‘My nephew risks becoming utterly spoiled,’ mused Sander, observing the tangle in the field below. Pojo was old enough to be attending school now, so he lived with the Pack in Ireland during school term and went home to his parents – and their duties as guardians to Eden – during the holidays. Right now, he was playing. He had a great many playmates, and they were chasing each other round and round the field, or pouncing on one another, in a wild mixture of human, hybrid and beast forms.
Not one of his playmates was younger than their late teens. That was the difference between his age and the next youngest member of the Pack; which, in turn, was the reason he was so doted on by all the other members of the Pack. His mother was the only fertile female in the Pack, thanks to their never-to-be-sufficiently-accursed father, at least until little Alera came of age.
Having the children cared for by the Pack had the added virtue of giving Jetta and Thabian more opportunities to work on Pojo’s next sibling, but it was an unspoken concern among the werewolves that two females, even if they wore themselves out in bearing children, was not enough to keep the Pack alive. Worse, Jetta had only had the two, despite continuing attempts – mutterings that her father’s magic had finally gotten a grip on her, too, were starting to make the rounds.
On the other hand, the clan’s mages had determined that Alera bore no trace of the curse of barrenness, so hope sat there; and some tentatively suggested that, just possibly, young Pojo might father children on those females who were least touched by it. Maybe. With luck. Which explained why the little scamp had three times as many females playing with him right now than males.
That was still little comfort. Those males in the Pack unmarried at the time the curse was placed really came into three groups. The smallest were those who held no hope of finding a mate, and didn’t even try looking. Then came those who, defying the former Alpha, went ahead and married other Pack members, knowing that their unions would be childless unless the curse could be lifted. Equal in numbers were those, like Sander, who sought mates outside the clan.
Unfortunately, there were few choices there beyond humans. Theirs was the largest surviving werewolf clan in the world; the remaining packs were distant, and small, and news of their curse had spread faster than the desire of their males. One or two of his friends had found marriages there, but mostly stayed with their wives’ clans, on the offchance that the curse might infect newcomers to the Pack. Other supernatural communities were as secretive as the werewolves, and those few that they had contact with were, at best, of the same opinion as the other werewolf clans. Some were unable to partner with lycanthropes anyway.
There was only one werecheetah, and no one in the Pack had considered even seeking out the descendant of their greatest enemies until she was already engaged. No one had even know she lived until she had met her future husband.
Some of his friends had taken human wives. Lycanthropes didn’t breed prolifically anyway; their capacity for survival countered that, normally letting them compensate by living longer than humans. With humans, they were even less fertile, and then there was the risk of miscarriage atop that. None of those who took human wives had children.
That was still better than the females could claim, though. Not one female born in their clan before the curse was placed had even conceived.
There was hope, though. Sander turned from the window and leafed through the stack of papers his great-uncle Pauric had sent, although he had all but memorised the content now. Pauric wasn’t a mage, but he was that most peculiar of things for a werewolf: a true scholar. In fact, he held down a permanent post as a lecturer at the University of Glasgow, and he traded ruthlessly on that to gain access to the best libraries and collections across Europe. He was just as concerned about the future of the Pack as anyone, and his endless pursuit of paper had turned up as many leads as anyone’s; which is to say, hardly any.
He had, in an obscure legal library in France, discovered the record of the case of the tailor of Châlons, who was sentenced to execution for lycanthropy in 1598. That record was, by the orders of the judge, officially destroyed to prevent the horrors revealed during the trial becoming public knowledge; in fact, it proved that the judge had moved to prevent the peaceful werewolves who had acted to bring the man-eater to justice from being tarred by association. Unfortunately, the ancient Pack alluded to in the record seemed to have either died out or moved away in the centuries since, because Sander’s clan could find no trace of werewolves anywhere in France.
This time, he had a trail which – if it were true – might lead to another hidden clan of werewolves, although the discussion late last night had suggested they might instead discover werefoxes. In a late seventeenth century document in the British Library, an envoy from Britain to the court of the Nguyễn Lords of southern Vietnam noted a member of a delegation from Japan, a mage who occasionally appeared in the form of a man with the head and tail of a canine and rufus fur; in his normal form, he was ‘unremarkable in appearance… save for hair of a bright shade of red’. That clue had led great-uncle Pauric to further research, and the documentary package he had presented indicated that a clan or society of red-furred werewolves had existed in Japan at least until the time of the Second World War – a mage, quietly inserted into the British delegation to the American’s acceptance of Japan’s surrender, had noted the use of magic by one of the Japanese delegates, a man notable for hair going red at the roots. German records from the same period also noted red-haired Japanese with unusual powers; the Nazi obsession with magic had resulted in one such spending some time as a guest in Germany.
Pauric proposed that, should this clan of shapeshifting mages still exist, they might be asked to assist in breaking the curse of infertility. There was only one problem.
Great-uncle Pauric spoke no Japanese. In fact, he had no comprehension of any language originating any further East than Greece, or further South than Greece for that matter. He would need a translator, at the least, and probably one or more bodyguards as well, being one of the oldest members of the Pack.
Sander, by coincidence, did speak Japanese, and his sister knew that. He rather expected that she would insist on his inclusion in any team sent to Japan, and as Alpha her opinion would at the very least carry substantial weight.
Akane hunched her shoulders against the downpour and hammered at the tent peg. It was just as well there were so many left over from pitching the tent, since she had lost one and bent two trying to cover the tear in her shelter. The frayed poncho Ranma had crushed into her backpack was only a little more waterproof than the tent itself – which had proved to suffer from a general lack of watertightness – but it was far better than the gaping hole, so the companions were trying to fix it in place over the worst of the problems. The fabric fluttered in the wind, even under the trees, and the ground either resisted the pegs solidly or released them instantly.
“Aghh! Just stay still!” she screamed, as the wind flipped around and a loose corner of the poncho snapped at her face. She swiped the fabric away, and smashed her free hand against the peg once more. This time, by some miracle, it sank into the ground, her hand splashing as it hit the runnel of water streaming off the tent, and seemed to hold. Quickly, she scooped up the bundle of pegs and the ball of string and scuttled around the tent to where Ranma was valiantly holding the other edge of the poncho in her teeth.
“Just a few minutes longer, Ranma,” she gasped. The big canine directed a sardonic eye at her.
She grabbed the corner Ranma wasn’t holding, and wrapped the end of the string around it. Quickly tying the knot, she ran out a length of string similar to the guylines on the tent and started ramming another peg into the ground, with no more luck than she had with the set on the other side.
One irretrievably bent peg later, she managed to get a reasonably secure anchor into the soil, and pulled the string down to secure it. It came with only a momentary tug of resistance, and she looked up to see the poncho flapping around unrestrained. With another aggravated scream, she stood and tied the string to the fabric once again. This time, she folded the corner back on itself and wrapped the string around the initial knot several times to keep it from pulling free. Tying it to the peg was easy enough.
Sighing, she grabbed the other corner from Ranma’s grip and tied a similar knot there before kneeling to drive in a last peg. The poncho fluttered and yanked at the improvised guys, and Ranma deliberately put a paw on the string just by the peg.
“They’re not tight enough, are they?” asked Akane, looking at the way the wind shook the waterproof.
Ranma shook her head. “Nneed adjustrr,” she snarled over the weather.
“How?” she gasped, as another peg slid slickly into the mud, and straight back out again.
Ranma cocked her head for a long moment. Akane inhaled to call her question again. “Spnish Wndlsss,” declared Ranma.
“What?”
“Spnish wndlass,” repeated Ranma. “Use tntpeg. Twst in strringg, tie to t.”
Akane frowned at her companion. She wasn’t quite sure she understood what Ranma was proposing. Another try with the peg found firmer ground, and she grabbed the string again and pulled it down to the peg. “Right.” She sat back on her heels, wiping the rain from her eyes. “It definitely needs to be tighter, Ranma.”
“Rrr.” Ranma ducked her head towards the small pile of peg. “Trry…”
“Alright.” She picked up a peg, and rested it across the last string. Rolling it around the string wouldn’t do anything, but… With a smile, she hooked the end around the string and started turning, soon building up a little tangle of drawn-up cord.
“Grrr,” interrupted Ranma. “Twst ‘bout mddle.”
Akane glanced at her, still twirling the peg against increasing resistance. Why did… the wet peg slipped between her fingers, and most of the length she had recovered was lost. She paused, thinking.
Carefully, she slipped the peg through the loop a little, so she had equal lengths either side of the string, and started again. Sure enough, although it was initially slower, her grip was much more secure and soon that corner of the poncho was pulled down against the top of the tent and tamed. She tried hooking the end of the peg around the string, but it was immediately clear it would jump free as soon as she let go. The obvious answer was to tie it in place with the free end of the string; it was a moment’s work before she could let go. When it the poncho stayed in place, she turned a grin of achievement towards Ranma.
Ranma gave her the canine equivalent in return, and gestured to the remaining cords.
It was at least another five minutes before both the other cords were shortened to specification and the poncho lay as quiet as could be expected given the driving rain. After inspecting the rest of the pegs again – just to be safe – Akane carefully opened the tent entry and prepared to go back inside. Ranma pressed at her hips.
Inside was damp, but nowhere near as bad as outside. They slipped in as quickly as possible and Ranma headed directly to her bedroll while Akane did up the zip once more.
Akane turned, and saw her friend looking miserable as she dripped on the thin sleeping mat. “Oh, dear. Can you – no. Wait a moment, I’ll get a – no, you’re too wet for a towel to help much.” She bit her lip, shrugging out of her own waterproof jacket. “I know. I’ll wrap you in my school jumper, you can shake off, and then I’ll give you a rub down with a towel. How’s that?”
Ranma gave her a doggy smile, and Akane reached for her pack. Their school clothes were near the top still, and Ranma was soon looking rather foolish wrapped in the shapeless dress Furinkan High insisted on for its female inmates. With Akane holding the dress in place, and being careful not to touch the walls of the tent, she shook, depositing much of the water beading her coat into the uniform.
Akane pulled the dress off her, and replaced it with one of their two towels. Ranma luxuriated in the sensations of the rough terrycloth dragging across her fur, and Akane found herself giggling at the silly noises her friend made.
Finally, Ranma jerked her head out of the sodden towel and trapped it under a paw. “Ou too,” she growled. “Rry off, rry pants too.”
Akane tugged at the towel playfully, but when her friend remained firm, she sighed. “I suppose you’re right.” She pulled her legs around in front of herself, and ran her hands down her thighs. “I don’t have any dry pants,” she admitted. “I was trying to pack light.”
Ranma lay down, granting her a sardonic look. “Use mine.”
“You sure? Won’t you need them for going home?”
“School niforrrm.”
“Oh? Oh, yes. Good point.” She struggled out of the wet fabric, stuffing the sodden garment under the tear in the wall with the towel, before rummaging in the packs for Ranma’s clothing.
In just a few minutes, she had dried herself with the other towel, pulled on a pair of Ranma’s silk pants, and tucked herself back into her paired sleeping bags. “G’night, Ranma,” she muttered, dragging the top over her nose again.
“Rrr.”
A brief quiet fell, backed by the rush wind through the leaves and the pound of falling rain. Something creaked, almost drowned in the sounds of the heavy weather.
Then the front frame of the tent bent slightly and toppled onto Akane’s head with a whumph of canvas.
“Hrrr. Grrreat…”
The door clicked, and Sander looked up from the papers. Jetta smiled at him.
“You’re going. You, Pauric, Nissa and Siobhan.” He nodded. “Pauric is technically an elder, but remember he’s an academic first. And remember Siobhan is on her first proper mission, as well – she’s too young for it really, but the three of you are the only Japanese speakers we can spare, and almost the only ones we have.”
He nodded again, with a wry twist to his lips. “I’ll look out for them both,” he promised. “When do we leave?”
“Get with Pauric and work it out. You’ll have to work out all the details yourselves.”
“Alright.” He stood up. “I suppose you’re off home now?”
“Well, I’ve got to catch Pojo first… oh, just give your big sister a hug, you idiot!”
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(Posted Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:16)
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