Chapter 14 – Part Of Me

	We found the first jaw trap early the next afternoon.  Thankfully Odina caught it before any of us triggered it, which was especially good since this one seemed either made for very large game. . . or people.  It would have badly maimed whoever had stepped in it.
	The lioness sat hunkered next to it, carefully selecting a long, heavy stick and positioning it just so, before thrusting it down into the pile of frozen leaves and detritus concealing it.  When it snapped, it cracked the stick in two with a shockingly loud noise that echoed through the trees.
	“Well,” Finnegan murmured uneasily, his hand on his pistol, “if they didn’t know we were here before, they certainly do now.”
	“I had to trigger it,” she sighed, “in case we circle back around this way.  Any sort of marker we leave could get covered by snow.”  She crouched down again, looking at it more closely now that it was spent.  “It’s rusted,” she declared, “but not horribly so.  I think it’s just in disrepair, I don’t actually think it’s been here long.”
	“If’n they’ve got one, they’ve got more,” Sawyer said, worriedly.  “You wanna press on, Ma?”
	Odina scrunched up her muzzle for a moment before standing and shaking her head.  “No.  Not worth the risk.  This one was sheltered from most of the snow, but a lot of the others won’t be.”
	“So what can we do?”  I asked.  “We’re close to the Basin.  A few miles, at most.”
	Odina shook out her duster and looked out past us, towards the distant mountains.  “We made good time,” she said.  “If they choose to follow us this far, if they kept their horses, they’ll be days behind.  They can’t know the trails as well as Takoda and those animals won’t handle the mountains well.”
	“That’s quite a few ‘ifs’,” my father noted.  “What’s your plan?”
	“We start a fire,” she said matter-of-factly.  “And wait for the bear tribe to find us.”
	“Is that wise?”  Finnegan asked.  “They might shoot first, ask questions later.  Or not at all.”
	“They won’t shoot Tulimak,” my father said, reaching over to put a hand on my arm.  “I am certain of that.  We will just have to make very sure it is clear that we are all here with him.  Everyone stays together.”
	I glanced around, noting all eyes were on me, now.  It made me incredibly uncomfortable.  “What?”  I said, my voice wavering.
	“You may need to accept being the center of attention for a little while,” my father said with a lopsided smile.

	Building a fire was welcome, at least.  We hadn’t had one for days and in addition to chasing the cold away, I was very much looking forward to some warm food, too.  My father brewed tea and Finnegan offered to make us all a simple stew with some of the provisions my family had packed up for us.  It was just jerked meat, root vegetables and a little salt, but he seemed to have a fair idea how to portion things out and cut the ingredients, which impressed me.
	“When I make stew,” I said, my muzzle resting in one paw, “I just sort of boil water with things in it.  You keep taste-testing and adding. . . things. . . .”
	“I’m trying to get the salt right,” he said, taking another slow sip from the ladle.  “It’s rarer than gold in some places, we’re lucky to have it.  Don’t want to overdo it.  It was a real treat in the Risers,” he reminisced.  “We’d get some occasionally from my mother or my uncle’s clients.  We always tried to make it last.”
	“I didn’t know you could cook,” I said.
	“I didn’t know you couldn’t,” he countered, smirking at me.  “You talk about food a lot and you. . . clearly seem to enjoy eating-“  He paused at that, as if worried he’d offended me.
	I stared back at him.  “Uh-huh,” I said.  
	He smiled fondly, like I’d done something cute.  I didn’t understand him sometimes.  “So I don’t know.  I guess I sort of figured you’d have a bent for cooking.”
	“I can grill fish,” I shrugged, “but cooking is women’s work most of the time.  Some of the men in our village have specialties they prefer to prepare, and everyone salts, smokes and grills fish, but I never learned much other than the basics to keep me fed when I was traveling.”  I smirked a little and nudged him in the shoulder with a fist, “That’s why I need to get married, eventually.  My wife can do all of those things, while I fish and sell at market.  She can forage, garden and grind maize, make bread and keep our home warm and tidy, raise the cubs. . . .”
	“Sounds nice,” he said, his voice hard to read.
	“I’m sorry,” I said at length, not certain if I’d said something wrong.  He was always the one who talked about how I should marry someday, how what we had was temporary.  Was he upset I’d started saying it?  
	It’s not as though it was actually something I wanted.  The wife part, anyway.  The rest. . . yes, I suppose.  At the very least, it made me sad to think I was going to miss out on all of it.
	He shook his head, focusing on the stew.  “Don’t be sorry,” he shrugged.  “It really does sound nice.”
	“I know it’s probably a very mundane life for a world traveler like you,” I said.
	He laughed, leaning back and looking up at me.  “Tuli, I didn’t come all this way looking for adventure or out of some wanderlust,” he huffed.  “And I’m earnestly not disparaging your ‘mundane life’.  I think it sounds. . . amazing, honestly.”  He reached down and tugged up the edges of his worn collar around his neck, puffing out a breath into the cold.  “Peaceful,” he said after a further few moments, his tone soft.  “If someone’s content being a home-maker, spending all their time and energy on the little’uns, keeping house, whatnot. . . they’d be lucky to have you.  Where I come from, everyone has to work outside the home.  Doesn’t matter who you are, or how many kids you’ve got.  You don’t have the option of staying home.”  
	He tapped the spoon on the edge of the pot.  “That’s why I know how to cook.  My mother wasn’t the only one who was out on the job all the time.  There were a lot of other kids in the Risers.  I made us a little extra coin, watching over some of them.  From the time I was barely older than most of them.”  He chuckled.  “Don’t get your hopes up, though.  I’m hardly good at it.  Just passing.”  
	“I’ll bet you could get good at it,” I said.  
	He glanced at me out of the corner of one green eye.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”
	I shrugged, averting my gaze.  “Just that you’re a very focused person.  You could probably get good at just about anything if you wanted to badly enough.”
	“You could learn to cook, Tuli,” he reasoned.  “It’s not that hard.”
	“I don’t really want to, though,” I admitted.
	“Lazy bear prefers to be doted on,” he teased.
	“Hey, poke fun all you will,” I snorted.  “I’m unusual enough as it is.  So what if I’m a little more traditional about family roles?  I’m allowed to be a little boring in my interests, right?  I’ve just always preferred male pursuits.”
	I gave him a good few seconds.  He only smirked at me.
	“What?”  I asked as if I didn’t know.
	“Not.  Saying.  A thing,” he sing-songed, continuing to stir the stew.
	“You two are snickering like Tulimak’s eldest sisters,” my father muttered as he moved in closer to the fire and sat down beside us.  “Care to let me in on whatever is so amusing about our current circumstances?”  He sniffed, leaning over the pot.  “That smells good.  Seems you’re good for something, after all.”
	“Otterfa,” I said, exasperated.
	“Oh, he takes it all in good stride,” the older otter said.
	“Honestly, given our situation,” Finn cleared his throat, “you’re being very kind.  And anyway Tulimak, you forget that I spoke to your sisters, at length.  This just seems to be the way your family communicates with one another.”
	“We’ve always been kinder to him,” my father said, speaking to Finn around a hand, like it was a great secret.  He didn’t bother whispering.  “He’s a very sensitive boy.  We only give as much as we can take in our family.”
	“I’ve got quite the negative balance, I’m afraid,” Finnegan said regretfully.  “So I won’t participate.  But it sounds brilliant.  Any other time, I’d be all about it.”
	My father gave a slight smile.  “I am beginning to understand what it is my son sees in you.  You’ve quite the clever tongue.  You’d make a good storyteller.”
	“I’ve been telling stories my whole life,” Finnegan said dryly.
	“I’ll just bet you have,” my otterfa sniped back.
	I watched them speak, realizing with a sudden jolt of clarity that now. . . might be the moment.  It wasn’t ideal, of course.  We weren’t alone, we couldn’t go off somewhere alone.  But maybe that was good?  Maybe he would be less angry, because he wouldn’t want to make a scene in front of Odina’s family?
	Maybe I was dead wrong.  I could be a bad judge of these things sometimes.
	But it really felt right.  At the very least, if I didn’t tell him now, in this moment, I would have to admit that I was consciously hiding it from him.  Now was the time to say something.
	Or at least, it would have been, if Sawyer hadn’t whistled sharply from a nearby tree.
	Finnegan immediately got to his feet, dropping the spoon in the snow.  His hand was beneath his jacket, but he was wise enough not to draw right off.  Not that it would matter.  I’d seen how fast he was at it in the past.
	It took me considerably longer to get to my feet.  By the time I’d stood to my full height, one of them had stepped past the wood line.  If it hadn’t been for Sawyer in his roost, we wouldn’t have seen them until they were right up on us.  And that was impressive, given their size.
	The one that revealed herself first was towering, nearly as tall at the shoulder as me.  With the fresh coat of snow over every surface, it was hard to even make her out except where her form broke through the dark undercarriages of pine boughs.  Her fur was entirely white, unlike mine.  Cream-colored in places, especially around her muzzle.  She also wore white tanned hides, although like me, she didn’t cover herself much.  She didn’t need to.  Her hide was dense and powdered with snow, carved with elegant patterns that nearly disappeared beneath her thicker winter fur.  But what I could see were distinctively jagged, unlike the swirling patterns of my otter tribe.  
	She was marked as a warrior.  And not only by her tribal markings, but more importantly, by her far less aesthetic war scars.  There was no denying how she’d obtained the disfiguring marks across her face, the divots in her legs and arms, a torn ear and one clearly blind eye. 
	She was unnaturally lean for a bear, and not just because she was an ice bear.  They already had more sloping, slender muzzles, longer arms and legs and a taller torso.  But she was either underfed, aging, or both.
	The other, golden brown-furred and stockier, was not long following behind her.  She was also large, but not nearly as tall.  Her posture was more stooped and she had a thicker brow, grey peppering around her muzzle and eyes.  They both wore the same camouflage, bleached-out hide parkas and a decent dusting of snow.  They’d probably shaken out a few branches over themselves.  And they’d moved through sun-crusted snow without any of us hearing them until Sawyer had noticed them.  True hunters.
	They each had rifles, as well as bows, slung over their shoulders.  One for game, one for killing people, most likely.  Arrows did less damage to meat.
	They didn’t have their weapons out, though.  And their expressions, once I could make them out, surprised me.  They were wide-eyed, both of them, like they were scared or shaken.  Staring at me.
	“Ujarak?”  One of them, the ice bear, called out in a wavering tone.
	“No,” the other said, pulling back the hood of her parka and taking a few steps forward.  “That is. . . that is little Tulimak.  Aren’t you?”
	My throat went dry.  My body froze.  I didn’t know what to say to these women.  What could I possibly say to them?  This wasn’t the culmination of some dream, for me.  Until a few days ago, I’d never even known they existed.  They were strangers to me.  I felt no familial tie to them, even now, when they were standing before me.  
	They looked like me.  But. . . that was it.  I felt no spark of recognition, like I’d hoped.  No flash of memory of them.  Everything before my otter family was blank.  I was too young.
	“You can approach,” Odina called out to them in our tongue, resting her rifle down and making it clear she had no intention to use it.  She waved a hand back at the rest of us, and Finnegan similarly relaxed.  “We are here to talk.”
	“Uki?”  My father stepped up to stand beside Odina.  “That. . . was your name, yes?  Uki?”
	The ice bear began crossing the clearing towards us.  Her friend followed her a bit more warily.  “Takoda!”  She said at length, as she came nearer.  “Yes, of course.  Of course it is you.”
	She surprised us all when she came right up to him and dropped down to a knee, scooping my father up in one arm like he were nothing.  I saw both Finn and Odina jump a bit, like they were ready for something. . . but it was just an exuberant embrace.
	A bear hug, if you will.
	The way she’d kneeled first and drawn him against her reminded me of how I had to hug my family.  I felt the first bit of warmth bloom in my chest.  The first inkling of solidarity with this woman.  She had looked so intimidating upon first blush, but she was unrestrained in her affections, or her smile, which she wore very well.
	“Ahhh,” my father chuckled, patting her back.  “It is good to see you again, too.  I remember, when your clan left ours, you were the one-“
	“Crying,” she said, pulling back just slightly and looking up at me, her eyes wet even now.  “Like a babe.  I was the one who carried him everywhere, for my brother and sister.  Especially after they were both hurt.”  She dragged a breath through her nose.  “Look at you.  You’ve grown up so beautiful.”
	I still could not find words.  I was admonishing myself mentally, knowing she must have thought me some simple idiot, but I just. . . couldn’t. . . .
	She looked at me imploringly, but her broad smile didn’t waver a bit.  Like she knew.
	“Just the two of you here, then?”  My father asked from beside Uki.  “Hunting party?  Where are the others?”
	Uki hung her head for a moment.  “Oh. . . .”
	“Chieftain Takoda,” the other woman, the honey-brown furred one, spoke.  “There are no others.  We are all that remains.”
	Uki’s smile returned, weakly.  She looked to me, specifically.  “Welcome home, Tulimak.”  

	The bear tribe Uklashan was precisely where my otterfa had said it was, in the New Moon Basin.  They’d never left.  Their ‘village’ was nestled beneath the rocky ridge of the basin, where apparently over the years, they’d dug many cave homes into the existing natural caves that had always been there.  There was a quaint, honestly beautiful gathering area at the base of the cliff face, near the small lake the runoff waters that came down along many slow-drizzling wet rock faces and waterfalls drained into.
	The lake was as bright and blue as the sky, clear, cold waters biting at my toes as we walked along its shore towards their home.  The Uklashan, or rather, the two women that remained of it, had walked us past what they assured us were many more traps and through weaving, secretive trails they marked with scents that would stand out particularly to bear noses.  ‘In case any survivors ever found their way home’, they’d told me.
	I suppose. . . I had.
	Uki, the ice bear, and as we’d later find out, Kissima, the great northern bear, led us around the rim of the lake, which hugged the edge of the tree line.  There was a well-worn path, but I occasionally stepped onto the shore regardless, wanting to feel water between my toes again.  It was cold, but it felt right.  I wasn’t used to being away from our river.
	“Haha, he is just like Ujarak,” Uki had not stopped smiling at me.  Her paw drifted to my shoulder, not for the first time.  So familiar, despite being strangers until just half an hour ago.  But then I noticed she and Kissima touched a lot, as well.  It seemed to be normal for them.  “So drawn to the water.  My brother could not see a puddle without putting his feet in it!” 
	“Ujarak,” I spoke the name for the first time.  “Was he. . . ?”
	She nodded.  “Your father.  Yes.  My baby brother.  I held him in my arms, as a cub.  But he grew into a mighty, mountainous man!”  She said with a chuckle, spreading her arms as if to indicate his. . . shoulders, I suppose?  
	“Was he bigger than me?”  I asked, curiously.
	Uki gave me a long look, scrunching up her muzzle.  “I think you are bigger, actually.  Taller, certainly.  Ah, think, Kissima,” she elbowed her sister-in-law, “if he only knew.  My father.  He was worried, when Ujarak married a smaller woman.  Worried his children would be weak!”  She chortled.  “And look at you now!”
	“We shall have to brew tea and speak to him, when the stars come out,” Kissima said, her tone more subdued.  She’d been more subdued in general.  Not unfriendly exactly, but harder to read.  Uki was infectiously cheerful and spoke her mind freely, she’d been the one who’d done most of the talking so far, while we’d walked the few miles to the basin.  
	“Our ancestors will be in the western skies, tonight,” Uki explained before I could ask.  “We will show you.”
	Their small camp, which until now we’d only seen at a distance across the lake, finally came into view.  Two massive, carved poles stood guard over the entrance, intricately-crafted but clearly aging depictions of many spirits adorning them.  Bears supported the base, followed by wolves and mountain lions, likely depicting past tribal relations and allies.  The paint was weathered and chipping away, leaving mostly wood grain behind, but they were still a sight to behold, speaking of a once-prospering tribe.
	The grounds beyond were a husk of what they once were.  Snow-covered and stripped-down, mostly dismantled longhouses stood empty and open to the elements on the edges of what had once clearly been a large settlement.  Everywhere were remnants of another time.  Piles of broken and powdered pottery collecting on the shoreline, covered in brown algae and slowly being reclaimed by the water, a grown-over archery field with little evidence of its long-ago use, save a few scarred, marked trees.  But most notably were the graves.  We passed rows of them, denoted only by small stone carvings poking up out of the snow.  A dozen in particular had been cleared, (recently given all the snow we’d gotten) and burned, ashen bundles of sage sat at the base of four.
	In the center of camp were uplifting signs of life.  A chicken waddled past, crooning at Uki as it did, until she reached into her pouch and tossed a few berries at it.  More came darting our way from various other places in the settlement, drawn by the lure of food.  They seemed to have a dozen or so of the birds.
	There were fish racks, a few campfires, cooking pots and a stone smoker, and a bucket left over the fire with what looked to be reeds soaking in it.  A half-finished basket sat beside a stump with a sheepskin thrown over it, and beside another was a stack of fish spears, finished and unfinished.
	This felt more like the home I knew.
	My eyes traveled up the bluff that overlooked the town, and the many caves dotting it.  From a distance they’d simply looked like black depressions in the rock, but from up-close I could see the carefully-carved pathways that climbed the cliffs connecting them.  It was hard to say which ones Uki and Kissima lived in, but the reality was, most of them were probably empty and bare now.
	At least we’d all have somewhere to stay while we were here.
	“Well?”  I heard a voice and it took me a moment to recognize it had been Kissima.  I turned to her.  “How does it feel, returning here?”  She asked.
	I had to think about that, not wanting to give her a careless answer.  “It’s hard to know how I feel,” I finally said with a sigh, defeated once more by my own uncertainty.  “I was so young, I. . . I wish I had memories of this place.  But I don’t.  I don’t even remember my parents, and I feel. . . .” I had to search myself for a few moments.  “I feel guilty for that, for some reason.  Because they must have meant a lot to you two, and I want them to mean a lot to me.  I want this place to mean a lot to me.”
	“You were a cub,” Kissima eased, softly.  “Don’t punish yourself.”
	“It’s not just that,” I said.  We’d had to briefly explain to them why we were here, but we hadn’t had time to elaborate on it yet.  I looked back at my party, grinding my teeth briefly, before averting my gaze to the ground.  “I feel bad that I’ve only come to you now.  In a time of need.  I should have done this a long time ago.  Now it feels like I’m infringing on your solitude, because I’m in trouble.”
	“Tulimak, that isn’t your f-“ my father began.
	Kissima cut him off with an outstretched palm and looked up at me intensely.  “Your father and your mother made certain demands of Chieftain Takoda, before they would release you to him.  We honestly did not think we would ever see you again.  So this is a gift.”
	“And we always expected if one of us ever returned here,” Uki spoke up, “they would bring trouble.”  She said it with an odd grin which. . . generally I’d liked her smiles.  This one was unsettling.
	“You weren’t the only tribe member that we lost during the hard times,” Kissima nodded.  “Many of us were scattered to the wind.”
	“Did any of the others ever return?”  I asked.
	She shook her head.  “In the end, most were hunted down, I think.  Or went so far from these lands that they will likely never return.”
	“And now they are hunting our little Tulimak,” Uki said, flashing her long fangs.  So like mine.  “My brother was right.  It will never end.”  She put her big paws on both of my shoulders.  “We will kill them together, these men who hunt you.  It will be an honor to fight beside you, to go to war with my blood kin at my back, once again.”
	I let out a long breath.  “It’s. . . it’s not me. . . they’re after.  Not exactly.”
	Kissima narrowed her eyes.  Uki only looked confused.  “Explain,” Kissima said.

	
	About an hour later, the sun beginning to dip in the sky, we got a verdict.  And not the one I’d expected.
	“I don’t care,” Uki announced, midway through my father’s explanation about who the Jackwalds were.  Her statement stopped him dead.  He glanced between the two bear women, uncertainly, before Uki spoke again.  “It doesn’t matter to us who they are,” she crossed her long arms over her chest.  “They are Otherwolves, intruding on our land.  Any of their kin that come here die.  That is the oath we took, when Ujarak died.”
	“I am glad to know they fight amongst themselves, these days,” Kissima said, her voice a quiet growl.  “But Uki is right. . . what do we care why?”  She glanced briefly at Finn, then spoke directly at him.  Although not in a language he’d understand.  “They are a scourge.  A blight.  I hope they grind themselves to dust.”
	“You know,” I said uneasily, “he’s-“
	“I had thought he was a wolf,” Kissima said, arching an eyebrow as she assessed him.  “Many wolves have taken to wearing the Otherwolf clothes, of late.  He doesn’t look like a dog.  Are you certain?”  
	“He’s. . . half,” I explained.  “Like me.”
	“Hmm,” Kissima seemed to consider that.
	“His wolf half must be the stronger blood,” Uki said, in a tone of ‘that decides that’.  “Yes.  He looks more like a wolf, and he kills them, you said.  They hate him. . . they are hunting him.  He’s a wolf.”
	I barely knew how to begin addressing that, or how it made me feel.  How it would have made Finn feel, if he could understand them.  It was so simple a classification for them, clearly.  But it seemed to be how they were processing all of this, and if it meant they’d accept Finn, did I really want to argue the point?
	I decided to stay silent on the matter for now.  We were in a precarious enough position, and I didn’t want trouble between Finn and my long-lost relatives.
	“We aren’t certain they’ll even come in to the valley,” my father said.  “But if they do, we want you to understand the danger we might be putting you in, coming here.  I did not bring Tulimak here lightly.  We just weren’t certain where else we could go that might be safe.”
	“It is fate,” Uki said.  “We came to you in our time of need.  The spirits led you here, back to us.  Of course we will fight beside you.”
	“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said, hanging my head.  To think I could be responsible for even more of my tribe dying. . . .
	“You said it’s less than a dozen men,” Kissima said.	
	“A dozen very well-armed and experienced men,” Odina spoke up.  “They hunt men for a living, they know the land-“
	“Not this land,” Uki said, narrowing her eyes.  “Not our Basin.”
	“We have fortified ourselves here over the last twenty years,” Kissima nodded.  “You were fortunate you made it as far as you did before encountering one of our traps.  There are many.  And Uki and I could move some, so that they are more centrally-located, surrounding the basin.  There is only one half we need reinforce, there is no easy path down the cliffs.  Anyone coming from that direction would have to climb very slowly if they could make the climb at all, and they’d be exposed the whole while.  And the lake never freezes fully this early in the winter.  They will have to move around it, through areas we know like the back of our paw.”
	“I noticed it wasn’t frozen,” my father said, curiously.  “Why is that?”
	“It is very deep,” she said.  “Much deeper than it appears.  We are able to ice fish in it throughout the whole winter.”
	“You do have a very defensible position here,” Odina agreed.  “And if you’re fine with letting us set up camp here, I’m not going to fight you any further on it.”  She hefted her pack up over her shoulder.  “We’ve been moving like hell for days.  Do you mind if we find some place to start settling in?”
	Uki stood.  “I will show you all to the caves.  We can speak more over dinner, and even more tomorrow after you’ve all rested.”
	“I’d definitely like to talk about your routes of entry and how you might place your traps,” I heard Odina say towards Kissima, but at that moment, Uki filled my field of vision.
	“Tulimak,” she took my hand in hers.  “Come.”
	She began tugging me towards the caves, walking at a stride I was capable of, but hardly ever used because I’d been so accustomed to living around smaller people my whole life.  In a way, it was liberating, but I knew we were leaving my friends and father somewhat behind.
	“Was Takoda good to you?”  She asked when we’d put some distance between us and the others, walking down a winding path through the trees that led towards the bluff.
	It became clear to me in that moment that her pace was intentional.  I slowed, until my arm tugged at hers.  When she turned to face me, I spoke intently.  “He was an incredibly loving, dutiful father,” I assured her.  “The best I ever could have hoped for.”
	She looked a little sad at that for a moment, but forced a smile after a few more.  “I’m glad you were well cared-for.  And I’m so sorry we couldn’t keep you.  I tried to convince my brother.  I never wanted to give you up, Tulimak.  He didn’t, either.”
	“I know what their circumstances were,” I said.  
	“I cannot say it was the right thing,” she said hesitantly.  “In the end, we made it back to the Basin and managed to hold this place.  Mostly because the fighting had taken so much, from both sides, that we were simply unable to continue it.  There were hard times even following that.  Ujarak’s death. . . your mother’s not long after. . . .”  Her muzzle twitched, with the memories.  “Many lean years.  Bad times to be raising young.  Once things had gotten better, we thought. . . we considered going back for you.  But you’d grown older by then.  We sent messages, we spoke with some members of your tribe and heard how well you were doing, with the Tawnahowac.  We weren’t certain we could give you a better life.  This land is beautiful, but it gives up very little without a fight.”  She frowned.  “Kissima convinced me you should not have to become a warrior, like your father.  Like us.  She was happy when Takoda told us, some years ago, that you were a fisherman.”
	She glanced briefly past me, as the others’ approached.  “But I suppose,” she smiled again at me, “the spirits had other plans for you.  And now, you will walk your father’s path regardless.”
	I didn’t say it aloud, but it bothered me somewhat how happy she seemed at the thought.  Certainly, Uki held her brother’s memory in high esteem.  And part of that was clearly tied to his role as a fabled warrior.
	She’d be very disappointed if she knew how little I took after him, in anything but appearance.
	Finn moved up beside me as I was lost in thought.  “So,” he said, his voice wavering, “going. . . alright?  Seems like?”
	“Oh,” I blanched.  “I am so sorry.  You can’t understand a word we’ve been saying.”
	“Your father filled me in a little,” he assured me.  “But uh, while we’re on the subject.  I was thinking maybe. . . you know, since it seems like we might be holed up here a little while, and then if all goes well, traveling together for a time. . . I was hoping perhaps you might teach me a little about your language.”
	“Really?”  My ears came up.  “You want to learn how to speak Nontawlik?”
	“I’m not sure how much progress I’ll make,” he shrugged weakly.  “But. . . yes.  If you’re alright teaching it to me.  Seems it could be useful.”
	I felt a smile tugging at my muzzle.  He scoffed at me.  “Come on,” he rolled his eyes.  “Don’t look at me like that.”
	“It’s just not the sort of thing I expected,” I said.  “What with all your fatalistic talk.”
	“I can pick up a few useful things fast enough to matter,” he reasoned.  “And I’d wager next to no one in the colonized cities here can speak a northern dialect like yours.  Could be useful to have a secret language, you know?  Never know what the future will bring.”
	“Says the man planning to turn himself in,” I hummed.  	
	“My plans are always evolving,” he said with a sniff.
	“That’s the sort of thing my father would say ‘I’ll bet’ to,” I muttered.  “You really do bring it on yourself.”
	“Natural born scoundrel, what can I say- oh.  Wow.”  He stopped in his tracks.
	I turned to look where he was, my breath catching in my throat.  Ahead of us stretched the opening of the first cave mouth, and it was clearly the main one, judging by its size.  Two of the carved poles we’d seen outside the village rested on either side of the hewn entranceway, which looked to be a natural opening in the rocks, but the tribe had clearly carved into it further over the years.  A soft, warm light emanated from somewhere deep inside, illuminating the entranceway in the waning light.
	Uki stood before it with a proud smile on her muzzle.  And it was deserved.  All along the curve of the entranceway, and by the look of it deep inside, the walls of the cave were painted in swirling patterns and illustrations, in red and white clay.  The markings resembled those on Uki’s hide, tribal markings evolving over many generations, along with illustrations of more things than I could properly take in at a glance.
	We all slowly stepped inside, the scenes surrounding us.  Depicted centrally in most images were white bears, engaged in hunts with enormous herds of caribou, making their way through forests of jagged trees and over mountain peaks, dancing in large gatherings under prominently-displayed, careful renditions of star formations.  The moon in all of its phases moved in a circle over the ceiling of the main area, where a smoldering, low fire burned in a dug-in pit.  That first large room seemed to be where Kissima and Uki lived, judging by the shelves of possessions and the two piles of furs and blankets on opposite sides of the fire.  It was a comfortable home that in many ways reminded me of the pit homes my otter family lived in, but far larger.
	Uki untied a large fur, which probably belonged to an Ursark, looking it over.  She let it fall over the entranceway, shutting us in for the most part.  She gestured up to the ceiling, “There are cracks we left in the caves, for air and for smoke to escape.  It might not get as warm in this chamber as some of you would like,” she said most pointedly to the mountain lions.  “But the caves deeper down are always far warmer, especially if you have a small fire.  All have fire pits, but we haven’t enough furs and blankets.  I hope you’ve brought your own.”  She gestured to several tunnels out of the main room, presumably different branches of the cave system.  “We keep our seeds and root vegetables in the higher caves, where they stay cool.  All of the rooms here, in the Chieftain’s caves, are yours to use.”
	“You and Kissima will serve as our guardians, then,” Odina noted.  “The only way in or out is through your sleeping area.  You don’t want us out there with access to the camp.”
	Uki chuckled, although there wasn’t much mirth there.  “We trust Chieftain Takoda, and of course Tulimak, but many of you, we do not know.  I’d say we’re extending you a lot of trust.  You must allow us some measure of concern.  We haven’t survived this long by taking chances.”
	“Fair enough,” Odina nodded.
	“And in any case, the caves down here are warmer,” she assured us.  “Go find yourself a place and settle in.  We won’t be turning in until after dinner, which you’re welcome to join us for.”  She looked to me.  “I’d especially like you to join us, and tell us more about. . . everything.  I want to know you, Tulimak.”
	“I’ll do my best,” I promised her.
	I began to head for one of the larger-looking cave paths, when my father tugged on my wrist.  “After dinner, let me check that wound of yours,” he offered.  “I have some salve in one of my bags.  And I brought one of your mother’s blankets to share.  The large one.  We really need to have better blankets made for you.  I know the ones in your pit home are wearing thin-“
	“Actually, otterfa,” I cleared my throat, nervously.  “I-I was hoping I could have my own space.  Um.  My own. . . cave.  If that’s alright.  There seem to be a lot of them.  And I’m grown now.”
	He blinked up at me.  “It isn’t like at home, though,” he insisted.  “These caves are large.”
	“I know,” I persisted.  “But I’m an adult, now.  I’ve had my own pit home for a while.  I know that’s mostly because it was hard to dig one big enough for me to live with all of you, but. . . but I’ve gotten used to it.”
	“Alright,” he said uncertainly, in a subdued tone.  
	“I’ll still sit with you around the fire until it’s time to turn in,” I insisted.
	“Of course,” he nodded, moving on ahead of me.
	Just like that, the conversation was over.  But I sensed his coldness in the stiff way his shoulders were set as he left, and I suddenly felt bad for asking for privacy.  Not just because of why I wanted it, but because I understood why my father might have wanted us to be together in this strange, potentially dangerous place.  And, although he hadn’t done anything to make me feel guilty about asking, I still felt like I was abandoning him.
	But I wasn’t about to change my mind.  Something in me had shifted over the last month and I didn’t want to keep relying on the comforts of my youth.  My father was stuck in our old roles too, and since our arguments back at home, it had begun to feel less nostalgic and more controlling.  If I wanted him to begin to let go, I had to do the same.
	“What was that about?”  Finnegan asked, sidling up beside me.
	I sighed.  “I told him I wanted my own space to sleep in.”
	“Oh.”  He paused.  “So. . . I’m going to go. . . make a show of doing that, myself.”
	“Yeah,” I said.
	“Yeah,” he said.
	A beat of silence passed between us.
	“See you later tonight?”  He ventured, quietly.
	“Yeah.”

	
	We didn’t talk much over dinner, except to go over a few important points.  And that was mostly Odina, Kissima and my father.  Kissima seemed to be taking Odina’s information very seriously, nodding along as the lioness laid out everything she knew about the Jackwalds and what they were likely to bring to bear.  The two of them were still talking as Uki and I walked off from camp later that night, when she’d insisted I come with her to see something.
	She’d talked to me in between bites of dinner about my life with the Tawnahowac.  I’d tried to tell her what I could, but it’s harder to summarize your entire life than you might think.
	“It sounds idyllic,” she said.  “I’m happy for you, Tulimak.”
	“It’s had its difficulties,” I admitted.  “I’ve always felt very, very different.  From everyone, not just my tribe.” That feeling had resurged in a big way lately, although I couldn’t explain to her why.
	“I cannot say it would have been better with us,” she sighed.  “Even if the tribe hadn’t any troubles with the Otherwolves, you. . . did not have the easiest start in life.”
	“What do you mean?”  I asked.
	“Takoda would not have known this, so I doubt he told you,” she said, “but you were not the result of a tribal alliance.  You were the reason for it.”  
	I stopped, realizing where it was we were headed.  The field of stone markers stretched before us, including the four more carefully-maintained graves.  The carved stones that rested atop them were actually much less intricate than many of the others, likely because neither Kissima nor Uki were artisans.  And there hadn’t been anyone else left to do it.
	At some point, one of them had returned here while we’d been settling in and lit two more bundles of sage, which were sticking up out of the earth, smoldering and smoking, the curls wafting up into the clear, starry sky.
	“Your father, Ujurak,” she gestured to one of the graves.  “And your mother, Amka.  Kissima’s sister.  Our tribes were. . . not at war, but. . . for a time, our territories overlapped and there were misunderstandings, skirmishes between hunters, many negotiations that went nowhere. . . .”  She shook her head.  “Foolish.  If we’d known what was to come.  We were so much stronger together.  If we’d had more time to reinforce one another, to build our alliance, we may have stood stronger against the invaders.”
	“So how did. . . .” I trailed off.
	“Your father met your mother while he was hunting in the mountains and she was searching for a special kind of root,” she explained.  “Both had gone too far from their territory in their pursuits.  It was a chance meeting.”  She laughed a little.  “I don’t know exactly what transpired, but soon he began going on ‘long hunts’, often.  To see her.  And so it might have remained, but when the Otherwolves came, with their mines and their logging. . . .” she curled a lip.  “We entered negotiations again.  And Ujurak, frustrated with the stubbornness our father was displaying, announced his intentions to marry Amka.  Father did not take to the idea well at first, but Amka was with child already by then, so.”
	She looked to the graves, then to the sky.  “The spirits led them to one another.  And they blessed Amka’s womb.  With you.  So that we might find one another, as people, and unite against a common foe.”
	I looked out across the field of graves.  “But. . . .”
	Uki took my paw in hers.  “I know what you must be feeling.  But Tulimak, we had no choice.  It was only a question of how bad it was going to be.  They push,” her paw tightened around mine, “and push.  And push.  They take, then they take more.  They make promises, they rescind those promises, they forget.  And eventually, they just bring out the rifles.  We’d seen it happen so many times before.  We were not going to be pushed aside.  Not from the land where our ancestors reside.  Not from this place.”
	She looked up to the sky, pointing up with her free paw.  “Do you see?”  She gestured, tracing a path between the many points of light.  “The charging Ursark?  Our greatest protector.”
	I recognized the formation above us as one I’d seen in the cave, traced there into the shape of a large, feral Ursark.  Flashes of the dream I’d had played through my mind.  “I do,” I breathed out.
	“From this place, it is always in the sky,” she said, her dark eyes sparkling with reflected starlight.  “The further south we move, the less it will watch over us.  The further north we move, the leaner the land.  This is our home.  We were here before them, and we will be here after them.  Even if all we leave behind are our bodies.”
	She looked to me, unshed tears in her eyes.  It was twice now, in the few hours since I’d met her, that she had cried.  I felt a kinship with that.  I could see myself in some part of her, other than her physical form.  It was good to finally feel that way about something here.  “We are part of this place,” she said.  “They will never be part of it.  They do not respect it as we do.  They do not understand it as we do.  My brother- your father- tried to negotiate with the Otherwolves, when they first arrived.  But he became convinced, very quickly, that they would not protect this place as we do.  It isn’t the spirits’ role alone to protect us.  We must protect them.”
	We didn’t speak for long after that.  I had little to say to Uki’s blind conviction.  Especially since, although she certainly came off as unyielding and polarized, I couldn’t tell her she was wrong about any of it.  I hadn’t been more than a cub when this land war had begun, and it was in fact very likely that my tribe had been taken advantage of and pushed around by some very aggressive Otherwolf homesteaders and industrialists, the same way my current tribe was.  The main difference was, of course, how each tribe had chosen to react to it.
	It would have been easy to make a blanket statement that my father was making the right choice.  So far, his entire tribe was alive.  Kissima and Uki may have retained their land in the end, but their tribe would die with them, unless more of my people eventually returned here.  Or I had cubs.  But even then, one family would not save an entire tribe.
	“Tuli,” a voice softly emerged from the trees as I began my walk back towards the caves.  Uki had elected to stay behind longer to watch the stars, but I was tired and had a lot on my mind I wanted to think over somewhere warmer and less depressing.
	“Finn?”  I whispered back, my eyes adjusting.  Eventually I was able to make him out, leaning against one of the few oak trees nearby.  His slim figured was easily hidden by the thick trunk, even with his coat on.  “How long have you been there?”  I asked him.
	“Relax, I wasn’t eavesdropping,” he assured me.  “Can’t understand a word, remember?  I was just worried, you know, with you going off alone with her.  We still don’t know them well.”
	I sighed.  “They don’t really trust all of you, either.”
	“That’s a healthy way to be for now,” he said, pushing off the tree and heading towards me.  He slipped his hand through mine, squeezing.  “Just wanted to make sure you were alright.”
	“Did my father send you to check on me?”  I asked.
	“Actually no,” he said.  “He’s gone in for the night.  But I. . . do think he knew where I was headed, and was alright with it.  He’s starting to trust me.  At least, as a useful murderer.” 
	“Ugh,” I growled.
	He just smirked.  “Hey, I’ve learned to take whatever credit I’m given.”
	We headed back towards the cave, separating our hands once we left the trees.  He chatted with me lowly as we walked, I think mostly because he missed talking.  It had been nearly a full day where he was left out of almost every conversation.  That had to wear on you.
	He was bearing it with good spirits, though.  And considering it was his life on the line, he’d been patient in asking us for updates.  He deserved a lot of credit for that.
	So when we got back into the cave, I led him towards where I’d settled my own things.  I’d chosen one of the larger caves, probably one that had belonged to an entire small family at some point.  I’d gotten a fire started there earlier, just coals from the main pit and a little bit of kindling, and it had since crackled down to little more than embers, but it was enough for the two of us to see by.
	We talked casually until we were deep inside the recessed chamber, and then I reached down and firmly took him by the lapels of his jacket, tugging him into a long, deep kiss.  After days without him, having to keep myself from so much as touching his cheek or brushing his paw, the sensation of his mouth on mine made stars explode behind my eyes.  I breathed him in, felt him whine into the kiss, the sound eliciting a slight leap of my heart.  I wrapped an arm around him, crushing his smaller body to mine.  
	We parted only to suck in air, before kissing again in short, needful bursts.  He began to shrug out of his jacket, huffing out lowly, “Sound carries in here, so. . . mmhh. . . we’d better. . . .”
	I was in the midst of kissing him again, when shockingly, he suddenly shoved away from me.  The force of it startled me, not because Finnegan was especially strong, but because of how emphatic it had been.  He even smacked at my shoulder a few times to get me to pull away.  Which I did, staring down at him, confused.
	He was looking past me, ears flat, mouth open.
	“Shit,” he said breathlessly.  “Shit.  Tulimak, you need to-“ he shoved at my chest.  “You need to. . . go.  You need to. . . leave. . . go.  Now.”
	“This is,” I glanced around, “my room.”
	“Your father,” he physically pushed me to turn around.  “Down there.  Now.”
	My heart froze.
	“Tuli, he saw us,” he stammered.  “I’m sorry.  Go.  Just go.  Talk to him.”
	I didn’t need to be told again.  I left Finnegan standing there in my room, jacket discarded on the floor, his lean form illuminated by the dim firelight.  It didn’t take me long to make it out into the main area, but no one was there.  Odina and Sawyer must have still been down at the lake, talking to Kissima.  Uki was still in the graveyard.  I looked down several of the other cave branches, finding where the mountain lions were staying, and then the room where my father had left his possessions.  But he wasn’t there.  I could smell that he’d been here recently, but he must have come looking for me. . . and then stormed outside?  Maybe just to get air. . . .
	By the time I made it back into the main area, something occurred to me.  The fur covering the entrance had been pulled back when I’d first come out here.  Now it was down.
	Distant voices told me all I needed to know to put two and two together.  He’d come back while I was searching.  It was the worst possible scenario I could imagine.  I raced back down the tunnel leading to my cave, the voices growing clearer as I got closer, my heart hammering in my chest.
	“. . . he went out looking for you-“  Strangely pained, wheezing.
	“It doesn’t matter,” an echoing growl, barely recognizable as my father’s voice.  “You are leaving here.  Tonight.”
	“I. . . can’t. . . .”
	“I have been tolerant of the hell you’ve brought into my son’s life!  Into all of our lives.  Because I thought you were a friend to him.  I knew you were taking advantage of him, you all take advantage of us, but spirits help me you despicable cur. . .“
	It was at that point that I made it into the room and found them.  To my horror, my father had Finnegan shoved against one of the uneven surfaces of the cave wall, his back and hips jammed up against a sharp protrusion of harder rock than the rest.  I knew very well how that must have been excruciating for him, given his old hip injury.  My father was both slightly smaller and far older than Finn, and the wolfdog was still armed.  He was allowing this to happen, but he looked more helpless than I’d ever seen him. 
	“Tuli. . .” he implored, his hands out, palms up.
	“Don’t call him that,” my father snarled out, shoving him once more and leaving him there, turning towards me.  His eyes were afire.  As he approached me, he pointed back in Finn’s direction, where the man was bracing against the wall, arm wrapped around his midsection.  It’s possible he’d been hit, too, although it was hard to tell.
	“That,” my father spit out, “that is why you endangered yourself?  Endangered your family?!  Your TRIBE?!”
	I didn’t know how to reply to the man I loved so much, faced with his sheer, heart-wrenching anger.  But I knew that I needed to.  So I decided all I could do was be honest.  “Yes,” I said simply.
	His eyes widened, and he trembled.  “Your sister,” he breathed out, “told me. . . before I left.  But I thought she had misunderstood what she was seeing.”
	It felt like my world was unraveling, piece by piece, coming apart at the seams.  “No, otterfa,” I said quietly.  “She didn’t misunderstand.”
	My father seethed silently for a time, running a paw over first his eyes, then his whiskers.  As he did so, I looked past him, towards Finnegan.  The wolfdog was nearly doubled over, every part of his body curled in on itself, ears and muzzle downcast.  He was still gripping his ribs.  He’d definitely been hit.
	“You always told me,” I was somehow speaking again, my tongue dry, every word a struggle.  But I was doing it.  I had to.  Looking at my father, trying so hard to get him to meet my eyes, too.  “You always told me. . . I would find someone, out in the world, that I would care for.  Someone I would want to provide for, to protect-“
	“We will find you a shaman,” my father said, voice gravelly and worn.  “We will purge you of this. . . curse. . . this spell he has you under. . . .”
	“These feelings are my own, otterfa,” I said, insistently.  “They are a part of me-“  
	“They are UNNATURAL, Tulimak!”  He raised his voice, the shout bouncing off the walls of the cave, carrying distantly down the corridor.  “For so many reasons!  He isn’t a tribesman.  He isn’t your kind, he isn’t even a woman.  You cannot have a life worth living with him.  He is using you- preying on your loneliness!”  He tossed an arm in Finn’s direction again.  “What do you think he can offer you, other than suffering?!  That is all he has ever brought you!”
	“That isn’t true,” I said softly.
	“Do you know what happens to men. . . like this?  In their world?!”  He growled, claws extended as he drew a line between the two of us.
	“Finn’s. . . told me-“
	“Hang him!”  He spat out between grit teeth. “You already know he’s a liar!  Think, Tulimak.  Have you ever even heard of a tribesman living this way?”
	I shook my head.  “No,” I admitted.
	“Why do you think that is?!”  He demanded.
	His meaning was clear.  In a very different way, he was telling me exactly the same thing Finnegan had.  Many times.  I felt like my body was turning inside out.  I wanted nothing more than to curl in on myself, as much as Finn was.
	I heard before I saw Finnegan slump down against the wall.  Without a second thought, I pushed past my father and headed for him.  I knelt down beside him, putting a hand to his shoulder.  His muzzle was contorted in pain, but he only shook his head at me as I approached.  “Don’t- I’m fine,” he insisted through grit teeth.
	“No one has to know about this,” I heard my father’s voice from behind us, dropped somewhat in intensity, now.  “Alasie will not tell anyone else, if I explain the consequences it could have on you.  We can go home.”
	“You hurt him,” I said, hoarsely.
	“We can. . . leave this man. . . with Odina and Sawyer,” he said, in his ‘mediator’ voice.  “They can take it from here.  You can even come back here to the Basin later next year, after all of this is behind us.  He’s a criminal, Tulimak.  You would have been separated in Arbordale, anyway-“
	“Get out,” I growled gutturally.
	“. . . Tulimak. . . .”
	“Get.  Out.”  I turned, staring him down.
	He looked between the two of us, uncertainly.  “I am not. . . leaving you with him. . . .”
	“Leave us ALONE!”  I boomed, using every bit of power my voice could command.
	My father was stunned silent.  Slowly, he began to step back into the threshold of the tunnel.  “I. . .” he slid his palm slowly along the wall.  “I’m not leaving you, son.  I can’t.”
	“Then leave us alone, for now,” I said, turning my attention back to Finn.  “I can’t talk to you right now.”
	“. . . tomorrow. . . then. . . .”  his voice receded into the tunnel.  The sadness in it was palpable.
	But right now, I was much more worried about Finn.  I reached down, gathering him up in my arms.  “I’m so sorry,” I sniffed.  “I’m so, so sorry.’
	“You’re hurting worse than I am, I’d wager,” he said against my fur.  But he wrapped his arms up around my shoulders and held on tight, all the same.

	Chapter 15 – Tension

	“You know, I really hate being right all the time,” Finnegan grunted, as I helped him down into bed.  I’d gone to get some of his belongings, but there had been no question between us after what had happened with my father that he was staying with me tonight.  I didn’t care how it looked.
	I pressed my paw pads gently against his ribs, feeling along his bare chest beneath where we’d hiked his shirt up.  So far, I hadn’t found anything that felt especially bad.  “I think it’s just badly bruised,” I said after a little while, looking back up to his face.  He was doing an admirable job of covering his discomfort, but I knew by now, if not based on the injuries he’d sustained while with me then by the myriad of scars I’d found over his body, that this slight man had a far higher tolerance for pain than was probably healthy.
	“Your father has a hell of a right hook,” he muttered.  “Quick, too.  Caught me by surprise.  I was never really one for fisticuffs, though.”
	“He might be getting on in years, but he’s still a fisherman,” I said ruefully.  “It’s all in the arms.”
	“Nnhh,” he shook his head, smiling through the pain.  “One of my favorite things about you, turned against me.  Oh, the irony.”
	“You don’t need to be so flippant,” I said gently, reaching down to cup his cheek scruff in my palm, a passing gesture between us that was swiftly becoming as necessary for my continued survival as air and food.  “You shouldn’t have to make light of this.  Be angry, if you need to be.  My father had no right.”
	“Humor’s how I handle things I. . . can’t handle,” he said hesitantly after a few moments.  He closed his eyes.  “Honestly, Tuli, this isn’t outside of what I expected.  Less talk about God and sin, and. . . I guess some of the things he flung my way were. . . deserved, but-“
	“No,” I growled out.  “I don’t care that he’s my father, Finn.  He doesn’t get to do this to you, just because he thinks he’s protecting me from something.”
	“Tuli, I’m a piece of shite,” he muttered, his eyes still closed.  He looked so tired.  “Maybe it shouldn’t matter that we’re both men, I don’t fucking know.  I’m not a priest, I don’t know the will of God or. . . nature. . . or spirits, or whatever arranged the laws we’re all supposed to follow to lead good and virtuous lives.  But your father’s right about a lot of the other things he said.  I’m a murderer, I’m a charlatan, I did use you in some ways and I’m continuing to endanger you and your family-now your actual blood family, too-“
	“Finnegan, I could have left you in Broen,” I stated fiercely.  His eyes opened slowly, looking up at mine.  I leaned down over him, our noses nearly touching, dropping my voice.  “I thought about it.  After I found out about the bounty on you.  When Sawyer told me you were a killer.  I considered leaving you there, taking the raft and going home.  Everything. . . everything since that point. . . has been my decision.”
	He blinked slowly.  “That. . . isn’t. . . that can’t be true.”
	“Think about it,” I emphasized.  “At what point since then have you made any decisions for the two of us?”
	“I decided to leave your village,” he said, after thinking about it for a bit.  “That’s why you left home, ultimately.  You and your father fought over it.  God, I felt terrible watching that.  All of that was because of me.”
	“Stop being so self-important,” I said with a forced smile, stroking a scar on his cheek with my claw.  “My father and I fought because he refuses to stop seeing me as a child.  And I didn’t just come all of this way for you.”
	“I don’t know how much luck we’re going to have with this mission for your tribal lands,” he murmured.
	“Finn, do you honestly think of this relationship between us as being entirely for your benefit?”  I asked.  The question might have seemed unfair on the surface, but I knew I could bring him around if he stopped thinking of everything within the confines of self-blame.  I knew that cycle all too well.  
	“No,” he muttered.
	“Then stop acting as if everything we’ve done has been for your sake.  I need you,” I said, my voice thin and drawn on the last word.  “For as long as I can have you.  I’ve been making decisions that keep you in my life, because I want you in my life.  I want to be a part of your story.  I want you to be a part of mine.  All you’re able to see is the damage you think you’ve done.  But you’ve helped me so much.  Look at where we are.”  I gestured with my free hand.   
	“Your father might have told you some day,” he said quietly, but his resistance was fading.  I could see the warmth in his eyes, each of my words soothing away that cold, cloying guilt he wore like a second skin.
	“Not if I’d never had the courage to confront him about it,” I said with certainty.  “My father does not like to take risks.  That’s how he keeps our people safe, how he keeps his family safe, but it means everything we experience first has to pass his scrutiny, and we don’t get to decide for ourselves if something is worth the trouble it might cause.”
	“You mean me?”  He guessed.
	I smiled fondly.  “I mean you.  Finn, getting to know you made me. . . brave.  Definitely more decisive.  It hasn’t just been about discovering. . .” I looked for the right words.  “Figuring out. . . who I wanted to be with.  I’m discovering who I am.  Finally.”  I dropped my gaze from his.  “And the fact is, if you were a woman, I think he’d be proud of how you’ve helped me mature, and far more acceptant of you and I being together.”
	Finnegan was silent for a time.  Eventually, he said, “I’m actually not so certain of that.”
	I scrunched my brow, making it clear I wanted him to elaborate.
	“I mean,” he sighed, “I certainly don’t think he would have punched me, if I were a female canine.  But Tuli, I think he’s wanted to hit me since you first came home injured.  Your father has a few really valid grievances against me.”
	“I’ve already said-“ I growled out.
	“I understand,” he insisted.  “And I’m not saying he wasn’t out of line tonight.  But he was also really fucking shocked, I’d wager.  Betrayed, even.  And again, that’s on me.  You wanted to tell him earlier.  This wasn’t the way he should have found out,” he sighed.  “You need to give him time to settle down and think.  You both need to.  You don’t want to do or say anything you’ll regret right now.”
	“You mean like he did?”  I snapped.
	“Let him be the one in the wrong,” he said, rubbing a paw over his ribs.  “Let him think about it all damn night.  About whether or not he wants to lose his son over this.  I listened to him, Tuli.  Couldn’t do much else, doubled-over like that.  He sounded. . . mostly. . . scared.  About your future with someone like me, about what could happen to you if people- other people- found out.  I didn’t hear a whole lot of the sort of self-righteous rhetoric I’d hear back home.”
	“Like what?”  I asked, laying my palm over his where it rested on his chest.
	“. . . shame,” he said after a long pause.  “It’s all about shame, back in Amuresca.  About making you feel like less.  Your father’s certainly not fond of me, but when it came to you, he mostly seemed afraid for you.”
	“He tried to make me feel bad for endangering the tribe,” I pointed out.
	“Yes,” his ears tipped back, “but again, I think that was directed at. . . me.  He thinks I’ve taken advantage of you, lured you in, cast a spell on his innocent son.”
	“I’m not-“
	“Trust me, I know you’re not innocent,” he said with a wry look.  “I’ve a feeling we’ve hardly plumbed the depths of that well, yet.”
	I let out a long snuff.  “It’s true,” I admitted, embarrassed.  “You’ve no idea the things I dream of doing with you.”
	“Do tell,” he chuckled, then winced, cutting off his laughter.  “Uuhhh. . . although for some reason I’ve a feeling it’s less dirty than I’m imagining and more. . . like. . . gardening or something else profoundly wholesome.”  
	“It is not gardening,” I assured him.
	“You’re caught somewhere between adorable and randy, and I hardly know what to call that,” he said with a fond smile.
	“Twenty?” I ventured simply, with a shrug.  “I was nineteen just a few months ago and my father’s told me this sort of thing is normal for young men.”
	“Fuck, that’s right,” he snorted.  “I keep forgetting.  See?  No Amurescan father would tell their son it’s alright to wank off.”  He made a gesture at that to explain the, I’m assuming, cultural saying he’d just used.  It was instructional.  “I mean my uncle Mikhail, maybe. . . but he was a whore.  Sorry, ‘courtesan’.  Hardly the usual role-model we Amurescan boys get.  It’s all shame, fear and repression across the pond.  Your father’s damn open-minded in comparison.”
	“Finn, he punched you in the ribs,” I put a hand to my brow, massaging my temple.  	
	“Not saying the man didn’t fuck up royal tonight,” he agreed, grimacing.  “What I am saying is, it’s worth talking to him about this a second time, once you’ve both calmed down.”
	“Why do you care?”  I asked quietly.
	“Because I care about you, obviously,” he rolled his eyes.
	“No, but I mean,” I sighed, “you keep telling me I’m going to marry, some day.  Find a woman.  Live a normal life.”
	“Sure,” he said.  “You just might.”
	“Then why do I need to try to convince my father that this,” I pointed between the two of us, “is alright?”
	“. . . because you also might not,” he said after a long pause.
	“Finn,” I pleaded quietly.  “Please.  You know a lot more about this, about the world in general, than I do.”  I took a deep breath, steeling myself.  We’d tip-toed around this many times, but I had the nerve to ask flat-out, finally.  And I wanted an answer.  “Are there men. . .” I asked hesitantly, “. . . who. . . can’t. . . feel this way about a woman?”
	His silence spoke volumes.  
	“What if that path is closed to me?”  I whispered.
	“Have you ever thought about a woman in that way?”  He asked me, softly.  “The way you think about me?”
	I didn’t need to think on it.  I’d been thinking on it for over a month now.
	“No,” I said, resolutely.  “But. . .” and here I paused, “. . . but I’ve felt this way. . . for other men, I think.  Recently.  In Broen.”
	That seemed to surprise even him.
	“Nothing important,” I said, hanging my head.  “I only looked, is all.  Just. . . since I met you. . . it’s like a lot of things made sense.  Things I felt before, but didn’t understand.  Some of the men. . . at the river, in Broen. . . the ones loading the barge.  I guess I started to notice their bodies a-a little more.  We were fighting at the time and I-“
	“Tulimak, you don’t need to apologize for that,” he said with a forlorn look, slowly pushing himself back up to a sitting position.
	“I. . . I-I think I’ve liked men a long time. . . .”  I admitted, my voice getting very small.  I felt tears stinging at my eyes, but I wasn’t sure why.  Maybe everything that had happened with my father was finally catching up with me.  “I just didn’t understand,” I was repeating myself.  “I didn’t understand until I met you.”
	He wrapped his arms up around me, pulling me back down into bed with him.  I lay against his shoulder until I fell asleep.

	“No.  Sloppy,” Finn’s voice bounced across the clearing from where he was sitting with Sawyer.  I turned to watch them for a little while.  They’d been working on Sawyer’s rifle.  “You’re wasting powder,” the wolfdog said, crouching down beside where Sawyer was sitting, reaching over him to guide his hands.  They were a decent distance away, so their voices were muffled from here, but I could make out the gist of most of it.
	Sawyer seemed frustrated.  “Isn’t the whole damn point fer me to get my re-load time down, here?”
	“Yes, but efficiently,” Finn instructed, his voice firm but not unkind.  “A shot does you no good if it’s packed wrong.  All it’s going to take is one mis-fire for you to learn that lesson the hard way.”
	“Fine, aright,” the young mountain lion muttered.
	The young man tinkered in silence for a further few moments, Finn standing over him, watching his work.  I smiled fondly, watching them from across the clearing.  I was sitting with Uki and Kissima out on what had once been the archery field.  The two of them were working on fixing a jaw trap that had fallen into disrepair, and I was readying us all some fish I’d caught from the lake for lunch.  
	“I’ll tell you what,” Finn said with a sigh, once more hunkering down beside the young mountain lion.  “If you can get your load time under forty-five seconds today, I’ll show you how to quick-draw tomorrow.”
	“Really?”  Sawyer’s head shot up.
	“Do you even have a pistol?”  Finn asked, looking him over.
	“Naw, but I will.  Some day.”
	The wolfdog gave an exasperated sigh.  “You can use mine to practice.  Alright?”
	“Hell yeah.”
	“When’s the last time you cleaned your firearm?”
	“Uhhhh. . . .”
	“That’s about what I expected.  I’ll get my kit.”
	“If you would like, Tulimak,” Uki said from beside me, her voice breaking me out of my reverie watching the two across the clearing, “I could teach you a few things today as well.  Takoda has told me you were never formally trained as a warrior.”
	“I’m. . . not,” I said, bashfully.  “A warrior, I mean.  At all.”
	“Nonsense,” she shook her head.  “You’re a predator.  You have hunted, yes?”
	“Yes,” I shrugged.
	“And fished, obviously.”
	“Obviously.”  I agreed.  “But that’s not the same thing as war.”
	“That is true,” she nodded.  “Would you like to learn how to make war, Tulimak?”
	The question was so straightforward, so simple.  But it still took me aback.  At any other point in my life, the answer would have been obvious.  But now. . . .
	“I don’t. . . want to,” I admitted.  “But I’ve learned the hard way over the last month that what I want matters less than what needs to be done.”
	“War is like that,” she nodded sagely.  “After our meal, then.”  
	I swallowed.  “Alright.  Thank you, Uki.”
	My father didn’t show for the midday meal.  He hadn’t come to breakfast, either.  I’d seen him once or twice briefly, near the caves.  Smoking, walking the trails along the upper part of the bluff.  I know he’d seen me, too, but he was sending a clear signal that he wasn’t ready to talk, yet.  So I’d let him be.
	Odina and Sawyer had been our constant companions throughout the day, though.  Odina in particular seemed to be getting on very well with Kissima, which made sense.  Their personalities seemed very similar to me.  Serious-minded, reserved.  They only spoke to one another when strictly necessary and when they did, it was over their plans to reinforce the Basin’s safety.  I think if we weren’t all in danger they would have made good companions too, though.  It was honestly nice to see the gruff lioness warm to someone.  It made her seem slightly less frightening.	
	Slightly.
	Finnegan was still instructing Sawyer on how to clean his rifle through the midday meal.  Apparently, although I knew next to nothing about firearms so most of it was lost on me, the young lion hadn’t been terribly diligent on the upkeep of his weapon.  
	“It’s as much the tool of your trade as a smith’s hammer and forge,” Finn explained, between bites of grilled fish.  “Or a fisherman’s nets,” he gestured to me.  “Don’t you want to be serious about your trade?”
	Sawyer seemed subdued by that question and a moment later, we found out why.
	“Sawyer is not going to be a bounty hunter for much longer,” Odina explained.  “We’re getting out of the trade.  It was never meant to be permanent.”
	All of us looked up at that.
	“He is going to open a tannery,” she continued.  “Before I was married, I tanned hides.  We are going to make a family business of it, when all of this is said and done and we have the coin to purchase a building in Broen.”
	“Oh,” I said, realization dawning.  “That’s. . . that’s what you’re planning to use. . .” I looked to Finnegan, “. . . his. . . bounty for?”
	“We have some coin saved from over the years,” she nodded, “but yes.  This will be the last job we’ll ever need to take.  Once we’ve put the coin into it, my son will have a safe, legal business.”
	“That’s the plan,” Sawyer said in a dull tone, his chin resting in his palm.
	“But,” I said, “you’re tribes people.  I thought. . . my father said we couldn’t own land, if we didn’t fight in their war.”
	“Sawyer has citizenship,” she said, matter-of-factly.  
	“We paid off this piece o’ shit mayor in Auldrick,” Sawyer chuckled, “to draw up the papers.  Years’n years ago.”
	“It cost us everything we had at the time,” Odina admitted, putting a hand on her son’s shoulder.  “But it will be worth it.  For he and Nuka’s future.”
	“Clever,” Finnegan said, tossing his fish spine in the fire.  “You’re sure the papers are legitimate?  Or decent enough forgeries to pass the muster?”
	She narrowed her eyes at him.  “I’m no fool.  The papers are legitimate.  It was the man himself who was corrupt.  Filthy. . . contemptible. . . .” she got a distant look at that, which bothered me for some reason.  “But he is behind us.  Ahead is brighter.”
	“Well, hell,” Finn sighed, wiping his paws on his already destroyed coat.  “I’m glad I’ll be helping your little girl out, then.  Nice to know I’ll be doing some good with all of this.  Make sure you count every damn crown.  It’s the most value I’ve ever had in my life, I’d at least like to know I fetched the best possible price.”
	“I won’t be swindled, don’t you worry,” she promised.
	The whole exchange, while friendly, sat heavy in my stomach.  This situation was unreal.  I liked everyone here, even Odina, when I thought hard enough about it.  I wanted them all to live happy lives.  I wanted Sawyer and Nuka to have a future.  
	I hated this.  I just. . . hated it.
	“Tulimak, come,” Uki put a paw on my shoulder, shaking it.  She was smiling down brightly at me.  “And bring your axe.  The one you chipped ice with earlier today.”
	The lake had begun to freeze over near the edges, which had ended up being useful for Finn’s sake.  He’d woken with a bad bruise, which we’d iced for a short while this morning.  He wasn’t gripping his stomach nearly as much anymore, so it must have had an effect.
	“Are you sure you want me to bring this one?”  I asked, removing the weapon from my belt.  “It’s really just a woodcutter’s axe I brought from home.  I saw you had racks of stone hand axes inside the main cave.”
	“Yours is metal,” she said, “and you’re accustomed to using it, I assume.  Durability and familiarity can be more important than size.  That weapon may be meant for otters, but you are used to tools meant for otters.  You might find the axes inside unwieldy.”
	For the first time, I noticed she had something in the crook of her arm on the left side of her body.  She must have brought it from the camp site, but I hadn’t gotten a good look at it yet.  When we reached the center of the field, she turned towards me and revealed what she was holding.
	“Is that-“ I began.
	“Oh, this,” she held up the grey and brown bird.  It had dull, greenish legs and a small red comb.  I didn’t know much about chickens, but it seemed. . . normal to me, otherwise.  “This is Blueberry,” she said, stroking its back.  She wasn’t holding it terribly tightly, so it must have tolerated being pet better than most chickens I’d ever known.  “We call her that because they are her favorite food.  She’s very good at finding them in the woods,” she explained.
	She set the bird down.  It stood in place for a few moments, then began to peck at the ground looking for insects, milling about aimlessly, but not going far.
	“She is dinner,” she said, watching the small animal move about.  “Catch and slaughter her for us, Tulimak.”
	“What will that prove?!”  I blurted out.  
	“Surely you’ve slaughtered animals before,” she asked me patiently.
	“Well, yes,” I said, exasperated.  “But you gave her a name.  You told me a story about her.  Why did you do all of that?  I don’t want to kill Blueberry.”
	I was earnestly upset, and she was beginning to chuckle.  It made me feel somewhat humiliated.  I’d slaughtered and butchered animals before, of course.  I wasn’t put off by that and I didn’t particularly like being mocked because I didn’t want to kill something that was closer to a. . . pet.  Why had she insisted on making this harder?
	I went to grab for the bird and she put her paw on my arm, stopping me.  “Tulimak, it is alright,” she insisted, giving a toothy grin.  “I was just trying to illustrate a point.  It is harder to kill something. . . even an animal. . . when you know it has a name and a story.”
	“Oh,” I said, blanching.  “I. . . I see.”
	“This is the true difficulty of war,” she explained.  “It is not just a matter of strength, tenacity or wits.  You have those in abundance, I’m certain.  You are Ujarak’s son.”  She pointed to the axe on my belt.  “And you already know how to use that tool.  Your father told me you can split most any log in one swing.”
	“Well, otter-sized logs anyway,” I muttered.
	“If you can split a log, you can cleave flesh,” she said.  “It is not a question of physical ability.  It is whether or not you hesitate, whether you can bring that weapon down on a living being- a person.  Someone with a name, a family, a story.  Even those who wish you harm.  Trust me.”  She looked me in the eyes.  “Even if they have taken something from you.  Killing requires either fury, or cold indifference.  We are all capable of it.”
	I couldn’t help but think of Finnegan and his eight murders.  Eight lives.  Eight different stories, ended.  I had never taken a life, not even accidentally, not even someone who’d threatened mine.  Many of the people he’d killed, Finnegan hadn’t even known.  He’d killed them for money, for sport, for petty grudges and entertainment for the men with power in his land.  But he’d been the instrument, ultimately.  I saw how it weighed on him.  How he’d get quiet sometimes, or laugh at his own misfortune.  Did he hate himself for what he’d done?  
	I’d hesitated to kill a chicken, because I found out she had a name and liked to eat blueberries.  
	“I don’t think I can do this,” I said, my shoulders falling.  “Uki, I. . . I don’t think I have it in me.”
	“Everyone can kill,” she said softly, her paw moving down to grip my hand.  “It is only a matter of which darker impulses you give in to.  If you are the sort of person who will kill out of anger, you must be pushed to that point.  If you will kill out of desperation, the same.  For some, it is easier than others.  Hate.  Hate is easy.  But I do not think you are hateful, Tulimak.”
	“Finnegan’s certainly killed out of desperation,” I said quietly.  “It’s hard for me to understand, even now.  Even though I. . . care about him, even though I’ve gotten to know him so well and I want to understand.”
	She nodded.  “It is also easier to kill with a firearm, Tulimak. That is worth understanding.  Killing from a distance feels very different, in the moment.  Afterwards, though. . .” she clucked her tongue, “. . . much the same.  But it can be easier to pull a trigger than cleave a man’s skull.”
	“ ‘Can be’?”  I glanced at her.
	She held up a paw, showing how it wavered just slightly.  “Nerves.”
	“He doesn’t seem to have a problem with that,” I said darkly.
	“Conviction,” she hummed.  “Whatever it is that steadies his hand, he believes in it.”
	“I think it’s just. . . survival,” I said.  “He grew up in a very difficult place, from all he’s told me.  He’s endured a lot of hardship.”
	“He will likely always exceed you as a warrior, then,” she said.  “But there’s no shame in that, Tulimak.  There is no shame in having lived a good life with loving family.”  She smiled.  “It’s all we ever wanted for you.  I hope you go on, after all of this, to raise another loving family.  And that your children never know hardship, either.”
	I bit the inside of my mouth, guiltily.  “I. . . I don’t know if I’m ever going to find a wife, Uki,” I admitted.
	She gave me a long look, her big brown eyes appraising me.  Then she took both of my paws in hers and turned me to face her.  “Then raise a family with your wolf, Tulimak.”
	“I-I. . . .” my heart stopped.  “What?”
	She tilted her head.  “It is. . . Finn.  Finneg?  I am sorry, their names are strange.”
	“Finnegan,” I said, searching for words for a moment.  “How. . . .”
	She blinked up at me.  “I see.  This must be what you and your otterfa were feuding over, last night.  And still, this morning, it seems.  You were not being honest with him.”
	“Look what happened when I was,” I gestured at the caves, where he was likely still stalking about, smoking like a chimney.  “Why doesn’t it bother you like it bothers him?!  And how did you know?”
	“You smell of each other’s clothes,” she explained.  “Like mates.  Kissima and I both noted it.  And he stayed in your cave last night.  We weren’t entirely certain until then,” the corners of her muzzle crinkled in a smile.  “But there are plenty of caves.  There could be only one reason.”
	“Fair,” I murmured.  We’d known that was a risk.
	“My grandfather,” she continued, “had two mates.  A wife, and a twin-tailed lover from a neighboring wolf tribe.”
	“ ‘Twin-tailed’?”  I repeated.
	“Not literally,” she laughed.  “It is what we called those whose spirits were not what they first appeared.  This wolf had been born a man, but was raised amongst the women once it became clear it was where she belonged.”
	“I. . . .” I tried to digest that.  “I don’t think I’m ‘twin-tailed’.  Or that Finnegan is, either.”
	“Our spirits know the kinship that is right for them,” she said.  “It is not for the tribe to decide who must love whom.  A shaman whose eyes are truly open would tell you this.  When two spirits are drawn together, the body is irrelevant.  Do you love this wolf, Tulimak?”
	“I. . . I don’t know,” I admitted.  “I’ve never been in love.  My otterfa always told me I would know.  I feel like I do, but. . . but there are so many reasons we can’t be together.  My father disapproves.  Clearly.  Finnegan’s people, by all rights, would disapprove.  Vehemently, if what he’s told me is true, and I don’t doubt it is.  And,” I looked down at where her hands were still holding mine, “I do want a family, Uki.  It’s something I’ve always wanted.  I’d need a wife, to have cubs.”
	“Tulimak, your father, the one who raised you, is an otter,” she said, pointedly.  “Why would you ever think that you’d need to marry a woman to have a family?”  Her smile returned.  “You are living proof that is not true.”

	
	I rejoined Finnegan and Sawyer down by the lake some time later.  Finn had removed his hip holster and lent it to Sawyer for a time, and despite the fact that they were playing with a pistol, there was something profoundly touching about watching him humor the young mountain lion’s request.
	I couldn’t hear them from where I sat down at the edge of the tree line to watch, but I watched for a time as Finn patiently went over the subtle motions and movements he used to quick-draw the weapon.  There was more that went into it than I’d assumed.
	Eventually, he left the lion to his own devices and called something like ‘I’ll be watching from up here’ over to him, before heading over towards me.  He sat down beside me on a fallen log, washed up ashore long ago and worn smooth by the water.  
	The conversation with Uki was fresh in my mind, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to talk to him about it yet, given all the very heavy things it had me thinking about.  He seemed to know I was troubled though, likely assuming it was still over my father, (which to be fair, was also true).
	“You doing alright?”  He asked, reaching down to thread his fingers through mine.  
	“I. . . mmmhhh. . . .”  I hung my head slowly, not sure how to answer him.
	He moved a bit closer to me and brought my hand up to his muzzle, kissing my knuckles gently.  It was a small, brief gesture, but it made me feel worlds better.
	Until I saw my father nearby.
	Finn saw him too, his ears immediately tipping back, posture stiffening.  The older otter was walking along the lakeside, coming back towards camp.  He must have been out for a walk.
	He noticed us too before long and stopped where he was.  It looked like he was considering turning around.  He couldn’t possibly head back towards camp without passing right by us.
	Finn growled slightly in the back of his throat.  “Is he- he’s turning around.”
	I sighed.  “He’s been avoiding me all day.”
	“No, enough of this,” the wolfdog grated out, standing.
	“Finn-“
	“Talk to your son, you fucking coward!”  He shouted before I could stop him.  My father stopped dead, turning to look back at us.
	I couldn’t blame Finn for snapping at the man.  He wasn’t usually one for unnecessary confrontation, in fact he’d had to calm me down many times in the past.  But he was right, avoiding this was not doing either of us any good.  I didn’t want my father and I to be strangers.
	I pushed myself up off the log and crossed the distance between us in measured steps.  If we were going to fight again, I didn’t want to do it within earshot of Sawyer.  I heard Finn following behind me and wondered briefly if this was something I ought to do, just my father and I.
	But. . . no.  Finn was involved, after all.  And moreover, I wanted him with me.
	We stopped a few paces apart.  My father looked tired, drawn, and hunched in on himself.  More than anything though, he looked guilty, which was not something I was used to seeing on the man I’d looked up to my entire life.  He smelled like smoke, the scent of his pipe clinging to his fur enough that he must have been smoking again recently.  My father had smoked as long as I’d known him, but not usually so much in one day.  Only during bad times, like when my mother had been sick.
	“Just so you know,” Finnegan spoke up, “first one was free, but if you try to hit me again, I’ll retaliate this time.”
	“I. . . am sorry, about that,” my father said, his voice ragged.  “I was. . . .” he started to say something, then let it die on his tongue.  “It doesn’t matter.  That was wrong of me.”
	“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, otterfa,” I said, exchanging the apology.  “I was afraid.”
	“Also, I warned him not to,” Finnegan spoke up.  “Where I come from-“
	“I am aware,” my father said sharply.  “I am more worldly than my son.  I have spent the better part of my life trying to find a place for my people within your encroaching society.  We haven’t a choice, any longer.  Your ways are becoming ours by force, you are re-crafting this land in your image.”  
	“I understand that you’re worried for me, otterfa,” I began to say.
	“Worried?”  He actually scoffed at that.  “ ‘Worry’ is not the term I would use, even in their tongue.  ‘Terrified’ would be more accurate.  Disappointed, as well.  You may not be an otter, son, but in all other ways you embody the spirit of the Tawnahowac.  You could live a proud, decent, happy life.  You are giving all of that up.”  He looked to Finnegan, narrowing his eyes.  “For what?”
	“Why do you assume I’m the end-all, be-all for your son’s future?”  Finnegan demanded.  “Just because we’re together right now-“
	“Are you admitting you’re just toying with him, then?”  My father challenged, angrily.  He stomped a foot forward into the frozen mud, but didn’t do anything more than that, for now.
	Finn seemed to realize his mistake the moment it left his mouth.  “No, I-“
	“It wouldn’t matter to me if you were a woman if you were still a criminal with a bounty on your head,” my father exclaimed.  “You are going to break my son’s heart, and you know it, and yet, you persist with this rather than stepping back and doing the right thing and letting him get on with his life!  How long has it been that you’ve strung him along like this?!”
	“I-I haven’t,” Finnegan seemed to gather himself.  “He wants to be with me.”
	“He has no experience!”  The otter said between grit teeth.  “Of course he wants to be with you!  My son may not be a child any more, but he has an open, unrestrained heart.  You are letting him give it to you, knowing what could happen, knowing what will ultimately happen when you reach Arbordale.  And that’s if he doesn’t die for you first!”
	Finnegan looked to me, as if looking for help.  But I couldn’t refute all the things my father was saying, because so many of them were worries I had in fact had for some time, now.
	There were things I wanted to say, though.
	“Otterfa,” I spoke, finally.  “I hear you.  I understand your words.  But are these really the reasons you don’t want us to be together?  Because last night, you said many other things that. . . hurt.  They hurt me.” 
	The older otter let his hands fall at his side, at that.  He looked torn.  “I don’t. . . want this for you,” he said.  “For so many reasons.”
	“Uki says there are tribal men who’ve been mates with other men in the past,” I said.  The statement seemed to surprise Finnegan, and my father.  But less so my father.
	“That,” my father said, putting his hands out, “is an old, dead tradition.  And it is not one our tribe has ever practiced in recent memory.  I don’t personally believe it to be sanctioned by the spirits.  It is not good for tribes to encourage marriages that cannot produce children.”
	“Hold on,” Finnegan huffed.  “Your people have married men together, in the past?”
	“Not our tribe,” my father insisted, stubbornly.
	“But others,” I pressed.  “Uki thought nothing of it.”
	“If you want to look to why that practice was abolished entirely, look no further than his people,” my father gestured at Finn.  “Our traditions are dying at their hands as surely as our people are, whenever they deem them ‘barbaric’ or ‘sinful’ there’s a purge.”
	“A raid,” Finnegan said quietly.
	“I don’t personally think what you’re engaging in is right, or natural,” my father said, his uneasiness clear in his body language.  “But it is not me you need worry over.  And that’s what terrifies me.  I can protect my children from most of the world’s dangers, Tulimak, but this. . . .”  He shook his head, pleading.  “I thought you wanted a family.  I had such high hopes for you.”
	“There is no reason I can’t still have a family, otterfa,” I said, crossing the space between us, finally.  I reached down to take his hand in mine.  “Look at us.”
	The old otter stared up at me, his expression softening marginally.  Then he looked back down at our hands. . . his fingers webbed and brown, half the size of mine.
	Finnegan moved up beside us.  Before I could look to him, he spoke, his voice low.  “Takoda, you were followed.  No- don’t look up, Tuli.  Don’t.  Neither of you.”
	The fur down my spine stood on end and I chanced a briefly glimpse over my father’s shoulder towards the woods, but saw nothing.  My father similarly fought the urge to stare behind us, but the sudden concern was evident in his features.
	“Spruce tree, about fifty yards back along the bank,” Finn continued, softly.  “He’s up high.  Probably trying to get the lay of the land.”
	“What should we do?”  My father asked.
	“Walk with me,” Finn murmured.  “I don’t have my weapon on me and it’d be a hell of a shot from here either way, but Sawyer has a rifle.”
	We all turned and made our way down the bank towards where the mountain lion was practicing.
	“ ‘Ey all,” he said chipperly, spinning the pistol in a needlessly showy fashion before depositing it cleanly back in his hip holster.  He was actually getting pretty good at that.  “Family troubles?  Got those.  My Ma’s been-“
	“Sawyer, I need your rifle.” Finn said calmly.
	“S’right up there near mah bag,” he pointed, Finn immediately grabbing his hand and easing it down.  “What?”
	“Scout,” Finn explained briefly.  “Don’t turn,” he said before Sawyer could.  “And stay here with Takoda, like you’re talking.  I don’t want him to think we’re heading back into the caves, I want him right where he is.  Tuli, come with me.  It’ll look suspicious if I go off alone and I need a blind.”
	We did as he said.  My father stayed behind with Sawyer on the bank, the two of them trying to appear as though they were talking casually.  I was a bit nervous leaving my father and the young lion so exposed, but I had to assume Finn knew what he was doing.
	“They’re out in the open,” I said to him as we casually walked towards Sawyer’s things.
	“One scout isn’t here to start a fight,” Finn said.  “He’s here to see how many of us there are and what the layout is.  Sit on that stump.”
	I did as instructed, slowly settling down on the large, hewn stump he’d indicated.  The area here was overgrown with some kind of evergreen, sharp-leafed shrub which kept the snow from collecting too much on the ground, likely why Sawyer had set his rifle and powder down here.  Finn moved behind me and the scraggly shrubs, dropping to his knees and checking the weapon over for a few moments.
	“Can you fire that as well as you can a pistol?”  I asked without turning around.
	“Rifles are far more accurate,” he said, as he slowly brought the weapon up between the foliage.  “He’s looking here, I think.  He knows something’s going on.  Go on. . .lean forward. . . .”
	“I can barely see him,” I admitted, although now I definitely could see someone.  They were very well-camouflaged, midway up the tree in question, but they must have moved to get a better vantage point, because they were more obvious now than they had been before.
	“Tulimak, cover your ears when I say,” Finnegan whispered.
	“Please don’t miss,” I begged, worried for my father.
	I heard something click, followed by his voice.  “I don’t miss.  Now cover your ears.”
	I did so.  A second later, the shot rang out from less than a foot away from me, like thunder when a storm was right overhead.  I grit my teeth and smelled powder, the smoke billowing up around us.  
	Something fell out of the tree.
	Sawyer and my father had both gone for cover, but Finnegan was getting up, grabbing at my arm to do so as well.  “Come on,” he grated out.  “You’ve got your axe, right?”
	I nodded and we bolted back down towards the shoreline, feet pounding into snow-slickened earth.  Finnegan stopped briefly by Sawyer, barking at him, “Pistol, now!”
	Sawyer pulled it free, struggling with it in a moment of panic before he got it into Finn’s outstretched hand.  And then we were running again, towards the tree.  Towards the enemy.  
	This was mad.
	We made it there in time to see a man, lean and smaller than Finnegan, some kind of canine with white and brown fur and flopped over-ears.  He was wearing leathers, but had a forest-green cloak that by now was tangled and pillowed around him where he was splayed.  He'd clearly fallen, then drug himself down the shore across the icy snow towards the lake, a blotchy trail of crimson in his wake.  The blood seemed to be coming from his thigh, where he had a hand clamped over a bad-looking wound.
	“Stop moving,” Finn warned, holding his pistol out as he approached.  I followed up behind him, my axe held in a now sweating palm.  
	In response, the man backpedaled further, going for a weapon on his own belt.
	“I said stop,” Finnegan growled out.  “If not for my sake then for your own.  You can survive that wound, if you staunch the flow of blood.  Moving’s making it worse.”
	“If y’know what’s good for you Ambrose, you’ll walk outta this savage camp with me’n turn yourself in,” the Otherwolf snarled out, pulling his pistol finally.
	“Alright first,” Finnegan said snidely, “you’re not ‘walking’ anywhere with that.  Secondly, you can fuck right off.”
	“This doesn’t have to happen,” I spoke up.  “You and your men don’t need to bring him in.  He’s already in our custody.  We’re bringing him to Arbordale.”
	The canine was still backpedaling, half-crawling at this point.  “We ain’t leavin’ until he’s under arrest.  That’s the job,” he said, narrowing his eyes.  “Proper arrest.  Not’n the hands o’some savages.”
	I heard more footsteps crashing through the woods, coming our way.  Likely the women.  “You’re outnumbered,” I pointed out.  “Wounded-“
	“I seen how many you got in camp,” he replied.  “And we talked to folks at the nearest trade post.  Said all that e’er comes outta here are two women.  You ain’t got shit.”
	“You’re on the ice,” I tried to warn him.  He’d been walking, or rather crawling out onto it this whole time, trying to get as far from us as possible.  It was working, because I sure as hell wasn’t following him and Finn seemed to know not to, either.
	“This doesn’t have to go down this way,” Finn said, not dropping his gun arm.
	“Ohhh, bit late fer that,” the man said around a wince.  “Boss got caught up in one o’them traps, got it out for you now, boy.  You’re lucky you’re worth more alive.”
	“Come back to shore,” I pleaded.  “The lake gets deep very f-“
	He made the mistake at that point of trying to push himself to a standing position.  With a popping, otherworldly noise that anyone raised in these parts knew to fear, the thin sheen beneath him gave way and the man disappeared in a few seconds flat, with little more than one last, cut-off cry and a mad scramble at the jagged edge of a large sheet that flipped over top of him as he went down.
	Finnegan and I both ran to the edge of the icy bank, staring out at the cracked, black-blue hole he’d left behind and the trail of blood leading to it.  We waited.  And waited.
	In time, our companions arrived.  No one said a word.  It was not hard to deduce what had happened.
	Finnegan let out a long, frustrated breath, letting his gun arm fall.  “Well that’s nine,” he rumbled.