Asta already barely trusted this stranger male, only doing so because she quite liked his mate. Chewing her bread slowly, she glared up at him suspiciously, making Prim start to laugh.
"Oh stop, Asta, you don't scare anyone here," she chided. "Don't tell me that you didn't know how large your pack used to be."
Asta just raised an eyebrow back at her, too, Prim stopping what she was messing with on her plate again.
"No, really, don't tell me that that's something you didn't know also."
...
"Seriously?"
Asta was trying her best not to get frustrated again, the warm heat of being embarrased washing down on her, starting from the top of her head and rolling all the way down into her toes. How the hell was she able to get through life knowing so LITTLE? It was one thing to be ripped out of her home and life by some divine Idol intervention so she could live happily ever after (right?!) with her toothy meat eating True Pair. It was another to feel like an infant among adults, being informed that she knew absolutely nothing about her own history. It was like she had just bumbled around in a fog for twenty years and was tossed into a trial by fire.
"Just let her eat and stop interrogating her," Molaki snarled from beside her, ripping into a piece of meat in frustration. He had felt that it was a good idea to bring her out to get her feet wet, see the village in a low stress, low stakes moment such as dinner, but people just could not turn it off. The second they saw Asta, they wanted answers to their questions that they had been piling up while she was knocked out.
Eventually, they would stop, he tried to tell himself. She'd become part of the landscape like everyone else. But in order for that to happen, everyone would need to interfere with them and their personal space.
Prim snorted, Keshel glaring back at Molaki like he would be pinning his ears if he had them.
"No, it's fine," Asta said quietly, loosing her appetite entirely at this point. "I just don't know, remember? There were about three hundred people when I left. There were maybe more when I was born, but I don't know the exact number. Honestly, I didn't even know that.... anywhere like this existed."
"So... nobody in your pack knows about Lyko?" Keshel asked, trying openly to soften his face, though it was strained.
Asta shook her head. "Herd - but no, not that I know of. I mean.... again, we can't smell when someone's lying, so now I realize, maybe the leader stag does and he didn't tell us, but, overall, no. We knew where your territory started, because it stinks of wolves and nobody hardly ever comes back when they cross over -" she thought again about how her family would think that was also her fate; "so at least, nobody made it to your village walls and then came back to tell the tale of it."
It was Prim who, for the first time ever, looked uncomfortable, knowing that what Asta spoke was truth; that her pack had most definitely killed deer she knew if they came too close to the village.
"I don't think we killed all of you, though," Keshel said bluntly.
"What?" Asta stammered.
"That's not what I mean," Keshel quickly backtracked. "I mean, we didn't, the pack didn't kill so many deer shifters that you'd be near extinction."
Asta nodded stiffly, pushing her plate forward signifying to Molaki that she was done with her meal. "I'm starting to understand that, yes."
"Do you want to go home?" Molaki asked her, tipping his head towards the way they would push through to get home.
Asta nodded, the idea of "home" being his cabin in the woods still foreign to her ears.
Quickly the white wolf stood up, grabbing the apple slices and stuffing them into a linen bag he pulled out of a pocket. "Well Prim, Kesh, thanks again for the delightfully awkward conversation."
Prim rolled her eyes, Asta giving a small wave goodbye and quick thanks for letting her borrow the clothes she was wearing, before Molaki pinned her to his side to get her through the crowd. They had to stop short to say goodbye to his pack friends, promising that they would come out earlier tomorrow so they could all get to meet Asta more formally.
Asta felt much more relaxed, like she could breath fresh air, once they got out of the busy town square, walking down the beaten path towards Molaki's home in the creeping sunset. Even though it was the autumn, little glowing bugs of green and yellow lights had started to blink faintly in the brush, frogs and crickets chirping ahead, silencing themselves when the pair drew too close to them.
They were hand in hand, Molaki squeezing her smaller palm before asking her if she was okay, seeing as she was so quiet.
"I can just be quiet," Asta answered at first, but then after several more steps, looking up at the red and yellow canopy above, decided to elaborate.
"So... the pack isn't just all wolves?"
Molaki flicked an ear, not understanding the question at first, but then laughing at himself for being so dense.
"What? Oh, you mean the lions and Kesh?"
Asta whipped her head around at the mention of Keshel, since she really just meant Lena and Saba. "Yeah okay, I meant the girls, but what's up with Prim's mate?!"
Molaki growled, but Asta found herself already used to this higher, cheeky noise that didn't mean he was mad. "Was it the hair, the ears, or the stupid attitude that gave him away? He's a bird. A raven to be more exact, but they all are smug and think they're smarter than us. I don't know why, since they can't seem to stop arguing enough among the species to form a decent village."
Asta sputtered a laugh at Molaki's ire towards the other male, but his demeanor did make more sense to her now. She had never met a raven, but her herd had at least minor interactions with owls and a few red tailed hawks. Long story short, they never bothered to work with them, let alone live with them.
"What about the mountain lions then?" She asked.
Molaki shrugged, lightening his step as he kicked a stone with his toe.
"I don't know, they've always lived here. There are a few of them - remember, we used to have all different shifters living together. Lyko is overwhelmingly wolves, but there are family lines that.... survived the war, that weren't just wolves. It's not unheard of to find your True Pair outside of the wolves, but it's usually just... you know. Not... "
"Yeah, not your dinner," Asta poked at him, still with a tinge of coldness, but she was growing tired of tip toeing around the subject, at least with him.
The male blew an exasperated breath out, in such a way that his messy hair fluttered over his forehead. He was happy to be walking up to his cobblestone entranceway, for a change of subject. They were home, and it was the first night that both of them would be awake.