Two week earlier, inside a cave in an unknown environment, strange beings cladded in furs with most of them heavily muscled at the act of expecting someone, they surrounded the only fire in the cave, to provide light as it was heavily snowing and winding outside, suddenly, heard a distant whooshing sound coming closer towards the entrance as they were at alert, looking fixedly at the entrance, then they noticed a glowing onyx eyes as a figure came in, the fire showing his yellowish-brown skin also heavily muscled. A long knotted dreadlock on his head being dragged on the floor with no garment worn to cover his torso but cladded with fur trousers and a fur cape, on his shoulder a huge deer larger than a full grown elephant was held with one arm while he effortlessly walked inside then dropped it on the floor, right in front of them and looked at the beings inside the cave.
"Eat up. We are moving tomorrow at first light." He said as cold vapor came out of his mouth, showing his canine teeth when he talks. Immediately, they rushed to the deer and ate it raw. After eating, the man with the glowing onyx eyes was outside, sitting on a branch of a huge tree half covered by snow as it fluttered slowly on him, his long knotted dreadlock almost touching the ground below, he looked through the forest, "To every gain there is a loss." He whispered, then his men came out of the cave one by one, a woman looked up.
"Azra Miller! What are your orders?" she asked, Azra looked at her, sniffed and jumped down with his fist and one knee in the snow then he stood up. Everyone put their legs together and put their fist on their left chest,
"At ease." Azra said, immediately they separated their legs and put the hand away from their chest, he looked at everyone, "Remember this. We take what we want and deliver it to the Alpha, Obae. Alive."
"But Azra, she is more valuable than that. We should sell her." a man said, Azra shook his head,
"No. Aghogho, I thought we have discussed this. We are not bounty hunters, we all know we lived in exile for far too long, to gain back our previous life in the Beast Kingdom we should bring her to Obae, she may be the last of her kind but we don't know it yet and that makes her our only target for now," Azra gushed, Aghogho shook his head, he moved around, looking at everyone,
"Azra Miller. We have no place to stay in the Beast Kingdom, they won't take us in, taking the girl to Obae will be a great waste. Let's just sell her off. She is rare and we will make a fortune out of her." Aghogho said, went to the front, stood near Azra, "Listen, she is worth a thousand diamonds!!" immediately he said it, they all widened their eyes then mumbled between themselves, Azra stepped in,
"Never! I will say it again. We are not bounty hunters, we came from the Beast Kingdom. We are warriors, who… " Azra said but was interrupted by Aghogho as he leaned forward,
"We are nothing, look at what we are, being beast our populations grew higher each day, why aren't we like the other Kingdoms, they gave birth to one child at a time. But we. We gave birth to five or more. Selling her won't change anything. we can't bring her to Obae and expect a stay in the Kingdom, that will never happen, remember the Kingdom is not ruled by only one Alpha. There is Obie and Emur those two I tell you will never agree to this, knowing the fact, you Azra was once a contender in becoming an Alpha in that same Kingdom." Aghogho said, he looked at Azra, "She is no one!"
Azra glowered at Aghogho.
"Watch what you say! Remember who this expats Alpha is." Azra said, as his eyes glowed, they both stared at each other for a moment, everyone looked at them wondering, whether they will fight for the Alpha position, again. suddenly, Aghogho joined his legs together, put his fist on his left chest and walked back to his position, Azra nodded, "I know we have the largest populations among all Kingdoms but bringing her back will pave our way to stay." He said, "let's rest." They all nodded and went inside the cave.
Back to the present day. Teenagers walking through the woods on a misting morning with weapons in their hands except from Sniffia and Peirce with his small orange bag on his back, inspecting the trees one by one.
"What are we looking for exactly?" Peirce asked, everyone scorned him, except from Sniffia and a girl while Node was at the front scanning the trees,
"Youth leader, why did you bring the mudlark here?" someone asked, Sniffia had an awful glower on her face, staring at the person with her venomous little eyes, the person then looked at Sniffia and swallowed before facing his front, murmuring, Node put his hand in the air, meaning everyone should stop as they all crouched down.
"Shh!! They are close,"
"Who again?" Peirce whispered,
"Tamarins, they were spotted around this area migrating from the south," a teenage girl with a long ivory colored hair and a slightly pale face gently answered him, she looked at Peirce, "Hi, am Vanilla." She smiled with a closed eyes, Sniffia furrowed her eyebrows,
Peirce blinked. "Am Peirce. Nice to meet you," he said, scratching his head and was totally surprised that someone apart from his Grandma or Sniffia actually greeted him with a name. Peirce stared into the girl's beautiful wide eyes, he was stunned, "Are you actually smiling, with your eyes?" he asked, Vanilla laughed slowly crawled back closer to Peirce,
"Yeah! I'm surprised you noticed, my Mom tells me alot," she said, staring at Peirce then she noticed Sniffia near Peirce gazing at her with a strange look, Vanilla waved her hand, "Hi!" she greeted her with a smile, Sniffia ignored her as she looked elsewhere, Peirce glanced at Sniffia then at Vanilla,
"She is Sniffia, my friend." He said with a big grin on his face, Sniffia looked ahead, Vanilla smiled,
"Nice to meet you Sniffia," she greeted, Sniffia turned to her with a half smile then turned her face to the front as everyone stood up. While strolling through the woods, Node stopped again, scanning his surroundings then he looked back, noticed Peirce at the middle of two girls,
he sighed,
"Come on." He whispered. He looked up, inspecting the trees for Tamarins.
Vanilla held her weapon tightly with a smile, she looked at Peirce,
"About the Lotus in the mud, you were cool because you didn't give up." She said, Peirce looked at her in amazement, the same person that greeted him knew about the given name of the flowers he planted, "your inventions are great also, see... " she said as she straightened her slingshot, Peirce widened his eyes,
"Isn't that... " He whispered, Vanilla laughed, gently
"Yeah, your design, I named it slingshot." She said, Sniffia looked at her with a pursed lips, Peirce smiled at Vanilla's direction,
"I called it catapult but a slingshot is also cool." He said with his thumbs up. Sniffia looked away, ignoring their chattering, suddenly, she scented something strange, looked everywhere while sniffing, Peirce and Vanilla noticed her,
"Hey, Sniffia what's wrong?" Peirce asked looking around, "A Tamarin?" Peirce looked at her, she jerked her head to the left, sniffing then she ran towards the direction without hesitating, Peirce and Vanilla were completely stunned.
Meanwhile Node was grumbling to himself about Peirce with the two most hottest girls in the group then he spotted few Tamarins on the tree, he smiled,
"I will show you who is the Boss around here." he took his lance about to shoot his dart with his mouth, he noticed someone running out from the group, glanced back.
"Sniffia?!" he called wondering what was going on, everyone looked at Sniffia as she ran far from the group, which alerted the Tamarins.
Peirce was shocked then he ran after her including Vanilla.
"Sniffia?! Where are going?!" Peirce yelled as the Tamarins leaped away from trees to trees.
"Gosh, do you see? do you see? This is the reason why I said we should have never bring the Mudlark here!" a boy said,
"This is all the Mudlark's fault, so unlucky, how will I brag to my senior brother, I caught a Tamarin, Geez!" a girl said, after. Node blinked, wondering what just happened.
Later, Sniffia reached a zone where the trees including their branches were huge, covering the sunlight with little rays penetrating to the ground, she looked around while walking, crushing few dried leaves on the ground until she saw a figure standing on one of the huge tree's branch in the shade as the wind around them calmly blew, she deeply inhaled, closed her eyes and opened it, glazing intently at the shaded figure above.