“I’m here!”

“Oh, right. Hello Tras,” Theora said, looking up at the passenger she’d forgotten was perched on her shoulder. How long had they been walking? It was time to find shelter, wasn’t it? She had gotten lost in thoughts again.

“Why does Dema call you lil’ rabbib?” he asked.

“Rabbit,” Theora said, intoning the word as clearly for him as she could.

“Rabbib,” he repeated, trying his best but still failing.

Indeed, why did Dema call her that? Theora wanted to know, too. If anything, she’d always seen herself more like a fish — constantly being tugged along by a strong ocean current she could do nothing about, and yet flailing against it with all the might she could muster. She didn’t consider herself to have any rabbit-like properties at all. As she was pondering, her eyes went up into the sky and got stuck on a large nimbus cloud she could see through a break in the forest.

Ah. No more thinking for Theora. She had her head in the clouds again.

Speaking of that… Tras had asked her a question, and since Theora wasn’t supposed to think about it herself, why not ask that Skill of hers? Then, she could relay the answer without breaking any rules. Even if it was just a little game. And so, she formed the question in her head, and activated the Skill.

Why does Dema call me ‘little rabbit’?

 

[Head in the Clouds].

Answer: Because Dema considers you her prey.

 

Theora stared at the System notification in complete disbelief. What an utterly useless Skill. She couldn’t even say that to a child. So pointless.

 

[Head in the Clouds] advanced to Level 2!

 

She shook her head in slight aggravation. What was levelling up this Skill even supposed to do? One could assume that a higher Skill Level would increase the chance of the given answer to be correct. Theora was aware of that possibility, but it seemed unlikely. If that had been the case, it would have probably mentioned the accuracy of the answer scaling in such a way, like it did for all other Skills. Here, however, nothing of the sort was mentioned.

 

[Head in the Clouds], Level 2.

Gaze into the sky to receive an answer to a question you pose. There is a chance for the given answer to be correct.

 

Right, no mentioning of how it scaled there. Maybe unlocking additional effects at higher Levels was the only reason to train it, although Theora wasn’t sure what to even expect from these.

“I don’t know,” she eventually answered. “You will have to ask Dema herself.”

At that, Tras started calling for her. She’d been occupied with the map, and fallen back quite a bit. Upon hearing his voice, she looked up. A few seconds passed until she started smiling at him in recognition. “What’s up?” she yelled back, and started running to catch up.

“Why do you call her little…”

“Rabbit,” Theora supplied.

Dema grinned in mischief, raising her eyebrows. “Ain’t that obvious?” she cheered. “It’s ’cause she’s my prey!”

A few seconds passed, and Theora could feel her entire head fill up with blood. She wasn’t sure she’d ever blushed that much. 

“So you are a wolf?” Tras asked in a cutesy upticking voice, eyes wide in excitement.

“Nah,” Dema replied, still smirking. “Just another rabbit.”

Theora hadn’t thought she could blush even more.

“Shelter,” she said. “We need shelter.”

 

They didn’t expect rain that night, so it wasn’t too important to find a location safe from downpour, but in the end they still decided on a small recess in another cliff. Dema just loved rocks too much, and wanted to sleep next to them whenever she could. In addition, she had some kind of rock-echolocation Skill which allowed her to scan the shape of mountains, so they had an easy time finding places like these.

And so, they all went to bed. Theora was constantly deliberating as to how much rest she should allow herself — she wanted to sleep as little as possible in order to take care of Tras, but she also was well aware that if she didn’t sleep enough, her mental capacities would drop dramatically. And then, she’d forget him that much more easily, or have a harder time remembering.

“Good night,” she mumbled to Tras, who was dozing off on her travelling coat. 

“Night!” Dema hummed from his other side.

So, how many hours of sleep? As her thoughts kept circling around that very question, she fell unconscious without managing to find an answer.

 

And then, a scream woke her back up.

The scream of a young child.

As Theora was getting up, she could already see Dema rush into the forest with bubbly and long jumps. “Wolves!” she yelled, and then, she was gone in the dark.

Wolves? Why did Dema care about wolves? The wolves wouldn’t bother them. Dema was way too scary for any wild beast to come to them at night.

And yet, Theora followed to where the scream had come from. Ah, that’s right… maybe Dema didn’t care about the wolves, but about the scream. How could Theora have forgotten that scream so quickly?

She increased her pace. There was a path between the forest and the cliff, but it wasn’t well-trodden at all. Theora didn’t want to slow down, so she simply crashed through the rocks and branches lying in the way. Dema had no need to do the same, since she spent most of the way jumping through the air. Soon, they turned into the forest, and then Theora saw Dema break out into a clearing. Just as she’d said, there was a pack of wolves, rushing around a large oak tree in its centre. One of them scratched up the bark, failing to climb up, but the others seemed rather confused.

And when Theora looked up at the tree, she remembered. There sat Tras, completely scared out of his mind, clasping one of the large branches he had managed to climb on top of.

Most of the wolves had already forgotten he was there, though. In a way, his curse could also be useful.

Dema stretched out an arm in a soft sweeping gesture. The earth rumbled. One after the next, the wolves were getting buried in heaps of stones that burst out from under the grass. Some barked when the skill hit them, others just whimpered in despair, struggling to get out with bites, scratches and squirms.

But in the end, the world was stronger. Not a single one succeeded to break free.

Next, Dema stomped down, and a pointed stone pillar pierced out from the ground, carrying her up to the branch Tras was clinging to. She held out her hands in an offer, and after a few seconds of checking that the wolves were indeed held fast in-place, Tras decided to loosen his grip on the bark and accept Dema’s offer. “Why are you here!” she asked, smiling. “Dangerous outside! Stay at camp.”

The boy pulled a sad grimace. “I heard the wolves. Wanted to see the wolves.”

“Yeah!” Dema replied, and enclosed him in her arms. “Could’a woken us. We could have gone together!”

“I thought you’d say no,” he whispered.

“Huh,” Dema hummed as the rock descended and carried them back to the ground. “Theora might have, but I would have gone with you! Could have just woken me!”

Right before the pillar had fully retreated, she hopped off, and carried Tras the last few steps over to Theora, and offered him to her. Theora accepted, carefully embracing him and letting him lean his head against her shoulder. He was hot and sweating, still shaking a bit, and held on to her cloak tightly.

“Bring him back to camp,” Dema said with a certain determination written on her face. Then, she crouched down to one of the wolves she had captured, gently stroking over its head as it yelped in fear. “Don’t wanna keep them for too long.”

Tras shifted in Theora’s arms, turning around so he could see the wolf up-close. Then, after looking over the entire clearing, he swallowed.

“Alpa’s not here.”

“Not here,” Theora confirmed. “Wouldn’t be.”

Tras nodded, and wiped a few tears from his face.

“They look bad,” Dema murmured as she slowly peeled away the rocks from them to look at their haggard bodies. She stretched out a hand and made a stream of blood gush out from under her fingernails, letting it float to the closest wolf. Immediately, the animal craned its neck to lick it out from the air. “Figured,” Dema whispered. “Must be really hungry. That’s why they tried to get to you. Lucky they forgot about you, a hungry pack would stalk you from behind.” She looked back up to Theora, and repeated her request. “Bring him to camp!”

“Why? He’s safe with me,” Theora replied, and frowned a bit.

“Not about that,” Dema said, and gave a weak smile. Then, to Theora’s immeasurable surprise, Dema pulled her cloak over her head and threw it away to the edge of the clearing.

“What are you doing?” Theora asked. Technically, it wasn’t out of character for Dema to randomly undress, but that usually happened when they were at bodies of water, in heavy sunlight, at swamps, or at any time during winter. None of this applied right now.

“Bring him back to camp!” Dema repeated, and then nodded to the wolves. “They’re hungry. And I think I hurt them a bit.”

Alright, so they were hungry. What about it? Theora just stared, confused.

Pointing at herself, Dema shrugged. “Gonna get myself eaten.”

Ah. She was going to get herself eaten. Yes, of course. The wolves were hungry, so Dema would offer herself as food. Obviously. In that case, it made sense to undress first, so the clothes wouldn’t get torn up.

Theora couldn’t believe it. She wanted to protest, but Dema had voiced her request multiple times already, so she just obliged, nodded, and left the clearing, hugging Tras close to her chest. Soon, she heard the rocks come loose and bury themselves back into the ground, but other than that, it was a rather quiet night. Tras didn’t say much, he just dug his fingers into Theora’s clothes, still rattled. And thus, eventually, the noises of tearing flesh could be heard in the distance.

Theora pressed one of his ears against her shoulder, and held the other shut with a hand.

“Dema getting eaten?” he asked in a whisper.

“Yes,” Theora answered. “She’s feeding herself to the wolves. Because the wolves are important too, and we hurt them. But she will be back soon, because Dema is better than most at being eaten by wolves. Are you alright? I’ve got you, you are safe with me.”

He nodded.

When they returned, he’d fallen unusually silent. It didn’t seem to be exhaustion — he was still wide-awake, holding Theora in his gaze as she prepared him another cup of tea.

“I lied,” he finally admitted. “Wanted to see the wolves.”

“You lied?”

“I know where my home is.”

Theora stopped her work. “Oh,” she whispered. A wave of sadness overcame her as she turned to him, pulled him into a hug, and gently grazed through his hair.

“I see. I’m sorry. We should have listened to you properly when you made your request.”

 

By the time Dema returned from her endeavour, Tras had fallen asleep on Theora’s leg. All of Dema’s visible skin was completely drenched in crimson blood, including her hands and face. She’d thrown her clothes back on, and they soaked up a lot of her fluids.

“Took a while,” she said apologetically, but still smiling. “Turns out, they’ve got pups! They were gonna drag me to their den, so I just followed along.”

“I see,” Theora said, with an empty gaze. She really didn’t know what to say. Watching Dema getting hurt made her feel awful, but on the other hand, it’s not like she could condemn her actions in this case. “Are you alright? Was it painful?”

Dema shrugged. “Just a li’l. I hurt them first, so it’s alright.”

Theora offered Dema a cup of tea she’d made earlier. “Tras told me where his home is,” she said.

“Oh!” Dema let out. “Wanna go when he wakes up?”

“Will you wash yourself before we go?”

“Why! Don’t you think it’s gonna be funnier if I go like this!”

“No, I don’t,” Theora mumbled.

“I’m pretty sure you do!”

“Please go wash up!”