Page 57 of All That Has Flown Beyond
Kaiyo watched Isla through the glass doors running across one of the pack house’s living room walls. She sat alone in the badly-kept grass, pulling at the green strands listlessly. He had the sudden urge to have his Ousía meet hers, but the act would be intrusive without consent.
“He’s so fussy lately…”
Kaiyo turned towards the adults in the room again. Thea was looking down at Edu, trying to get him to latch onto a nipple whilst Emil rummaged through a large bag. They both took up one of the couches whilst Amaya and Ahmik sat on another, perched on opposite sides of it. Kaiyo had seated himself in one of the armchairs, posed with a straight spine instead of lounging back into the cushions.
“May I?” Kaiyo asked. Thea and Emil looked up at him.
“Oh, um…yeah?” Thea looked unsure. She turned towards Kaiyo, however, as he got up and bent over them. Kaiyo placed a gentle finger against Edu’s forehead, running it across the bridge of his nose to the small concave above his lip, letting Edu smell what little scent seeped through Kaiyo’s charm.
“There you go,” Kaiyo encouraged as the baby settled. In the heat of the summer day, Edu was dressed in soft little shorts and a red T-shirt. His dark hair was generous on his head, his eyes big as they blinked open to look at Kaiyo.
“Ga!” Edu proclaimed, reaching out to grasp Kaiyo’s finger and wave it around in jerky movements. Kaiyo laughed.
“I completely agree,” Kaiyo said in mock seriousness. “Time to eat, though.” With a gentle hand, he tilted Edu’s head towards Thea’s breast where he latched on at once.
Thea made a small sound of pleased surprise. “Okay, where were you when Isla was born?” she laughed before freezing. Kaiyo pulled away, giving her a tight smile before sitting back in his seat.
“I…” Thea’s voice disappeared before it started. Kaiyo avoided her eyes.
“Forget it,” Kaiyo said. He shook himself mentally, the dust of his past billowing in the air and blinding him for a moment before he was allowed to breathe past it. He glanced at Ahmik, who was looking at him with a steel-trap expression.
Kaiyo clenched his jaw in resolution. He had to treat this like any other job. “So, uhm, thanks for coming. I’ve called you here because I think that, seeing as I’m tied to the land for a year, it would benefit all of us to work together.”
“Work together?” Emil said, more of a prompt than a question.
“I’ve been doing some research about, well, the past few years and…well. To put it bluntly, I think you need some help.”
Ahmik straightened immediately at that. “We can handle ourselves. We’ve been doing it since—we’ve been doing it for a long time.”
“I’m not saying you haven’t. It’s admirable that you’ve been able to hold your own with such a small pack. But that’s not how a steady pack is established and grows. From what I can tell, you are simply reacting to threats, instead of trying to prevent them proactively. This is a wasteful use of resources. Although being proactive necessitates more energy upfront, it’s much more efficient in the long run.”
Ahmik opened his mouth, a furrow between his brows, but Thea jumped in. “Itwouldbe nice not to worry so much all the time. What do you mean by being proactive, though? Do you have any ideas?”
Kaiyo didn’t miss the dark look Ahmik sent Thea, but he trudged on. “Well, I’ve already agreed to set up the wards. It’s the night before full moon tonight so I’ll be doing that, then. However, and I don’t mean this as a criticism, you guys need a little work.”
“We need work,” Ahmik repeated flatly through a face of stone.
“All packs need a little work but, yes. I’ve done this type of stuff before. Basically, think of it as training. There are some skills necessary to run not only a functioning but blossoming pack. Part of that is internal, but part of it is about making connections with other packs that will make you, and them, stronger.”
“Because that worked so well for our pack in the past,” Ahmik said bitterly.
“What happened to our pack…the ones to blame are the people who attacked us. Nothing in life is a miracle cure that’ll help you avoid every misery there is. When shit happens, sometimes it’s just because of that—shit happens. That’s not a good reason to give up.”
“You think we’ve given up? We’re here, fighting for our lives—”
“You shouldn’tbefighting for your lives, Ahmik. Sometimes giving up is just doing the same thing you are already doing instead of making a change. You can put all your energy into that one thing, but if it’s not working and you refuse to be flexible and adapt, yeah. You’re giving up.” Kaiyo, more than most, knew the depths of that truth. “Ahmik,” he went on before the werewolf could reply. “This isn’t an attack on you. What happened, it wasn’t our fault. It wasn’tyourfault. But as Kephale—all of you, as the remains of the pack—have a responsibility to protect each other and the land you’re on, or…or there’s no point in being a pack at all.”
The silence that fell had its own gravity. Kaiyo looked at the members of his old pack. Ahmik’s clenched jaw and hurt eyes. Thea and Emil’s troubled expressions. Amaya was the hardest to read, raising an eyebrow at Kaiyo when he looked at her as if nothing Kaiyo had said was news to her. With a little digging, Kaiyo had discovered she had been a meanderer before joining the Garrow pack, cornered after she entered the area without permission and invited into the pack instead of being kicked out. He hadn’t intruded further into her privacy, but only extreme circumstances tended to precede a pack member, especially a shifter, to leave the moon ties of pack and land. To choose to be so completely alone.
Edu finished eating with a noise of protest at the tension in the room. Thea moved him to her shoulder to burp him, Emil placing a small towel on her shoulder in case Edu spit up.
“So…” Emil began. “The wards I get. But the training? The connections with other packs? How do you plan on helping with that?”
“For the training, we can meet once a week as a pack. I’ll be giving you a series of exercises to build crucial pack skills, as well as fighting techniques.”
“You a ninja now or something?” Thea joked, slipping again into the now too-tight skin of their teenage teasing.
“Or something,” Kaiyo said, not being able to help smiling back.
