Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 128
128
There was only so much fear a vixen could endure before it reached a plateau, a place where she simply could not bear any more. Kiana had reached that point when Banno started to lick her stomach, dragging that hot, slimy piece of meat across her flesh in slow, deliberate circles. It was a thought she didn't want to dwell on for even a moment, but it felt like he wasn't actually trying to lick her. It felt like he was trying to lick her unborn baby through her.
_Let me go! Let me go, you sick bastard!_she screamed inside her head, throwing her thoughts like spears. She continually tried to scream with her mouth as well, but she was beginning to think he actually liked that, listening to the feeble whimpers escaping from between her clenched teeth.
And then something happened that sent a whole new kind of fear racing through her heart, something she simply could not understand, something that was somehow even worse than the rotting, pulsating wounds and the blood-drenched teeth.
She felt his lips pressing against her stomach in a gentle kiss, and the soft whisper of his voice: "Hi there, little one. It's me. It's your uncle Banno."
He knows! Oh dear gods he knows!
This changed everything. Kiana did not yet understand how, exactly, but she could feel it. Banno's entire demeanour had changed. The way he caressed her, kissed her exposed belly, even the slow way he breathed now, it didn't feel like he was doing these things to scare or torture her, but because he was genuinely fascinated, maybe even enamoured, by the tiny life growing inside of her.
A hopeful part of her insisted that this had to be a good thing, that maybe not even Banno could be wicked enough to hurt a pregnant vixen and her child.
But then why did she not feel it in her heart? Why, when she felt his hot, sticky kisses fluttering across her belly and heard his soft, reassuring whispers did she feel nothing but an all-encompassing dread? Why did she feel that her situation was worse than ever? Why did she feel that maybe death, even a death as gruesome as the one Banno had originally planned, would have been better than whatever was taking shape inside his head this very moment, taking shape much like the life inside her womb?
Banno straightened up, dragging his tongue all across her body during the process. She could feel it even through her dress and she turned her face away in absolute disgust as his arrow-riddled back and shoulders came into view, but that only gave him a clear shot at her neck. He slathered her throat in a vile mixture of blood and saliva, and Kiana didn't know whether he was trying to kiss her or suck the flavour right out of her. His breath blasted her in the face, making her eyes water, and she realized she was just a hair's breadth away from bursting into tears again.
"Kiana..." he whispered and gently pushed against her muzzle, forcing her to look straight up into the air. She could see the dead branches above her head as crisscrossing black lines, broken only by clumps of snow and patches of even darker sky, and then his teeth were around her throat. He wasn't biting down yet, but she could feel their sharp points pressing against the soft meat of her neck. She could even feel the dull throbbing of her veins struggling to pump her life's blood past the slight increase in pressure.
She gasped through her nose at the sudden realization that her entire life, everything she had ever done or ever will do, everything she ever was or ever will be, could end at any moment, and she had absolutely no say in the matter.
"Kiana," Banno said, his voice muffled, his tongue lightly playing against her throat. "Do you want to live? Just nod your head if you do."
Kiana was finding it very difficult to keep herself together. His jaws moved slightly with every syllable, making the pressure around her neck waver, going through peaks and valleys, and at every peak she was convinced that this would be the end, that his teeth would punch right through her skin and everything would go dark.
But she was still here, and somehow, she was able to nod her head, moving her muzzle just enough for him to get a sense of it through his unbreakable grip.
"Then tell me where Jonah's house is."
Kiana shook her head, frightened to death of the way his teeth rubbed across the tendons in her neck.
Banno did not seem fazed. On the contrary, he smiled and a steaming line of blood dribbled across his face and down her front, saturating her body in hot gore that immediately stuck her dress to her fur.
"Your baby has given you a wonderful chance, Kiana. Don't throw it away."
Kiana shook her head again. It could hardly be called 'resistance', but she had promised herself she would fight, no matter what.
"Oh?" His free hand slowly slid down her side, over the gentle curve of her hip and around to her stomach, still exposed to the biting cold. It was sickly warm and created a jarring contrast she did not like at all. "If you do not tell me where she is..." His fingers started to curl inward. She could feel the five tips of his claws dragging through her fur, five pinpricks of pressure converging on a single point in the centre.
That's what finally did it. Those dagger-like claws scraping along the thin wall of flesh that was supposed to protect her baby from the horrors of this world. Such a fragile container for something so precious - it was a cruel joke.
It only lasted a second, but sometimes a second was all it took to relive an entire lifetime, even one that has yet to be born.
The first time she suspected something was wrong; that uneasy pang in the pit of her stomach, striking at odd times during the day, getting stronger and more frequent the closer the month came to closing. She would slam the door shut on those thoughts every time, denying them outright. She would replace them with other, safer thoughts, such as: 'I'm just not feeling well today,' or 'I must have caught a bug somewhere, nothing to worry about.' And for a minute everything would be fine. She'd be doing the dishes or hanging up the laundry and then she'd remember that Sarah had thought the exact same thing.
Not feeling well.
Must have caught a bug.
She counted the days backwards, over and over, hoping to find a mistake somewhere, but ended up with the same numbers time and time again.
And then, even more frightening than counting the days backwards, was counting them forwards, frantically praying for the count to stop, praying for the blood to come and wash her worries away.
One day.
Three days.
A week.
Two weeks.
No more hiding, no more denying. It came upon her in a single moment, the realization that there was an actual living being growing inside of her, unseen but there. It was something that happened to neighbours, to friends, to mothers, to aunts, to cousins, but not to her. Surely not to her. The fact that she knew she was pregnant didn't matter. As grim as it may sound, it was the same way she thought of death. Yes, of course she knew she would die someday, everybody would, but it was something she just couldn't take to heart because she was still alive. Being young and actually believing she would die one day were two mutually exclusive states for her. The concept of her own death was like a line of text in a book. True, but not real, not tangible, not something she could touch with her hands or even understand with her thoughts.
That was how it was for the first few days, 'knowing' she was pregnant. It was a state of belief, yet unbelief, of knowing, yet not knowing. It was a state that pulled her in two different directions, a state that left her feeling ill and weak.
And then the fear took root. What was going to happen to her? What was going to happen to Ander? What would Mother and Father say? What about Layla? What about everyone in the 'Glen, with their shaking heads and clicking tongues, looking down on her in contempt, a wayward little strumpet who had gotten too big for her shoes? Should she tell? Should she confess? To who? To anyone? To everyone? Should she get it out as fast as possible? Should she keep it a secret? How? How to both of those? How to tell, how to keep it secret? How, how, HOW!?
Hours spent staring at her belly in front of the mirror, pushing it out and sucking it back in, trying to figure out if she was showing or not. Tense moments at the dinner table, wondering whether she should eat her fill or hold herself back, wondering which would look more suspicious. Glances from her family that might have been real or imaginary. Talks with Ander that were wonderful as always, but now had a secret undercurrent to them, an unease that wouldn't go away, constant doubts jagging on her mind like fishhooks.
Dark nights spent lying in bed, unable to get to sleep, just staring at the patchwork pattern of moonlight shining in from her window, slowly crawling up the wall and across the ceiling, a cross made out of shadow with no weight or substance.
How empty she had felt. How scared. How worried. The future lay stretched out before her like a great, black mouth edged with teeth, filled with the darkness of the unknown.
But then, from out of nowhere...
I know it might seem scary at first, and it is, but you have to remember it's also wondrous. It's a miracle. It's a gift.
Mellah had come bursting into her life, a Wolfess who had suffered unimaginable loss, but who still overflowed with love and kindness. Looking at her was like looking at every mother Kiana had ever known. She could see her own mother reflected in those eyes. And Sarah. And even herself, not too far off in the future, holding a squirming little bundle of blankets in her arms, looking both terrified and deliriously happy at the same time.
Mothers. They were seemingly everywhere; chopping vegetables, sweeping porches, tending gardens, knitting sweaters, scolding children. But did she ever see any of them for what they truly were before she realized that she would soon be a mother herself?
Take her own mother for example. A stern vixen who could glare the bark off a tree. A vixen who took absolutely no nonsense from anyone. A vixen who could smack you upside the head and somehow make you feel better for it. A vixen who lived to make others' pain go away.
And Sarah. A vixen who had suffered immense pain. A vixen who had dragged her bleeding body through the mountains to save her baby. A vixen who had given up her own happiness so that her son could live and grow.
Mellah. A Wolfess who had lost her daughter but was still a mother, a Wolfess who would _always_be a mother, a mother who loved her daughter so much that she would grieve her loss for the rest of her life.
It was love. That was what it came down to. A love so intense it was almost unbearable.
Love is pain...
Kiana thought she understood what Shekka meant now. About how love was different for everyone, and how much it could hurt. She was a mother, too, in the end... a mother in pain.
How scary it was, how inconceivably terrifying, to think that she might one day give birth to a life she would love with such intensity it might burn her up from the inside. How wondrous, how miraculous, how beautiful. All of those things together in the same emotion, all contained within the delicate eggshell that was her womb.
That's why, when Banno asked again if Jonah's house was to the north, she nodded her head. Tears streamed down her face and across his bloody fingers, and she nodded. Mist plumed from her nostrils in uneven bursts and she nodded. She nodded because, even though she was not a mother yet, she could already feel the love that all the mothers in her life had shown her, the love that only a mother can give to a child.
She nodded because she loved her baby. She nodded because she wanted to hold them in her hands. She wanted to kiss them on the forehead and pass them over to Ander, and watch as he stared down at his little boy or girl in wonder, unable to speak. She wanted to live that moment more than anything.
She wanted to be a mother. She wanted Ander to be a father. Even though it was scary, even though it could hurt, she wanted to feel it. All of it.
Because it was love.
Banno pulled his mouth away from her neck. A long, dangling bridge of saliva still connected his tongue to the base of her throat, swaying in the wind. "So I was right," he said, severing the rope of drool.
He removed his claws from her stomach, but before she could even let out a sigh of relief, he spun her around and wrapped his arm around her neck, squeezing tight.
She opened her mouth to scream, but produced only a strangled croaking noise.
"I learned this from watching Nilia," he whispered in her ear. "Never actually tried it, though. Let's see if it works."
The pressure around her neck increased. She gasped for air, but even though she could feel the icy wind playing across her lips, she couldn't breathe any of it in. She scratched at his forearm, her legs dangling a full stride above the snow.
"Shh, shh, shh," Banno said, speaking to her as if she were a crying baby. "I need you to stay alive just a tiny bit longer. But don't worry, I won't tease you for long. I'll give you the release you desire, and much, much more. I will give you the greatest sensation any Fox has ever experienced. Now go to sleep, Kiana. When you wake, you will understand. You will help make me whole. You will help me save the world. You will help me make it real. Or rather, your baby girl will help me make it real, and you'll be there for every second. Look forward to it."
He shifted his arm and the whole world began to swim in front of her eyes. It wasn't just that she couldn't breathe anymore, it was something else. It felt like her head wasn't properly attached to her body, that it was just floating somewhere above her shoulders, and that if the wind blew in just the wrong way, it would carry her over the mountain and into the black, clouded sky.
As long as she could take her baby with her, maybe that wouldn't be so bad...
*
Banno liked the way she suddenly went limp in his arms, how her hands slid away and fell dangling at her sides. Just like Vallah after she had surrendered to the pleasure of his embrace...
"Kiana, you asleep?" He turned her around and chuckled at the way her head lolled back, exposing the milky white fur at the base of her neck. She really was a pretty little thing. Not as pretty as Vallah or Valery, but there was something about her, and that 'something' was inside her right now. A little baby girl... Did she know her uncle was right here, waiting just outside the eggshell? Was she just as eager to meet him?
"Don't worry, little one," Banno said, lightly rubbing Kiana's belly. "Just a little while longer, okay? Everything needs to be juuust right."
He slung the unconscious vixen over his shoulder, taking great pleasure in the way her belly rubbed against the side of his neck. It was like his niece was already trying to snuggle up to him, like she wanted to burst through the womb in a shower of blood to become a part of him.
Just a little while longer...
Banno looked down at his index finger, drenched in the blood of the mother of this little miracle, the same blood that was flowing through her still-forming heart this very moment. He wanted to lick it off. Now that he knew what that other taste really was, he wanted to savour it properly.
But he had a better idea.
He reached up and scrawled a little message onto the bark, not unlike the epitaph his father had left in the trunk of a beech tree over twenty years ago.
He stepped back, inspected his handiwork, and nodded.
It was perfect.
After that he set off to the north, not feeling the icy wind in his face or the weight on his shoulder. He looked back only once to check on the fresh trail of blood he was leaving behind, smiling broadly. These tracks he would not mask in any way. Let Ander follow them. Let him come running. Banno was not only counting on it, he was looking forward to it.
Blood seeped from between his teeth as he chuckled into the night, creating vile crimson bubbles that burst across his lips and dribbled down his chin.
"See you soon... brother."
Now that this piece of the story is over and done with, I can talk about something that really slowed me down and wasted months of writing time: the subchapters between Banno showing up at the basecamp and finally absconding with Kiana. They used to be way different and, if I'm being perfectly honest, they sucked donkey balls. >.<
I'm kind of embarrassed to talk about them here, but since I promised I would, I'm totally gonna. People might get a good chuckle out of it, I dunno.
First off, those subchapters about Kiana going around the basecamp and being confronted by the consequences of her own actions? The pain and suffering, the overwhelming anger and grief, all that juicy stuff? Those never happened in the original draft. Originally she just got all weepy for no reason after yelling at Torjo and Dekori and stormed off into the woods, where Banno grabbed her.
OMG that sounds so bad putting it like that, but that's basically what happened. It was such a "damsel" thing to do. :(
I tried to fix it in the second draft, but accidentally made it even more ridiculous. I figured, 'Why not have her trying to help someone? That'll at least give her a noble reason for going into the woods.'
The idea behind this was fine (I ended up using it, after all) but the execution was just... please don't laugh, but I had Banno lure her into the woods by imitating the cries of a lost child.
Urgh! What was Past Me thinking!? >.<
It's been well established that Banno can be pretty good at acting if need be, but a gigantic black Wolf with a deep, gravelly voice successfully imitating a lost child ("I want my mommy, boo hoo!") would never fly. Not only was it too farfetched, it made Kiana look like an idiot. ("Don't worry, little boy who is obviously not Banno, I'll save you!")
*Facepalm.
Needless to say, I deleted the whole thing. But wait, there's more! Lots more! (Unfortunately.) -_-
These debacles made it pretty clear that I couldn't have Kiana just blunder into the woods without looking like a stupid damsel. Logically, that only left one option: have Banno snatch her from inside the basecamp. He's proven himself to be pretty sneaky on many occasions, after all.
This sparked an idea in my head. An idea that, although it sounds pretty good on paper, ended up wasting months and months of hard work.
I was going to write some subchapters for the secondary characters, working in the basecamp, having conversations with each other, what have you, and sprinkle the background with clues of Banno's presence, clues that the readers would pick up on right away, but would go unnoticed by the characters. Stuff like big, black shadows disappearing behind rows of tents. The smell of puss and rot. Bloody footprints. I wanted it to be like a stalking scene in a horror movie, where the audience has no idea who's about to get it next. Even now, looking back at this paragraph I just wrote, it doesn't sound like a bad idea, but in execution it was flawed from the outset.
The biggest problem was this. You can't have stuff going on in the background without a FOREGROUND, and I simply didn't have anything for that. Oh sure, I tried to manufacture some stuff out of the ether, but it ended up feeling terribly forced and contrived, because that's exactly what it was. I didn't actually plan for them to be doing anything particularly important during that time, so everything I wrote ended up feeling like pointless filler that didn't have anything to do with the plot. There was a subchapter where Renna was talking to Hezzi as he lay unconscious on his bed (and Banno's shadow rose up against the tent at some point.) There was another where Layla and Sarah were talking about something I can't even remember. Something inconsequential, I'm sure. There was one with Danado. One with Bethany. One with Aisa and Mellah. A whole bunch of others. And in each of them there was some clue as to Banno's presence, but this, in itself, also turned into a problem.
My style throughout this story has been 3rd person narration, but told through only one POV at a time. This made it incredibly difficult for me to mention any of the 'clues' without the character noticing it, too. I always ended up with something like, 'Oh, was that a shadow I just saw? Nah, it must have been the wind.'
It made my entire cast of backup characters sound like a bunch of Bethesda NPC's. :(
Another problem was with pacing. Banno had just infiltrated the base, the audience knew he was about to snatch someone (probably Kiana, because, let's be honest, who else was it going to be?) and they're all leaning forward, curious about what's going to happen next, and then I throw like, ten useless subchapters at them instead? Ten subchapters that don't even do anything to further the plot? What a douche move!
I ended up deleting all of it. It was four or five months of hard work, and it hurt like hell, but I did it anyway. Focussing solely on Kiana and the dilemma of the surviving Wolves was much better, and way faster, too, even though that ALSO went through three or four rewrites before I was finally satisfied... X_X
My brain hurts. :(
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! ^_^