Series of Death, Draft 02, CH 54 (Patreon)

Marlot watched the lion disappear in the darkness, still trying to find words to get Trembor to come back; but his lion had just walked out on him again. What could he say to make him return, what right did he have to ask that of him? He knew exactly what he’s said to make him leave this time.

“Trem!” he called. He couldn’t just let him go. He’d come here to fix things, and even if he’d made them worse, he was still going to fix this. “Trem! Please, I’m sorry. I know—”

Fuck. This was just him being stubborn. He couldn’t tell the lion to come back. He had to be the one going after him. He’d screwed up, so he needed to fix it. Fix yet another thing.

A part of him wondered why he bothered, and he clawed it apart without hesitation.

He turned his light on and shone it among the conveyor belts. There were really a lot of them. There had to be a more efficient way to do whatever they were there for. He carefully navigated through them, sniffing the air to stay on the lion’s trail. How had Trembor walked around these so fast? His low light vision couldn’t be that good.

A frigid breeze had him shivering, pulling his jacket in tighter and cursing the coming winter, then cursing some more as he realized the breeze had shredded the lion’s scent apart.

“Trem!” he called, worried. Nikal was out there, somewhere, looking for his lion. He had to find him, find one of them, and ensure his lion was safe. That his lion live to decide if he wanted to give the two of them a chance.

He took a step forward, stopped, shone the light around for any indication of where his lion had gone, but the blood had stopped a while ago, coagulated in his fur and sealing the cut. There was no way he’d find his lion now. His best hope was to go back to the loading docks and into that office where Nikal had been waiting for him. Hopefully, he was still there, and not somewhere down here stalking Trembor.

He followed his scent back, mulling over what he’d done. Why had a simple injury, the scent of blood, knowing it was his lion’s blood, made him irrationally overprotective? He cared about the lion, but was Trembor right? Did he think of him as his possession? Marlot didn’t think so. He didn’t want to think so.

He’d overreacted, that was true, but then hadn’t Trembor done the same? Hadn’t Marlot deserved the chance to explain, to at least say he was sorry for overreacting? Instead, the lion had again—

He cursed softly. “I’m making this his fault again.” It had been his first reaction from the start, blaming the lion. It wasn’t until he’d seen what Gorrek had done to the cougar, gotten a sense of what that lion had done to his, that Marlot had begun looking at his behavior. He let out a breath. “Once this is over, I need to talk with a counselor.”

He stopped and shone the light around, searching the darkness. No luck, the hare hadn’t showed up now that Marlot had a sense of what to do to fix this. “You just couldn’t be that accommodating, could you Nikal?”

The snort made him turn, shine the light around, searching, realizing he’d made the basic mistake of not looking up when the weight fell on him and sent him to the ground, head nearly colliding with a conveyor.

“Accommodating?” the hare snarled. “Don’t you fucking talk about me accommodating you. I gave you everything you needed to get your lion back. And I have to stand there and watch you screw that up too?”

Marlot stood, surprised he’d kept hold of his pad. The hare was on the other side of the little space the belts gave them, wearing pants and shirt in mottled gray that made it difficult to make him out in the light from his pad and the conveyors. Had he waited until Marlot stood here to attack?

“Do you have any idea how hard it was for me not to just drop down and kick sense into both of you? You told me you want to fix this!”

“It’s not that easy!”

“It’s not that hard!” the hare snarled back.

Marlot stared at the hare. Hunters were insane, he reminded himself. He shouldn’t expect him to make sense now, but the hare had been the one to decide to help. Shouldn’t he know what to expect?

“Why do you think this is easy?” Marlot wished he could put the pad away, have both hands to strangle the hare with. “First you attack him and—”

“I was providing you with the motivation to show him you care.”

“What—” Before he could continue, the hare rushed him. Marlot stepped aside, barely avoiding the hare’s claws or the conveyor that nearly clipped his shoulder. He punched, but the hare blocked before stepping back.

“And you keep refusing to use your claws,” Nikal said. “You do understand I have someone you care about. What I’ll do to the lion if I’m the one to walk away from this.”

“You have Trembor?”

Whatever the hare replied with was lost in the sound of his blood rushing. His vision narrowed, prey stood before him. Small, helpless prey. Overconfident to be this calm before a predator like Marlot. The light shifted as he opened both hands. He was going to show that overgrown farmer what happened to prey that threatened someone he loved.

The victorious smile on Nikal’s face as the light flickered off and on again, accompanied by the sound of his pad hitting the concrete floor, brought Marlot back to reality. A reality where he didn’t want to give in to an impulse to kill just because Nikal threatened Trembor. A reality where he wanted to prove to himself that after all the lies and rationalizations, he could finally do this thing right.

He let out the breath and closed his hands. “You aren’t dying here, Nikal. You have bodies to answer for.” He moved to be as far from any of the conveyors and lowered himself to a crouch.

The hare shook his head. “You don’t understand what you’re doing. What I’ll do after I kill you.”

“You think threatening Trembor will make me kill you. I’m over that. I don’t even understand why you care.”

The look of disbelief the hare gave him unsettled Marlot.

“I gave you everything!”

“With a fucking deadline of ‘come here or I’m killing your lion’. Files take time to read. I’m here, tell me.”

“That’s not how this works,” the hare said through ground teeth. “You were supposed to figure it out. You were supposed to punish me. How can you say you don’t want to kill me after what I did?”

“I’m a predator, I kill. I’m more interested in getting you to pay for the crimes you’ve committed, the way society demands, than avenging meat.”

“Alright,” the hare said, sounding resigned. “Come take me down so you can deliver me to that society of yours. We’ll see what happens then.” He turned his back to Marlot and places his hands behind it, lacing the fingers together.

Carefully, Marlot approached, wary of this being a trap. He’d never seen someone in that position, but it did give him the advantage. It might be a protector thing. He’d ask Ba the next time he saw her. He paused with the hare within reach, waiting for a reaction. A change of mind.

He wound back. He didn’t have the hare’s skill, but one solid blow to the back of his head, and he’d be at least dazed enough to be restrained. He swung, but the hare wasn’t there, shaking his head as he stepped around Marlot and grabbed the off-balance wolf around the neck.

Nikal kept him from falling on his face as he prevented him from breathing. Marlot’s knees felt the ground, and he reached for the arms as they tightened more. He dug his claws in, but if the hare felt pain, he didn’t react to it.

“I didn’t want this, Marlot,” Nikal whispered in his ear. “I want you to believe me. My plans never included killing you or your lion. I always thought there was hope for you two. I still do, but you won’t do what’s needed. So I have to hope I can use you to incentivize your lion to finish the job.”

Marlot croaked his protest as he tried to pull the arm away. He wouldn’t let the hare draw his lion into this. It was between the two of them. Trembor had nothing to do with it. Nikal had said so himself.

He’d screw up again, a voice told him. His father’s voice. And as when he was being chastised as a cub, he couldn’t find his voice to protest, to defend himself. He’d tried his best. It wasn’t his fault if that wasn’t enough for other people.

And even if he had been able to protest, there was nothing but darkness left for him to speak to.

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