A few minutes later, Alastor was rolling a large boulder away from the mouth of a cave.

"Will this due?" He asked the maiden who was anxiously watching the sunset.

"It's perfect." She said. "It just needs some homey touches."

"Such as?"

She pulled a tremendous slab of bark off a nearby tree with just bare hands, once again surprising Alastor and now Angel with her strength.

"A door." She said in reply to the question. "Well gentlemen I bid thee goodnight."

She adjusted the bark to the cave entrance and stepped inside.

"Do you want us in there with you?" Angel asked.

"No! Only Vaggie is allowed in here!" She said slamming the door.

"Really Angel, where is your sense of respect and decency?" Alastor said. "A gentleman never shares sleeping quarters with a lady."

"Cut me some slack, I haven't been around the fairer sex since my Ma and sister." He turned to Vaggie. "What about you sweet wings, you turning in early? Or are you going to stay up late with the big boys?"

"I'm sorry but who are you again?" She asked.

"Wait, you mean you don't remember trying to make a move on me?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Back at the castle. You were ready to choose me to be your life mate."

"I was?!" She cried out in disgust. "Eww! Oh God, the collar must've made me very desperate!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Angel asked.

"No offense, but in my previous state of mind I would have gone after anything that was male and built somewhat close to my species. Hell, I would have mated with a common cockroach or even an earth worm."

"Are you saying that a female would only want me if she was in a primal state?"

"I can't speak for all females but I know that's the only way I would ever want you."

"What's wrong with me?"

"You're too cocky and full of yourself for my liking, also you run your mouth way too much."

"Excuse me?!"

Alastor bit back a laugh.

"Now wait a just minute-"

"Sorry but I must now watch over my princess and ensure nothing harms her while she sleeps, and you two better not try creeping in on her or me."

"Oh don't flatter yourself!"

Vaggie then turned to her heels and entered the cave.

"What a couple of ingrates!" Angel scoffed. "We save them from a prison and they insult us."

"Yeah well that's how it is Angel." Alastor sighed in acceptance. "We could save someone from death and they'd still treat us like dirt. Best to get used to it as soon as possible."

With that said, the duo decided to gather up some wood while it was still daylight and by the time night rolled around, they were on their backs around a campfire and gazing up at the stars. This was a common activity for Alastor when he was a boy. Nearly every Summer, he and his mother would go outside after dark and just admire the stars. She'd hold him in her lap and tech him all about the constellations. Some that weren't even known by scholars.

"That one over there is called Lakota and that's his brother Matwau." Alastor explained. "They say that they were the first of my kind and that they were originally human but when the settlers invaded their tribe they went to a shaman and asked him for the strength to defend their people. To do so, they had to give up their humanity and become an entirely different species. They devoured many settlers and those who were spared fled in fear. But Matwau loved the power that came from his new form and he turned on his own people. Eating them or changing them into wendigos that would serve him."

"That's messed up. What about the other one?"

"Lakota saved as many of the unchanged members as he could and helped them establish a new tribe where he would serve as their guardian for the rest of his life. He chose to remain peaceful, only taking lives if they threatened the tribe. But Matwau and his followers just killed and ate any life that came near. Tragically his malevolence expanded across the nine kingdoms so much, that Lakota's benevolence was to be forgotten."

"If that's true then how come you know about him?"

"My mother said that Lakota was our ancestor. He mated with a woman his brother turned but she was a pacifist at heart and through her, he learned that there were others who preferred to live peacefully despite their transformation. So he welcomed them into his tribe."

"You can actually see all that from the stars?"

"Yep." Alastor pointed upward. "There's Matwau terrorizing the humans on the left but on the right is Lakota standing vigilantly over his tribe."

"Man that ain't nothin' but a bunch of little dots."

"You know sometimes things are more than what they appear."

"How do you mean?"

"Forget it."

They lay silent for a while, Angel contemplating the stars and occasionally looking over at Alastor.

"Hey alastor what're we gonna do when we get our forest anyway?"

"Our forest?"

"You know when this whole princess rescue thing is done?"

"Angel you do realize when this is over so are we. We're not friends. Once I get my property back, you are going to leave me to return to my solitary life and find someone else to annoy. Hopefully a poisonous reptile."

"Oh come on, you wouldn't really want anything bad to happen to me."

"If it would get you out of my life, then yes I would."

"Then why did you save me so many times back at the moth's keep? You could've just left me there or let me fall into the lava, with that map Vox gave you, you didn't need me for directions but you still stuck your neck out for me."

Alastor tried to think of something that would discredit that theory but nothing came to mind.

"Alright so I don't want you to die but that doesn't mean I like you. It just means I have some standards. I don't want friends. I don't need em."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because I prefer to be alone."

"Why?"

"Because that's my preference."

"But why do you have that preference?"

"It's just how I am."

"I think you're hiding something."

"I am not."

"Then why are you blocking?"

"I'm not blocking."

"Oh yes you are."

"Angel I'm warning you!"

"Just why do you want to live away from everybody?"

"Because I hate everybody! Okay?!" Angel had struck a nerve, struck it enough for Alastor to drop his smile for the first time and really let his true feelings be shown. "I hate everybody in the world and I want them just to stay away from me! To leave me alone! Is that too much to ask?!"

At this moment, Angel wasn't the only one listening to him. Unseen by either of them, Charlie who had been awakened by Alastor's ranting, was peeking around the cave door. Eavesdropping on their conversation. She watched Alastor distance himself from Angel and sit down in a huff. Watching him with curious, dark, doe-eyes.

"What's your problem Alastor?" Angel asked. "What do you have against whole world anyway?"

"I'm not the one with the problem! It's the world that seems to have a problem with me! They blame me for what other wendigos did and even though the ones truly responsible are long dead, they still feel the need to punish someone! So they punish me, and I'm not even a cannibal!"

"You're not?"

"No! I've evolved past that just as every other human in the world has evolved past their mistakes in history! But that doesn't mean anything to them! And the world was more of a monster to me than I was to it! I was only seven years old when the world took away my only family and left me to wander through life in the dark and all alone! I had nobody! I couldn't find friends, or compassion or anything! But how could I expect to? People take one look at me and scream 'Ahh! Help! Run! A big, blood-thirsty, hideous wendigo!"

He sighed.

"They judge me before they even know me. That's why I'm better off alone."

Hidden in the shadows of her cave, Charlie could not help but feel empathetic to the wendigo and ashamed of herself for how she treated him. She of all others should have been much kinder to him because she knew what it was like to be left in the dark and all alone. To have to hide from the world when you didn't live up to it's expectations. She knew a lot more about it than most would suspect.

"Oh Alastor." She whispered under her breath, remorsefully. "I'm so sorry."

"You better close the door now Charlie." Vaggie whispered to her. "Before they see you."

The princess did as she was told without making a sound. Angel stared silently at Alastor for a moment and then walked over to him. The two of them sat silhouetted against the starry sky.

"You know when we met, I didn't think you were just a big, blood-thirsty, hideous wendigo."

At first Alastor said nothing but then he softened and gave Angel a sincere smile.

"Yeah I know."

A moment went by and Angel looked up.

"So...Are there any spiders up there?" He asked.

"Well there's Anansi the trickster. He was said to be clever and crafty enough to capture a snake and a tiger."

"Which one is he?"

"He's that one over there which is close to Venus. If you look carefully you can see him spinning his giant web and thinking of a new trick to play."

"Oh...Okay I see him. Sort of...Hey how do you know about all this stuff?"

"My mother taught me. She loved stories and she loved to tell them to me."

"Cool. Can you tell me some of those stories?"

"You really want to hear them?"

"Yeah. Tell me about this Anansi guy. How did he trick a snake and tiger?"

"Well they're separate stories but equally entertaining."

And so Alastor proceeded to entertain Angel with several stories he had learned from his mother. Though he wouldn't admit to it, he liked seeing the look of interest and fascination on Angel's face as he listened to the storytelling. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to keep this fellow around.