Rasp awoke from the strangest dream. Reuniting with Faris had been nice–a bit bittersweet now that he was slowly starting to rouse and grasp the fact that it wasn’t real, but enjoyable while it lasted. He still found the part involving the bear who was also somehow a sister rather confusing. All in all, it hadn’t been the craziest dream he’d ever experienced, just odd. An odd dream for an odd man, he supposed. Given the events of the past year, he wasn’t sure he even knew what normal looked like anymore.

Rasp’s eyelids fluttered open and took in the muddled gloom around him. Nightfall, likely, given the absence of any light whatsoever. A cold wind rattled the dry leaves overhead. Normally he hated the sound as it meant another miserable night without the warmth of a fire, but the fur blankets strewn across his numb body were warding off even the fiercest chill. Lulled into complacency by the blissful warmth, Rasp tucked his chin back into his arms and closed his eyes. He was already drifting back asleep when a pesky thought wiggled its way to the forefront of his mind.

You don’t own any fur blankets.

“Hop!” Rasp shot upright. Tried anyway, as the pelt draped over him now felt less like a blanket and more akin to a furry boulder. A warm, furry boulder, with an inexplicable amount of fat and muscle bulging beneath its loose, shaggy skin. Rasp shoved with his hands, desperately trying to squirm out from under what he feverishly hoped wasn’t a bear.

His rough movements elicited a low growl from his stubborn blanket. Waves of vibrations rippled through the furry pelt and buzzed against Rasp’s skin, similar to that of a giant, purring cat. He froze, not entirely from fear this time, but with a good mix of equal parts anger and confusion as well.

“Boney asshole?” Rasp repeated. While being able to understand the bear probably should have come as a shock, it was her response itself that bore the brunt of his bewilderment. “Who taught you to name-call? That sounds like a painful medical condition, not an insult!”

The bear lamented her woes with a low-pitched wine.

“I don’t see how growing up without a father applies in this scenario.” Rasp supposed he should have been grateful the bear wasn’t trying to eat him. Would have been nice to be able to feel his legs though. He reached up and gave her a tentative pat, signifying his wish to tap-out before the suffocation set in.

She did not appear to notice, preferring to air her grievances regarding her upbringing to a captive audience.

“Believe me, you didn’t miss out on anything worthwhile. Our brothers are terrible.”

Our brothers? Rasp wasn’t sure when he’d decided to go along with the sister story, but something about it felt unusually natural. Too natural, in fact. The lack of air was clearly getting to him. Gathering his heavy limbs, he pushed with both his hands and knees in a futile attempt to prevent the damn beast from smothering him. It was not going as well as he’d hoped. “Get. Off!”

Finally, the unmovable weight lifted, allowing Rasp to scramble out from under it. He didn’t make it very far before his wobbly legs gave out beneath him. Whipping his head from side to side, he gathered what limited information he could with his slow-moving senses. It was definitely nightfall, he was still in the forest, and–judging from the suspicious lack of commentary from either Hop or Faris–he and the bear might have been alone.

Also, he was suddenly cold. So much so, he almost considered worming his way back under the bear. Pride won out, however, and he drew his arms over his chest and settled for a more dignified shivering instead. “Where are the others? You didn’t eat them, did you?”

The bear huffed an incensed reply.

“I’m sorry, that was insensitive of me, wasn’t it?” Strange, stomach-churning noises were coming from the bear’s direction. The series of wet pops and cracks were eerily similar to the time Mul dislocated his shoulder–minus the screaming, of course. Rasp decided he didn’t want to know, and carried on talking. “How dare I accuse you of eating anyone. It’s all a hurtful bear stereotype. Never mind the fact that you were eating a witch earlier.”

“I wasn’t eating the witch!” A woman’s voice roared back at him, sounding deeper and more gargled than it had any right to.

Probably still mid-transition, Rasp supposed. He was caught between being grateful and somewhat remorseful that his poor vision prohibited him from witnessing the spectacle for himself. In the end, judging from the gruesome sounds, not being able to see was probably for the best. He didn’t need to add anymore nightmare fuel to the steady fire already burning within his troubled thoughts.

“Look, we’ve all dabbled in cannibalism from time to time,” he carried on. “I accidentally swallowed a toe and you ate a witch’s face off. I’m not saying they’re the same, but I get it. Sometimes your mouth is just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Your mouth is about to be in the wrong place.”

Rasp was about to tell her where she could put her mouth when the response withered on his tongue. The shapeshifter was under the false impression she was his sister. And while Juneberry was obviously mistaken, Rasp couldn’t shake the feeling that incestuous jokes bordered a line even he didn’t want to cross.

“Oh, come on. You were about to say something snarky, I can tell. Don’t hold back on me now.”

“You never answered my question.” Gods, it was really saying something when it was him having to steer the conversation back on track. “Where are the others?”

“Faris and that other fellow went to go collect your stuff. Said something about fetching a mule. I’m not sure if that’s a euphemism for something, so I didn’t question it.” The woman’s voice grew louder as her footsteps approached. Rasp assumed she’d finished shifting forms. For one, her voice sounded more human than it had before and, two, the oppressive smell of animal musk and fur was no longer trying to jam its way up his nose.

Juneberry settled down onto the leaf-littered ground beside him, adding, “Faris thought we would benefit from having a quiet moment to get acquainted.”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Rasp failed to see what for. Just because Faris was entertaining Juneberry’s delusions didn’t mean he had to follow suit. He tilted his head to the side instead, suddenly noticing the suspicious lack of squabbling. “Did they take Father with them?”

“Who?”

“The other raven.” Describing Father would have been a waste of effort as volatile and stabby were not generally linked with one’s physical appearance. “Loud? Abrasive? Rather pecky?”

“Oh, you mean the ‘no good, dirty rotten, sad excuse of a man’!” For whatever reason, Juneberry delivered the line without any malice in her voice, as if this was simply the way she’d been taught to refer to her father. Rasp’s wheezing laugh must have tipped her off that something was amiss because, after patiently waiting for him to compose himself enough to listen, she said with markedly less confidence, “Do you suppose that’s why he flew off in a huff earlier? I didn’t mean anything by it. That’s what Aunty always called him.”

“No, that’s great. Keep calling him that. He’ll learn to love it.” If it wasn’t such a mouthful, Rasp might have considered adopting it himself. But it was just so hard to beat the efficiency of ‘rat bastard’.

“Father left shortly after you passed out.” The way Juneberry said the name made it seem as if it was one she’d not used with any sort of frequency before. “I’m sure he said where he was going but, between you and me, I’ve never been around this many people before. Keeping track of who said what is really hard! Is it normal for everyone to talk on top of each other all the time?”

Rasp stared straight ahead into the murky gloom as his former sense of mirth faded away. Truth be told, he wasn’t all that interested in getting to know Juneberry. He didn’t see the point. She wouldn’t have a reason to stick around once learning they weren’t actually related. “In my family we just hit each other. Talking was for those who didn’t know how to use their fists.”

“That sounds lovely. I can’t wait to meet the rest of them.”

It was time to shatter some realities, it seemed. “Look, Juneberry–”

“Just June, is fine. Sounds like you’re talking to a pie otherwise.”

That definitely wasn’t helping the ‘you’re not my sister’ case Rasp was currently trying to make. “I’m grateful for you helping Faris find me and keeping him safe and all, but I think you’ve got the wrong person. Just because you happen to have an equally shitty name doesn’t make us kin. I’m starting to think having unfit parents might be a universal thing.”

In lieu of an intelligible reply, June crept closer. Dried leaves crunched beneath her knees as she leaned forward and placed both hands on either side of Rasp’s face.

It was strange being on the receiving end of unwanted physical contact for a change. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve heard twins sometimes have an otherworldly connection. Like they can talk to each other without using words. I’m testing ours,” June explained as she adjusted her grip on his face. “Can you feel anything?”

Rasp didn’t think embarrassment was the answer she was looking for. Unrelated, Faris and Hop were going to get a serious talking to for daring to leave him in the company of a deluded bear-woman. Rasp slapped her hands away and sat straighter, deciding it was time to put his foot down. “First of all, that’s stupid. Secondly, we’re not twins. My twin was a boy and he died at birth.”

“Oh no, that’s just the story Mom told everyone,” June replied matter-of-factly. “She made it up to keep both of us safe.”

Lies and hearsay!

Unable to refute June’s claim without relying exclusively on every expletive in his vast repertoire of indecent language, Rasp settled for saying nothing at all.

Alas, she continued the conversation regardless of Rasp’s lack of involvement. “In case you hadn’t caught on, I’m a shapeshifter. A bear, specifically. I shifted forms shortly after birth and gave Mom quite the scare when she found a cub in the cradle where her daughter should have been.”

“I see.”

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“I do not.”

“We actually look a lot alike. Obviously you’re the ugly twin, but the resemblance is there.”

“Insulting me isn’t going to win me over.”

“Then maybe you could try asking thoughtful, adult questions instead of sulking like a baby, yeah?”

Fuck, she sounded just like their mother–his mother! Not theirs. Not yet anyway. Rasp slowly sank lower to the ground, feeling as if another life-shattering revelation was about to smack him across the face.

As it turned out, thoughtful, adult questions were difficult to ask. June was alarmingly patient for someone who supposedly had the same hot-tempered Stoneclaw blood pumping through their veins. She explained her existence in the most digestible way possible and, in the end, with the help of small words and repeating her answers until they were hammered into his thick skull, Rasp felt he had a decent handle of the events circulating their birth.

His mother–their mother–was an underhanded, bold-faced, two-timing liar! And he loved her all the more for it.

The best way to tell a convincing lie was to take the truth and twist it ever so slightly. Tal Stoneclaw had indeed bore twins during her sixth pregnancy. One boy, one girl and, for magical reasons, the girl became a bear several hours after birth. At that moment, Tal realized two things: baby Juneberry was magical, and her son Raspberry was irrefutably the sixth son born of a mighty Stoneclaw leader. In the name of stupid superstition, she feared both children would not be allowed to live.

So Tal lied. She claimed the twins were male, but sadly one did not survive the first night. She had Juneberry whisked down the mountain and placed into the care of an estranged family member. While her husband, Paler Stoneclaw, may have been the head of the clan, Tal was the voice that whispered in his ear. ‘The sixth son is dead so that the seventh can grow into the mightiest warrior the Stoneclaw clan has ever seen’. And it worked, at least for a little while. Due to her quick thinking, Rasp’s differences went unnoticed long enough for him to grow into adolescence.

June, on the other hand, thrived. She was brought up in secret by their estranged aunt living just outside of the Mossborn territory. The pair kept squirreled away in the dark woods where the only people who could find her were the ones she wanted to. It was an ideal arrangement. Juneberry had all the room and support a fledgling shapeshifter needed to grow. In addition to teaching her to read, write, and all the survival skills necessary to survive on her own, Aunt Dagmar also passed on her love of magic and the true history of the Stoneclaw people.

“You’re awfully quiet,” June remarked once the epiphany had had a chance to settle. “You got all that?”

He did, sort of. Rasp’s stunned silence wasn’t in the absorption of the information itself, but what it meant for him. As selfish as it was, learning he had a sister was trumped by the fact that irrefutable proof that he was the sixth son born of a mighty Stoneclaw leader, destined to bring death and destruction upon the world. While he’d always had his suspicions, at least there had been a convenient layer of doubt to keep his fears his bay. The benefit of plausible deniability no longer applied now.

He sat in stunned silence for a few awkward seconds, failing to notice the sudden draft that blustered the ends of his hair into his eyes. He pushed the bothersome strands back with his hand with a defeated sigh. “I think so–”

The sentiment was drowned out by the predatory growl that rumbled in the back of June’s throat. She shot to her feet, snarling, “You.”

Rasp’s only comfort was in the knowledge that June was not growling at him. “Who?”

“The blue porcupine from the mountain.” June raised her voice, calling out to someone further away. “I know you’re there, you little shit. I’d know that smell anywhere. You’re not spiking with your toxic quills this time!”