Wolf Who Rules

"Perhaps," Wolf admitted. "Something is keeping Turtle Creek unstable." "Stupidity upon stupidity," Jewel Tears scoffed. "She shouldn't have built them a gate."

"I defy you," Windwolf said, "Unarmed and captive by a ruthless enemy to do better."

"Defy, there's an interesting concept, indicating lack of cooperation." Earth Son said.

"Yes," Jewel Tears said. "I wouldn't have cooperated."

"She cooperated because it's now in her nature to be cooperative," Forest Moss said. "Wolf Who Rules remade her and blessed her with our mothers' curse - to be yielding. Why else would we need the sekasha to guard over us. We can not stand against anything, especially our own nature. How can you sitting there with never a moment of stark helpless fear in your life understand? Our mothers were bred to lie on their back, spread their legs and not whimper too loudly - unless their master liked it when she screamed. If it wasn't for the steel of our fathers' ambition, we would be cattle in the field."

"You may count yourself one of the cattle, but I do not," Earth Son said.

"Yes, yes, let us not listen to the one that has been under the heated blade. No, he did not have his eyes forced open to the truth just before one was seared out." Forest Moss spat. "You can not hope to understand what it is like. To lie there unable to move as they ready the tools of your destruction. The first time, oh, you can be so very brave because you don't know what is coming; everything in your imagination is just a pale shadow of the pain. It's the second and the third, when you've been so well taught, then the very smell of hot metal makes your heart race. You see the torch only once, right before they strap you down, but the hiss of the gas flame haunts your nightmares for years to come. You lay there, listening to the invisible dance of their preparations, the scrape of boots, the rattle of the cutting blades in a metal tray, the creak of tightening leather restraints and there's nothing, nothing, you can do."

"She wasn't tortured," Earth Son pointed out.

"Clever female knew the truth-" Forest Moss said. "- the truth you're refusing to see."

"If she didn't do something the gate in orbit would remain functional." Windwolf reminded the others. "The gate we couldn't shut down. Yes, the result poses a threat, but it is now in our realm, where we can deal with it ourselves."

"We will solve this problem you caused," Earth Son said. "Damn these humans and their gate."

"We can't blame this on them," Wolf said. "We elves went to Onihida and lead the oni to Earth. If we hadn't done that, none of this would have happened."

He did not bother to point out that in truth, it was the Stone Clan that had gone to Onihida.

Earth Son countered it as if he made the statement aloud. "The humans built the gate in orbit."

Wolf shook his head. "The oni stranded on Earth used the humans to build the gate - and manipulated them to keep it functioning."

"Why are you defending them?" Earth Son snapped. "It's unlikely that they're all innocent in this."

"Yes, some might be guilty," Wolf allowed. "But not all of them."

Earth Son waved the truth away. "Bah, they're just as bad as the oni - breeding like mice."

"Fie, fie," Forest Moss whispered. "We were all blind beings even before the oni burned out our eyes. Why should such arrogant fools as we listen to the warnings of the human natives? Of course the caves were a mystical place with mysterious goings and monstrous comings. What importance to us that humans were forever losing their way to other worlds and rarely coming back? What did it matter that we recognize nothing of ourselves in the stories?"

"Oh, please, shut him up," Jewel Tears hissed.

"Oh! Oh!" Forest Moss leapt to his feet and wailed, waving his hands over his head. "It's all so ugly! No, no, who cares if perchance we might learn something important? We must close our ears to this wailing of a madman!"

"Forest Moss!" True Flame snapped. "Sit!"

The male sat so abruptly that Wolf wondered if the outburst had been yet another example of Forest Moss using his reputation of being mad.

"Does anything he has to say have any relevance to what we need to do here?" Jewel Tears asked. "It seems to me that our task is simple. Do findings to track down the oni nests and burn them out. Instead we are sitting here constantly being distracted by the mad one's ramblings. By his own account, he was shortsighted in his venture. So he was caught and tortured - but all that hinges on one gross error - on the first moment of discovery, he should have fought their way clear and returned to the pathway."

"I had dealt with discovery by humans many times," Forest Moss said. "A show of power, a few trinkets, and we would be safe enough to pass on. How was I to know that the oni were monsters under the skin?"

"I'm trying to determine what the Stone Clan brings to the table," True Flame said. "And what they will come away with."