They followed the large crowd of people out of the hall and through the clump of building surrounding the main lodge to a small clearing off the main part of the village. It was roughly circular; the place had been cleared of trees long ago and the ground was covered in a thick layer of snow. The wind had not completely died down, and its icy tendrils brushed against Javier's face with a biting intensity.

Latham had taken his shirt and furs off and was facing away from the group toward the forest. He was knee deep in the snow and Javier couldn't for the life of him understand how the man wasn't freezing to death. The old man was pretty muscular; his body did not show the decay of his age. Latham's muscles rippled against the cold and grew taught as the man stretched and flexed.

Yrsa walked into the circle and faced her opponent. She was facing away from the Shape shifter pack so Javier couldn't get a good look at her face. From her movements he could tell that she was focused, but not tense. Her body moved with its usual agility even in the snow. She was just as used to this type of thing as Latham, if the older man expected the snow the give him an advantage, he had underestimated Yrsa.

The village council formed the outside of the combatant circle for the rite of combat, while the rest of the villagers flowed around them forming the rest of the circle while they watched anxiously for the fight to begin.

Yrsa threw off the furs that had covered her shoulders and her jacket. She peeled off her outer legging furs as well and tossed them aside. She glanced at the villagers forming the fighters circle, rifles and carbines were held at the ready, though pointed at the ground. That could mean, this would be a fair fight, or that she had been beaten already.

She didn't need to say anything. She focused on her opponent. She didn't care about what he had lost, she didn't care about his pain. She let her rage build inside her. Ever since she was little, her father had tried to instill in her a feeling of fear about her abilities.

Her father had been teaching her how to build traps and snares. She was eight years old and the forest was just beginning to warm itself after the long bitter winter. She had tried to copy her father's agile and deft hand movements as he twisted and tied knots in the rope to leave nooses and holes that would form the snares to trap the small forest animals.

She had tried to make the trap just as he had shown her. Yet, when she pulled the rope tight, the entire trap and all her snares had come undone. She had thrown the rope down on the ground, growling loudly in frustration.

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Her father came over immediately and hugged her to him. She didn't want to be hugged, she didn't need a hug, she needed the stupid rope to stay where she had wanted it to stay. Her anger did not ebb, in fact it was growing. She felt that rage at the stupid trap and the dumb rope and she felt her blood boil.

She shoved her father away from her and ripped the rope to shreds with her bare hands. She got up and ran through the forest. She didn't care about anything. She wanted to hurt something, someone, anything. She didn't notice that she had completely forgotten the rope, and the failed trap. She punched a chunk out of a nearby sapling tree and was only mildly aware of how little it had pained her. It should have broken her hand but she kept running, with almost no pain or any damage from hitting the tree.

She felt her body ripped off its feet as she was tossed to the ground. She landed on her back and she rolled over onto her hands and knees and screamed at whoever had hit her. The scream wasn't her usual high-pitched scream, but a guttural inhuman howl of rage that she had never made before in her life.

She jumped up and attacked the thing that had hit her. She didn't see a form, only a vague shape, an animal that stood upon two legs. The only thought going through her mind was to kill and destroy whatever it was.

She felt her arms yanked around onto her back as she was lifted up in midair and held against something thick, warm, and it had a familiar smell.

As she was held, suspended in air, she kicked and screamed against whatever it was. The scent of what held her was familiar. She worked herself into a frenzy biting and kicking and howling at whatever it was.

The sensation had come over her slowly, the scent that she had recognized slowly invaded her singular focus of death. The smell was warm, comforting, something that her primal instincts slowly connected with safety. That smell meant calm, warmth, security, and another emotion that took a long time to form through the rage. She stopped struggling long enough for her instincts to realize that the smell belonged to one that she loved.

Once that emotion was able to break through her haze of rage and hatred, she immediately came back to herself. When that happened, she stopped fighting entirely and sobbed deeply into her father's arms.

The strong arms of her father released her and spun her around and hugged her again. Yrsa cried openly. Her eight-year-old brain didn't want to believe that what had just happened had happened. She cried as the pain in her hand pulsed up her arm. But even more than the pain in her fist, she was scared. Scared of what had just happened and terrified that it might happen again.

Her father slowly let her go. She cried and wiped her eyes as he knelt down in front of her. His strong facial features and soft eyes held no anger in them at all. Yrsa wiped her nose as he smiled warmly to reassure her.

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