“Yeah, you and me both,” Katherine replied,
The three turned back toward the rest of the pack. Aceso was shaking claws with her teacher. The other werewolf was taller than Aceso but only just, maybe by an inch or two. He had very light brown fur and his golden eyes seemed to almost glow. The werewolf was familiar to him somehow. He knew he had seen this werewolf before but he couldn’t place where.
After a short goodbye the light brown left and Aceso was alone facing the rest of her pack. William glanced around at the surrounding forest. They were the only ones left in the forest clearing.
“I’d just really like to thank you for speaking for all of us to Huan Li just now, Aceso that was really thoughtful of you.” The sarcasm dripped from Nicolas’ voice. It was so thick William could imagine an ectoplasm trail left behind it on the ground.
Aceso glanced over at Nicolas and for the first time William thought he saw something more than tolerance in her eyes. It was gone too quickly to know for sure or to identify correctly. He didn’t even want to think that it was what he thought it might have been.
Aceso turned back to the group and the sudden tension that William felt dissipated. “I’m very proud of all of you.” Nicolas scoffed and turned his head. William noticed Charles dip his head again and his shoulders slumped. “Charles, you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Charles looked up at Aceso with pain visible in his eyes. “I failed you and the rest of our pack.”
Aceso shook her head. “You made a mistake, Charles. It won’t happen again.” Aceso lowered an even gaze at her tracker. “We learn from our mistakes and move on.”
Charles seemed to draw into himself. After a moment he straightened his back, his shoulders picked themselves up, and his tail arched up into the air. He returned Aceso’s gaze but remained silent. He dipped his head in the slightest of nods that William would have missed if he hadn’t been watching.
Aceso looked around at the rest of her pack. “We all know how Nicolas feels about all this.” She turned her head toward the other Healer. “Achelois? Do you have anything you want to add?”
Achelois stood apart from the pack. Her back was straight, and she wore a proud, but grim expression on her face. She looked at William and turned back toward Aceso. She stared hard at Aceso for a moment then very deliberately turned her head to the side, a marked show of disinterest. Aceso chest heaved slightly as she sighed.
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“So, what do we do now?” Nicolas spoke into the thick silence. “Do we just hang around here, sit around a campfire and tell ghost stories?”
Aceso arched an eyebrow at him as her tail flicked to the side. “Ghost stories?”
William couldn’t help but let out a quick laugh. The rest of his pack looked at him with questions written on their faces, even Achelois turned toward the Enforcer with a questioning look. William let the smile remain on his face. “I forget sometimes that you’re a wolf born and probably don’t know a lot of things that we human born take for granted.” William reached up and scratched at his head behind his pointed ears. His tail hung loosely between his legs. “Ghost stories are horror stories, scary stories that humans tell each other around campfires out in the forest.”
Aceso let acknowledgement shine in her eyes, but she made no other movement of recognition. Achelois cocked her head to the side as her tail resumed its previous raised position of pride.
“Yeah, ok I was being sarcastic if you didn’t know,” Nicolas interjected. “I sure as hell didn’t expect you guys to take that idea seriously.” Nicolas was standing with his tail limp behind him looking from one pack member to the other trying to get them off this crazy track that he himself initiated.
“Whatever we are going to do shouldn’t we at least eat?” Katherine asked. “I don’t know why but I am starving this morning for some reason.”
Aceso nodded. “Yes, we should hunt if we are going to stay out in the forest.” She looked around at her pack. “Charles, you and Achelois go hunt.”
Charles nodded and turned to go. Achelois stood in her silent repose for a moment. William figured that this was her way of demonstrating that she didn’t owe anything to Aceso and therefore didn’t have to follow her commands. William watched as she gazed around at her pack mates. There was no malice or distaste in her gaze or her stature, but she was communicating that she found something about this whole arrangement disagreeable. William knew all too well what that was. With one last look at Aceso, Achelois turned and sprinted off into the forest. Charles was caught off guard by her sudden wordless departure. With a slight spray of dirt and pine needles Charles kicked off the earth to join the retreating female.
The rest of the day went by without incident. William along with Katherine explained what ghost stories were. Nicolas grumbled occasionally but was rather amiable for the most part. William asked Katherine more about what it was like to be a Sage and he tried to explain what it was like to be an Enforcer. “There’s nothing really to tell. Ares taught me what it meant to be a werewolf and a shape shifter. I don’t know if I have any special abilities and if I do, I think they’re restricted to fighting and stamina.”
Katherine listened to what he had say and she shared some of her fears of what Sages can do. “The one thing that Tyche stressed was that we sages have no natural limits to how much we can give to the earth. Our limits come from our bodies. There is only so much we can do before our bodies fail and we pass out, like I did during our test.”
After some time had passed Charles and Achelois brought back a nice deer though smaller than the ones they had been able to kill in the past few days. Charles shook his head at the size of the kill. “It took me a long time to catch its scent and Achelois and I weren’t exactly running at a leisurely pace. We must have traveled over half of the forest before I detected this one.”