PREY

Setting - rural countryside of County Carlow, Ireland, approximately early October of 2007.
Summary - A young Braith Cadoc is hunted, and the decision is made to send him to Otherworld Academy.
Caution - Story contains random pronoun jumps in the first three paragraphs or so. Don't punch me.

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Swift, small dual-toed hooves sprinted, Braith's heart hammered, the fearful tattoo leading her deeper into an all-encompassing fear. Limbs would ache, if not for the adrenaline punctuating his panic, she knew running was the wrong thing to do. 'Running is a trigger.' It was so hard, so hard not to run when faced with the furred mayhem of a werewolf. The terror was a living, pulsating thing, gripping him frozen at first, then slamming a violent momentum into her when the wolf made a single motion. No matter what he did, he couldn't run fast enough. Too young, too small, being a were-deer made her faster, stronger and larger, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough to match. Sharp, and biting, the tears of shame sprung as she found he could no longer run. 'I'm almost home, it's so close, please, please make it.' 

It didn't matter, she'd grown use to the fact that no matter how strong his will, her body just couldn't keep up, as he broke free of the sparse forest he found hillside, and tumbled. Stones prodded his ribbed form and her course went awry, she wondered if she had the ability to breathe. A resounding thud and a ripple of pain spread through his body as he registered that he'd crashed into the large boulder that he often played on in human form. Her limbs felt spindly, as though all her muscle had been worn away and the exhaustion threatened to cave her into unconsciousness. A final, desperate keen for Mother emanated from the bruised and battered youth, as the rather large darker wolf crept closer. Braith knew the wolf didn't recognize her as were, she'd never seen her before in his life. Closing his eyes, the young deer trembled, breaths coming quick and spasmodic. 

A low and fierce growl interrupted his silent internal plea however, and teary eyes shot open as the familiar scent of Mother washed over her. The dark red-toned she-wolf had her lips peeled back into a venomous snarl, and she was a considerable threat to Braith's pursuer. After a brief moment of visible surprise passing Braith's would-be killer, the younger wolf stepped back and shifted, and Braith could see the moment of sudden realization, and regret. He watched, tense and still feeling the effects of panic as his Mother returned to her human form, a dark scowl covering her pretty features. She turned away to grab a towel from the clothes line the Cadoc's always kept up, and throwing with considerable strength, another towel to the werewolf. A more gentle approach was given to Braith, and she draped the towel over his small form. As rationality and clarity returned to the boy's mind, he shifted, feeling the all-familiar agony that was slowly starting to become routine.

He sat up slowly, in a considerable amount of pain, he could feel the dappling of bruises across his body even without looking, and his head spun following the trauma, not to mention the strain the young boy felt in his lungs, burning even though he had stopped moving. When he drew a hand up to his hair, he found it matted with dirt, and on drawing his fingers away, a bit bloody. Had he hit his head? He hadn't thought so, but he'd hit a lot of things on the way down. The boy had enough sense to know a head injury was quite possible, but he couldn't feel an injury. Was he bleeding somewhere else too? His wrists were pale like sugar, and the veins seemed winding, where was he hurt?

"Bronwen!" In spite of the name not being his own, young Braith blinked up in a daze, focusing on his Mother, he was starting to hurt more, and the shock was wearing off. What was his Mother saying? The words were quick, angry, and an American accent touched it all, something he'd always found interesting about his Mother. However, there was a violent edge to the sharp words now, touched not with kindness but harsh spiking intonations. She was yelling at the dark brunette girl, cursing her to damnation. One particular sentence struck the young Braith with the venom, mostly because it carried the toxic reminder of what he was. 

Sharp, the slicing remark went as so, "You dumb, stupid girl, don't you know that Braith is one of your own? Is it so hard to scent Cadoc through the scent of prey?"

Prey. It resounded in his addled mind, the definition of what he was and always would be. At only five years old, Braith was painfully aware of his differences, his intelligence accounted for that. Not to mention the pain. He was no wolf, he had no warrior strength or godly stamina, he was deer, he was prey, he was food. Food to the very ones he called family. How much longer could it continue? Right now, he felt like if he closed his eyes, he could stop. Stop running, stop the pain. Was that the easy way out? Surely, but he was tired of being scared. 'So tired.' 

He succumbed, and woke later, aching, exhausted, and alone. No, not alone. Trystan was here, he was in his bed, though he knew it hadn't been a dream. It hadn't been a dream, he felt hurt, broken. Had he broken bones? He hoped not, Iorwen had broken her leg when Braith was younger, and it'd made her mean. She wasn't mean to Trystan, but the broken leg made her mean to him. He didn't want to start becoming mean to someone.

"Braith! You're awake!" The cheerful voice was Trystan, blinking in genuine surprise, and hugging the smaller boy. His big brother seemed so happy that Braith didn't even complain about the bruises. "Did I break anything?" Softly, for his head still felt unsteady, Braith was cautious in the question, and worried. His dark-haired brother laughed a little in response, and shook his head. "No, Mother said you have a small concussion though, no broken bones. She was really surprised. I think she's mad at Bronwen though, Bronwen's our second cousin by the way, she just moved here. Da's been fighting with Mother though," Trystan shrugged his bony shoulders, whereas Braith sighed, not just from pain. He hoped he hadn't caused another fight between Mother and Father, Trystan and Iorwen both said they hadn't fought until he was born. 

'I don't belong here.' All he seemed to have done was hurt the family, and get hurt himself. Couldn't he do anything right? Was he born as a curse to the family? He remembered one of his aunts had called him that before, it'd hurt, he knew most of the Cadoc's didn't think that way, but it didn't make it hurt less. Why did he have to wake up?

Kinder tones of his Mother's voice interrupted his train of thought, and Trystan jumped off Braith's bed with a smile, leaving him as Mother sat down on his bed as well. He tried to be polite and sit up, it didn't change the fact that it hurt. She smiled a little bit, and he smiled back instinctively as her hand gently brushed his hair away, her eyes sad. A wince of pain came from Braith as he realized her finger had grazed stitches. "Don't worry, you've still got most of your hair. I only shaved right around the wound." He could practically feel the worry which mingled with a saddened happiness, and he extended his arms out in spite of the soreness plaguing his muscles. She reciprocated, and warm arms enveloped him, although all he'd been doing was trying to make her happy. Hugs always felt nice either way. In his Mother's arms, in spite of his loneliness within the pack, he felt like he could still be a Cadoc. 

Something was different this time however, and he leaned back, blinking in confusion. His Mother's face was one of resignation, and he felt more uncertain than he'd ever remembered being. "Mother? Is something wrong?"

"Braith..." His name, tainted with that feeling, "I'm honestly sorry. I never imagined I couldn't be able to care for my child, but..." Shock, betrayal, and fear started to worm its way into Braith's gut. Something was wrong, very wrong indeed. Her next words would break his heart. "The Cadoc Pack has agreed, unanimously, that it is best if we find someplace else for you. There's a lovely school, full of other kids, and books, you like books don't you? They've got those big ones I always refused to read to you. It's going to be a wonderful place, Braith. You won't have to worry about being hunted, I hear there's teachers there that can teach you anything. It'll be better for everyone."

He'd started crying, a soft sniffle, he wanted to curl up into a ball under the covers and hope it would all go away, and with an ironic sense, he realized he'd been right that he didn't belong here. His Mother, his own Mother, was telling him that the family didn't want him. They were going to send him off to a far away place, and in his own mind, he believed they didn't want him back. The tears grew, and through the blur he saw a flash of anger on his Mother's face. Then she walked out, silently, with no other words. 

Had she ever cared? Braith was left now, pained and crying, alone and scared. Only the worries in his head to keep him company, his face stung, ached, and his nose ran in spite of his attempts to dry it. Eventually he stopped trying, his body trembled instead with weak sobs, a shaking shadow and a tear-soaked pillow. Little sleep was gotten, and my morning he'd weakly disguised the feeling of abandonment as anger. He tried to fuel it, but he was five years old, he didn't have the energy. All he could feel was lost and scared, the family acted normal throughout the entire day, only Trystan came to him.

His dark-haired brother was helping him pack his backpack, Braith had chosen very little to keep, a few small chapter books, and some jewelry that he'd made. Priorities were based on sentiments for the child, and he moved through the actions in a dull, empty way. No child should feel so lost, abandoned, alone. Trystan noticed, and right before Braith picked up his small backpack, he was hugged tight by his brother. The two had been close, and Trystan had, in something uncharacteristic of him, been serious. He promised and swore, "I'll send you a letter every week. I won't forget you, you'll always be my brother. Pinky swear." The promise would become one of the things Braith would come to depend on.

Braith flew with his father to Otherworld, then, the older man answered a few questions, signed papers, and left Braith alone. That Friday he received a letter, clumsily written and with a drawing of a big, powerful deer with many antlers, that was the day Braith first went into the library, and checked out his first book. It was a children's chapter book, titled 'The White Deer' by James Thurber. Braith read it three times before he returned it.