Fur

v | After Today

No cabin or house was really necessary at all, and so no effort would be made to save one.

Werewolves sleep wherever they please, be it in the woods wherever they grow tired or in one of the handful of large, multiple-family cabins which the pack members had built long ago in order to obtain the luxury of choice: to live however they want, dependent upon which form they fancied in any given moment—be it wolf or man.

"Perfect," Zakai declared. "We can get all of those things and fix them and put them here."

Leila stared at him with a type of disoriented vacancy.

The prospect of the treehouse being... well, anything but bare, had never before crossed her mind. She had always distantly wished that it were something else. Something full of beloved things, populated by beloved people. But never had she regarded that wish as a possibility.

Just as suddenly as the idea caused a thrill to travel through her, that thrill was smothered by the heaviness of her body, pulling her down, begging her eyes to close and mind to quiet.

"We'll start tomorrow," Leila said. She didn't have the energy tonight to decide if her wish really could be possible—or to carry out the actions that might make it so.

Zakai's shoulders noticeably fell, though he caught them in time to seize his disappointment. He nodded. "Okay. That works. I should go home anyway."

Home sounded shaky on his tongue. As though it were misplaced there.

He then turned and exited through the open door. It was only when he turned to climb down the board ladder that he noticed Leila hadn't moved to follow.

"Are you coming?"

"To where?"

"Um... You were going to your family's manorhouse before. So to there, I guess."

"No. I'm not coming. You go ahead."

His eyes darted down to the red and brown stains on her ripped clothing. He hesitated at the top of the ladder, one foot suspended in midair.

"...Okay. I'll see you tomorrow." He meant it as a statement, though the upward inflection in his voice undermined him.

He didn't move until she responded with a nod. "See you tomorrow."

Apparently mollified, Zakai descended the ladder with an odd, tight expression. Once the sound of his walking faded, Leila laid down against the wall and closed her eyes. She drifted to sleep to the memory of barking dogs.

~

The Ardeneux and Belfiore children went to the flooded cabin the next morning, as they agreed they would. Zakai found Leila right where he'd left her: in the treehouse.

Except the state of her was improved. The fabric of her clothing was whole and unstained. Her ink black hair no longer wore leaves or bark in it. She had left sometime throughout the night, though only for the few minutes it took to reach the manorhouse, clean herself up, and leave again. She had been quiet, as she always was. If any of her family had noticed her return, they had let her be.

The two selected their loot sparingly. The treehouse was small, and the logistics of maneuvering everything up to it would be an inevitable problem to be dealt with. They settled on a quaint plaid loveseat, a matching armchair, two mahogany end tables paired with a coffee table, and finally, a large, floral patterned area rug.

It was easy enough to wrench everything out of the cabin now that the door wasn't blocked by violent waters, but the job of dragging it all through the forest was strenuous and time-consuming for a pair of nine year olds, inhuman or not. They began at sunrise, and by midday their new belongings all sat piled beneath the tree, damp and hideous. After a moment's deliberation, they picked it all up again and moved it to a spot of sunlight for drying.