'Did I mind? Ha, if only he knew,' I snorted quietly, the memory of Castiana flashing in my mind - me wandering about with just fur and feathers to hide my skin. Back then, I would have taken any scrap of cloth, so as long as his drawers wouldn’t be caked in filth or reeking I would be happy to wear them.

  "No, I don't mind..."

  "Great, then I got you covered," Deckard said, not bothering to hide the pun - or the tension in his voice. "But now, could you talk to her? I don't think that scalehoofs are doing a very good job of explaining things."

  'Scalehoofs? Oh, shit.' It wasn't hard to imagine them doing just a mess of things. To the Scalehoofs, I was the Lady, and the mossbears the beasts they feared. So still blind under the moss, I wrestled my scattered thoughts into order, inhaling slowly before speaking. "G_Great mother mossbear, I-I don’t know what has brought you anger, b-but I will do all in my power to lift your confusion once..." I faltered, not really knowing how to go about this without making it sound like a condition. "...once you’ve completed healing me - which I deeply, truly appreciate."

  Of course, the words weren’t what mattered to the beasts; it was the intent. I made sure mine was as genuine as I could manage.

  "D-Deckard?"

  "Good job, girl. I'd even say she looks a little taken aback."

  I would love to say relief washed over me, but that would be a lie. Jitters twisted my guts instead. Funny how I had dreaded being buried alive, yet now I didn’t want to leave the strange, cozy clutch of moss. It didn’t last, though. The moss slithered back, like it had a will of its own, leaving me bare to the chill of the night - and the prying eyes of others. Sure, I could have cursed Deckard for only tossing me clothes after the mother mossbear released me from the hold of what I thought to be ropes, but still...

  ?SPEAK!? Her growl struck like a thunderclap, rattling my bones and nearly sending me sprawling as I fumbled with Deckard’s too-tight drawers - in other words, boxers. His frantic push to have me face her now made sense, though. Her patience hung by a thread, and it was fraying fast.

  With just the drawers on, I whined and dropped to my knees, my head sinking low as my tail curled tight under me. The thought of covering myself further had fled before I even knew it.

  "Girl, what in the depths are you doing?"

  A fair question. I didn’t look up, didn’t move - didn’t dare. "I-I-Instincts!"

  "F-F-Forgive me, g-great mother. What i-is it you wish to know?"

  ?WHAT ARE YOU??

  'M-Me?' My heart stopped cold. Her confusion, her fury - both pointed at me, or rather, at what that deranged asshole had twisted me into: some accursed hybrid, neither human nor beast.

  "I-I do not k-know, great mother."

  ?Half-truths! Lies! Speak plainly - what are you?!?

  A flood of answers surged through my mind, one worse than the other.

  “A h-human, touched by the… the blood of beasts.”

  The silence that followed was worse than any roar. I could only pray the intent behind my words would be a good enough explanation and that she would find it in herself to understand.

  ?Blood of Esu.?

  'Huh?' My thoughts scattered for a moment, slipping into the same thick fog that bitch earlier had shoved me into. Processing what I had just heard felt like trying to wade through tar. The mossbears in the clearing didn’t seem to take it any better. Growls rumbled low and constant, the place turned into a snarling standoff the moment the Lord of the Forest’s spawn was mentioned - me, apparently.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  ?Human? Blood of Esu??

  ?Unacceptable!?

  ?Too small, too weak.?

  ?Smells like him, though.?

  'Did I?' Thinking on it, the first mossbear I met had said something similar. Resisting the urge to sniff myself, however, I tore through my thoughts, desperate for something - anything - to explain this. But when I finally worked up the nerve to lift my head, my gaze landed on their antlers - and just like that, the memory hit me. Was it the mind-witch messing with my head? The mossbears’ healing? I couldn’t tell what brought back that memory. But it was there all along, buried under the horrors - the core shoved into my belly, the beast I became, the cellmates I butchered, the Fae I faced. And then there was him: Dungreen, his voice dripping horrors, talking about mossbear antlers. My antlers. That bastard used parts of them to make me.

  No wonder they were disgusted. They had every right.

  "Girl. Talk to me." The alarm in Deckard’s inner voice was understandable. "What just happened?"

  I hesitated, unsure how much to say - after all, I barely knew the man. Yet Captain Rayden had placed her trust in him, and the woman had kept her word in the end. She had kept me safe from mind mages, so there was that. Not sure I would agree to be bait if I knew it would involve beasts like the one I was kneeling in front of, though.

  "A-Apparently," I stammered, trying to find the words, though none seemed right. "They... don’t like that I’m part mossbear."

  His silence gnawed at my heart, unsettling, like the low growls of the mother mossbears sending tremors through the bones. 'He wasn't sure how to feel about it, either.'

  ?She human.?

  ?Not one of us.?

  ?Smells like a cub.?

  ?Weak.?

  ?She should return to the forest.?

  ?Yes. Mercy for the cub.?

  ?She not a cub!?

  Better not to understand them. That way, I would be spared knowing they were considering killing me, thinking it would put me out of my misery. There was no malice in their growls. As with their three dead young, they saw a honor in returning to the forest - even in my case. In other words, I should be glad to become fertilizer for the trees. In truth, it seemed a better fate than becoming a lab rat cursed with immortality.

  Even so, it was still terrifying.

  Despite everything this damn world had put me through, I didn't want to die. In fact, deep down, I found myself hurt by their dismissal of me as one of them, longing for them to acknowledge me. The same was true of Deckard. If even the humans turned their backs on me, I would be lost with nowhere to belong.

  "What the fuck is going on, Deckard?!" Shadow Thief's voice was low, edged with anger, fear, and frustration. "Look, let's put our grudges aside and..."

  "Draven, right?" Deckard cut him off. "Listen, unless you've got tricks up your sleeve like Ward, which I don't think you have, or can talk to beasts like the girl, which I don't imagine you can, I advise you to shut up and keep still."

  "Y-You're not disgusted with… what I am?" I dared to ask, barely holding my hope in check.

  “Why would I be? I knew what you were before I ever saw you,” His words rang in my skull with a relief that choked a whimper from my throat. “But you being part mossbear - well, that could be a double-edged sword. Mossbears are pack beasts. The way I see it, they'll either accept you, banish you from the Esulmor, or..."

  "Or I become part of the forest," I finished for him, a lump rising in my throat.

  Elira, standing a few paces behind me, whispered, unaware of my conversation with Deckard, “What about the two of us? Shouldn’t we be on our knees, like - you know - Korra?”

  “Not a terrible idea,” Vara said. “My legs are growing weak with all this growling.”

  Deckard’s answer surprised more than just me. “Not the best guy to ask. Back in the day, we never bent a knee. Better ask the girl."

  A chill crawled down my spine as the gazes of everyone present pressed into my back. 'What in the world was he thinking?’ I knew even less about mossbears than he did, and all I had acted upon were instincts. ‘OH!’

  "I-I b-believe the strong should s-stand their ground," I stammered, head still low, my eyes never leaving the ground, patiently awaiting the decision of the mother mossbears. "And the weak should show respect."

  "Respect? To them?" Vara asked, her eyes going up to meet those of the beasts. "All right, no problem.”

  "L-Like this?" the workhand asked, bending his knees faster than the guardswoman and, for whatever reason, doing so in her shadow.

  "This is absurd. They're nothing more than stupid beasts," Shadow Thief muttered, paying no mind to Deckard’s previous warning. "We should..."

  "They can understand you. Y-You know that, r-right?" I said, daring to raise my voice, quite enjoying the bastard's horrified silence.

  “She’s full of shit, Draven. She’s playing with us like Deckard," Swordstress snapped, her voice drowned by the deep growl of the mother mossbear before us.

  ?Cub or not, Esu will know.?