Chapter 27: Storm
“Wow...” He slipped his amazement as he tested one of the window seals. The light plank slid closed over the opening and seated into a slot for it, completely cutting off the wind from the brisk air outside. The roof was well made and even had tiling on it as a form of shingle to protect it from moisture leaking through. The tiles were coated with the pressed moss secretions that acted as a mildly hydrophobic glue so that any rain would just roll off the roof and onto the ground without worries of water damage. The walls were flush and had small designs in them that mirrored the internals of the trees that they had been cut from. The floors were smooth and given a similar treatment to the roof and exterior walls to make spills easier to clean up while sealing down any potential splinters.
The building was large enough to house maybe ten occupants with enough room to easily walk about without encroaching on personal space. Maybe more if they worked on bunk beds. The centre of the room was home to a fire pit that would warm the building and there was a smoke chimney above it in the ceiling to vent the smoke so that no one would suffer from inhalation of the fumes. Cut rocks were lining the pit in a smooth gradient with channels gouged into them to allow greater airflow to the lower embers. Even without a fire currently lit, the whole place felt several degrees warmer than the ambient air outside.
“You guys really... Just... Wow.” He blinked a few times while he appreciated the barracks. It had taken them most of a week to finish both buildings, a time frame that was far shorter than he was expecting, and only another two days to make the adjustments inside each so that they would be perfectly functional. There were no beds for people to sleep in and the production building lacked any work tables currently, but they don’t actually have any work to be done or people to house in there yet, so it wasn’t much of an issue.
Harrow grinned from ear to ear, an impressive feat for a creature whose ears are located on top of their head. “The water-proofing was my idea.”
Joseph glanced at her before marvelling at the level of precision showed with the woodwork. Mama was an absolute monster when it came to carpentry and he would bet his life savings that any construction company would pay top dollar to have her for a day.
“You guys did amazing. I’m a little disappointed that i was too busy to come check on this personally. Did you guys run into any issues? Pan just kept telling me everything was going well and... Well, I’m inclined to believe her.” He opened and closed the door as he spoke. The hinges functioned well and the pins to hold them together were tempered ironwood so he had little worries about it breaking. It might expand when the weather heats up but until then he was happy with the result.
“Actually, no. Everything went better than any of us expected. Way faster too. Pan kind of kept us on task as soon as we finished whatever we were doing and sent us off when it looked like we needed a break. I can see why you wanted her in charge when you’re busy.” Harrow scratched the back of her head with a complicated expression on her face.
Joseph shook his head. “Even i didn’t see this coming. Speaking of; where is Pan? She’s been making herself scarce since the other day. Normally, she’d wake me up or something but she’s been on a different schedule or something.” He turned to Harrow with a curious eye.
“She’s been sleeping with the Atmo, i think.” Harrow tapped a claw to her cheek. “Since you started iterating on the bow, at least.” She shot him a grin. “Was she keeping you up at night?”
He gave her an unimpressed look. “Your bond with Jax is screwing with you.” A roll of the eyes met her pout. “I guess she was worried i wasn’t sleeping great because of her or something. I’ll ask when i see her. How’s the latest revision?”
Harrow shrugged her shoulders. “It’s a lot better than the first few. The arrows actually go somewhere now, but the draw strength is a bit high for me. Jax, Nalah, and Sahari should be fine with it though. I’ll work on a different composite for the string later this evening to push it even harder. We’ll want all the range we can squeeze out of it, but it won’t be any good to us if the string snaps.”
“Sounds good. I need to ask Jax for his input on defensive applications and equipment. A shield or something. Maybe a buckler. We need something that won’t get too in the way if our weapons break.”
“Can i have him back soon?” Harrow tossed her arms in the air with a whine. Joseph ruffled the fur between her ears with a chuckle as she calmed down.
“Yes, yes. I’ll give your boyfriend back once him and Nalah finish up the last section of the fence. You two can have whatever fun after, i won’t ask questions.” He thought for a moment before glancing at her. “Though for the love of god, keep it behind closed doors. There are some things I’d rather not know.”
Harrow crossed her arms behind her back and leaned towards him with an upwards glance and far too many bats of her eyes. “All you need to do is ask.”
“Nope. Come here. Bad Harrow!” Joseph raised a hand and reached for her top with an implied threat to spank her. She quickly yelped and ran through the door with a massive grin.
“Help! Joseph’s has turned into a pervert! Run for your lives!”
He burst out laughing and heard another voice joining him in the doorway. A quick check between breaths showed Tel almost doubled over in her own amusement.
“Hey Tel. What’s up?”
A cursory glance was given before she adopted her usual swaying walk to his side with no acknowledgement of his question. He sighed internally when he had to remind himself that it was much harder to talk to people when they didn’t speak your language.
“Fine. I’m assuming you’re here because you ran out of shit to do. I guess I’ll refrain from chasing you off until we find someone to translate or you get bored. Whichever comes first.” He left the building and held the door for her. “I have a few things to do in the meantime, starting with the map Harrow was working on.”
Tel simply followed him out. The usual tail that would brush over him was instead idly doing loops behind her as she looked around with a somewhat bored expression. He figured that she had already done all the preparations for the meals that day and had just returned from checking the snares. She really didn’t have much else to do at the moment and the remaining construction work had been dialed back since everyone worked so hard to get the essential bits done as fast as possible. That was fine. As far as he was concerned, they could all use a break.
The hub that had been a bustle of activity recently with wood processing and constant movement was back to normal function as a general recreation area. No one was there at the moment, save for a sleeping Violet who was dozing on the couch and gave them a lazy greeting. Sahari was catching up on sleep and Pan was back to working on clothing for everyone while Jax and Nalah were possibly trying to ignore Harrow suggesting that he had become a lecher in the few moments she had between prototype testing.
Against the back wall on a large table laid the tablets that Harrow and Nalah had scratched the sections of a map onto. They had been assembled for everyone to reference or place markers onto to quickly update areas with information of activity, the placement of snares, any curiosities, or planned expansions. As of right now the map was missing two sections to be perfectly square since they had to abandon the project temporarily to ease his anxiety, but Joseph was more than willing to head out himself and etch the areas while everyone else caught up on sleep and relaxation.
He confirmed the fitment of each piece, making doubly sure where he needed to go to finish it before gathering some tablets and a hardened tip chisel for making the markings. Tel stayed near him, idly inspecting the map and placing a few of the ring markers roughly where the snares he was aware of were located and several in new locations. It would help for people that needed to pass through those areas to know if they were going to need to keep an extra eye out for the fabric markers or if there were more snares that unfortunately were unmarked to begin with. He nodded to her when she noticed him watching her, to which she returned an absent smile and a lazy flick of her tail.
He had noticed her spending more time around him directly recently. What once was the occasional visitation had become somewhat of an escort whenever she wasn’t busy. He wasn’t sure why exactly she had began passing the time by watching him work or following him around, but she hadn’t be overly forward with him and didn’t interrupt his tasks so he wasn’t going to complain.
“I’m mapping this area.” He pointed to a blank spot near to the cavern tablet. “I want to get these done so Harrow and Jax actually have time together. I’m starting to feel bad that they’ve been separated, for the most part, since i insisted on this whole thing.” He finished by gesturing towards the recently completed constructs out the window. Tel watched him with a flicked ear but didn’t reply or really seem to follow what he was saying. He mostly had gotten into the habit of thinking out loud when he first started talking to Violet and Mama all those months ago and it was hard to turn it off. He had an audience and things to think, so it felt more natural to explain things as he went.
He gathered a water-skin and a few pieces of rock-worm to snack on if he got hungry and attached the loops to his last good belt, taking extras for Tel if she seemed hungry since he was pretty sure she would follow along to sate her boredom. Sure enough, she casually followed after him as he left the compound and wandered through the forest.
He referenced the map piece next to the area he wanted to work on so that he wouldn’t make any significant overlap which would ruin the whole aesthetic of the piece that Harrow tried so hard to make work. The area was a bit more crowded with flora than he would have liked with snow making its way into his shoes every so often due to divots that it had collected in. Tel laughed at him whenever he stopped to knock out some of the melting intruder and pretended to have been otherwise occupied by the environment whenever he scowled at her.
The area he was mapping didn’t actually have much going for it. It was riding the edge of a hill and had plenty of trees around in even distribution and an obnoxious amount of dips and peaks that made walking through it a task he would rather avoid even if he could see where he was stepping. The wind was cut by the cover a fair bit, but it did make him regret only taking a sweater with him as the temperature kept lowering while he was out. Clouds started turning from their natural blues to deep greys over the course of two hours and began densely populating the sky.
For a moment he groaned about having to shovel again since it was all done by hand with a rather flimsy shovel he requested Mama to make. The complaining seemed to sour Tel’s mood as well as she actually tripped over an obscured root, only to end up in his arms as he caught her. He was briefly expecting her to nip at him or, assuming she was in more of a trouble-making mood, push him down with her, but she instead nodded in thanks and returned to watching the area. Odd.
“You okay Tel? I thought for sure we were going to do the whole ‘how dare you!’ back and forth. Actually, you’ve been pretty reserved for a few days now. What’s eating you?” He placed a hand on her shoulder to grab her attention and voiced his concern with a face to match. Hopefully the tone would carry enough meaning for her to get the gist of what he was saying.
She placed a paw on his hand and smiled at him before gently removing it and gesturing for him to continue what he was doing. He grimaced, accepting that it was the closest he was getting to an answer while he returned to carving out the perimeter. A task made a little less welcoming by snow falling onto the tablet and new found concern for his company.
It was slow progress that only got slower as the daylight ticked away in the background and the snow increased its presence in the air, eventually getting to the point where he started to worry about if a storm was about to fall on them or not. He turned to ask Tel if she wanted to head back but failed to find her where he expected.
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“Tel? Where’d ya go?” He called out, the wind whistling through the trees with increasing intensity. “Tel! Seriously, I’m not going back without you.”
The empty forest cast shadows as an answer. The snow instantly increased its thickness and obscured what he could see more than a few dozen feet out.
“Come on, Tel. We gott-mmph” His mouth was covered and he felt himself pulled in a direction. The moment of surprise faded and he glimpsed Tel’s arm covered in snow to the point that she likely could have stood near any tree and blended right in with the environment. She held one paw at his back and ushered him along, away from where they came from. Her pupils were widened and her fur stood on end below the coat of white, a dark and focused expression pierced the snow they walked through as she forced him towards an unknown destination. He pulled lightly at the paw covering his mouth until she gave him a conflicted glare and relented while still directing him.
“Tel? What the hell are y-mmph” His mouth was covered by the paw again. He noticed her ears on a swivel as she increased the pace of their march, stopping momentarily to press him against a tree and her body to his. Her eyes searched the dimming light as she listened for something while keeping him pinned. After a few minutes, she slowly separated from him by taking a few steps back.
A silence between them lingered as she placed a claw to her lips and slowly removed the paw on his face. He nodded, though confused. She pointed a claw at him and then directly at his feet. Stay here. He nodded again after a moment of hesitation. She nodded back, satisfied that he had received her instruction and eyed the area above him.
Without a sound she kicked off the ground and dug a foot into the tree just above his head, bouncing off it and into the branches of a neighbouring one. The snow build-up on the branches barely shifted. He stood there in a stunned silence as he watched the Lilhun effortlessly jump over his head.
He had his suspicions about her abilities long before this, but it was more or less confirmed now. Whenever they held their training sessions, she would always mess certain movements up in a way that seemed purposeful. As if she was testing it against something else she knew and was stressing the differences to their extremes. He had chosen to ignore it and simply let her mix and match whatever worked for her at her leisure since it was showing promising results in making future movements more natural. He was planning on leveraging her natural stealth abilities to make her into a single target hit-and-run but they hadn’t gotten as far as sparring to test out a few more theories he had about what she was able to do. It felt like she had far more experience with some of the more direct motions than the rest of the group, in a way.
Joseph made sure he still had everything in pouches, confirming how much of what he still had. He popped a piece of rock-worm in his mouth to give him something to do other than ignore the cold and question if his usual stalker was a ninja.
It would be useful, that much he was certain of, but it would also raise a few moral dilemmas on how he should carry out further training. He could see where she stood and increase lethality or he could go about increasing her subjugation options. Ideally both, but he felt it would kind of go against the spirit of what he was building with the pack to ‘load his guns’ as it were. He shook his head, chastising himself for assigning her duties that he wasn’t even sure she would be comfortable with doing and assuming the worst of her character.
He also wasn’t sure if him considering the whole ‘readily accepting killing as an option’ thing was a reason for alarm either. As soon as it crossed his mind that there were possibly multiple unknown factions and one of them may be very unhappy if they caught wind of his pack, the door that locked down those thoughts had gained quite a crack in it. Maybe he loosened his hold on the concept when he lost it with Jax. There was absolutely no question that what he did was done with the intent to kill the male. Joseph was just lucky that there were others there to stop him.
A small rustle disturbed the snow above him. Without thinking he pulled the chisel out from his pocket and gripped it with the sharp end outwards so that he could still use his normal style and increase his horizontal range with an edge. It was far from the most optimal thing he could do, but his weapons training was limited to a bit of practise and two encounters with a spear. A spear that he did not have on his person. He really needed to work on a punch-dagger or something.
A flit of movement to his left drew his right hook before he could think about it, the speed and power subpar on the uneven ground and awkward angle. A paw was swiftly placed into the crook of his elbow and stopped the hit short of its target, his nose being tapped by a mildly amused Tel, the paw cold to the touch. She gently shook her head as if he was a child that had asked a silly question and brushed the paused punch away with a light push.
He blinked a few times as the adrenaline subsided as quickly as it had set itself upon him and he lowered the blocked fist, returning the improvised weapon to his pocket. Before he could ask questions she gestured for him to remain quiet as she started rubbing him with some blue plant from head to toe. He was far too confused to notice that she had taken exactly zero attempts at teasing him while she did this. As soon as she was satisfied, she dropped the mangled remains of the plant and kicked some snow onto it before wrapping an arm over his shoulders and escorting him further, the snow on her fur burning his neck with the cold.
The snow had evolved into a proper storm, the wind violently carrying it to the ground through the trees. Visibility dropped below what he could reasonably use to navigate and the cold was seeping into his core while they hurried. An absent check confirmed that he could still feel his fingers, though they hurt to clench. He was still shivering as well, which was good. If he stopped, then it meant his body was giving up on the prospect of warming himself, but he had a while to go before it became a serious issue.
Tel seemed to be pretty cold herself but was far too concentrated on getting him to wherever she was going to show much concern about it. They stopped every so often, Tel forcing him against a tree and sandwiching him against it while she kept on the lookout for something. He had passed curious and gone straight to paranoid at this point.
Either she was screwing with him in a way that was rather unhealthy in every sense of the word or there was something out there that she really wanted to make sure didn’t find them. He took a quick sniff of his shirt and caught the scent of peppermint emanating from his sweater. So that’s how she does it. Scent masking? Before he could start wondering why she always used it, she quickly pushed him along their way.
It took about another half hour until he started recognizing some of the landmarks around them through the breaks in the growing snowstorm. It itched somewhere in the back of his mind that he had been here before but, given that he had been most everywhere around the meadow at some point or another, it didn’t ring any noticeable bells.
What did ring a bell was the cave that Tel quickly dragged him into before hastily pushing snow to block off most of the entrance. He joined her in the endeavour after only a single questioning glance and a tipped chin that he should help. Even if he was confused as all hell, he was happy when the blaring wind tempered to a mild background noise and the snow stopped blowing down his shirt.
He cracked his back and shook off the snow, using what limited light they had to gather a stone like he had seen Mama use to light a fire and a small variety of ones that might strike a spark with his chisel. With his only firewood source being a few rubber-wood tablets with a variety of mappings on them, he decided to chisel some fraying onto them and set the thin chips on top of a small divot he carved out in the centre. Tel watched him as he fumbled in the dark before her head snapped to the small hole they had left for air circulation.
He was about to ask what was wrong when she tackled him to the ground from behind and pressed herself onto him with a glare towards the opening, his head only cushioned from hitting the ground by her arm. He wisely chose to trust the possibly incredibly deadly escort and joined in the staring. He noticed that her body was barely warmer than the air around them, but he stopped the train of thought as slight shuffling noises could he heard over the breaks in wind. He returned his full focus to the hole in their snow wall. It was a long wait for something of interest to happen. When it did, he had to consciously make an effort not to wet himself.
A beast that looked like a white, super-sized, honey badger with anger issues and far too many steroid injections sniffed at their makeshift shelter, digging its nose into the hole and displaying two rows of pointed teeth. It seemed a fair bit bigger than the moss-wolves but had something he would estimate to be around three times the body mass with a much wider body.
He felt Tel tense over him, wrapping her arms around him to act as a shield while his own heart pounded in his chest. He caught a glimpse of her exposing her own teeth in a snarl towards the beast as it poked its head in further, a growl was barely suppressed in her throat. It left shortly after but was replaced by another. Then another. Eight of the massive predators inspected the cave in sequence as they held their breaths. The last one lingered a bit longer than the others but it quickly lost interest and shambled away.
She held him there a while longer before the subtle rumbling in her chest died down and she allowed him to get up. Her breaths were far heavier than they should have been given their somewhat light pace, but the lack of shivering worried him. He quickly sparked a fire as best as he could, needing to test three of the rocks before one produced a spark and a few more to actually start the fire itself. He broke two of the tablets into splits with the chisel and widened the fire slightly to increase the size. They had a critical lack of wood but he vaguely remembered taking note of how slowly rubber-wood burned while maintaining the expected intensity from when he stayed in the cave with Mama when he first got here. It would have to do until the storm died down.
The fire illuminated the cave and shed light on what previously remained dark. He took a moment to warm his hands before calling out. “Fire’s as good as it’s going to get. You should come warm... Tel!”
Tel lay on her side on the ground, her breaths rapid and shallow. Her gaze fixated on the small entrance despite her condition. He scrambled to her, noting her sluggish reaction to his movement. One touch and he knew she was succumbing to hypothermia. He cradled her head and torso for a moment and lightly shook her. Her eyes focused for a moment on him. She weakly reached a paw and caressed his cheek while mumbling something that was spoken too quietly and too slurred for him to parse. He grunted as he adjusted his hold on her and lifted her into his arms, carrying her to the fire and resting her back against a sturdy stalagmite. She was lighter than he was expecting, though too heavy for him to reasonably carry back to the base even if it wasn’t terribly difficult to traverse the distance.
His priorities shifted to one of ensuring she wouldn’t die out here to the cold, to which he started working on whatever methods he could think of to warm her up. He closed most of the hole in the entrance so that only enough remained to let out the smoke and stripped his sweater off to quickly dry it over the fire. As soon as it was dry enough, he removed Tel’s damp leather chest piece, ignoring the lack of modesty and supporting her weight as he brushed out the moisture that the melting snow was leaving on her fur with the fabric. The process was repeated for every inch of fur that seemed to be too wet or would otherwise not dry in the fire while the chest piece hung nearby, slowed by the time it took to dry out the sweater between sections.
He brushed off any snow or moisture as he worked, digging his fingers around the waistband of her shorts to scoop out the snow or water and ignoring the weak faux purring as Tel tried to keep his spirits up. He glanced at her with a weak smile and she returned it with her own before she began shivering. It drew a breath of relief from him. She was warming up enough for it to become a valid option again.
The temperature in the cave increased slightly, just enough to be bearable as the fire burned, and he stripped his t-shirt to alternate the two fabrics for the process. He kept an eye on her while he worked, checking her pulse and her level of consciousness. He only felt relief when she reached out and placed a paw on his chest with a tired but forgivable wink. He snorted, feeling tears well up as he pulled her into a tight hug. “You fucking idiot. Don’t you ever put yourself in a situation like this again.”
She didn’t respond, instead nuzzling herself into him in lieu of words. He felt his warmth leave him as she absorbed it but he was too relieved to care. He separated to see her own eyes tearing up, the stress of the situation finally being released. Without a second thought he pulled her back in and rubbed her back so that the mild friction would warm the area laid against the cold stone.
He fetched some of the supplies he had brought from his pouches, allowing her a long drink from the water-skin and half of the rock-worm he had brought for her. Once his T-shirt was dry he continued patting her down while Tel’s tired eyes followed. The sweater was forced over her head as soon as it was dry again with a disgruntled ‘humph’ as it pinned her ears down. He frowned at her and tried to hold a stern tone. “It’s this or i leave you naked in the snow.”
Tel returned the chastisement with a weak wink, having caught his general attitude. He forced a sigh and continued to fit it around her neck before pulling it lower. She was about as tall as he was so the fit was a lot closer than he would have liked, though her slimmer frame allowed some freedom of movement instead of hugging tightly to her. She jokingly made a weak yelp when he pulled it down her chest but he ignored her to the best of his ability despite the mild blush. Satisfied that her upper body was about as dry as he was going to manage, he set out to ensure she wouldn’t lose more heat elsewhere.
He worked on clearing the moisture on her legs, helping her adjust which was closer to the fire so that the heat would evaporate it and brushing off what he could with his hands. He felt the muscle under her short coat whenever he shifted a leg. It really was a small wonder how she managed her acts of athleticism. He brushed from her feet to the highest he was comfortable doing on her thighs, progressively drying as he went with his T-shirt. A short breath later and he continued, pushing thoughts out of his head since it was absolutely not the time to worry about anything besides making sure she would make it through this. He owed that much to her.
She had noticed a threat he did not. She had escorted him to safety with no hesitation and she had put herself in extreme danger in order to do so. Not to mention she had sourced a plant to presumably cover his smell so that those... things wouldn’t find them. The least he could do was shelf his embarrassment at patting her dry, even through the areas he normally wouldn’t think of doing. Though his resolve died a little when her tail eventually found its way to his neck and caressed his chin. He brushed it off with an ineffectual frown to her glazed grin and continued ignoring where his task was making him touch. Eventually, she was dried about as much as she was going to be and he set his shirt next to her chest piece to dry out. The air was to a point where he could suffer through the chill long enough to afford to be shirtless, at least.
Once she was situated, he added another split to the fire and took a seat next to her, her leaning on him for warmth. He could still feel her shiver slightly against his shoulder. With an exaggerated exhale, he grabbed her and pulled her in closer, wrapping his arms around her so that they could warm each other up. The storm raging outside would have them trapped in here for a while, but as soon as it cleared up they should be able to return. He was going to need to start seriously working on the whole ‘weapons distribution’ thing.
Her breathing slowed again in his arms. Her tail wrapped around him but by the deep inhales he assumed it was a subconscious reflex to keep the extremity warm. He shifted his seating so that he rested against the stalagmite instead of her, letting her body rest fully on his. A paw rested on his stomach and he felt slightly relieved when it didn’t cause him to flinch from any cold. He absently scratched behind her ears and tucked her head into his neck, the soft breaths no longer creating clouds in their wake as the cave warmed.
Assassin, spy, ninja, or whatever else she ended up being, he now pretty much officially owed her his life. It wasn’t a debt he was happy with, but he wasn’t going to deny it. He had little in the way of delusions that he would have been able to fend off eight beasts of that size, assuming he noticed them before they got the drop on him. Even if he had, he doubt he would have memorized the area well enough to find a hide away or have the thought to cover his scent with anything other than terrified piss.
He added another split to the fire. It would burn for quite a while and he still had an entire tablet worth of pieces to add until the storm died down. He was worried for the rest of the pack since he hadn’t the chance to tell anyone where he was going. He wanted to keep the work a surprise from Harrow and only accepted Tel as as escort since they always complained she didn’t tell them anything since she found it amusing. The thought drew a soft chuckle from him which disturbed Tel enough to alert him that she had fallen asleep. He glanced down with an apologetic look but her short nap seemed to have brought a bit of life back to her.
He brushed a drop of water forming on her snout, the action eliciting her to cuddle into him with a shuffle and a smile. He snorted a laugh and rested his head on hers. He let her body warmth circulate into him and back into her, their breaths now falling into sync. He was going to need to make her a gift for all the trouble. Maybe get someone to ask her what she wanted? He placed his free hand on a paw that rested on his lap, it curling around his hand on his touch. His instinct suggested he pull away, but it was a small price when she had risked her life. He chided himself for worrying about it and gave it a gentle squeeze back while he watched the fire and ignored the blowing wind outside.
Oh well, he had time to think about it.