Standing up, I spent a few moments to try and control my breathing as I assessed what was happening before me.

It really was my great-uncle.

Not only was it a giant cat, with glossy black fur… those scars were unmistakable. The white scars on his face, and scattered around his shoulders and front legs were very familiar, even if I’d only seen them a handful of times.

He still had the creature’s neck in his mouth. He had shifted from crunching the skull to biting at the throat, for some reason. It had to have been dead by now, not only had I heard the opossum’s skull and spine break and crunch many times… it was now leaking blood and stuff from its mouth and other holes on its head. The things eyeballs had popped out, and there was this nasty black gunk hanging from the sockets. Blood was flowing out of its mouth and ears to such a point that it wasn’t dripping, it was pouring.

Yet still uncle kept biting at the throat… I’d almost think he was trying to tear the thing’s head off or something, based on the way it was gnawing on it.

Was he that hungry, maybe?

Glancing around, I hoped that Witch didn’t come near us. I wasn’t sure what to think at the moment, but one thing that was for sure is I didn’t want my uncle to see her.

He had hated humans as much as the rest of my family, if not more-so. So…

I stepped to the right, and debated running away. But I knew it’d be pointless. I had barely been able to run faster than the dead opossum, and I knew uncle was far beyond that thing’s speed and skill.

Not only would I not be able to outrun uncle… I’d not be able to hide or escape from him either. He was more than just a simple beast.

Though…

I shifted a little on the leaves. They crunched beneath me as I realized that this meant my uncle had survived his encounter with that snake.

Witch and I had assumed he had died and gotten eaten back then.

A small growl escaped my uncle’s mighty jaws as he bit down one last time on the broken neck. Then he released it, and the opossum’s huge elongated head fell with a mushy thump to the ground.

Gulping, I decided that there was no escape. I'll need to confront him, here and now. If anything to make sure he realized it was me.

“Uncle…? It’s me Rennalee,” I said warily in greeting as I stood up straighter.

My uncle paid me no heed for a moment as he placed one of his mighty paws on top of the opossum’s head. I’d wonder if he was doing it out of pride, if not for the fact that I knew him a tad better than that. He was just being extra sure the creature was dead. He kept his paw on the creature’s head as he turned to look at me.

I gulped again, this time with a much dryer throat, and felt my ears and tail go stiff.

His large, beautiful, eye stared deep into my own… and I really, really, hope he remembers me.

How long has it been since I’d seen him…? Years and years, but, how many?

How come I haven’t realized how much time has passed? Has it been ten years? Fifty? A hundred? I sincerely had no idea…

“Rennalee…” Uncle’s mouth twitched as he hissed a word.

A word. An actual word!

I had known he could talk and reason, but I hadn’t realized he could speak so clearly. I had easily understood what he had said just now.

Maybe he’s been practicing…?

“I’m… surprised to see you, Uncle. Elder,” I said, correcting myself at the end. I wasn’t really sure which he preferred to be called. My other uncle, the one more human in shape, had called him by both.

“Mhm…” The huge cat shifted ever so slightly, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed his tail twitch a little wildly as he lifted his head ever so gently… as to smell the air.

“Hunting…?” he then asked.

Hunting.

Right.

“I uh… yes. I suppose you could say that. Though to be honest I think I was the one getting hunted just now,” I said.

His whiskers shifted, and I couldn’t help but smile as I realized he had just smiled. He had found what I had just said funny.

“I’m glad you’re well, Uncle. How have you been?” I asked.

Uncle shifted and glanced down at the creature he had just killed. The creature’s head made mushy sounds as he pushed down upon it, and then he stepped away from it leisurely. It seemed uncle was now confident it was dead.

Shifting a little I wondered if anyone else had survived. I could have sworn everyone had been accounted for. My sisters, mother, grandparents and brothers… my father…

I wasn’t sure what to think about this. What if someone else had survived?

A part of me was sickened at the idea.

Watching uncle study our surroundings, I wondered if he smelled Witch or not. He was acting as if there were indeed others nearby, other enemies.

Please, oh please, don’t notice her…

“Rennalee,” he then said as he stepped closer. I noted that unlike the opossum that had chased me with heavy, loud footsteps, his barely made a sound. Even the layer of leaves on the ground barely shifted or crunched beneath his huge paws.

“Yes…?”

“Danger,” he then said.

Danger…?

I frowned at him, and noticed he was staring out to our right… and…

Turning, I felt my heart sink as I watched a pair of glowing eyes running towards us in the distance.

“Wait…!” I shouted, even though I hadn’t meant to, as I stepped forward. I hurriedly ran the many steps needed to put myself in front of my great-uncle, and raised my hands and arms outward to get his attention.

His eye never left my teacher off in the distance as I waved up at him.

“Wait! She’s not an enemy! She was helping me hunt that thing!” I said loudly.

A temporary moment of odd stillness came from my uncle… and then his mighty eye’s pupil shifted. It widened, becoming almost a perfect circle, and then he looked down at me.

“Wh…at…?” he asked in shock, with a strange hiss.

That time I had barely understood it. It seemed although better at talking than before, he still found it difficult.

I nodded quickly. “She’s a witch. She uh… in fact she even helped kill that snake, too! That big white one that had attacked us? She’s the one who killed it!” I said, hoping to quickly convince him she was at the very least not someone he needed to kill and eat on sight.

Yet as I spoke, to try and convince him otherwise… I realized I had just dug her grave even deeper.

Uncle’s head lowered, his tail went still… and his pupil focused again. Becoming thinner than ever.

“Wait, please!” I shouted as I saw his decision being made, thanks to his demeanor. His tail had gone motionless. His ears had curled backward a little and lowered. His lips had begun to quiver, as if in anticipation.

He was about to leap forward. To attack.

Yet he didn’t jump over me. He remained there in front of me, as my heart began to really thump quickly and loudly. It was somehow beating harder than it had while running from that other creature just now.

“She’s a saint, child,” Uncle then said.

Saint…?

“I… I don’t know, Uncle. But she’s helped me. She saved my life, and like I said she even killed that snake!” I said.

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“No. She did not,” he said.

“Renn!” Witch shouted my name, and made me flinch.

“Uncle, please just wait. I’ll tell her to leave. She will, and…!” I started to try and convince him, but he growled at me.

His growl was deep, and very similar to the one he had just used while killing that creature. Its point, its meaning, was very clear.

He had just told me to shut up.

My mind raced as I tried to think of what I could do. Uncle was undoubtedly about to go kill her. You could just tell by the way he was standing. The way he was lowered a little. The way his eye hadn’t left her. The way his whiskers twitched.

What could I say or do to save her life? How did I convince him? How did I earn her life from him? What could I say, give, or do?

He had said she hadn’t killed the snake.

Why? How? Had she not? I had watched it. She had touched it, and it had collapsed. It had died.

Surely…

Had there been another snake…? Just why would he claim such a thing…?

“Renn…!” Witch was closer now. I heard her huffing in exhaustion as she slowed, kicking up leaves as she did. I kept myself from turning around to look at her, to shout at her. The moment I did uncle would likely leap forward.

If I had to stand here and watch him crush, or eat her, I’d not be able to stand it. The mere thought of it made me want to throw up.

“Please Uncle…” I whispered desperately.

“Oh my. Your uncle. A Great One,” Witch spoke in awe, and I flinched at the way she sounded completely unaware of how much danger she was in.

She was usually like that. Never afraid, for some reason. Somehow.

“Holy woman,” Uncle hissed at her.

“Wow… hello there. Yes. I am… did you save Renn? Thank you for that,” Witch said, and I heard her smile. She had slowed her pace, and was breathing a little heavily, but was still approaching us.

Closing my eyes for a few moments, to try and steady my heartbeat, I continued to try and figure a way out of this.

This was more dangerous, far more so, than that creature earlier. That thing had been deadly, and massive, but it had just been a simple creature. One with base instincts.

Uncle was… far more. Far, far more.

“I see.”

I opened my eyes and looked up at uncle, who had just said something with an oddly kind voice.

Half expecting myself to find him calmed down, and relaxed… I let out a tiny yelp as he instead shot forward.

Instead of leaping over me, or stepping around me, to attack Witch… he attacked me.

I was hit by something hard and huge. Bigger than me. I felt the ground leave my feet, and then hit me in the back. My world went black for a moment, but not because my uncle had just eaten me or crushed me. Instead the world returned after a few moments, as my sight returned, and I found myself struggling to breathe.

Sucking in air hurt beyond measure, and was terribly difficult. I tried to roll and sit up, as to try and find out why I couldn’t breathe, but the answer became apparent very fast.

I was lying on my back. There were colorful treetops above me, and the midday sun. And… not far from my head, was a very hairy paw. Covering most of my body.

Uncle was holding me down. His mighty paw was on top of me, holding me in place.

As the moments came and went, and my breathing eased a little, I began to feel the pain and pressure. I felt pain throughout my whole body. In my tail. In my arms and legs. In my chest and stomach… and all around that pain I felt the pressure of something hard and pointy. His paw pads were not just rough, but sharp. I felt pieces of his pads actually piercing my clothes and me myself. Like little sharp rocks, or knives, they dug into me and kept me on the ground.

“Uncle…!” I groaned out a shout, and didn’t like how hard it had been to do so. Only a portion of his paw was on my chest, but it was enough to almost make it impossible to take a full breath. It even kept me from shouting, somehow.

“I’ll not listen, holy woman!” Uncle’s voice roared above me.

“You should!” Witch shouted back, and I realized I had missed a few exchanges. During my moments of pain and lack of air they had been talking to one another.

Was she pinned to the ground too? Her shouting sounded like it wasn’t. She sounded distant still… as if many feet away…

Squirming beneath uncle’s paw, I flinched as he pushed a little harder. A part of the rest of his body came into view; I watched my uncle hiss at something to my left, or our left. Likely my teacher.

“She is a traitor!” Uncle hissed.

Traitor…? Did he mean me, or her?

Something told me he meant me.

“I’d say not! She avenged your kin if anything!” Witch shouted back.

Ah. So it had been me he had spoken of.

He thought I was a traitor…?

Well…

He wasn’t entirely wrong, was he?

Squirming a little, I flinched as I felt something very familiar. The feeling of a broken tail.

“You broke my tail…” I cried as the pain became stronger now that I was aware of it. It quickly became unbearable.

Uncle’s paw shifted a little, and I half expected his claws to extend from them. I could see a few of the points from this angle, barely sticking out from their hidden sheaths. They were dark, jagged, and wickedly sharp and big.

“My bloodline, my right,” Uncle then said.

“Let her go. She may be of your blood, but she is not yours to kill or own. Free her, O’ Great One!” Witch shouted. She sounded closer now. Closer than ever before.

“You tainted her,” he hissed. He too sounded closer than ever.

My eyes blurred as I felt tears begin to slide down the sides of my face. Jeez everything hurt. Even their voices hurt, somehow…!

I coughed as I heard Witch’s voice. She shouted something, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. I wasn’t just barely able to breathe, stuck under his paw, I was now blinded and numbed by pain. I could barely think.

He was crushing me, wasn’t he?

What a way to die.

At least my teacher wouldn’t have to suffer. She’d have likely been dead already had she been the one in this position. She was that frail.

This was my fault though, if this is how we both died. Uncle had likely only known to come here thanks to the smell. The smell of me and that creature. Both things that he shouldn’t have been able to notice, if I had not been here.

If my teacher had been alone, she would have acted differently. Instead of using me as bait she would have simply waited and waited until the thing fell into her traps. That meant even if uncle would have shown up to hunt that opossum, he may not have noticed her at all.

If he would have even cared about that opossum at all.

My scent was likely what had truly drawn him in the first place.

“You’ll die.”

I opened my eyes and flinched at the blinding sun. It had shifted a little, and was now peering down at us from between treetops. At just the right angle to blind me.

Had I been lying here that long? Hadn’t the sun been a little farther to the left?

Blinking wildly, I wondered who had just spoken. Whoever it had been, had spoken of dying.

“So will you.”

Another voice I didn’t recognize completely.

How could I not remember or recognize who was speaking? Their two voices couldn’t be more different. His was deep. Guttural. With hisses and growls acting as the voice. Hers was light and sing-song like. It soothed a headache, not made it worse.

Yet it didn’t matter. I felt sleep tugging at me. My mind was growing heavy and somehow even though it hurt to stare up at the sun… I couldn’t find it in myself to close my eyes or turn my head. I was genuinely too tired to even shut my eyes.

I hope Uncle gets an upset stomach if he eats me. He deserves it.

Can’t believe my family was like this to the end…

Why’d he even save me then? In the beginning? Just to kill me anyway…

“Rennalee.”

I blinked, and flinched… but not from the bright sun.

Rolling over, I coughed as my whole body protested against me. Everything hurt. Horribly.

But I was alive. And no longer being crushed.

“Renn, deep breaths,” Witch’s voice was stiff. As if she was straining to talk.

Witch! I sat up quickly, ignoring the pain all throughout my body, and found her sitting next to me.

For a small few moments I panicked. She had just sounded so hurt, so broken, that I had expected to find her on death’s bed… but instead…

She looked fine. She was kneeling next to me on the ground, the colorful ground covered in leaves, and looked…

“You’re okay…” I whispered in shock.

“No. Not really,” she said with a stiff smile.

Ah…

“You healed me…” I said as I realized what was wrong with her.

She had used her magic. On me. And now she was weak and weary again.

She nodded, saying nothing more.

Looking around, I found we were still in that small section of forest. Not far was the large body of the opossum. The sun was still high overhead, not far from where I’d last seen it… and…

“My uncle…?” I asked. He was nowhere to be found.

“He fled. For now,” she said.

Fled…? Him…?

“Wow…” I couldn’t help but be in awe of her. How had she done it? I knew she had magic, powerful magic, but her magic only worked when she was touching people. Physical contact. There was no way my uncle would have died to such a thing. He could have slaughtered her before she even got a hold of him. So…

Trying to stand up, I groaned as I promptly fell back down. I landed fast first, right into a pile of leaves.

Groaning from the pain and stiffness of my body, I wondered how badly I had been hurt for me to feel like this… even after her magical healing.

“Yeah… you were very hurt, Renn. You’ll likely be as weak as me for a few days,” Witch said lightly, with a tiny little laugh.

While lying in the leaves, I flinched. And not from the pain, or the realization she was right… but rather, the sound of her laugh.

It had been so very weak. That had not been a tiny laugh because of the moment, but because she hadn’t been capable of aught else.

“Just… give me a moment. I’ll get up and carry you,” I said as I tried to wiggle my arms around, as to push me back up to my feet.

“Please do. We should get out of here before anything else crazy shows up,” she said.

I nodded. Yes. Rightfully so.

Barely making it to my knees, I let out a deep breath of exhaustion. Gosh I felt weak. My arms were wobbling as they held me up, as to keep me from falling back on my face.

Is this how humans always felt? No wonder they could never do anything right.

“Can we go home now…?” I asked with a tiny whine.

“No. Not yet,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked as I turned my head a little, to look at her.

“Because now we need to hunt your uncle, Renn.”

Great.