“Asclepius, I’m fine, really. Now let go of my shirt.” She said tugging her shirt out of the wolf’s jaws and wiping away her tears with the back of her arm. “Come on,” she said standing up, “We have to get back to the others.”
The two took off running. The closer they got to the rest of their pack, the slower they moved. Asclepius kept his nose to the ground searching for snakes and other predators, while Tara kept her eyes up and constantly scanning their surroundings for any sign of insects, or spiders, or anything else that might pose a threat to them in the night. They came back to their pack having run into nothing more serious than some flies. Of course, when the sun went down, they might be swarmed by mosquitos, but that couldn’t be helped. They did bring some nets that they could hang from some of the nearby trees.
Acharya and Aiman had a happy fire going as Tara and Asclepius approached. Wolves, in the wild, have a huge aversion to fire. If a wolf runs towards fire, they usually have a disease, rabies being the most common. However, wolf born Shape shifters learn, among many other things, to tolerate fire as a tool of civilization and their human born companions. Asclepius was no exception. The wolf sat down amidst his pack next to the flames as if it was the most natural thing for him to do.
Mary and Malikah already had water boiling over the fire and they were getting the backpacking food they had brought with them prepared. Mary smiled and tossed a can of meat to Tara. “Can you open that for Asclepius?” She asked.
Tara shrugged and opening the tab on the can, emptied the contents onto a flat rock nearby. Asclepius looked up at her with a dirty look and a low growl in his throat, but lowered his head to the food and ate it hungrily. Tara smiled and shook her head. She knew he found this whole act to be undignified. But it wasn’t like they could risk him shifting into werewolf form and eating like the rest of them. Besides, she also knew that his indignation was partly an act. He had no problem eating like this when they were in the wooded areas under the Mountain when they were training and when he hunted. The fact that the food came from a can was what he had a major problem with.
Tara moved back next to the fire and reached her hands out towards the flame. The sun was sinking in the west, and as its light grew dimmer, the temperature dropped. “That smells so good you two, when do we eat?” she asked the other two girls.
Mary smiled, “Yeah cuz, rehydrated backpacking food is sooo good.”
“When you’re as hungry as I am,” Acharya said, “everything looks gourmet. Let’s eat.”
The group tore into their individual pouches of rehydrated food. Tara got beef stew while Aiman and Acharya ate chicken fettuccini. The food was hot and there was a surprising amount of food stuffed into the pouches. By the time they finished their meal all of them were satisfied and lounged back looking into the fire.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
While to the north, the city of N’Djamena was lit up like a Christmas tree. The city’s lights were bright and colorful and served as a beacon for miles around. The halo of light surrounding the city ate up the stars in the night sky around it making an eerie halo of artificial light around the whole place.
Mary slapped at her arm as the mosquitos were already making a meal of her. Luckily, they had brought some insect repellent and mosquito nets. Unfortunately, even the best bug spray wasn’t one hundred percent effective against every mosquito.
Tara looked up into the night sky as Mary applied another coat of bug spray to her arms. The night sky here was impressive. It reminded her of what the sky had looked like when she was growing up with her mother on the reservation. She could see the river of dense stars, which she had always been taught was called The Scattered Stars, most people called it the Milky Way. The river was broad here and so dense filled with stars, she could almost see the current as it flowed across the night sky. It brought a smile to her face.
Acharya broke the silence between them, “Mary, have you felt anything, or gotten any sort of feeling about anything?”
The black girl looked at him with a smirk, “You mean like, have the planets properly aligned and the chicken bones foretold to me our destiny?” This drew a snort of laughter from Malikah.
“This is no time for games,” Aiman said. “We have a job to do and you are the best way for us to accomplish it.”
Mary shook her head with an exasperated sigh. “Guys, look, that’s not how it works. I can’t just look up in the sky and I’ll be shown where to find the next Shape shifter. It’s more delicate and complicated than that. If it was that easy, then the Mountain would have had…” she trailed off at the painful memories of their lost home.
“Is there any way for us to help?” Tara asked quietly.
Mary shook her head, “I don’t think so. I have been trying, believe it or not. I don’t even know what a Were hyena would feel like. The abilities that Nicolas, Ansuya, and Huan Li helped to open back up to us Scouts isn’t really understood. We’re all newbie’s at this. I just have to believe that there is something out there to find. After that, it’s anybody’s guess.”
Aiman gave her a sideways glance. Acharya gave a supportive smile and nodded, “Well if any Scout out there can do it, I know that our Scout is the best, and that you won’t let us down.”
He turned around and rummaging in his pack, pulled out his mosquito net, “Well, we’ve had a pretty hard day. I say we all turn in and get some sleep. Tomorrow, we’ll head towards N’Djamena. And all the wonders that the modern age has to offer.”
The group looked at their Alpha with smirks and sideways glances. He did, on occasion, have a tendency to be overly optimistic about things, probably why Tara liked him so much.
She had spent a lot of her life around people who were content to stay as they were. No, it was worse than that. The people she grew up with were not only content to stay the way they were, but also to actively discourage anyone else from trying to be better than they were. It wasn’t enough that they had given up on themselves, they made sure that everyone around them gave up on themselves too. It was nice to be around someone who was optimistic about the future. Someone who actually believed in the best from those around him, not the worst. Her mother had tried to shield her from all the negative attitudes on the Res, but she could only do so much.
That night, Tara dreamed of herself as a little girl running toward a great light in the sky. It filled her with hope and warmth, but it was so far away. Monsters nipped at her heels as she was chased across a great vast plain with no help in sight, and the great light kept moving farther and farther away.