Ander - Part 2: Subchapter 2
2
- OOoaargh!!"
Ander sat straight up, and the pain that tore through his arms dispelled that horrible dream so quickly it was almost welcome. Not quite, but almost.
He looked down and was surprised to see both his arms bandaged and wrapped up tightly in white slings, keeping them rather snug against his chest. He was so preoccupied with this strange sight he didn't immediately realize he wasn't alone.
There was a Fox in a yellow dress sitting on a chair in the corner, with her knees pulled up to her chest, her eyes wide, probably startled by his loud awakening. She was staring at him, just staring and staring. The way she was sitting perfectly still told him she must be holding her breath.
"Kiana?" Ander couldn't rub his eyes with his arms all bandaged up, so he blinked instead, trying to clear the cobwebs.
The Fox jumped out of her chair as if stung by a bee, and Ander suddenly realized this couldn't be Kiana. She was too small, and her fur pattern was a bit different.
She yelled, "Father! He's awake!" then turned tail and ran through an open doorway he didn't notice before, still shouting her head off. "Kiana, hurry up! He's awake! Yes, just now!"
Well, that was bizarre, but at least now Ander had a chance to look around. He couldn't see anything through the open door the Fox girl ran out of apart from a section of blank wall, (presumably part of a hallway), so he focussed on his immediate surroundings instead. He was in a large, square room built from what looked like long segments of wood. In fact, the whole place seemed to be built out of wood, even the ceiling. There was a table stacked up against the far wall (probably to make room for him) and some decorative pictures of the land outside. So much better than horns and skulls, in Ander's opinion. He looked down and saw that he was sitting in a bedroll that was really too small for him. They had to cut it open along the side and at the bottom so he could fit, turning it into more of a doubled blanket.
There was a tray sitting next to him on the floor with some rather unsettling equipment. There were more of those white bandages, nothing sinister about that, but there was also an assortment of curved needles and string, as well as some clear containers filled with incredibly strong-smelling liquids. A shaft of light was shining on one of these containers. Ander had no idea what it was made of, but it reflected the light down onto the tray in a little rainbow, just like the spray from a waterfall if you visited at just the right time of day.
Ander followed the thin ray of sunshine to its origin: a gap between two large squares of fabric hanging against the wall. There must be an opening behind them, but Ander had more pressing matters to think about than the structure of this domicile. The light was all wrong. The angle shouldn't be nearly as steep, unless he was out for far longer than he had thought. Last he could remember, it was the brink of dawn. That meant...
Three hours, at least?
"Wait just a minute, Kiana." A male's voice, coming from somewhere down the hallway.
"Oh, but Father! I want to see him!"
"And you will. Just let me talk to him first, all right? And for heaven's sake, could you please do something about that sister of yours before she wakes the whole village?"
A pause, then, "All right."
"That's a good girl. Now run along. Hipip!"
"Ha ha, very funny, Fa."
"Ooh, so sorry, my dear. I meant hobble."
"That's right. Poke fun at a girl now perpetually armed with a great big stick..." This last was accompanied by a series of soft clicks, growing fainter until they eventually disappeared. Then came a new set of footfalls travelling in the opposite direction, coming closer.
"Well, this should be interesting," the owner of those footfalls sighed. "Or incredibly awkward..."
Ander looked around, not entirely sure what to do. To be honest, he didn't exactly have a whole lot of options to choose from other than staying put. Unless you counted diving through the window like a madwolf as an 'option'.
No time to entertain such a silly thought anyway. Kiana's father was already standing in the doorway. He was bigger than that 'Mateo' fellow, but not by much, and he had streaks of grey travelling across his muzzle and the tips of his ears. He looked at Ander, and Ander looked at him. Neither of them said anything for a long while.
Ander was just beginning to wonder if he should try to say something, _anything_to break this silence, but then the Fox did speak up. "You're the one who saved my daughter." There was a tremor to his voice he wouldn't have expected from the one who was so jovially teasing his daughter mere moments ago.
"Um, I wouldn't put it quite like that," Ander said. "She's quite the handful, your daughter. I'm sure she would have figured something out."
"There's no need to try and spare my feelings, young Wolf. Answer me honestly. Were it not for you, do you believe Kiana would be alive today?"
Ander gave this question serious thought, but he didn't have to think long. His memories of last year's hunting sacrifices were still fresh in his mind; the raging bonfires, the charred deer carcasses, the Wolves dancing beneath the all-seeing effigy of the Cora. He shook his head. "Probably not."
The Fox nodded, then closed the door and sat down in the chair so hastily vacated by his other daughter. "I am Kiana's father, Rufio. And you're Ander, right?"
"Yes, Sai." Paradoxically, good manners are often an important part of social interaction between families in Wolf society, especially when a single act of rudeness could get you killed. Ander didn't know anything about Fox etiquette, but he decided to play it safe for now. "I am honoured to meet you. And to be inside your home."
"Sai?"
"It is a term we use for those that are older or wiser than us, but are not family."
"Huh. The Wolven equivalent of 'sir,' I take it. Kiana said you were the friendly sort. In fact, she had quite the tale to tell."
"I'm sure she did." Ander hoped he wouldn't be asked to verify it all, or retell it himself. Last night was something he would rather forget, as impossible as that may be.
"I have no reason to doubt Kiana's story, not with the proof literally staring me in the face. She's not prone to giving voice to wild flights of imagination, anyway. That's the domain of her sister, Layla. You've already met her, to a degree. No, I only have one question for you, Ander. A question Kiana wasn't able to answer to my satisfaction."
"And that would be?"
"Why did you save her?"
This was the very same question Kiana had asked of him when they first met, but Ander sensed something different about it coming from her father. It was the same reason he had posted a sentry to watch over him while he slept, ready to alert the family once he showed any signs of awakening, and it was also the reason he wanted to speak to Ander himself before anyone else.
He had invited a stranger into his home on nothing more than the good word of his wayward daughter, a stranger that could quite easily kill his entire family, wounds be damned. He needed to know if this stranger could be trusted.
And how dangerous he might be.
"I will tell you the same thing I told your daughter, Sai. I did not want to see her get hurt. And I don't think I need to give a reason for feeling that way, because something like that shouldn't need a reason. It's simply the right thing."
Rufio leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, regarding Ander with a look known only to fathers. Finally, he responded with a single syllable: "Hm."
Ander raised his eyebrows, not sure whether that was a good 'Hm' or a bad 'Hm'.
"All right. I'll accept that," Rufio clarified. "Although I think there must be more to it than that. I don't want to come right out and say you're hiding something, but you're not being entirely truthful either. But I do agree with what you said. You shouldn't need a reason to help someone in trouble. Now!" Rufio clapped his hands down on his knees. "I suppose you've got some questions of your own. Go right ahead."
"Is Kiana okay?" this was probably not the wisest first question, considering Rufio's comment about him 'hiding something', but he couldn't help himself.
"Kiana's fine," Rufio said with a wave of his hand. "Her mother patched her right up. Been clackin' all around the house on that crutch since yesterday, pacing back and forth, waiting for you to wake up. Knows quite a bit about nursing, does my Bethany. She's also the one that fixed your arms. Don't know how many stitches she had to put in there, but you looked like the meanest scare-crow ever by the time she was done."
Ander nodded, wondering what an earth a 'scare-crow' could be. Then it hit him.
"Wait... did you say yesterday!?"
"Yup. You've been out cold for a full day and night. Little part of this day, too."
Ander groaned. A full day? Who knows what might have happened back home by now? "What exactly happened to me?"
"You got shot, son! I'm sure you must remember that."
"Yeah, that I remember just fine." Ander tried to flex the fingers of his heavily bandaged left hand, but couldn't get very far before it started to sting. Quite an improvement actually, considering there was a hole in it just one day ago.
"You're lucky. There was enough poison on that bolt to kill three deer. If Kiana hadn't sucked out most of it, you'd be deader than a dormouse. From what I can tell, she made such a ruckus yelling at Mateo that she could be heard two farms over. Lonin's boys came running - early risers those two, thinking they'd make a name for themselves by rescuing the dainty damsel from whatever dastardly fiend was making her scream so. Instead, they found my Kiana hopping around on one leg, slapping at Mateo whenever he tried to touch her, screaming bloody murder, and you lying unconscious on the ground."
Listening to all this was turning out to be surprisingly unsettling. It goes without saying that life will go on even when you're practically dead to the world, but hearing about it still felt a bit bizarre.
"I was in my workshop at the time, supposed to be making horseshoes, but I just couldn't bring myself to lift my hammer, or even light the forge for that matter. Kiana had been missing for well over a day by then. She liked to wander off sometimes, walk in the fields, you know? But I just knew this time was different. We were planning on going out in teams later in the day. It's funny, the way the mind works. I knew that the whole village going out to search for her was a good thing, but the fact that it had come to that convinced me on some level that something terrible must have happened to her. I guess I was right about that."
Ander shifted uncomfortably under the sliced up bedroll, thinking about all the times Kiana had been a whisker away from death.
"Anyway," Rufio continued, "I was in my smithy, looking down at my anvil, thinking about what would happen if we couldn't find our Kiana, when suddenly Layla bursts in, all a flush, yelling for me to come quick. I asked her what she was talking about, and she told me they had found her. They had found Kiana. I'll tell you, Ander, the way I felt when I heard those words... It was like I had been dead without realizing it. And suddenly I was alive again. I rushed outside, and there she was. A bit worse for wear, but alive. My Kiana. I'll admit, as ecstatically happy as I was to see her again, she couldn't hold my attention for more than a few seconds before it was grabbed by something else."
"Me?"
"Yes, you! They had to load you into the back of a vegetable cart to get you over here! It was the darndest thing I'd ever seen. No offense, of course, it's just that here in Grovenglen Wolves are regarded almost as creatures of fantasy, and here was one right outside my door, big as life, his legs hanging over the edge of a vegetable cart with his feet dragging along the cobbles!"
"Foxes are viewed the same way in my tribe. We rarely travel to the other side of the mountain, so very few of us have ever seen a real Fox."
"Huh. That so? Well, anyway, everybody was yelling and screaming at once: Kiana, Mateo, the Lonin boys, some Foxes who just happened to be out and about when this little spectacle came rolling down the road, all trying to tell me what had happened. I didn't really care one way or the other, to be honest, just as long as I got my daughter back. I embraced her, and that's when she told me that we needed to get you inside so that Beth could give you a go-over. And that was no easy task, by the way. You're one heavy son of a bitch, you know that? Good thing the Lonins were there, 'cause Mateo flat-out refused to lend a hand. Said we should just let you die."
Ander suppressed his urge to growl at that. He was starting to seriously dislike this Mateo Fox, and it was all too clear the feeling was mutual. Funny, actually, considering they have yet to speak a single word to each other. Hopefully they wouldn't have to.
"First thing Beth did was neutralize the poison. Don't ask me how, I'm just a smith. After she made sure you wouldn't up an' die, she wanted to work on Kiana's leg, but the girl would have none of it. Said she'd refuse to sit still until her mother finished the job on you."
Hearing that made Ander crack a smile, something he didn't think he'd do again for a long, long time, if ever. "That certainly sounds like something she'd say."
"And that just about wraps it up. We cleared out a little spot for you here in the spare bedroom and Bethany fixed you right up. She's not here right now, out and about in town, doing her rounds, you know. Quite a few Foxes depend one her for medicines and healings and such. Midwifing too. But she'll be back in a while. She'll probably want to come in and check on your arms too, once I'm done here."
"Like that'll ever happen, Fa," came a new voice just outside the door. "You've been talking his poor ear off for the better part of ten minutes already."
"Layla!" Rufio said, "You been eavesdropping, girl!?"
A huge, overly dramatic gasp came floating through the keyhole. "Me? Eavesdrop? I am shocked, Father! Shocked that you would accuse me of such an heinous misdeed! I was merely walking along when I so happened to hear your last comment due to my exceptionally good hearing. It simply could not be helped."
Ander sniggered at this. The little liar has been standing out there for at least three minutes. He recognized her scent easily. It was similar to Kiana's.
"Hoy!" Rufio leaned over and banged his fist against the door. "Go on! Scat! Go bother your sister! Me and Ander here still have important matters to discuss! Matters that don't concern sneaky little vixens like you!"
The sound of girlish giggles could be heard travelling up the hallway, followed by a rapid series of thuds as she -
*
- ran back up the stairs.
She ducked into Kiana's room and launched herself onto her sister's bed with a diving leap, landing beside her with a big, muffled bounce.
"Ow! Hey, watch it!" Kiana said, brandishing her crutch.
"By the gods, Kiana! You are soooooo lucky!" Layla said, ignoring her sister's oh-so-very-rude indignation for now.
"Lucky? What do you mean? What are they talking about down there? What did you hear!? Tell me already!"
Layla propped her head up with her hands, absentmindedly kicking her legs up and down, the tips of her toes lightly tapping against the wall. "Oh, they were just rehashing some boring details we already know about. 'Hello, who are you, what happened, you almost died,' blah blah blah."
"You are the worst spy ever!" Kaina said, resting her crutch across her knees. Seriously, the girl was always fidgeting with that thing. "So why do you say I'm so lucky?"
"Don't be coy with me, sis! I can read you like an open book! An open book written by a semi-blind calligrapher who had to write his letters all huge!"
"Layla, you're making even less sense than usual. What are you talking about?"
"Isn't it obvious?" She could barely contain her excitement, but forcefully lowered it to a more fitting, serious tone. Also teasy. "You... and a great big giant Wolf... all alone... in the woods... the whole night long... in the rain, no less! By the gods it's so romantic!" She flipped onto her back, grinning from ear to ear, positively giddy with the thought of it all.
"You little urchin!" Kiana said, waving her crutch about her head again, as if she'd actually hit her dearest little sister with it. "Need I remind you I am still technically betrothed to Mateo?"
"And need I remind you how you ran out on that particular betrothal, hmm? Ran right off into the big, strong arms of that handsome Wolf downstairs, didn't you?"
"That's not how it happened and you know it!"
"Tell me... what was it like to ride him in the dark?" Layla said with a wink.
"You little slut-fox!" This time she really did give Layla a good hard poke with her crutch.
"Ow!"
"My foot was cut almost clean through! You could see the bone on both sides! Ander was simply... helping me. That's all."
"Oh, I'm sure he was helping you all right! Helping you wrap your legs around his - Ow! Stop that!"
Kiana was now bopping her repeatedly with that crutch, but neither of them could stop laughing.
"You can't deny it, Kiana!" Layla said through bursts of giggles, warding off half-hearted blows from her sister's crutch barrage. "I know how piggyback rides work! You had your legs wrapped around him for hours and you loved every minute! Admit it!"
"Shush! He'll hear you!"
"Okay, I'll shut up if you tell me what's really going on between you two."
Kiana froze mid-swing. "Going on? We've only known each other two days. One of which he was completely unconscious, I might add."
"So? That still doesn't answer my question."
"I think it's a most adequate answer. You're just trying to fish for something that isn't there."
"Oh really? So you're saying there is positively, definitely, certainly, absolutely nothing at all going on between you two? Open or otherwise?"
She hesitated, and that alone was enough to set Layla's heart aflutter. She scrambled up on her knees so she could get a good look at her sister's face, examining it like a prospector would examine a suspicious chunk of rock, looking for the tiny glint that would confirm its true nature. "Well...?"
Kiana just sat there, looking at the crutch in her hands.
"Weeeeeell!?"
"No!" she snapped. "I mean, no. Of course not."
"Oh." Layla slumped against the wall, severely disappointed by this anticlimactic turn of events. But, then again, she's always been great at finding silver linings. "So... you wouldn't mind if I tried my luck?"
"What!?"
"You might not have the zeal to make a grab for such an exotic piece of wolf-meat when the opportunity arises, but I sure do."
"Again: what!?"
"I could go down there right now if I wanted to. Bat my eyelids a little, maybe trail my fingers across his broad shoulders! 'Oh, Ander!' I'll say, 'You're so big and strong!' The guys just love that!"
"I can't believe what I'm hearing."
"And then I'll say: 'Kiana doesn't like you. She only has eyes for Mateo. You know, the guy that almost killed you?'"
"Hey!"
"And then! And then! I'll seal the deal with a little kiss to the cheek and a whisper to the ear: 'But I do! Take me Ander! Take me now! Teach me the ways of your wolfish love!'"
"By the gods, Layla! You can't be serious?"
"Serious? Of course I'm serious! Hearing my little strategy out loud like that has convinced me not only of its brilliance, but of its simple practicality as well. In fact, I think I'll go and do it right now!" Layla hopped up and started for the door.
"No! Don't you dare!" Kiana lunged forward, grabbed her sister by the tail and pulled her back onto the bed.
"Ha!" Layla said, her arms spread wide as she and her sister briefly bounced on the soft mattress. "So there is something going on! I knew it!"
"Well..."
"Details, girl! Details!"
"You're going to make a big deal out of this..."
"Only if it's worthy of 'Big Deal' status."
"To you, a pretty butterfly in the garden qualifies for 'Big Deal' status."
"Just tell me what happened!"
"Okay, okay! I'll tell you! Sheesh. But you have to promise not to mention this to anyone. Ever. Understand?"
Layla sat up, placed one hand over her heart and said, "I solemnly swear on my good name as Layla of Grovenglen that I will not breathe a single word to another Living Soul for as long as I live. Now spill it!"
"Well... On the way back here..." Her eyes shifted down to the floor, and one hand crept up to her mouth so she could chew on an un-bandaged finger, a sure sign of her nervousness. "Me and Ander..."
"Yes?"
"We, um..."
"Yes?"
"We kind of, sort of, almost..."
"Yes!?"
"Kissed?"
"Eeeeee!! You did!?"
"No! Weren't you listening? I said almost!"
"How can you 'almost' kiss someone? Either you do or you don't. Did somebody miss, or something?"
"I wish," Kiana huffed. "Mateo was right on the mark. Barged right in just before anything could happen. Urgh! I'm so mad at him! And then he has the gall to act all slighted because apparently I'm the one being 'ungrateful' for his 'heroics.'"
"I think you're being a bit hard on him. Maybe he thought Ander was about to eat you, or something? He probably could, you know."
"Oh, please! Who knows how long that bastard was spying on us? You want to know what I think? I think he knew Ander was trying to help me. He just didn't want anybody else kissing me. The selfish jerk!"
"Well, you are his fiancée."
"And that's another thing! I never asked to be his fiancée! I don't want to be his damn fiancée! I don't care what it takes. Somehow, someway, I am going to get out of this, and I don't care if I have to burn down the whole chapel to do it!"
"Ooh! Maybe you and Ander could elope together! That would be soooo romantic!"
"Elope?" Kiana sniggered. "And go where? Oh, I'm sure Ander would just love to build us a lovely home at the tippy top of the mountain or in the middle of some festering swamp where nobody would ever find us. Running away worked so well for me last time, remember?"
Layla stuck her tongue out, and Kiana rolled her eyes.
"You worry too much, sis," Layla said and propped her back up against the wall again. "You need to learn to just relax every once in a while. Things have a way of working out. You'll see."
"Maybe in magical Fairy-Land. But I live in a place called 'Real Life' and things do not always 'work out' by themselves. Quite the opposite."
"You never know. Maybe your magical Fairy-Land could be Real Life too. Up until a few days ago you believed Wolves to be no more than fairy tales, and look at you now, all hot for a dashing young Wolf of your own."
"'Hot' might be smearing it on a little thick, don't you think?"
"All I'm saying is to have a little faith. Things have worked out rather well for you so far, even if you can't see it from where you are now. Love is a real thing. Once it becomes a part of our lives, it becomes our lives. It flows its way through every aspect, whether you're aware of it or not. And if love is happiness, and the love is there and the love is real, then what else do you need?"
"Wow. How long did it take you to come up with that little speech?"
"Made it up just now," Layla said with a smile. "Doesn't make it any less true, though."
"Layla, you really are a mystery. How can you expect me to treat you like my naive little sister if you keep sporadically pulling out these random bits of deep philosophical insights on complicated subjects such as love? _Interspecies_love, no less. And by the way, I never said I love him, you eager beaver."
"Just keep it in mind, okay? Before you really go and burn down the chapel. Actually, on second thought, that _would_be pretty funny!"
Layla raised her arms just in time to bat away the flying pillow directed at her face.
"Get out of here, you silly vixen!" Kiana said, grabbing her pillow back. "Or I'll give you the worst pillow beating of your life!"
"Okay, okay!" Layla jumped up from the bed and made her way back into the corridor, but before she left proper, she turned around and said, "Just remember, Kiana. Love is a thing that should never be caged, especially not when the one who intends to act as warden is also the one who secretly wishes to set it free."
Kiana drew her arm back, and Layla quickly shut the door to defend herself from an incoming assault via airborne pillow. She heard it strike the other side with a muffled thud, then flump to the floor.
Stifling her giggles, Layla crouched down and peeked through the keyhole, expecting to see her sister being all broody, but what she did see was so much better.
Kiana was sitting on her bed, looking down at the ruffled sheets, slowly chewing on her finger, deep in thought. Apparently something she said must have gotten through Kiana's stubborn skull after all.
Feeling light as a feather, Layla practically skipped her way down the corridor towards her own room, excited by the thoughts of what juicy drama the coming days might bring.
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