"Okay, I'll do that," Charlie replied, suddenly feeling tired. Almost like she was in the middle of one of Mr. Samuels' classes. One where she was ready to take a nap, despite knowing she really shouldn't.
"Follow us then," the second man said.
Charlie followed them the rest of the way up the slope, ready to see what there was that they wanted her to do. After all, she'd already sent the deer-kin packing already. What else could they throw at her?
As they neared the top of the slope, the first man commented, "We'll be out of sight. We'd like to see how you handle this yourself. If it looks like there's real danger to you, we'll step in, but otherwise we'll leave it to you and see how you can help us with our defense."
Charlie had the feeling that they were expecting her to stay there longer than she'd care to, but didn't say anything. Once her friends got there, she'd find a way to leave without the bear-kin being aware, whether or not they wanted to let her go. Besides, even though she showed their elder pretty much her entire life, she never shared with the elder some of what she and her friends could think of.
Although, she also suspected the elder didn't really understand what Charlie's magic could do. Or even how Charlie really wasn't that interested in settling down here. She was willing to help where she could, but she wasn't going to let them decide her life for her.
Shaking those thoughts out of her mind, she reached the top of the rise and started down the slope on the other side. As she reached around what Charlie thought might be about a tenth of the way down the slope, she saw a large group of deer-kin. Although, out of the corner of her eye, she also saw what she suspected were some bear-kin dwellings in the distance.
If she hadn't been to the bear-kin village, she doubted she'd have ever noticed them at all. However, she pushed that thought out of her mind, since she had more pressing matters to deal with, like the deer-kin.
"You are under arrest for the theft of a thousand slaves, assault on two innocent deer-kin, and suspicion of murder," the deer-kin who seemed to be in charge called out to Charlie when he saw her.
Charlie used her magic to look into his mind and saw he was the one she dealt with the day before. Then as she looked deeper into his thoughts, she saw just how much a load of bull what he was saying was.
The fact that her friends had succeeded in freeing the other pronghorn-kin made her at least feel a little better, and was a little amused that they were trying to pin that on her. Which also told her that her friends had been able to get away when they save the pronghorn-kin.
The assault was laughable, after all, she never touched the two deer-kin she could tell the man was referring to. She'd used her magic on them, not that they knew that themselves, but it wasn't like they were really innocent themselves. Especially with what they were a part of in relation to Aina and Bith and the girls' mothers.
Then there was how she was under 'suspicion' of 'murder' which was because she'd killed the deer-kin that were waiting to ambush her and the pronghorn-kin she'd taken under her protection.
"I'm sorry, but who are you?" Charlie asked, wondering how effective her innocent ploy would be here.
The man sputtered for a minute as he tried to come up with a response. Charlie could only assume that he wasn't used to that sort of reaction. Not that she really cared. If anything, she was more annoyed by him with how he kept showing up.
When he finally got himself under control, he replied, as if he hadn't lost his composure, "I'm the one who spoke to you yesterday."
"Oh, yeah, I remember now," Charlie said. "Though, if you're going to arrest me, you'll also have to arrest the two men you were with yesterday on war crimes."
Charlie was sure they didn't have the concept of 'war crimes' here, but thought it might make her time here a little more entertaining. Although, she'd only heard the term used on the news, so she wasn't really sure what exactly qualified as a war crime, though she knew of a few kinds of acts that the news would remark about being a war crime. Especially since she was getting bored with this, but was confident that if she created another firestorm, then not only would she hurt the trees around her, but she could also negatively impact the bear-kin's opinion of her.
"What are these 'war crimes?'" The man asked.
"Well, first, the two men were accomplices in the rape of the mothers of the two girls that you saw with me yesterday," Charlie said. "Then they were chasing the girls down, claiming they were their property, when they couldn't even show the simplest proof of purchase or prove in any way that they owned the girls. I mean, come on. They were acting like real pedos there."
At the moment, Charlie was sure she wasn't handling this as well as she probably could have. So, she began trying to think of what else she could do to resolve this. However, the only thing that came into her mind was simply 'delay.'
Why she felt she needed to delay them more, she couldn't say, just that it sounded like the better option to her.
"I'm sorry, but those two men have already shown me the evidence that proved those girls were their property. Which means you've already admitted to stealing slaves. So, you can come with me quietly or we can make things ugly for you," the man said, a cruel smile forming on his face. Apparently he wasn't going to touch Charlie's remark about them potentially being pedophiles.
"Well, yeah, we could do that," Charlie said, wondering if she should try something a little less destructive than the firestorm had been. After all, if she could figure out how to do something that wouldn't use up as much of her power and was more effective, she'd be happy with that result. "Or, you could just leave. After all, you said it yourself yesterday, this is bear-kin territory."
"Sadly, the beaver-kin have already laid claim to this entire mountain. So, anything on the mountain is theirs," the man said, "As such, they have given me the authority to manage their affairs up here. Which is why we're here."
Charlie shook her head sadly. "If that's the case, then you really wasted your time," she replied, trying to sound like she was mourning his waste of time. "After all, as far as I'm aware, the beaver-kin are full of it and are using you to do their dirty work. Therefore, unless you have with you a neutral, third-party then there's no one here to iron out the issues."
Charlie wasn't sure where she was going with this, only that it seemed like her mouth had a mind of it's own and just kept making noise when she was pretty confident that she was only delaying the inevitable conflict that was about to happen here.
"However, I'm willing to be reasonable," Charlie added, partly to egg them on even more so she could put an end to this sooner. "You could just leave and tell the beaver-kin that their claim was superseded by the bear-kin's claim. Therefore, the beaver-kin have no right to this mountain or anything in or on it."
"It's sad to see how unreasonable you really are… whatever you are," the deer-kin man said, pausing only when he came to stating what Charlie was and she could tell from his thoughts that he couldn't figure out which beast-kin she was.
"I'm human, if that's what you meant," Charlie said to him.
The man waved his hand in front of him as if to push away a bad odor. "I don't care what you are. You'll get what's coming to you," he said as he made a signal to the deer-kin by him as they all started moving forward. Even if she couldn't hear his thoughts, she could tell that he wanted things to work out this way.
Charlie sighed. She really didn't care to deal with this, so she quickly thought of a way to handle this. She was better rested than she was the day before, but she wasn't interested in using up more of her strength than she had to. So, as they got closer to her, she created a wall of flames that completely blocked the deer-kin from advancing more.
Charlie was also careful to not have the wall sprout up where any of the trees were or any of the bear-kin that were hidden around here. She didn't want to accidentally kill them. However, she was already tired of the deer-kin who she speculated could be the leader and wondered if she should just eliminate him and see what that would get her.
Besides, keeping up the fire wall was definitely easier than the firestorm she'd caused the day before. Although, the heat from the flames did make it harder to see her opponents. Yet, she hardly felt it.
When the deer-kin stopped away from her wall of fire, she called out to them, "I thought you were going to do something? Don't tell me you were all talk?" She hardly expected the taunt to get them to start running up towards her, but she felt she should at least say something.
"We can wait for your flames to die down," the man in charge answered. "We saw that the flames yesterday only lasted so long."
Charlie nodded. She wasn't about to tell him that they only lasted as long as she fed them power. "Alright, how about this then?" she asked, pulling the fire towards her until she became fully immolated, already knowing that the fire wouldn't hurt her, as her magic had an affinity for the flames. "Ready to take me on now?"
The man looked uncertain at this point. However, he still motioned for those with him to attack Charlie. "If those flames were real, she'd be dying from the heat," he called out to his men.
While Charlie hadn't been the best of her friends with the self-defense lessons Amelia's father had given them, she wasn't that bad at it either. Mostly, she was decent, not that she really cared.
Though, primarily she blocked the attacks from the deer-kin. She wasn't sure how long she'd be able to keep this up, but her flames did leave some serious burns on those fighting her, which caused the rest to be more hesitant on being the next to try and attack her.
Charlie hoped that she'd be able to hold out with her magic before they decided to leave. Either that or when the bear-kin decided to join in. She held no illusions that she'd be able to take all of them out. As, even if she made a firestorm without concern for the trees or hidden bear-kin, she knew she wouldn't be able to get all of them before she ran out of strength and collapsed from the strain.
However, at the moment it seemed like there was no end to it all. Part of her wondered if she should surrender while another part wondered if she'd be captured once her strength ran out. She couldn't say what might happen, only that she didn't expect to win on her own and from the looks of things, she really was on her own right then.
_
Ralph sighed. They'd been walking for most of the day. They moved faster than he would have expected. They'd travelled almost as fast as they had when they were mounted on the velociraptors and if he remembered correctly, they were almost back to where the pronghorn-kin's village had been. He'd convinced them that bringing everyone back to the village would be a mistake, especially the children, with how many were killed in there and were still probably laying on the ground where they'd been left.
What he'd been trying to learn from them was why the beaver-kin were behind this. He couldn't figure out why they were doing this, but he couldn't get an answer about it at all. It was almost like they were avoiding discussing the topic, but he had to admit, whenever he started to bring up the topic, something completely unrelated came up that required more immediate attention.
It was almost like his efforts had been jinxed somehow. The latest interruption had been because they saw smoke rising up on a mountain that was bear-kin territory. Whatever it was, it had those in charge of the pronghorn-kin unsettled.
Which meant that Ralph would need to wait for them to figure out what to do about this before they would pay any attention to Ralph so he could ask about the beaver-kin again.
Wes hadn't been any help, either. Not that Ralph had expected him to be. Especially since he couldn't understand what the pronghorn-kin were saying. Though, he did at least help serve as a distraction for Ralph during times like these when he knew it was pointless to try and continue to ask about the beaver-kin.
"So, any idea what's up with that smoke?" Wes asked as Ralph.
"Not really, but it's gotten the pronghorn-kin spooked," Ralph replied.
"You know, if it was just us, I'd probably suggest we go take a look, just to see what might be causing it," Wes remarked.
Ralph shrugged. "Maybe, but apparently that's on bear-kin territory. Not sure what significance that holds, but it does look like it's something big to these people."
"At least we're almost to Petals' forest."
"If only we can get there without any real trouble," Ralph said.
"Hey, don't jinx it, Ralph," Wes said. "Don't you know anything?"
"Well, I know that whether it happens or not has nothing to do with anything I say," Ralph shot back. "I mean, it would happen whether or not I said it, so why should I worry about staying quiet about it?"
"Maybe because it makes us uncomfortable?" Wes retorted.
"If I really wanted to make you uncomfortable, wouldn't I suggest that it had something to do with Charlie?" Ralph asked.
"Hey, don't even joke like that," Wes said. "We sent Charlie on by herself because we knew she'd have the safest job. Besides, she's got to be waiting for us in Petals' forest, so it's not like she could be up there around where that smoke is. I mean, it's got to be a way s away from Petals' forest anyway."
Ralph shrugged. "You never know. Maybe something happened that made her make a detour. I've stopped trying to predict what she'll do next," Ralph remarked.
Wes laughed. "Yeah, she can be hard to read sometimes."
"Oh, it looks like they sent someone to go take a look at what the problem is," Ralph said, moving back towards the pronghorn-kin leaders.
"Enjoy," Wes said.
As Ralph approached the leaders, they were discussing the smoke. "…there's never been smoke up there before. Even with the wildfire last year, it never got close to there," One of them said, sounding rather worried.
"Whatever is happening, it might be the end of our time here," another said.
"So, you're saying we should accept the offer of going to… what was it? Another world?" a third commented.
"No, I'm just saying that we might need to consider moving to a completely different valley. One that won't be as rich in water and other resources as this one is," the second one replied.
"Whatever we do, we have to decide soon," a fourth said. "No matter what happens, we need to look forward to the future. Whether we go to another valley or to another world, we need to be sure that we're not going to face the same problems as we have here."
"You're right," the first replied. "If we don't think this over carefully, we could end up in those cages again and this time, we might not be so lucky to get saved from being sold as slaves."
Ralph wondered how long this would go on for. They'd done this at least three times so far. Most of it was the same theme, if not the same words. He wasn't sure if this was almost a rehash of what they'd discussed already or if this what leaders did all day, but he was getting tired of it. Especially since it didn't go anywhere and made it harder to talk to them about the beaver-kin.
"Whatever we do, shouldn't we at least see what another world looks like?" the third asked. "How can we know what the other world will be like unless we look for ourselves?"
"We have seen enough of other worlds," the second said firmly. "These strangers have shown us all we need to know about other worlds. That they are too dangerous for us to go to."
"This world is already dangerous for us," the third snapped. "If we don't leave now, we'll probably end up dead or as slaves. If we are to survive, we need to step into the unknown."
"I agree," the first said. "The known for us is what will end up getting us killed like all the other tribes or sold as slaves like their children have been."
"If you continue to hold out like this, we'll never reach a consensus," the fourth added. "If we don't reach a consensus, you know what will happen. Either we won't be able to do anything or a split will occur among us. If there's a split at this time, what do you think will happen to all of us?"
The second one sighed. "I will first see what has become of those that this Ralph as said have been saved and taken to another world before I will agree to this," he said obstinately.
The others sighed. Though, Ralph had to say according to his book, that was a win. After all, it was more progress than they'd made up to this point when the subject would come up through the day up to this point.
"Um, would this be a good time for you to tell me about the beaver-kin?" he asked, hoping there wouldn't be any more delays.