“We trade for 6 wolf fur.” I say trying to be the third party negotiator in a trade.

  This time between a rabbit shifter and Yevell. Furs for some hand made jewelry. Right as they agreed I'm off running again to the next trade happening. Speaking in a broken but less broken Salkin thanks to Akken.

  As I'm running around like a rooster with his head cut off around my mind drifting back to him, he's been acting strange, well stranger than he already was since he joined up. That night a week ago while I was on watch it might have been a trick of the light, my imagination, or something else but it looked like his muscles were squirming under his skin.

  It was disturbing, I don't know a lot about shifters but I've seen a few changes before and it never looked that painful that messed up, and going by the groans and whimpers he was letting out it didn't just look painful. I've been trying to look out for him since then, besides the fact that he reminds me of a younger me. The only problem with trying to look after him is everyone else in this caravan. They've all been ignoring him as best as they can, even that auditor who invited him in the first place has been ignoring him.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  I thought that it might have been like how they treat me having me around just barely tolerating having me around and eating the food, even before they figured out how little I knew about Salkin and how I could only tell shifter species apart, but they at least let me eat with them, but they just leave Akken all to himself, yet another way he reminds me of myself. Especially with him being away from anyone who knows him despite how young his eyes look and how the auditor introduced him.

  Seriously why is someone that young out on his own, and despite me barely understanding what he was talking to with the guards but he clearly isn't well liked with other shifters. How could his family just leave him out on his own like this, unless they're dead? That would make everything that's going on with the rest of the caravan worse.

  Running my hand through my hair as I discuss yet another trade between a shifter and a caravan member. A deafening wail that shakes trees and everyone in the caravan crashes into the clearing where we are. Before I can even make sense of it I feel rapid movements.

  For a moment I think I'm losing all of my balance taken away by the shock of the cry but as I start to take in what is really happening my perception of the world returning, I realize I wasn't falling but running. Running faster than I have in years not away from the sound but towards the source of the sound. As it continues to ring through the forest. The sound begins growing painful but still sucking in air through my teeth stumbling a little on a root but I keep going.

  Eventually I reach the source of the sound looking over the crying beasts but then our eyes meet and there's a familiarity.