Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 79
79
It wouldn't be long now. Dorin didn't know how he knew this, but he could sense it coming. It was like that flash of instinct right before a deer comes barrelling through the woods, and you somehow already have an arrow nocked and ready, like you knew exactly where it would show up.
"Take me closer, Aisa. I want to talk to them."
"I never knew you were so fond of making speeches," Aisa said jokingly, and Dorin couldn't help but smile.
"Hopefully this will be the last damn speech I ever give."
Aisa helped him move closer to the wall, and as they passed Banno and Shekka, Dorin couldn't help but notice the strange look on Banno's face; part concentration, part anger. The strange thing was that he wasn't even looking at his brothers, but at the wall, just staring like some mental defective. He was about to ask if something was wrong, but then a thick line of puss dribbled from beneath his eyepatch. There was a mess of it caked onto his fur in a sickly yellow lump and Dorin had to look away to keep from vomiting.
By the Cora, he's rotting from the inside out, he thought in disgust.
This wall was a fair bit taller than the one back home. Dorin had to crane his neck to see the top. "This is far enough, Aisa. Thank you."
She nodded and readjusted her grip on his body. Dorin felt a bit guilty, hanging onto a she-wolf like this, especially when he was supposed to be a 'warrior', but if he was going to die hanging onto someone, he was glad it would be her.
There were so many faces up there, Wolves and Foxes mixed together. They were the 'enemy' and they could kill him at a moment's notice, and yet he still felt safer talking to them than he did about showing his back to his own people.
It was almost funny, in a sad kind of way.
"Ander!" he shouted. The wind cut his cheeks and tongue like blades of ice.
The big brown Wolf looked down from high above, his face wracked in utter despair. It felt strange seeing him like that because Ander hadn't looked anywhere near as bad during his trial, and that had been far more hopeless than this. All the scars of that night were still clearly visible, some of them made by Dorin himself. He could see the gaps in Ander's right shoulder where the fur no longer grew, gaps where his teeth had shredded the skin and left behind jagged lines of shiny scar tissue. But he was up there, where it was relatively safe, with a pretty little vixen by his side (the same one they had nearly killed back home, upon closer inspection) and Dorin was the one stuck down here, trapped on all sides, counting down the final minutes of his life. In a world that made sense, surely their faces should have been reversed. Unless the prospect of killing his former people, the ones who had tried their damndest to kill him, was a worse torture than the trial was? Oh, how horrifically funny fate could be, switching everything around and somehow still making it worse for everyone involved.
Ander's fingers kept playing over an ornate horn around his neck, touching it, but never grabbing hold.
Is that what's going to signal the attack? Dorin wondered, staring up at all the nervous faces.
Ander gave a small nod. "Yes, Dorin?"
Dorin didn't know exactly what he was going to say. All day long he's felt like that. Never planning ahead, just letting the words come in whatever order they wanted. This was no different.
"I'm sorry," he said, not surprised that those would be the first words he spoke to this Wolf. "I'm sorry for biting you in the shoulder like that. Back when we... you know. Tried to kill you."
The look of shock on Ander's face would have been hilarious had the situation not been so deadly serious. "It- It's fine, don't worry about it," he stammered. He rolled his shoulder to show just how fine it was. "It's all better now. Um... sorry about your ear."
Dorin burst out laughing. It probably looked insane, but damn did it feel good. He knew what he wanted to say now. And if he was going to die anyway, then there was no reason not to say it exactly how he wanted, honour be damned.
"Hezzi," he said, finally calming down. "I'm sorry for that fight. If I hadn't stepped in like a good little lackey, maybe you would have been Chieftain right now."
Hezzi was every bit as shocked as Ander. He looked to the left and right, almost as if trying to ascertain whether Dorin was really speaking to him, or some other Hezzi. "No, that's okay," he said, looking decidedly uncomfortable. "I probably would have made for a terrible Chieftain anyway."
An image of Hezzi wearing that gaudy necklace suddenly popped into Dorin's head and he had to bite his tongue to keep from bursting into fresh gales of laughter.
"Are you all right, Dorin?" Aisa whispered into his ear.
"Yeah," he whispered back. "I'm just losing it a little, that's all."
"Tell me something I don't know."
Maybe it was just his imagination, but he could have sworn Aisa held him a bit tighter just then. Maybe it was just the wind jostling them about, or maybe she thought he was about to fall (Cora knows they had had a few close calls on the way over here), but he didn't think so.
Dorin's eyes moved further along the wall, passing over so many Foxes. He wondered what their names might be and what they meant. He looked at their faces and wondered which of them might be brothers and sisters. He looked at the way they were standing side by side with a small group of Wolves and wondered which of them might be friends.
Lana would have been up there, too. If I hadn't...
It was a good thing he still had a tear or two left over from his laughing fit, because that meant he didn't have to try and hide this new one.
"Nilia?"
"Yes, Dorin?" She still had that bearclaw hanging around her neck. Her face was still stern and unyielding. She looked exactly the same as she did on the night he watched her disappear into the night, and yet there was something different about her now. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it. There was a softness to her voice, and warmth in her eyes. She seemed less... hard, if that made sense. Maybe she was always like that, but could never show it to a tribe that would only see it as weakness. Or maybe it was just his imagination again.
"If I die tonight," Dorin said, "please tell Danado I'm sorry. Tell him I wish I could take it all back. Tell him..." He swallowed, struggling to come up with the right words. Why did it always have to be words? He was terrible at words. "I know that's... not much. It's nothing. It's less than nothing. Saying I'm sorry won't do anything. But... it's all I can think of to do."
Why? Why did he have to be so powerless? Ending a life required no power at all. It could be done in a single moment. But making up for that moment was something that could never be done, not even in a thousand lifetimes. What was a simple 'sorry' in the face of all that? It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. It would -
"I'm sorry, too." Ivio stepped up and fell in line beside Dorin, his paint-stained fur having gone from the reddish brown of blood and clay to an odd greyish colour because of all the frost, making him look far older than he actually was. His ears twitched independently of each other, and he had put his fingers right up to his mouth. For a moment it looked like he was going to chew on them, but then he lowered them instead. He glanced up at the wall and then quickly looked down at his feet. It was a look Dorin had never seen on Ivio before. It was shame. "I'm sorry, Ander. I'm sorry I tried to stick you."
If Ander had been surprised by Dorin's apology, then Ivio's must have floored him. Dorin could see him up there, grabbing hold of the stubby spikes lining the top of the wall, squeezing so hard his claws had almost disappeared into the wood.
Still not looking up, Ivio continued. "I'm sorry, Hezzi. I was gonna stick you, too. Maybe I have to say sorry to each of you for trying to stick the other, since you're brothers and all. So I'm sorry, Ander, for trying to stick Hezzi, and Hezzi, I'm sorry for trying to stick Ander. I don't see Dan, but I'm sorry to him, too. I'm sorry I tried to kill him. Twice, I think. Maybe more, I dunno. I'm sorry for the time we cut his claws. I wasn't the one who did that, but I was right there. I hit him. A lot. We all did. And I'm sorry."
Hezzi looked to his big brother. Dorin could see his mouth was moving, but he couldn't hear what he was saying, and the snow was making it hard to read the shape of his mouth. Either Ander didn't hear him, or he was too shocked to answer. He just kept staring down at the mad Wolf who had tried to end his life a season ago, and who now couldn't even bear to look him in the eye.
Crunching snow told Dorin that someone else was approaching, and by the uneven sound of his gait, he could already tell who it was.
Denko fell in line next to Aisa, breathing heavily and leaning on a broken tree branch. If he wanted to say something, he could have stayed on Thoka's back, but he had decided to stand on his own two feet instead, despite the obvious pain. It was something Dorin understood very well.
"Nilia." Unlike Ivio, he could actually look them in the eye. "I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry for every arrow I aimed at you and your friends, and that I harbour you no ill will for the single arrow you aimed back at me. You were fighting for your life. I know that feeling now. And I..." He closed his eyes for a moment and bit down on his bottom lip, but whether he was trying to hold back his tears or fight through the pain in his leg was impossible to say. Maybe both. Maybe more. "I'm sorry things had to turn out this way. We tried, but... it wasn't enough."
Now Dorin was positive he hadn't been imagining things when he thought something about Nilia was different. Before, she had been calm and collected, no matter the situation, but now she was struggling to keep it together. He could tell by the way the plumes of vapour were issuing form her mouth, faster and faster, and by the way the face of the poor Fox next to her was steadily contorting with agony as her claws sunk deeper and deeper into his shoulder.
I'm seeing her without her shell, he realized. Just what on earth has been going on over there?
Thoka came up next. "Ander!" he shouted, pointing his finger like one issuing a challenge. "I will not apologise for the time I hit you! You kicked me and it hurt like hell, so as far as I'm concerned, that makes us even!" He dropped his finger, and the bravado slowly drained from his face. His ears fell flat and his tail flumped down to the snow as his gaze travelled further down the line, finally coming to a stop on Mellah. "But to you, Mellah, I, er..." He fidgeted and scratched his head. "I don't normally apologise for anything. I've never felt the need to. All the times I ever did someone wrong, I felt like it was because of their own weakness. If they couldn't protect themselves, then that meant they deserved to be wronged, as a kind of punishment. A punishment for them, and a reward for me, for being stronger than them. But... I feel the need to apologise now. I just wanted to tell you that... I'm sorry I charged at Renna like that. I don't even know what I was thinking, what I was trying to do, what I would have done if I'd actually managed to grab her. So... I'm sorry. You had every right to punch me in the face. And if you see her when this is all done, tell her... tell her Thoka is sorry."
Aisa's shivering pulled Dorin's attention away from the wall. It was more intense than before, more than the mere product of the freezing air. "Aisa? Are you all right?"
She sniffed and nodded. "I'm fine."
Dorin reached over and plucked a frozen tear from beneath her eye. It was cold and brittle between his fingers. "Liar."
She looked at him, and even though her eyes were partway swollen shut, the pain he saw in them was clear as day. "He apologised to her," she said and tipped her head towards the wall. "He attacked my daughter, and yet Mellah was the one he apologised to."
"Don't mind him, he's Thoka. He didn't mean anything by it, he just wasn't thinking."
She slowly shook her head. "Mellah has been more a mother to that child in one week than I have been her whole life. Thoka was right to apologise to her instead of me."
Dorin tried to come up with something to say, something that would make the pain in those eyes go away, but he had nothing.
Yannek, Vekka, and Seffer stepped forward and each had their say, but Dorin barely heard any of it. He couldn't stop stealing glances at Aisa. She was supporting him, he was leaning on her, the distance between them was literally zero, and yet he had never felt farther away from anyone than he did to her in that exact moment, wanting to reach out and comfort her, but finding no words with which to do so.
Words... Why do I have to be so terrible at words?
Maybe because his words weren't the ones she was searching for.
"Mother?"
That voice was so small, it could barely be heard above the roar of the wind, but Aisa's breath hitched in her throat. She clutched at Dorin like one on the verge of drowning, her eyes wide and staring. For a moment he thought he saw a flicker of joy in those eyes, but now all he saw was overpowering fear and shame so deep she couldn't bring herself to look up at the source of that small voice.
But Dorin could.
Renna was up there, peeking over the stubby spikes of the wall. Her wounds had mostly healed up and she looked... well, she would have looked pretty if her face wasn't so contorted by misery, like she was slowly being tortured. He guessed that wasn't far from the truth.
"Renna!" Sorrin thundered. "What the hell are you doing here!?"
Renna had to have heard him (even the Wolves all the way at the back must have heard him), but she kept looking down into the pass. "Mother!" she yelled again, leaning over as far as she could, standing on tip-toes.
Aisa shut her eyes tight and covered her ears, blocking out everything around her, leaving her in -
If you enjoy my story, please help keep my face un-mauled by irritable ostriches by dropping me a donation.
Thank you! ^_^
Paypal:[email protected]
Donation Progress $239 / $300 (Unlock Sunday update)
How and Why: The Story behind "Ander" (Journal): https://www.sofurry.com/view/517234
Special thanks go out to the following furs for helping me keep this project afloat with their generous donations. I couldn't do it without your support.
- Mystery fur
- PyrePup
- KmlRock
- Faan
- Sunny-Fox
- Mystery fur #2
- Sky Star
- Claybrook
- 1_2Punch
- Cahal Silverpaw
- TheLoneDriftor
- Ariedren
Thank you! You guys are the best! ^_^