I Don't Belong

There was a pause in the room before Bran and Sam's laughter filled it. Charles's face visibly paled.

"What?"

"Who is Coyote?" I asked slower.

"Great job, Charles! You did a great job training this one!" Sam patted his brother on the back. Charles snapped at him with a quick "shut up" but just turned back to look at me.

"He's a spirit…"

"A…so he's dead?"

"He comes back at the dawn of every new day, so that's not the best way of thinking about it." Bran chuckled. "I think you did better with Mercy."

Charles looked genuinely upset, which is just wrong on his face. It did look better than smiling, I had decided that years ago, but even still. It just looked weird.

"Is he a spirit animal I should know about?"

"Is he a spirit animal." Bran chuckled.

"Should she know her own lineage, I don't know, Charles?" Sam teased. His eyes were bright. I do admit, Sam is fairly attractive.

"Porsche, did you ever listen at all, to anything I've ever told you?" He said calmly. "Remember?" He'd almost asked it as a question, almost. I felt his magic creep around me, though. I shook myself off.

"I'm not going to remember just by you telling me."

"Coyote, the Trickster. He's wayward, stubborn, stupid, and a con-artist." Ben said suddenly, as if reading off a list.

You take shitty notes.

I hadn't noticed him sifting through my brain. I nearly jumped out of my skin.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you.

"Close enough." Charles sighed. I gave him a sheepish grin. "He's a little sophomoric. He's foolish, but he's wise. He's a paradox. And he's cursed as well as sacred. It doesn't matter how you look at him, he's always surviving." He took a breath, "He's a role model, in today's world where only the flexible survive."

"Survival of the fittest is dead." Samuel agreed.

"Perhaps those flexible enough to accept the world's changes are the fittest to live in a world such as ours." Bran spoke calmly, still managing to make every word a point that'd stay in your brain.

"He's basically your mother, minus the fact that she's half-human."

"And how…how is she half?"

"I know Mercy told you these stories, Porsche." Bran said with a small smile. "You used to ask for them all of the time. You loved them. They're there, in the back of your mind."

I tried to think, but now I was just getting more worked up.

"I don't understand." I whined, "I don't remember any of this. When did this go on?"

"You were a little girl. Zee and I would take turns telling you our own faerietales and folklore as well as our own personal stories, when we were over. But your mother, she'd go on and on about Native legend and lore until you were fast asleep, and then some."

Crow, crow,

what are you afraid of,

huddled, lying,

huddled, lying…

I frowned as Mei Mei sang happily in my head.

"Crow…" I looked at Charles. "Or Raven…"

"We're getting somewhere." Sam smiled.

"He…I can't for the life of me remember what he did…" I frowned again.

"He kills a whale, I think." Sam said off-handedly. "He hardly matters right now."

"Though he has his own walker descendants." Charles sighed.

I can run and swim faster than the Weasels.

"Rabbit." I blinked. "He brought fire."

"Depends on who you listen to." Charles smiled.

"Because…Because Coyote brought fire, too." I stammered. "He stole it from Fire Beings, whatever those are…and then played keep away…with Squirrel and Chipmunk…that's why Squirrel's tail is funny."

And Wood swallows the fire in the end and that's why-

"That's why if you rub two sticks together, you get fire…" My frustration was turning into excitement as these childhood memories resurrected in my mind. "He turned himself blue!"

"And the fool ran while looking back at his shadow." Charles chuckled.

And now they're the colour of dirt.

"Holy crap!" I screeched. "You're telling me the guy exists?!"

"He's not a 'guy' he's Coyote." Charles corrected. "There's a distinct difference."

"But he's real?" I frowned. "I thought…" It was just al slowly fading into my mind as I dug harder and harder. "I thought those were just stories…"

"Didn't your mother teach you anything?" Bran chuckled. "Nothing's just a story. You just have to find the truth in it, but they come from somewhere."

"So he's real?"

"You're his descendant. That's why your mother can walk as human or Coyote. That's why you have seamless changes. It's why our magic doesn't work on you."

"Not because of my mother…because of Coyote?"

Maybe you should sit down…

"I can't even…" I frowned. So there was two worlds, completely, 100% different worlds, that I was a part of by blood… "That's what a walker is?"

"What else would it be? You don't need skin to change, and your magic certainly isn't like mine." Charles smiled encouragingly. "You're not shaman."

"I'm walker…it's actually a thing?"

"No, you're mother doesn't actually exist. That's why she's mated to your father and you were born."

"So…I don't belong anywhere then. Like, legitimately." I frowned.

Ben startled.

No one spoke, which means they were either considering lying or trying to think of a way around lying.

"You belong somewhere." Ben protested, he was the quickest to respond.

"I don't! I thought my mother was a freak! I thought I wasn't alone where I stood semi-inside and semi-outside the pack structure. Because my body doesn't refuse blood magic, it accepts it, but it doesn't accept commands so I don't fit in a hierarchy. Because coyotes are fine going solo for extended periods from a mental health standpoint." I whimpered. "But mom is actually something that's a real, legitimate thing. She's a functioning being…I'm a mess of two completely different, solid beings and I'm alone!" My teenage temper tantrum threw me into a wolf's howl at the end.

"Porsche, we've accepted you for what you are-" Bran said calmly, stepping forward.

"You've never accepted me. You didn't know what to do with me. You sent me off to find a mate so that I could potentially fit in, not so that I would listen to orders. I can't believe I couldn't smell the lie."

I didn't even want to fight Mei at the moment, I knew I could rein her in, but I emotionally wasn't ready to deal with the room around me. I just wanted to run and never come back. I wanted to drown.

"Porsche…" Ben pleaded.

"You're my granddaughter, I'd never turn you away." Bran told the truth, reaching to stroke my hair. Normally, Bran could calm me down just by being Bran, but I was just not in the mood. "You're a frustrated teenager and you're finding who you are, just like everyone else your age. But, you'll find that you'll always have a place here, and with your father."

"Because no other pack wants a mutt!"

"What you're capable of is something to be valued in any pack." Charles spoke now. "No one else-"

"Can reproduce? Is immune to most magic? Can potentially swim if she'd ever chosen to learn, just because she can float?"

"You're capable of other magic, too, you just haven't learned it yet. If you'd let me or your mother-"

"I'm not your mate, Charles, learning from Asil."

"I'm not saying you are." Now he was struggling to keep calm. We'd fought before, but I'd seldom had the nerve to cut him off. He was capable of killing in a heartbeat, before I would even have the chance to apologize. I could feel Bran trying to pull his son back. "Mei, give me back our Porsche. Please."

"She's incapacitated." Mei growled out. "She can't speak. You've upset her."

"Your overreaction has upset her, Mei." Charles warned. "And it's going to cause a greater upset if you don't bring her back." The command was evident and Bran's and Samuel's eyes flashed. When more than one dominant wolf is in a room, a single one giving commands, especially when he isn't the most dominant in the room, can potentially be dangerous.

"I don't have to listen." Mei snarled.

Now I tried to fight her for my voice. It took a moment, she was fairly unwilling.

"I don't have to. I'm a freak." I looked at the floor. I knew Mei had fucked up, she'd brought my temper tantrum to a whole new level that it shouldn't have reached. I shouldn't have gone that far. I shouldn't have let her out. "And I don't belong."

The atmosphere was still thick with tension, but it had eased a little since I'd taken back my own voice. Ben snarled a little, slightly under his breath. I could feel his grip on my hips tighten as he pulled me around and into him so that my face was pressed on his chest.

"Mine. You are mine. You belong with me because you are mine." I struggled to get out of his wolf's hold. I was angry and frustrated and embarrassed that not only had I caused a scene again (because that doesn't bother me usually) but I'd caused a scene due to my own stupidity.

I can't believe I never realized.

You can't blame yourself, Porsche.

Ben released me and I was out, in between Bran and Charles. I let myself out the back door before they'd had a chance to react, and werewolves react quickly, and I began stripping down until I could change in the safety of the forest.

I kept running, and I don't know how far I went.

I only know that, by sundown, I was curled up in a tree trunk somewhere. I could have traced my way back, I should have. It takes a long time to drive home and I needed to be there before tomorrow night. I knew they'd give me my space when I'd riled everyone up. But I wanted to go home.

I needed to open up so Ben could realize I needed him…but the line was faulty again. That was why I wanted to go home, mostly, to have the ceremony done and over with.

Maybe I could appeal to Bran to fly me home with the helicopter.

If he didn't eat me first.

A cool breeze made me shiver, but the change in the wind also signaled me that someone was approaching. I couldn't hear their steps yet, but it wasn't the wolf I wanted.

"Porsche." Charles's voice was entirely his, all coldness from earlier gone. "Ben is worried sick."

I whined.

"He's freaking out and he can't reach you." He sat down beside me. "He thinks I'm at my home. I told him I was going there, because initially I was. He just doesn't know I was planning on coming to find you."

I nuzzled my head into his lap. Charles was a big man, and quite frankly, he looked terrifying almost all of the time. But, he was honestly always going to be like a brother to me. Anna, according to my mom, must've softened him up. Apparently she'd never felt the way I do about Charles, but that's fine. The man almost-raised me from the age of seven, and he was never any sort of father. He was the gentle older brother who'd snap and get cranky if you pushed the wrong buttons.

"I'm going to tell you a story. I know I deliberately told you this one when you were younger, I remember telling it to your mother once, too. She was in a bit of a mood like yours. Though, I'll admit, I was never terribly close to your mother." He took a breath and began the tale. "Once, Coyote was walking along through the woods and he met Old Woman. They exchanged greetings and Old Woman asked where he was going.

'Oh, just roaming around,' he said.

'You're better stop going that way, or you'll meet a giant who kills everybody.' Old Woman warned.

'Giants hardly frighten me,' Coyote scoffed, though he'd never actually met a giant. 'I always kill them. I'll fight this giant and kill him like the others.'

'He's quite close and he's much bigger than you'd imagine.' said Old Woman.

Coyote decided he didn't care and told Old Woman such. He imagined that the giant was about as big as a male moose, a bull moose, and figured he could kill it easily.

So he said his good-byes to the Old Woman and went on with his journey, whistling to himself. As he walked, he say a large branch on the ground. The branch looked to him like a club. He decided he'd hit the giant over the head with it because 'It's big enough and heavy enough to kill him.'

He came upon a cave in the middle on his path and entered it happily enough.

He met a woman there who was crawling along the ground.

'What's the matter?' Coyote asked.

'I'm starving,' said the woman, 'And too weak to walk. What are you doing with that club?'

'I'm going to kill the giant with it.' And he asked if she knew, by any chance, where the giant was. The woman laughed at Coyote's foolishness.

'You're already in his belly."

'How can I be? I haven't met him!' Coyote disagreed with her.

'You probably thought it a cave when you walked in, but truly it was his mouth.' The woman explained. 'Everyone walks in, but it's impossible to walk out. He's so large that you can't see his entirety with your eyes and his belly fills a whole valley.'

Coyote threw the stick and continued walking, stumbling upon more half-dead people lying about.

'Are you sick?' Coyote asked.

'No, we're starving to death. We've been trapped inside this giant.'

It was Coyote's turn to laugh at someone else's foolishness now.

'If we are really inside this giant, these walls must be the insides of his stomach and therefore, we can simply cut some meat and fat from them.'

'We didn't think of that.' The people said.

'Well, you're not as smart as I am.' Coyote replied. He took his hunting knife and cut chunks of the cave walls, which were definitely the giant's fat and meat. He used the cuttings to feed the all of the starving people he'd met. All of the people were happier and stronger then, but they still were not completely happy.

'Thank you for feeding us, but how will we escape here?'

'Don't worry!' Coyote said. 'I'll kill the giant by stabbing him in his heart. Does anyone know where his heart is? It must be around here…'

'Look at the volcano puffing and beating right over there.' Someone pointed, 'Maybe that's his heart!'

'So this is it, friend.' Coyote said.

'Is that you, Coyote?' The giant spoke up, 'I've heard of you. Stop stabbing and cutting me and leave me alone. You can leave through my mouth, I will open it for you.'

'I'll leave, but not yet.' Coyote hacked at the giant's heart. He told the others to get ready. 'As soon as he begins to die, there will be an earthquake and he will open his jaws to take his last breath. Once his mouth closes, it will close forever, so be ready and run fast.'

Coyote cut a deep hold in the giant's heart and lava began to flow in the form of the giant's blood. The giant groaned and the ground under the people shifted.

'Quickly!' Coyote shouted. The giant's mouth opened and they all ran out. The last one was the wood tick, and as the giant's teeth began to close, Coyote had to pull the wood tick out at the last second.

'Look at me! I'm all flat!'

'It happened when I pulled you through.' Coyote said. 'You'll always be flat now. Be glad for your life.'

'I guess I'll get used to it.' Said the wood tick, and he did." He paused. "That's a very personal story for your mother. You should ask her about it."

I snorted and laid completely on my side, my head still in his lap. He chuckled and stroked my cheek, moving his hands to the fur that my chain was embedded in.

"Fae magic, tricky stuff, Porsche." He sighed. "I suppose this means there's more good fortune around your next corner, unless you've broken it, which isn't likely. it's fairly powerful." He scratched behind my ear absentmindedly. "Don't drink it, it's meant to be burned."

I rolled my eyes.

He smiled. I didn't like Charles's smiles, ever. When I was ten, I tried to teach him how to smile the right way and I legitimately couldn't. He's scarier than usual when he smiles.

"I want you to know something, Porsche." He said seriously. "When Mercy and Adam realized they needed help with you, your mother was so, incredibly upset. She was worried you'd grow up and feel like this, like she had. She was worried you'd feel unwanted, lost. She knew you'd learn hatred from certain wolves, just for being who you are. She wanted you to have a home, with two parents, and a place you could feel safe and loved. She never wanted you to feel this way." He shook his head. "It's my fault. I should have taken the responsibility. When Da took you in…Anna wanted a child so badly. She'd talked to Sam about it without my knowledge. We were going to adopt…but then Da gave you to us. You weren't a baby and you made it perfectly clear to us that you didn't want us to be your parents. It wasn't really what we'd had in mind. We'd intended to-from an outside agency-adopt a young child or a baby that would be legally our own, and we had intended for the youngster to be fully human, we had been planning that and much more and Da gave us you out of the blue. We'd thought that he'd convince Adam to take you home.

"But he couldn't. Your dad didn't want to hurt you from a physical standpoint, and he couldn't help but get violent outburst because you put his wolf on edge. Werewolves don't feel the same way about their young as wolves do. They feel no attachment to them. There's a need to protect them, if they're in their pack. But there's no parental love, that's all human. He wanted to protect you.

"And your parents fought over which way was worth more to protect you. And your father won.

"And Anna and I…" he laughed. "I wouldn't say that we lost. We had what I've deemed to be the most interesting eight years of my life. We didn't get what we expected. We didn't adopt you, you weren't our child, we were guardians over a little seven year-old that didn't quite fit.

"You had known us already, and we'd known you. And you decided we were never going to parent you. So we had to find other ways to guide you. Anna became your best friend, she took you shopping. She brought you out to the movies. You talked about boys with her. She inserted herself that way because she didn't want to replace your mother, but she wanted to do Mercy justice and help her to raise a child she'd be proud of. So, she guided you from a friendly standpoint.

"My wolf didn't particularly like you, but he hardly likes anyone. He decided, around three days after we took you in, that you were okay. You'd gone out and killed a deer four times your size while Anna and I were asleep. We were freaking out that entire time, but when we finally found you, you were dragging this big creature behind you. He decided that any little lump of fur with the guts and ability to do that was more than worth his time." He shrugged. "Porsche, I think it's unfair that you have to prove yourself to be accepted, but truth be told, wolves don't mind you as much as they minded your mother. You operate the same way we do, you have you and you have your wolf. And you certainly don't reek of coyote, it's a light taint to your scent that throws us off a little." He chuckled. "I think I'm glad that Anna and I hadn't adopted yet when Da gave you to us. We would have missed out. I know I brought you up as more of a…wayward friend. I tended to treat you as Sam had treated me when I grew up-as an annoying pest, but I do care about your well-being. I'd take you back here and into Da's pack in a heartbeat, Porsche, but you deserve to be at home, with your parents and with your mate. Because you belong with them."

I whined.

"You do. You belong there." He laid his hand on my head. "And you belong with Ben who is probably having a complete breakdown now."

I stood up and shook myself off.

"Your eyes don't fit in that head half as well as Mei's do."

I let my tongue loll out playfully in response for a moment.

"I'm going to head home." He said. "If you don't want to go back to Ben, and I don't see why you wouldn't want to, there's a cabin a mile north of here. It smells like pipe smoke. It's where I go when I need to clear my mind. I think, if you need to, you can go there, go back, then sleep, and still make it back for tomorrow's full moon in your pack. I've unlocked the door, I stopped there while looking for you. There's clothes on the floor that I've left for you."

I nodded.

"Goodnight, Porsche."

I was trying to decipher what I wanted to do, but I think Charles really wanted me to visit the cabin. I jogged due north and kept track with my nose to see if I was remotely in the right direction.

Pipe smoke. Ever so faintly.

Mei was right. I sprinted a little faster. It couldn't have been more than a ten minute jog total, but I'd made good time for sure. I'd probably managed a solid five minutes, or even four. I was great at the mile on four legs.

The cabin was small, maybe a one-room thing by the looks of it. But, it was cute, and it was designed with Native American symbols carved into it.

What is this?

I frowned at my lack of thumbs for the door knob and my skin tingled even under my fur in the chilly air. I despised the thought of changing back, but I did, and I quickly ducked inside.

So this is where he used to go when he'd leave? It was the epitome of nothing. Literally an unfurnished cabin.

And smack on the center of the floor was clothing with a little note scribbled and left on top.

"Porsche, sorry that you didn't have dinner today, you won't be having it unless you get it yourself." I groaned, he had been up to something. "I've set up, for you, a mini vision quest. You've already talked to me and I told you a story about what happened that Anna and I got put in charge of you. I feel like I should have shared this aspect of you with you a long time ago. I'd never done it to your mother either and look how well that turned out. I didn't learn from my mistake, but now I have. Welcome to your mini-vision quest. This will take as long as it takes you to find your way from this cabin to Da's house. The trick is, you have to stay human. You're not allowed to change and you have to keep your mate bond closed. We're going cliche-style with your objects. I suggest you change your clothes."

I paused in the letter and took a look at what he'd left behind. If he thinks I'm wearing deerskin and moccasins he's crazy.

But, it was cold…and it'd have to do. There was a pouch that I wasn't sure what to do with, so I tied it around my waist. I picked the letter up where I'd left off.

"Don't ask where I got that dress, I'm not going to explain it to you. It's a girls dress though, I promise. If you were male it probably wouldn't have the top." I mentally thanked God that I was wearing the dress. "You won't have time to prepare for your own journey, so forget tobacco ties. You won't be smoking. For good luck, I've given you a pipe. Don't worry about using it for anything, Mercy would kill me." That was true. "There's a piece of a conch shell that I'd carved long ago into a coyote's face. You get a stone, I never really understood the stone. There's sage somewhere, that goes in the pipe. And there's an eagle feather. They're in the cabin, but you're searching for them yourself. We have to try to do it right. They go in your pouch when you've finished. When you've found everything, make a little prayer to the spirits that be for as long as it takes you to braid your hair, there's a hair tie Anna's given you somewhere, and find your way home. You're not getting a blanket, it should't take you such a long time. Keep an open mind. Have fun."

I sighed. This wasn't fair. He knew I wasn't religious. I'd heard of these vision quests, we'd learned about them in school. And I don't remember a hair-braiding part. I'm almost positive he made that up.

I dug around the empty space. You'd think it would be easy to find so much stuff in such a tiny amount of open, flat space. It took me much too long to find all my bits and pieces and put them in the pouch, it was definitely five minutes to get the sage (the first thing that I found, by smell) into the pipe let alone find half the stuff.

The hair ties were easy too, though. The packed stood out white against the floor. She's given me a whole bunch.

I'm amazing at braids, though I hate how they look in my own hair, and I quickly weaved each side of my part into stereotypical pigtails, just to spite Charles.

Even still, I took a deep breath as I braided and spoke, aloud.

"I don't really know what I'm doing. I've never done anything like this before. It's Charles's thing, which makes sense considering when he grew up…" I sighed. "I don't know. I'm not very faithful. I'm bad at this."

You sound retarded.

"I guess…I guess I just don't understand why I exist. I know, Toli and her kids are in the same position…but it's just…why? Why is that fair to us? Never to be accepted because of something we can't help?"

I sighed and tied my last braid off.

"You're all laughing at me, spirits. I know it. I look ridiculous, all of these Russian-Anglo-Native features and I'm in pigtail-braids while wearing some deerskin and carrying a pouch full of symbolic objects that I don't even understand."

I stepped towards the door.

"I get it if you'd rather not talk. I probably wouldn't talk to me either."

I let my moccasin-clad feet touch the forrest floor outside and made a face. I didn't like this feeling at all, I didn't like moccasins…

And I didn't like the feeling that I was being watched.

"You're the girl he's told me about."

A/N-

Anyone recognize that Coyote story? I don't know if she ever puts a title to it, it's called Coyote and the Giant (if you read the modern, it's Coyote's Adventures in [Freaking] Idaho. Great story, I had to read it in school xD I paraphrased most of it, but it's maybe a sentence longer than the story Charles told.

skywisekychan - I was hoping no one would notice until I'd posted this chapter xD whoops! :3 Yeah, I'd intended to have this one up before anyone had time to ask. Basically, she's just forgotten what she did know. And what she didn't came from living with Charles and Anna for eight years and never being fully introduced to the being that she was. It's okay, I'd decided a long time ago that this would be the story she finds herself in, anyways. She's at that age where a lot of people start questioning…she just has a little more to find out that others ;)

By the way, he did make the braid part up, to my knowledge. Each vision quest is different in a sense, and the tradition does vary by participating tribe (apparently it still happens, I read a very recent story. I think it's a wonderful thing to do frankly) but I'm almost positive no tribe does a prayer for as long as it takes to braid your hair. I threw that in as a way for her to take her time and calm down and breathe xD

Oooooh cliffhanger-like :3