Tame

With Mack still spooked, Dawn dismounted from the driving compartment of the cart to comfort him with gentle pats and a soothing voice. The old draft horse still remained unsure. His ears were alert and listening as he stared suspiciously into the direction that the shapeshifting individual had emerged from the forest.

“Come on Mack. It’s just a little further.”

Dawn tugged gently on his bridle, offering to walk beside him for the remainder of the way.

But Mack wasn’t having it. He dug his hooves firmly into the ground and snorted disapprovingly.

Dawn sighed as she parted the branches and wide leaves back to show him there was nothing there to be fearful of. Instead, she found herself staring down at something amongst the flattened tall grass. It was a single-sided leather saddle bag. The buckles were brass and, although they were snapped, it had a fancy unusually altered carry strap. Contents were strewn out around it and accompanied by blood splatter.

Before Dawn could even give it a second thought, she was collecting up papers and a notebook, various notes and figures were carefully inked into the pages. There was also a black overcoat, which she carefully folded, and a small cracked rectangular device that she did not recognise. She left the smashed water bottle and crushed pens, but everything else was neatly packed back into the beautiful bag.

Dawn was about to peek curiously into one of the many extra compartments when a rasped gasp caught her attention.

Dawn followed the direction of the sound along with broken branches, trampled plants, and the odd drippings of blood. Eventually she had to stifle a gasp of her own as she encountered a figure crouched, wounded and bleeding amongst the leaf litter and soil.

“Sir! Sir?! What has happened?”

Dawn was immediately over to help this man who seemed to be unable to comprehend her voice or presence.

She was beside him gently squeezing his shoulders while he kneeled over himself, groaning in agony.

His dark hair was dishevelled and covered much of his face, but Dawn could see enough of it to see how grimaced in pain he was.

Dawn tried again to verbally reach him, but instead of responding to her he unsuccessfully tried getting to his feet.

Uncoordinated, he fell backward, also shoving Dawn back with him and hissing in distress. She could feel his hand clambering sharply on her arm as he tried to readjust himself.

Finally able to see him better, Dawn’s fear tumbled back when she recognised this man as the other foreigner from the market.

Glazed over, his blue-green eyes were a shadow of their former glory and he was squinting hard at her.

“Can you not see properly?” Dawn asked nervously.

Her voice made him flinch and she let out a little squeak as his claws, not human fingernails, dug in deeper from the fright.

He blinked a few times to no avail before he uncurled himself a little more to reveal a knife embedded in his side.

Dawn felt a moment of relief as he finally released his grip on her. It left a lingering sting where the light breeze whispered at the fresh abrasions. But also in that moment, she was swiftly trying to grab that hand back again.

“Wait!”

Before Dawn could stop him, the man was grasping for the knife and with shaking hands tugged it free. The sharp object tumbled to the dirt, him unable to hold it between his twitching fingers.

At the sight of red oozing from the laceration, Dawn did not hesitate to raggedly tear off a strip of the base of her sundress. She bunched up the makeshift cloth to apply pressure to the wound. She was proud of herself for not flinching when the man responded with a growl like an angry wolf. But did keep one hand free, just in case she needed it to defend herself.

Dawn’s heart sank when the familiar colour of grey-purple smeared towards the hilt of the blade caught her eye. She picked the weapon up to give it a quick sniff to be sure, but the strong dank, woodsy scent with a hint of bitterness was obvious. It was Wolfblight, a mix of aconitum, arsenic and other toxic plants. It had a distinct smell that shapeshifters, Theron in particular, could not detect.

Dawn could not help hesitating about what she should do. He seemed polite and generous at a distance, simply from their vague encounter in town. But who is to know what someone’s true intentions really are from something so brief?

And if this man truly was a theron as Dawn assumed, associating with him could have grim consequences. Granted, she had never actually met one face-to-face.

It had been close to a hundred years since the true downfall of the human race. A mixture of pandemic and the great war had wiped out an exceptional chunk of the species and the progression of society crashed along with it. Whereas humans for a long while struggled to function civil among themselves and the dwindling resources, theron were able to thrive. It was no surprise that they had gradually taken the top spot as the dominant species on the planet.

It wasn’t just that they were physically stronger or just as intelligent from previously living secretly intertwined with humans in every field of their society. They could adapt to conditions in the form of a humanoid or as a beast, should it be better to do so. Capable of living off what the harsh wilderness offered, but with also able to live using tools, knowledge and resources that humans had so much depended on in their everyday lives.

Life was very much a struggle for the majority of humans these days, but that was not the case for thereon. They formed groups that controlled certain assets and liabilities, and humans were also dumped into the category. Given their history, the welfare of their human predecessors was not exactly the top priority. There were plenty of stories of humans being culled if numbers became too undesirable, massacres of entire villages if they were suspected of disease, raiding of homes to anyone conjectured of concealing weaponry intended for theron harm, and even humans being kidnapped to be sold as slaves or for uses far worse.

Dawn’s moment of pondering came to an end as the man started to wheeze and blood foamed from his mouth. Dawn saw his jaw go ridged and the alien shape of his teeth. They had begun structurally morphing in that of his theron form.

As his body began to uncontrollably fit, Dawn chewed down on her lip anxiously as she finally came to a decision.

She nestled the knife, carefully wrapped in the remaining strip of her torn dress hem, into a free compartment of the man’s bag as she ran back to Mack and the cart.