2 Fangs
Chapter 1:  Baby Teeth
By Tearra Wolfe

A 2kinds fanfic
The world of 2kinds is a creation of Tom Fischbach, and Zen and Natani are characters created by Tom Fischbach.  The rest sorta vary.

The two children, verging on the cusp of young adulthood, hurried through the forest, making little noise, slipping rapiodly from the shelter of one tree to the next.  It was a bright summer day, and the green leaves swished around their legs and bodies, but didn't make too much noise.  It could have been mistaken for a breeze, or a small forest creature.  They looked warily around them - the death of their village, their parents, from raiders had forced them to learn fear, and caution, despite their young age.

They wore dark brown trous and dark green tunics, baggy and oversized, that looked like they had been hand-me-downs from much someone much larger, or stolen off a clothing line.  Those, along with their deep brown fur coats, helped the two wolf younglings to blend into the flickering, moving shadows of the forest, even as the bright sunlight danced between the shadows to play in soft patterns over their coats.

Ahead was a clearing, upwind of course, and the younger of the two smiled and darted forward.  The older clasped his hand on the younger's shoulder.  "No, Natani," he murmured quietly, his long muzzle close to the younger's ear.  "Don't go in the open."

"But, Zen" said Natani, "We're here to -"

"I know," cut off Zen, hushing Natani quickly, "But consider, the Brotherhood of the Fang is supposed to be a group of stealthy assassins.  Do you really think they'll give us marks for just charging out into the clearing, sis?"

Natani turned with a fierce glare in her eyes.  "Hey!" she hissed, just barely keeping her voice quiet.  "I'm not a weak little girl anymore!  I'm your brother now!  I'm strong!"

Zen let out a soft sigh, "But Natani, you don't have to-"

Natani shoved her finger in his face, hissing just under her breath so even he could barely hear her.  "No!  I'm going to be strong, just like you!  I'm not going to cry about things like a little girl anymore!  You promised to keep this secret!"  Her fierce brown eyes glared a challenge at her older brother.  "Don't screw up.  Who knows who might be listening?  There could be someone from the Brotherhood listening to us right now."  She paused, then emphasized, "You promised!"

Zen sighed, his shoulders sagging.  "All right, Natani ... bro ... but just keep back and stay hidden, all right?"

Natani nodded and shifted over a dozen yards to settle in amongst some long-leafed fronds.  She lifted her long muzzle and sampled the air, and Zen, moving the other direction a half-dozen yards to slip into a thicket of thorny bushes as quietly as possible, followed suit.  They could smell the thick loamy scent of the forest floor, the rich green scent of the thousands of plants in the forest, and the old scents of small creatures that had passed by in the last couple hours.  The wind also carried along the scent of several of the wolf tribe who had gathered up in the clearing - young, by their scent.

They were supposed to be to the clearing by noon, and so Natani and Zen waited, as the sun grew higher in the sky.  Was this a joke?  Were the others up in the clearing waiting for them so that they could laugh at them?  Natani worried, remembering what Zen had told her.  It wasn't like you could just sign up for the Brotherhood - you had to find them, first, even though they worked for the Alpha Council.  It was part of the test - but they were supposed to give clues, leave messages, and some young wolves used that as an opportunity to set up pranks.  But no, she could smell nervousness on the wind, and just a little fear.  This couldn't be the prank Zen was worried about ... could it?

A rabbit came appeared from under a bush and started across a small empty space, hopping several feet, then stopping, its nose twitching, looking around.  Then it darted forward another couple feet, and stopped, looking around nervously.  Natani's nose twitched at its tantalizing scent, and she bit back on the hungry whimper that rose up unbidden in her throat.  She'd only had a half a mouse this morning - the larger half, she guessed, after Zen had split it up - and yesterday they'd only had a bit of a gamy little haunch they'd stolen from a campfire - tough and dry, leftovers from several days worth of being used as dinner.  Her stomach complained, and she looked imploringly at Zen.  He shook his head at her, and she stifled a sigh as she settled back.  Her brown-eyed gaze never left the rabbit till it was out of sight, though.

Twice, the two had to change locations as the wind changed - not too far, but they had to stay on the safe side.  The sun rose higher in the sky, till shadows all but disappeared, but nothing happened.  Natani looked over at Zen, a worried expression on her face, but Zen waved a paw at her to signal her to stay where she was, and she nodded a small nod in return.

Natani had started off the morning's wait perfectly still.  The sun slowly inched by overhead, the shadows shortened, and as the morning wore on, the young wolf grew impatient, and antsy.  Determined to prove herself, she steeled herself against the intolerable waiting, but it grew harder and harder.  Desperately, she tried to make a game of it.  She counted the leaves on ferns and on bushes, and made small wagers with herself on which branch a bug would choose to walk along.  By the time noon was coming along, her debt to herself was starting to reach the limits of what she could remember, and she had started making small marks in the dirt to keep track of it.

Then the shadows started lengthening again, and it got even worse.  All along she had thought she knew how long she had to wait, but now the time she had been waiting for had come and gone, and still nothing had happened.  She had thought the waiting was bad before, but at least it had seemed that there was less and less time she had to wait.  Now, she looked forward to a long wait that stretched on forever.  A few minutes?  A few hours?  Sundown?  All night?  Till noon tomorrow?  How long would they have to wait?  Was this part of the test, too?

She couldn't tell how long it was after noon - time told by moving shadows and impatient waiting was very imprecise.  It could have been an hour, could have been two.  Finally it had been too much, and she settled it.  She'd count to a thousand, then she'd go into that clearing, no matter what Zen said.

She had gotten to seven hundred and thirty two when someone appeared at the edge of the clearing, as if from nowhere.  She stifled a small gasp, then settled back against the tree trunk she was hiding against, letting out a slow, soft breath of relief.  The waiting was over.

The other young wolves in the clearing all moved towards the man.  All morning, Natani had been worrying about how big they were, how mature, but sized up against the fierce black adult they all seemed like small children.  She knew they were actually young adults, juves, just coming of age, but the wolf out there seemed so much larger than them, so much more real.  It wasn't just their size, either - it was attitude.  Their nervousness was only exaggerated by his severe expression, his gruff self-confidence.  His fur was dark, almost black, shining in the afternoon sunlight as the dappled shadows played over him.  She sniffed for him, and her eyes widened, as she still smelled only the juves.  He was hiding his scent!  She wondered if he was doing it the same way she was.  He turned his head to look over the juves in the clearing, and the sun shone differently over a scar on his cheek, the fur over the scar grayed and running a different direction.  It ended just short of his eye.  

He was wearing loose black trous and a thin, flowing brown robe over it, a robe that confused the eyes, but the light wind caught it and pulled it against his chest taut for a moment.  His muscles were lean, corded, to match his long frame.  He looked like he could run for hours, covering the miles without pausing for rest.  Natani shook her head.  She was a guy, she didn't look at other guys that way.  That was something that the old her would have noticed.  The little girl who was obsessed with the militia men training in the square and brought them cider and biscuits to sooth their throats and settle their stomachs when they were done with their practice.  She cut off that line of memory before it traveled to its inevitable morbid fate.

"Well, is this all of you?" he asked.  The juves nodded nervously.  "Well," he declared, his voice cold, "You're all dead."  The young wolves in the clearing all gasped and looked confused, right before the air was alive with the harsh hissing of arrow flights, the ground at the feet of every juve suddenly sprouting a feathered shaft.  "What were you thinking?" he snapped, "Standing around in the open like that."

Zen looked over to Natani and gave her a cocky grin and a thumbs up, his white teeth flashing in the shadows.  Natani grinned back, relieved they hadn't waited another minute or two.  She would have been out there with them.

"And you two!" cried the older wolf, "Is it even possible for you to have made any more noise?"  Another pair of hisses streaked through the air, and Natani didn't even have time to jump as an arrow appeared in the tree trunk next to her head with a loud thunk, her breath catching in shock.  Her heart leapt in her chest, beating rapidly, and she glanced over to see Zen staring in shock at an arrow in the ground next to his hand, clutching at his chest with his other hand.

Other wolves were appearing from nowhere, surrounding the clearing, and one each appeared next to Natani and Zen.  Hers was a brown wolf, a little shorter and broader in the shoulders than the black wolf in the clearing, and with half his left ear missing.  The wolf by Zen was a tall gray female, lean and tough-looking.  Natani scowled.

"Comon," said the wolf next to her, "Let's go."  Natani grabbed the arrow shaft and pulled it out of the tree, then stalked angrily into the clearing.  Not including Zen and Natani, there were six other juves.  Two of them were girls, four were boys, and all of them were brown except for one tall girl, whose fur was closer to a reddish russet.

Without command, the eight of them lined up in a sloppy, self-conscious line in front of the black furred wolf, trying to straighten up into something resembling military discipline.  Perhaps it was his perfectly straight back, or the sharp, appraising look his flat eyes carried.  He walked before them with a measured step, one hand tapping against his far arm as his critical gaze dismissed all of them as not worth a second look.

"Pathetic," he snarled.  "What makes any of you think you could make it?"  They all shifted, nervously, though the red furred girl took an intake of breath for a moment, as if she was about to say something, but then thought better of it.  "Do any of you honestly think you're worth the time to train you?"

There was a moment of silence, his back turned to them contemptuously.  Then he turned back and stared over them.  "Well?!" he barked.

They all jumped, and the red furred girl cried out, "My da trained me to fight!  He was in the brotherhood!"

The black furred wolf stalked up before the girl and glared down at her.  For a moment, they were still, the girl straightening herself up as sharply as possible.  Then his hand darted out faster than any of them could see and seized her ear, twisting it sharply.  She cried out and grabbed at his wrist, but he cuffed her across the head and kept twisting till she fell to her knees.  "Not even one attack?" he scoffed, and let go at last.  She shivered and sobbed and looked scared, and he barked "ON YOUR FEET!"  She leapt to her feet at once, flushed with shame.

"I'm strong!  I can follow orders!" cried Natani, before he could challenge them again.  The black furred wolf stood before her, and she was all too aware of how big he was, how she was the smallest one there.  She barely reached his waist.

"Then join the militia," he growled at her.  "Any duffer can do what he's told, but can you THINK?"  She jumped at his shouted last word, and ducked his backhanded cuff as he turned away from her.  He looked back and glared, and his voice grew quiet, so that it attracted attention.  "Stand still when I'm talking to you."  He swung his fist again, and she ducked again, but he was too quick and caught her a glancing blow, making her stumble and setting her ears to ringing.  He looked at her for another moment, and she straightened up, her eyes glistening, but biting her lip to keep from making any noises like the red furred girl had.  She wasn't a weak girl.  She wasn't!

"Pfah," scoffed the black wolf.  "Strong?  You might as well put on a skirt and go play with dolls, boy - you're slight enough."

Natani's fur bristled, and she swelled with indignant anger.  "I'M NOT-" she began, but Zen quickly cut her off.  

"We're from River Run, Sir!"

Several of the other juves gasped, and the black wolf's eyes widened a little.  There was a few moments of silence that stretched on uncomfortably.

From down the row of juves, one of the boys muttered, "But no one escaped River Run."

Zen stood stock-straight.  "We did."

The black wolf glared down the row of juves at the boy who had spoken, and he quailed before the fierce golden glare.  Then the black wolf looked back at Zen and Natani.

"Who was the milita leader of River Run?" he asked, his voice quiet and dangerous.

Zen glanced at Natani, worried, but Natani knew the answer to that.  "Garani, sir.  He was a brown wolf, like us, but had black ears."  He liked his biscuit with a bit of honey butter, and she always had made sure to have one for him, so he'd ruffle her hair - but she couldn't say that.  "He was ... there were three of them... and he told us to run ..."  she cut off, her voice choking up, but straightened up and blinked rapidly.  She wouldn't cry.  She wasn't a little girl!

After another couple of moments, the black wolf grudgingly admitted, "Fine.  I'll give you a chance."

The other juves bristled, about to argue, and the black wolf cut them off to say, "I'll give all of you a chance.  You can prove yourself."  He turned his back, and his next words chilled all of them to the bone.

"Pick one of you and kill them.  I'll train the rest."

There was several more of those uncomfortable moments of silence as the juves looked at each other.

"it's obvious," said the red furred girl, her voice sudden in the silence of the clearing as she looked at Natani.  "Let's just kill the runt.  It'll be easy."