Molaki's face creased and twisted like he had just smelled something fowl.
"So... wait, let me get this straight, the Okoltants basically have a hunting season for you?"
Asta scrunched her nose also while she thought. "I mean, yes I suppose, if that's what you would call it - but that doesn't have to do with the mountains -"
"No no, hold up. So it's like they slaughter you as though you're farmed animals? Like you're just animals, right?"
The doe raised her eyebrow, crossing her arms as she started to get defensive. "And you all don't? What's the difference if we're dead."
The silver haired male exhaled sharply, wanting to growl about how she hadn't learned anything from the interrogation, but stopped short. The girl was drugged, and so out of it, it was a miracle she remembered any of it at all. After the Tri meeting, once Asta was down for the count and tended to in his home, Molaki's mother had pulled him aside and let him know that by all accounts, the doe had been amazing. There was some literature she had pulled from their libraries on the truth tonic, and the Okoltants in particular were often driven to prolonged madness from it, and never remembered what was said when they were under.
That was mostly why his sister banned him from his own home. His brain felt like it was melting, not knowing if Asta would wake up as the same person she was before. He would never be able to forgive himself if she was forever altered because of something that his own clan did to her. But instead of being able to sit in waiting like a dutiful spouse, his mind was starting to split. His wolf wanted to take over - so Prim kicked him out. Made him go let his wolf roam rather than slam itself against a cage.
So instead of snapping at her in exasperation, he sighed, striding back over and sinking himself heavily into his overstuffed couch. Holding his head up with one hand, he looked over at Asta, his ears pricked forward.
"I know you don't like furs, but it's going to be impossible to live as a vegetarian here. Will you sit?"
Asta pursed her lips, but her desire to sit close to Molaki overwhelmed her distaste for leather. She padded over, Molaki noticing breathlessly how the doe was silent on her feet seemingly without trying. She sat lightly on the couch next to him, barely making an indent into the cushions. She was uncomfortable, finding the leather sticky and sickly, but she had to admit that the plush brown fur throw was soft and inviting. Better yet, if she stopped focusing on the scent of the animal skins, she was immediately engulfed in lavender fields.
Molaki cursed himself, realizing he should have started tea or even at least had a pitcher of drinking water for them, but it would be too awkward now. He leaned over on himself, placing his large hand on her knee, not being able to help himself when he traced the lines of her leg with his thumb.
"I don't know what you remember of the other night," he started delicately. He didn't want to talk down to her, but if she didn't remember, or remembered incorrectly, he needed to reiterate it.
Asta pressed her ears back as she fumbled with her green hair, twisting it into small braids. "I remember enough."
"Alright. So I just want to....We - Lyko at least - don't actively seek and hunt the deer. You know that right?"
She went very still, her scent spiking with fear for the first time since she had woken up.
"I'm not trying to upset you," the wolf started again, treading lightly. "But I'm saying, anyone from your herd that they, that was, lost,"
"Murdered," Asta corrected.
"-" Molaki left it. He was going to correct her, but it didn't matter. The end result was the same.
"It happened because Lyko is afraid. They died because up until your interrogation, every single wolf here, and I suspect every other village, be it wolves or anyone else, thought the deer, and to some extent the rabbits, were living in harmony with the Okolts."
"But we aren't!" Asta knew it didn't matter how many times she said it, it wouldn't change over a generation of dissonance. But she was so frustrated, and it was going to take her more than a few days for her to adjust.
"I'm sorry, I know now, I know. But I just need you to know, we never went looking for your people. We just wanted to keep them away from our village. I can't speak for everyone, I don't know the policies in the other towns, but this one is that largest village with the most people, in the area I known and I've mapped. And I promise, we were - we THOUGHT, we were defending ourselves."
The doe remained still, staring at a knot in the wooden table, but hadn't pulled away from the wolf. Her mind was flipping over, thinking of all the family and friends already lost. It hurt when she thought they were killed because the predators were just basic enemies, but it was a fiery anger of a hurt. Now, to know it was a misunderstanding, or a lie, or.... That ancestrally, they all maybe deserved it? It felt like an Okolt arrow had struck her right through the heart.
"What if more come? They're going to starve, Molaki. They'll take the chance, they have to," Asta whispered.
Molaki struggled not to growl, knowing Asta didn't know all the different noises and calls that his people made; they would all sound like threats. But he was nervous and in unsure.
"I'll talk to the hunters. We all know how to hunt, clearly, but, we have those that lead the hunts. Seconds usually. Most of our younger seconds, our age and under, would already be unsure of harming any shifter now that you're here. But we'll have to work on the others, it may need to come direct from the Tri."
Asta knew Molaki meant the likes of Erest, but more urgent than that, was the fact that it didn't really matter if the deer wouldn't be killed for encroaching on wolf woods. She hadn't found anything to dry and store for the winter when she was out there, the herd was still in danger of starving through the winter.