Her Beasts Volume Four

Home Again

While Iris was certainly fascinated with the way the mermaid tribe lived and she felt guilty leaving her friend, Pearl, she couldn't stand to be away from home too long. She had cubs and mates waiting for her and she already missed them after spending five days away from them. That it would require almost another three days of travel just to return home again already seemed like too much.

Sure, Iris had been expecting to have to spend more time to get everything sorted originally and she did feel quite lucky to have had everything sorted so quickly. It was just that she really hated being away from home, away from her friends and family. Iris supposed it wouldn't be too bad to travel around for a short while once or twice a year, but she'd skip out on even that if it meant being away from those she loved for too long.

Iris honestly felt that it was a shame that there wasn't better transportation in this world. Even with the new roads they would have, it wasn't like Iris could just reinvent carriages and carts. She didn't have nails or the know-how to build such things and could only make do with the way things were naturally in this world. Of course, the lack of carriages and carts now wouldn't stop Iris from building roads that were wide enough to fit two carriages going opposite directions on them. With any luck, it was likely the beast world would end up evolving much like her old world had and end up with such technology, eventually. It just likely wouldn't be within Iris's lifetime.

Of course, Iris worried about the future of the world she was in now. The air here was so fresh and the water in the rivers was unpolluted. It would be a shame for some things from her world to end up here and end up making a mess of things. The natural environment and abundant resources here were necessary for not just wildlife, but also the beastmen to live full and happy lives. Still, that wasn't something that Iris needed to worry about today. She could always try to leave warnings for her descendants in hopes they would listen and avoid the same mistakes her old world had made.

By the time Iris reached Blue Springs City, it was almost sunset. They must have lingered too long when they had made camp, on the way back, and ended up making the trip less efficiently than the first time around. Still, Iris smiled sleepily as she was helped by Basil to climb off Ember's back. Iris would have insisted that Ember and Birk take turns carrying her throughout the trip so neither would feel it was unfair, but she wasn't sure she could trust Ember. Unlike Birk who got along quite well with Basil, Ember didn't tend to like to be touched by others and avoided her other males outside of passing on any necessary information. Iris wasn't about to force him to do things outside his comfort zone and she wasn't about to risk Basil being thrown off his back only to plummet to his death either. Iris's new healing abilities could do a lot, but she was pretty sure she couldn't bring people back from such fatal injuries.

A guard must have noticed their arrival as Iris's family was waiting for her outside their home. While it might have been more difficult to determine who it was, normally, Ember's distinct appearance was a dead giveaway. An owl like Birk could easily be mistaken for any of the others from the same tribe flying through the sky, but Ember was the only Phoenix beastman that any of her people knew of.

Caspian smiled at Iris, relieved to see everyone was okay before gently escorting her inside. He quickly informed her

"Fern is almost done preparing dinner. We weren't expecting you home quite yet, so we only have simple soup prepared for the cubs. It is unlikely to be enough for all of us, so one of us will have to go hunting. If you want, you can wait and we can see about making something better or I think Holly's tea shop might still be open, if you'd prefer that."

As nice as the food Holly's mates cooked up was, Iris just wasn't in the mood to go out right now. She wanted to remain at home with her mates and was quick to assure

"No, it's fine. I'll just have some soup alongside the cubs. Is it seasoned? I know Fern likes to try and avoid giving the cubs anything with too much seasoning since they are still young."

Caspian pursed his lips as he slowly shook his head no and replied

"We really weren't expecting you all to return for almost another week since you gave us an initial estimate of two weeks. We were just going to finish whatever the cubs didn't eat. While you might be good to us, as males, we can't afford to become too spoiled that we become wasteful with the food."

Iris frowned at this. While she agreed that it was bad to be wasteful with food, she didn't like her males to suffer just for the sake of doing what was considered the right thing by this world's standards. Iris waved her hand as she said

"It'll be fine, we can just add some salt. While it would be more effective if we added it in sooner, it should be fine to add it in now too. If you all were going to eat it, then it is good enough for me too."

Well, that wasn't entirely true. Iris was quite aware that her males would eat plenty of things she wouldn't like raw meat or forcing themselves to eat over-salted or overcooked food. Iris couldn't bring herself to do such a thing, but eating an otherwise well-made soup that was just lacking in flavor was certainly doable.

As Iris sat at their living room table eating alongside her mates and watching her cubs play after eating rather quickly, Iris smiled. There really was no place quite like home.

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Did you know this series is finished on Patreon? All five volumes are available as PDF downloadable copies for a one-time fee of $10. As I don't plan to publish through Amazon or anything in the future, this is the only way to get an official copy of my work.

https://www.patreon.com/AutumnPlunkett