didn’t want to be in this camp anymore. I was no longer confident I could kill my way out if something bad happened. Thing Two padded over to me, and I realized I was still lying on the ground. I’d have thought it was the natural instinct of a prey animal to play dead and be still, but honestly I don’t think Things have survival instincts.

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The burly man broke my reverie by leaning down until his eyes were level with my own. He had a strained look to him, as though he was conceding something even by acknowledging me.

“Stay your hand against the boy and my men, and I assure you the girl will be cared for demon.” Thane said, practically spitting the last words at me. It took me by surprise. Not the vitriol. I just tried to eat him, that was a fair response. But that he was addressing me directly and as another sentient being. Nadeen spoke to me occasionally ofcourse, but I’m sure at least half of that is because of all the trauma. I had assumed her tendency for terse, clipped sentences was because she was mad and sick - or just a bitch. She obviously knew I was smart enough to understand her. But the question becomes, exactly how smart does she think I am.

And why does this guy seem to know better after only a few seconds of interaction?

Slowly closing my still hanging jaw, I hesitantly nodded once at him. Apparently, Thane both accepted and disliked that, because a flash of anger passed over his face before it returned to its normal neutral look.

“Targe, Creek, grab a kit and guard the girl. The rest of you, get back to work!” Thane bellowed as he stood back up. He unceremoniously stomped towards the crowd of fearful onlookers, and began barking at them like a drill sergeant, delivering open handed smacks to anyone that didn’t get moving fast enough.

In mere moments the crowd dispersed, leaving only a shocked Erwin standing at the edge of work area, along with two men who I took to be Targe and Creek. The two were as unlike Erwin as I was. Thick, heavy-set men, with wary looks in their eyes, looking like it’d be easier to count the teeth they had left than the ones that were missing. They hustled past Erwin into the work area, towards one of the log cabins in the center of the village, and disappeared inside.

Erwin continued to stand stock still, staring between Thing Two and I, as though trying to puzzle out the answer to a question I didn’t know. If he was used to being around a guy like Thane, his cockiness when he ambushed us makes a bit more sense.

“Erwin!” came a sharp call from further in the camp. The blond man immediately came to his senses, and marched - literally marched off into the camp.

Moments later Targe & Creek trundled out of the building they had gone into. They came out covered in the rattiest leather armor I had yet seen - and the armor the locals had been wearing as they lead us here had looked second hand at best. There were jagged scratches across every available surface of the leather cuirasses, like someone had taken a box cutter to it while drunk. But as the two drew closer recognition dawned on me. Something had been cut into the armor all right - the same something that was carved immaculately into the bits of tooth hanging on Thane’s necklace. But these ‘runes’ for lack of a better word seemed much lower in quality somehow. Like a childrens drawing to Thane’s Mona Lisa.

I frowned at that, and tried to commit a few of the symbols to memory for later. Then I realized the two thugs were standing awkwardly a few feet away as though unsure of how to proceed. I snapped my teeth at them in exasperation and shooed them off, then began following them when the surprise in their faces died back down to their usual stony faced look.

Good help is just so hard to find these days.

We made our way once more through the tent city. People scurried too and fro around us, and if not for the empty space our guardians seemed to create as they passed I felt we would have probably spent much longer navigating the tight space. Ofcourse, I can’t attribute all of that to Targe and Creek. Everywhere I looked were men trying their best not to make eye contact with me, some of them going so far as to flee out of my line of sight when they realized I was looking at them. Word of my outburst must have gotten around, because significantly more of the fearful looks were directed at me now, instead of my much bigger, more dangerous looking brother.

Eventually we came to a tent just big enough that you could expect it to hold three people, if not necessarily comfortably. Of course, since Thing Two was much larger than an average person, the fit looked like it would be tight at best. The tent was made of a thick fabric completely unlike the polyester I was accustomed to. It almost felt closer to pitching a carpet than a real tent. As I shouldered my way through the flaps leading inside, Targe & Creek split up to stand ominously on either side of the tents entrance.

Protect us my ass. They were clearly here to protect everyone else from us.

Thing Two hunched his way into the tent after me and I glanced around for a place to put Nadeen down. She hadn’t made a sound since my… impromptu confrontation with certain death, and I noticed the dim sound of ugly snoring emanating from her. I’d have rolled my eyes, but the mechanics of the motion were so different for my weird contracting eye sockets that the few times I’d tried it had been extremely uncomfortable.

Instead, I trudged over to the two bedrolls I’d found in the corner and began peeling back the sheets on one so I could stack them together into a fluffier, overall more comfortable bed. I should have been more annoyed that they had only provided us with two places to sleep, but Thing Two and I didn’t really sleep anyway - not that I was going to go out of my way to make sure they knew that.

Waving behind me I had Thing Two put Nadeen down in the bed, pried the hunk of wolf bone out of her hands where it had been ever since she’d picked it up, and covered her with the blanket.

Eyeing the hunk of bone, I noted the very human looking teeth marks on it with some worry before setting it down on a nearby by table. This tent didn’t look newly put up. It looked… lived in. Like someone had recently been evicted from it and we were moving in to take over. Besides the writing table - which I found odd for a group of people I figured were probably bandits, and therefore, uneducated rubes - there was also a wicker basket in the corner nearest the bed.

Thinking I better find something to occupy myself with for awhile, I looked around for something to do. I couldn’t go outside - Lumpy and Dumpy standing by the door would probably either stop me or follow me around menacingly, just waiting for an excuse to deal with me. But there was nothing to do in here. Before all this had happened to me I would have slept to kill the time until something happened, but that was definitely out for obvious reasons.

That was about the moment it dawned on me that, even though I had been desperately trying to find somewhere safe to lay my head. Even though I had been bleeding myself dry, straining the very limits of my sanity trying to scrape together the willpower to find a bed and people. I had never, at any point, thought of what I was going to do when I was actually safe. I had just assumed that once I was safe and surrounded by people again I could somehow just… go back to normal. Whatever normal is anyway. It was getting harder to remember the further away I got from it.

The worst part was, now I was safe and the only thing I could think to do was fiddle with those runes to see if I could do magic. And the only reason I wanted to do that was because I wanted hunting for my food to be easier.

I dared to send a look towards Thing Two, and found him standing eerily still, his eye sockets widened to the max to accommodate the darkness of the tent. Like a puppet with his strings cut. Watching me pace the room.

He was hungry. Hell, I was hungry. And we were fucking surrounded by food. Thing Two knew it, I knew it. Hell, the people out there probably even knew it. That’s why they were so scared. If it was any Thing but me they’d be right too. My whole species was basically amoral killing machines. Piranha with legs and thumbs.

I felt my mouth start to water again as the stress of near death finally managed to filter itself out of my short term memory, and my instincts kicked back in.

‘Fucking figures. Finally find a safe place to stay and now all I can think of is leaving it to kill and eat something. I swear, if I ever evolve into something that can talk I’m going to invent McDonalds here.’