Gale's Storm

CHAPTER 22

After a few moments the door cracked open and James saw his mother's hazel eyes staring at him, scared. The door burst open and she hugged him. She started sobbing and James felt himself do the same. He felt like a kid again, just holding his mother and her holding him.

"Where were you? What happened? I heard you went with the monsters of the woods! I heard you wanted to fight alongside them and kill off humans, but I couldn't believe my baby would do that. So I started suspecting they told me that to save the grief of you being dead, and that you might as well be dead!" she cried.

"No mom, I never died. I never wanted to kill humans, I wanted shapeshifters to be treated equally. And they are just monsters, they used me as a weapon against my people, and as a way to infiltrate. I was nothing more to them than a tool," James sobbed into his mother.

They went inside after another moment of crying. James put his armored shoes and bag of armor and thinned supplies by the door and headed for the cushioned couch in front of the fireplace. It was relaxing and comfortable, after all of the days of sleeping in a thin leather sleeping bag.

His sister was in junior training, where they learned basic self defense. When James had left, she was 9, turning 10 in a few months. He forgot the number of months and days he had been gone, but he knew it was long enough that she was probably 10 now. His mother had been lonely, swept into a storm of grief and fear.

James felt guilty as his mom put tea on the fire she had barely started. "Tell me everything that happened after you fought Commander Schoorel," she said wearily.

"He had cut Lillian's arm, so I applied my healing skills and it's only a scar now. We went and found Pine Colony, the shapeshifter colony south of here, and we stayed there for a while. My sense of time had stopped working by then, I don't even know how long it's been, how many days. Treetop Colony joined us, they are messengers of the shapeshifters now. We then went to Kelp Colony, that's where I found out they were using me, because they wouldn't join us and Gale revealed me as a weapon. But I'm back, and ready to get back to the rightful human ways. The pure and right ways. Without dark powers," he only half believed these claims, they were odd. Like Thrift and Tuft, he never said anything, but it just felt wrong that two men could be together. How would things even work?

James's mom hugged him and whispered, "I'm sorry you had to learn like that. Those vile creatures are never going to win the war."

He didn't want to flinch, but he was going to get used to the slurs most humans spoke about the shapeshifters.

The next day he woke to find himself back in his bed, his warm and cozy bed. Human life was far better than shapeshifter life. Wait, that's what they're fighting for... a chance to live in peace and safety, without fear. Maybe the shapeshifters are right. It's too late for me to change again, I'll just have to do my part here. Like I promised Gale. James thought, he had decided he wouldn't keep that promise when he first left, but now it seemed like the right thing to do.

He went into the dining room to find his family already up. They had let him sleep in and get the rest he dearly had needed. His sister, Julie, ran toward him and hugged him. She could barely reach his shoulder. James put his arms around her, all of his grief for her that he had forgotten almost at once came back.

"You came back! I knew you would cause you're a good guy!" she yelped happily. Good guy... James thought as he sat down.

His father was a soft-spoken man, didn't ask any questions and just said that he was glad James was back. He enjoyed his breakfast a lot better than he had enjoyed his typical cuisine throughout his journey of slightly charred rat. He could never cook, and his attempts at it while coming home made him only want to come back more. The breakfast was usually porridge, simple porridge, almost no flavor at all but it could make you last until lunch.