Favours Ch. 04

"Bran," she said anxiously, reaching out to him. "Something's coming this way."

"What do you mean?" he asked quizzically.

"There's a bear coming," she said, "It's going to strike you down."

She felt Bran position himself in front of her defensively, the river behind her. She could hear it approaching now, its paws thundering on the forest floor. With a growl, she heard it burst from the tree line, as Bran pushed her further behind him.

She couldn't see what was happening, but if her vision was correct, she knew that the bear would be swiping at Bran and knocking him down now. She heard Bran fall and stepped away from the bear. She sensed it approach her. She heard a familiar flurry of feathers, a raven's caw, and then an anguished growl by the bear along with a wet slicing sound. She felt, rather than heard, the bear fall with a thud to the ground.

"Do you want to tell me how you knew that?" Bran asked, approaching Tatiana.

"I-I don't know. I saw it happening in my mind," she whispered. He took her head in his hands, and she felt him inspect her face.

"Did you have any visions in the river?" he asked, still holding her head.

She nodded anxiously in his grip.

"What did you see?" he demanded.

"Just glimpses of things, abstract things," Tatiana lied. "Nothing as clear as the bear just now."

She didn't want to tell him the vision she'd had of a dark-haired man leaning down to kiss her with the implication of more, or that she was pretty confident the dark-haired man was the same man she saw being struck down by the bear now lying at their feet.

Bran let go of her, and she heard him crouch down, presumably next to the deceased bear.

"Be well, friend," she heard him murmur, before straightening. "It was a shapeshifter, gone mad in his form," Bran explained.

Tatiana nodded. She hugged her arms anxiously to her chest, uneasy.

"I have no idea where Sidheag or Finnean are," he said exasperatedly. "They got knocked from their boats as well, but I don't know if they're ahead or behind us. We'll follow the river upstream until we find our way back to where we were. I'm going to leave you untied, despite what happened last time. You're not in the woodlands anymore, so don't think it's safe to run away."

Tatiana nodded. She was too frightened by the undines and the bear to risk running away, at least while she was still blind.

"Wait there," he said, darting off from her before she could protest.

Tatiana swallowed nervously. She was too close to the river for her liking, its waters roaring behind her, but she wasn't sure what lay ahead of her either. She crouched down low to try and make herself as small a target as possible, straining her ears to listen out for Bran's return.

He wasn't gone long, and she straightened when she heard him approach.

"Take this," he said, pressing a long wooden branch into her hand. "Should help guide you better than the rope we were using."

Tatiana tested it out carefully, tapping her way forward like she'd seen blind people do. He gently guided her spare hand to his upper arm. She held onto him tightly, letting him guide her as she adjusted to tapping her way forward.