Chapter 74: brought to you by a sprinkle of lies

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Today on "My Best Friend Stockholm Syndrome!": A much-anticipated reunion, a funeral, and a proposal, along with the mental scarring of a female so severe, she might never recover. Yay mental scarring!

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The fight kept her awake until they popped out into a small valley, the high peaks of the mountain cutting it off from the rest of the world. It seemed green enough, although wildlife sounded scarce. Aetius shook his head slightly beneath her, his shoulders shrugging as he turned around and looked at the tunnel behind him. He dove into the vegetation without warning and Neara heard an explosion behind her. Before she could turn, branches slapped at her face and body as Aetius raced through the trees.

"Slow down!" She knew it was hopeless; when he got like this, he wouldn't stop until he'd gotten to wherever he was going. After some time, maybe minutes or half an hour, he stopped and waited, his entire body tense beneath her fingers. "Are we being chased?"

No answer, not even a flicker of movement to show that he was paying attention.

"Is it the scorpions again? Or the wolves?"

No answer.

"Yeah, this is going great." She propped herself up on her knees and tried to look around. He wriggled his shoulders so she fell against him. "What the hell, Aetius?"

He crouched beneath a towering fern, the fiddleheads coming off of it as big as she was.

"I'm not doing anything!" She reached up, pinched off a few leaves, and shredded them while she waited for something to happen. Her ribs ached and she remembered the slice in them, which felt satisfying in the moment but deeply embarrassing now.

After a few moments of silence, a heavy clicking started reverberating through the forest, like large rocks being hit together. Aetius's ears slowly rose. He looked towards the mountains, maybe the same ones they'd come from, and started walking towards them.

"What's going on? Can I walk? Ugh, why won't you talk to me?"

Silence. This was going to be irritating, especially since she felt the emotional exhaustion of fearing for her life right after a fight.

At the base of the mountain, several rows of earthen hills peaked against the vegetation, looking like Hobbit holes, only somewhat smaller. Most looked abandoned, but some had fires gleaming in the windows and smoke rising from the middle of the hill. They reminded her of igloos, or sod houses from 'Little House on the Prairie'. Aetius walked towards the largest of them, still small by her standards, and carefully shook her off. The look he gave her felt measured in some way.

"We have your friend here."

All irritation disappeared, replaced by confusion, hope, and fear. "Shay?"

He nodded. "She's been drugged."

"Drugged?"

"Yes."

"Why? What's wrong with her?" She inhaled sharply and clenched her fists in her cloak, drawing it tightly around herself. "Was she captured by ferals?"

"No. We brought her here, away from her mates. We wanted to talk to her alone, but they wouldn't let us near, and she probably wouldn't listen to what we have to say with them around."

Neara didn't exactly like Shay's mates either, but it still felt odd that she was a kidnap victim... again. "So what do you want to talk to her about?"

He sighed and dressed himself as he spoke, "Our Clan is dwindling, dying, and she won't have anything to do with Joseph. We want her to make a decision, once and for all, about whether or not to accept his court so he can be free to pursue other females."

"And you had to kidnap her to say that?" Something felt wrong here...

"You know her mates; do you think they would let him bring up mating her without killing him?"

"No, that makes sense." Her hand slowly twisted the strands of her hair she could reach without opening the cloak. They couldn't just spirit her away without them following, so it would have to be someplace far away, and they'd have to drug her or she wouldn't go without her babies... it made sense for what they were trying to do. Their methods just felt strange... "Can I see her?"

He nodded and gestured towards the door. "That's why I brought you... she should see a friendly face when she wakes up."

Neara sighed and tried to square her shoulders, though they slumped at the thought of the potential fight. She turned to Aetius again. "I don't have to explain anything... right?"

"No, we'll come in after a few minutes; if she asks for us sooner, we'll come in then."

A soft sobbing could be heard from inside the house and Neara abandoned all reservations to see her friend. She flung open the door and charged inside, surprised at how high the walls seemed inside. "Shay!"

Shay had curled up in the corner, rocking back and forth against the wall. Her eyes locked on her arms, a low hum occasionally escaped her lips as she sobbed.

"Are you okay?" Neara approached slowly, looking around for any sign of the rabbits. There was none, and she stood a few feet away, her fingers clenched in her cloak so hard her fingernails hurt.

"Thumb....Thumb... My baby Thumb..."

"Did you hurt your thumb? I can ask for medicine or..."

"Thumb..." A low wail started in her chest that disintegrated into a hiccuping sob. Her breaths came fast and hard, causing her body to twitch in place. Her eyes seemed wild as she rocked furiously, then it suddenly stopped.

Neara took a step back, the feeling coming off of Shay almost as powerful as Curtis.

"They... took him. They took him from me. Neara, they killed him." Her voice sounded dead, like it rattled from an empty rib cage. She gestured to her lap and the limp red snake curled within the nest of her lap.

"Shay, I'm so sorry..."

"Don't be sorry. You didn't do it." Her voice sounded quiet, deadly, calculating. "I don't know how we got here, but I'm going to rip every person here to shreds before I go. I should have enough strength with Curtis and Ryan..."

Neara pressed her lips together and couldn't think of what else to say. How did she even start to bring it up?

"Probably scorpions... which means they're going to be poisonous. I'll have to watch out for their tails... Neara, any chance you still have that uber strength that made you punch through a guy?"

"Are you... okay?"

"No. No I need..." she lifted up a heavily bandaged hand that was more of a club than a hand anymore and both glared and wept at the sight. "How am I going to do anything like this? What point is their strength if it's just going to break me when I use it?"

"Shay, Neara, welcome to the Village of the Rabbit Clan."

Neara jumped and turned to see Captain standing in the doorway, the light forming a small halo around his body as he stepped inside.

Shay's eyes narrowed into a scowl and she curled tighter within herself, bringing her son to her chest. "You."

"You recognize me from the fertility ceremony?"

"No, I'm just letting you know who my first target is for when I go on a bloodthirsty rampage." She glanced at her legs. "I still got three limbs and my teeth."

"Please, hear me out..."

"Why? You tear me away from my family, kill my kid, and then expect me to listen to your request? There's no point talking to dead meat like you."

"The death of your son was an unfortunate accident..."

"Accident? You think stabbing a baby is an accident? You think it's unfortunate?" A sick smile twisted Shay's features until she looked deformed. "What a fun world you must live in. Tell me, Mr. Bunny, would your death be an unfortunate accident?"

"I know you're upset, and you have every right to be. They weren't as careful as they should have been and reacted in fear; I never should have sent young Rabbits to extract you."

"You make me sound like a zit or something. Extract. Way to make me feel all fuzzy-special."

"You killed her son?" Neara felt slowly towards her knife, trying not to create movement within her cloak.

"It was an accident, I assure you, Neara."

"How do you know our names? Let me guess; Joseph told you. Or Theo. Or whatever bunny has been stalking us to figure out everything about us. Honestly, nothing you freaks do surprises me anymore." Her body stayed curled, though her voice sounded icy and hard, like the mountains outside. "I'm going to get my strength back, and when I do, I'm going to kill you all. It's just a fact. And I'll have my husbands hunt you down until you're all extinct. They'd like doing it too."

"Shay, we just wanted to talk to you."

"About what? Using my fertility to make you babies? That's the only reason I'd be here--why Neara would be here."

"If you need time to process this..."

"What's to even process?" Her eyes glazed over and she started huffing. "Why do you...even bother asking..."

"Shay?"

Her friend's sky-blue eyes turned to her in a panic as she hyperventilated. Her chest rose and fell rapidly and she clutched her son to her chest, the tip of his scarlet tail visible at the end of her fist.

"She needs honey and water! Please, she's having a panic attack!" Neara turned to Captain and opened her eyes as wide as she could. "Please!"

Captain nodded. "I'll send someone in with it. Do your best to keep her alive."

"Me?" But he was already gone. Neara looked at Shay rocking back and forth and moaning to herself, her bandaged club of a hand held to her stomach. Neara unclasped her cloak and draped it over her shivering friend. Noticing the lack of firewood in the room, she kicked at the sparks until a small flame appeared. A knock on the door brought a few armfuls of firewood, which she added to the fireplace. After a few minutes, a rabbit brought in a cup of steaming water and a stone bowl of honeycomb. He placed those at her feet and left, shooting a glance to the vibrating Shay.

"Shay, I have some hot water for you to hold." She brought the liquid closer to Shay and gently pressed it into her hands. "You don't have to drink, just hold it."

She nodded vigorously.

"I know you don't want to eat right now, but there's honeycomb over here if you want some." She laid the bowl at Shay's feet. "You need to warm up." A quick glance around the room showed a complete lack of anything, including furnishings. She knocked at the door again. "We need blankets... and more firewood. And berries. You like berries, sweet things, yeah, blood sugar and all that." Within a short time, those things were piled outside the door. After bringing them inside, she circled her friend in the blankets and added more wood to the fire. It roared pleasantly and the inside of the Hobbit hole warmed nicely. Shay still trembled.

Neara sat next to Shay and said nothing, waiting for her friend to come out of it.

Slowly, Shay stopped shivering. She cried a little, soft sobs that dissolved into moans, then she was silent, her cup propped against her stomach with her good hand. Occasionally, she took a sip, One finger dipped itself in the honey and smeared it across her lips, which she slowly licked off.

"Thank you, Neara."

Neara just smiled and waited.

"I... I can't...I don't mean for you to see this."

"Are you hungry? Do you want some berries?"

"No, I'm just... really tired. I don't even know why, I'm just so..." Neara reached over and accepted the cup from Shay, who leaned back against the wall, closed her eyes, and fell asleep.

Neara, who didn't know what else to do, curled in front of the fire and hugged herself, fingers splayed over the mark under her shirt. She should probably use some of the honey for this.

When Neara awoke, Shay watched her, still clutching a bowl and her gimp hand to her belly. Her gaze was flat. "You talk in your sleep."

"What'd I say?" A string of fear lanced through her heart, but she kept her face neutral.

"Something about Magic School Bus." Shay smiled, but it was small, and mostly a grimace. "I think I had a dream too. A snake, a panther, and a rabbit walk into a bar." She gave a fake guffaw that died after the third 'ha.'

"...how do you..."

"Dead." She sighed heavily. "I just want to go back to my husbands and forget this whole thing happened. And I guess, since they haven't raped me yet, I can at least...whatever they want to talk about..."

"Do you want me to get them?"

Shay nodded from her cocoon and Neara knocked on the door. "We're ready to hear what he has to say."

Henry nodded and clicked towards a set of hills. He shut the door in her face and Neara returned to the front of the fire.

"I...I shouldn't have said I wanted them all dead...technically, even Thumb could have killed them if he bit them. But the fact they thought to kidnap me in the first place..." She put a hand to her head, as though in pain. "F it, I don't want to be empathetic for once, I feel like crap and that's all I've been doing since I came here." She looked down at the limp red snake coiled into a pile in her lap and her bottom lip curled out again, fat and wet.

"Can I tell you something?" Neara frowned into her arms and wrapped them around her knees.

"Yeah."

"I... I think Theo is dead." When Shay didn't say anything, she continued, "I tried talking to some of the other rabbits about it, but they don't say anything... they only talk about him in the past tense, like he doesn't exist anymore, you know?"

"Wait, have you been here longer than I have?"

"No... I don't know. Probably not."

"I mean, you've been in here almost since the moment I woke up. When did you have time to talk to them?" Neara opened her mouth, but Shay pushed ahead, "Oh, they must have transported you from the City of Beasts, right? I bet Winston was pissed. Is he tracking us now? Or..." her eyes widened and her fingers lifted towards her mouth. "Neara, is Winston dead? I mean, there's no way he'd just let them take you."

"No! At least, I don't think so..." He couldn't be dead, right? But it's not like she had a mark or anything to track him by, but she was with the rabbits the whole time, so it couldn't have been... unless when they peeled away, they secretly went to...

"Hey, Neara, oy." Shay snapped her fingers in front of Neara's face. "You're overthinking again."

A sharp rap on the door announced Captain's presence. He walked inside and stood slightly apart from them. "Henry said you were ready to talk to me?"

Shay inhaled deeply, her eye, though tired, managing to simmer with the remains of hatred. "Go ahead and talk; it doesn't mean I'll do what you want but you can talk and let me go."

Without a pause, Captain briskly said, "As you know, our species is dying. You and Neara's remarkable fertility could save us, at least for a few more decades." He hesitated, a strange look on his face. "Joseph also told me that some of your children turned out to be females that could transform." He stopped to analyze her expression for a reaction, probably to see if it was the truth. When Shay just continued to stare at him darkly, he pushed on, "If that is the case...you could possibly save our tribe entirely. No, most definitely. That's a gift from the gods I've never even heard of, but given the potential, you have to understand why we went to such extremes to obtain you."

Shay just blinked. Her mouth pressed thin. Neara exchanged a look between Shay and then with Captain, who eyed her back.

"Is it...is it true?" he asked. "Did you really give birth to females? Multiples? That could transform?"

"Don't see how that's any of your business," said Shay. "Are you done?"

Captain's face hardened. "Please. The truth could save us."

"Only if I spread my legs to you," she snorted. "But if I don't agree, you'll just take me by force, won't you?"

An ugly disgust twisted his nose, but only momentarily, before it was once more politically stoic. "As you said before, you intend to kill us as well as set your mates on us. We may be able to keep ourselves safe from you, and from them while we are in this valley, but we cannot stay here forever. While we can handle ourselves in ambush and one on one, against two four stripe mates and two three stripe guardians...it would only be a matter of time. Thus, I would like to come to a peaceful agreement that will be to both our benefit. It would be better for our survival, and that of our young." He sighed and pinched his nose. "Again, I am sorry your son was killed; I told them to be gentle. We never meant to harm them."

"I figured..." She wouldn't look at him anymore, though, and her hands were to the still body in her lap. "Still...that accident wouldn't have happened if you had just left me alone. I kicked out Joseph for a reason. I don't want to live my life as a breeding factory." She closed her eyes. "They're right. I should have let them kill him. But the milk's spilt...even so." She opened them, something dark and very un-Shay-like coiled up within the blue. It made Neara's stomach turn. "I won't make the mistake twice. If you don't take me back to them, when my mates come, I won't stop them a second time. I can't afford you lot spreading rumors that I'm some female baby popping miracle."

"I can assure you, we'd take that secret with us to the grave." He looked at the ground, then turned to face the campfire. "Unfortunately, the commotion getting you here and away from your mates has snowed us in for a few cycles. We won't be able to get you out until the dry season."

"Mountains can be climbed."

"We're impenetrable. They might be at the bottom of the mountain when we release you, but the mountain is too high for the bird to fly over, too cold for the snake, and too vertical for the panther and leopard. We haven't existed for hundreds of years free from predator harm because we were stupid. I am not exaggerating the strength of this village, nor am I exaggerating how secure it is; your mates cannot enter."

Shay sighed again, her shoulders slumping. "Of course not. You wouldn't have taken me otherwise." She turned from him, twiddling with the knot of her skirt. "You're free to solicit Neara. I in no way talk for her.

"Is that a no, then? You don't have to make that decision now. You're here for a long time, and there is still the matter of your compensation for doing this great service for us, so please think it over." He motioned to the door. "You're not our prisoners, and can roam anywhere within the compound if you wish."

Shay gave a very dry snicker. "Emphasis on 'compound.'"

As the Captain's eyes fell on her, Neara bit her lip.

"Uh...um...can I have time to think on it too?" she tried not to squeak it.

"Then, I'll leave you. Anything you require, please, let us know."

The door shut behind him and they sat together, thinking about his proposal. Neara felt even more ashamed of the mark on her ribs and pressed it subconsciously.

After a time of said silent contemplation, with Shay stroking the dulling red coils of the still python, she spoke.

"I...I think I'll bury him. It doesn't really matter what happens to his body now. It's empty of him, you know?"

"Yeah..." Neara slowly twisted the hair on the back of her head, winding it around one finger and painfully extricating the digit. "Do you think we're really stuck here till summer?"

"Probably. Wouldn't be so cocky if they were bluffing. Besides, what would be the point lying to us? If we escaped, we'd die before we found any of our mates, because we're useless

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