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I'm never leaving this place...

They were bold, heavy words that carried with them a certain sense of purpose. They were even words of betrayal, in a sense, to prove that Jon would never return to his home.

No matter how hard he tried, or how many days went by, he couldn't shake it from his own mind that he'd said something so treasonous.

"Your wounds are healing up wonderfully, Jon. In a couple more days, you'll have nothing more than a nasty looking scar there!"

Of course, it was easy for him to lose focus in the whirlwind of events that brought him to such a decision. He was still lost in thought about the fact that only a couple weeks beforehand, he'd fallen unconscious, an open victim to the harsh elements of the world around him, and it was only because of the kindness of a stranger, one that he once thought was his enemy, that he was graced with a continued life.

That gorgeous stranger, the ever-smiling Likita, had allowed his residency in her camp to continue, even after Jon was back to full health. His wound still appeared a bit ghastly, but it was no longer painful, and thanks to her practice in the ways of medicine, Likita made sure that it would never become infected.

She had, in turn, infected him with a small nip of romance, and their nightly bathing routine was quite far from an activity of cleaning. They spent plenty of time in the water together, both for the way that Likita enjoyed the feel of it upon her nude figure, and the way that Jon felt most at home when he was splashing around in the water.

"I know you keep telling me that I'm embarrassing you, but I really can't thank you enough, Likita."

"I deserve no thanks for doing what I should have done."

Jon slowly sat up out of his cot and stood upright in the tent so that he could offer a quick, friendly peck upon the pristine, white fur of her cheek. "I disagree. I truly do owe you my life..."

"I...I'd been meaning to ask you about that, Jon. About your life."

Likita's tone was so solemn that Jon couldn't help a small frown when he slowly pulled back from her cheek. "Wh...what about it, exactly? I haven't offended someone in the village, have I?"

"N-no, not at all! The others, though...they are starting to wonder what it is you'll be doing around here. As I explained before, we have very little currency, and shopping is mostly a novelty, but everyone in the village has some sort of a skill that they share with everyone else..."

"I could be a hunter, like I was in my old tribe-

"You could," Likita cut him off, but before she finished her reply, her eyes began to glint over with a thin layer of concern that Jon couldn't ignore. "But I don't know that I could live with the thought of sending you out to do something that nearly got you killed once before. I'm sorry...I know it's very selfish of me to ask you to set aside your true nature this way."

"If it's out of concern for my life, it isn't selfish," Jon assured her, "Although, I'm not sure what other way I could possibly be of help to the village, otherwise."

"You could always become my apprentice, Jon. I'd love to have another set of paws to help me out around the tent...and not just in the dark of the night."

Jon's frown began to grow as he slowly sat back down on the edge of his cot. Likita flattened her ears, looking him over with yet another veil of concern, this time much greater than before. "I'm afraid I don't qualify...by the laws of my own people."

"You're not governed by your own people here, Jon. You're in a place where you're free to make your own decisions."

"I wish it were as simple as that," Jon admitted. An angry scowl began to spread across his muzzle as he cast his eyes to the dirt floor of the tent, not wanting Likita to think that his frustrations were with her. "Our people...we take medicine very seriously, and in my youth, I was sure that I could be one of the most skillful doctors that our tribes had ever known. I wanted to help people...but my lineage didn't allow for such a thing. I was born and bred to be a hunter, instead."

"It isn't too late to change your fate, then."

"Yes, it is. In our tribe, when you've sworn yourself to a position, you've sworn it for life. It's a bit old fashioned, and perhaps even silly, but it's still a law that we live by. It helps to keep family lines pure...it keeps the peaceful and compassionate people from breeding with those who would happily kill for the smallest form of currency..."

Likita covered the end of her muzzle to fight back a quiet gasp. "Th-that's terrible, Jon..."

"Terrible, but effective. It means that those of us who are bred to hunt have no remorse about killing the things that we do, be it our prey, or those who are foolish enough to try and take it...and on the flip side, or doctors and medicine women are the most compassionate and forgiving people you could ever know, who would heal anyone or anything that came to them with a wound. The two are not meant to interlink or intermarry, and yet, I couldn't keep myself from looking back and wondering. I won't deny that it's got a lot to do with why I find you so captivating, Likita."

In truth, though Likita knew Jon wasn't foolish or naive, she had no idea that he contained such a mental depth, or such a checkered past. "That's very flattering of you to say, Jon, and I really do mean it when I tell you that you can be whatever you want to be in this village. You're not sworn by your old laws, so long as you live here."

"It's not just about them. It's about me."

"So...your mind is set on becoming a hunter with our tribe, then?"

Jon nodded silently.

"You must have been truly skilled at it to take down the beast that you did singlehandedly. I won't deny that it weighs heavily on my heart, Jon, but if that is what you feel inclined to do, I have no right, and no power to stop you."

"Thank you for understanding, Likita."

"However..."

"Hm?"

"To be a hunter among wolves, you must prove yourself yet again by undergoing whatever initiation our hunters deem necessary for you. I have no idea what form the test will take, or when it will occur...only that it will take place some time after you've informed our chieftains of your decision. It could even happen the moment you stepped outside their tents."

"Will you take me to see them, Likita?" Jon asked, trying to pretend that the lump he'd gulped down his throat was just a dry spot, and not the nerves he truly felt.

"I can take you there," she replied, "But I can't enter with you. What goes on inside the tent is between you and the chieftains, and I may not interfere."

Jon could tell just how serious the moment was, able to see a stern expression across Likita's muzzle that he'd never seen upon it before, even when she'd first taken him in. "I understand, Likita. Thank you."

"I have just one request left for you, Jon, as we may not see each other very much anymore after your initiation is complete."

"Anything, Likita. Anything."

"Please, when your meeting this evening is complete...come and join me in the lake for one last bath?"

**

"And you're certain this is your wish? You truly won't have things any other way?"

The inside of the tent of chieftains was certainly larger than the others in the village, but no more complex. Animal hides propped up on large tree branches with small vents cut into them so that the smoke of their fires could pour out into the night sky, and small trinkets sitting on wooden benches strewn about in the dirt were the only decorations, just like the tent that Likita inhabited.

Somehow, though, it still felt more imposing for Jon to be standing in such a place, just knowing that there were three people sitting before him, judging his every word for its merit.

"This is the only skill I was bred to have. I'm sorry that I can't offer more to repay the kindness your village has shown me."

"We are all able to change," the chieftain in the middle explained, sitting at the center of the tent to impose his seniority. "I truly see in you that if you continue down this path, the spirits of war and chaos will never leave your side. This may be the last chance you ever have to leave them behind and lead a peaceful life, Jon."

"Those spirits were born within me," Jon muttered, "And they still reside in the depths of my soul today. It isn't enough to simply turn away from them..."

"If you turn away from the sun, it no longer blinds you, even if it is still there."

"I...I don't understand."

"There are things in this life that are within and without us that we cannot escape: the stars stay ever in the sky, the sun shines on every day, and the spirits in the air pass through us as though we were blades of grass...but if we turn away from them, we can ignore them, for a time. You can still turn away, Jon. You can leave that part of your heritage in the past, turn away from it, and start again, a new person."

Jon glanced down at his paws and lowered his tail, feeling that there was no right answer that he could give. "I'm sorry, Chieftain. I truly believe this is what I was born to do."

"Then...we accept your skills, Jon. Your initiation will take place soon enough, and you will be baptized into our tribe however the hunters see fit. I advise you to be ready at all times, young otter...and do not allow chaos to consume you."

Each of the three chieftains lowered their heads and stared at the ground, and Jon quickly caught on that it was time for him to leave. He gave a small bow of respect, as was customary in his own tribe, and backed out of the tent, into the moonlit commons of the village.

Despite how heavy the conversation was only moments ago, the way that the shimmering moon bathed the valley below always made Jon feel light as a feather, as if the light around him were actually blessed water from the lunar orb, allowing him to float and drift above the grass without a care in the world. His spirit was at peace, at least for the moment, and his body was quite the opposite, as his manhood already began to tremble under his tiny loincloth, knowing what awaited him at the lake.

Deft paws kicked through loose blades of grass and careless dirt as Jon quickly jogged down a path that he'd become familiar with. He knew every single root that was sticking out of the ground, every place where the dirt wasn't quite level, and every tree branch that he had to duck under or weave around to make it to the water unscathed.

When he arrived, however, Likita wasn't her usual, smiling self. She was still standing nude, bathing in both the cool waters of the lake and the enchanting glow of the moonlight, but when her ears flickered to the sound of his presence, she turned her head to gaze at him, with something in her eyes akin to disapproval.

"Likita..."

"So you wouldn't change your mind, would you, Jon?"

"H-how...how could you possibly know that?"

"Every day that I've spent with you, as I've healed your wounds, I've seen the chaotic nature of a purebred hunter coming back to life in you. You had a peacefulness about you when you weren't concerned with hunting...one that I was sure had to be a part of you. Perhaps it's my mistake. It must have been the painkillers."

"No, Likita! That...that was all me! I promise you, that's who I am!"

"If you're so pure of heart...if you're so certain that you want to help people and be a good person yourself...why would you return to such a barbaric trade, when you had the chance to be something else?"

It was a loaded question, one that Jon's mind couldn't handle, especially in the face of such pure, unbridled beauty. "I...I don't..."

"If you truly don't know, then your mind is wrapped in a chaos that my medicine can't touch, Jon. I'm sorry that you made your decision...I can only pray that in time, it won't tear us apart," Likita said in a low, drawn lament. She slowly turned her body to face Jon, and though he'd lost track of it, her right arm was crossed under her breasts, holding the left one at the elbow...as her left paw gently rubbed about her standing clitoris and worked her own natural moisture into it. "My mind is filled with fear for you, and my heart, perhaps...perhaps something that I would call love... and while you've angered me with your choice, you've aroused me with your presence, as you always do..."

Jon felt as though he were at a crossroads when Likita finally turned to fully face him. He could easily see the way that her nipples stood erect under the soft, plush fur that just managed to surround them. He could, even from a distance, see the trickling flow of her own natural arousal spilling over her pawtips and down the insides of her thighs, and yet, her words seemed to imply that she didn't want him to come any closer.

"We may not have much time. This isn't a moment for indecision, Jon. It's perhaps your last chance to share the love with me that I've seen in your eyes, and felt in your touch."

That kind of onus, however, he had to answer to. Trying not to appear hasty, Jon rushed his way into the water as quickly as he could walk, uncaring of the loud, splashing ripples that soaked him up to his thighs and broke the glassy surface of the lake. He wasn't at all worried with the way that the water kicked up around him as he halted to a stop in front of Likita when her arms came to wrap around him.

He was only worried with enjoying perhaps his last night with the first woman to show him such an affection. It wasn't by choice that she'd be leaving him, but by the duties he would soon carry, and as he stood still in her arms, he already came to regret the thought. It might not have been too late to go back to the chieftains and beg them to understand the confusion in his mind, but that same confusion only grew worse as Likita slipped her paws down the small of his lower back, and traced two delicate pawtips along the underside of his long, thick tail.

"I remember the way you reacted when I first touched you here, Jon. Most males reject such an advance...but you welcome it. I never quite understood it...but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate it."

Likita's paws were so gentle and skillful that it was rare for Jon to think of her as anything but sweet and innocent. Her pawtips proved the opposite to have a strong argument, however, as they pressed into Jon's waiting asshole and began to penetrate it, using nothing but her own liquid arousal as a lubrication for the act. Jon stiffened up against Likita's other arm, still holding him upright as her slicked digits began to pass into the tight grip of his inner muscles, prompting his member to grow against her inner thigh.

"That's it, baby...don't you resist even a moment of this. If it's the last chance we get, I want us to leave everything out there...leave our inhibitions to the wayside and do whatever comes to mind, no matter how depraved..."

The words of the wolfess alone would have been enough to leave Jon throbbing between her legs, but the added touch of her pawtips stroking around and exploring inside his anus had the tip of his member dripping precum into the water in slow, oozing drops. "F-fuck...Likita, please...please don't-

"Don't what, Jon?"

"Don't s-stop," Jon managed to finish his words, just before biting down on his lower lip. He pressed his hips down into the open paw of the pristine, white wolfess and tried to force her pawtips that much further into his body, and she happily obliged, letting each one sink inside up to the second knuckle. Jon was full, but not so much that he could handle a little more abuse.

Just when the moment was to become truly heavenly, and Likita was lowering her hips into the very head of his cock, letting the juices upon it coat the pouting lips of her labia...all hell broke loose for the ill-fated couple.

"It's no wonder this guy wouldn't leave the tribe! He was getting with the one female no one had ever touched before!"

The small ripples in the water that destroyed the glassy tranquility of the lake paled in comparison to the thundering stomps of the wolven hunters on the shore. Jon and Likita had been so indulged in each other than neither one of them were able to hear the troop coming, and now, caught in the throes of passion, they were utterly defenseless.

"Don't stop on our behalf," the leader of the hunters told them, as he stepped forth from the bunch. "I've always wondered what it would look like to see Likita getting destroyed in this lake."

"You speak of her as if she's a piece of meat," Jon shot back, glaring over his shoulder at the hunters. "She isn't something so simple as that, much less an object to be spoken about like food..."

"To hunters," the leader began to explain, "Everything is something to be consumed. That's in our nature. It's in your nature...and if you try to deny that part of yourself, you'll be entirely worthless to us."

"I would sooner let Likita consume me than the other way around. I wouldn't be worthy of such a feast."

"That's a bit more like it, rookie! Now you're actually talking about her like she's a meal!"

Jon gritted his teeth together, baring the large, unusual fangs that hung from his muzzle. "That isn't what I meant at all! A word can have more than one meaning, you imbecile!"

Upon the shore, two other wolves began to follow the leader into the water. The rest stayed and formed a perimeter around the lake, making sure that no one could interfere with what was clearly going to be Jon's initiation.

He was sure that he would have been ready for anything, but this seemed like nothing more than a bunch of monsters taking advantage of a wounded prey.

"You've got quite a mouth on you, otter...and a rather dangerous looking set of fangs. I'd say that you were fit to join our ranks on tenacity alone, but I'm the top dog around here, and no one barks that kind of disrespect at me and gets away with it. I had a feeling you wouldn't survive initiation..."

"What?" Jon asked, letting out a low, rumbling growl. "You gonna kill me? Drown me in the lake and feed my body to the wild beasts?"

"That would be far too easy, and not nearly satisfying enough," the leader replied, as he drew closer to the interspecies pair. Regretfully, Jon pulled his member away from Likita and turned to face the leader, but to his shock, it was Likita that stepped forward to defend him.

"Ulrus."

"Likita."

"This initiation is a farce and a disgrace...you're only using this opportunity to spy on my most private moments and confirm your suspicions about our village guest..."

"So you are bedding him on a nightly basis."

"Who I share my tent with is my business and my business alone...the same as who I bathe with, and who I share my meals with. If your jealousy has clouded your vision so much, I truly weep for the future of our village."

"I weep for the future of it when peacekeepers like yourself think that they can talk back to someone with more confirmed kills than the rest of the hunters in the tribe put together...you've got some kinda balls, y'know, considering you're a chick."

"And since when has my gender been any sort of a hindrance on my ability to take of your wounds when you get too carried away with senseless bravado?"

Ulrus grunted, baring his fangs wide under the soft glow of the moonlight that bathed Likita with such ethereal beauty.

"You're going to have to put those skills to the test in a moment, Likita. The otter is coming with us. He needs to complete his initiation if he's ever going to be a true part of our village."

Likita was truly wise, and she knew full well that Jon would never return alive from that test, if he were to make his way to it.

"...Then I forbid him to go."

"He made the decision in front of the elders himself! You have no right to deny him his chance to join our ranks!"

Likita whirled around to face Jon, catching the otter, and herself, by surprise. She'd hoped to see the glazed look of passion in his eyes that was always so evident when they made love, and yet, all she came to see was the angry, tarnished hatred of a warrior in the middle of the hunt. Wishing that she could protect him, and already feeling a sense of regret that she didn't forbid his attempts to become a hunter, her ears folded back, as if she were the prey, instead of the predator.

Jon certainly wore the look a bit too well. "Listen, Jon. You don't have to sacrifice yourself like this. There's nothing you can do to prove yourself to Ulrus...if you follow them into the woods, they'll slaughter you the moment you're out of my sight!"

Before Jon could try to argue his point, Ulrus interjected. "That's not entirely true, Likita."

"What...?"

"Jon...you truly love Likita, don't you?"

Though Jon found it hard to speak to Ulrus without snarling, he managed to find a way through his fangs to create the words. "More than someone like you can appreciate."

"There's nothing to stop us right now from killing you, and if we were so inclined, killing her. We're professional hunters, every bit as much as you are...we can make the whole thing look like a lover's quarrel that simply got out of hand. You have no chance to escaping this moment alive unless you comply."

The most brazen of heroes would be beside themselves in trying to find a strategy out of the moment, and Jon was more levelheaded than most. Though it angered him to the point of blinding fury, he managed to keep his cool just enough to take one single step away from Likita. "You want me gone. I get it...if you trade her safety for my leaving, I'll be gone before the morning comes."

Ulrus snickered and shook his head. "You're in no position to make demands, Jon. You've got no chip to bargain with...but we do want you gone. We just can't let you leave without having a little fun, first."

"I'm not bargaining with anything. I'm telling you that I won't leave without a guarantee of her safety. I'll happily die fighting before I see her slain."

"You've got quite a mouth on you, don't you?"

"And if you have a scrap of honor left about you, you'll agree to my terms."

"We wouldn't actually kill the best medicine woman in the entire region, and certainly not because she decided to have a fling with a slim, lithe prey like yourself. Stop being so melodramatic," Ulrus muttered, giving another brief, small shake of the head. "You have my word that she will be safe...but you will be gone long before the morning sun rises, and you won't leave without finishing."

"Finishing what?"

"We clearly caught the two of you in the middle of something," Ulrus explained, as a pair of the other wolven guards walked out into the water. Jon would normally have braced himself, but as per his agreement, he held still, knowing that they were coming for his arms. "We just wanted to make sure that you didn't leave the lady unsatisfied."

Likita twisted her face up in disgust, slightly regretful that the juices of her arousal were still trickling down her thighs from before. "Ulrus, don't you dare!"

"It was all going to be part of his initiation, anyway. You should feel honored that you get to be a part of it," Ulrus stated in faux respect. The guards took Jon by the arms and pushed his knees out, forcing him to fall down into the water with a haphazard splash. Several of the other hunters drew near, and Ulrus gripped Likita by the wrists, keeping her from lashing out at any of them as the lined up behind Jon, one by one. "We heard a rumor that the poor little otter likes certain things that other males aren't usually into. Why don't we see if the rumors are true, hm?"

Lowering his head shamefully, Jon knew exactly what was coming. Likita thrashed against the powerful grip of Ulrus as the first of several wolves knelt down behind Jon, coated their pawtips in a thick, healthy coating of saliva, and began to rub the very tips of their paws around the tight, exposed pucker of Jon's anus. "Stop this madness at once, Ulrus!" Likita growled at him, knowing that she couldn't overpower him, but still fighting against his hold nonetheless.

"If you join in the fun, it'll all be over much sooner," Ulrus suggested, giving an ultimatum for the situation and leaving Likita with the chance to save her lover from the fate...but her humility wouldn't let her give in so easily. She was too proud to be defeated, and too shamed to engage in such a lewd act in front of all of the hunters of the village. Word would travel fast, and she'd be branded a whore and a slut by the commoners...such a fate wasn't befitting a medicine woman, and though it pained her, she could only wiggle against Ulrus and watch...

...Watch, as two wolves grabbed Jon's backside and spread it wide open, while a third buried his muzzle right under the thick, rudder tail of the otter and slurped his tongue back and forth over his asshole. As twisted and perverse as the moment was, Jon shuddered with a pleasure that his body wouldn't reject, feeling the long, flat, slick tongue of a male wolf, gliding over his backside. The small ring tightened up and tensed around the threat of penetration, and yet a fourth wolf came forward, rubbing his pawtips in the messy saliva before he began to prod at Jon's orifice.

Likita didn't want to enjoy what she was seeing. Being wrestled from the throes of passionate sex in the way that she had, her body was still sexually charged, but her mind knew better than to enjoy what she was seeing. It pained her to watch a man that she cared so deeply for in such a compromised position, and as a flush burned under the thin fur upon Jon's cheeks, he weakly moaned into the water, feeling a pair of long, thick canine members upon his forehead. Precum drooled down between his ears and over the bridge of his muzzle as the wolves humiliated him, and Likita, save for one option, was powerless to stop him.

"...If I do it...you'll release him?"

"You have my word," Ulrus confirmed, sounding entirely too calm for the display that was going on just feet away from him.

"Your word is worth less than dirt to me," Likita admitted, "But at the risk of dishonoring your entire lineage, I hope that it has some value left."

"So you'll do it?"

"...If...I must, Ulrus. I'll do it...for Jon."

"You hear that, otter? It sounds like the lady truly cares about you after all!" Ulrus called out, and though his voice was little more than a taunt, Jon felt a true rising of warmth from the low, cold pits of his stomach. He was already realizing that their relationship could never be, and that he'd have to leave the village to save her life, but if she truly felt such a way about him, then it would all have been worth it, at least as long as it lasted. "Clear the way, boys...let's see just how skillful Likita really is with that tongue of hers."

Ulrus finally released Likita, allowing her to escape his grasp mid-thrash so that she would fall into the water with an unceremonious crash. The water helped to cradle her fall, at least a little bit, but she still felt pain radiating from her paws and knees as she stayed low, crawling over to Jon, who was now open and waiting for her advances. "...I...I'm sorry, Jon...I'm so sorry it turned out this way..."

Jon refused to open his mouth to speak, for fear that one of the wolves might take advantage and stuff their thick, heated flesh into his open maw. Instead, he tried to glance back at Likita as she crawled around, coming to settle under the rudder of his tail. "Don't hold back, Jon...just let everything out. Release your frustrations into the calming waters of this pond...and when you're done, be gone from this place, forever."

No...that...that isn't fair, Jon thought, his mind still juxtaposed between the pain and suffering that he felt from having to leave Likita, and a rather immediate spike of pleasure as her pawtips came to rest on either side of his asshole. She gave it a quick, easy spread, and slipped her tongue forward, gliding it back and forth over the already slick, sticky pucker. Content to prove her skills to Jon one last time, she circled and swirled the very tip of her tongue around his flesh in a slow, teasing draw, while a third pawtip finally pressed and sunk in to his backside.

"I'm not into that myself, but I think any one of us would be lucky to have a tongue like that on us!" Ulrus commented, refusing to allow Likita to simply perform her act in silent shame. Instead, he made sure that each and every moment of it felt as depraved as it truly was, as the wolves continued to try and force their way into Jon's muzzle, spilling more precum over his face and his lips, all while Likita began to gently pump her pawtip and finger his tight, waiting asshole.

He'd already been close to reaching his peak when the act started, and though he was given a second wind by the arrival of such trouble, Jon knew that he couldn't hold out much longer, and in truth, it would only make things worse for him, and more importantly, Likita, if he tried to hold out any longer.

Able to feel those familiar chills creeping up into his groin and spreading through the slim muscles of his torso, Jon gasped, and the moment he did, his orgasmic moans were muffled by the thick, drooling cock of Ulrus, who had been waiting for just such an opportunity. He gave only one thrust, gagging Jon on the girth of his manhood and forcing him to drool around it while his inner muscles clamped down around Likita's pawtip and trapped it, milking and working around it while spurt after fresh, sticky spurt of his cum splashed down into the glassy surface of the moonlit water, causing tiny ripples as each virile strand sunk to the bottom of the pond below.

"That's it, Jon..." Likita whispered rather calmly, pretending that there was no one around to ruin the moment for the pair, as they had. "Just let everything go...and please...don't hate me for this..."

I could never, Jon thought, feeling his cock pulse and throb against the air. With her spare paw, Likita reached forth and gripped the base, giving his member a few quick, gentle strokes to help the last of his oozing essence out of his body, knowing that he'd need a little extra encouragement to release the final few drops. Shuddering in her grasp and finding it hard to stay on all fours, Jon wished that he could just lean back into Likita one more time, but he knew that the hunters would never let him.

What did shock him, however, was the way that Ulrus so easily slid his cock back and out of Jon's muzzle, leaving it to rest on his nose and spill precum between his nostrils. "I could sit here and fuck your poor, pathetic throat until words would never escape your lips again," Ulrus claimed, coming off as the boast that he truly was, "But Likita is right...I can't dishonor my family line by betraying my word. We upheld our end of the bargain," he reminded them, as the wolves that had left Jon's face smeared with a sticky mess finally stood up and backed away. "Now it's about time that you keep up with your end."

It was a shocking relief to see Ulrus standing up and walking out of the water with his troops, but what it left behind was a blanket of despair, as Likita slowly climbed over Jon's back and allowed her nude form to rest against his. Her arms draped weakly around his shoulders and clasped around his neck, and for just a moment, Jon was sure that he heard her sobbing.

"Likita, please..."

"Don't. Don't you say a damned word," she said, fighting through quiet sobs as she did. "I warned you against making such a foolish decision...I gave you every chance to change your mind and do something better with your life, because I didn't want to see you become one of them!"

"I would n-

"I said not to talk," Likita reminded him. "Truly, I...I don't want to hear another word out of you, Jon. An apology now would be no better than treating the wounds of a dead man."

Blinded by his own ambitions to prove his self worth once again, Jon had overlooked the person who saved him and gave him a chance to lead a new life with her, instead. As Likita rested against him, trying to fight back a slow, long series of sniffles, Jon could only rest on all fours, acting as a pillar of physical support for her, while his own eyes welled up with tears.

"You should go, Jon," Likita suggested, as she slowly climbed from the back of the otter. Standing next to him, she offered him a paw one last time, and without hesitation, he took it...and embraced Likita one last time, using the offered paw to bridge the gap. He truly feared she would have rejected the hold if he did it any other way, and that thought alone was painful enough to leave his tears flowing. "Don't...don't let them see you as you leave. I fear that they have no intentions of letting you live, all told."

Still holding that paw, Likita gave Jon's wrist a quick tug as he started to walk away, and he hesitated, before feeling something wrapping around his wrist. Blinking, he looked down to see a rather simple cord, with the symbol of a two paws and a beam of light coming from them upon a tiny piece of steel in the middle.

"I just wanted you to have this...I was going to give it to you when you became my assistant. I want you to wear it as a reminder that you don't have to follow destiny anymore than you have to follow the stars," Likita explained, as she finally turned away from Jon and began to walk to the shore. "It's a reminder that you really are a good person. I saw the light shining through you when I first found you, Jon. Go capture it again..."

Jon wouldn't move. He couldn't move, until he finally saw the last flicker of Likita's tail before she disappeared into the line of trees around the pond. It was as if he were watching a ghost phasing through the walls of a small house when she finally did disappear, and he wiped the tears from his eyes, hoping that she might appear again.

She never did.

I'll be wanting that bracelet back some day, Jon...please don't disappoint me, Likita thought to herself as she held her arm across her breasts with a renewed sense of shame. She scampered quickly back to her tent for fear of her own safety, while Jon stole away into the darkness of the night, staying as close as he could to the river that fed the pond...knowing that it would be his best chance to survive the evening.