by Jade White
The implication was easy to understand. The lions had come back. Amelia shot to her feet and began to scramble to gather up her borrowed winter gear and put it back on.
“You are not going out there,” Aibek informed her. “Not to track them down, at least.”
“I’m not going to just stay here!” she returned sharply, one arm in her coat and the other reaching for the other sleeve. She grasped after it clumsily until she finally managed to shove her arm through it.
“And what are you going to do out there?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest. “You cannot stay out for long in the snow, and we do not know what, exactly, we are looking for. But if they are on the mountain, they are probably looking for you, and you could go blundering right into them.”
Amelia opened her mouth, her jaw working wordlessly for a few seconds before she closed her mouth again, her teeth meeting with an audible click. “Fine,” she ground out tersely. “So what should I do?”
“For now,” Aibek began, his voice softening slightly, “you will be in the family room with our mother. Finish putting your gear back on, and Serik will walk you over.”
Serik glanced up sharply at the mention of his name, blinking slowly as if he had zoned out entirely until that precise moment. “Right,” he agreed slowly once the words had caught up to him.
“Is Anara already out there?” Aibek asked, looking at Sezim again.
“She is,” Sezim confirmed, nodding once. Neither of them made any immediate motions to leave, so Amelia simply finished haphazardly tugging the winter gear on before she motioned for Serik to lead the way.
Serik led her back to the main building—or at least what Amelia was thinking of as the main building—in silence. There was already a coating of snow on the porch higher than Amelia’s ankles, and she cast a glance over to the shovel and broom. Serik didn’t bother to show her back into the building. He simply stopped at the bottom of the stairs, waited until Amelia was on the porch, and then ducked away. A few moments later, she could just barely make out his feline shape bounding off in the snow, his spots undulating.
He disappeared into the snow, vanishing like a ghost, and Amelia huffed out an aggravated sigh before she snatched up the shovel and began clearing the porch off, just to give her hands something to do and to keep herself busy. As she cleared the stairs, she found a pile of soggy, partially frozen clothes abandoned in the snow behind them. Rolling her eyes, she draped them over the porch railing and determined that Serik could deal with them himself if he was going to just leave them outside.
Twenty minutes later, the porch was as clear as it was going to get, and she couldn’t really justify staying out in the cold out of spite. With another huff, she opened the door and stepped inside.
“Hi,” she offered Faina morosely as she once again began stripping off the winter gear. She wondered to herself how many times she was going to need to do that while she was on the mountain.
“Hello, honey,” Faina returned, glancing up from her book as she did. She looked quietly amused, and she patted the empty spot on the couch beside her. “A touch out of sorts?”
Amelia heaved a sigh and slumped down on the seat, her arms folded tightly over her chest. “Not out of sorts, no,” she protested. “I would just rather be out there helping. I want to make myself useful.” She dragged a hand through her hair, idly running her fingers through a few tangles. “The lions are here for me, so it doesn’t make sense for me not to be involved.”
“Or,” Faina began slowly, folding the corner of a page and closing her book on her lap, “it makes perfect sense.” She reached over to squeeze Amelia’s shoulder. “No sense in throwing you into danger needlessly, especially in a place you don’t know and in weather and terrain you aren’t equipped for.”
Amelia groaned and bonked her head back against the couch cushion harmlessly. “I don’t like being useless,” she sighed, scowling up at the ceiling as if it had personally wronged her. Try as she might, though, she couldn’t melt a hole through it with the powers of her eyes and impotent outrage alone.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Faina returned wryly, “ordinarily, if they smell danger, one of them stays behind to make sure nothing unsavory walks through the front door. Mind you, I can take care of myself, but I’m still distressingly squishy when compared to a lion or a similarly sized creature. It seems they saw fit to trust you with Mom Duty for the time being.”
Amelia blinked and darted a searching gaze toward Faina. She didn’t look like she was lying or trying to spare Amelia’s feelings. Slowly, she nodded in understanding. It did actually make her feel a bit better to know that they trusted her to keep Faina safe, even if it seemed unlikely that anything would make it back to the little village.
“Care to help me make dinner?” Faina asked. “Not the most exciting way to spend an evening, but it’s better than just sitting on our hands and waiting for the others to come back from the war,” she added wryly, the corners of her lips twitching up in a rueful smile.
“Yeah, sure,” Amelia agreed easily. Cooking had never really been one of her preferred hobbies—she went out or mooched off the goodwill of her friends more often than not—but she figured she could manage if she had some proper instruction. Besides, it gave her something to keep her distracted, and if she thought about it, she was pretty sure that was all Faina was looking for, too.
Granted, cooking continued to not really be one of Amelia’s hobbies after that. As it turned out, ‘help Faina make dinner’ largely seemed to be a complicated translation of ‘keep Faina company while watching her make dinner.’ She didn’t seem to particularly mind, and Amelia wasn’t going to complain about not being put properly to work. If company was all Faina required, then Amelia was happy to provide.
(She did end up stirring a pot of gravy later. She was pretty sure that didn’t actually count as cooking, even if Faina was too polite to say as much. Amelia didn’t mind particularly much, though.)
*
Anara’s paw prints went off in one direction at the bottom of the main slope, and once Serik joined them, Aibek sent him off in her direction with a motion of his head. Serik bounded off in her direction, while Aibek and Sezim turned to trot off in the opposite direction. Sticking together might have been more comfortable, but it wouldn’t be particularly productive if they wanted to cover any sort of ground.
Soon enough, they found tracks. Not the tracks of any human or any sort of animal, or even anything remotely organic. Instead, they found the tracks of a snowmobile. Following them through the snow, eventually, they found a campsite. There was a tent that was adequate for winter weather, and there were cords in the snow leading between the tent and a generator. Heaters and cooking equipment, most likely; it smelled like something had been cooked recently, though the camp was otherwise empty.
Sezim was staring at the tent thoughtfully, her head cocked to one side as her tail swayed slowly behind her. Finally, she lifted one paw, her claws extending as she flexed her toes. With clear intent, she took a step toward the tent, ready to shred anything her claws could get through. A noble goal, but not what they were there for.
She ground to a halt when Aibek growled at her; her head lowered and her ears flattened against her head. She turned to look at him, and he shook his head brusquely. While it was possible that the lions would simply pack up and be on their way if their campsite was destroyed, it was just as possible that they would instead try to do something drastic. If they had the appropriate camping gear, it seemed plausible that they had weapons other than themselves, and Aibek was not particularly thrilled with the idea of scaring them into using those weapons.
Reluctantly, Sezim retracted her claws and backed up a few paces. Instead, she followed Aibek’s lead and began investigating. They nosed into everything they could feasibly get to until they could separate the various smells surrounding the camp to determine that there were three people staying in it. It seemed to match up reasonably well with what
Amelia had told them, so they set off again, continuing to follow the snowmobile’s dwindling tracks through the snow.
Until, to their alarm and confusion, they came to another campsite, just as well equipped as the first one. Once again, they scrounged their way through the camp until they could determine that there were three entirely different people using it, even if none of them were there at that exact moment. They didn’t linger once they figured that out, instead bolting through the snow after the tracks while they were still visible.
Instead, they met up with Anara and Serik, both of them looking anxious and jumpy. Aibek could tell already that there was another camp. He sat down heavily, head low with resignation, and he cocked his head to one side. Anara’s tail twitched to the right in response.
So just one other camp, then. If it was like the last two, then it also had three lions tied to it. Nine lions all together; they really were dealing with an entire pride roaming their mountain.
Not wanting to run into them, Aibek turned back toward the incline that led up to their home. He jerked his head in that direction, and the others fell into step behind him as he led the way back. They moved warily, creeping through snowdrifts and rocky outcrops, blending into their surroundings as much as they were physically able to. They kept their eyes, ears, and noses keen, just in case they found an ambush waiting for them.
An engine growled a short distance away, and all four of them froze before they hunkered down low to the ground, clumped close together and watching anxiously as a snowmobile careened past them in the direction of the second camp.
Scouting, probably. If Aibek had to guess, they were doing as much as they could while they could still bundle up in winter clothes before they were even going to think about transforming. Aibek still wasn’t sure why they were so focused on Amelia or what they had captured her for to begin with, but evidently, they weren’t entirely stupid.
The snowmobile snarled away into the distance, and the siblings stayed flat in the snow for only a moment longer before they stood up and carried on toward the incline.
Sezim climbed up first, bouncing from one rock to the next, her large paws dragging her up the slope until she disappeared into the bowl at the top. Serik followed her up once she was far enough along that there were no worries of her crashing into him if she slipped, and Anara followed him up shortly after. Aibek climbed up last, keeping watch at the bottom of the incline until he was sure the other three were safely at the top.
He pressed himself close to the ground when he heard the distant whine of another snowmobile, staying low until the sound drifted off again. Aibek straightened up again and rapidly made the climb up the rocky slope until he joined his siblings at the top.
They gazed around in a cursory manner, just to make sure they hadn’t collectively missed something. And then Serik’s focus zeroed in on the main building, and he puffed up like a multicolored cotton ball and let out possibly the least threatening hiss Aibek had ever heard.
Slowly, they all turned to look at whatever had captured Serik’s attention. There, draped over the porch railing and very thoroughly frozen into the shape of a parenthesis, was a pile of Serik’s clothes. Anara sneezed out a delicate laugh as Aibek buried his muzzle under his front paws and Sezim simply toppled over onto the ground to roll around in amused delight.
Fur still standing on end, Serik bounded over to the stairs and clambered up them, awkwardly grabbing the frozen fabric in his teeth. He forewent the stairs on his way back down, instead simply bounding over the railing before he took off toward the building he shared with Sezim. She sprinted after him a moment later.
Anara and Aibek shared an exasperated look before they shook their heads and headed for their own buildings to transform and get dressed again. Honestly, if he was going to leave his clothes in the yard like a savage, he deserved it.
*
Aibek pushed the door to the main building open and stepped inside, Sezim, Serik, and Anara following him in. Their mother and Amelia were sitting on the couch, speaking animatedly to each other, only to abruptly fall silent as soon as Aibek was in the room. Amelia quickly stuffed something between the cushions of the couch and turned a stare that was too wide-eyed and innocent to be remotely convincing upon him.
“Well?” she asked, chipper and expectant.
Aibek’s eyes narrowed slowly, his gaze darting from Faina to Amelia to the gap between the cushions and back again. Amelia’s mouth was pinched, and she looked like she was trying hard not to laugh.
Finally, Aibek heaved a sigh, one hand lifting to pinch the bridge of his nose as he squeezed his eyes shut. “You showed her the photo,” he guessed, cracking one eye open to glare balefully at his mother.
Amelia burst out laughing, wrapping her arms around her midsection as she tipped over sideways on the couch with a muffled, “Whee!” She reached a hand between the couch cushions, groping around until she got a grip on the picture frame and pulled it out. And there, in the frame, was a snow leopard cub, sprawled on his back with his legs in all directions and the fluffy end of his tail held firmly in his teeth.
Faina shrugged broadly, a beatific smile on her face. “It’s a good picture, Beka,” she offered by way of explanation. “It’s so cute.”
Aibek groaned and hid his face behind one hand. Behind him, he could hear Sezim and Anara and even Serik snickering quietly at his expense. “There are similar pictures of all of you,” he threatened, turning his head just enough to glower at them over his shoulder.
Anara held her hands up in surrender and moved to take a seat on the couch, and Serik fell similarly quiet. Sezim continued to giggle for a good long while, pointing out in between fits, “Hell if I care, I know I’m adorable.” So really, the photos of her weren’t much of a threat.
Amelia cleared her throat as she finally got ahold of herself, leaning forward expectantly with her hands clasped between her knees. “So,” she began, her voice still slightly wobbly with laughter, “what happened out there? Is a pride of lions going to come and storm the village? Do I need a pitchfork?”
“It probably would not hurt,” Aibek replied before he began to explain what had happened outside.
*
Dinner was a fairly subdued affair. Aibek and Anara traded off explaining what had happened outside and what they had found, while the others ate in silence. Amelia had to ask, just to double check—to be sure—“Nine of them?” because it seemed impossible that there could be that many shifters in one place and all focused on her. She still didn’t even know why. At this point, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to know.
“Nine of them, as far as we can tell,” Aibek confirmed, his brows furrowing together in concern. For a moment, Amelia had a ridiculous urge to press a finger to the worried wrinkle between his eyebrows and flatten them back out, but she kept both of her hands to herself.
Amelia zoned out after that, prodding her food around her plate with her fork as she thought. Nine lions against four snow leopards and a cheetah that the snow leopards were reluctant to actually let out into the snow (for good reasons, true, but the point still stood).
The odds didn’t sound good, no matter how Amelia tried to think. As she pondered, the more it seemed like dropping an avalanche on the pride would be the only way to actually get rid of them, but she knew that would be too risky to actually try it. (Besides, she was pretty sure actual avalanches couldn’t be triggered quite as easily in real life as they were in movies.)
She snapped back to the present when Sezim plopped down on the stool beside her, close enough that their hips bumped together. “Everything good?” she asked cheerfully, already done eating.
“Everything’s good,” Amelia assured her, and she shoveled a few more bites of food into her mouth, making sure to chew and swallow before she added, “it’s all just a lot to take in.”
Sezim made a sympathetic noise and punched Amelia’s shoulder companionably. “It’ll all be fine,” she assured without a single worry.
>
Amelia glanced up, catching Aibek’s eyes, and he looked away from Faina to Amelia long enough to offer her a crooked smile in return. Amelia wanted to believe Sezim and her blind optimism—she almost did, for a moment—but she wasn’t going to risk climbing that mountain only to get kicked off at the very top.
“I guess we’ll find out eventually,” Amelia replied. Sezim rolled her eyes as if Amelia’s lack of complete faith was an enormous inconvenience. Still, she remained right where she was, half melted against Amelia’s shoulder. She stayed there, content, until dinner ended and everyone gradually began to return to their own rooms for the night.
*
“Look!” Sezim careened onto the couch, mashing her shoulder into the cushion and flinging a leg over Amelia’s lap like a safety belt until she rearranged herself to kneel and properly shove a picture frame into Amelia’s hands.
Amelia blinked down at it for a moment and saw that it was actually two photos divided into one frame. It took only a heartbeat to figure out who the pictures were of. In one, a cub sat sullenly, his large front paws gathered under him and his tail curled around him like a blanket, and Amelia glanced over at Serik where he was sitting on the rug by the fire, contorted and sullen as he scrolled through something on a laptop. In the other photo, a second cub sat up on her hind legs, her front paws spread like she was reaching greedily for something, and Amelia glanced at Sezim at her side and quirked an eyebrow.
