The faint rustling of the bushes next to me betrays the location of Khalil. He shouldn''t be making any noise, but he has never been the best at hunting, no matter how hard he tries. Our current problem is that we need to catch a rabbit or a grabbat–something small–to supplement the terrible choice of bringing only snack food for our trade trip. It was a decision made by the aforementioned friend without input from anyone else. I must remember to double-check work done by anyone who isn''t named Orion when we''re traveling.


    My eyes trail to where the noise is coming from, and a few moments later, Khalil''s head–with its kind, warm brown eyes–appears, followed by his body. Khalil is slightly taller than I am, with thick, strong shoulders, bronzed skin, and a frame meant for rugged, physically demanding work. Although we''ve been traveling for days, his hair is cropped with clean lines. His ears are only slightly pointed–he''s a faerie, technically half-elven. Khalil actually gets a five o''clock shadow, so he''s certainly got a respectable amount of scruff after our few days of travel.


    Khalil crouches next to me before brushing off his arms and chest. Though I don''t want to, I can''t help but stare at him incredulously as the noise-making machine continues. It''s impressive how much racket he''s making while trying to be quiet simultaneously. Finally, I can''t take it anymore; I whisper at him in irritation.


    "Khalil, man."


    I raise my right hand towards my lips and try to give him the universal symbol for "be quiet, you idiot." Of course, he gives back the most innocent and confused look he can muster. I stare at him until he finally relents by holding up both of his hands with palms facing me in a "don''t shoot" gesture. He follows it up with a faint grin, telling me everything I need to know. I smirk, unable to control it, and shake my head. It takes a few moments, but I recenter myself to focus on hunting.


    I''ve known Khalil all my life–unquestionably, he''s my best friend–and that''s not an exaggeration. He was born two days before I was born, and we were raised together in our small village. I can''t remember ever a time when he wasn''t with me, especially for any expedition or lessons taught by others in our village. He''s been my constant companion, and I know without speaking that his loyalty to me–and mine to him–is unwavering. We might as well be brothers.


    I slowly start to move again, waving ever so slightly with my right hand at Khalil, gesturing for him to follow behind me where I step and at my pace. After his purposeful noise-making session, he''s settled down to be serious. We''re far enough from the road now to get lost easily, and getting lost anywhere in the Wilds is a recipe for never getting found.


    After a short bit of walking through the grasping, thick underbrush along this stretch of our trading run, I suddenly halt, my eyes focusing on faint movement through some squat shrubbery a few yards out in front of us. Carefully, I pull my necklace up from underneath my old human metal band''s city tour t-shirt and pull out a small, bamboo-like reed pipe attached to a leather necklace cord. Already loaded with a hunter''s dart, I carefully pull the blowgun off the cord and re-tuck the necklace underneath my worn shirt so it doesn''t get in the way.


    Though Khalil doesn''t see what has caused us to stop, he knows that I can, so he comes to a stop a few paces behind me to give me plenty of space. We might be close like brothers, but we are much better at certain things than the other. He''s stronger than me, without question, but I can move through the thickest underbrush with barely a sound, like a wiretail. I don''t bother to peek back at Khalil; instead, I patiently keep my eyes ahead.


    My vigilance is rewarded when a small gray and brown four-legged creature creeps from underneath a hedge into some of the spotty sunlight making it through the darkness of the thick canopy. The critter is facing me, giving me its measure. It''s an adult grabbat, thankfully. Similar to an oversized squirrel in the human divide, the beast is about the same size as a rabbit but has two saucer-like eyes, a squirrel-like tail, raccoon-like claws, and a thick, squat body meant for rapidly climbing trees. I don''t move too quickly because I don''t want to startle it. The last time we startled a grabbat–well, Khalil startled a grabbat–we had to deal with the stink of its defensive odor for a full-on week.


    The grabbat stops and twitches nervously, causing me to tense, but it continues foraging a few moments later. I relax back to my normal focused state and slowly raise my reed blowgun, careful not to accidentally hit any shrubbery in front of me. I inhale and then exhale, calming my breathing and hands before raising the weapon to my lips and taking aim. As I inhale deeply to get enough air to fire my dart, a sudden and monstrously loud cracking of underbrush startles everyone: the grabbat, me, and Khalil alike.


    The grabbat screeches in alarm, releases its odor spray, and takes off to the nearest tree for safety. Khalil behind me scrambles backward on hands and knees without thought to stealth. I don''t have time to place my blowgun away, but Khalil has the right idea. I turn and immediately clamber after him on all fours–I don''t want to stand and run since we don''t know what colossal thing made the noise, and I''d rather not be at full height right to start. From experience, dealing with unknown loud noises in the Wilds is generally best served by getting the hell out of there. We scramble madly for about ten seconds before I stand up and grab Khalil''s shoulder to convince him to get up.


    "We gotta run now." I emphatically press.


    Khalil doesn''t argue in the slightest, and once he''s to his feet, we dash madly in the direction from which we entered the looming forest. We''re old enough to be used as go-betweens between our village of Wilder, other small encampments, and sometimes the more significant tribes. Because of the constant travel, both of us are used to physical activity. Khalil runs next to me, trying to get my attention verbally.


    "Ori!"


    Of course I heard him, but I chose not to respond immediately. Instead, I look behind us while sprinting through the underbrush, trying to see if we''re in immediate danger while avoiding thistles, thorns, and other forest blockades.


    "Orion!" Khalil more insistently raises his voice.


    "What?" I mutter, finally acknowledging him.


    My response seems to be a signal to slow down to Khalil, though I have no desire to do so just yet. Despite that, I slow down to match his pace as we go from running to jogging and then finally to walking together. Khalil looks behind us and then back before his lips split in a grin, and he starts laughing. His laugh is infectious, and I snicker a little despite myself.


    "That was actually kind of hilarious; scared the shit out of me, dude."


    "Yeah, same. It was something big, but I didn''t get a look."


    "Maybe it was a big branch falling or something."


    I shake my head, not agreeing with Khalil''s assessment of the disturbance. Pulling my necklace cord up from underneath my old human-printed shirt, I affix my reed blowgun to where it was before the failed hunt. Once done, I take it off my neck and wrap it back into its place on my belt, where I usually keep it unless I am actively hunting.


    "Now," I sigh, "we have to eat another night of junk."


    "It''s whatever, Ori." Khalil shrugs in his carefree sort of way. "We''re almost at the village anyway. We can get a good meal when we get there."


    I look left and right, trying to mentally place our location even though almost everything looks the same. I nudge Khalil with an elbow, not knocking him off balance, but hard enough that he has to take a step to the side to rebalance himself.


    "What?!" He protests loudly, and I shake my head in response.


    "Khalil, man, we''re going there to trade, not to waste our shit on food. I''m pretty sure we won''t have access to any nearby seam for another couple of weeks, and these guys are the only ones around with gasoline stored from the human divide. So yeah, we shouldn''t waste any of our village''s stuff, alright?"


    Khalil mumbles something inaudible but seemingly agrees with me, so I keep talking.


    "We can just find some berries or something on the way. Just something fresh and not those damned flaming hot cheese puffs." I say as if I didn''t hear him muttering to himself.


    It''s not that I don''t like his choice of junk food–it''s incredible, actually. It just gets tiresome when you''ve had almost three whole days of nothing but junk food. It could be worse, of course; at least we''re not starving, though some people might debate that, given our "choice" of foodstuff for this trip.


    After another half hour or so of walking, we could see the clearing where we left our two partners behind with the supplies and trade items. I relax my muscles finally and lead Khalil out of the forest onto the rough gravel and dirt of the traveler''s path. A small fire is going on the side of the road behind our covered trade wagon, and I see Lani tossing a few logs onto it with her back turned to us.


    Lani is slender with dusky skin and dark hair. To human eyes, she would look too slim, like she had health issues. She''s like Khalil and I, one of the Wilder elves. Elf-kin can come in all shapes; most Faeries are notably not particularly finicky in partners unless pedigree and station mean something to them. Lani is half-elf, like Khalil, and takes after her wispy air pixie half in appearance, just without the wings. I look around, not seeing our fourth, but continue walking over to Lani. I run a hand over the side of my face and one of my pointed ears before announcing to the air.


    "Hey, we''re back."


    Lani turns to look at us, then openly denotes we have nothing in our hands and groans for about two seconds.


    "I know, I know. Something startled the first thing I saw, and it was big, whatever it was, so we just ''nope''d out'' of there. Wasn''t worth finding out whatever it was. Where''s Aria?"


    Lani drops the rest of the logs and small sticks next to the small fire and brushes her hands off in front of herself.


    "She''s sleeping, of course. What else would she be doing during the day?" That isn''t surprising since she''s our trading wagon''s night guard. Lani continues with her train of thought, mostly just her complaining at us–admittedly, rightfully so. "So, another day of the great crap food that Khalil packed for us, huh?"


    Khalil starts to protest, which undoubtedly will be a protest about how flaming hot cheese puffs are superior to everything in our lands since we hear his spiel about once a week. However, before he can rev himself up to get going, snapping branches, shrubbery limbs, and twigs loudly announce from the forest that we aren''t alone. Instinctively, I reach down to my side and draw out my small whittling knife while Lani positions herself behind us and next to the back of our covered cart. Khalil, meanwhile, stands with his hands at his sides.


    The noise draws closer, and the three of us tense in anticipation. Generally speaking, for travelers and traders like us, it''s an excellent plan to assume anything that comes out of the forests of the Wilds unexpectedly will not be safe to deal with. It''s a kind of "hope for the best, prepare for the worst" sort of thing.


    A low, throaty growl, full of bass, starts from the undergrowth. Fuck. Immediately, I take a step back, intimidated; a shock of fear crawls up my spine because I know what that growl belongs to. The inhalation of air behind me tells me that both Lani and Khalil recognize it, too. Immediately, Lani slaps her hand on the back of the cart insistently and half-yells in a scared voice.


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    "ARIA, wake up. We need you now, bad. WAKE UP!"


    She smacks the back of the cart''s door a few more times while Khalil and I stare at the underbrush and wait for the bad news. Unfortunately, that bad news does come. A set of bowling-ball-sized paws tipped by curled claws press forward out of the forest''s oppressive and obfuscating undergrowth and stretch out to move aside the shrubbery. Once the vegetation cracks and bends back, the beast''s full shape reveals itself: a stocky bull-like chest stands above thick, muscular legs. A thick, long neck leads to something of a half-mane encircled head. The head of the beast that emerges is feline in shape and nature, colored black and sandy brown with perfect mottling to hunt in the dark, oppressive forests of the Wilds. The appearance of its snout and face is a mix between puma and lion.


    The beast''s ears twist and twitch in our direction, with lynx-like thick tufts of charcoal-colored fur at the tips that sway slightly with each movement. It''s enormous–a full-sized and healthy adult–with its size suggesting a male. The powerful, muscled shoulders of his front two legs easily stand at my shoulder''s height. As the great cat fully exposes himself from the forest, I see the long horizontal stripes along his side rising to his spine and join along the thick, bristling tail for which his kind is known.


    "A wiretail…" Lani whispers in distress. She slaps the back of the cart once more, but not as loudly as if she were afraid to encourage the beast to attack by making more noise. "Aria, wake up. There''s a wiretail and we need you. For fuck''s sake, get up."


    The wiretail watches us, having yet to move further. He''s no longer moving his body, save for his fur-tufted ears, burnt-orange and gold-colored eyes, and tail. His long tail slowly moves behind his body so we can see the foot-long quills littered through the wiretail''s thick tail fur, slowly trembling and bristling in what I believe to be anticipation. With some degree of horror, I believe that he''s been hunting us this whole time.


    "He''s going to attack us; he''s just trying to decide which way to start. Get ready." I stage-whisper to Khalil, wishing I''d had a chance to get to my bow inside of the trader wagon.


    The cart behind us makes a creaking noise, and the door next to Lani opens with a groan. I hear Lani breathe a sigh of relief, though I''m unsure why, as the danger hasn''t passed.


    "Why are we picking fights with wiretails in the daytime?" The voice that speaks belongs to Aria, but it''s much like a low, whispered hiss from some monstrous reptile because she''s shapeshifted.


    Her grousing doesn''t gain a response since the rest of us are terrified. It''s the first time any of us–except probably Aria–have seen a feral wiretail. The cart groans and protests as Aria jumps down from the back of the cart, and I hear the thud of her shapeshifted weight firmly hitting the ground. Right now, I am thrilled that our village always sends a night guard with every trader group. I slowly take my eyes away from the wiretail, which still hasn''t moved from the same spot. Were I not actually petrified and incapable of rational thought, I would have noted it as odd behavior from a stalking predator. My gaze settles on the noise of Aria appearing behind us. I step slightly away from Khalil and move to let Aria pass. Aria is not even partially elven-kin like Khalil, Lani, and myself. She is pure violence when she wants to be, and all of her kind are. Some humans have called them redcaps in their old stories.


    When Aria stretches out from within the wagon, she''s not the attractive woman we usually see. Her skin is unnaturally charred and blackened, stretched, and mottled, and her body has thickened into twice its normal girth and size. Her fingers are nearly as long as her forearms, skeletal thin, and tipped with dagger-like talons. Her eyes are no longer like an average person''s but are red baseball-sized orbs on a hideously bony, ridged face. Her lips aren''t present, instead, she shows long needle-like teeth in rows like a shark that stretches from cheek to cheek. She''s truly the stuff of nightmares–but she''s on our side, and that''s what matters.


    Aria lumbers out between Khalil and me, passing by us with the confidence of an insane person. She raises her thickened arms to her sides and splays her fingers as far as possible to make herself appear even bigger. The wiretail slightly lowers his front shoulders, but it''s hard to tell if he''s intimidated or just unsure as to what the hell he is looking at. Aria unleashes a howl of nightmares: a screech of pure terror that would likely send anyone running the opposite way if heard in the dark. I reflexively step back towards our cart and Lani despite knowing where the roar came from. The screeching howl lasts longer than my mind believes it should, but it finally tapers off as Aria stops at the edge of the traveler''s path near where the wiretail has lowered his stance.


    The gigantic cat-beast flattens his ears and bears his oversized canines before hissing and snarling; for a moment, he looks like he might attack the hulked-out Aria anyway. As if reading the reaction and intentions of the beast, Aria snarls a second time. Finally, the wiretail moves one of his massive paws backward before another, and another follows at the start of a retreat. Only when the wiretail turns can I see a symbol branded into the fur of his light sandy-brown haunches: a circular stamp of a silhouetted head from a snarling wiretail.


    That brand is one of the symbols of the Blackham, a strong tribe in the Wilds with their own city. They''re known to capture and occasionally breed wiretails and, because of it, have become extremely wealthy with power to match. I have no clue if they have wiretails that escape regularly or not, but it''s still unfathomably rare to encounter any wiretails in the Wilds unless you''re purposefully tracking for them.


    Aria snarls for a third time, stamps her feet with force, and bellows again with that horrible wailing roar that promises death and despair to all who hear it. Deciding against what I assume was his planned dinner now that it''s become too complicated, the wiretail finally turns and runs back into the underbrush and thick forest. The snapping and crunching of his fleeing through the forest proper slowly fades away as he moves further and further away. Lani, Khalil, and I exhale simultaneously, the immediate tension and adrenaline slowly ebbing from our bodies.


    Aria stands at the side of the path for another minute before her body starts to crackle and snap. It sounds like it would be terribly painful, but as far as I know, it isn''t. Her body withdraws on itself, the shapeshifted form disappearing to reveal Aria as she is typically: a graceful woman with skin the shimmery color of the pale moonlight and dark almond eyes, with black hair tied back in one long braid and wearing a basic black t-shirt and jeans. Her shadowed eyes give her some kind of a mysterious, gothic allure. She turns to look at the rest of us and then pointedly at me.


    "Were you successful on your hunt?" She already knows the answer but will grouse about it, apparently.


    "No," I exhale and respond. "I was about to get a grabbat, but I''m pretty sure that fucking cat was what scared it off before I could." Sitting down on a wood-cutting stump, I run a hand over my face again to wipe off beads of leftover anxious sweat.


    A soft grumble from Aria''s direction bubbles up, but she doesn''t say anything directly. Because she shapeshifted, she will have to eat many of our rations tonight and knows they''re all junk food.


    "I can head back out in a little while and see if I can catch anything close." I offer, somewhat unhelpfully. Aria shakes her head, breaking contact with the rest of us with a simple mutter.


    "No, too soon. I will be fine. Going back to sleep now."


    Typically, Aria''s a little more friendly and somewhat more articulate. However, being woken up from her rest period, having to shapeshift for potential violence, and then, afterward, having no raw meat to consume is a recipe for her kind of fey to be quite cranky.


    "Wake me up if it comes back." She grumbles at Lani as she returns to our trade cart''s rear. Lani nods a few times–clearly still stressed by the whole encounter–before closing the door to the wagon gently after Aria. Khalil finally moves and sits beside the low-burning fire.


    "Holy shit, that was intense. I''ve never seen one of those in the wild." Khalil knows me and Lani haven''t either since we almost always travel together. I rub the back of my neck, trying to relax even though I know it''s a lost cause.


    "I mean, yeah, none of us have. But–Did you see the mark on him? He was branded, so I could tell he was supposed to be one of the Blackham''s wiretails. I wonder why he''s running free around here? As far as I know, they don''t have any official settlements this way."


    Lani joins us at the fire after digging out a couple of small bags of the human junk food Khalil packed for us. She tosses one to Khalil and one to me before sitting at the fire and opening herself one. She munches for a few moments before responding to my observations.


    "I mean, maybe something bad happened to his rider on a trading mission, and he''s just been running wild since? Or maybe not, I don''t know. Like, this area has always been fairly safe whenever we come through here to trade."


    "What''s safe out here, though? I mean, you just never know; that''s why we got someone like Aria, you know? I don''t know, you said it yourself: maybe he''s been running wild. They can move far when they want; what stops them from going into an area normally considered relatively safe?" I answer, shrugging before opening the plastic wrapping of the processed puffed junk food.


    I pop a couple of the neon orange crunch snacks into my mouth and chew loudly now that the drama seems to have passed. My eyes trail up towards our sky; its gray and thick clouds threatening rain obscure the sun from direct view. The Wilds'' night creatures enjoy days like this since it allows them to come out freely without discomfort. Unlike the human divide, our "sun" won''t hurt them; they will only be uncomfortable while they''re in its direct view. In general, it''s pretty agreed that days like this make traveling for Wilder like us a bit more dangerous. It''s really only bad luck that we ultimately ran across a feral wiretail.


    For obvious reasons, I am more alert than usual. While we munch our snacks silently, I judge how much time we''ll need to continue to our destination. It isn''t long. We have a river to cross and half a day''s walk from there, so by this time tomorrow–barring any more incidents–we should reach the village. I look at the other two, who are already done with the packages Lani split between them.


    "We should get moving. I don''t want to cross the river today since it''ll be too close to nighttime, but we can at least find a good flat spot to give Aria a nice view for her night guarding. Besides, I don''t want to chill here any longer."


    Khalil nods and crushes up the plastic wrap in his hand before standing up. He hands it over to Lani when she sticks out her hand. I finish off my flaming hot cheese puffs, take a drink from the small water bottle tied to my belt, and then hand over my bag to Lani as well. She rubs the three empty plastic packages together while murmuring. A few moments later, the packages shrivel before disintegrating into ash in her hands. She leans over and drops the ash into the fire before brushing off her hands on her pants.


    Lani isn''t the same as Khalil or me, either. She can manifest elements, and with some degree of effort, she can change one thing to a very basic other–like plastic bags to paper bags. She''s still considered young, like Khalil and I, so it''s a bit of an effort for her to do any of it. Once again, I rub my hand over my face to wipe away a few beads of sweat and smooth back my pulled-back and braided hair.


    I push both hands down on the knees of my old jeans and stand from the wood-cutting stump. Once the fire is put out and the obvious clues to our brief stop are cleared away, Khalil walks to the back of the trader wagon, quietly opens the rear door, and pulls out what appears to be a smaller door frame. It''s about the height of a baseball bat, with a proportional width for a door of that size with two simple feet to keep it standing on its own.


    "Be right back."


    Khalil stands the door next to the cart and then opens the pint-sized door. He crouches next to it before sticking one of his hands through the shimmering blue haze previously hidden by the door''s earlier closed state. The haze draws Khalil inside and out of our view painlessly. A few minutes pass before Khalil returns, holding the reins of two mules. They bray with irritation but follow after Khalil, who leads them to the front of the cart and sets them up in their rigging.


    The door isn''t ours to own–it''s technically our village''s property–but trading groups sometimes get to use it so the more difficult-to-replace livestock are protected from assaults. Generally, they lead to a room or small stable where the animals can be fed, watered, and left to rest in peace while the rest of us do what we need to. I don''t know exactly where they come from; Hannah and Jorge–the first of our village–are the ones who gifted a couple to our village as communal property, so they may know. I''ve just never cared enough to ask.


    One of the donkeys kicks backward, and its hoof clangs off one of the metal joints holding the wagon''s rigging to the mules next to where Lani is standing. Khalil immediately raises his tone to tell the mule to stop, but the guilty donkey repeatedly brays in apparent irritation. Khalil can communicate with animals, which is his job on trade runs, so before long, the pair of mules move our wagon again on the traveler''s path. Lani elects to walk alongside the cart with Khalil, and I take the chance to sit in front and hold the reins while the donkey pair moves us forward. Before too long, lulled by the swaying of the wagon and the faint rumbling of its wheels over the gravel of the traveler''s path, my mind drifts back to the wiretail and the Blackham branding on his back haunches.


    Why was he way out here? Their city is easily a week''s travel from where we were, maybe more. Blackham tribe members rarely come out this far, let alone deal with Wilder like from our village. They don''t need to hunt anywhere near here either, with all the territory they claim. Wiretails do indeed cover lots of territory in the wild, but even still, coming way out here is a lot of territory to have roamed. I mull over the thoughts in silence for a while longer before finally resting the matter in my mind as something I won''t be able to puzzle out based on my limited information.


    As a nice flat area appears ahead, I realize this is the regular stopping point before the river (or after, depending on which way you travel). The path doesn''t look like it has shifted or changed since the last time we came through, as it sometimes inconveniently does, so I get Khalil''s attention with a little whistle before jumping off the cart. He takes over for me, moving the mules and the wagon over to where we''ll spend the night. The three of us spend some time clearing back some of the vines and underbrush that has crept out onto the stopping point.


    Thankfully, the rest of the evening is peaceful. Aria comes out of the wagon a short while after we''ve set up the camp for the night and proceeds to eat her share of the food without complaint, plus a bit more. None of us complain about her extra rations; she likely saved our lives with her transformation, and we don''t even have fresh meat for her to consume to make up for it. I watch Aria as she sorts out her plan for the camp''s patrol, and I can''t help but sigh guiltily. It''s literally my job in the group to supplement our food on any travels. I hate feeling like I''ve failed anyone in our group. I''ll have to do better.