[Wild Roses] Trickwood Unification
Title: barter
'Verse/characters: Trickwood Unification; Belladonna
Prompt: 51F "done"
Word Count: 1509
Notes: references four weeks (which was written in 2006, ye gods), is before Hernén's first winter solstice in the company of wolves.
I'm rusty; please forgive the slightly stilted.
---------
The crazy mageblood hadn't been joking. There were humans willing to trade with the pack, who weren't afraid of wolves.
Ordinarily that would have been enough to command that they risked only the grown, only one at a time. Even their neighbours in Tall Pines--who were used to seeing fur in the shadows--still reached for a weapon when they found eyes watching them, and mutual politeness kept the pack out of knife-and-fang range.
They hadn't lost a cub to humans in over a decade, but any pack assessed the risks like it might be tomorrow.
So it was Belladonna herself, with Sacha's permission and Marisa trailing her heels, who went to investigate.
They'd paused on the way to eat; Marisa had quick feet and quicker jaws, which matched well against rabbits. She'd caught four to Belladonna's two, and they'd each eaten one of their own catches before tying the hind feet of the remainder together to offer in trade. Marisa was carrying them across the back of her neck, two dangling on each side, and smelled annoyed-but-resigned about it. She couldn't keep up on two feet to Belladonna's four, and they were neither of them willing to walk at a human's pace.
Their noses told them there was sunlight soon, despite the foggy trees they were threading through, so it wasn't a surprise when they emerged from a copse of maples--afforded the space by a pine going down in a storm, a long time ago--to the edge of a cleared field, knee-high plants glimmering golden-noted under the abruptly morning sun. She wouldn't even have blinked at the change, if there weren't a chain of head-high stones marking the transition point. So very human, that. Maybe even the crazy mageblood's doing, if the tickle in the back of her nose told truth. The most wolves did was blazes in tree-bark, and even then scent markings, or trusting to changing breezes to give warning were far more common.
Speaking of--Belladonna lifted her head thoughtfully, trying to get a sense of what they were walking into. Green growing things, water farther away, smoke--but thinner than she was accustomed to, like they'd dried the wood well before burning it--and just the faintest trace of baking bread.
She blamed the crazy mageblood for that scent making her start to salivate, and rolled herself up onto two feet so she couldn't smell it anymore. Marisa followed suit, unhooking the rabbits' thong from around the back of her neck and slinging them across her shoulder instead as she did.
Belladonna took a quiet breath, smelled only sun-warmed plants and recently-dug earth through her dulled nose, and stepped out between two of the rows of plantings.
It took them some time to get through the first of the fields, more to clear the last and discover these humans had laid cedar boughs down thickly to cover their walking-paths. Crunching their way--the edges were too dusty to make either of them willing to ignore the suggestion, but the new boughs were laid over old dried ones that crackled and crunched beneath their feet, no matter how carefully they tried to walk--down toward the settlement, they found houses just barely beyond the high-water marks of previous floods, boats pulled up near them, and a low island protecting a bend in the river from the main body.
Grudgingly impressed, Belladonna thought that explained the lack of fortifications. She'd been musing that the clear sight and approach lines were maybe too clear. If a manticore took an interest, there was nothing to stop something emerging from the woods roaring through the fields directly into the center of their village. But if the plan was instead to retreat onto the island--
"Who goes?" a male voice called from the shadow of the first house, loud enough to carry, and she paused. She could smell bread baking, even through her human senses, the still-thin smoke, but couldn't get a scent of the human who'd challenged them. She still took another breath, mouth a little open to try to taste him in the air, then, feeling Marisa tense to run at her side, called back "We were told you would consider trade!"
"Ah," he said, emerging into the light. He was tall, for a human, well-built and well fed, but mostly she was keeping an eye on the gun he was carrying. The muzzle was politely pointed at the ground, his hands relaxed upon the wooden stock, but that was a far cry from being cradled negligently in the crook of one of his arms.
"You'd be the wolves," the human continued, walking close enough that she was a little less worried about getting shot. Smacked very, very hard across the jaw with a gun-stock if she tried pouncing, and a long pounce at that, but that was more polite than she'd seen anyone but the crazy mageblood be in a very, very long time. "What pack are you?" he added, and Belladonna knew they both blinked at him, bemused.
"Tall Pines," Marisa said, taking a hop sideways when Belladonna glared. She didn't cringe, though, kept her head high even as the rabbits threatened to fall off her shoulder, and Belladonna made a mental note to bite her later.
"You're a ways from home," was all the human said, though. "We were expecting Silver Needles--we used to trade with them occasionally, in my grandfather's day."
Belladonna couldn't help the snort, but added a shrug onto it for the sake of her human audience. "The river shifted when I was a pup," she told him, "we haven't met with Silver Needles in a long, long time."
"Ley said there was something with teeth in the river," Marisa tacked on, shrugging out from underneath the rabbits, then held them out towards the human, right hand tucked into the thong and left beneath the furry bellies of the two on the bottom. Belladonna strongly considered biting her, rifle or no rifle, but decided against it. Reasonable as the human was so far, changing in front of him in order to bite her insubordinate companion might get her shot.
The human nearly laughed; they could both see it in the way his teeth flashed. "Per!" he half-yelled, and even with human ears Belladonna could hear scrabbling near the back of another house, "run and fetch Oanez for me, please!"
A boy--if he'd been wolf she'd have guessed him a little more than half-grown, but he wasn't so she wasn't sure--trotted briefly into sight, big eyes staring at the three of them and then disappeared down one of the cedar paths in a crashing of breaking twigs.
"Oanez?" Belladonna inquired dryly as Marisa let the rabbits down, hanging so their ears nearly brushed the cedar by her feet.
"It's her or Gaël, and he's out fishing right now," the human replied, shrugging, but smiling a little, too.
She couldn't decide if he was being polite, staying just barely out of pouncing range in a show of trust, or if he was putting himself between them and his village.
She was still debating when the boy came back, trailing at the heels of an old human who looked Belladonna square in the nose for a long moment as she crunched up the path. It was a claw's distance from the direct challenge-stare, but a very important claw's distance. Either of them could look away without losing, and the human did as she dropped her eyes to Marisa's waist, the rabbits she was dangling from her hand.
A flick of the human's powdery hand banished the boy, back into a different house than he'd emerged from, and she jerked her chin at the rabbits. "A loaf of bread."
Belladonna laughed, flashed her teeth deliberately as she did. "Three loaves, and a cloth to carry them back."
"Two and a basket," the woman replied, coming up level with the other human, standing to the stock-side of his gun. "The bread's new this hour."
"Two and an old cloth," Belladonna offered after a moment's thought. "The basket won't keep them warm."
"You'll bring the cloth back next time?" Oanez asked, sharp, and Belladonna couldn't help but respect that. So she nodded, not dropping her eyes, and Oanez gave her back a brief wintery smile.
"Come along then," she said, turning on her heel and beckoning them after her as she started to walk away.
"Oanez?" someone else asked--not the human with her, who'd shrugged into the strap of his gun in a way that left it hanging neatly as his side, much to Marisa's shock.
"They came to trade," Oanez didn't quite shout, more than loud enough to carry, "what sort of hosts would we be if we didn't let them see what they're getting in return?"
'This might just work,' Belladonna thought, startled.
There was a slightly shamed-sounding scuffling from the houses flanking them as Belladonna fell into step trailing Oanez, Marisa trailing her with the rabbits slung back up over her shoulder so they didn't trail in the cedar.
'Verse/characters: Trickwood Unification; Belladonna
Prompt: 51F "done"
Word Count: 1509
Notes: references four weeks (which was written in 2006, ye gods), is before Hernén's first winter solstice in the company of wolves.
I'm rusty; please forgive the slightly stilted.
---------
The crazy mageblood hadn't been joking. There were humans willing to trade with the pack, who weren't afraid of wolves.
Ordinarily that would have been enough to command that they risked only the grown, only one at a time. Even their neighbours in Tall Pines--who were used to seeing fur in the shadows--still reached for a weapon when they found eyes watching them, and mutual politeness kept the pack out of knife-and-fang range.
They hadn't lost a cub to humans in over a decade, but any pack assessed the risks like it might be tomorrow.
So it was Belladonna herself, with Sacha's permission and Marisa trailing her heels, who went to investigate.
They'd paused on the way to eat; Marisa had quick feet and quicker jaws, which matched well against rabbits. She'd caught four to Belladonna's two, and they'd each eaten one of their own catches before tying the hind feet of the remainder together to offer in trade. Marisa was carrying them across the back of her neck, two dangling on each side, and smelled annoyed-but-resigned about it. She couldn't keep up on two feet to Belladonna's four, and they were neither of them willing to walk at a human's pace.
Their noses told them there was sunlight soon, despite the foggy trees they were threading through, so it wasn't a surprise when they emerged from a copse of maples--afforded the space by a pine going down in a storm, a long time ago--to the edge of a cleared field, knee-high plants glimmering golden-noted under the abruptly morning sun. She wouldn't even have blinked at the change, if there weren't a chain of head-high stones marking the transition point. So very human, that. Maybe even the crazy mageblood's doing, if the tickle in the back of her nose told truth. The most wolves did was blazes in tree-bark, and even then scent markings, or trusting to changing breezes to give warning were far more common.
Speaking of--Belladonna lifted her head thoughtfully, trying to get a sense of what they were walking into. Green growing things, water farther away, smoke--but thinner than she was accustomed to, like they'd dried the wood well before burning it--and just the faintest trace of baking bread.
She blamed the crazy mageblood for that scent making her start to salivate, and rolled herself up onto two feet so she couldn't smell it anymore. Marisa followed suit, unhooking the rabbits' thong from around the back of her neck and slinging them across her shoulder instead as she did.
Belladonna took a quiet breath, smelled only sun-warmed plants and recently-dug earth through her dulled nose, and stepped out between two of the rows of plantings.
It took them some time to get through the first of the fields, more to clear the last and discover these humans had laid cedar boughs down thickly to cover their walking-paths. Crunching their way--the edges were too dusty to make either of them willing to ignore the suggestion, but the new boughs were laid over old dried ones that crackled and crunched beneath their feet, no matter how carefully they tried to walk--down toward the settlement, they found houses just barely beyond the high-water marks of previous floods, boats pulled up near them, and a low island protecting a bend in the river from the main body.
Grudgingly impressed, Belladonna thought that explained the lack of fortifications. She'd been musing that the clear sight and approach lines were maybe too clear. If a manticore took an interest, there was nothing to stop something emerging from the woods roaring through the fields directly into the center of their village. But if the plan was instead to retreat onto the island--
"Who goes?" a male voice called from the shadow of the first house, loud enough to carry, and she paused. She could smell bread baking, even through her human senses, the still-thin smoke, but couldn't get a scent of the human who'd challenged them. She still took another breath, mouth a little open to try to taste him in the air, then, feeling Marisa tense to run at her side, called back "We were told you would consider trade!"
"Ah," he said, emerging into the light. He was tall, for a human, well-built and well fed, but mostly she was keeping an eye on the gun he was carrying. The muzzle was politely pointed at the ground, his hands relaxed upon the wooden stock, but that was a far cry from being cradled negligently in the crook of one of his arms.
"You'd be the wolves," the human continued, walking close enough that she was a little less worried about getting shot. Smacked very, very hard across the jaw with a gun-stock if she tried pouncing, and a long pounce at that, but that was more polite than she'd seen anyone but the crazy mageblood be in a very, very long time. "What pack are you?" he added, and Belladonna knew they both blinked at him, bemused.
"Tall Pines," Marisa said, taking a hop sideways when Belladonna glared. She didn't cringe, though, kept her head high even as the rabbits threatened to fall off her shoulder, and Belladonna made a mental note to bite her later.
"You're a ways from home," was all the human said, though. "We were expecting Silver Needles--we used to trade with them occasionally, in my grandfather's day."
Belladonna couldn't help the snort, but added a shrug onto it for the sake of her human audience. "The river shifted when I was a pup," she told him, "we haven't met with Silver Needles in a long, long time."
"Ley said there was something with teeth in the river," Marisa tacked on, shrugging out from underneath the rabbits, then held them out towards the human, right hand tucked into the thong and left beneath the furry bellies of the two on the bottom. Belladonna strongly considered biting her, rifle or no rifle, but decided against it. Reasonable as the human was so far, changing in front of him in order to bite her insubordinate companion might get her shot.
The human nearly laughed; they could both see it in the way his teeth flashed. "Per!" he half-yelled, and even with human ears Belladonna could hear scrabbling near the back of another house, "run and fetch Oanez for me, please!"
A boy--if he'd been wolf she'd have guessed him a little more than half-grown, but he wasn't so she wasn't sure--trotted briefly into sight, big eyes staring at the three of them and then disappeared down one of the cedar paths in a crashing of breaking twigs.
"Oanez?" Belladonna inquired dryly as Marisa let the rabbits down, hanging so their ears nearly brushed the cedar by her feet.
"It's her or Gaël, and he's out fishing right now," the human replied, shrugging, but smiling a little, too.
She couldn't decide if he was being polite, staying just barely out of pouncing range in a show of trust, or if he was putting himself between them and his village.
She was still debating when the boy came back, trailing at the heels of an old human who looked Belladonna square in the nose for a long moment as she crunched up the path. It was a claw's distance from the direct challenge-stare, but a very important claw's distance. Either of them could look away without losing, and the human did as she dropped her eyes to Marisa's waist, the rabbits she was dangling from her hand.
A flick of the human's powdery hand banished the boy, back into a different house than he'd emerged from, and she jerked her chin at the rabbits. "A loaf of bread."
Belladonna laughed, flashed her teeth deliberately as she did. "Three loaves, and a cloth to carry them back."
"Two and a basket," the woman replied, coming up level with the other human, standing to the stock-side of his gun. "The bread's new this hour."
"Two and an old cloth," Belladonna offered after a moment's thought. "The basket won't keep them warm."
"You'll bring the cloth back next time?" Oanez asked, sharp, and Belladonna couldn't help but respect that. So she nodded, not dropping her eyes, and Oanez gave her back a brief wintery smile.
"Come along then," she said, turning on her heel and beckoning them after her as she started to walk away.
"Oanez?" someone else asked--not the human with her, who'd shrugged into the strap of his gun in a way that left it hanging neatly as his side, much to Marisa's shock.
"They came to trade," Oanez didn't quite shout, more than loud enough to carry, "what sort of hosts would we be if we didn't let them see what they're getting in return?"
'This might just work,' Belladonna thought, startled.
There was a slightly shamed-sounding scuffling from the houses flanking them as Belladonna fell into step trailing Oanez, Marisa trailing her with the rabbits slung back up over her shoulder so they didn't trail in the cedar.