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She felt a little guilty for liking this new resurgence of nature.
Many powerful people once depended on the scarcity of hydrocarbon-based fuels for their livelihood. Political upheaval had been violent, both in the United States and in countries abroad.
In the States, some rejoiced in the new, cleaner, cheaper sources of power, but those powerful, wealthy few who depended on the status quo were not so happy. They paid enough to fuel propaganda that swayed many to their side. The country had nearly erupted in civil war.
The frequent need for martial law to quell riots led to the power of the military to act within US borders being significantly increased by a frightened Congress.
In the end, there was no way that the energy companies could put the genie of cheap, limitless power back in the bottle. Many of the mighty had fallen. New leaders had risen to take their places.
Wars still raged around the world, the echoes and aftershocks of economic upheaval. American soldiers still bled in many of those wars. And their families looked to Liliana for reassurance and guidance.
For Others across the globe, the changes were a breath of oxygen for people who had been suffocating. Gaia’s favored children felt their ancient strength returning.
Liliana would not have been entirely surprised if the tree she crouched in, which had an unusually bright green soul, one day yawned and stretched and regained a human form it hadn’t worn since the industrial revolution.
Young beast-kin like Pete didn’t even know what it was like not to have comfortable ease with their three natural forms. Liliana remembered years and places when her brothers couldn’t reach full lion form at all, and only attained demi-lion form when the moon phase was favorable.
Liliana wondered what other effects the resurgence of nature’s energy would have on the world.
After maybe an hour of sitting silently in the tree, thinking, Liliana heard two familiar men’s voices and a high-pitched feminine voice slowly coming toward her. They were deep in a friendly debate over the merits of various types of knives. For three people moving through wilderness, making no attempt to be stealthy, the wolf-kin and the two Fae made surprisingly little sound aside from their conversation.
Doctor Nudd and Pete strolled into the clearing near the spider-kin. Siobhan walked at their heels.
“This looks like a good place to practice,” Doctor Nudd said. “No one around for miles.” He hung a large grapefruit as a target from a branch of the tree that Liliana sat in. Behind it, he draped a quilted packing blanket that should catch stray blades that missed the fruit, so they wouldn’t get lost in the leaf mold.
Siobhan hung back a bit, turning her head from side to side with a furrow between her carrot-red eyebrows. Flower sprites tended to be deeply in touch with the plants around them. Liliana didn’t fit the normal pattern of this forest. The flower sprite looked up finally, saw Liliana, and opened her mouth to say something.
Liliana put a finger to her lips to ask for silence.
Siobhan grinned and shifted form, becoming far smaller. Bright purple and fuchsia double wings like a dragonfly’s sprouted from her back, emerging through slits in her bolero-style leather jacket. As she shrank, the jacket stayed the same, looking more like a trench coat to the tiny woman with the hot pink mohawk. She fluttered up into a large branch of a nearby tree with a good view, then settled in to watch the show.
“You’re not going to practice, Siobhan?” Pete asked.
“I’m good. You go ahead.” She popped a small pistol apart into her lap, produced a tiny set of tools from somewhere, and did incomprehensible things to the gun.
Pete practiced throwing knives at the swinging fruit from various distances and angles, standing with feet wide apart, taking his time to aim carefully. Liliana recognized it as a good stance—steady, stable, and highly unlikely to be attainable in the middle of an actual fight. Pete’s marksmanship with throwing knives was excellent. Doctor Nudd pushed the hanging grapefruit to make it swing wildly so it became a more difficult target. Pete’s accuracy still required them to replace the fruit several times.
Pete seemed fairly pleased with his ability. Liliana shook her head in frustration. That would not do.
Pete removed a few dead lower branches with his old sword. He wielded it with raw force and a lack of finesse that would have been more appropriate with an axe.
If that was sword practice, then Liliana was a boggart.
He followed with some friendly wrestling with Doctor Nudd, both in their human forms. Pete’s strength and speed, even as a human, were impressive, but his form was awful. Liliana’s father would never have tolerated such sloppy footwork. Pete was off balance more than he was on.
The goblin was worse. Doctor Nudd depended entirely on his strength and long reach. He fought like a barroom brawler: all offense and zero finesse.
Liliana’s father taught her toe-to-toe fighting with various weapons and without. He made certain that his daughter became an expert in the grappling dance of balance against balance of Greek wrestling, and the brutal but flashy weapon styles of the gladiator. Her first mother taught her the fighting style of the spider seer. Set traps, wait patiently, entangle the enemy. Her second mother taught her the fighting style of the jaguar-kin. Stalk silently, ambush from above, kill the enemy with lightning-quick merciless attacks.
Liliana used all three styles, depending on the situation. For the most part, it was her first mother’s style, the fighting style of the spider seer, that she had used to defeat Pete. The sacrifice wrestling throw she’d used to defeat Stella was one that her father taught her.
Now that she no longer feared the red wolf, she realized that she could have defeated Pete in any of her fighting styles.
Any of the three beast-kin who raised Liliana would have destroyed this red wolf without breaking a sweat. Far too soon, he would face four Wolfhounds, all strong and properly trained. Even if he had magic to pierce their protections, Pete didn’t stand a chance. Not without allies, and not without training.
When she felt like she’d seen enough, and the two men were starting to look a little winded from their inadequate practice, she dropped onto Doctor Nudd’s shoulders from above. He fell on his face in the soft grass with a yelp of surprise.
Pete reacted instantly, drawing one of the throwing knives he had been practicing with and striking down at her.
