This is Chapter 1 of an ongoing story. While there is no sexual content in this chapter, there will be in following chapters. If you would like to read more of this story or see what else I’m working on, you can find that [here](https://www.reddit.com/user/katherinesummers/comments/tjf6hm/current_writing_links/).
***
At first she thought she would get away with it. It was a clear day, the sky blue as ice and the snow still and silent, no greater peace on the planet. No better day for hunting. It was the kind of day that mothers waited for before taking their children on their first hunt. Veska was not a little girl anymore, and nor were the rest of her hunting party. It should have been fun, as easy and as pleasant as a morning walk in the stillness after a snowstorm. As she strapped on her boots and painted her eyes with black ink, she told herself that it was going to be all right. She could handle a bit of light hunting on the calmest day of the year. She was so determined to make the hunt a success, she had painted her slate grey chitinous plates white so that she could hunker down and blend in with the snow banks, just like her sisters.
Her hunting partners – three of them – were in good spirits as they prepared, lacing up shin-guards and bracers to shield against the spiny backs of the dragon seals. Veska wouldn’t need such things. While they were just as strong as she was, they didn’t have the hard shell that covered the entire back half of her body in layered, interlocking segments that ended at the waist and started again on her shins and feet, making it seem as if she were wearing permanent plate grieves. Her sisters covered their vulnerabilities with artificial plates and padding, but Veska’s scales were as hard as they looked, enough to dull even a sharp knife. She would have thought this would give her an advantage. It didn’t.
This was not the only way in which she was different to everyone else. Where her skin was a dull, unbroken grey, theirs was pale white blue, usually darkening in deeper, richer colours on their faces, the palms of their hands and their chests and bellies. Veska was entirely hairless, whereas almost all of them had thick, snow white hair, tied and braided in immaculate styles. They had limber, powerful bodies with four limbs. Veska had six; two long, plated legs and two sets of arms. A pair of primary arms with strong shoulders and broad hands, and a secondary pair of smaller arms, slightly smaller and more dextrous, tucked in front of the first. There were other differences too. She didn’t have their large, sharp teeth, their yellow eyes or their long curved horns that grew on either side of their skulls. Despite all her differences, they were her sisters, and she knew that they loved her.
Sometimes, on the good days, that was enough.
And she was determined that today would be a good day.
Today the fatigue wasn’t so bad. She felt light on her feet, energetic. This would be the fifth consecutive day that she had gone out to hunt. Not every hunt was successful, but this week they had managed to catch and kill two dragon seals, and though Veska normally struggled to hunt day after day without rest, waking up to the perfect weather had inspired her to forgo a rest day. This decision had drawn some attention from her pack, but she brushed it off, forcing a wider smile that she could manage in order to fend off their questions. She could do this. Today would be a good day.
She continued to believe that as they climbed out the den one by one and the cold cut through her plates like a dagger. Still though it was, even the summer chill was like stinging insects. She shrugged it off, pulling her furs tighter around her, though the chitin made it difficult for anything to really fit tightly. She sank into the snow up to her mid-calf while her sisters jogged over it as if it were carpet. Even with her special boots, it took her a moment to find her footing. One of the pack slowed, turning her head and making to wait for her, but Veska glared at her until she faced forward, re-joining the others. Half an hour into traversing the snow plains and it was getting more and more difficult to ignore the ache in her legs and shoulders. An hour and her feet her numb, her thighs burning, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps that made her chest hurt. The rest of the pack was far ahead of her, and if it hadn’t been such a clear day, there would have been a danger of losing them. But she wasn’t going to give up.
When the leader of the pack raised her hand, signalling that she had felt something beneath her feet – the rest of the pack were barefoot, their padded feet protected from the ice and snow but sensitive to the movements underneath – Veska tried to pretend that she wasn’t relieved. While wearing boots, she couldn’t feel anything, relying entirely on her sisters to sense the whereabouts of the dragon seal. It was a dangerous game. She refused to be the only one who didn’t hunt, but she was especially vulnerable to attack. The idea was to provoke the beast into butting its head against the bottom of the ice, breaking through and exposing its unarmoured lower jaw and belly. In service of this, the leader took her spear in both hands and started rapping on the ice in a quick, trotting rhythm.
Veska had to stay perfectly still. Her heavy footfalls would only confuse the beast at best, and bring it up directly underneath her at worst. Instead she watched the pack, catching first one and then another make quick motions with their hands, indicating the location of the dragon seal. It seemed to be circling them, considering the sharp tap-tap of the leader’s spear. Was it her imagination or could she feel the ice beneath her rise just a little as if the beast had bumped it with its powerful back?
But the rest of the pack was already moving, signalling that it was heading south, close to the surface. Veska had to wrench her body into motion, hauling first one foot and then the other into a heavy jog. Even that brief moment of being still had been enough to cause her muscles to seize up. The cold had eaten through her shell, settling and spreading throughout her body like icy tendrils and taking root in her core. She rolled her shoulders, forcing herself to take another step and another, her heavy body hitting the ice hard with every step.
She fell behind. As the back stopped again, trying to entice the dragon seal to the surface, she put on a burst of speed, her straining legs and back screaming in protest. She needed to be there to fight the thing when it broke through. She could barely feel the spear in her frozen fingers and her feet were just heavy blocks at the end of her calves. So focused on advancing, Veska didn’t notice her sisters raise their hands, frantically gesturing for her to stop. In addition, the blood pounding in her ears meant that she didn’t hear their warning shouts. If it hadn’t been her fifth day in a row, if she hadn’t already been so tired, she would have heard the tell-tale rumble just ahead of her, but it wasn’t until the thunderous crack of the ice splitting that she staggered to a stop, skidding.
For a long, terrible moment, there was only silence as the whole world stopped breathing.
Then the ground split to her right, her section of the ice tilting upwards as the dragon seal broke through. Veska felt herself slipping, and the moment that she tried to regain her footing, her legs buckled. It was as if all her strength had just vanished, sapped utterly by the cold. She slid, the freezing water rising up to meet her and seeping into her boots and leggings like poison. Gasping, she tried to claw her way upward, all four arms scrabbling for purchase even as she slab of ice had been knocked almost vertical. Her flat, webbed, numb fingers caught nothing.
She didn’t feel the pain as the dragon seal closed its jaws around her leg, but she did feel the pin-point pressure of its teeth and the sudden gush of warm wetness, hot on her skin compared to the icy water, which was rapidly turning pink. Then she was thrown downwards by the monster, submerged entirely. The cries of her packmates, the creak and groan of the ice, became distant and muffled, as if her head had been wrapped in a scarf. She blinked, opening her eyes, suspended in darkness.
The dragon seal watched her with glowing eyes. It wouldn’t try to eat her until she was drowned and lifeless, but it would circle her, ready to bat or drag her down should she go for the surface. She looked up at the surface of the ice, deep blue, the shadows of her packmates pacing back and forth as they tried to find her, the underside of their paws just visible through the ice sheet. After the frantic rush of adrenaline, being submerged, hugged and held by the death-cold water, was suddenly so peaceful. Her body relaxed. She did not gasp from breath. It would be a long time before her chest would begin to ache, and there was no urgency for her to seek air. Experimentally, she spread her arms, splaying the webbing in her fingers. In theory, she was an excellent swimmer, her powerful arms able to take her from one end of the melt to the other without needing to surface for air. She had always been stronger than her sisters, able to reach darker depths and cleave through the water like a dragon seal herself.
But now she was too cold. Her muscles cramped painfully, her fingers curling into claws even as she tried to orient herself, intent on swimming towards the edge of the ice – a mile or so south – instead of up towards the light. If she hadn’t been so exhausted, she might have been able to make it, but when she tried to drive forward, her arms just waved limply. The shadow of the dragon seal loomed above her, blocking out the light. Her eyelids became heavy. She was struggling to keep her head up and she felt herself drift, pulled by the current. A bubble of air escaped her lips.
The dragon seal swayed hypnotically.
She began to sink.
***
Cold evening sunlight fell across her face. Every part of her ached and for a long time, even her eyelids were too heavy to lift. She wasn’t cold, but that meant that she wasn’t numb and after coming back to consciousness, her limbs began to tingle and then prickle with pins and needles. Groaning, she forced herself to open her eyes.
She was lying by the firepit, the white-amber light of the flames initially too much for her to bear, and she shut her eyes and turned away. This was how she discovered that she was wrapped in blankets, and padded out with thick, fluffy snowlark down and sealskin to insulate her. This was how her mother took care of her when Veska was sick, and sure enough she realised that she was in her mother’s den. A large stone structure, long and communal, with the firepit in the centre, acting as a social focal point for the seven or so older women who lived here; her mothers pack.
She lay still, so as not to draw attention to herself, even as the room became gradually clearer to her. The first sounds that came to her were the crackling of the fire and the voices around it, talking about the hunt, the job of preparing the food for the pack, the latest gossip about Snova’s lovers, and other topics that were soothing but unimportant. Next came the soft click of metal on metal some distance behind her as Snova herself, ignoring the ladies around the fire, mended furs and leather. Then her mother’s voice, speaking to someone at the entranceway. At the sound of Kileth’s voice, Veska tucked herself tight in her roll of blankets, though with all four of her arms pinned to her sides and chest, there was very little space for her to tuck into.
The pins and needles were getting worse and her feet and fingers twitched helplessly as she shivered. It was pleasantly warm next to the fire but even so she felt chills running up and down her spine. Had she worked herself into a fever?
This movement, however, caught the notice of her mother’s pack around the fire. The oldest among them, her lined eyes sharp as daggers even as her mane had become thin and faded, turned her head to regard Veska, who averted her gaze, wishing that she could just go back to sleep. Tarasil was not just the eldest pack member here, but the eldest of all of them, and so the one who garnered the most respect. There was no hierarchy in the tribe, so to speak, not like the humans who had leaders and captains and kings, but age was granted defference and it was natural for grandmothers and great-grandmothers to make decisions on behalf of the tribe and pass judgement, swapping out the work of the body for the work of the mind. Tarasil was the closest thing the tribe had to a chief, though it would be considered vainglorious if she were to claim any kind of title.
“Stop pretending to be asleep. You’re a terrible faker.”
Feeling her cheeks burn, Veska opened her eyes.
“And get out of those blankets. You don’t need them while the fire is blazing.”
Grimacing, Veska obeyed, wrigging until her front arms were free and she could pull herself out of the tight roll that she had been wrapped in, revealing the loose trousers and tunic that she was now wearing. Despite the heat of the fire, she used her back arms to resettle the largest blanket over her shoulders, tucking it tight to her with her front arms and sitting as close to the fire as she could. Tarasil shook her head with an irritated snort, which Veska did her best to ignore, wishing she could be anywhere else but loath to leave the warmth.
Kileth, seeing Veska was awake, went to her daughter. An observer might note that Veska’s pale grey skin and shell might match the darker spots of Kileth’s mane and tail, and might even notice that Veska’s bright blue eyes were the same as her mother’s, but the resemblance ended there. Even though they were related by blood, it was easy to assume that the two of them belonged to different species. Even so, Kileth knelt by Veska, lifting the latter’s chin with her knuckles, assessing her eyes and feeling her forehead with her other hand.
“How are you feeling?”
“Cold, but better. I’m sorry if I worried you.”
Tarasil snorted.
“Do you have something to say?” Kileth asked her, coldly.
“If the foolish girl knew her limits then she wouldn’t be in this mess, would she?” Tarasil eyed Veska. “You’re not sorry at all, otherwise you wouldn’t have done it in the first place.”
Kileth pressed her lips together and said nothing but Veska made a murmuring, grumbling sound in her throat.
“What was that?” Tarasil asked, her eyebrows raised, daring Veska to talk back.
“No, please don’t fight,” Kileth groaned.
Normally, Veska would have bit her tongue, if only for her mother’s sake, but this time she was tired, cold and miserable enough that she didn’t particularly feel like being diplomatic. “If I stayed at home and rested, you would say that I was selfish for letting my sisters hunt for me.”
To her surprise, Tarasil chuckled. “That’s right,” she said, her voice like ice. “Because all that’s in your blood in selfishness. If you could get away with it, you would sit around and do nothing while your sisters hunt and sweat. But you can’t, so you push yourself so hard that you become unfit to hunt, taking advantage of the love and care that your sisters have for you and getting what you want in the end.”
“That’s not true, Tarasil,” Kileth snapped, trying to bark her into silence, but Tarasil just spoke over her, determined to finish her condemnation.
“There, your mother defends you, waits on you hand and foot, and you can take it easy while you ‘recover’ from your self-inflicted injuries.”
Veska was about to open her mouth to fight back but Kileth took her by the wrist and hauled her to her feet, cutting across her. “It’s alright, we’ll just leave if it causes so much distress.”
Tarasil simply gave her a sweet, satisfied smile and turned back to the fire while Veska was being led away. Once they were at the back of the den, Veska wrapped the blanket she had been able to snatch from the fireside tight around her shoulders once more, though it was too small to stretch completely around her upper body. She couldn’t help but notice that the exchange had resulted in the two of them conceding a spot by the fire while Tarasil remained.
Kileth was already making excuses and warning Veska not to rise to Tarasil’s provocation, but Veska interrupted her. “What did she mean when she said ‘*all that’s in your blood*’? She’s never said that before.”
“You know how she is,” Kileth said, her soft, dismissive tone an attempt to sweep the matter away. “She’ll just say anything to get you riled up.”
“Tarasil doesn’t just make things up, mama. What did she mean?” She took her mother by the shoulders with two hands and searched her blue eyes. Kileth looked uncomfortable but when she spoke it became clear that it was not secrecy that made her break eye contact, but helplessness.
“There’s nothing you don’t already know, Veska,” she said. “I went out into the world and I met a human. I didn’t stray far from him and when I felt my belly swell, I came back here and had you. You looked just like you do now.” She sighed, pulling her daughter into an embrace. “There’s nothing more to it. You are Sufuru, like everyone else here.”
Veska let herself be held, hiding her face in Kileth’s shoulder. It was getting more and more difficult to believe. Sufuru were born always female and always like their mothers, no matter who their fathers were. They might inherit their eye colour, or the shape of their nose or their height from their fathers, but that was as far as it ever went. So if Kileth was actually her mother – and Veska believed she was – how could she had been born like this?
She knew well what Tarasil and others said about her. In times of anger, she had been called a mutant. The crueller among them had whispered that she was malformed, and it was easy to believe them. Always cold, sickly, poor at hunting, her powerful arms heavy and restrictive when she felt they should be more useful. She could hold her breath for more than an hour, but she could only stand the water for a few minutes before her whole body seized up in the cold. Not to mention that the dragon seal meat that was so much a staple of the tribes diet made her stomach cramp in protest.
“Mama, I should go,” she said.
“No, Veska, it doesn’t matter what Tarasil or anyone else says. You belong here. You deserve to be here as much as anyone else.”
This wasn’t untrue. Most of the tribe were used to her and she had friends. Her pack were fiercely protective of her and, on the surface, she never felt lonely. The loneliness that she felt was deep down, in that hollow feeling in her stomach that never went away, no matter how much she laughed and hunted and relaxed with her pack. Despite everything, they had really *tried* to make her feel like she belonged.
It had never been enough.
“No mama. I’m serious. I need some time away from the pack, from the tribe. I’m old enough now. Maybe I’ll find out who I am, maybe I won’t, but I need to at least *look*. Do you understand?”
Kileth examined her daughters face. She must have come to the realisation that if she tried to stop Veska, she’d only force her away. Letting out a sigh, she said; “wait a week. Only a week, and if you still want to leave, then I’ll help you prepare. Will you do that?”
A week was nothing. In fact, Veska was surprised that this was the only stipulation. She nodded. “Thank you.”
She had been about to leave but Kileth caught her arm just before she could step out of reach. “Veska… Don’t listen to Tarasil. She likes to dig and wheedle and get under your skin. Don’t give her the satisfaction of knowing that she’s got to you.”
Veska nodded a second time but as she made her way back to her own den, still a little weak and shivery, she found herself wondering if she had ever seen Tarasil harass anyone else.
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/tkt3ri/the_heirs_of_witchhunters_01_fantasy