They Lied

Shenandoah rushed back toward her makeshift home, eager to share what she had learned with Alar and Raban. Alar has a son! Shenandoah was sure that Alar was unaware, or else he would have told her. She couldn’t imagine how her companion would react, what he would want to do next. She also had news of Aryn to share. Shen could be as stubborn as a moose, but she also knew by now how easy it was to misjudge others. There was much to discuss...

She slowed to a trot as she reached their densite, panting as she caught her breath. The wind was blowing toward her, bringing with it the familiar scents of her little home with Alar and Raban. In fact, she could hear their voices on the breeze already!

Though they didn’t sound happy. Shenandoah felt a knot in her stomach immediately. Something wasn’t right here. Raban and Alar never fought. What could possibly have happened? She prowled closer, fearing the worst, her ears perked forward as she approached the conversation, eager to get an indication of what exactly she was walking into.

“…can’t keep using her like this! She’s not your slave, Alar, she’s a wolf! And she loves you, can’t you see that?” Wait… what…? Shenandoah felt her chest tighten as she heard the words, a panic she did not understand making her heart race and her mind flashing unbidden to Bellamy. What does he mean? There must be some context she is missing. She continued forward. She could see them now, fur and feathers ruffled in the sun as she watched from the shadows, her paws carrying her forward and her green eyes wide as moons. What is he saying?

“What do you want me to do? Like I hardly have a choice at this point, anyway. I’m all she has left.” The young she-wolf froze immediately, right at the edge of the clearing. They were so heated in their argument that they didn’t seem to notice she was standing there in the shadows just meters away. She wanted to speak, but she could do nothing but stare with her jaws parted slightly in a dumb gape and her whole body rigid as she struggled to get air. Everything around her felt unbearably heavy, suffocating, she was full of fear.

Raban went on. “Someday she’ll realize all the things you’ve done. Someday she’ll find out the truth about her parents, about the Valerians, and how you used her. Not to mention how you were going to sell her off to Roan. That ugly mug may be dead, but his brother’s still at large!”

“All the things we’ve done.” Alar corrected pointedly. “She’s as dumb as a hare, and as long as you keep your fat beak shut, she’ll never know a thing.”

Shen didn’t know if it was a shift in the wind or the touch of fate that shifted their eyes to her, and killed their voices in their throats as silence fell suddenly. She could see the shock, the horror, likely even reflecting her own. If there had ever been some way to talk out of this one, it was far too late. Shen could see the truth of it all in their eyes. They didn’t want her to hear, and that told her everything. Everything, yet nothing clicked in her mind. Nothing, in the heat of this moment, made sense. She knew this was big, but the true gravity? She had not even begun to grasp. Raban took a step forward, “S-Shen…?”

She stumbled backwards, “I-I…” she felt numb with shock, his mind resorting to all she knew, but it froze when it realized that she knew absolutely nothing. “I’m sorry, I just…” She was staring right into Alar’s deep amber eyes. No… this is so wrong. I have to get out of here.

She spun around and fled. A tiny voice in her mind reminded her of Jerikoh and Dante and Hekate as well as the others in Vekten she was leaving behind, it reminded her of Bellamy, and loudest of all it reminded her of her parents, and the Valerians, and what this could mean, and Alar…

That was when she violently slammed the door on such thoughts, on any thoughts at all, besides her blind plunge to nowhere. The gravity was growing immense. This was earth-shattering, terrifying, desperate. There was no one to run to, nothing she could trust in, there was nothing she knew. Nothing except for her new, and now her only, truth.

They lied.