Gibbous

“Tell me all again, so I know you heard it. What do we do when we move?”
The chorus of tiny voices, some meek, some eager, most of them fearful, wrenched his heart.
“Keep an eye on the horizon, watch the birds. If they spook, run for cover and stay there.”
“...Good. And if you see one?” “Be quiet, don’t make a sound, make yourself small.”
“...And if…” It was the hardest part to say every time, the hardest part to tell them, and the one he knew that they could never truly follow. “If you see one of us go down, what do you do?”
Hearing it was worse.
They would never.
“Leave them and save your own skin.”
They would never abandon anyone caught in the open. They weren’t raised like that. They grew up on helping each other, seeing every adult in their life risk injury and death and scorn to no matter what, make sure everyone they could reach made it out alive. They had never seen disaster and ruin so great no one couldn't be saved, that no one couldn't be a hero, that no one would be left behind and abandoned.
Everywhere they went, they were told to hold hands, to stay together, keep at least one person in arm’s length, be cautious and deliberate. Undoubtedly, if one of them made a mistake, moved too quick or too slow and was out in the open, consumed under dragonfire, every one of them would scream and cry and demand to go back to help them, even if all what remained was a shattered burned heap of ash that was once a friend, a sibling, a parent.
“What do you do if you lose me?” He would never let it happen. The kids would never get separated from him, they would be under his eye at all times, moving ahead of him so he could help the stragglers, the slow and the tired and hungry. More likely, he would get caught in flames himself to protect them, to be a distraction while they fled.
“Keep going and look for the rangers.”
Most of them were far too young to even know what death really was yet, they couldn't contemplate the fact they were even here, with him, was because their parents had gone to fight a war. They didn't understand that for many of them, right now there was a strong chance their families would forever be married by death.
Ryoten, struggling to choke down the thought and burbling cry in his throat, nodded.
"Okay, now follow me. Stay under the treeline."
Gina, Thompson, Hilik, Marsh, Blackwald. They were the most likely to end up getting themselves killed first. They were great warriors, excellent leaders. The good and the brave always died first.
Coriander and Burke, Jun, Walter, perhaps North and Yan. Just as good and just as brave, but usually on the second line. Most likely: They'd get themselves killed trying to help the others, or following after them, too late to turn back.
Hurrying the children under the shade of trees, from the western tower to the more secluded cabin deeper in the park, he counted in his head and made estimates.
8, he came to.
8 kids at least, from his pack alone, weren't going to have parents by the time the first battle was done. Nevermind the ones missing only one. Nevermind the other packs' wards on their way.
"Dad?"
Orion's voice snapped him out of it, and Ryoten again struggled to keep his voice steady.
"What's up, kiddo?"
"Can… can you hold my hand? I'm scared." Orion's scars around his eyes crinkled when he was lying. He didn't do it often, and it broke his heart even more to know that his son saw straight through him.
"Yeah," he took it, only pausing to wipe his eyes and let the littlest ones go ahead, unawares and playing a game hopping from shadow to shadow, over roots and leaf litter. "Yeah, I am too."
---
“They need to know, Ryoten.”
“I know. I know they do but-” The man’s voice broke and he stopped to try and recollect himself. When he continued, he was barely able to stead his words. “They’re kids. They shouldn’t have to worry about this.”
“They shouldn’t, and you shouldn’t have to be the one to tell ‘em either, but somebody’s got to. It’d be better coming from you, they look up t’ya.” Wren spoke calmly, handing him a cup of coffee. His brother nodded along, but said nothing, letting his twin do all the talking, at least for now.
“That makes it all the harder, I’m gonna have t’ be telling them for the first time in their lives they aint safe, that they could die, that if they ain’t listenin’ to my advice they will. Some a’ them are so young they don’t even know what that means yet.”
Both brothers looked aside, in mirror of each other. As much as they had helped so far, there wasn’t much more either could give, and Ryoten knew that as well. Neither were parents, neither were the guardians of nearly twenty children- most of them he knew well. He’d known so many of them their entire lives, a few born under his care for their mothers, too many calling him uncle and family to make the present situation at all comfortable.
“Just gotta do the best ya can, same as all of us. We should be safe here, least for a while.” Weiss started to fiddle with the radios again, flipping between signals. Other than breaking news further up north, it all seemed normal. Horrendous pop songs still played between commercials for snacks and bars. Grocery stores were still running sales. The DJs were more concerned with talking about the weather than the war breaking out.
“It’s all just too normal. Other than the guy down at the rest stop buyin’ up ‘nough toilet paper and jerky to feed an army, it ain’t like anything’s changed. I… I don’t wanna think I’m overreacting cause I know I’m not.” Ryoten slumped against the cabin’s wall, talking in a hush, to not wake the children in the next room- they were exhausted, and had walked and rode with him for miles just to get here.
Wren and Weiss shared a look, before in unison responding.
“That’s just Tom, he does that.”
“Just… Get some sleep man. We’ve been hearing from Ludovic himself ‘bout keepin’ the warrens safe here, we know shit’s gonna get bad.”
“Yeah, ya ain’t crazy, but better to be overreacting in this case, aye? Don’t want it to be worse than you’re already prepping for.” Wren agreed with his brother, reaching over to pat his shoulder. “B’sides, we wanna get rid’a you as soon as possible, if yer right about how shit’s gonna turn out, we’re gonna be stuck with ya forever.”
All three managed a laugh at that, and Ryoten fiddled with his collar.
“Surprised you haven’t tossed me out to Abigail yet.”
“Only ‘cause we like your kid.” Again, both in unison, though Weiss interjected as he got up to go lay down in his own room-
“Tell him when he's older, he should come down here and apply for a job, he’d be a good ranger.”
At least now, with the lights dimmed and only the bare hissing of the oil lanterns as they cooled, he could sleep, but yet his body did not want to. Something was burning in his blood. That itch to run, take on his father’s boon, and put his teeth into something.
To feel his tongue well with the blood of prey, the snap of tiny bones in his jaws, sunlight on black fur.
Ferventi’s blood in him wanted to hunt, to prepare for something. It wanted enough meat to fight tooth and nail against something he did not yet comprehend.
Silent prayers to his father went unanswered.
Worse yet still that he knew his father heard them- that he pushed back, actively kept him out of his mind.
Something was coming that he did not, or could not, spare the time to answer as he had never once done.