War of the Races Ch. 25

For the next six years that was how she kept from freezing. She liked wearing clothing again, but as soon as it was warm enough to go naked she did so. Her fear was that she would wear them out if she wore it all year round. However, in the end she grew out of most of it well before it was ever close to worn out. It created a new challenge for her in the coming years. How to repurpose what was too small?

Sleeves were turned into bras, and the chaps were turned into a girdle to keep her core warm and short hip wraps to cover her bum in the summer. The poncho was still usable, and the skirt needed modifications as her hips and butt grew bigger and wider. By the end of her growth her feet grew into the thigh-high boots, she still had one of the cloaks, and she was left with only one blanket to sleep under and wrap around herself during the frigidly harsh winters.

Besides her issues with clothing and staying warm, after six years her hatchet was dull, the swords were useless, and the daggers, well, they made her feel safe even if she hadn't ever seen another living soul after killing those men. Still, the swords might be able to be sold, and the hatchet sharpened.

It was late spring now, plenty warm enough that her only clothing was the leather wrap around her hips and her mothers waist chain wrapped around her wrist. Her clothing was rolled up in tight rolls deep in her cave along with boots and cloak. She carried in her pack only what she needed for starting fire and cooking roots and vegetables. She had no idea how long she would be gone, but if she didn't find anyone by midsummer she would return.

For all her life she and Alvas had harvested roots and stored them for winter, when Alvas died it became just her. Now, with her leaving none of the winter preparation would happen. If she came back, it would be to die near her mother. There would be no way she would survive until spring.

Pulling her pack up onto her shoulders, she took hold of a walking staff leaning against the tree. Turning back to her mother's grave, she gave it a final somber glance and then left...

----(!)----

"Hlina..."

"Earth daughter..."

Hlina sat up out of a sound sleep with a start. Someone had been calling her name again. The voice started periodically calling her sometime after her twelfth summer. It was only a whisper she heard just before waking, but it was getting stronger of late. She could swear she heard the voice tinkling like chimes caught up in the wind as it blew through her hair. Sometimes when she was bathing the water seemed to laugh and giggle. When she watched the fire, and she lost herself in the blue, red, and yellow flames the voice almost sang to her in a harmony that promised of warmth and power. But it was when she laid out on the ground to sleep that she heard the voice the loudest. It's call left a sense of warm invitation, a promise of safety and protection.

Sitting up, she yawned as the fog of sleep left her mind, and as she stretched the voice slipped from her thoughts. It had taken months to finally find a community. She had almost despaired and returned to her cave and her mother.

People!

She had finally found other people!

The thought excited and terrified her. She remembered people in her previous life. Her dad, mom, work mates. She was close to her father and mother of course, and Daniel's father up until he took off when he found out she was pregnant with Daniel. However, she never had many close friends or workmates. She had been a young mother, and then had to work hard to support herself and Daniel. There just simply was no time for friendships. As soon as she was off work she had to be home, to relieve the sitter, cook, clean, help Daniel with homework, then hangout and maybe watch a little television or a movie before bed.

The thought of Daniel immediately caused her heart to ache, but it was a dull ache now. She had come to this world to find him, however her life had not been easy and it had been years. This world was harsh, and there wasn't any guarantee that he was alive!

Right now, she must take care of herself. Especially if she was ever going to find her son.

Rummaging through her pack, she pulled out a root and took a bite as she looked about her camp. Rolling up the blanket, she dismantled the tent, and shoved everything into the pack. Looking at her clothing, a leather bra, and short skirt, she gathered them up and shoved them into the pack as well, then she hid everything under the tree and covered it all over with straw. Once everything was secured she touched her mother's chain that was now wrapped around her neck like a necklace. In order to be as stealthy as possible she took it off her wrist where every swing of her arm made the chain slink up and down her arm with a slight clinking sound, but she worried that sharper ears might hear it. Of course she worried that those same sharp ears could hear her heart thudding in her chest.

It was a five mile jog from her camp, in only her skin and hair, to the village she had nearly stumbled into five days ago. As she approached she watched her footing more and more. A limb under her barefoot would puncture and tear the soles of her feet, and in all probability elicit a yelp as well, and it would also leave a bloody trace and scent trail wherever she went. That was not even mentioning the snap of the limb would in all probability give away her position like an alarm gong.

Rocks were dangerous too, for many of the same reasons. She had stubbed many a toe, and that would cause her to cry out and leave her limping for weeks depending on whether she broke any toes. For the most part she tried to stay on soft dirt or on the carpet of pine needles that littered the forest floor. Pine needles over dirt was the most preferred because she wouldn't leave footprints though a good tracker would still be able to find the traces of her passage.

Once she was within a mile of the village she darted from tree to tree, silent as a shadow. When she was only a few feet from the edge of the village she hunkered down under a bush and watched the people go about their daily chores. The men folk split wood, mended fences, and worked on butchering their kills. There were three rabbits, one a sensually curvy female, or she had been, the other two were males. There was a female badger with a white marked face, a black underbelly and legs, and grayish hair and back with a long white streak that ran from crown to tail tip. The last two Animals she saw were a female deer-centaur-like creature and a fawn, probably hers. They would feed the village for weeks.

Another group of men went about more trade oriented tasks. The blacksmith and tanner were the most prominent. Men sharpened knives. Others trained with various melee weapons. There were a few that practiced shooting with bows and arrows, but the majority were young girls and women.

Not to say that there weren't women training in melee combat arts as well, but the majority of them, about two thirds, went about the village performing more domestic tasks while the remaining third was split with two thirds training in archery and the remaining third trained in martial arts and weapons combat.

She saw children too. Happy and laughing, they ran around a central green, rolling around and playing. Older children ran errands for adults, and the young adults Hlina thought might be about her age were already learning from their parents how to hunt, how to build, how to maintain, and how to make a home and community. It was beautiful!

The only thing that threw off the whole atmosphere was that the entire village was a pack of wolves. They had to be! Besides being humanoid, they were covered in fur ranging in colors from white to black. Some of the women folk went about their tasks as naked as she herself was with the exception that she didn't have fur, not even body hair. As pine needles poked into her skin from her breasts to belly, and her lower belly between her thighs, she was reminded of just how hairless her body was.

Other wolf-women folk wore aprons, bras, or loincloths. Or, they might even wear a combination of just one or all three items. The men folk wore loincloths mostly though some wore pants that ended just below their knees and were tied at the waist with rope that wrapped around the waist above long fluffy tails. Depending on tradecraft some also wore leather aprons or flexible leather girdles wrapped around midriffs but left the chest and shoulders bare.

One such older male was making his usual walk around the village. He had silver hair that fell down his back. His body was covered with short fine silver fur on his face, chest, and belly while the fur covering his arms, legs, and back was much longer. He was slim in the waist, long of leg, broad of shoulder, and his arms were thickly muscled.

The alpha, it was the only description she could define this man as, carried himself with confidence and authority. She thought he must be the leader or chieftain of this pack or village. Maybe their rank within this village was similar to how wolves ranked themselves as she knew them from her earth. With an alpha and an omega and everyone falling somewhere in between.

He was older than her, she could see that much, at least twice as old as she was. Maybe her mothers age. That didn't bother her in the least, in her mind she was still the forty-four year old woman who raised Daniel for twenty-three years then if she added sixteen more years in this life in this world and she was a sixty year old woman in a sixteen year old body. A sixteen year old body flooded with estrogen and a libido that was hot and eager to eat up the first man, or men, she decided was worthy of her. Then there was the fact that the last time she had a man between her thighs was well before she found out she was pregnant with Daniel. Forty years of abstinence was making her ravenously wolfish!

She found herself drawn to watching him move about the village more than the rest. He walked on the balls of his feet. Feet that appeared to be thick furry wolf's paws and she wondered what it must feel like to walk and run like that all the time. He was one of the few that wore buff colored pants that ended just below the calves of his hybrid legs. She found herself idly wondering what he was hiding inside them. Most of the other males wore only loincloths and it was very quickly apparent that their genitalia were covered in thick fur and the muscular organ that she wanted to feel between her thighs and deep inside was covered by a thick furry foreskin she had never paid enough attention to biology class to know or remember the name of. Those other males didn't interest her. This male though. He made her mouth water, and her belly warm...

Her eyes moved upward to a strong flat belly girded with a red dyed woven leather girdle just above his hips and climbed up his muscular frame binding his core and ribs all the way up to just under thick pectoral muscles. Hlina found herself drooling, and wiped her cheek and chin.

Across his shoulders, down his back, and falling down over his pectorals hung an intricately woven American-Indian styled breastplate of bone and gems. Small white bones that were hollowed out of their marrow. Citrine. Turquoise. Red coral. Emerald. It was beautiful... like he was.

The long fluffy tail wagged behind him poking out of a hole in the back of his britches where they were made to curve around the tail and gather with the drawstring at the waist. His tail itself was long and silver with just a hint of white on the tip and wagged back and forth gently with every step he took, helping him balance on the balls of his feet.

"Well! For how much longer are you going to watch us?" A gruff voice growled as Hlina felt a hand grab her ankle and drag her roughly out from under the bushes.

Hlina shrieked and clawed at the earth, but there was nothing for it. Her cover was blown!

"Oh! You smell of arousal!" The male growled, this time sounding mildly shocked. He chuckled as he teased, "Maybe you aren't watching us all, you're just watching him!"

He stopped abruptly when she came fully into view and he found himself looking down at a completely naked female dokkalfar child. His eyes widened in shock, and then narrowed suspiciously.

"You're a child!" He exclaimed.

"Who are you? Where did you come from?" He growled, "Answer me girl!"

Fear gripped her throat like a hand strangling her. With a shrill shriek she snatched her foot, hoping to free herself of the wolf. His hand tightened like a vise around her ankle but she did succeed in pulling him off balance. Kicking at him, she succeeded again in catching him in the abdomen and propelling him backwards. He released her as he stumbled and flipping over she quickly hopped to her feet. Looking around she found shocked wolf village inhabitants staring at her in surprise, and then she was running!

She ran as fast as her long strong legs could carry her in ground-eating strides. She had never been able to run like this in her previous life. There was a small river nearby. If she could just make it there she might lose the wolf and anyone else that was chasing her. A bolas suddenly wrapped around her waist and she was snatched off of her feet!

"Stop! Running!" The wolf that found her growled as he slowly walked up to her while pulling her back towards him with the other end of the bolas.

"Finally tired of watching, did you Espowyes?" The silver wolf she had been admiring earlier said in a deep rumbling voice that she found very pleasing.

"All she does is observe us," Espowyes grumbled, "Or rather, she watches you Wanageeska in particular. She finds you appealing. I think she wants to mate with you..."

She wrestled with the binding of the bolas, but too soon she was being hauled to her feet and stood up in front of Espowyes and Wanageeska. She was tall, taller than her mother, she was sure of it, but these two men still stood a head taller than her. Defiant, she glared at them. They returned her stare passively, each of them scrutinizing her from head to toes, she finally begged, "Please, don't kill me! Don't eat me!"

Their eyes sharpened then and they glanced from her to each other before Wanageeska said, "She would make a good mate for someone. Not me though. I have my hands full already with Winema and Zaltana. Perhaps you Espowyes?"

Espowyes looked her up and down appraisingly before he teased, "Prime is remarkably awful eating, and even if we were interested in eating you we would need to feed you for half a year to fatten you up enough to make it worth it!"

To Wanageeska he answered, "I have my eyes set upon Chenoa, why would I settle for this... half-starved child, Prime or not?"

"Hey!" She hissed indignantly.

"You have not won Chenoa's heart or hand, yet," Wanageeska chuckled as he shook his head, "She moons over Kuruk just as you moon over her, and Kuruk moons over Meda though he has no chance of her ever looking in his direction. If any of you ever dared to look back over your shoulders... Well, you just might find the one that loves you most, but that is only my observation."

"You have a point," Espowyes answered thoughtfully.

Hlina admired Espowyes' willingness to listen to council, but she did not like them discussing her like she was a ham to be passed around until someone wanted to eat her! Struggling again she growled, "I am no piece of meat for you to pass around!"

Wanageeska's eyes sharpened as he looked her in the eyes. She stopped struggling and stepped back. His eyes were a fierce golden color that seemed to glow. Bringing a hand to her chin, he tilted her head up so that she couldn't look away as he said, "No piece of meat. If only the Primes ever saw us as anything more than meat! Or tools! You answer me quickly girl, or I will rip out your throat and we will all dine on dokkalfar meat tonight! Who are you? Where are you from? And, are you a scout? Are there more of you lurking around waiting to attack us?"

Hlina's dark-brown eyes widened at the threats, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly. Despite her indignation, she felt a warm trickle of urine course down her inner thighs as she told her story. Of her father trying to kill her. Of her mother killing her father. Of them running away and living in a cave for eight years. Of her mother being killed by three men, and of how she had killed them. And of living the last six years by herself until she couldn't take the loneliness anymore.

With tears in her eyes she tried to hold her head up high as she concluded, "I only watched you because... Because I was lonely and scared. I want to be near people again, but I wasn't sure how you would react to me just walking into your village. I also saw what you eat. I've eaten chipmunk before, but I didn't want to be the next item on the menu if you didn't appreciate my arrival. I suppose though, that if you kill me, it is fine. If you send me away I will return to my cave, though I will not survive the winter. I will lay on my mother's grave and join her..."

"Dramatic," Espowyes teased, but his heart was not in it as he looked to Wanageeska for his opinion.

Wanageeska looked at her for a long time. He put his hand on his chin and ogled her from her head to her toes and back up again before he answered, "You truly have no family? No people?"

"None," She answered.

"Remarkable," He mumbled as he shook his head. Turning to Espowyes he said, "You have first rights to her as your catch. You can take her as a wife, or as a captive. If you take her as a wife you may take her to your bed. However, if you do not you must not despoil her. If you do not want her I will take her as a daughter until she is of age. Afterward, I will find a man worthy of her."

"Worthy of her?" Espowyes laughed in surprised ridicule, "She's a Prime! What value do you see in her?"

Wanageeska shook his head, but he answered with a sigh, "Espowyes, you are a good man. So, I will tell you because you are still young. Otherwise I would not."

Looking at me he continued, "Look at her Espowyes. Look at her but do not look at her skin. See the fierce spirit within. She may wear the body of a dokkalfar, but within that young girl lies the spirit of a survivor. A wild thing. A true Wild One! She's only sixteen years old and yet she has lived most of her life in a land that is harsh in good seasons, and deadly in the bad. For nearly half that time she has been utterly alone. How many of our own children, given those circumstances, would have done half as well? Would you have done as well as she has? My only regret is that her mother is dead. Such strength of character is in short supply no matter whether they are a Prime or Animal."

Turning back to Espowyes he continued, "Now, I have said my piece. You have first rights Espowyes, what will it be? Will you have her as a wife? A captive? Or will you relinquish your claim?"

"I...," Espowyes mumbled as he glanced from Wanageeska to Hlina. With a resigned sigh he answered, "I will take her as a wife. What you say is true. I did not see her worth Wanageeska, but your words have removed the blinders of prejudice from my eyes. I will take her to my home, and she will eat from my hand. She will sleep in my bed, and she will never be forsaken. She will find warmth in my arms, and she will bear many offspring from my loins."

Wanageeska nodded. He was smiling now as he took out a cord of red rope. It was roughly two feet long, and he tied one end to her wrist and the other to Espowyes. Hlina didn't speak up. She was just happy they weren't sending her away, or slaughtering her for dinner. Once the red rope was tied to them Wanageeska loosed the bolas around her waist. He rolled it up and then took her chin in his hand and tilted her head up to look at her.