Sari was pushing her food around her plate at dinner that night when Adelyn stomped in and collapsed into a chair at the table. She poured herself a big glass of wine before she even looked at the food.
"I just spent nine hours meeting with the delegates from Thanes and Hadisota about these attacks on the east coast." She nearly finished the glass in one gulp. "My ears are bleeding from the sound of their bickering."
Sari refilled her sister's glass, relieved she had been spared the meeting of stuffy primes. Instead she had sorted out trade partnerships with Terraly and gone over the latest reports from the supply lines for Corinth. Prime life wasn't all luxury.
"Where are Arctos and Roedin?" Adelyn asked.
Sari grunted and swallowed. "They were sent home without their supper."
Adelyn rolled her eyes and looked at her brother. "What for this time? Or, do I even want to know?"
Sari explained, "In summary, the males got separated from Avery today on her first visit to the city. She was somewhat scared out of her wits but other than that, completely unharmed. But Roedin acted as though she had been abducted and took it out on Arctos."
Adelyn sighed and started heaping food on her plate. Between bites she described the torturous meetings with the primes, but Sari wasn't paying attention. Her thoughts wandered back to the human who had locked herself in her bedroom.
"You don't think she would do anything drastic, would she?" Sari interrupted.
Adelyn blinked in confusion. "The alpha prime of Hadisota? Well I don't think she'll take action without more forces backing her up. She can't even pinpoint the source of the attacks--"
"Not the alpha prime. Avery. We haven't heard a sound from that room all day," Sari clarified.
Adelyn cocked her head. "What do you mean by 'do anything'? As in, hurt herself?" She shifted in her seat. "That seems a bit extreme. Having a panic attack doesn't mean you want to die."
"But she does. I mean, she has. Tried to before. She cut her own wrists. I saw the scars and asked her about them. She almost sounded disappointed that it hadn't worked."
Hayden bounced his fork up and down and Adelyn sat back in chair.
"Well? Should we do something?"
"Do something about what?" Niamh sauntered into the dining room and plunked herself down at the table. She snatched a bun from the basket and smeared it with butter before stuffing it in her mouth and looking around the table.
"Check on Avery. She had a bit of a scare today," Sari explained.
Niamh shrugged and reached for a glass of wine. "So what else is new? She's afraid of her own shadow. Why is this time any different?"
Adelyn shrugged a shoulder and looked to Sari. "She has a point. The smallest thing seems to trigger a meltdown. I mean, what's her problem with Dellane? I think he's a bit pedantic but she's downright terrified at the sight of him."
Niamh snickered but Hayden cleared his throat pointedly. "We are supposed to be supporting her, helping her adapt to the city, not mocking her insecurities."
"We are?" Niamh spat. "Since when it is our responsibility to teach humans how to live? They think they're so much better than us because they have no animal in them, and yet she can barely carry on a normal conversation."
"That's not fair, Niamh," Hayden admonished.
"There are lots of things that aren't fair," Niamh said darkly.
Adelyn stepped in. "Alright, alright. I agree this is a special circumstance. She didn't come from a preserve and cities can be overwhelming. She helped Roedin and now we're returning the favour."
"So we're going to be forever indebted to her?"
"That's not what I meant and you know it!" Adelyn defended.
"Well I meant: how long is a human going to be living in my bedroom?"
Sari raised her eyebrows. "Were you looking to move home after a hundred years? Because that would require a serious attitude adjustment."
"I'm not a youngling, mother!"
"Then stop acting like one!" Hayden snapped.
Niamh's eyes went wide but she held her tongue and scowled at her parents while Adelyn studied her plate.
"That girl upstairs did not do anything to you. She saved our brother's life and yes, we will be forever grateful to her for that. She is not your enemy," Hayden said with finality.
Niamh crossed her arms and scowled. "You don't know that."
"What?"
"You don't know she's not our enemy. You don't know anything about her. She could be anything. Someone locked her away for a reason, and now that human is in our home. You can't trust them."
She pushed back her chair and grabbed another roll before stomping out of the house.
**********************
Late into the night Sari sat at her desk with only half her attention focused on the ledgers in front of her. Her daughter's prejudice against humans was not unfounded. What had happened to her mate was terrible, and Niamh's hatred had barely dimmed over the decades as more and more preserves closed themselves off from sapiens. Though not related to Avery, Niamh did have a point: they didn't know anything about her. Why had she been trapped in that cabin? How was she suddenly set free?
Sari was pulled from her thoughts by a loud crash down the hall.
"Cora? Nicholas? Is everything alright?" she called.
When she received no answer from the staff she followed the sounds of clattering to the kitchen door. A figure was crouched on the floor trying to clean up a broken milk jug. Sari flicked on the lights and Avery whirled around with a butter knife held up like a dagger. Sari threw her hands up in surrender, though as soon as Avery realised who it was she dropped the knife and put her hand to her face, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"I'm sorry for bothering you. I—I couldn't figure out how to turn on the lamps. So I knocked over this pitcher. And I made a huge mess. Then I tried to clean up. But it was still dark. And you startled me, because you move like a shadow. The end."
Sari took in the mess on the floor. "Are you hungry?"
Avery huffed. "Famished. But I was too embarrassed to come down to dinner."
"Embarrassed? About what?"
"About losing it in the square today. And then locking myself in my room like a child. I didn't handle it very well." Avery looked down at the floor and pushed a shard of pottery around with her toe.
Sari picked up a cloth and tossed it across to Avery. "Here. You clean this up and I'll heat up some leftovers." Without waiting for an answer she began pulling some dishes out of the cupboards and icebox.
"If I had a drop of elemental magic in me I might be able to this speed this up, but we'll have to settle for the old-fashioned way," Sari said down to the stove.
"Do you know anyone with elemental magic?" Avery asked as she rung out the cloth.
Sari stirred the soup. "My daughter, in fact, from her grandmother. Some hidden gene that woke in her. Hayden has a bit too, but he honed it to the body. He could have been a magnificent surgeon, controlling blood flow, increasing air circulation, promoting cell regeneration, but prime life pulled him away. His mother had him commanding battalions within a century, and his natural leadership held such sway over the faunids she couldn't spare him. He learned all he could from the field surgeons so he's a fairly decent healer, but nothing compared to Petra. He won't admit it, but I think he still dreams of going back to school to complete the training."
Avery rinsed the cloth in the sink and bent down to wipe up the rest of the mess. "Why doesn't he?"
Sari shrugged. "The life of an alpha prime has enough demands. But maybe when Niamh takes on more responsibilities—he still has a few centuries left in him!"
Avery finished cleaning up the broken jug and perched on a stool by the counter in the centre of the kitchen. "Centuries. It's hard to imagine what you could do with that much time."
Sari placed the food in front of Avery and sat down across from her with a cup of tea in her own hands. "It feels like you have forever, but the ancients always council that it passes too quickly. Sapiens call themselves immortal, mostly to feel superior to faunids and humans: mere mortals." She rolled her eyes and nibbled on a piece of cake.
Avery looked down at her bowl and stirred the soup around while she chewed carefully. "Do those sapiens live in Corinth?"
Sari considered her question, watching the human carefully. "There are some primes resistant to integration but they would never outwardly disobey the will of an alpha prime. The other cities, however, are a different story. Some are worse than others, but we are slowly chipping away at past prejudices. The cities are more biodiverse than the wilderness. There are some independent villages and herds that are quite...ignorant."
Avery nodded and sipped the soup. "I've read about the cities. About people and places. Battles and armies. But to experience it..." Avery shook her head, her eyes drifting to the middle distance. "Not that I'm comparing Corinth to a battle, but the people—there were just so many people. It was louder than I imagined. I guess I never really imagined. I had never given a thought to what so many people together would sound like. It was deafening. I couldn't hear myself think. Then I couldn't see. Then I couldn't breathe." Her voice trailed off.
"I'd like to go again. Get back on the horse that threw you, you know? That's a saying, right? That's something that people say?"
Sari chuckled. "Yes, that's a saying. Are you sure you want to go right away?"
"Yes. Tomorrow morning, first thing. I've wasted enough time sitting around and I've got a lot of world to see. Plus, I'm not getting any younger." She grinned at her own joke and took another mouthful of soup. "I need to get out. If I stay still, I'm worried I'll never be able to leave."
Sari thought that over, admiring Avery's tenacity. She wondered what was driving the human; what kept her going all those years living alone in the cabin? What would she do with her new-found freedom?
Niamh's earlier outburst tainted these thoughts and Sari couldn't quite keep the suspicion from her mind. Was Avery really just a lost girl, or was there a reason she landed on their doorstep?