Survival

Ted sighed as he let the pack fall into the deep snow, before he started scooping out a hollow and pulled some paper scraps to put in the hollow along with two stones to strike over it. Pulled off his gloves and started hitting the stones, after a while there was a tiny spark and he started blowing on it.

They'd gone from open plains/tundra to a bit of a pine forest yesterday, so the fire would have to be watched more than ever. Around him, the others settled their packs as Major Mann was making the camp radius, while an owl, who was likely waking up, hooted somewhere near-by. It was only Soren, himself, Maria and Major Mann who were allowed to participate in the exercise now. Maria had 'broken' her leg 'falling into a burrow'.

As for Jim - he was 'dead', he'd been 'killed' by a fall into a stream and hitting his head on a rock. While Jim and Maria would be camped on the outer ring, Soren was getting out the dead birds that Maria had caught this morning. Currently, they were two days out from the academy.

'I don't think I'd be really be willing to eat if she'd caught a rabbit, it'd look too much like rabbit Bill. Huh, I wonder how many of Sergeant O'Hare's group are still alive ? Probably more than ours, Sergeant Smith will have even more than the most of ours. I wonder if old Oates misses doing exercises like this, it seems like something he'd enjoy doing.'

He'd just got the fire going when the major barked, "Logan, your hand is burned by the flames. You're down to your left hand and your feet, you've got morning watch and Soren's got evening."

'Oh no, my hand it burns, it burns. Oh god, I am totally ridiculous, suppose I might as well practice wrapping with my left hand.'

"Yes, Major."

Maria muttered playfully, "You're dead next Teddy."

A pair of birds flew by overhead and he replied, "Your birds got away again, go and get 'em, Wilful."

Maria chuckled, "Too much like work, I'm almost 'dead', you ass. Soaring, go get Teddy your nuts won't you ?"

Jim broke in, "Ah, that's too much work, he can just have mine with those birds o' yours."

They all laughed, even Major Mann, as Soren dug out some nuts they'd found buried in the snow at lunch along with a few herbs he'd managed to dig up at the same time.

It was hard practicing bandage wrapping with his less coordinated hand, it was even harder un-doing and laying out his sleeping bag for later. Since the town outing four days ago, S. Bill had stuck around to keep him company again.

'Birds, nuts and herbs, what'dya think of that S. Bill ?'

The chuckled response from S. Bill, "You're all nuts, dude, completely and utterly nuts."

Mentally he sighed and wondered, 'How much time till I get back to real you, S. Bill ?'

"Way too much thyme, if you ask me."

That made him chuckle to himself as, once again, he wished he was home. Hell, he missed everybody so badly; he wouldn't even have minded seeing his dad just for a second.

When he finally managed to get the wrap right, the stars had already come out and supper was ready. After he unwrapped his hand, he ate listening to the others talking quietly about home - Jim was from Louisiana, Maria was from North Carolina and Soren was from South Dakota.

The next topic they got to was music and Soren asked, "Ted, didn't you say you're in a band ?"

Major Mann raised an eyebrow as he answered, "Yeah, Wyld Stallyns, with my best friend Bill. Though, we're not quite so good at the music part yet. Bill's going to start teaching me what he learned in guitar lessons at Christmas."

Conversation moved to favourite books and he let himself drift out of it. It was a good supper, but he would be glad to start heading back for the academy tomorrow morning.

'Dear God, it's almost Christmas, I can almost see Bill again, soon. Deacon too, can't forget himI wish I could take rabbit Bill home to show actual Bill; he'd find it weird too.'

Something happened when he lay down in his sleep bag - it was like he suddenly merged with the ground underneath him; something shifted in a hidden burrow, while at the same time he twitched his ears at the loud sounds above him, and his fur brushed against the walls. Still, as he fell asleep it merged into one of his, lately very weird, dreams.

He shuddered and cowered into the grass as something impossibly huge and dark-blue/green roared past him. It was too loud, far, far too loud and then he felt more vibrations through the ground, then saw along with heard something huge above him.

Talons wrapped around his stomach, lifting him as he squealed in panic. The hawk pulled him against its stomach, then one foot released and started…petting him ? It was a gentle movement, then softly rumbled words, "Ssh, that thing's not going to hurt you, Bill's not gonna let it hurt you."

The warmth faded away slowly and then he woke up missing Bill terribly. For a half asleep second, he sensed that Soren stood over him, gently shaking him as he opened his eyes. So, he got out of the sleeping bag to sit by the fire. It was rather quiet except for the owl for a long time, then as Maria was murmuring in her sleep and Jim's snoring got louder a white snowshoe rabbit popped up from under his sleeping bag to eye him warily.

'First I have bogus dreams about being a rabbit and now another one comes up to me. Mm, maybe it's one of rabbit Bill's little friends. Look at that, it's got red eyes, I don't think I've seen one with red eyes before. As long as it's not crazy like that eagle it's cool.'

Then the rabbit slowly crept up to sit down beside him until it was daylight and then disappeared back into its hole under his bag. He somehow knew it didn't want him to show its hole to anyone, not that he would have. 'Finally, time to start back to the academy.'

Three days later, he sighed in relief as he sat down on his bed; leaned over to pull the brown suitcase from under the bed to put his gloves away and get out a fresh towel for his shower. After he'd put the gloves on top of everything else, he dug for the towel and pulled it out to see a letter with 'Theodore' written across it in fancy handwriting settled at the very bottom.

'How did I miss this when I got the suitcase out for the first time ?'

"Ted, you were pretty heinously angry/stressed out then, no one would've thought you'd see it. C'mon man, let's see what it's about. Open it, open it, it's probably from your mom 'cause I've never seen your dad use girly handwriting."

'Maybe it's about why she left, maybe she couldn't handle dad's strictness. Maybe she knew I'd need help dealing with dad.'

His hands shook slightly as he moved to sit back against the wall and carefully opened the letter:


My dearest little Theodore,

I know you probably won't have seen me for a long time when you read this, but I hope you're doing good. You might notice that you're easily distracted some times, can't hold a thought for long or become overly paranoid if you feel threatened or scared - there's a reason for that. You're little brother/sister will be here soon, and in my family it's tradition to tell the 'family secret' to the oldest first so that if they have siblings they can explain it later.

Now, you've probably gone through some weird things growing up like - empathizing with animals, or more importantly merging with the nearest animal. Normally, the animal you merge with is the one that you can shift or transform into. With my family it's normally rabbits, your father's family as far as we know is just normal without shifting blood.

In case you have any…odd troubles if you run into any eagles of any kind, they're normally a very loosely connected family, but some of them will shred you if they don't like you just because you've got prey blood.

I've had a bit of trouble with a family of eagle shifters in the past, it's because the eagle's great-grandfather went back on a deal with your great-grandfather and then blamed him for it. I've managed to evade Morton Smith for about three or four years at a time, I've kept really quiet so I'm hoping to be able to raise your sibling for a little bit before he gets too close for our safety. When he does, I'll leave and your dad will protect you as long as he can to keep Morton from finding you.

Your father's more strict with you not only because of Morton, but because your first shift, if you do shift at all, if your emotions and such aren't in control, can happen any time, anywhere and you could be stuck for days or months on end in animal form. If you get stuck unless you find a safe place or someone to take care of you, you'd be in great danger for the above reasons.

That's why I'm hoping that if you do end up being a shifter that it's only after you're done high school. There are some other shifter families in San Dimas, but I don't know their human names, we didn't talk much about human things - one of them's a family of scorpions and another's a family of goshawks. You might even know them and not know it at all, there may even be some that I don't know.

Either way, I wish you the best luck with your life,

Mom


In shock, he closed it and went to put it away, he'd dropped the envelope on the floor. Slowly, like an out of body experience, as he picked it up, he noticed a photo it was of his dad, mom and himself as a baby while mom held him; he was holding the worn black rabbit plushy that dad had never gotten rid of, even when Deacon had nearly ripped it's head off at age four. In it, his mom had long, wavy black-hair, pale-skin and dark-eyes, she wore a long, black dress with purple swirls on it.

'Thishow can this be real ? B-but it has to be real, there's no reason mom would lie to me, she's not around so she wouldn't get anything out of it. D-did that eagle attack me not because I saved rabbit Bill, but because with my hair at shoulder-length I looked so much like mom ? Is that white eagle really Morton Smith ? Is he trying to get at me because he can't find her ? It does explain some of dad's curfews and stuff like that, so there he really was just trying to protect me, doesn't explain why he's so against me telling Bill how I feel though. I suppose there's not an answer for everything, but if we do save the future Bill and I can make it not matter anymore. The letter explains why that rabbit sat by me and felt like it could trust me, why I felt like I could understand it. Still, now that I know thisis rabbit Bill just a regular rabbit or is rabbit Bill a relative of actual Bill ? How do you tell the difference between a regular rabbit and a shifter rabbit ?'

Soren asked, startling him into dropping the photo that Soren caught and looked at for a second, "Is that a picture of your family ? Your mom looks like she's really nice."

He looked up running a hand through his hair as he replied, "Yeah, except my little brother Deacon wasn't born yet, but I don't really remember my mom."

Green-eyes turned sad but also curious as Soren handed the photo back, "Oh, did something happen to her ?"

Gently, he tucked the picture back in with the letter and tucked it back in the suitcase, "She had to leave because she got in a fight with someone over an old family feud and they wouldn't leave her alone."

Soren suddenly slammed a fist into his open palm, "Feuds are fucking stupid, Ted. When I tried stopping the one my dad had going with the Mason family, they live across the street from us, he sent me here to 'learn respect' for old things. It's so stupid and pointless, you shouldn't hate somebody just cause your parents say you have to, like my mom tried doing with me and Allison Mason. She said Allison had ruined my Gr. 2 art project, but when I asked Allie she said it was David Johnson who'd done it, not her."

Since it seemed that Soren's rant was finished, he nodded and said, "They really are, but I think I'm going to go take a shower now. Hey, are you going home for Christmas, since you went home for Thanksgiving ?"

As he got up Soren shook his head, "Nope, I got the choice of going home for either Thanksgiving or Christmas, but not both. Are you going home for Christmas ?"

"Yep, I can't wait to get home. Yet it's hard to believe we've been here for what a month, two months, three ? Something like that anyways."

Excitement coursed through him at the thought, but as he remembered the letter and mom's warning about possibly shifting, he calmed down. 'I wouldn't want to get stuck as a rabbit all the way up here and try to find my way back home then. Holy shit it's back again.'

His excitement turned to fear as, when he walked into the barracks light-green bathrooms/ shower stalls, he saw the white eagle perching on the small window ledge outside. It flared its huge wings and hit the glass with its beak, obviously trying to shatter it and get at him.

Jim wandered in with his own bathroom things, his friend looking at him was worried as his southern accent was more noticeable, "Wha's the problem, Ted ?"

"It's that heinously persistent eagle again, Jim. It just won't go away."

The dark-blond started shouting, "Ah, you old fa-therbag you go 'way, yer not wanted 'ere. Go awn, git your feathered ass outta 'ere."

Morton or whoever it was had winged away from the window, smacked it with their talons and flown away with an angry screech.

'That thing has got to be Morton Smith or someone from his family, a regular eagle wouldn't go to this length to get at me. Feuds really are bogus, oh thank God, he's gonefor now. God I hope I can at least have Christmas without worrying about him. If he does show up, I hope dad shoots him or something. Ugh, enough of this I need to take a shower.'

So, he did take a shower and then he went to bed. He fell asleep, into a nightmare of his mom and Bill being attacked by Morton/the eagle. At least, they were until she shifted into rabbit form and ran off with the eagle close behind her, leading it away from Bill.