33: Devil Hog

"Ok Toby here's the deal," Brise began, "we want to live up there."

Toby followed the direction of her finger up. He returned his gaze to her and chuckled. "Why those houses belong to the hunting crew, to live up there you have to be in a hunting team."

"Then put me in this hunting team," she said. "I've hunted men before how different could it be."

Tobias broke out into a fit of laughter. "You've hunted men! Bah! That's hilarious!"

Brise squinted at him and I watched her reach for her knife when I jumped in front of her. "Tobias, what she meant was she worked with this hunter for a while, while we travelled to and fro."

Tobias stopped and regarded us. "You girls are strange. Why don't I show you to your new home? Down here."

He started for the bridge and Brise grunted as I pulled her along. "We'll work something out, play along for now."

Tobias showed us to a vacant little house, of two bedrooms, a bathroom, a tiny kitchen and an adorably small living room. "So, what do you think?"

"We'll take it," Brise said immediately.

"Alright, I'll let you girls get settled in, I'll drop by later to talk about your duties while you reside here and someone will come by with dinner when it's time. Sounds good?"

"Yes," Brise grunted

Tobias finally left and Brise groaned as she dropped onto the cane bench. "Thought he'd never leave."

"He's a good guy, cut him some slack," I said.

"Aha, I don't care. Now let's talk about things that I actually care about, like this mission for example."

"Right," I sighed. "First we need to make sure our other team mates don't get found out or worse killed."

"Here's the plan," she began.

~~~

Mars was hunched over, scribbling into a book, when Brise kicked the door open. The pen flew out of his hand as his hands flew up in surrender. When he saw who had entered, he sighed and dropped onto his chair.

"It's knock not kick, is that so much to ask for," Mars muttered as he resumed his scribbling.

Brise cleared her throat and gagged before she began, "hi Mars, Mars-y." Her voice higher. "Cutie." She gagged.

"That won't work on me, just tell me what you want so we can both not suffer through this," he said, his eyes still glued to the book.

"Thanks," she sighed. "We want to go up there."

Mars lifted his gaze and looked to the direction of her fingers, up the tree. He shook his head and returned to his book. "No can do, hunters only."

"That's what we want," I chimed in. "We want to talk to Xon about becoming hunters."

He looked up again, but this time he looked us up and down, then snickered to himself. "Alright. But if my uncle asks, tell him you guys gave me no chose. Deal?"

"Deal," Brise replied. We filed into the little rectangular rooms, Mars called an elevator, and at the press of the button the room slid up the tree, out of the building and climbed higher till we were above the first level of houses.

"How does this little magic room work?" I asked.

Mars scoffed. "Not everything in this world operates on magic. I swear, every little problem, wave a wand, chant a spell and problem solved. No one ever uses their brains, or their hands. Magic makes people lazy and weak-minded."

Brise eyed me mouthing, "wow."

I smiled, suppressing the urge to laugh. "But don't you need magic to, you know, be this size."

He shook his head. "Oh please, if giants weren't a minority which is ironic now that I say it out loud, I wouldn't even be this size. Much less mingle with you kind."

"Wow you can talk, wonder who you got that from," Brise muttered.

Mars then proceeded to complain about his family which was more information than we needed. He was a very opinionated young man, I must say.

The elevator ended its journey on the second level of houses. The first thing we saw as soon as we arrived up there, was a shirtless hairy man shaving his armpit hair. In the administration building, at his desk.

"There's a reason why we don't share the same air as these barbarians," Mars mumbled.

We managed to avoid the hairy man and reach the verandah. And from there, only more man of his nature, if you will, emerged. And yes they were mostly men, which made sense why Tobias found it sidesplitting when Brise asked to join. We successfully made it to the detention center without Brise harming anyone, anyone being gross men who whistled and purposely blocked our paths to start conversation.

The detention center was a tall building that encircled a good part of a tree. According to Mars the building was made with the intention to secure wanderers who were unyielding to keep their silence. After a while they'd be set free after they were "taken care of" whatever that meant.

Mars pushed the door open and the first thing we laid our eyes upon was Xon trying to peel away an unconscious Lucius's bandages. With Philip and Rowan in their separate cells shouting for him to stop. Brise let out a wail and Xon's hand froze. His head whipped our way as he stalked over to us. Brise continued crying, pulling at her hair, as she dropped to her knees. Philip and Rowan watched us wide-eyed, I returned a brief shake of the head and they understood.

Xon was bewildered and so was Mars.

"Um, is she alright?" Xon asked me.

I shook my head, feigning horror. "I don't think you should be the one asking that. Are you alright?"

Xon flinched. "What? What's going on? Why is your sister crying?"

Brise's hair fell over her face as she sobbed. "Someone's about to die!" She cried out.

"Hold on!" Xon exclaimed. "Who's dying and—wait you're a banshee!"

I turned my back to Philip and threw the crumpled piece of paper into his cell. I went over to Brise and rubbed her back as I hugged her. "You can stop now," I whispered in her ear. Immediately as I did, her cries ceased. I stood and helped her up, a baffled Xon and Mars watching us blatantly.

"Pfft whose racist now," Brise said so low, only I caught it. She brushed her hair aside and wiped the tears on her ever-stoic face.

"I'm concerned," Xon muttered, "for the person dying that is."

"Oh no, no need to worry he won't die," I reassured him.

Xon took a moment to let that settle in before he asked, "why are you girls even here?"

"They wanted to join a hunting team," Mars said.

"Actually I'm rethinking our decision," I said immediately.

"Yeah, alright," Xon said, "I didn't think you'd want to anyway."

"Excuse me?" Brise barked. "Why, Because we're girls?"

"Because you wavered," he bit back. "Hunting isn't for those who hesitate."

Her eyes narrowed as she stepped towards him. "If I wavered I wouldn't be who I am today. December we're going hunting!"

That was how Brise and I ended up spending the night, down on the forest floor, searching for wild hogs. We set our trap and bait and hid an appropriate distance from it. I didn't know the first thing about hunting, unless you consider fishing hunting then I was great at it. Fish was the only good source of protein when the famine wiped out entire populations of land animals. Dad would take us to lakes and rivers and teach us how to fish.

With the sun just setting, the forest slowly grew dark and alive with the calls and buzzes, croaks and whispers of the night critters. We leaned against a tree, not speaking a word to each other.

"Do you actually cry like that when people die?" I asked.

"Whoa, whoa, we're not friends," she said simply, busy at work sharpening her stake.

"Oh," I said, shifting uncomfortably. "Can I ask what you're going to do with that stake then?"

"To kill our catch, duh."

"What if we don't end up catching anything tonight?"

"Then we keep waiting."

"We don't have to do this you know?"

She stopped sharpening her stake and pointed it at me instead. "Get going then, you talk too much, you're going to scare away game."

I sighed, standing. She didn't take back her words and I wasn't going to either. I left her and retraced my steps towards the tree houses. I figured I'd make up an excuse that Brise, Vanut, being the caring sister she was sent me back to rest.

But I knew I'd regret what I did, especially when darkness came, and every rustle and hoot sent me over the edge. I caught my breath but sighed when I realized it could have just been an owl. I was right it was just an owl. "You scared me little—" a giant owl that is. "Crap!" How could I not have realized? Giant forest, giant trees, giant mushrooms, giant owl. That only meant...

The ear-splitting squeal of a pig got me sprinting back the way I came. The only thing on my mind, Brise. I arrived at the tree we had rested by only to find her stake, it's point smeared. I lifted it to my face, touching the point. My fingers wet and slippery, the smell of iron.

"No," I croaked, surveying the scene. Under the moon's light, I couldn't see much, but the place wasn't very different from when I'd left it.

The earth suddenly began to quake and I caught the first sight of the massive beast. It's eyes glowing red, its tusks glistening as sharp as knives, it's squeal ear-piercing, racing towards me at a tremendous speed. There was no use running, it'd catch up to me in no time. I held the stake forward and accepted my fate.

But the beast halted a meter away from me, falling forward. Jutting from its side was something pointy that slid across the boar's stomach. The object sunk back into the body and in its place an arm popped out.

The stake in my hands dropped and so did my jaw. Another arm shot out and forced the pig's skin open.

Then Brise stepped out. Covered in pig's blood, waving about her knife, the petite girl shouted, "Down with you devil hog!"

I was absolutely horrified.

A/n: *hiss* hello. Heh. Heh. Anyways uh, I like Brise. And because I like her so much I made her an aesthetic board ⬆️ comment your thoughts and if u think I should do one for the others