Chapter 16
Umbra turned his life on its ear.
The duality of her nature drove him absolutely insane. She would bounce back and forth randomly from vapidity to intelligence, sometimes in mid-sentence, making it hard to get anything out of her… that, and the fact that she was deliberately evasive about some things. Some of her transitions to the dumb Arcan were obviously fake, whenever he tried to press her too much about her past, and it drove him wild knowing that she couldn't be that dumb, yet unable to pin her down and make her tell him what he wanted to know. Theirs was a combative relationship, where he aggressively tried to learn about her, but she put him off with a nearly practiced ease that flustered him and drove him nuts. Their talks became arguments, which often erupted into fights that Firetail had to break up, or Umbra cut off by methodically seducing him. She learned early that he wasn't quite so combative when she was amorous, so she used that like a cudgel. He knew she was doing it just to shut him up. He knew that he was being manipulated in the most basic way, but it was hopeless to stop it. After their first sexual encounter, some baser part of Kyven's nature had latched onto the idea of willing female, so all it really took Umbra was a few suggestive comments and a couple of touches to get him in bed and to stop talking. He was almost embarrassed at how easily Umbra could manipulate him, but he just couldn't seem to evade it. She could turn him on like a switch, and when she got him like that, he wasn't worried about what she knew anymore.
About the only time they weren't fighting was when they were in bed. Now in that matter, Kyven had no complaints. Umbra was a very enthusiastic partner, and she not only saw what they were doing as a duty, she also seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. Their first night had proved that they were compatible, as Umbra had joined to him, and she was almost insatiable after she experienced that first orgasmic joining. Umbra was much more Arcan than he, so she was more based in feeling, and she really liked joining. So, since it was something she really, really liked, she pursued it with almost militant aggression.
It seemed that as long as they were in bed, they were quite a happy couple. It was just all the other time they were together that wasn't quite so blissful.
There were many things about her he could deduce without her telling him anything, though, just by watching her in those rare times when they were in the same room and either not verbally fencing or not in bed. For one, she was very… strange. She had almost no inkling of some things. It was hard to explain–well, not really, but it was just odd. She seemed to have knowledge of many things, but no experience with them. Kyven eventually attributed this to a wild Arcan being told about things without ever seeing them. An Arcan that had lived wild in the forest didn't live in a house and as such had no practical experience with many things one would find in a home. Umbra understood the idea behind a fire, but she was afraid of it. She knew what silverware was, but didn't know how to use it. She knew what a lamp was, but was totally mystified by it, how it gave off magical light. Often, he would come into the room and find her examining the blanket to puzzle out how it was made, or examining the walls to understand how the stones were put together. Or she would be standing at the window–an open window, which often made it cold in his room–staring out with a certain wonder at the street below, just dazzled by life in Haven.
She also had a very odd turn of mind when it came to language. She seemed incapable of comprehending that a word could have more than one meaning. She seemed to latch onto only one definition of a word, and afterwards, even after she was told that the word could have a different meaning, she would always associate that word with the first definition. Now this was bizarre, since she seemed to speak fluent Noraavi. She knew the language, but she just couldn't seem to get it down that the word run might have more than one meaning.
For that matter, her way of speaking was also unusual, beyond her bouncing between smart and dumb. She always spoke in the simplest terms possible, and she didn't embellish her words or use flourishing descriptions. Her idea of pretty was a good example. When she liked what something looked like, it was pretty to her. Not handsome, beautiful, lovely, charming, or cute, but pretty. There were no degrees in her mind, no varying degrees of pretty. It was either pretty or it wasn't, and since all pretty was the same, she didn't embellish that concept. It was just pretty, whether it was a cute puppy or the most gorgeous sunset ever seen by man or Arcan in the history of the world. To her, Kyven was pretty, just as he thought she was pretty, and Firetail was pretty, and the ivory comb he'd bought for her so she could comb her blue-black hair was pretty. They were all of equal weight in her mind.
Outside of that, and her ongoing war with her, she was actually not bad. She was a very earthy person, logical and rational, and had a great deal of common sense. She was rather smart as well, but more than that, she was very cunning, just like a shadow fox Arcan should be. They were both beings of guile and deceit, and Kyven learned quickly that she was both manipulative and treacherous, capable of tying anyone in the house outside of Danna around her finger any time she pleased. Firetail seemed to understand her manipulations and gave into them with a certain amount of amusement, as if playing a game, but poor Patches was bowled over by Umbra's guile and was all but held in thrall by her. Despite her seeming innocence about many things, Umbra was very worldly when it came to manipulating people into doing what she wanted them to do, and the poor panda had no defense against her. Patches found herself in the enviable position of all but being Umbra's maid when Kyven was out training, but, on the other hand, Umbra seemed to have a genuine affection for the girl, and didn't make her do anything too outrageous. A little stealing from the kitchen, a couple of harmless little things in the house mysteriously disappearing and reappearing in her room, those kinds of things.
The only one that Umbra couldn't dupe was Danna. Danna had taken an immediate dislike to her, and try as she might, Umbra couldn't get close to her. Danna wouldn't even talk to her. The human just gave her that icy stare that never failed to send Umbra scurrying for the safety of their room any time the female got anywhere near her. The only time they were in the same room was during meals, and Danna pointedly ignored the female, usually spending much of her time giving Kyven hot looks. For some reason, Danna objected to Umbra, and she just wouldn't see the situation for what it was.
Toby was a slightly different matter. Toby had taken quite a liking to Umbra, and Umbra seemed to really like him as well. She was honestly timid with him at first, because her parents had taught her to fear humans, but Toby's honest friendliness wooed her into a wary association. She was very curious about him, because he was an unknown, and not what she was told humans were supposed to be. Toby was not a good man. He was a mercenary, a fighter, and had killed his fair share of both men and Arcans over the years. But he was earnest. He was affable and kind, in his way, and very honest. He could be kind to those he liked, but was indifferent about those he did not. Something about Toby really interested Umbra, and she spent much of the time not with Kyven talking to the hunter.
Kyven didn't mind, really. What he had with Umbra wasn't love. It wasn't necessarily even like. It was duty. He found her to be a nice enough person, if a little maddening, and they had fun in bed, but their relationship wasn't built on much more than that. What she did and who she talked to wasn't really his concern. They were together for one purpose, and one purpose only. Umbra was definitely interested in him, and beyond the fact that he was the sire of her future child, but there was no love there, on either side. Umbra liked him, liked him a lot, but didn't love him.
He found he could live with that.
There were a few love-like tendencies. He was protective over her, because she was so childlike in some ways. After she nearly burned the house down playing with an alchemical device that produced a flame to light the stove and the fireplace–at least when he or Firetail didn't use Shaman magic to do it–both he and Firetail realized she needed a guardian to keep her out of mischief… which became Patches. Her innocence about some things made her endearing. He found her to be a brisk conversationalist, at least when they weren't fighting, her strange mind seeing to the core of matters even as it maintained that childish façade. She was playful as well, often getting him to wrestle on the floor like a couple of kids in their more compatible moments. As long as she wasn't dodging his questions, they were quite domestic, almost a couple… but not quite.
But, as hard as she tried to be mysterious about her past, he did worm some of it out of her, in their more intimate moments. Like many women, Umbra got very talkative and snuggly in bed, either to sleep or have sex, and it was in those moments that he struck and got the best results. Those tidbits by themselves didn't make much sense, but when he started putting them together, he started to understand the true nature of her. That nature became apparent when he pieced together those tidbits, and realized he was wrong about his initial assumption that she was originally an Arcan. She was not.
She wasn't an Arcan… or she didn't start out as one. So, if she wasn't an Arcan, and she wasn't a human, well, there was only one other thing she could be.
That realization shocked him, almost to the core. Umbra had been born a shadow fox. His prejudices ran away from him at first, but then, when he sat down and thought about it, he realized he needed to keep an open mind about this. After all, he had been changed too. He had been changed from a human into an Arcan… well, Umbra had been changed into an Arcan as well, but from the other direction.
One of the reasons it shocked him so much was because of the implications of it. Humans and Arcans were blatantly related in their similarities. It was said that the Great Ancients created the Arcans from animals to serve mankind, by giving them human-like bodies and more intelligence so they could perform tasks. That was what Danna had told them about the Loremaster's view of Arcans. But, at their core, they were still animals, without souls, and without the true intellect of humanity. Kyven had always secretly suspected that humans and Arcans were closely related, but the truth of Umbra showed him that he was wrong. He wasn't sure if Umbra was a typical Arcan or a creation of powerful spirit magic, but the end result was the same. A monster, a shadow fox, had been transformed into an Arcan. As the fox changed him by taking his humanity and giving him a part of the shadow fox, he changed her by taking a part of her shadow fox nature and giving her humanity.
She was an Arcan. So was he, for that matter. How they were created didn't matter as much as that simple truth, that they were just as Arcan as any other Arcan in Haven. Umbra was no different from other Arcan females outside of her personality, and personalities were different for everyone. She was indistinguishable from other Arcans, and physiologically she was as Arcan as Firetail. The fact that she joined to him told him just how completely Arcan she was. Though they were created by magic, both of them were Arcans.
Thinking of Arcans as infused by humanity was a disturbing philosophical epiphany. Were the Arcans really animals infused with humanity, humans infused with animals, or were they something else?
Either way, when he looked at her in that light on a fine April morning when it was very nearly warm enough outside to melt the snow, but not quite, he saw that when one looked at her with that truth, many of her little quirks made sense. She had knowledge but not experience because the fox had obviously tampered with her mind, had taught her Noraavi and gave her knowledge of many things, but since she had no direct experience with them, she was still quite childlike in her reactions. It explained her earthy nature, since animals were eminently practical creatures. But it made him wonder just where the tampering ended and her true self began. How much of her was the real female? How much of her fox personality was hers, and how much of it was the creation of the spirit? Would she have been like a shadow fox animal had the spirit done nothing to her, as wild as the Arcans that roamed the lands outside Haven?
Another disturbing epiphany. Were wild Arcans born without enough humanity in them to give them human intelligence? Was the humanity within Arcans the factor that gave them their intelligence, or was it something else?
He spent a long night coming to terms with that idea. He was living with and sleeping with a woman who used to be an animal. But, he looked at it from the long view; wouldn't she feel the same way about him? After all, he too wasn't born Arcan. He was born human, and transformed into an Arcan by magic, just as she was transformed from a shadow fox. Clearly, the spirit had given her an Arcan mind as well as a body, making her just as intelligent as, if not more intelligent than, most others in Haven. Her inexperience with Arcan society made her seem dumb, or childish, and she had a playful bent in her personality that reinforced that, but in reality, Umbra wasn't monstrous or revolting, she was just… different. He could accept that difference, because he wasn't exactly normal either. He had no right to call her down when he was just as unnatural as she was.
Learning the truth of her changed their relationship. Most of their fighting was over her refusal to answer his questions, but when he discovered the truth of her, he stopped asking those questions and just started watching her, observing her. That took quite a bit of tension out of their relationship, and it made things much more peaceful. He still dug at her from time to time to keep her on her toes and not make it apparent to her that he knew, because he wanted to observe her, to see how she acted. It was deception, but on the other hand, she was quite deceitful with him, so it was all fair in his mind.
It made their life interesting. They were both creatures of deceit, living together, deceiving each other on a daily basis. Kyven saw it as good practice for the jobs in his future, getting used to spinning a deception and maintaining it, that deception being his pretending he didn't know Umbra's true nature. He goaded her in some ways, created a few fights just for the sake of appearances, but mainly he just watched her, watched and learned. He watched her learn about Arcan society and customs, watched her quickly learn about all those things of which she was told but with which she had no experience, like learning how to eat with utensils, learning how to start a fire, and her painful period of integrating into Arcan society.
That wasn't fun for her. She wasn't used to others outside her group of known friends–or enemies, so she was very standoffish, tentative, wary, like she'd been with Toby. It was an indication that she had some aspects of her former life, for foxes were solitary creatures. She hovered on the verge of open hostility when forced to interact, at least at first, and that created a few tense scenes when the very social Arcans encountered someone not as social as they. Firetail and Patches were the ones to teach Umbra about being social, and helped her adjust to the idea of living in a group environment, both inside and outside the house. But, as time went by, Umbra adjusted, and went from watching the comings and goings on the street from the window of their room to short jaunts outside to speak to other Arcans, to slowly immerse herself into her new life and the change of custom.
It had to be much more radical for her than it was for him. Though the culture of the Arcans was radically different from humans, at least the Arcans had a semblance of human culture, and that was a base from which Kyven could draw. But Umbra had no such base. She was taken from one lifestyle and thrown into one that was tremendously different, and quite profound. Though the fox had educated her about some of it, that knowledge only went so far. She had to experience it, and the course of that experience was not smooth. She made a large number of social gaffes and little mistakes, but she also learned quickly. She went from an animal's life with an animal's mind to living in an intelligent society as an intelligent being. The fox had given her intelligence to match those around her, and had clearly tampered with her, but that innocence about her was one of her childish qualities, and was also a stark monument to how different she was, and how huge a step she had undertaken when she accepted this task. It would be the same as if he was changed into a shadow fox and loosed into the wild; that was how huge it was for her.
He found himself truly admiring her. She had wanted a grand adventure, and she was living it. She was doing something that no one else had ever done, moving not only between cultures, but between major animal groups. He could look at her and know that she had once been a fox, but after the initial shock of it wore off and he observed her, studied her, he saw that it truly did not matter. The fox had changed her mind as well as her body, and that change made her just as Arcan and just as intelligent as anyone around her.
It did raise some disturbing theological points in his mind, though. Umbra was born a fox, and was now an Arcan. The Loremasters taught that animals and Arcans had no souls… so where did that leave Umbra? Was Umbra possessed of a soul? She was indistinguishable from any other Arcan… she was an Arcan. And so was he. So, did she have a soul as a fox? Did she somehow gain a soul as an Arcan… or did Kyven lose his soul when he was stripped of his humanity?
There were just too many scary thoughts there. He didn't think about those things very long, or very often. The implications were just too dire.
Kyven continued his training despite the disruption that Umbra brought to him. He spent some time each day maintaining his endurance through exercise, which Umbra sometimes joined with him, but the rest of it was devoted to sharpening his mind. Firetail helped him by devising mental exercises for him dealing with memory and imagination that he practiced daily, and he also spent nearly as much time out in the city looking at everything in as much detail as he could, from Arcans to buildings to rocks to snow to stables to hay to food, everything. He needed a large base of memories of detailed images to be an effective practitioner of illusion, and those jaunts outside also served to help him practice his illusions. He had a constant illusion going at all times, and sometimes had more than one going at the same time. That was a trick he taught himself, and it was extremely demanding. Concentrating on two illusions at once took almost all his mental faculties, leaving him virtually incapacitated and oblivious to the world, and it was also extremely demanding on his body. He thought running while using an illusion was hard, trying to keep two highly demanding spells operating at the same time, both demanding of his energy and demanding of his every iota of concentration, and left him both trembling with exhaustion and mentally drained to the point of listlessness. It was definitely not something he would use as anything but a last resort.
In the month since Umbra's arrival, Kyven felt that he had progressed satisfactorily. He was getting to the point where he could produce illusions from only his imagination with a fair degree of success on the first try, but each subsequent attempt allowed him to correct little things and make it more and more believable. Creating objects he had studied was easy for him from the creation point, and the illusions were utterly indistinguishable from the real thing. Firetail and Clover were amazed by his aptitude for illusion, and Clover was just a tiny bit jealous. Kyven was a weak Shaman in any realm of Shaman magic except illusions, but in that one specialized field, he had no equal. His totem status gave him overwhelming advantages that no other Shaman could hope to gain unless they were totem to a spirit like the shadow fox themselves.
March yielded to April, and a warm snap of temperatures that were almost above freezing, coupled with sunny skies, warned him that time was running out, that spring was coming, and the spring was the harbinger of a major action. He stood at the window as the sun went down, feeling a little edgy. Tomorrow, Toby would leave Haven with Clover and a small party of Arcans to begin his journey to distant Alamar and his mission to buy every Arcan he could get his hands on. He would be traveling by sled until the snows melted, then on by wagon, carrying a huge number of crystals with him. The Shaman had all but killed themselves all winter producing crystals, and as a result, Haven probably had as much crystal wealth as Avannar. Those crystals, separated by size, weight, color, and value, were all ready to move out to various Masked agents along the border between human territory and the wilderness, where those agents would buy out kennels en masse and cause strip Noraam of every Arcan they could buy. The council had outdone themselves with a clever plan to set up a central staging encampment about fifty minars north of Deep River, a small city of tents back away from the river so it couldn't be seen by merchant boats, where Arcans would be transitioned from slavery to freedom even as they were built into groups and then moved out. An elaborate supply system had been set up that would all but depopulate Haven of able-bodied Arcans, for those masses had to be fed. Foragers and farmers would be hard at work stocking supply stations along predetermined routes for the freed slaves, while those remaining behind would be building houses, tents, any kind of shelter at all on the plain by the river south of the city, creating a temporary refugee camp where the saved Arcans would stay as they integrated into Haven's society. Not all of them would live in the city itself, but many would. The rest would filter out to the villages around the city, and quite a few new villages were already being planned and built, mainly to the southwest. The coal supply routes from the mountains past the prairie could stand to have some villages along it, the council decided, so they were going to build Arcan settlements along that vital supply route. And the sudden influx of new Arcans would serve to both populate those villages and supply food by farming the fertile prairie land between Haven and the coal-producing mountains.
Kyven could agree with what they were doing. The council was expanding the borders of Haven, both because they had to and because it was necessary. By civilizing the land between Haven and the coal they used, they were securing that supply line against monsters and wild Arcans… and maybe against future human aggression. By establishing it now, it would make it easier to defend in the future.
There were several council members coming. Kyven opened the window and let the cold air into his room and looked out, and saw them. Five of them walking up towards the gate of Firetail's modest compound of two small houses and the garden, now snow-choked. They waved to him when they saw him in the window, and he waved back. He didn't know them very well, because he was too busy with his own mission to get embroiled. They came over and ate dinner sometimes, but that was the extent to which he socialized with them. He didn't even know all their names, though they'd been told to him, several times. He was just too busy to worry about things like that. Firetail and Sharp, the hereditary descendent of the original Firetail, were the only ones he could ever really remember.
"What is it?" Umbra asked, pushing under his arm and looking out the window under his chin. "Oh, them again. They're very strange."
"They're among the ones that lead the others," he answered.
"Such a silly idea," she chided.
"The council? It seems to work."
"It's still silly," she said simply. "What are you doing today?"
"Same as I do every day."
"Well, we're mating before you get started," she announced. "It's nearly spring, and I'm still not sure if I'm pregnant. I was told I have to be pregnant before the snow melts. We'll be mating twice a day until I'm sure."
"You make it sound like a chore," he teased.
"It can be when you're not doing it for fun," she answered simply. "Of course, I'll be saying something different once we get started," she giggled.
"Well, I think I can bring myself to accomplish this dreadful chore," he said with a mocking sigh, which earned him a stomp on his foot.
Their sexual relationship was healthy and fun, and probably the most stable part of their relationship, since the whole thing was built on sex. They had sex at least once a day, out of duty, but that didn't mean that they didn't enjoy it. At first, Umbra was a one-position woman, probably a holdover from her life as a fox, with her on her hands and knees and him behind her. But he introduced her to the fun side of sex, different positions, foreplay, some pretty alien concepts to her before, which only made it more apparent to him that she had started as something radically different from what she was now. Actually, it was her sexual habits that first got him started on the idea that she may not have been an Arcan before, because she had knowledge of how Arcans did it, but no experience… and there was just no such thing as an Arcan her age being a virgin. Sex was a casual activity among Arcans, and even wild, she'd have had sex long before then. She'd been enthusiastic but a bit timid that first time, and in a very fox-like manner, she'd just knelt down and waited for him that first night, like a fox waiting for a male to mount her. She'd come a long way since then, much more playful, much more daring, much more curious, much more intimate. But, since she always assigned one word and one word only to anything, words and concepts like having sex and making love and Danna's crude reference to fucking were all just equated to the word mating in her mind.
Since it had to be done before they got started, they got to the point. They fooled around a while, which got Umbra in the mood, but before long he had his jaws locked on the back of her neck as he mounted her, her tail shivering in anticipation. That, of course, was the exact moment they chose to open the door. Kyven didn't look, but the scents coming from the door were Firetail and Danna. But he was too Arcan now to stop just because of company, even if it was Danna. He fully mounted Umbra before he gave them any notice, then held her by the hips as he looked to the females. "What is it?" he asked calmly, as if he and Umbra were sitting in separate chairs reading.
Danna's look was withering, but she said nothing. Firetail just gave him a slight smile. "I was wondering if you're coming to breakfast," Firetail told them. "It's getting a little late."
"We'll be down in a bit," Kyven said. "As you can see, we're a little busy."
"So I see," Firetail smiled, then she left. Danna lingered in the doorway, her eyes hot. It was the first time she'd ever seen them in such a position, and Kyven felt oddly annoyed by her staring.
He made a specific point to start moving his hips, which made Umbra growl in pleasure, demonstrating he was unmoved by her accusing gaze, blatantly having sex with Umbra with his eyes locked with Danna's own. "If you're going to stay, want to get a better look? I'm sure you could see everything if you got behind us and we spread our legs a little bit and I raise my tail. We may as well make a show of it."
Danna's cheeks instantly flamed scarlet red, and she almost slammed the door in her rush to escape, which made Umbra laugh. "Why is she like that?" Umbra asked as Kyven leaned over her. She braced her hands on the bed as he pressed himself against her back, one hand grabbing her breast as the other supported him so she wasn't supporting his full weight.
"She doesn't know what she wants, I think," he answered.
"Would you mate her?" she asked directly.
"In a heartbeat, but she won't have anything to do with me," he answered honestly. "Besides, I think I'm busy mating someone else right now," he noted dryly.
Umbra giggled. "Then get to work," she commanded. "I'm not feeling anything–" she broke off into a deep throaty growl when Kyven obeyed.
It was short, but very enjoyable. She joined him after his climax, which caused him to hold very still while she panted through the intense, orgasmic pleasure of it, feeling her literally tremble under him. Despite her sexually adventurous disposition, this was still her favorite position, and she always seemed to have the most intense orgasms and most intense joinings this way. After her grip on him eased, she rose up onto her knees, pushing him up with her, and just let him stroke her fur and fondle her breasts as they entered the "snuggly" phase of their bed behavior. These were the moments when he usually sprang surprise questions on her to get honest answers, and she was almost always expecting them anymore. It was just another aspect of the game they played, as he dug for the truth and she artfully evaded it… but that game was itself a deception, since he knew the truth already. It was a lie within a lie, and somehow, he felt that the fox would approve of the two Arcans she created being as deceitful with each other as she was with them.
Guile and deceit. It was the foundation of their breed.
"Mmm, not yet," she hummed when she felt him prepare to release her and pull out of her. He complied with her request, pulling her tighter against him and putting his arms around her, holding her. "So, where is your surprise question?" she asked with a soft chuckle.
"None today," he told her, reaching down and fondling her genitals in a way that made her dig her claws into the arm holding her around her stomach. "I'm thinking of something else."
"What?"
"Doing that again," he said huskily in her ear.
"I'm all yours," she panted in agreement.
"I'm not ready yet. But I demand payment for my services," he said in a gentle yet commanding voice.
"Oh? And what would that be?"
"An answer."
"And here I thought there'd be no questions," she giggled.
"No surprise ones. I want you to see this one coming," he told her. "I want the truth."
"The truth, eh? And what makes you think I'll give you that? Isn't that against our religion?"
He actually laughed. "It might be," he agreed. "But no truth, no second wind," he said, even as his hand got her very ready for a second engagement.
"I–hey! Kyven, that's cheating!" she gasped when she realized what he was doing.
"There's no cheating in a game that has no rules," he said, holding her tightly as he literally masturbated her. She was still hyper-sensitive from their first session, and she couldn't deny the sensations his hand was producing in her. She was too open to sexual pleasure to ignore it anyway. "Now, do I get the truth, or do I leave you hanging?"
"Bastard!" she accused. She didn't even try to get away, because she knew it was pointless. Kyven was much stronger than she was, and he had a grip on her she could not break. Umbra was eminently practical. There was no use struggling when it would produce no gain.
"So, do I get my answer?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Of course you do, but it's up to you if you want to spend the rest of the day horny. And I suppose I'll be late getting home tonight," he added casually.
She laughed ruefully. "What did you want to know?"
"You'll be honest?"
"As honest as you think I am," she countered playfully.
"Does it bother you that I was human?" he asked her.
"You wanted an honest answer about that? So silly!" she laughed. "Of course it doesn't bother me!"
"Good. Because it doesn't bother me that you were a monster."
She froze, then pushed away hard enough to break free of him. She turned on her knees and looked at him, quite seriously, then she grinned. "So, figured it out, did you?" she asked.
"A while ago," he admitted. "I was just enjoying the game… but I think I'll be leaving soon, so I wanted to tell you the truth early enough for me to enjoy it," he grinned. "Why did you hide it?"
"She told me to," she answered. "She wasn't sure how you'd react to me."
"Well, I was a little freaked out when I first realized it, but then I thought about it a while, and found it doesn't bother me," he told her. "What you were doesn't matter as much as what you are now. You have a few odd little quirks, but aside from being a little eccentric, you're just like the other females to me."
"I'm glad you know the truth," she said earnestly. "It makes me happy you aren't rejecting me."
"Over something like that? I don't have much room to talk, you know," he said, patting his furry stomach pointedly. "I'm not what I used to be either. We're both the same, Umbra. Two of a kind. Literally and figuratively."
"Huh?"
"In more than one way," he corrected. Umbra didn't have a very extensive vocabulary. "So, now that you know that I know, be honest with me."
She laughed. "Honesty? Honesty! You'll get no such thing from me!"
"Then I'll just have to figure it out on my own," he grinned. "So, lie a little bit about what it was like before," he said, leaning back and sitting down.
She climbed up and straddled him, sitting in his lap, looking down at him with a smile as her hands rested on his shoulder. "What it was like? I think you'll be disappointed," she answered. "I was very young, only just out on my own. I was a very bold and carefree female, and before I could even find my own territory, the mother came to me and offered me this chance, along with a few others. She gathered us together, and then she tested us."
"Tested? What kind of tests?"
"Questions. We're very smart monsters, Kyven. We're not just animals," she told him pointedly. "The mother changed my mind to give me Arcan intelligence, but she didn't have to make me that much smarter than I already was. She was looking for an adventurous female that hadn't yet had any kits, and I'd always dreamed of being something more than what I was. My earliest memories were watching the birds and wishing I could fly too," she said, a bit wistfully. "Anyway, the mother decided I was best suited for it, and so she took me and changed me. It hurt," she said with a shudder.
"I wasn't awake when I was changed," he told her. "I guess it would have been painful."
She glanced around. "I don't think you were changed the same way," she told him, a bit conspiratorially.
She was there. Kyven felt her behind him, and then felt her paws come to rest on his shoulders, rearing up, and he could almost feel her eyes looking down at the back of his head. Do not ask questions unless you are ready for the answers, came her ominous warning.
"Why could you only change one?" he asked immediately. "It's because of me, isn't it?"
I could only make one because I could not change her as I changed you. You are a Shaman. That gives me certain hold over you because of our deal. I had to use more… dramatic means to create Umbra.
"What does that mean?"
Are you sure you want to know?
"Who are you talking to?" Umbra asked, her face puzzled.
"Her," he answered. "And yes, I'm sure I want to know."
I was able to easily give to you because what I gave in return for what I took is the essence of what I am. I lack the ability to give to her what I gave to you, because it is not me. But where I could give you what makes you Arcan by granting you something from myself, I could not give to her what makes her Arcan. So I had to take it from elsewhere.
"Where?"
There are no happy endings.
She killed someone. She killed a human and used the human to create Umbra. That might have shocked him. But how did she do it?
No, she already had humanity. His humanity. She could only make one.
There was a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.
She was made for you, she said simply. And she was made from you.
"But… but your promise," he said in a bare whisper.
To regain your humanity, I will have to take it from someone else. If I take it from Umbra, you strip your children of their mother and she will be a shadow fox once more. But I can take it from anyone. What made you human, and what I took, wasn't unique to you. Take it from another, and you will be human again.
He should have been shocked, but he wasn't. It wasn't the first time she'd betrayed him. She took what made him human, and put it in Umbra to create an Arcan–
To create an Arcan.
A truth struck him like a thousand stars in his eyes. The Arcans were part human. She had made him by taking a piece of him and replacing it with an animal, and then she did the same with Umbra by taking an animal and putting that piece of him into her. The end result was the meeting of the two in the middle, and that was what the Arcans were. They were the bridge between humans and animals, a merging, a hybrid, created by magic. Kyven and Umbra were Arcan, just as Arcan as any other Arcan, and they were creations of magic, not born to it.
You see the truth. You and Umbra are a resurrection of the ancient past. You are the first Arcans since the ancient war to be created using magic.
"Magic?" he whispered.
That is how they did it, Shaman. The Great Ancients did not use their mythical technology to create the Arcans. They used alchemy.
Alchemy? It was always said that they used their science to create the Arcans, created to be beasts of burden and to fight in the Great War that brought about the downfall of their civilization.
To them, alchemy was nothing but a science, Shaman. A new science, one they did not entirely understand. The Arcans were one of the results of their experimentation with forces they did not comprehend. Another result was the destruction of their world.
She seemed to push more weight on his shoulders, leaning her head down over his shoulder, her nose coming into view in the corner of his eye. Understand this, she communicated to him, which made Umbra gasp. Obviously, she could hear it too. Long ago, during the height of the human civilization, they fell into war with one another. The war was ghastly beyond anything you could imagine, she intoned in a grim manner. It raged for a generation, and reached a point where the reason for it became lost in the hatred the two sides had for one another. But, as wars go, there is inevitably a victor. That victor was the side opposed to the civilization that held these lands, Shaman. This side, in its desperation, began experiments on anything they hoped would turn the war back in their favor. One of those experiments was alchemy. Those experiments led to the Arcans.
They were originally created to fight in that war, Shaman. They are stronger than humans, faster, tougher. They were the perfect soldiers, created with a powerful pack mentality and need for social structure that displays itself even today, even among breeds whose animal halves are solitary. They used animals indigenous to this continent as much as possible, using canines and cats most, since they were plentiful and had the necessary qualities that made good Arcans. There were more exotic ones, Arcans created from animals from other lands, but they lacked enough breeding partners to sustain their numbers, and they have died out over the years since. That is why you see so many canine Arcans, Shaman, and cats being the next most numerous. The Arcans were a success in the field of alchemy, and it spurred more experiments.
As I have told you before, that was their doom. They pushed too far, and you know what happened next. The destruction of their civilization stemmed from alchemy, Shaman. What I did to you and to Umbra is naught but what those ancients did. Remember, there is nothing that alchemy can produce that cannot be done by a Shaman, though there are many things a Shaman can do that cannot be reproduced by alchemy.
The Arcans were created by your ancestors as nothing but tools of war, she told him, And their very creation was an act of brutality. Understand, my Shaman, it takes two to create an Arcan; the animal and the human, and the nature of the creation required that the human be willing–or at least not struggle during the process. But what those humans were not told was that they would not be the end result. The animal became the Arcan, Shaman. The human only served to sacrifice himself to grant his humanity to the animal. The human died, and the animal was changed. Those ancient scientists deceived their population in the most horrible ways imaginable, never telling their sacrificial lambs that volunteering for the project would kill them, only saying that they would be the Arcans that resulted. And they did not restrain themselves to just those who volunteered, or who they volunteered by force. Towards the end, anyone who was of no use to the war effort was taken to be used to create an Arcan. The old, the young, the ill, the mentally unfit, all of them were marched to the Arcan chamber and died to create soldiers that could fight. Even children. Not more than a fair share of infants were sacrificed to create Arcans.
Kyven's mind shuddered at the image of a long line of old men, young children, the sick, the injured, the insane, being herded towards a steel door beyond which lay their unknowing death.
That is the grim origin of the Arcans, Shaman. They were created for war, and created by exacting a horrific price on the humans who died to make them. That is what we fight against, Shaman. The Loremasters want to resurrect the past, but we will not permit them to become what perished from the earth.
"If the animal becomes the Arcan, how–"
You? I had to change the original process, but the end result was the same. It still required you to sacrifice your humanity, though. The night I created you, Shaman, I literally killed you. You had to die for the transformation to be complete. What I took from you to enact the change became what was given to Umbra to create her.
"All those people," Kyven whispered, his mind almost reeling at the enormity of it.
You do not comprehend the totality of that war, Shaman, It began as a war of conquest, but descended into a war of total destruction. Billions of humans died. Entire races were wiped out. An entire continent was so devastated that even today it is a poisoned wasteland that cannot support life. The scope of it was such that what was done to create the Arcans was but one small atrocity among ones that would frighten me to repeat. The lives taken to create the Arcans were just a tiny fraction of those who were slaughtered in that war.
Any time you find your determination wavering, Shaman, think of this. Remember that the tale of the Arcans is only one of many travesties, atrocities, and horror stories of those ancient times, and know that you are working to prevent anything like that from ever happening again.
She was gone, leaving him to his frightened thoughts.
He was almost stunned. She told him a secret that he doubted even the Arcans themselves knew, that they had been literally created to fight a war, and it had cost human lives to make them. For every Arcan the Great Ancients created, one of their own people had to die… and from the way the spirit talked, they had made armies of Arcans. Hundreds of thousands of people, maybe even millions, deceived into giving up their lives to fight a war that they were losing, or may have already lost.
And then, flushed with success over the Arcan experiments, they continued exploring the boundaries of alchemy, searching for a new weapon, a new breakthrough to regain the advantage in their great war, and then caused the breach into the spirit world that destroyed ancient man and seeded the world with the crystals man now used. He wondered briefly how they used alchemy without crystals, since the crystals came afterward… but they had to have come up with something.
He wondered what it would look like, to see an army of uniformed Arcans on some battlefield, fighting in that terrible war. But it wasn't a good kind of wonder.
Umbra just stared at him, then wordlessly put her chin on his shoulder. He held her close, comforted her… it wasn't every day one learned she was created from the death of someone else. Kyven had died to create Umbra, had sacrificed his humanity to give it to her. Though he wasn't really dead, the method was still the same.
"I'm sorry," she said in a small voice.
"I don't blame you, silly girl," he chided gently, patting her back. "Dear Trinity, I've been sleeping with my daughter."
Umbra shivered, then burst out laughing, which made her relax.
Kyven wondered why she told him that, but it didn't take much to realize why. Knowing the truth of the Arcans didn't make him revolted or repulsed, it instead made him more resolved. They were the descendents of Arcans who had been created for nothing but to fight and die. They hadn't been given any choice. They had been created from animals, torn away from what they knew and forced to fight for their creators, and when the breach happened, they changed. They ceased being soldiers, but instead became property. They stopped fighting that ghastly war, but then were forced into a different kind of service. The Arcans had never had a break, he saw. They were created to fight and die in that terrible war, and when they no longer had a purpose, humanity enslaved them after the war was over and civilization broke down. They had never known their own freedom from the day the first Arcan was created by their experiments in alchemy, until the original seventeen founded Haven. How many years had the Arcans been slaves, either slaves to the army fighting a war, or slaves to the remnants of humanity? It was almost frightening to contemplate.
That was what he'd be fighting for. He'd be fighting to give the Arcans the one thing they had never had… freedom.
Sacrificing his humanity was a small price to pay when one looked at that big picture, if his children could help protect that freedom.
There was another reason, he saw. He didn't have much more time. Toby would be leaving tomorrow, and he had no doubt that the fox would send him out soon afterward, most likely the very day they confirmed Umbra was pregnant. He had a hunch he was being sent back to Avannar, so he didn't have to go as far as Toby did. That meant that some things needed to be done, and he didn't have time to dawdle. And one of the things he'd been meaning to do was sitting in his lap right now.
"Umbra?"
"Hmm?"
"You were born a shadow fox."
"Yes."
"Teach me."
She pushed away enough to look at him. "Teach you what?"
"You were born knowing what I don't know. You have instinct, I don't. She told me that the shadow powers I have could rival my Shaman magic if I learned to use them, but I've never tried. Teach me."
"Teach you? I can't teach you," she said. "It's not something I can really teach. I can only tell you what I can do, but I can't explain how I do it. I just… do it."
"She told me that too. But if I have an idea of what I can do, it will help me."
"Alright, that I understand. We are the shadow, Kyven. The shadow is a living thing, and it will respond to us, because we're just asking ourselves for help. When we hide in the shadows, we join to them and it conceals us, for a shadow within a shadow is invisible… they join together and become one. We can call them through us, creating shadow where there isn't any, like a fog of shadow, to confuse our enemies. I've learned how to change shadows that are already there, making shapes. I used to do it for fun as a kit," she smiled. She held her hand out to the side, and he saw a fog of darkness surround her hand, like a wispy mist of pure shadow. She waved her hand through it, and it billowed behind her hand leaving little eddies and swirls, like dark smoke. She raised a single finger, and all the swirling darkness stopped in the air, then formed into the rough shape of a rabbit, wavering in the air. She then pushed away from him and turned on his lamp, then turned and pointed to the wall, where her shadow was. She took on a serious expression, and then her shadow grew visibly larger, then took on a different shape. It went from being a shadow of her to being the shadow of a tree. But then the shadow pulled off the wall! It became a tree of shadow, but it had no features, no depth. It still looked like a silhouette, but it was clearly not on the wall. It was a two dimensional shape, but it wasn't attached to the wall, and turning his head this way and that showed him that it really was in three dimensions, it just had no depth and no visible marks to give it the appearance of depth. It was a curious thing. It would appear a floating shadow with no dimension no matter what angle one looked at it. "This was one way I hunted," she told him, reforming the shadow into a ball, and then pulling it over them. Suddenly, all light was swallowed up, leaving them in a murky darkness that seemed to have hints of light.
Naturally. There could be no shadow without light. So there could never be total darkness, else there was no shadow. So, though her ball of shadow wasn't total darkness, it did distort what he could see, turning the room into a dark, writhing image that made his eyes swim and his stomach a little queasy. Given that kind of thing before its eyes, any animal would be frozen in fear and confusion, or might bolt wildly in any direction, maybe even running headlong into a tree.
"Clever," he said, looking around.
"If they caught my scent while I was stalking them, I did this. That way they couldn't see to run. Sometimes they ran away, sometimes they ran towards me, sometimes they even ran into trees," she giggled. "But that's all I know. Just remember that the shadow is your friend. Ask it to help you, and it will."
"I'll practice it while I'm doing my illusion training," he promised her. "And I hope you don't mind if we just go on downstairs. What I learned from her kind of spoiled my mood."
She smiled and patted him on the chest. "You owe me tonight," she said archly.
"I'll be happy to give you all the attention you want tonight," he told her with a smile. "Thank you for understanding." He reached into her little shadowy rabbit, felt the coolness there, and on an impulse, tried to summon that cool feeling through his fur on purpose. He did it the way he called power as a Shaman, he beckoned to the shadow. And it responded! Kyven's hand wavered, and then vanished within the foggy shadows, becoming invisible within the fog of shadow. Kyven had never made just one part of his body vanish before.
It was a start, though. He'd done something he'd never done before, and that was the way one began learning a new skill.
They went downstairs and took their seats at the breakfast table, but only Firetail remained there. She handed Kyven a plate of buffalo meat, which he took with a nod. "Sorry," he apologized.
"I sensed her up there with you," Firetail noted. "What did she want?"
"She… told me something I don't think I really wanted to know," he said with a shiver.
"She told us where Arcans come from!" Umbra announced.
"I would think you'd know that by now, dear," Firetail said with an amused smile.
"No, she told us how the Arcans began," Kyven elaborated. "She explained how they did it."
"Ah. Quite a sad tale, isn't it?"
"You know?"
She nodded simply. "We remember, Kyven, where the humans have forgotten. We don't tell humans for obvious reasons."
He could only nod. How would humanity react to find out that the original Arcans were created by killing humans? Not well. Not well at all. "That was how she made Umbra," Kyven said. "She took what she took from me and gave it to her. She said I was made differently, but the end result was the same."
"You are Shaman," she said simply. "She can do things with you she cannot do with mundane beings, because you agreed to it. For us, the rules are slightly different when it comes to the spirits."
Kyven sighed. "And she said for me to get my humanity back, I have to take it from someone else," he concluded. "I'll have to kill a human and take his humanity."
"Does that bother you?"
"A little," he admitted. "But I've killed before. That was my first lesson," he said, a little grimly. "When I do earn my humanity, at least I'll know what's involved in being human again. I know what it will cost."
"Just pick someone we can live without," Firetail said with a smile, which made Kyven laugh in spite of himself. "Toby leaves in the morning."
"I know. Have you got everything ready?"
"As ready as it will ever get," she sighed. "Haven't you noticed that there are far fewer on the streets lately?"
"I did," he said.
"We have crews building villages in the snow," she said. "And crews building new houses in every village in our lands, as well as in the city itself. We've had to reassign some Arcans to the new villages to help our brothers and sisters adjust. The next two years will be quite chaotic," she admitted. "So many new mouths to feed. So many problems coming. But it will be a labor of love," she added. "I'll gladly take those headaches over the heartache of them being slaves."
"Amen," Kyven said as he started breakfast. "What did the council want?"
"They came for Danna," she answered. "They're trying to get her to take a position in the government."
"A human serving in the government? Won't that cause a riot?"
"It might. Kyven, the council has decided to form an army."
Kyven looked at her. "An army?"
Firetail nodded. "And they want Danna to command it," she answered. "She is very intelligent, and to be honest, she has more training in military matters than anyone else in Haven. She's the best qualified for the job."
"But she wasn't in their army."
"Neither were any of us. But she was in a military organization, Kyven. Like I said, she's the best qualified for the task. Her training is far beyond anything any of us has. We want to avoid a war, my friend… but we must be ready if we fail."
"Well, that's only smart. I'm just surprised the council thought of Danna."
"There was quite a bit of debate over it," she admitted. "Several council members wanted to run the army, until I asked them exactly how they would go about setting it up. That stopped them, in their tracks."
"Set it up?"
"How many Arcans do we induct? What kind of arms do we give them? Where do we get the arms? How do we train them to use these arms when we have so few with any practical knowledge of it? How do we assign rank? What rank do we assign? Do we house them in barracks or let them go home after training? What kind of basic tactics do we teach? Do we use cavalry? Do we build artillery? How do we feed them? How much do we pay, if anything? And so on and so on."
"Ah, I see," Kyven said with a nod. "Danna was in the Loreguard, she'd know a lot more about things like that."
"As I said, she has more training and practical experience than anyone in Haven. She would be the best choice."
"I can't argue with that kind of thinking," Kyven nodded, returning to his breakfast. "I think some of the people here won't like it too much."
"That is the council's problem to deal with, my friend. We have to start looking at some realities here. We must do what is right, not what is popular. If our plan fails, then we must be ready to defend ourselves."
"True enough."
Kyven thought about that, and what the fox told him, after he left for his morning exercise of a brisk run around the outskirts of the city while maintaining illusions, to keep his endurance up. Firetail was right. Of course, the fox and he already believed that war was inevitable, but it was a relief to see that the council was finally facing the possibilities of reality rather than blithely believing that they could not go wrong. They were finally admitting that war was possible, and it was only prudent to prepare. They could hope for the best, but it was only wise to prepare for the worst.
Any Shaman could have told them that. Clover had been quite unnerved by the council's lack of preparation for any kind of contingencies, and Firetail had been pressing the council to start looking at preparing fallback plans. The council's decision to create an army was just the first step in the right direction, as far as he was concerned.
Trinity, would the citizens go up in flames when they heard that the council wanted Danna to command the army. But Firetail was right; Danna was probably the only person in Haven with formal military training. She was the most logical choice.
If she accepted it, anyway. Danna's belief that the Arcans were trying to avoid war was the only reason she was so cooperative. She hadn't tried to run away, or burn down any houses, or been in any way an ungracious guest. She didn't exactly enjoy being here, but she could see the seriousness of what was going on, and the Arcan attempts to avoid war had caused her to sympathize with Haven's plight, even if she didn't feel quite as much for individual Arcans. To Danna, her being here was to avoid getting humans killed more than Arcans killed. How would she react to being offered the chance to create an army for Haven, that might go to war with her own people?
He wasn't sure. Danna was… complicated. He was still attracted to her, highly attracted to her, but she wouldn't have anything to do with him… and yet she was jealous of Umbra. She seemed content here, but he knew she missed her home and her job. She could admire the Arcan desire to avoid war, admire what they built here, but Danna still wasn't too enamored of the Arcans. To her, they were just intelligent animals, creatures without souls. She could respect their accomplishments and be friends with Firetail and members of the council, but her true thoughts and motivations were a mystery to him.
Typical female. The day a man could understand a woman, the world would end.
Kyven put the affairs of the day out of his mind as he finished his run, then wandered the city, looking at people and things, from fences to wagons, memorizing the way the looked, they way they seemed for his illusions. He practiced them as well, working to be subtle about it, trying to create illusions in crowds without anyone noticing things just appearing. It was almost an art, he'd come to find out, since Arcan eyes were very sensitive to motion… and something just appearing constituted motion in their eyes, since it was a change of visual stimulus. He worked to be a subtle and unobtrusive as possible, since he had a feeling that such activities might very well need to be done when his life depended on it, so he wanted to be ready. He had background illusions appear and checked to see if anyone noticed them, both to see if they saw them appear and also to make them seem good enough to be ordinary and thus not worth notice. But nobody seemed to pay much attention to his illusory chairs, pots, and posts, though one small raccoon did walk around the illusory snowbank he put in the middle of a small street. That pleased him greatly.
After working with illusions for a while, he returned to the Lodge and sat down outside, on the chilly porch, and bent himself to the other training. Umbra had shown him three things she could do that he couldn't, things he'd honestly never considered before. Two were related, the manipulation of shadow and pulling it off the wall, two sides of the same trick, while the cloud of shadow was completely different.
He looked at the shadow of the gate on the snowy ground across from the house, the shadow long and deep in the late winter afternoon sun, and remembered what both Umbra and the fox had said. Both had said that he was the shadow. Shadow foxes were shadow, and if one could control himself, then one could control a shadow. That told him that this ability was internal. He wouldn't be reaching out like he did with Shaman magic, he'd be reaching in, reaching into the shadow the same way he did that morning when he made his hand vanish inside Umbra's shadow bunny. He started with that shadow. He looked deeply into it, feeling it, being aware of it, and then he reached into it with his mind and his will. He beckoned to the shadow, called to it, bade it to lengthen across the courtyard and reach his furry foot as it rested on the frozen ground. He gestured as well, reaching out to it with his hand.
He felt it inside him. He could feel the shadow, felt its presence, and then felt it obey.
On his first try, he mimicked Umbra's trick. The shadow of the gate slowly stretched, like a languid snake, and crept across the courtyard where all the other shadows remained stationary. It stretched to him, just barely casting shade over his toes, and he could feel the effort involved in it. It was doing something unnatural, and while it obeyed him, he was the one that gave it the power to bend beyond its normal dimensions. Since he made it stretch so far, he could feel the shadow drawing the strength to do it from him. Thankfully, his Shaman training made him strong enough to handle it without any real strain, but he could feel the effort. He found he had control of the shadow, so he caused it to pull off the ground just as Umbra did, rising up into the air before him, and then he caused it to change its shape, taking on the silhouette he knew oh so well, becoming a shadowed image of Danna's sleek form.
Alright, that worked. He released the shadow, and it quickly reverted to its natural state. He then turned to her other little trick, creating that cloud of shadow. Since there was no shadow to work with, he realized quickly that it was something he had to make. There wasn't a shadow to manipulate, he was instead going to have to create a semi-solid shadow-like cloud of fog. He remembered how it felt when he put his hand in it, how it had been cool, almost cold, just like the feeling he felt in his fur when he melded into the shadows and became invisible.
His fur. Of course.
He got it on his second try. His training with illusions helped immensely by allowing him to imagine it with clarity and detail. It was again something internal, and he reasoned quickly that what Umbra did was invest some of her own energy into creating that shadow-like cloud. It wasn't real shadow, it was instead a form of magic innate to the shadow foxes, a magical shadow, or a shadow created by magic. It was the innate power of the shadow foxes, what made the monsters, and when he did it, he could feel the power of the spirit world channel through him almost as if he were using Shaman magic. He saw tendrils of shadow seep from the fur of his hand, and when he waved it, it trailed a cloud of shadow behind it. He stood up, and in a moment of total concentration, he unleashed that power as hard as he could.
The result was an explosion of shadow all around him. In the blink of an eye, he was surrounded by a cloud of swirling shadow, a cloud that expanded to envelop most of the courtyard. Where outside it looked like smoke, inside it was like the world in deep twilight, with dim light struggling to reach through the darkness, a murky darkness that was not totally dark, but also barely illuminated. A human wouldn't be able to see much past his own arm's length, but Kyven's eyes had no trouble seeing within the cloud; all Arcans were night-sighted, but Kyven, being a Shaman, could simply use spirit sight within the cloud. Kyven did find, though, that he had to work to sustain the shadows, that they wanted to dissipate like fog before the sun when exposed to bright light. It wouldn't take so much effort to maintain a smaller area, but he wanted to see how large an area he could affect… his life might depend on it, so he needed to know now just how big an area he could affect with this ability.
A pretty big area.
"Wow, you already figured it out!" Umbra said with a giggle from the doorway. Kyven opened his eyes to the spirits and looked beyond his cloud of shadow and saw her leaning against nothing, probably the doorframe. "That's a big cloud, Kyv! You're pretty strong!"
"I think being a Shaman helps," he said modestly as he relaxed his hold on the cloud, and it very quickly dissipated away to nothing under the withering light of the sun. "I could imagine what you did very well, and that helped me. You're… happy," he said, walking up to her.
She put her arms around his shoulders and nuzzled him. "I'm pregnant," she cooed to him.
"Really? That's wonderful!" he said sincerely, giving her a hug. "You weren't sure this morning."
"I had Firetail look," she explained, then she licked him on the nose playfully. "She said I've only been pregnant for a few days. I'm very happy," she said with a laugh, hugging him. "The mother said I had to be pregnant before the snow melts, and I did what I was told to do. Now just comes raising our babies."
"Babies? As in more than one?" he said in surprise.
"Three," she said in his ear. "I was hoping for five, but I have three in here," she said, patting her flat belly.
"Three?" he gasped. "You're having triplets?"
"What is triplets?"
"Three babies."
"Didn't I just say I was having three babies?" she asked, a little archly.
"I guess you did. I'm just… wow."
She laughed. "Why are you surprised? I was hoping for five, but only got three. Clearly, you didn't work hard enough!"
"Most human women only have one baby at a time," he explained. "Two is rare, but I've never heard of anyone having three."
"Ohhh, no wonder you're surprised," she giggled. "I don't know about Arcans, but three is kinda small for shadow foxes. Five is about normal, that's what I was hoping for."
"Well, then I'm kinda glad we're splitting the difference between one and five," Kyven said with a chuckle. "I'm going to be a father," he said, with a little reverence."
"And I'm gonna be a mother!" she said excitedly. "And our babies will be a new race of Arcans, just like the mother wants! And just like I want," she said, nuzzling him. "I get to be the mother of our race, Kyven. Our babies will always remember us."
"I hope they remember us fondly," Kyven chuckled ruefully. "But now I have even more to fight for, I guess," he told her, reaching down and putting his hand on her flat belly. "My children will be Arcan, Umbra. Even if I become human again, my children will be Arcan, and they'll live here. That means I have to do everything I can do to keep them safe from my own people."
Arcan children. He'd been avoiding even really considering that until now, when it was going to happen. He was going to have children, and they would be Arcan. It seemed that more and more lines were tying him to his Arcan body, even as the lines that tied him to his humanity were falling away. Danna and the desire to try to have a relationship with her was falling away with every hot look she gave him, while the ties that bound him to the Arcans were constricting around him in the form of Umbra's slender arms.
He was not an Arcan. He was human, and he still thought like a human, and he still wanted to be human again. But he was going to be a father now, and his children would be Arcan. It was just more ties holding him to the Arcans, for now his own children were at stake, and he had to fight tooth and nail to protect them. As if his experiences didn't bind him to the Arcan cause enough, now his own personal life was entangled here in Haven. Umbra would remain here while he went off to do whatever it was the fox wanted him to do, and his children would be here in harm's way if the humans marched an army on Haven, as both he and the fox feared they would. That made his involvement personal, beyond the duty and responsibility he already felt to help the Arcans after all the pain they'd been through. To save his children from a collar or the business end of a human musket, he had to do everything in his power to hamstring the humans if they tried to make war on Haven.
"You don't look happy," she accused.
"I'm feeling the weight of all this new responsibility," he answered honestly. "And I'm feeling a little torn. I never danced around the fact that I hope to someday be human again, Umbra. But now I'll have Arcan children."
"And you're not sure if you want to leave them," she noted. "You're a male, Kyven. Your duty isn't to raise the babies. That's my duty."
"Humans are very attached to their kids, Umbra, even the males," he told her. "They're not just yours, they're ours. I'm already starting to feel torn between what I want and my duty to my children. I'm not sure how they'll handle having a human father."
"They already do," she said simply. "How you look won't matter, Kyven. It's about what you feel in here that counts." She touched his chest gently, clearly in one of her more wise and insightful moments of her usual erratic behavior. "If you love them, and they know you love them, do you think it will matter that you don't look like they do?"
He could just smile down at her and give her another hug. "Sometimes you amaze me, Umbra," he told her with a chuckle.
"I hope so, or you'll get bored with me," she giggled in reply. "Umm, I know we did what we were supposed to do, and usually I'd reject you after I know I'm pregnant, but… you think we can mate some more before you go? It feels sooo good."
Kyven laughed. "I guess you're all Arcan now," he teased. "Animals do it to reproduce, but humans and Arcans do it for fun."
"Good," she said with an explosive sigh. "I thought I was being wrong for asking."
"It's only wrong when you don't ask," he told her.
"That I don't do anything about it?"
"That and trying to mate someone against his will," he said. "Not asking when you want it dishonors you. Trying to force someone dishonors you more, and is seen as very bad behavior among Arcans."
"I can imagine. I'm glad you're happy. Patches didn't seem that happy."
"Patches still has a little crush on me."
"Crush?"
"She really likes me. I like her too, but not the same way."
"Oh. I can't wait to tell Danna," she said with a wicked smirk.
"Bad girl," Kyven laughed, rocking her back and forth in his arms. "Since when did you start going out of your way to aggravate Danna?"
"Since this morning, when she seemed mad that we were doing what we were told to do."
"I think she objects to the fact that we enjoy doing it," Kyven noted.
"Well, that's her fault. She makes eyes at you and gets jealous over you, but she won't touch you. And Firetail told me that sometimes, humans and Arcans do love each other."
"I think she's waiting to see if I'm going to be human again."
"It's what's inside that counts," she said again. "If I were you, I'd have nothing to do with her. If she can't accept you like this when she knows your mind and your heart, then she's only interested in what doesn't matter. Looks are just to flatter. It's the way the male acts that counts."
"It's a little more complicated than that," he told her.
"No, it's not. It's very simple. She knows you're a human, but yet she won't treat you like one and won't be honest with you. If she wants you, but only wants you as a human, then she doesn't want you. All she can see is this," she said, patting his furry neck. "She never saw what was inside. You should stay clear of females like that, Kyven. They're nothing but trouble, and they make bad mothers. They get impressed by a shiny coat and a handsome ruff, but don't see the bad hunter that won't provide for her and her kits hiding under that handsome face." She licked his nose. "She's just like those silly females. All she sees is the human you used to be when she's blind to the real you, which is just the same no matter what face you wear with your illusions. If she was really interested in you, you being Arcan wouldn't matter. You should forget her. I don't love you, but I'll always respect you, Kyven. You'll always be welcome with me."
"Well, I'm glad of that, since I will want to see my babies," he chuckled.
"Now come inside. It's cold out here."
Kyven found himself being pulled inside, and again he was impressed by the deceptive complexity of Umbra's mind. She was so childlike, but she also comes out with such startling wisdom like that one. It was truly deep to consider the real person and not what one saw on the outside, and chiding Danna for being so shallow, seeing only what she wanted in him without allowing herself to see the real him. She wanted him her way, and when Umbra said it like that, Kyven couldn't help but agree. He'd never hidden his interest in her, it was Danna that rejected him. But, in her defense, Kyven was looking at the same Danna, where Danna was looking at an Arcan. For Danna, that was a damning fact, the fact that he didn't even look like her species. Umbra didn't consider that, though… but her reasoning still had a glimmer of wisdom in it. If Danna couldn't accept him after getting to know him and at least acknowledge her interest in him, keeping him at arm's length even as she glared accusingly at him for taking up with another female instead of waiting forever for something he'd been told quite succinctly he'd never get, then he should move on. She didn't want him, but she obviously didn't want him being with another woman either. That was very unfair to him.
He could understand Danna's point of view, but he was also selfish enough to only want to see Umbra's point of view. He was willing to try with Danna, but she wasn't willing to try with him. But, he was the one who looked so different. If she was the Arcan and he was the human, would he be so willing?
Probably. Clet and Stripes showed him that it was possible. Kyven had to be patient, and Danna understanding… which was why it was never going to happen. Danna was too proud, and had an innate bias against Arcans, and a personal bias against him. Her attraction to him was the only reason she'd been his friend over the winter, since he could sense it in her. She was just as attracted to him as he was to her, but where he was willing to explore that attraction even as he was now, Danna was not. Was it selfish and shallow of her to demand he be human, or was it just proper? It would take a very special human, like Clet, to be willing to explore a relationship with an Arcan. Could he really hold it against Danna that she didn't want to get involved with him?
The practical side of him said no, but the child in him said yes.
Of course, he hadn't been acting very well about it, grinding Umbra in Danna's face a little. He had no doubt that his willingness to stray from his professed interest in her was a black mark against him in her eyes, but she also had to admit that it wasn't fair to him to make him hang on like that. If she wanted him, she had to say it, not pretend she didn't, and that was something she'd never done, nor probably ever would. They'd become friends over the winter, and that looked to be as far as it would ever get.
Firetail gave him a hug when he came into the sitting room and congratulated him, and Toby, who was visiting, stood up and shook his hand. "Ah heard the news, congratulations, friend," he said. "Ah'm glad Ah heard it befo' Ah leave tomorrah."
"I think I'll be out not long after you," Kyven said. "I've learned what I was told to learn, and done what I was told to do," he said, nudging Umbra, who giggled girlishly. "There's not much more for me to do here."
"Any idea what that may be?"
He shook his head at his friend. "Not for sure, but given what I've been taught, I have almost no doubt I'm going to Avannar," he answered. "I can dig into the Loremasters and learn things nobody else can."
"Ah don't doubt that. With those illusions, it'd be child's play tah slip through they whole organization."
"Maybe not child's play, but I could definitely dig deep into them and learn some things."
"Enough serious talk," Umbra said, grabbing Toby's hands. "You leave tomorrow! Come talk to me, Toby!" she ordered, pulling him towards the kitchen.
"She is truly fond of that young human," Firetail chuckled as the two of them left. Kyven accepted Firetail's nuzzling, and they sat down together on cushions near the fire. "I think she will miss him nearly as much as she misses you."
"I'm going to miss him too. Toby's a rare kind of fellow. I've always respected him, even when he was taking me to Alamar."
"He gives me hope for the future," Firetail added. "He may not have scruples, but at least he is honest and willing to accept us for who we are."
"He's always been like that," Kyven noted. "At least as long as I've known him."
"What do you think you will be doing now?"
He shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure, but I can guess. She's taught me things that makes it pretty clear I'm going back to the human lands to spy on them. I think I'll be sent to Avannar. It would only behoove us to have someone inside the Loremasters who knows what they're up to, so we can work around them, or get ready for them. I can only guess that's what I'll be doing."
"It's a wise assumption," Firetail nodded. "It would only help Haven to have someone in a position where we know what the Loremasters are doing, and what they may know. It would be what I would have you do, but I admit I am nowhere near as wise as the spirits."
Danna came in through the front door and stamped the snow off her boots on the scrubby mat Firetail kept there. Her cheeks were red and a little chapped, and her eyes were dark and stormy. "Firetail, do you know what insanity has possessed the council?" she said angrily. "They want me to be the general of the Arcan army!"
"You are the most logical choice, child," Firetail said calmly. "None of us have any military training. We have no idea what to do, where to even begin."
"You knew about this?" she said hotly.
"I suggested it," Firetail answered in an unflappable manner.
"I have you to thank for this, then?" she growled. "You want me to command Arcans who hate me against my own people when we'll get annihilated if there's a war?"
"Basically, yes," she answered smoothly. "Because of everyone in Haven, you're the only one with the kind of experience, training, and education to build an army from scratch. You can accept part of offer, child. Help us build the army, then find someone competent to command it and walk away. Because simply put, child, we have no idea how to do it. We are not soldiers."
If she only knew what her people used to be. "I think that's a fair compromise, Danna," Kyven told her. "Help them set up so they can protect themselves if everything falls apart. That's all they're really asking. You know they don't want war, but can you blame them for being prepared for the worst? They just want to have a fighting chance. And you're the only one who can give them that chance."
Danna gave him a look that could have burned the fur off his face, then turned and stormed back out into the cold.
"She'll get over it," Firetail chuckled. "She knows we are right. She's made friends here, and the thought of them being defenseless will spur her if nothing else."
"I hope so," he grunted.
Danna did return at dinner, as Umbra chattered animatedly with Toby, and Patches and Firetail talked quietly about her desire to apprentice to a cooper. Kyven didn't understand Patches' interest in barrels, but it was a decent trade. There was always a use for barrels, and it was a good craft. But Kyven had other ideas. It was an idea he broached to Firetail as Danna sat down in sullen, angry silence and was handed a plate of stew. "Patches," Kyven said, looking at her. "Are you good with your hands?"
"How do you mean, Kyven?"
"I've seen how delicate your hands are, and you're very nimble, but how good are you at doing very small and delicate things? Like tying a very fine line together, or threading a needle?"
"Pretty good," she answered.
"Good. I've had something of an idea."
"Go on," Firetail said.
"When I go back to human lands, odds are I'm going to Avannar," he said. "When I get there, odds are my job will be to find out what the Loremasters know. I can do that either by working in the Loremasters, or living in the city. I think it'd stretch me to join the Loremasters, since I'd have to hold my illusion at all times, and that's just too risky. Instead, what I was thinking was to set up in the city, as just another crystalcutter. It's a common trade in Avannar, and I won't attract much attention. I'm going to move in and buy a shop, or buy a building and start a shop, and from there, I can maintain the illusion that I'm just another crystalcutter in Avannar, while I dig through the Loremasters at the behest of Haven. Given what I've learned, I'm fairly confident I can work my way into their organization, but since I am and Arcan, I have to do it from the outside. Now, any master crystalcutter is going to have apprentices," he said, looking at Patches with a toothy smile. "You don't have any crystalcutters here at all, Firetail. I'm sure they wanted me to teach the craft to someone before I go, but my training didn't let it happen. So, I'd like to take Patches back with me. She can help me in Avannar, and at the same time I'll train her to be a crystalcutter. When I send her back here, she'll be more than good enough to train others. That way the Arcans gain a crystalcutter, and I get someone I know and trust to help me in Avannar." He looked to Patches. "What do you say, little one? I know it's a scary idea to go back to human lands, but this time you'll be with me. And I'll train you in something no one else can do. You'll be one of the most important people in Haven."
The small red panda gave him a long look, then smiled shyly, though her hands were trembling a little. "I'd have to wear a collar, wouldn't I?"
Kyven laughed. "Yeah, you would," he admitted. "But I'll share in the chores."
"I can teach you to cook," she offered.
"Are you sure about that, dear?" Firetail asked. "You would have to go back to the human lands, and Kyven would be doing something very dangerous. It would require you to lie and be very, very brave in the face of people that would frighten you."
"Firetail, to them, I'd just be an Arcan," she said, a little nervously. "They won't think I'm smart. And besides, you said I don't face my fear, it will make me like some of the others you've shown me here, afraid to come out of my house. I don't want to be like that. I want to be brave. And I want to help. If my helping is nothing but sweeping floors and making Kyven dinner, well, that's what I'll do."
"If he's found out, then you might be captured. And they'll make you tell them all about Haven."
"Then we'll have to be careful."
Before Kyven could say another word, he sensed her. She was behind him at the low table. He felt her paws come to rest on his shoulders, rearing up over him, and Firetail was looking right at her. You have done well, she communicated to him. You saw to the heart of the matter, planned for it, made preparations, and you have a plan of action. I am pleased.
"Then it is Avannar," he noted.
Indeed. Take the little one with you, and perhaps one or two others, so that you have a stable of apprentices that the people of Avannar will see as nothing but your Arcan slaves. You will also need a Shaman to create the crystals you will cut. Clover works well with you, so she will go. It was not my original intent, but your reasoning is indeed sound, and I see interesting possibilities with your idea of subterfuge. You may pass on your training, and you have a viable means of concealing yourself within the city as you engage in espionage against the Loremasters, so we might know what they intend and what they know. Very clever, Shaman. I am quite pleased.
He simply bowed his head.
Make ready. You will leave as soon as you are ready for the journey, but no longer than five days from now. Oh, and tell the human that she will do as Firetail asks, she added with a flinty tone that made Firetail laugh. The spirits see value in her building an army to protect Haven. In that regard, there is unanimous agreement among us. The council has done well in taking this step, and the spirits are most pleased with them.
"We are most humbled, spirit," Firetail said graciously. "I will tell the council you find favor in our preparations."
Indeed.
And she was gone.
"I'll make the necessary inquiries, Kyven," Firetail told him. "I think two more apprentices will fill things in nicely. I'll find you two Arcans who are very good with their hands, and are also willing to go with you into danger." She looked to Patches. "And I'm quite proud of you, my friend. You are indeed being very brave, and I commend you for facing your fear."
"What are you talking about?" Danna asked.
"Kyven's spirit just graced us with a visit, Danna," Firetail said with a smile. "She told us that Kyven's idea to take apprentices to Avannar and open a shop is a sound plan, and agrees to it. She has given permission for Kyven to take Patches, Clover, and a couple of others with him to begin his work infiltrating the Loremasters. So, I think, tonight the two of you need to sit down and talk."
"About what?"
"You were in the Loreguard. You may not be a Loremaster, but you know names, places, things he will need to know to begin his infiltration, for that infiltration will require him to talk his way into the inner circles, or talk his way past guards. The more he knows before he arrives, the safer he will be, and the fewer risks he will have to take."
"Infiltration? I thought you were just going to sneak into the headquarters and steal documents."
"I could, and probably will, but think about it, Danna. If I'm going to be useful, I need to supply constant information. I need to be there to tell Haven if the Loremasters figure out what's going on when you buy the slaves. I need to be there to warn you if they find out about Haven, what they know, and what they're going to do. If they decide to attack us, then we really need to know that. I'm positive I'm going to rifle quite a few desks and mug several Loremasters in positions of power, maybe even assassinate a few powerful people to slow down or stop plans to attack Haven, but the core of it is that I have to be there over time. My illusions are just to make it impossible for them to find me. And if I'm an established part of Avannar society, I have a foundation to work from, a way to hide in plain sight. They're going to be looking for a mysterious black-furred Arcan, not a crystalcutter making his living in the south bank trades district."
"Guile and deceit," Firetail said with a smile.
"I'm a member of the guild, I'm an artisan by rank, so I can work that angle as well," Kyven continued. "That will let me set up a shop quickly and get some work. I have a reputation as a very good crystalcutter, and that should let me make enough legitimate money to hide what's going on. That will also let me dig through the guild's rumors. The guild picks up a lot of information, because there's so many of us, the alchemists gossip with us, and everyone talks to the alchemists."
"Is that going to cause a problem? You're the owner of a shop in Atan," Danna said soberly, her professionalism taking over again.
"Doesn't matter, I still have that shop. It's a little unusual for an artisan to move to a new town, but I can pass that off as a desire to leave the sleepy village life and try to make a living in a big city. After all, the story the guild has is I've been trying my hand sailing… maybe I got enamored of the big city, and I want to start a shop in one. There's any number of plausible reasons I can give for opening a new shop in Avannar. Maybe me and Timble had a falling out. Maybe we're trying to expand to two cities and share our profits. And so on and so on."
"Perhaps you should stop in Atan on your way and talk to Timble, so your stories match up," Danna suggested.
"I was planning on passing through anyway," he said. "It's basically on the way. I won't be going out of my way to go there."
"Patches, dear, why don't you go look through your room and decide what you're going to take while Kyven and Danna go over what she knows?" she said. "The spirit said you have to leave as soon as you can. I'm going to go talk to Strongjaw and track down two apprentices, and I also need to get word to Clover that she's been assigned this new task."
"I will," Patches said, standing up and hurrying to the stairs.
"I should be back soon, my friends," Firetail told them as she too stood.
Patches and Firetail left the two of them alone. Kyven could sense the lurking hostility in Danna's eyes, but she seemed to push that aside. "Alright, I'll tell you what I remember from when I was stationed in Avannar, but it's not much. I was only there for two years, and the Loreguard didn't exactly go to the tavern with the Loremasters after duty."
"Anything at all will help," he told her.
"I think this is an insane idea, Kyven."
"Insane or not, nobody else can do it," he answered. "I have… unique qualifications," he noted, patting his furry forearm. "Besides, you're going to be doing your own insane thing here."
"I am not commanding their army," she snorted.
"Maybe not, but you will help them create one," he told her. "If only to help save them, because you can't deny them at least that much, can you?"
She gave him a dark look, then sighed. "I guess I can't," she agreed. "Oh, where is your little toy?"
"She's saying goodbye to Toby. You know she likes him. She's pregnant, by the way."
"I'm so happy for you," she said with undisguised venom.
"I'm sure someday that might matter to me," he said dryly, shivering his tail. "This isn't about us right now, Danna. So tell me what you know. I'd sort of like to survive for a month in Avannar."