Mother of Midnight

Chapter 206 – Tull

Storm decided she didn’t like traveling with these people.

They were slow. Weak. Overly cautious. Always whispering, always watching the trees like prey expecting a hunter to pounce. Storm had no such fears. If something wanted to fight her, she would tear it apart. That was how the world worked.

Still, they fed her, and the food was good. That alone was enough reason to stay.

She had eaten scraps before, gnawed on bones left behind, and stolen meals when no one was watching. But this? This was warm, fresh, seasoned. They gave her food without her having to fight for it. It was strange.

Even stranger was how eager they were to keep her around.

Especially after she killed the duskharrow.

It had been an easy fight—too easy, really. The thing had lurked at the edge of their camp, all twisted limbs and clicking jaws, waiting for weakness. Storm had given it no such chance. She had ripped out its thorax before the others even knew it was there.

They had been impressed. She could see it in the way they looked at her after. Wide eyes, hushed words. They respected strength, at least. That was good.

But then they did something she didn’t understand.

They refused to eat the duskharrow.

It was too much meat for her alone. More than enough to share. Was that not what a pack did? Yet when she had dragged the carcass toward them, nudging it with her foot, they had recoiled. Wrinkled their noses. Shaken their heads.

They didn’t make sense.

So she had shrugged and torn into the meat herself. Let them eat their dry rations.

Storm crouched over the carcass, her sharp teeth tearing into the flesh beneath its chitinous shell. The meat was tough and didn’t taste very good, but it was dense with aether and filled her stomach, and that was what mattered. She had killed it. It was hers to eat.

A voice interrupted her feast.

“Are you seriously going to eat that?” Hara asked, arms crossed, watching with barely disguised disgust. “We have real food, you know?”

Storm paused, glancing up, ichor slick on her lips. “Killed it,” she said simply. “Would be a waste to not eat.”

She bit down again, ripping a strip of muscle free. The others avoided looking at her. They had given her odd looks when she’d dragged the carcass into camp, but none of them had tried to stop her from eating it. That was smart.

Hara, however, wasn’t done. “You could cook it at least,” she said, exasperation creeping into her voice. “Might make it taste… better. Not that I think aetherbeast meat is going to taste good regardless.”

Storm slowed her chewing, her ears flicking at the words.

Cook it.

Was that what made their food different? What made it better?

She narrowed her eyes at Hara. “… Show me.”

“Oh boy.” Hara let out a long sigh, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Okay. Let me get another fire pit going, ’cause no one else is going to want to be near it when you start.”

Storm watched her, unblinking, as the woman stood and walked away, muttering to herself. She didn’t understand the problem. If cooking made food better, shouldn’t they all want to be near it? They cooked their food all the time. Yet for some reason, the thought of roasting duskharrow meat seemed to turn their stomachs.

Soon after, Hara had a small fire going, separate from the rest of the camp. She crouched beside it, poking at the flames as though regretting every life choice that had led her to this moment. Storm sat opposite her, tail lazily swaying from side to side, watching with open curiosity as Hara threaded the slab of duskharrow meat onto a spit.

The woman grimaced the entire time, handling the flesh like it might bite her. Once it was secure, she set the spit over the fire and started rotating it slowly, her expression one of barely concealed disgust.

“Ugh,” she muttered, giving the meat a look of deep suspicion. “This is probably the worst thing I’ve ever done.”

Storm tilted her head. “How long?”

Hara sighed, still turning the spit. “Until it looks edible. Or, you know, until I stop feeling like I might gag just looking at it.”

Storm’s ears flicked, her gaze never leaving the meat. The scent of burning aether tingled faintly in her nose, mixing with the thick, rich aroma of charring flesh. It smelled… different. Sharper. Not bad, exactly. Just unfamiliar.

She leaned in slightly, nostrils flaring. “This makes food better?”

Hara gave her a sideways glance, still rotating the spit. “That’s the idea.”

Hara gagged, turned pale, and muttered something under her breath about regretting every decision that had led to this moment. She gave the spit one final turn, then abruptly yanked it off the fire and thrust it toward Storm at arm’s length, like she couldn’t get rid of it fast enough.

"Here. Just—take it. Gods, that’s foul."

Storm eagerly grabbed the spit with both hands, ignoring Hara’s clear revulsion, and sank her teeth into the sizzling meat. Heat seared her tongue, but she hardly noticed as she tore off a chunk and chewed.

Her ears perked up in delight.

It was better! The sharp, slightly bitter tang of duskharrow meat had dulled, replaced by something richer, smokier. The texture had changed too—less chewy, more tender. Every bite released a flood of warmth, a depth of flavor she had never experienced before.

She let out an appreciative growl, already tearing into another piece. Cooking was amazing. She would have to learn how to do it.

Hara, meanwhile, watched in a mix of horror and disbelief. "I cannot believe you’re enjoying that."

Storm barely spared her a glance, too absorbed in her newfound discovery. "Tastes good."

Hara groaned, rubbing her temples. "Yeah? Great. Just… don’t expect me to make a habit of this, alright?"

Storm grunted in acknowledgment but didn’t stop eating, tearing through the last of the roasted duskharrow meat with sharp, eager bites. The fire crackled beside her, warm against her skin, the smell of charred aetherbeast thick in the air. She swallowed down the final mouthful, licking the grease from her fingers, and without hesitation, grabbed another raw chunk from the carcass.

She fed more wood into the flames, watching embers flicker upward before jamming the fresh meat onto the spit. Slowly, she turned it over the fire, mimicking what Hara had done. The motions felt strangely natural, as if she had done this before—not just recently, but long ago.

Then, a flicker.

A memory—hazy, blurred at the edges. A fire like this one, but smaller, steadier. A pot hanging over the flames. The rich scent of stew, thick and hearty, warming her from the inside out. And a face, half-hidden in the firelight. Five obsidian eyes, watching her with confidence… and something else. A feeling she couldn’t name.

Storm’s grip on the spit faltered. Her chest tightened. Why couldn’t she remember?

Pain lanced through her skull, sharp and sudden. She let go of the spit and clutched her head, a growl rising in her throat.

“Hey, Storm.”

A voice, cautious but concerned.

Storm barely registered Betheil stepping closer, wrinkling their nose against the smell but not retreating. “You okay?”

Storm clenched her teeth, a low, guttural growl rising from her throat. Her ears flattened, her tail bristling as the pain in her head sharpened. She dug her claws into her scalp as if she could rip the memories free, force them to take shape instead of slipping away like smoke through her fingers.

"Head hurts," she snarled, voice rough with frustration. "Memories come, but can’t focus on them. Gone."

She squeezed her eyes shut, but that only made it worse. A flash—shadows curling around her, deep and suffocating. A dark place. A figure lurking in the gloom, something massive, something wrong. And then—a woman. Not human, not beast, but something in between. Monstrous, yet familiar. Five black eyes staring at her, not with malice, not with fear, but with something else. Something important.

The memory slipped through her grasp again, vanishing into the void. Storm's claws scraped against her scalp as her growl deepened, turning into a full, animalistic snarl.

"Why. Can't. I. REMEMBER?!

"Her voice cracked as she roared the last word, her tail lashing, muscles tensing as though she were ready to tear something apart. The firelight flickered, casting jagged shadows across her form as her breath came fast and ragged. The pain in her skull throbbed like a drumbeat, demanding something, but she didn’t know what.

Storm's heart thundered in her chest, blood surging in her veins like wildfire. The firelight and the sounds of the camp were quickly swallowed by the darkness as she bolted into the night, her powerful legs carrying her forward with relentless speed. Her mind screamed for release, for the gnawing ache in her skull to be drowned by something more primal. She needed to hunt. She needed to kill.

The trees blurred around her, the moonlight barely a whisper in the vastness of the wild. Her senses sharpened, honed by the growing hunger and frustration that clawed at her mind. The hunt was no longer a mere instinct—it was the only thing that mattered. The taste of blood, the tearing of flesh, the thrill of the kill. It was what she was made for. It was what she knew.

She did not have to search long. The scent of fresh prey reached her, sweet and earthy, carried on the wind. A herd of cervine creatures, nestled under the cover of trees, their bodies curled against the chill of the night. They were unaware, peaceful in their sleep, blissfully ignorant of the predator lurking just beyond their sight.

Storm slowed, her body tense as she stalked closer, every movement calculated. She could smell the warmth of their blood, the soft pulse of life beneath their hides. She moved like a shadow, her steps silent, her breath held. Her heart beat in sync with her every motion, steady and controlled as she closed in on the unsuspecting group.

Then, in a flash of speed and violence, she was on them.

Her claws dug into the earth as she leapt, the force of her impact crashing through the quiet air. In an instant, one of the cervine creatures found itself pinned beneath her, struggling in vain as her massive form crashed down upon it. Storm’s claws raked across its body, shredding through fur and flesh alike, her fangs sinking deep into its throat before it had a chance to scream.

The creature’s blood spurted in a hot, sickening torrent, coating her fur, staining the earth beneath them. She tore into it with primal hunger, her growls muffled by the guttural sound of her teeth tearing through muscle and sinew. The herd stirred in panic, but they were too late. Storm had already claimed her prize.

With every savage bite, the gnawing emptiness inside her quieted just a little. The memory—whatever it was—faded further into the darkness, overtaken by the raw satisfaction of the kill. Storm let out a low, rumbling growl of contentment, blood dripping from her fangs as she finally pulled back, panting heavily.

She had not just hunted to feed. No, this was something deeper. It was vengeance. It was release. She was alive in a way she had not been for so long. The world around her was nothing but prey, and she—she was its hunter.

Storm stood over the still-warm body of the cervine creature, her bloodied claws flexing, still quivering with the aftershocks of her savage hunger. She'd torn into it with such force, so wrapped up in the chaos of the kill, that it barely seemed like an animal anymore. Just a heap of flesh and bones, the remnants of what it once was. Her chest heaved, her breath still ragged from the chase, but as she gazed down at the carcass, something caught her attention—something more than just the satisfaction of the hunt.

The meat.

Her stomach growled low, a guttural sound deep in her core, reminding her of her hunger. Her eyes flickered over the mutilated body, torn and scarred, but still rich with potential. It was still warm. It would still taste fine. The instinct to consume kicked in, to finish what she started, but the thought of returning to the camp held her back for a brief moment. Why? Why should she bother?

The others had fed her before, and they'd shared what they'd killed. She could share this too. She wouldn't be selfish.

Storm shifted her weight, slowly squatting down beside the cervine corpse. Her eyes flickered to the gory, shredded carcass, her mind wrestling with the conflicting feelings of hunger and the gnawing, aching uncertainty that had followed her since the memories had started to bubble up again.

What was the point of trying to remember? Every time she reached for the past, it slipped further away. It felt like a jagged shard, cutting into her mind whenever she grasped it. Why try to remember if all it did was hurt?

The memories—flickers of images, scents, sensations—were painful. The longer she lingered on them, the more they seemed to bleed into her thoughts, like fire licking at her skin. They weren’t worth it, were they? Whatever it was, it was too painful, too messy to try to piece together. If it was so important, if they were truly important, then why did they feel so jagged, like a fragment of something better left forgotten?

Storm growled quietly, pushing those thoughts to the back of her mind. It didn’t matter. None of it did. Not now. She needed to move forward.

With a final glance at the ravaged body, Storm bent low and lifted the cervine carcass over her shoulder with ease. She felt the weight of it—muscles straining with the effort, but it was nothing to her. She’d hunted it. It was hers.

Hara had been a mercenary for nearly a decade, and over the years, she'd seen it all. She'd traveled through vast steppes, across barren deserts, and through the thick, fog-clad forests that lined the edges of those desolate lands. There wasn't much she hadn't encountered. Important clan members on their way to political meetings, merchants who thought they could haggle their way out of anything, and bandits who were always ready to cross blades for a handful of coin. She'd even been to some of the more dangerous corners of the continent, places where only the hardiest or the most foolish dared to venture.

But none of it compared to Storm.

She was new. At least, to Hara’s experience, she was. No one in the camp really knew what to make of her, and Hara would be lying if she said she had a clear understanding of her either. Storm didn’t just stand out in terms of looks—she was a full head taller than Betheil, who, given their height, was already a little imposing. And the way she moved... It was eerie how she could sneak up on them in the dead of night without a single person noticing, until she got reeeeal close.

Then there were her eyes. Bright streaks in her fur that almost glowed blue, like streaks of lightning running down her coat. It was like something out of a myth or a dream, too strange to be real. They shone through the dark of the night, almost unnatural in how vividly they cut through the shadows. It left Hara uneasy at first, but after a few days of being around her, that unease gave way to curiosity.

Then there was the speech. Or lack of it. Storm wasn’t... normal, not in the way she expressed herself. She couldn’t form sentences like other people could. It was as though the words had trouble keeping up with her thoughts. It wasn’t that she wasn’t intelligent—Hara had no doubt she understood what was being said—but it was almost like she was touched in the head. Something was off, though what exactly it was, Hara couldn’t figure out.

Still, for all her oddities, Storm was oddly likeable. Her confusion about how to communicate made her seem... endearing. She wasn’t trying to hide her discomfort or her oddities—she simply was who she was. That kind of openness made it easier for Hara to get past her initial hesitation.

And that hesitation had been real at first. A woman like Storm, appearing out of nowhere, being all tall and strange with glowing streaks in her fur and an air of primal intensity—well, Hara had learned to be cautious. But after a few days, Storm had shown no signs of being dangerous, at least not to the people she was traveling with. In fact, despite the communication barrier, she still seemed willing to communicate.

Considering everything Hara had learned about Storm in the past week and a half, she wasn't all that surprised when the wild woman had bolted off into the night without a word. It was just another thing to add to the growing list of weird but increasingly predictable behaviors. What did surprise her—at least a little—was the way Storm came back not long after, half-covered in blood, looking completely unbothered by it.

Slung over her shoulder was the limp form of a tull—a cervine beast native to the region. Its throat had been torn open, its fur slick with drying blood, and deep gouges marred its side where claws had raked through flesh. A clean kill, or at least as clean as something could be when brought down with nothing but tooth and claw.

Storm stopped at the edge of the firelight and hefted the carcass slightly, tilting her head in an almost expectant way.

"Food. Eat this one?" she asked, her voice rough and direct as she looked between Hara and the others.

For a moment, there was silence. Hara stared at her, taking in the sheer absurdity of it all—Storm, 

There was something earnest about it, the way Storm presented the kill as if she were waiting for approval. Like a pup bringing back its first real catch, tail wagging, waiting to see if it had done good.

And for some reason, Hara found the whole thing... kind of adorable. In a completely morbid way.

Hara let out a short chuckle, shaking her head. "Yeah, I think we can eat that one. Good work." Then she wrinkled her nose as she gave Storm a once-over. "But you are filthy, Storm. Go wipe yourself down in the creek before you sit anywhere near the fire."

Storm just blinked at her, expression unreadable beneath the drying smears of blood streaking across her skin and fur.

"Yeah, better listen to the mother hen, Storm!" one of the other guards called out, voice laced with amusement.

A few chuckles rippled through the group, but Storm barely acknowledged them. She simply grunted, as if only barely humoring the demand, then turned and strode off toward the creek without complaint. Her departure was marked by the thud of the tull’s body hitting the dirt, dropped unceremoniously by the fire.

Hara exhaled and rolled her shoulders. At least she listened. She had half expected some stubborn protest about how the blood didn’t matter or that it was her kill, but no—Storm took orders well enough when they made sense to her.

She crouched beside the carcass, examining it under the fire’s glow. The pelt was utterly ruined—ripped apart by claws and soaked through with blood—but the meat was still good. More than good, really. There was plenty to go around.

“Looks like we’re eating fresh tonight,” Hara said, nudging the beast with her boot. "Someone help me get this thing gutted and carved up. No point letting it go to waste."

The mood around the fire immediately shifted. A few guards, who had been poking at their uninspiring travel rations, perked up at the prospect of a proper meal. The dry bread and salted jerky they had been subsisting on weren’t exactly satisfying.

Within moments, a small group had gathered, setting to work under Hara’s direction. Knives flashed in the firelight, stripping away hide and carving thick, red cuts of meat from the carcass. The scent of fresh blood filled the air, sharp and metallic, but it wasn’t unpleasant—not when it meant full stomachs by the end of the night.

Storm didn’t seem to care in the slightest that anyone could see her nude—not that Hara was about to complain. The woman looked like she’d been carved from stone, every muscle on her body defined to the point of absurdity. It made Hara wonder if she even could put on weight, or if she simply burned through everything she ate.

And those eyes. A piercing, unnatural blue, even brighter in the moonlight, like twin shards of ice set into her face. Her chiseled jaw, the sharp angles of her face—it was all too much, like someone had taken the ideal of strength and made it flesh. And speaking of flesh, well… Hara wasn’t blind. The extra equipment Storm was sporting was impossible to ignore, and it had her wondering exactly what the woman could do with it.

Twice as broad as Hara, nearly two heads taller, with arms that looked like they could snap her in half without effort—primal was the right word for her. And Hara, ever the lover of excitement and new experiences, couldn’t help but wonder if she could coax Storm into her furs.

She smirked to herself, idly slicing through the tull’s hide with practiced ease. Wouldn’t that be something? A woman like that? Hara was used to bedding warriors, mercenaries, even the occasional noble with a taste for danger, but Storm was something else entirely. She exuded a wildness that made Hara’s pulse quicken just thinking about it.

But there was the tricky part—Storm didn’t seem to pick up on flirtation the way most people did. Hara had tried a few subtle remarks over the past week, but Storm had either ignored them or taken them at face value. Either she wasn’t interested, or she was simply too… well, feral to recognize when someone was making a pass at her.

Hara wasn’t one to force the issue—if Storm wasn’t interested, she’d leave it at that—but she was curious. And if nothing else, she figured it wouldn’t hurt to test the waters a little more directly. Maybe when Storm came back from the creek, she’d see just how thick that woman’s skull really was.