The Forest Through the Trees
10 Muin
by Assilsasta
(¯`·._.··¸.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.,-(_Picking up the Pieces_)-,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸··._.·´¯)
Emmet pushed his way past the circle of furs as he chased his fleeing wife. As soon as he was past the other men he found himself standing, looking out into the all but deserted gathering grounds, the last sign of the female lynx, her discarded shoes, left as if stepped out of while she ran. He turned and looked at the gathering of males as he asked, “Which way did she go?”
The only answer was silence returned by the men as some scowled at him. His heart began to race as he realized just how outnumbered he was. Turning to run in the direction the shoes pointed he began to mutter to himself, “Ya though I am in the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil…” His only real concern at the moment the words and revelation his wife had left him with.
------
Donovan picked up his youngest sister as he turned to Sonet as he nodded to Katie. “Hey munchkin,” he said to the small lynx in his arms, wiping the tears from her eyes, “I want you to meet someone very special, you too Katie.” He put his free arm around Sonet and pulled her closer as he said, “This is Sonet, My wife, your new sister… I guess.”
“So… umm… You’re married,” Katie asked, one arm crossing her chest, holding her elbow to her side.
Donovan gave a halfhearted chuckle as he rubbed the back of his head, “Ya, it’s… um... Hard to explain.”
Sonet knelt down in front of Katie and smiled as she said, “You are as beautiful in life as you are in the ether.”
Katie took a step back and blushed hard, visible through her white fur as she asked, “Why… why are you naked?”
“This is the way the mother made us,” the doe husky hybrid replied. “It is only natural to be sky clad in her presence.” Almost as if snapped into some alternate world, Sonet reached out and grabbed Katie’s paw and said, “Dawn said candy. Come Let us find Star Dreamer. He has fruit rock candies.” Then she began to pull the cub along as the crowd began to cautiously disperse back their previous activities.
“Sonet,” Donovan shouted after the energetic hybrid, “Hold up. Why don’t you take Grace, I think I need to talk to Katie.”
Sonet turned and looked at him with a slightly confused expression, “Why?”
“Well, we just had a big bomb dropped on us, and…” he trailed off for a moment as Sonnet looked him and his sisters over for a moment.
Letting go of Katies paw she reached out to the youngest of the lynx family. In a nervous reaction Grace hugged her brother tighter and buried her face in his shoulder. “Come on grace, you want some candy right?” the small girl shook her head, face still planted in his shoulder. “Well, she’s the one that knows where it is. She doesn’t bite.”
The small lynx looked up at his with her thumb in her mouth, then to the doe.
Sonet smiled at the young girl as she said, “I’ll tell you a story my grandfather used to tell me when I was small like you.” She smiled, showing her canine teeth as she continued, “It’s called the Day Boy and Night Girl.”
The little girl looked back at Donovan for a moment before he asked, “Will you go with her if she holds your paw, She’s really nice and wants to get to know her new sisters.” With a weak nod of her head, Donovan put her back on the ground.
“Come,” Sonet said with a smile, “lets run, it’s always more fun to run.”
Donovan smiled and shook his and smiled as he heard his little sister giggle as the pair ran off paw in paw. He wasn’t sure how long it would take for his family to warm up to his new mate, but at least his little sisters seemed to be taking it better than his parents. He looked down at Katie as he said, “So, I guess we got a lot to talk about.”
“What… what mom said…” Katie started to ask before she trailed off unsure of herself.
“Yeah, I know right,” Donovan said as he started walking in the direction his wife and sister had disappeared in. “I really don’t know about that, and it didn’t look like Dad did either.”
“Um… if… if he’s not your dad…” the younger girl started, obviously unsure of herself.
“I… I really don’t know. As long as I can remember he’s been Dad,” Donovan said with a shrug. “Anyway, How is school? shouldn’t you be in class?”
“Dad pulled us out to come looking for you,” She said looking down at the ground. They walked for a moment in silence before she added, “I made the football team, and MVP on the baseball team.”
“That’s great. I wish I could have been there for that.”
“You could’ve, you know.”
“I had to get away, Katie, I couldn’t take it anymore. Every day was just another lecture of what I needed to be doing and how I was amounting to nothing. It was like he has this grand plan that I needed to finish for him or something.”
“I… I miss you Don,” Katie said softly. “It’s… it’s so quiet at the games without you. Dad’s always too busy. And… and I miss having you close.”
“Katie,” the lynx boy said glancing down at his sister, “What… what I really wanted to talk to you about… was… um… About a month ago… did… did you have a dream?”
As the words came out of his mouth Katie stopped in her tracks. Eyes wide she looked up at him, her mouth hanging open. Donovan looked at her as his suspicions were confirmed. “What you said… in the dream… what… what we did…”
Katie blushed deeply as she looked back down to the ground. “I… Don…” She stammered unable to look up at him.
He knelt by her, no longer paying attention to where Sonet or his younger sister had gone to. “Katie, it’s okay, you’re at the age where you have those kinds of feelings, and… I have those kinds of feeling for Sonet. I do love you Katie, you’re my sister, but I am in love with Sonet.”
She looked up at him as she said, “But… but what if I’m not really your sister? Mom said that…”
Donovan looked down at ground as his sister trailed off. “I… I really don’t know, you… you’ve always been my little sister and… thinking about stuff like that… it’s it’s kinda weird. You know what I mean? Look, once we find Mom and Dad, we’ll have to ask them more about all this. It’s gotten really confusing, and today hasn’t helped anything, for either of us.”
In a sad tone Katie said, “Okay,” as her brother put a paw on her shoulder.
“Hey, let’s find Sonet and Grace. Can’t let those two have all the fun, right?”
“Don?” Katie looked up at him and said, “You’ve changed. I think meeting Sonet was a good thing. The way you stood up to Dad, and… you look better, healthier, like you’ve been working out more.”
Donovan huffed a laugh as he said, “Sure, if you call chopping wood and lugging a makeshift wolf den out of the forest working out, I guess I have. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll be able to come out and spend some time at the grove with us.” He smiled as he stood back up. “Now which way did that crazy girl of mine get off to with Grace?”
(¯`·._.··¸.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.,-(_A Mother’s Secrets_)-,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸··._.·´¯)
Lydia’s bare paws tapped lightly against the cold snow covered ground as she ran into the tree line. Here mind raced with the sudden admission she had made in front of so many people, an admission she hoped never to make. More than eighteen years had passed since she had met and become mated to Emmett, and she had sworn to leave them behind and never look back. She only went back there once, and that one slip had now followed her, and affected her son.. And now she needed to find a way out of it all.
She could hear him calling her from back the way she came, but her feet would not let her stop running. He wasn’t a cracker , or a wilderness man in any way, but a blind, deaf, mute could follow the trail she left in the snow covered forest floor. Without much thought she hit a large pine tree, her claws extending in all four of her paws as they dug into the bark, lifting her into the dense evergreen tree. Soon, perched high in the branches, she looked down at the top of the slightly older male lynx as he looked around, confused by the sudden stop in her path. She scooted close to the tree trunk, pulling her legs up on the branch with her when she saw him look up. Soon she let out a sigh of relief as he called out her name again and started to walk farther into the wood, following what would have been her path if she had continued.
------
Emmett pulled his coat tighter around him as he followed the trail of paw prints left by his wife. The past few hours seemed to only add to his world falling apart. His son’s words echoing in his mind alongside his wife’s. His son was only five when they started going to church.
His son. Those words suddenly held more weight in his paws than ever before. His wife’s revelation to them had felt like a physical punch in the chest. It had knocked the air out of him when she said Donovan was not his. The revelation that he had raised the boy as his own, feeling that something was not right the entire time.
When the boy was born, his parents began their crusade to get Emmett to take them all back to church, raise his family right, as he was. At first he was resistant, feeding off his wife’s free spirited nature, the unbridled passion that they shared felt wrong every time he even considered returning to his Christian roots. That, and the memory of his father’s interpretation of the verse, “Spare the rod, Spoil the child.” It had been one of the things that originally soured his palate for the biblical ways. He didn’t want to be his father.
He stopped as the snow began to fall again. The image of his wife as she grabbed his raised paw, the paw he had raise at his son. His mind raced in two directions simultaneously. On one paw he saw the look in his father’s eyes when he was in the same place Donovan was, wanting to do his own thing, take control of his own life, marry the girl he had fallen in love with. On the other he saw the look in his wife’s eyes as she told him he essentially had no son, and the boy he had raised suddenly became a total stranger in his heart.
He dropped down in the snow as he wondered just what other secrets his family had kept from him as he took them back to the church. His family seemed content with life as he looked back, but Donovan had always seemed resistant to the teachings, always questioning them, but following them none the less. He wondered just how much he had missed with his daughters as he tried to get them both to fall in line with what he thought was best. “I’ve become my own father,” he said aloud into the lonely woods. “And Donovan is not even mine. Where did I go wrong?”
-----
Several minutes had passed since Emmett had passed beneath the tree and the snow had nearly covered his tracks, and her path back the way they had come. She climbed down the tree, her paws shivering in what felt like an entirely new chill that radiated in from the ground. It had been so many years since she had been this far out in the wilderness. Just over seventeen in fact. She looked around at the tranquil, death-like expanses of leafless skeletal trees mixed in with the evergreens. She was uncertain which of the two paths before her she should take. One lead back to the pagan gathering, and the other lead to the man she had dedicated her life to, and lied to for years about her son.
She looked up into the slowly falling snow as she said aloud, “Which way should I go? Every choice I’ve made on my own has only caused problems for my children. And now I may have just destroyed every chance they had at a normal life.” She looked back down at the ground as she ran the past seventeen years through her mind, all the lies she had told to protect her mate from her own past, the pain she felt every time the man she loved took a step in the direction that only hindered her son. If only she had been truthful from the start, but would he have ever accepted her?
She took a deep breath as she turned in the direction her mate had gone. She knew he wouldn’t last the night, and he wouldn’t be able to find the way back alone. Even with his choices, that she supported him in as much as she could, she still loved him, and wanted him in her life. But the Lies had to end; she needed to tell him the truth, even if it would drive him away. She started walking and singing a song that she had always loved, though she did not feel it fit well into her life and heart.
“As the deer panteth for the weather so my soul longeth after thee, You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship thee.
You alone are my strength, my shield. To you alone does my spirit yield. You alone are my heart’s desire, and I long to worship thee.”
The words felt right to her, but the direction she sent them was not what was meant by the writer. Her mind had always gone to her lover and mate when the verse rolled off her tongue, not the god they were written for. As she walked the words got louder with each step. She sang out into the forest as she followed the path to the target of her song. It was not long before she saw the male lynx, sitting, shivering as the snow slowly piled up around him. He didn’t turn or respond as she approached her words more than audible to him. She knelt behind him and wrapped her arms around his as she continued to sing in his ear.
He leaned into her as she finished singing to him. “I love you, Emmett, and I never meant to hurt you.”
“I’m a fool.”
She snickered at his words as she said, “No more a fool than I. We are from as different worlds as our son and his mate.”
“But he’s not my son. Are any of them mine? I don’t even know who you are anymore. You’ve lied to me.” He pulled away from her warmth as he spoke. “We’ve lived a lie. You cheated on me, you’ve been unfaithful.”
She looked at him as he turned to face her. “You don’t understand. It’s…” she trailed off for a moment as she looked at the anger in his eyes. The same anger she saw in his father’s eyes when he told his family he was getting married. The look of the entire world being forced from his grip, like a toy from a stubborn child throwing a tantrum. “You’ll leave us. Once I tell you the truth you will turn away and never look back. Everything we have, everything we’ve done together I have done for you. I’ve lied to protect you, to protect my son and our daughters from the wrath of your god. There are things you would never understand, things that Donovan is seeing and questioning even now.”
“What… what do you mean?” He asked as he looked at the lynx woman that seemed more strange to him now after eighteen years of marriage than she did when he first met her. “What do you know about what he is going through? This… this cult has brainwashed him. I’ve raised him as my own, I’ve taught him better than this. Even if I am not his biological father, he defied me.”
“It’s not a cult,” she said looking him in the eyes. “They are disconnected; anyone can see that many of them at that gathering traveled a long way to be there. Only maybe a hundred are from this town.” They are peaceful, nature loving pagans, wiccans. They aren't the demon, devil worshipers you want them to be. You follow a religion of love, one that I can follow with you. But you hang onto a prejudice taught from the pulpit that is so against the teachings of your own holy book. You judge them all before you know them. You condemn them to hell, which is not your place to do.”
“They deny God. They blaspheme and use the powers of the devil, worshiping plant and what not. How can that be good for anything?”
“All that doesn’t matter,” She said as she started to crawl toward him. “Your God tells you one thing about all this, Love thy neighbor as thy self. Jesus was an outcast of his own people, the one you confess as your savior turned his back on the prejudice of the day and dined with sinners and pagans. He surrounded himself with everything that the religious leaders of the day shunned. And now you do the same thing Jesus lead his people from.”
Emmett sat in stunned silence as his wife's words rang with truth in his ears. With a meek voice he looked at her and asked, “What have you lied to me about? What is so bad that I would leave you?”
“Donovan’s father… is my brother.” The words hung in the air like icicles waiting to fall.
Emmett looked wide eyed at her as he spoke, “You… you told me…”
She looked away as she cut him off, “I know. I told you I didn’t have any family. But you have to understand, I left for a reason. I went back only to tell them I was getting married. That was the last time I ever wanted to see them again. They are… They are everything you fear these people surrounding our son are. They saw nothing wrong with any action, as long as it stayed within the circle.” She sat back, unable to look at him as she heard him getting closer to her.
“Lydia…” he said softly as he reached up and brushed the hair away from her cheek, “I had no idea.”
She pulled away as she said, “I left because I wanted no part of what they were.” She looked up at him, tears in her eyes as she added, “And I want nothing to do with you, or your God if you stand in the way of my son, or our daughters.”
The lynx man leaned back on his haunches as his jaw dropped open. He was unsure of what had just transpired as all the information slowly started to sink in. His wife had just issued him an ultimatum he could not ignore. She wanted him to give up his power as the father of his children. In only a few moments she had torn his son from him, and now she wanted him to step back from their daughters. Something he could not do in good conscience.
“I can’t do that,” he said softly, “Donovan may not be my son, but Katie and Grace are my children, and I will continue to do what I know is best.”
“Then you will do it without me,” She said as she stood up and started to walk away. “and you will find your own way back.” As she finished her words she darted into the forest, swiftly disappearing into the white snow with her white fur.
(¯`·._.··¸.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.,-(_Panic_)-,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸··._.·´¯)
Donovan watched as Sonet and his sisters played with the small wolf pups. Several other young cubs had joined them as the farel cubs barked and played happily with them. He smiled as the girls laughed the drama of the day all but gone as his mate started to obviously work on getting his sisters out of their cloths. Encouraged by the other youngsters his youngest sister was soon nude beside her, through Katie maintained her middle resistance, continually glancing at him as she protested. He wondered just what was stopping her from going nude when he knew she showered with her male teammates after practice on a regular basis.
He stood to walk over to the small group as he caught sight of his mother coming out of the trees, as nude as his own mate. He froze in his tracks as he watched her stopped short of the gathering circle and looked around as if confused. He couldn’t help but look over her body at the distance. He had never seen her in the fur, but had always known she was fit and well formed. He shook his head as his mind wandered to his sister Katie and the kiss she shared with Sonnet.
“I’m a fucking perv,” he mumbled to himself. “First I fall for a girl that is barely legal for me, and now I’m perving on my sister and mother.” he swiftly diverted his gaze as he saw his mother look his way.
“Don,” the older lynx woman called out as she headed toward him. Out the corner of his eye he saw his sisters react to the familiar voice of their mother, Katie all but fell back when she saw the older woman unclothed. “Don, we need to find him.”
“Mom, you’re… you’re naked,” he said as he covered his eyes with her approach.
“Get it together Don,” she said putting a paw on his shoulder. “You’ve been out here among these furs, you should be over the clothing thing. I need your help.”
“Mom, we…”
She cut him off as she said, “I know, there is a lot we need to talk about, but it’ll have to wait. I left your faith… Emmett out there and we need to find him. He’s not prepared for this climate, or area. He’ll die if we leave him out there.”
Donovan’s eyes went wide as the thought of the man that raised him lost in the woods. He had spent so much time looking into what he would need for the mountains this time of year and had hoped to be past them before winter had hit. He turned and swiftly started looking for someone he recognized by name. He suddenly realized how few of the locals he had gotten to know in the few days he had been out of the mountains. The Bernese boy and his wife were nowhere to be seen, and he hardly knew Start Dreamer beyond the few words they shared and his quick trip to town. He turned to Sonet who was standing looking at the pair as his mother talked to him almost frantic. With only a nod and a smile the doe husky hybrid jetted into the forest where his mother had emerged.
“Sonet!” he shouted, certain she was the worst person to go looking for his bible thumping father, only to see that he was too late as she vanished into the trees. “Fuck!” He looked at his sisters as he said, “Katie, take mom and Grace over to one of the fires. I’ll be back… I think.” He turned and started weaving through the crowd looking for the polarbear that seemed to be the only other one that knew Sonet well enough to know what to do.
As Star Dreamer glanced up from a steaming cup of cocoa he caught sight of the doe husky darting off into the woods alone. “This can’t be good,” he muttered to himself as he scanned the crowded circle soon seeing the lynx who appeared to be searching for someone. “Excuse me for a minute my friends, I must go and check on something,” the old bear said as he turned to a bear boy a few feet away. “Jack, go and get James, Jeremy and Jonathan… and roust shovel up, I think we may need him this time.” As the bear boy ran off Star weaved his way through the crowd towards Donovan shouting the boy’s name once he was close enough to be heard over the crowd.
“Star,” Donovan shouted as he heard his name called out, “She’s out looking for my father… Emmett. He’s out there somewhere and I’m worried she might find him first.”
“Damn fool of a girl,” the old bear said shaking his head. “Alright I have some…” he began, his words cut off by a booming voice behind him shouting out his name. “Over here shovel, and bring the others with you please,” he shouted back. A moment later a huge, strapping elk man politely pushed his way through the crowd carrying the three bear boys under his arms as if they were sacks of flour.
“Ona da boys said ya needed me, what’s goin on?” the elk asked in a thick New York accent.
“Short of it boys is that we have a lost lynx in the woods alone. He’s unfamiliar with the area, and not much of an outdoors man. Sonet is out looking for him, and it may not be a good thing if she finds him first. Shovel, I want you to follow her trail, over take her quietly if you can and find this man. You three boys follow along after him, in case he or Sonet need any assistance. Do not interfere unless you must if she finds him first, but remember your charge when it comes to the little druid. Now go and quickly,” the old bear said as he turned back to the lynx. “Not to worry Donovan, we will not let either of them come to any harm if it can be avoided in any way. Shovel has the best chance of catching her, he’s the only one in town that can. The others will do what they need to.”
“I’m not sure who I’m worried about the most,” the teen lynx said as he watched the group head into the woods. “Sonnet for going after him, or him if she actually finds him first. He might not be my father, but he did raise me as best he knew how. And I’m still worried about him, he’s been out there for a few hours now, and if mom came back nude...” he trailed off at the thought of his father exposed to the elements away from the gathering.
“The big elk has the speed to out match your mate, and the skills to track your father even in a blizzard. He may not find him first, but he won’t be far behind Sonnet. The boys are all familiar with the area, and with Shovel and his ways. They won’t lose his trail either and will be there if they are needed. However, as far as your mother’s state of undress… I think while you wait for news of your father, you, your sisters and she has quite a lot that you need to discuss.”
Donovan nodded as he glanced over to the group of lynx gathered around a small fire as someone draped a heavy quilt over his mother. “Yeah, I think we have a lot to talk about, and more than just what happened today.”
(¯`·._.··¸.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.,-(_Father Daughter Dance_)-,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸··._.·´¯)
Sonet’s ears twitched as she heard the sounds behind her, urging her to pick up the pace. She had seen the man’s aura as he confronted her mate and lover, and it’s shift as the lynx woman told him an unknown truth. He was angry, confused and scared; things she knew were bad in the winter alone. The path left by Donovan’s mother was clear as a deer run in fall to her. The random discarded clothing only served to enhance the path. She stopped for a moment at a tree as she touched the bark and glanced into its heights.
She looked over her shoulder back down the path as whispered voices came to her heart again. Swiftly she turned and sprinted down the trail, hoping to stay ahead of the elk she smelled on the air. She knew they were coming more to stop her than help her save the man her mate called his father. But, she knew that she needed to find him first, for her sake, and Dawn’s.
Sonet knew the older elk could not be far behind as she caught site of the lynx man sitting in the snow. She slowed her pace to a walk as she cautiously continued her approach. She watched as radiance of energy around him shifted and swirled with confusion and conflict. The doe took a few more steps forward, to ensure her position between the trees and the small clearing he sat in, before she started to softly sing. The breeze and snow ruffled through her bare fur as she watched him turn toward the sound.
The light layer of snow that had formed on his head and shoulders cracked and fell away as he looked at the nude doe husky hybrid.He turned back away from her as he said, “Haven’t you devils done enough to punish me?”
Sonet stopped and tilted her head when she asked, “Punish you? I’ve come to help you.” She spoke softly, more childlike than he had expected.
He turned to look at the girl again, and let out a shivered gasp as he realized the girl was not much older than his own daughter. He couldn’t help but look at her nude form. He could see why Donovan was swayed if she was the one they used to entrap him. She was beautiful, with the voice of an angel. He swallowed hard as he diverted his eyes from her temptation. “Leave me be child, I want nothing to do with your people.”
The young doe husky knelt down in the snow a few feet from him as she replied, “They are not my people, not the one you think. They fear my presence as much as you fear them. I see it in their smiles, as much as I see it in your frown. They love and cherish what and who I am, but they want me as far from their homes as you want your family away from them.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked the angst in his voice filling the tension that hung around him. “I wasn’t even there for you and they gathered around to take action no matter what I did.”
“No,” she said softly as she reached toward him only for him to pull away from her touch. “They only did that to protect themselves and their family. Not from you, but from what might have happened if you got to me.” Her head jerked to the look over her shoulder as she continued, her ears twitching at the sounds carried on the wind. “Just as they are looking for you, to keep you from me. They would gladly have made it to you first, regardless of where I was.” She stood and turned toward the trees where she had come from as she spoke, more to the forest than to him, “And they will carry you out of this forest, clinging to the threats of your life. Or you can walk out of here with me.”
He chuckled lightly, his teeth chattering in the cold as he said, “If a child could find me, I’m sure any one can.”
“I live in this forest, it is my home,” She said loudly into the air. Her ears twitched as she looked into the shadows of the trees. “You assume as Dawn did, that I am but a child left alone in the woods. Worse, you think I am of your devil. This forest is where I belong, and you are all lost in it. You find your way only by the grace of the mother.” She turned back to the lynx, dropping to her knees as she said, “And you refuse to listen to her, or anyone else that has come to this place. If you wish for me to leave you here, I can, and I will. Unlike the others that came looking for you, for us, I am not bound by their law. The will do all in their power to bring harm to none. They will take you out of this forest; they will do all they can to help you, even though they only wish for you to leave this place, and their… town. Truly, for all I care, you can die here, and complete the circle. Your body will feed this forest and bring new life, even if it is fed with your anger and hatred. That I can bind. I am here not for you, but for Dawn.”
Emmett couldn’t help but look into the girl’s eyes as the words that flowed into the air from the melodic, childlike voice spoke with an edge that was years beyond the young teens age. This child spoke to him in a way that he would expect any cult leader to speak, but with the most threatening and frightening twist one could put in the almost angelic sound. She seemed cancer in each work that she let out, calculating and manipulative in every turn.
“If you came to find me for Don, where is he?” Emmett asked as he twisted his face in contempt at the girl’s actions and words. “Why did you come alone? You’re here to tempt me, to twist the truth. I will not be swayed as easily as Donovan, or any others you may have tempted.” The lynx turned his face away, holding up one paw to the doe’s face as he shouted, “BE GONE FROM MY PRESENCE SATAN!”
The lynx man’s eyes widened as he turned back to look at the doe girl. The wind had suddenly picked up for no reason, carrying with it the light snow dust surface that covered the ground. Quickly the trees around them faded in to a white haze that felt as if it separated them from everything. Sonet stood up and stepped closer to him and spoke, her voice as soft and gentle as the song he first heard when she found him.
“You are wounded deeply, and torn between what you know in your heart to be the truth and what you have seen and been taught.” She looked down at him as he looked up at her, His mouth agape and tears filled her eyes. “I have a gift, be it from your god or the great mother, and my gift shows me so much pain, fear, hatred, and you hold all this in. You are all fools, and more, Emmett Hunter, more than most.” He scooted back from her as she took another step closer. “Dawn showed me in your holy book, these gifts of the spirit, and the one he believed I may have received. I see the good and evil with in all things, the spirit and power that flows through the mother and all living things. And I see it in you.” She dropped to her paws and knees, her muzzle only inches from his, their eyes looking deep into each other’s. “He hurt you, took so much from you, and you told no one. The things he did to you... And you call me evil?”
He backed away, crawling as fast as he could scurrying like a crab as he stammered, “How… Who… What are you?” When he was out of arm's reach the lynx rolled over to his footpaws, facing away from the doe as he stumbled upright into a run, heading aimlessly deeper into the woods.
Sonet got to her hooves as the wind faded and the haze of snowy powder drifted back to the ground. She turned to look at the elk and teen bear boys who had inched their way out of the shadows to better observe the doe and lynx. Visible tears streamed down her cheeks and she shivered as if feeling the frigid air for the first time. “I’m sorry,” she said softly as she fell backward into the soft pile of freshly fallen snow.
Sighing heavily the big elk said, “he’s not gonna out run ya this close… go get him boys, don’t hurt ‘im, but don’t let him get away either. He’s not gonna make it much longer in dis chit.”
As the teens started running after the frightened lynx man Shovel turned back to look the doe in the eyes. “Dang it Sonnet, I know you knew we were behind you. Everyone in town knows you can smell us coming from a mile away, even me and I hardly know chit about you. Star didn’t send us after you and that fool to interfere, just to keep an eye on ya and keep ya safe, both of ya.”
Sonnet looked up at the older male with a weak smile. “Why do you all live with so much pain and anger? Why do you hide it from each other? It only causes tension and hinders the mother’s blessings.”
“I dun know about everyone else, but a lot of people are taught to. Some people think it makes you tough, er stronga to keep stuff to yourself. To them lettin dat kind of stuff out makes ya look like a whimp. Stupid if ya ask me but it’s what people think,” the elk replied.
The young doe husky sat up in the snow, her tail swishing slowly behind her as she said, “If only they had both shared the truth, maybe they all wouldn’t be so confused.” She looked up at the elk as she added, “you may want to follow them. He will not be very receptive to the others.”
“He aint likely to be willin to go with none of us, weah all evil to him and dat aint gonna change anytime soon. But I’ll go help da boys, jus hope da fool don’t make me have to do nothin harsh…” the big elk said as he turned to follow the teen boys into the forest.
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