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The clearing is quiet.
Not quiet-quiet - nothing in the Wilderness is ever actually quiet, not unless they're in the very teeth of winter itself, and even then there's always the creak of snowed up trees, the distant grumble of the ice.
In high summer like this, there's the rilling of the distant creek, the chirp of crickets, the low sounds of small animals moving through the undergrowth. There'll be an occasionally rustle, the call of a wolf in the far distance, something crashing through the trees…
But there are no voices.
There isn't anyone talking to Nat (talking at Nat), there isn't anyone looking at her expectantly, there aren't any chores to be assigned or disputes to settle. It's just Nat and the stars and the rustle of the leaves, the cool breeze tugging at her hair under her bandanna, the grass tickling the backs of her legs.
Nat savors the time to herself, savors the illusion of privacy (anyone could see her if they made their way past the treeline), savors the chance to just lie in the quiet and look at the half moon overhead.
Then there's the sound of something moving.
Something big moving, and Nat's old instincts (honed by years of sharing a living space with her dad) kick in.
She goes utterly still, lying there in the tall grass. She's seen rabbits do it, pheasants, mice.
Prey animals.
I'm not here, her body says. I'm not here. You can't see me.
"Nat?" Lottie's voice rings out through the silence, and the urge to hide gets stronger.
Lottie is dangerous.
Lottie is dangerous in a way that Nat can't put her finger on, except that every cell in her body is screaming danger.
When it comes down to it, the whole team is dangerous, and she can't ever forget that, can she? Not after they chased her through the snow, across the ice, howling and yelping. Can't forget the cold of the knife as Shauna pressed it against her neck, or the circle of faces around them watched with their wet, terrified eyes. And she's not exempt from that, not when she stood there and just watched Shauna's fists rain down on Lottie.
(And how is it that Lottie still manages to be so dangerous, even when Nat can remember her face swollen up, the serene expression she wore as Shauna kept hitting her and hitting her and hitting her?)
In theory, Nat can just lie here.
Could just lie here, waiting for Lottie to go looking for her somewhere else. Maybe Lottie will go back to her hut and try to commune with the pine needles or whatever the fuck it is she does when she's not shoving mushroom tea down Travis' throat.
But… no.
No, as much as every instinct Nat has is screaming for her to stay hiding, to stay still… she is still the leader. The whole team is her responsibility, and with her luck Lottie will fall into a hole or something. So Nat sits up straight, emerging from the long grass, and she calls out Lottie's name.
The moon is just bright enough to make out the vague shape of Lottie, the paleness of her dress like an afterimage as she makes her way towards Nat through the long grass.
"Am I interrupting something?" Lottie asks, her voice so mild it's frankly obnoxious.
"Nah," says Nat, forcing a smile even though she's fairly sure Lottie can't see it. "What's up, Lot? Do they need me at the village?"
"Not at this exact moment, no," says Lottie, and then she's… settling on the ground next to Nat, drawing her knees up to her chest, skirt pulled over her legs. "What're you up to?"
Having some time to myself, Nat doesn't say. "Just enjoying the view," says Nat, indicating the stars, the moon, the Milky Way wheeling overhead. "We didn't get stars like this back home, did we?"
"All the light pollution," Lottie says, her voice as distant as the stars.
"Yeah," Nat agrees.
They settle into silence, punctuated by the crickets and all the other things that move around in the darkness. Natalie lets herself lie back again, and then Lottie is lying next to her, staring at the sky.
It's… nice.
It's almost like before, when the two of them were just two girls. Two high school students. Two soccer players.
Not a prophet and a queen.
Everything goes silent - gradual at first, then complete. The only sounds are the thud of her own heartbeat, the rise and fall of her breathing, the quiet rush of Lottie's own breath.
"There's a predator nearby," Lottie says, her voice low.
"Yep," Nat says through gritted teeth. All those old instincts are on high alert - she's listening as hard as she can, and she's not even thinking when she grabs Lottie's hand, squeezes it tight.
Lottie may be dangerous, but she's still part of the team. She's still someone Nat needs to protect.
Lottie holds on tight, squeezes. Her fingers are long and bony, and her thumb is rubbing across the back of Nat's hand. It's making Nat blush, bite her lip, and the silence is getting deeper, creepier.
I hope it isn't a bear, Nat thinks deliriously. Neither of us has the knife, this is what I get for not bringing the knife or the gun with me, oh fuck.
There's a distant whoosh, and then something cries out. Nat counts out fifty heartbeats, and then the crickets begin to chirp again.
Nat relaxes, the tension gradually draining out of her shoulders.
Whatever it was is gone now.
"You don't have to be afraid," Lottie says softly, and she squeezes Nat's fingers, shifts a little closer. Her hair is on Nat's bare shoulder now, and her breath is hot against Nat's cheek. "You're the top predator here."
"Well, we're humans, so that's kind of a given," Nat says, giving a nervous laugh.
"That's not what I mean," Lottie says, and she's still so… serious. It makes Nat's stomach twist up, the way it always does when Lottie starts going in on her Wicca bullshit. "You're Its favorite."
Nat snorts, pulls her hand away from Lottie's, her eyes still firmly on the stars. "Yeah, right," she says, and her voice is rougher than she means it to be.
I'm not a fucking predator, Nat wants to yell, but that's not strictly true, is it?
If someone handed her the gun right now, she'd be able to stalk through the forest on silent feet and track her prey. She'd be able to hunt, and she'd love it more than she's ever loved the boring, tedious work of doling out chores and settling disputes and generally keeping everyone from fucking killing each other.
She misses it so much she can't even put it into words. But they need her as the leader, they need her as the queen.
"It chose you for the sacrifice," Lottie continues, and now she's rolled onto her side, staring at Nat with wide eyes, luminous in the bright light. "And then It spared you."
"You weren't there, Lot," Nat says, more defensive than she means to be. "You can't just -"
"I know It," Lottie insists.
"Do you, Lot?" Nat sits up, wraps her arms around herself and squeezes, and Lottie is sitting up beside her, leaning in close. "Are you sure that -"
"I know that you're as much of a predator as that bear out there," says Lottie, then; "if you're not a predator, you're prey."
"That's not how the fucking real world works, Lottie," Nat snaps, aggravation bleeding through.
Lottie sounds like her fucking dad, and she's not putting up with that ever again.
She came out to get some quiet, some time to herself, and she still can't fucking escape Lottie's bullshit, can she?
"This world is realer than the one back there," Lottie snaps back, and halle-fuckin'-lujah, Nat seems to have broken through that shield of annoying ass calm that Lottie has built around herself these days. "What do you have waiting for you back there, anyway?"
Nat's eyes narrow.
"You're a predator, Nat," Lottie insists. "And that's a good thing." A hand on Nat's face, Lottie's thumb on her lower lip. "You're a good leader, you're taking care of us the way It wants -"
There's some kind of anger rising up in the depths of Nat's guts, something that makes her hands shake and her teeth itch.
"I don't fucking care what It wants," Nat actually snarls. "Can you just fucking… give it a rest?"
"Make me," says Lottie, and Nat's insides go hot and cold at the same time.
"What?"
"You could make me, if you wanted to." Lottie isn't looking at Nat - is staring at her knees, then up at the sky. The moon catches her profile, and it stands out like a cameo brooch.
There's a heavy silence. "I'm not that kind of person," Nat says finally.
What does Lottie even want?
More silence.
"You could be," says Lottie. "If you wanted to be."
"Well," Nat says, and her heart is beating louder in her ears. "I don't."
The air between the two of them is charged, almost buzzing with an energy that's making Nat tense up even further. She grits her teeth, and she's breathing heavily, tension humming through her whole body.
Then Lottie is… is pressing closer. Is pressing so close that her hair is on Nat's bare shoulder again, and then her breath is on Nat's face. Dry lips against Nat's jaw, and then the corner of her mouth, then flat on her lips.
A kiss.
Lottie is kissing her.
Lottie is kissing her, and Nat is… Nat is kissing Lottie back.
(Nat hasn't kissed anyone since before the last time she ate human flesh. She's missed it desperately.)
Nat is kissing Lottie back, and Lottie's tongue is in her mouth, Lottie's teeth are in her lip, Lottie's hands are in her hair. It's the kind of hungry, desperate kiss that has time building up behind it, and then Lottie's nails are raking down Nat's back, and Nat makes a noise in her throat, arching her spine, pressing her breasts into Lottie's chest.
They kiss roughly, hungrily for some unknown amount of time, the stars sharp overhead. Lottie lies back at some point, pulls Nat down with her, and she's squirming, her thighs parting and her skirt riding up.
"Harder," she whispers to Nat. "Rougher."
Nat bites her on the shoulder, and she moans, pressing her whole body against Nat's. She's sweaty, solid, and Nat's head is spinning from the contact, from the warmth of her. She clearly wants Nat to do… something, but Nat is having some trouble keeping track.
Another, harder bite - right on Lottie's neck, which is stupid, but Nat is drunk on pheromones and the throb of her clit, and she wants to lose herself in another body for a little while.
And maybe she is hungry.
Or something like hungry.
"Fight back," she says in Lottie's ear before biting it, and then she grunts in surprise when her back meets the grass and Lottie is looming over her.
She always forgets how strong Lottie is, with all the lurking in the background the other girl does. But Lottie is strong, and she is fighting back as the two of them tussle in the grass.
It's one part wrestling match, one part makeout session - Nat is only picking up little bits, like someone taking snapshots.
Lottie pulling her head back to bite at her shoulder, moans vibrating along the skin.
Nat dragging her nails down Lottie's back, Lottie's shoulder blades bony and solid under the cotton of her dress.
Lottie trying to scrabble away, getting dragged back by the arm, cackling with delight.
Nat being shoved onto her back, momentarily winded, her chest heaving.
Lottie straddling Nat's thigh and sinking her teeth into Nat's ear as her knee digs into Nat's pussy.
Nat with her mouth on Lottie's nipple, the buttons at the front of her dress gaping open.
It's something like a power struggle and something like a dry humping session, but Nat's hips are working as she whines into Lottie's shoulder, clutching at Lottie's hips as the other girl rides her thigh. There's slick heat dragging over Nat's skin, a snail trail from Lottie's panties, and her own hips jerk forward, chasing the bony solidity of Lottie's knee.
The memory of running over the ice, and the deep, sharp terror, and for some reason that has her biting on the side of Lottie's breast, sucking it hard enough that she tastes pennies. Lottie is trembling against her, Lottie is shaking, and her grip on Nat's hair gets tighter, her hips moving faster.
"This is… this is what It wants," Lottie murmurs, and she rakes her nails across Nat's scalp, twists the hair in her fingers and yanks. "This. This, this, this…" Her whole body curls forward as she comes, dragging her pussy along Nat's thigh, and then her teeth are in Nat's shoulder, and she's sucking hard enough to bruise.
There's a momentary flash of cold at her throat as the pain sinks in, and she can almost smell the cabin instead of Lottie, and then she's falling down into her orgasm before she can stop herself. She's coming in a rush, her head tilted back, panting up at the sky, at Lottie, and now Lottie is slumped against her, nuzzling into the bruise she just made.
"You're Its favorite." Lottie sounds so satisfied. Probably not just from the orgasm, either. "This is just proof."
Nat could give a rational argument. She could push Lottie away and walk back to the village.
She bites Lottie instead; if Lottie wants a predator so fucking badly, she can have one.
