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---   Sally   ---

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The wolfy wendigo eventually stopped staring off into space and returned its attention back to the terrified child, opening its jaws and letting out what I assumed was foul smell, judging by Aylin’s face.

“Fo- Frrr-iends, should be… Fat-EEER” the Wendigo gutturally announced, the voice choked and strained, like it had to be forced out of its mouth.

It poked the little girl’s belly with a spindly finger, Aylin jumping back at the touch and trying to hide behind her mother, but the thin woman held her in front of her, forcing her closer to the hungry skull.

“M-Make SSSSuuure to FEEED he-e-er MORE” the wendigo dictated to the mother, finally backing up as Aylin finally took a deep and desperate breath, like a diver coming up for air.

The monster stood up and walked away from the doorway, allowing Aylin’s mother to close it. It returned to its previous height of around three metres and stood out in the middle of the street for a moment, taking a good look around with its still uncovered head.

Orion grabbed me and stepped away from the window, taking us out of sight of the monster and into the depths of the house. But wherever the monsters gazed, I noticed something else, in the houses I noticed glinting red eyes pop up as soon as the Wendigo stopped looking at the windows.

Very quickly I realised that every one of these houses had people in them, the anxious eyes waiting for the Wendigo to leave.

And eventually it did, the monster taking its sweet time as it slowly walked down the main road, a bit of life returning to the town as it left, as if winter was ending and spring was returning.

But not completely, just like before, the general atmosphere remained cold and chilly.

Eventually Orion calmed down and relaxed his grip on me, allowing me to wriggle out and escape. I fell onto the floor and immediately climbed onto the bed, wondering what the hell was going on with this town.

Why were there cooperating with it?

I turned to face Orion and saw a rare frown on his face, leaving me wondering what was bothering him.

Well, obviously it was the Wendigo, but what about the Wendigo?

The fact this monster treated this place like it owned it?

That it was something that was made through and lives off of cannibalism?

And that it inspected Aylin like a pig before the slaughter?

Maybe the fact that her mother was obeying the monster?

I felt my frustration build as the ‘kill the monster’ plan got turned into a whole mess. But before I could figure out what was going on in this cursed town Orion started moving and went for the door abruptly, looking determined as I scrambled to catch up with him before he left.

“Waa-it” I panickily tried to whisper, failing to as I scurried over to Orion, the man picking me up and chucking me onto his head in one smooth motion. Orion pushed open the door and marched across the street, the angriest I’ve ever seen him as he stood before Aylin’s doorway, banging his hand on the door.

Without too much delay I saw Aylin’s mother again, the women opening a crack in the door to peer through, Orion sticking his foot in the crack to make sure she couldn’t slam it in our faces. The ratty woman whimpered as Orion forced the door open, the lady getting pushed back as Orion barged his way inside, looking for something.

“Where is she?” Orion urgently asked, the woman anxiously shaking her head as Orion paced towards her.

“Is it the dragon man?” a trembling voice whispered, Aylin stepping out from behind a piece of furniture and into the dim light of the moon. At times like these I’m happy that I get to see in the dark, Aylin’s chubby little face seemed fine, albeit nervous and scared.

“Are… you alright?” Orion questioned Aylin and the little girl nodded, going to her mother and grabbing onto her hand, which would be a very lovely scene if not for what I saw a few minutes ago.

Orion turned to the shaking mother, her eyes bulging out as Orion took a step towards her.

“Explain.” Orion grunted, the skittish mother shaking her head and dragging her daughter out of the room, dumping her in another room and locking the door before stamping back towards Orion.

“l-leave… now” she hoarsely whispered, brave enough to confront Orion, but not enough to stop shivering at the sight of him scowling.

When Orion continued to stand there, she eventually grabbed a broom and began threateningly pointing it at Orion, like she was going start whacking him with it.

At this point I was feeling conflicted, on one hand, we did just see a cannibalistic monster come up to this house and this woman let it in to inspect the daughter. On the other hand, we did just barge in without knowing any of the context to their being a monster in this town and Orion was acting like CPS and definitely scaring the two.

Why does there have to be… ‘emotional complications’ in this quest, I just want to fight monsters.

While I was pouting on Orion’s head, the man slowly backed up and left the house, letting the woman slam the door in his face. He slow walked back over to our hovel and went inside, the man roughly laying down on the bed, laying on his back while staring at the ceiling.

I settled down next to him, watching him stare at the roof for a while, brooding silently as the night dragged on. But I learnt something knew about Orion that night, when he’s annoyed, he just grunts and groans occasionally, making general ‘I’m angry’ noises.

And that makes it hard to sleep.

After around what I could only assume was an hour, I got up and started angrily glaring at Orion, who snapped out of his anxious state and stared back at me.

What… to… do…

“WA- *cough* WAN-NA, TALK, ABOUT, IT” I attempted to hoarsely whisper, Orion staring back for a moment before talking.

“I… I don’t know why she would do that”

“WHY?”

“That mother, she… she doesn’t care about Aylin.”

“HOW, CAN, TELL?”

“How? She presented her daughter to the Wendigo like a sacrifice and then nodded, nodded when it told her to fatten up her daughter more.”

Okay I understand getting worked up about that, but who are we to intervene?

It’s not like we can take the kid away, what can we do? Turn her into an orphan?

Even if we kill the monster, then kidnap her without knowing any of the context of how this has come to happen, just because the mother seems bad, and then what, drop her off at an orphanage?

We’re not people who can judge the situation and decide the punishment.

Realistically all we can do react and make sure that the Aylin didn’t get eaten, we aren’t the police and nor is it our responsibility to intervene. I don't know if there is a way to do the right thing...

“MAYBE… DON’T, KNOW, CONTEXT” I suggested, Orion face scrunching up for a moment before he let out an annoyed sigh, scratching his head in frustration.

“Then what, we let happen?”

“WAIT, UNTIL, KNOW” I tried to plan out, the idea of waiting and watching carefully until we know that the mother is guilty.

“Know what?” Orion asked innocently

“INNOCENT, UNTILL, GUILTY”

 

 

…

 

 

…

 

 

I woke up with the morning light streaming through the shutters, a line of light perfectly landing on my eyes, forcing me to open my eyes.

And once I did I resigned myself to having to get up, painfully aware of the fact that once I woke up, I couldn’t go back to sleep no matter what. I got up and started to stretch, feeling my back pop and crackle as I went into downward dog/cat waking up from a nap pose, feeling the irresistible satisfaction from stretching out my stiff muscles.

I looked over at Orion to see him still sleeping on the bed, reminding me of our conversation last night, it was nice to finally talk to each other like human beings. He was also different to what I expected, more innocent and emotional than the stoic warrior I had in my head.

Which is… fine I guess, he can still shoot a bow just as well.

As my brain finally got rid of the cobwebs and started functioning properly I tried to come up with a plan for today, mainly how we’d get to the bottom of the situation.

How to get a decent understanding of the situation and how to fix it.

So, what do I know so far?

1. The people in this town are aware of the monster and aren’t aggressive towards it, more fearful/subservient.
2. The monster terrorising them eats humans and once was a human, it expects the people of this town to give it sacrifices.
3. The elder is either unaware or complicit in this. Perhaps it’s why he’s kooky.
4. Aylin is probably the next victim

Though it does make me wonder what's the story behind this…

Was the Wendigo originally an inhabitant of this town that started to eat their neighbours one hungry night, or maybe the Wendigo was from another town and then came here. But once it was here, it couldn’t be defeated by a bunch of random villagers, so it decided to play with its food, making them choose sacrifices to feed to it.

And now, when Aylin is next on the chopping block, Orion and I are here to save the day and stop the monster before it’s too late.

“hihi- *cough*”

I tried to stop the little foxy giggle from escaping my mouth but failed, a rampant excitement making my heart beat loudly and my brain giddy. All of this was so fantastical, I could swear that I’ve seen half-a-dozen books or side quests in games start off just like this.

What should I- we do first to figure out this mystery…

Aylin!

She’s been here all along and has seen what’s happened to this town, she might’ve been lied to, but she’ll still tell us the truth, unlike everybody else. Even if she did try to lie, it’s pretty easy to tell, she’s like eight, I think.

I lay back down on the mattress while I waited for Orion to wake up, giddily waiting for the day to start in full.

 

…

 

Orion eventually woke up, clearly still drained from the late and stressful night, bags under his eyes as he dragged himself out of bed, grabbing some of the smoked meat hanging in the corner of the room and munching on it.

As he enjoyed his breakfast, I prepared to tell him my plan, something I came up with while waiting for him to get up.

“KIDNAP, AYLIN, INTERRO-, -GATE” I announced, Orion frowning at my plan and I thought about what he could possibly be disgruntled about. Nevermind, in hindsight it’s pretty obvious.

“SEP-ER-ATE, AYLIN, AND, MOTH-ER”

*pant* *pant*

“ASK AYLIN, WHAT, HAP-PENED” I managed to get out, collapsing onto the bed as I recovered and wondered how talking was so hard for me.

Orion froze for a second before nodding, seemingly getting the idea while he bobbed his head, his hand rubbing a non-existent beard.

“Why do we need to ask Aylin questions?” Orion innocently asked, making me groan in annoyance.

This is going to take a while.

 

…

 

A whole hour later I was sitting in an alleyway behind Aylin’s house, ready and waiting to climb through her window the second Orion knocked on the front door.

The plan is simple, Orion engages in conversation with the mother, I lure Aylin out through the back window I came in through and take her to a pre-planned spot that Orion will interview her at, mostly because I can barely get a sentence out.

But I got ready to jump through the open window when I heard a loud knocking from the other side of the house, Orion banging it hard enough that half the town could hear it.

And then a loud creak heralded the opening of the front door and my chance to sneak in. I jumped up onto the windowsill and slipped through a gap in shutters, climbing into the dreary and dark inside.

The place was dingey, all of the windows closed, some of them covered up with moth-bitten sheets and others boarded up with precariously placed planks. It seemed that I got lucky with my window.

I creeped through the house, the building arranged had one main hall going through the centre with a couple of rooms on either side, the hallway leading to main room at the front where Orion was currently entertaining the mother.

I poked my head into each room, finding most of them to be mostly abandoned, covered in a layer of dust and obviously untouched for a long time. The one that seemed most normal was a small bedroom, with three cots in it, two of them empty with nothing them, while the third was littered with little trinkets and painted wooden dolls, with a large lump hiding under the blankets.

I peered down the hallway again to see Orion expressionlessly staring at the mother as she skittishly stared back, the two of them locked in some sort of awkward staring contest that didn’t stop mostly because of the sheer absurdity of it.

I mean if someone knocked on your door and then just stared at you no matter what you did, you’d be pretty perplexed as well.

I gave him a thumbs up as I went into the bedroom, carefully going up to the bed with someone in it and shaking the blanket gently, until whoever was under it started moving around sluggishly.

“wha-, five more minnn…” A voice drowsily complained, which made me freeze up, I quickly stuck my head back out into the corridor, letting out a sigh of relief as I saw that the mother hadn’t even glanced back yet. I went back to the cot and lifted up the blanket this time, revealing chubby little Aylin surrounded by toys, happily snoring away.

I poked her with a sharp claw, the girl startled awake as I put a scaley digit on her lips, making sure she wouldn’t cry out and panic loudly enough to get her mother to come back here.

She seemed to get the message, the girl excitedly nodding like she’d been turned into a bobblehead. and much to my relief, seemed really eager to get kidnapped!

After repeating the ‘finger to the lips’ gesture to make sure that she really got the universal message of shut-the-f@ck-up, I slowly pushed her out of the room and into the hallway.

But once I was in it I looked over at the situation at the front door, seeing that the mother had resorted to trying to slam the door in Orion’s face, the man standing there passively as the woman repeatedly and violently threw the door closed, Orion’s foot taking a beating as it sat wedged between the frame and the door.

I frantically waved at him to get his attention and once he looked over, I tried desperately to mime out the words, ‘bigger’, ‘conversation’ or something like it, just so he’d get her attention again.

It dangerous with how much she’s trying to do to get away from Orion, a single glance back would be disastrous.

But as I made larger and larger gestures with my front two legs while awkwardly balancing on my back two and miming myself talking, Orion gave me a long and intense look before giving me a subtle little nod.

“Ma’am” Orion said, the mother looking at him worriedly, like he’d demand her daughter again.

“Have you ever tried a girl scout cookie?” He asked, the woman freezing up at the pure absurdity of the question, I wonder if she even knows what a cookie is, let alone a girl scout.

Wait… How does Orion know about girl scouts?

I shook my head to get rid of the useless thoughts and started pushing Aylin down the hall, the girl looked so excited that I thought she might start crying at any second.

Eventually I managed to get her to the end of the hallway, and I pointed at the window, miming to her the action of climbing through the window. Luckily Aylin complied without hesitation, walking up to the wall and hopping to reach the ledge, grabbing onto the frame with her hands, and then she tried to pull herself up.

Emphasis on tried, the overweight little girl could only hang there, occasionally twitching whenever she tried to lift herself up. As I watched the rather pathetic sight, I decided to try and help the little girl, putting my front two claws on her backside and pushing up as hard as I could, her little legs scrabbling against the wooden wall.

Eventually, I managed to get her halfway out the window, the girls legs waggling uselessly as she tried to make it through the window. Somehow Aylin managed to get herself perfectly balanced on the windows edge, teetering there while she tried to lean forwards and ending up just seesawing back forth, I had to cover my mouth with a claw to stop myself from laughing.

I mean this girl is a talented clown, look at her go.

I looked back again to make sure that the mother hadn’t noticed the circus act going on, and happily saw her desperately trying to expel Orion from the property. She was acting like a corned rat, thrashing about as she tried to close the door, the immovable man in front of responding by…

Repeating adverts?

Where did he even learn the phrase, ‘flinger lickin’ good’ from? isn’t that from KFC?

Is he from earth too?

But I snapped out of my shock when I saw the mother get even more aggressive with Orion, losing all reason and desperately attacking the man with her fists and making even the well-built Orion get pushed back, it looked sad, the woman trying her best only for Orion to ignore her.

I stopped messing around with Aylin and pushed her through the window, the girl tumbling out onto the dirt path outside. I jumped up onto the windowsill and waved to Orion, signalling to him that I was successful and that he didn’t have to get treated like a punching bag.

The man nodded when he saw me wave, stepping back and letting the women slam the door in his face, the mother panting heavily as she finally got rid of the intruder. I watched her catch her breath as she leant against the door and I quickly departed before she turned back around and saw me.

I leapt through the window and landed next to the panting Aylin, the girl was lying on her back and panting heavily as she recovered.

“LET’S GO” I loudly whispered to Aylin, the little girl regaining her energy and standing up, still breathing heavily but ready to go.

I led her down the back streets of the houses and eventually into the forest, where I eventually found the meeting spot I’d designated with Orion earlier. I stepped into the small clearing with the exhausted Aylin trailing behind me, I looked around to see that Orion wasn’t here yet.

I felt a little bit bad when I saw how tired the overweight girl was, so I motioned to Aylin a vague sitting motion. Though I realised it was a bit unnecessary when she fell over forwards and lay down on the dirt, face down and panting into the grass.

How was she getting enough food to be so fat when the rest of the town looked like it was going through a famine?

“Hello.” Orion announced, the stalwart ranger abruptly emerging from the shrubbery and into the clearing. I happily ran up to him and waited by his feet for him to plop me on his head, why bother walking when you’ve got free ride?

He plopped me onto his fluffy head and sat by Aylin, patiently waiting for the girl to recover from probably the first exercise she’s had in months.

But eventually I got bored of just sitting there and asked the first question anyways.

“WHERE EVERY-BODY?”

“Where is *pant* everyone?” Aylin mumbled from her spot on the ground, the girl eventually propping herself up while she thought about it.

“Mommy told me that they moved out!” Aylin eventually said after catching her breath.

“Moved where?” Orion asked seriously as I let him take over the interrogation.

“I don’t know… maybe another town?” Aylin blurted out randomly.

“B-U-U-U-T a lot of people moved out recently, even my older brothers and Daddy!”

“Mommy said that I’ll be going too!” Aylin announced happily, her words making me rather worried. ‘Moving away’ sound like a rather grim way to say, ‘fed to an eldritch monster’.

“When did your mother say you were leaving?” Orion asked, acting like the police officer interrogating a witness at the scene.

“I-I-I dunno, liiiike tomorrow?” she childishly remembered, causing Orion to frown slightly. That was bad news, we had an abrupt deadline until the eldritch beast came to eat Aylin.

So how did this fit into the big picture…

People disappearing over a period of time while a cannibalistic demon was in the town, the people of the town ignoring, hiding from it and the elder ignored its existence.

It’s probably not a cult, there isn’t anybody openly worshipping it, nor are there shrines. There doesn’t seem to be any good reasons for these townspeople to worship the monster, no benefits and they get eaten.

Usually if a group of people pray to something, they expect something back, money, fame or a grand afterlife. I don’t think getting eaten falls into those categories, unless you’re into… that.

I shivered at the thought, returning my attention to the little girl excitedly talking with Orion, the poor little thing was still unaware that half her family is probably dead.

“Have you seen your family since they, moved?” Orion continued questioning, the girl shaking her head as Orion continued asking preplanned questions.

“How many people have moved?”

“Like ten.”

“is there-“

“WAIT… its like… more than that!” the girl blurted out while trying to count on her fingers, eventually giving up when she ran out of digits.

“Like… like A L-O-T of people!” she insisted again, Orion freezing for a moment before seriously nodding.

“Do you… remember seeing anything last night?” Orion carefully asked, I had been wondering how a little girl managed to stay calm after seeing that monster late at night.

“hmmm, I think I had a… a dream. About one of my friends who moved away, but he looked weird” She answered, leaving me confused, I guess it’s a good thing that she doesn’t remember the Wendigo, but why?

Well, it doesn’t really matter if we just kill the Wendigo. It actually probably better this was, Aylin doesn’t have to remember the thing that murdered half her family.

I sighed at the thought of what the monster has done and realised that Orion had still been asking Aylin questions this whole time.

After a while of prodding at Aylin’s general knowledge Orion eventually found out some of this place’s history and its surroundings.

This place is in the Divian forests, the forest has apparently been around forever according to Aylin, a scary place full of monsters n’ stuff. The town is just as old as the forest, and it’d been here for a very long time.

“Okay that’s it” Orion finished up, putting away a little notebook and pen I didn’t even notice him taking out.

“Yay! Do we get to go on the adventure now!” Aylin excitedly asked, Orion frowning for a moment, raising his hand to speak and then lowering it, repeating this a couple times before lifting me off his head and putting me on the ground.

“What do we do with her now?” Orion whispered to me, leaving me confused, the plan was that we take her back to her mother-

Actually, it’s probably a good idea to not do that.

So, what do we do with her then?

I don’t want to adopt a kid, I’m far too young to be a parent! In mental or physical age!

“You! You won’t be doing anything with her…” A deep and raspy voice fill of vitriol angrily interrupted, Orion and I both looked towards the sound of the voice. It was a man covered in leather clothes reminiscent of native north Americans, with feathers draped from his ears and clothes, a collection of trinkets and little bags hanging from his waist.

The old man seemed refined and graceful, standing there with a straight back and an indignant look on his face, his straight black hair with streaks of grey was tied up into a ponytail. He seemed like a respected leader or shaman, ready to face his enemies.

From his belt he pulled a little bag of something and crouched slightly, preparing to throw it at us.

“What is a male foreigner doing in the forest? Alone with my granddaughter?” He accusingly asked, the question sounding very much like a damming statement.