Ash stalked Khukri through The Direwood, carefully watching his feet to make as little noise as possible. The wolven feet let him move easier, now that he had a week of practice under his belt. Training had been embarrassingly slow, and only reminded him how outclassed he was by the majestic guardian in whose footsteps he walked. Still, today would serve as his first real challenge. The smoked mist wraith meat was starting to smell, and he was determined to get something fresh before Khukri went hungry.

It wasn’t as though his failure meant she’d starve, of course. At any point, he could simply order Khukri to finish the hunt and she’d bring down something for him to prepare. This was about pride. Khukri already assisted him with traditionally male tasks like cleaning and cooking, as well as pushing him to shed his weakness to fulfill his Deianira-given purpose. The least he could do was return the favor with hunting and protection, if only to prove her effort wasn’t wasted.

This morning, Ash had changed his feet to help with the hunt, and at Khukri’s insistence, wore her footguards. The layer of black scales covered his borrowed feet, shielding his toes and calves while leaving room for the new claws to poke through. Something he hadn’t noticed before was the padding on the bottom, providing additional protection to his footpads while also muffling any sound. There was even some for the strange extra bump halfway up his elongated ankle, covering the footpad that never touched the ground. He hadn’t quite worked out what that one did, if anything.

Another thing Khukri insisted he wear was her black-scaled cloak to protect his head and leave an armoured layer between his back and anything that might surprise him. This meant Khukri traveled without shoes, something that didn’t seem to bother her much, and his old brown cloak.

Khukri raised a hand, stopping him as she sank into a crouch. “I think I found something. Spot me.”

Ash nodded, raising his spear and scanning the trees for any sign of movement while Khukri entered her ‘trance.’ Well, ‘spear’ was a bit generous. He’d taken a long stalk of bamboo, split it open, stuffed one of Dad’s knives inside, and tied the end shut around the handle. He’d done the same for Khukri, though he sincerely doubted she needed it. It was no hunter’s spear, but Khukri said it’d serve well enough for whatever they were hunting. He grimaced, praying it wasn’t another skeletal monstrosity from the mist, something he’d happily never see again, even in daylight.

“Got it,” Khukri said, raising a spear. “Bonefaced skink, not too far.”

Ash glared at her. While his new legs gave him all the speed he could’ve asked for, he still lacked Khukri’s boundless stamina. She’d described the location they’d start their hunt from as ‘not too far,’ which apparently meant ‘run this way for an hour.’

“Close,” Khukri clarified, rolling her eyes.

“Okay.” Ash hesitated, taking a breath to steady himself. “What’s a bonefaced skink? What am I up against?”

“It’s a lizard, about knee high.” Khukri stretched her arms, then hefted her spear, staring ahead. “Eats bugs, mostly. Burrows into trees at night and sticks its face out while it sleeps. Good kill for a pack of two.”

“Two?” Ash asked.

Khukri’s eyes widened in surprise as she looked over her shoulder. “I thought you wanted to hunt like part of a pack?”

“Yeah, I thought I was gonna... you know.” He leaned forward, delivering a practiced thrust like she’d taught him. “Wachaa, dead skink.”

Khukri split into a grin as she chuckled, turning back to their quarry. “You’ve been practicing a week and now you’re a pup with her first teeth, spoiling for a fight to prove you’re tough.”

Ash’s face warmed as he retracted the spear, looking away. “Heh... sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Khukri said. “All the best pups start that way. We still are, sometimes.”

He grinned, sharing in the joke. Somehow that felt more alien than the handle of the spear clutched in his palms. Laughing with a girl, naturally, without fear. That last point was doubly strange, considering he was crouched in The Direwood, planning to attack a wild beast with a knife tied to a stick.

“You don’t know enough about hunting to lead the attack.” Khukri hesitated, taking a long breath. “When a pack hunts, they need clear commands, so when someone above you gives an order, you react; no thinking.”

“Got it. I’m listening.”

She grimaced. “If I’m leading us against a target, you don’t speak unless I ask you a question.”

Ash pursed his lips, suppressing a grin as he nodded.

Khukri looked back, eyes narrowing. “Only until the hunt is over. When the target is dead, the order returns. Understand?”

He kept a straight face, nodding seriously as he played hunter. “As you say, my Whip.”

For a minute, Ash worried he’d crossed a line. Khukri’s eyes widened, then closed as a shudder ran through her body. Finally, she raised her head high and released a long, shuddering breath. “Follow.”

Khukri dropped low, moving silently as she hurried forward. Before long she slowed, creeping between trees as she went. For a half-second, she glanced over her shoulder, then motioned to a tree on the right before drifting to another on the left.

Thick green tree moss pressed into his side as Ash stopped, lowering the spear so it wouldn’t accidentally swing from hiding. Khukri peeked around her tree, then nodded. Ash returned the gesture before slowly leaning out.

The lizard was a slim, elongated beast covered in dull brown and green scales. Its tail pressed against the ground, leaving it balanced on two thick hind legs while it raked into the tree ahead with its front claws, launching clumps of wet soil and dirt behind it. Ash couldn’t see the face from here, but a long bony ridge rose from its nose and fanned over the top of its head.

Khukri nodded, pointing to her spear, then her leg before resuming her watch of the creature. Ok, this was it. If he wanted to be strong like Khukri, Ash needed to think like a hunter. He swung around the tree, keeping low as he stalked forward, spear raised. The writhing mass of scaled muscle was smaller than the young aibax back home, and the principle was the same. Walk up behind it and add a hole. Only Khukri hadn’t told him to go for a killing blow. A leg, Ash thought. I only need to hit its leg.

A clatter resounded from underfoot as his foot nudged a small pile of stones, causing the skink to whip around. Ash dashed forward, driving his spear in a downward thrust. Iron met scale in a glancing blow as the skink slipped away.

“Back!” Khukri yelled, rushing from hiding.

Ash’s legs coiled, launching him clear as two horns attached to the skink’s bony facemask swiped inches from his chest. When he hit the ground, he jumped again, moving his spear into a readied stance to intercept a charge. Unfortunately, the beast had no intention of fighting. It continued its turn, legs pumping as it tore off into the forest.

“Charge!” Khukri screamed, flying past a second later.

Damn it! Poking a hole in a beast that wasn’t looking was supposed to be the one girl thing Ash could manage! He’d been so focused on the stupid lizard he’d forgotten everything Khukri said about stealth. “Sorry!” he yelled, sprinting after her.

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Khukri slowed, head turning to deliver a menacing glare. “I said you don’t speak!”

Ash flinched, staring ahead as they gained ground.

“You can do this,” she growled. “I know exactly how weak you are, and I wouldn’t have brought you if you couldn’t. Now, charge!”

A sharp breath raced through Ash as the skink crested a hill before dropping off a sharp incline. Dirt and rocks showered the ridge as he pressed his toes into the ground, grunting with the effort before slipping off the edge. He hung weightless, screaming as the ground below him cut away.

Khukri crested the hill at full speed, dropping down the other side with both hands gripped around her spear. As her toes touched the ground, her legs folded, dropping her strange ankle nub into the ground as she raced after their prey, kicking up a spray of wet dirt as she passed.

That’s what that’s for? Ash grit his teeth, angling his feet as he hit the incline before folding his legs and slamming his back nub into the ground. Pain shot through his knees as they absorbed the impact and a dull ache radiated up from his feet.

He wobbled, finally finding his center of gravity with the far more stable legs beneath him. With a lean, he drifted out of Khukri’s debris cloud, eyes watering as the deafening wind whipped past. Wait, that meant Khukri probably couldn’t hear him either, didn’t it? He took in a panicked breath, clenching the spear’s haft in both hands. “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck I’m going to die!”

The steep drop leveled, which Ash thought of as a blessing, right up until he realized that meant the tree ahead of him was, in fact, ahead of him. He leaned hard, toppling over and hitting the ground with a heavy thump, rolling past the tree before scrambling to his feet and taking off at a run. Heavy pants escaped as he charged onward, pushing himself to sprint after Khukri.

Ahead, Khukri closed in before the beast whirled around, swiping at her with its horns. She hopped sideways, using the spear’s extra reach to narrowly avoid the stroke while laying its leg open in passing. She slid to a stop, taking a downward spear stance on the opposite side of the wailing creature.

Khukri nodded approvingly as Ash mimicked her stance. The beast’s head swiveled between them. “When hunting with a pack, the first priority is to split the target’s attention!” Khukri reminded him. “Back!”

The beast decided, darting after Ash, who hastily rushed out of range. Khukri’s spear jammed into its tail, making it cry and turn to lash out with its front claws. “Never take chances! Retreat from anything that even looks like an attack!” Khukri yelled, keeping its attention as she jumped away. “Strike!”

Ash dashed behind it, spear raised, but before he could strike, it turned, charging him instead. He leapt back before Khukri even spoke.

“Back!” She darted back in, punching through the beast’s other hind leg. “When it targets another packmate, the one closest to its back strikes!”

The beast coiled, screeching as it turned back to Khukri. Now! Ash leveled his spear, launching off the ground with a brutal thrust. The beast’s head swiveled his way a moment before Ash slammed into it, punching into its throat and forcing it away. It let out a gargled scream, blood spattering from its lips as it writhed, yanking the bamboo about as Ash desperately held it back.

After a few tense seconds, Khukri slid beside him. With one clean, practiced motion, she pushed the spear under the beast, flipped it onto its back, and drove into its underside, helping Ash pin it to the ground as its thrashing turned to languid struggle, then stillness.

Ash panted, staring down the spear’s length and slowly turned to Khukri with a wild grin.

“The hunt’s over, Master,” Khukri assured him. “We won.”

A breathless laugh escaped him as he leaned on the spear. “I was in a fight! With a monster! And I killed it!”

“Well, it's dinner,” Khukri said with a smirk. “Monster’s a bit much.”

Ash set his foot on the beast’s side, ripping the blade free. “Uh... A vicious predator then!”

Khukri’s spear wrenched free with a squelch, releasing a stream of blood that flowed over the vicious predator’s belly into the dirt. “It eats bugs!”

“That counts!” Ash grinned, crouching over the beast. “How about we get this thing home so I can...” He turned, looking back the way they came. “Er... actually, might be harder going up than down. How do we get back?”

“There’s a path around.” Khukri swung her spear, spattering the ground with blood as she pointed. “It’s a detour, not too far.”

Not too far. Fantastic.

***

Swirling smoke rose from the fire, crackling and sizzling as fat from their hunt dripped into the fire, leaving the steaks with a light char and a lingering savoury smell as salt and garlic melded into the hissing meat. Ash smiled, gently prodding one with a skewer. A stream of juice spattered into the flames, releasing another hiss and plume of steam. Not ready yet. Khukri liked her meat on the rarer side, but this wasn’t a farm-raised aibax. This was a wild animal Ash knew very little about. Best to make sure potential diseases or parasites were good and dead.

Ash set the stick aside, returning to a stack of bamboo he’d bound into a tight square sheet and gently dipped a spoon into a water bowl before dripping it between the tubes. When finished, he methodically continued with another spoonful.

Soft thumps heralded Khukri’s arrival as she jogged over from the warehouse and took a seat by the fire. “Master? Did you want to spar after dinner?”

Back home, girls sparred during their militia training, bodies clashing to hone their skills. In The Direwood, sparring apparently meant ‘knock Ash on his ass as many times as he would let you.’ At this point, most of the fun came from seeing how excited she’d get after inevitably putting him down, no matter how many times she did it. “Hell no. You ran me through the woods for hours to catch this thing. I’m exhausted.”

“We jogged,” Khukri protested. “And we took a break, twice.”

Ash rolled his eyes, gathering another spoonful. “You mean I collapsed, twice. You can get a bit... enthusiastic when we’re training, you know. You don’t have to push me so hard.” His eyes rolled over her sleek armoured figure as he wondered what he’d need to think of for Dusk to mimic that unmatched stamina.

She giggled, cocking her head. “If you don’t like how I act, just order me to change.”

A slimy feeling quivered beneath his skin, crawling down his back and rolling over his limbs, making him shift uncomfortably. “That’s not... I want...” Deianira help him, it was hard talking to girls back when they hated him, but somehow, a girl willing to do anything was even worse. “I don’t want you to change who you are for me.”

Khukri’s smile faltered as she folded her hands together, leaning over the fire to smell the meat. “I’m your weapon, Master, I don’t change for you. I exist to be what you want. It’s my purpose.”

The spoon fell into the water bowl as Ash turned to the fire, picking up a skewer. “It doesn’t have to be. We could-”

“We could run away together?” Khukri asked quickly, offering a sad half-smile from across the flames. “Maybe hide somewhere in the far east of the Othelan confederacy. Use your magic to start a little farm ‘till we die of old age. Would you do that for me?”

It sounded nice. It was kind of the life Ash’s father led, a good, humble life. Of course, he’d complained that Deianira spent her life pleasing herself rather than helping her people, and fifty years of a good humble life was fifty years of prayers unanswered. “...I can’t.”

“Because that’s not your purpose? Because that’s what makes you, you?” Khukri reclined, sighing as she looked into the mist above. “I’m not stupid, Master. I understand the girl you want, and I wish I could be her... but maybe...maybe you could enjoy what I can be for you, while I still can, please?”

Ash squirmed, spearing a hunk of meat and moving it to a bamboo box with a dejected sigh. “There’s a bunch of dried pepper skins in that stone bowl. Could you mash them into a powder for me?”

“Yes, Master.” Khukri retrieved the mortar, sniffing the dried skins before pressing the pestle into them. “Are you still working on that square?”

Ash nodded, lifting it so she could see. “Bamboo shrinks as it loses water, and I’ve got a piece full of holes that runs through them all. I’m hoping I can keep the inner one wet while the others dry, maybe it’ll make a watertight seal. Same idea for the plugs on the top and bottom.”

The peppers crackled as they mashed together, with Khukri diligently turning them into dust. “Why?”

“I made a rudimentary check valve... uh, I mean, I’m going to fill a few of these with air. That mist wraith skin is transparent, so if I can make a watertight seal over my muzzle, I might be able to breathe underwater. If it works, I can avoid the guards and swim to the docks at night. Maybe sneak onto a ship. No one around here is protected from the cold like you are, so they won’t expect us to come from the ocean.”

The pestle rose before Khukri dipped her face in, taking another sniff. Half the powder blasted from the bowl in a red cloud as she sneezed, leaving her with a red mask and sheepish grin. “The grinding is done... heh. How much air can you fit into those?”

Ash shrugged. “I dunno, not much. I’m building a couple. Maybe I can stick them together like a backpack, if I can get them to seal underwater at all... I mean, there’s only so much I can do; I’m working with old hand tools and sticks here. Hopefully Issac can figure something out.”

Khukri glanced up, the usual lecture about not relying on others on her lips, then she set the powder aside. “Well, if your grand battle left you too tired to practice, you’ll need extra rest tonight. Pass me the rest of the taste-plants; I’ll help with the cooking before it gets too dark.”