Notes: Sometimes I get called over at work to break my routine, like do this course or make that call. It tends to be pleasant, but so hard on me. I guess there is a reason people like routine.
Yarne could sense something was different about Panne, but he couldn't figure out what. He suddenly felt out of touch with his taguel side, and his human side wasn't any more helpful. And Gregor was avoiding his questions, providing weird and confusing answers. Yet it could be much worse...
"We are going out hunting, supplies are running low," his mother said as he caught up with them leaving the camp.
"You put yourself there and stay," his father sternly ordered, keeping him from joining.
He sat back on his bunny legs and paws, a use of his beaststone wasted, as his parents vanished from sight. Now he felt not only like he was missing something, but also excluded! They had been doing plenty of things together, as a family, figuring out the mystery of mixed taguel and human blood.
And though one little hunting session shouldn't be concerning this much, he couldn't help it. Unlike his friends, lately he was being more open about his feelings of abandonment due to his parents' fate in his original timeline, and they had allowed him to stick around more often.
In a way, he was trying to protect them and ensure his own birth and that they were around to care for him this time around, possibly also for several siblings too. So seeing them march away from the camp's safety, and to hunt, which was risky...
Yarne followed them at a distance, so Panne wouldn't notice and protest. He used that weird scent on his mother to guide him deep into the nearby forest, then the echoes of Gregor's laugh at the distance.
Everything was safe so far.
Then the dry leaves on the ground started crunching in an oddly careless way. "Risen? Here?!" he whispered, panicked.
His father's voice still was light with humor, they didn't know what was going their way. So it was up to Yarne to stop the undead!
Growling to attract them closer, he focused in spite of his fright, as he was alone against what he could now see were ten zombies...
"It's just fine, I will fight you all!" he decided. "You can't have my parents again!"
And as he launched himself at them, he saw the ones at the back taken down effectively by Panne and Gregor, much to his shock.
"What are you doing? I'm the one protecting you!"
"Yes, and you make us proud," his mother replied, before she smashed a Risen against a tree.
"You brave and all the things, but there no need to do them alone," his father added, splitting an enemy into clean halves.
"And how did you find us? We noticed the Risen because there were no wild animals nearby, but we didn't notice you."
Yarne didn't know why, but he blushed before answering while bringing an undead down. "You smell weird, mother."
"Oh? So you notice changes?" Gregor said with a chuckle, defending his wife.
"I'm bearing a child now, so I would smell different to a taguel," Panne continued, and both she and Yarne brought down a Risen trio.
Yarne even stomped the animated corpses joyfully. Part of his mission was complete! The taguel would live on!
