Primitive Instinct: The Journey Home

“Clouds cover the moon today,” Roar told me as we ate the next morning. “I will go with you to your traps.”

“I didn’t reset them before we left,” I told him, and he relaxed beside me on the side of his bed. “I’ll leave them empty for a while so the creatures aren’t so wary.”

“Good,” he nodded, and I smirked at him, but let it fall when I saw his deep frown.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Someone threw something at Diesel this morning. It missed him, but I saw,” he said.

I growled and he smirked briefly before putting his paw on my knee.

“I informed the chief already. They were young ones. Not old enough to have earned a name, but old enough to know better,” he said.

“Does my name mean nothing to them?” I growled and he chuckled.

“Seeing as they looked like the snow when I asked that you decide their punishment, your name means plenty,” he laughed. “They were very relieved when the chief refused because even he knows better than to test someone named a blood fighter.”

I just grinned and he chuckled, shaking his head.

“If someone hurts Diesel, do not stop me,” I told him firmly and he scoffed.

“As if I could,” he smirked. “If someone does hurt Diesel, I will hand you my knife.”

“Because repairing the broken leather was annoying?” I lifted an eyebrow.

“Because I know you’ll take it anyhow,” he answered. “And if someone harms you, I will not stop Diesel. He will claim the life of the fool long before I lift a finger to call him back.”

“You say that like you wouldn’t be right next to him,” I laughed.

“I have fingers,” he held his paws up then looked at the dog. “The two of us have had this talk already. My fingers will do more to help you and his teeth will be better for ripping.”

“And how long ago did this talk happen?” I asked and he laughed, his cheeks turning pink.

“A long time ago,” he answered. “When you were learning our trades and were refused a weapon.”

“Then? That was ages ago, Roar,” I shook my head. “Hold on! How long has Diesel known that you-?”

“A week after leaving the sun camp, he complained about the smell and that if I wanted to mate with you that much, I’d better not make you cry or he’d rip a very precious part of my body off,” he said, and I gasped.

“Diesel! You cannot just threaten to maim people!” I scolded him. His ear flicked and I pointed my finger at him. “Don’t talk back to me.”

He lifted his head and looked at me for a second before licking his nose and turning his head towards Roar but kept his eyes on me.

“Informative,” the hunter grinned, looking at me.

“What did he just tell you?” I narrowed my eyes at my best boy.

“That I am not the only source of mating scent,” Roar answered, and I gasped and launched across the tent, but Diesel was up and darting away with his tongue out, avoiding me until Roar opened the tent flap and I tackled Diesel into the snow.

“You are lucky there’s no nail polish here, Diesel Mack, or I swear, your toes would be neon fucking pink!” I told him as I locked my ankles around his belly and then proceeded to give him scratches and rubs on his chest and belly, which he hated. “With French tips!”

He yowled and growled and hollered as he threw his head around and tried to fight me off. After I had my fill, I let him go and he ran a short way, before dropping his front end and I glared at him before he took off at full run right for me. I tried to scramble away from him, but I had no purchase in the snow, and he ran into me, feet first, and bounced off of me. Nearly two hundred pounds, versus my barely hundred and forty. I ended up shoved deep into the snow and Diesel barked at me before prancing away.

Roar was holding his side as he laughed, and I growled as I got myself out of the Fern-shaped ditch I had been shoved into.

“Do I want to know his commentary?” I asked, dusting snow off of myself.

“For his safety, no,” he shook his head as I walked over to knock some snow from my boots. The hunter laughed and helped me dust more snow off before I went back inside and grabbed some of the mammoth hair to start making threads and cords out of it while I sat on the floor.

After a few minutes, Diesel and Roar came back in and the fluffy boy licked my cheek before going to lay down.

“For the record, Diesel, there are some things that should remain a mystery,” I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Oh, no. By all means, tell me everything,” Roar grinned.

“Don’t you dare,” I pointed at him, and he huffed before laying his head on his paws.

“He wishes to go back to when you didn’t know he communicated like this,” Roar laughed.

“So, why is it that there are only a few Mapok that understand him?” I asked.

“I think it’s because some of us are more connected to the things around us,” he answered after a moment, picking up a piece of wood and sitting near the fire to start carving it, flicking the shaving into the coals. “Osh’ri’ca could hear the sounds, but he didn’t understand them, yet Li’hal’las did. Hool’gra’nat has admitted that he sometimes thinks he understands Diesel but isn’t sure of it.”

“More observant?” I asked.

“Kind of,” he nodded. “Osh’ri’ca is a chief. He was a hunter before then, but not one that hunted large game, like I do. Li’hal’las is a healer, and she gathers, along with the rest of her kind. Hool’gra’nat tends to the lanka.”

“If he makes sounds you can hear, why did you not hear the orou?” I asked him, looking at my fur hanging from a post.

“Diesel makes those sounds on purpose because they are words to him. He grew up with you, yes?”

“Not always, but he was around others for a while before I found him,” I nodded.

“It’s because of that, I think,” he said then Diesel looked up and whined, making Roar look at him. “He wants to thank you. He says you took him out of the cage and never stopped caring about him, even when he... he bit you?”

I held my leg out and pulled my pants up to show him the scar on my ankle.

“He was scared,” I shrugged.

“He thought you were going to hurt him and take him back to the cage,” Roar said, speaking softly and looking at Diesel. “That many others had done it before you. But you just stood there and told him he was going to be okay and when he let go, you sat beside him until he wasn’t scared anymore. You didn’t even look at the wound, didn’t care that you were bleeding.”

“A little bite to the leg wasn’t going to kill me,” I smiled softly. “Besides, how could I have worried about that when my best good boy was scared so much?”

“You made him not feel afraid anymore and he loves you, Fern,” Roar said, and I smiled widely and held out my arms.

Since Diesel was the very opposite of affectionate, I was sure he was going to ignore me, but he came over and let me hug him and push my face into his fur.

“Just this once,” Roar chuckled.

“I love you, too, Diesel Mack,” I told him and scratched his ruff before letting him go lay down again. “That happened on the third day that I had him at home. The place where he was before wasn’t able to understand that he was just scared and far too smart for a simple life inside.”

“He is like me and you,” Roar smiled. “He needs more than a tent to be happy.”

“Freedom,” I nodded. “Ivy said something about freedom that I, of all people, should have thought about before. How, even though she knows she could never survive, like I have, that she’s happy because she’s free. More than she was before coming here.”

“Are you free here?” he asked.

“Not in the same ways as Ivy, but yes,” I nodded. “Even if she said I could go back right then, I wouldn’t have. I like being here too much to leave. Plus, there’s this hunter that I’m pretty fond of here. He’s got amazing fur and is very smart.”

“Stop,” he held up a paw, his cheeks turning pink.

“Do you still want to learn English?” I asked him and he nodded, eager for the change in subject. “We’ll start with Diesel. He’s a dog.”