Reborn as a Side Character in the Beastworld

Chapter One Hundred and Six

*Those of you who know, know this is how I deal with writer's block.

"OI! YOU CAN'T PUT THAT UP THERE! THE WHOLE THING WILL FALL! ARE YOUR EYES ON YOUR FACE FOR DECORATION?!"

He woke to the sounds of construction and of a very angry female's voice. His head hurt and his throat was dry, but worse than that was that was the throbbing pain of his arm. It ached to a maddening degree. He groaned and managed to squint his eyes open against the bright light of a midday sun.

"Finally awake?" Said a young male voice.

Muir turned his dark eyes to his side where a male with black scruffy hair was washing his hands in a stone basin. Muir looked around in confusion. He was lying on a bed of furs on a dirt floor inside a hastily made shelter. One wall was the side of a large boulder with a short roof that extended out like an awning and held up by two thick wooden beams. The sides of the shelter were thick, tanned leathers, tied to the roof beams and staked down into the ground.

The throbbing in his arm was demanding back his attention and he tried to lift it into his line of sight.

"UGH!" Just the smallest of moments had his nerves screaming at him and he quickly gave up.

The boy's golden eyes looked up from his hand washing, "Hurts, doesn't it? It's best not to move it. It will take a while before it heals. There is a cup of tea on your left. It has pain reliever in it."

Muir's confusion only deepened. Shouldn't he be dead? Didn't he bleed to death after Qingqing had found out what he'd done? It was what he deserved. Then why was he still in pain?

"What-" he tried to ask but his throat was too dry to speak well. He looked to his left and found the cup the wolf had spoken about. Using his good arm, he quickly drained it. "What happened? Where am I?"

"You are in the Tiger King's village. We found you near the burnt forest. You've been unconscious for a couple weeks."

"Why didn't you leave me there? I should have died!" Muir, angry that he had to live even one more day without Qingqing's love yelled at the youth.

The wolf just shrugged and shook his shaggy head. "It wasn't my call to make. The Tiger Queen wanted us to help. So, we helped. It's that simple. If you have a problem with it, you can talk to her..." He pondered for a moment how that might go. "But I don't think anyone would let you near her right now, since they don't trust you. Even if you could get close, she'd probably just ignore you. She gets irritated pretty easily lately."

Tears of frustration wet the corner of the eagle's dark eyes and all the muscles in his body gave up their struggle. He lay there like a dead man, staring at the ceiling.

"Since you've been asleep for so long, your muscles won't want to work right away. Just rest. I'll go get you something to eat."

Muir watched as the youth grabbed a stick off the floor and used it to push himself off the ground into a standing position. Then the boy left the shelter, stick in hand. He noticed the stiffness of the wolf's leg that caused him to slightly limp. A large scar ran from the knee to the middle of the shin. The sight gave him a strange stifling feeling in his chest and he couldn't help but look at his arm covered in thin strips of hide and tied to a plank of wood.

He knew who the Tiger Queen was. Knew this wolf was her healer mate's apprentice. And he'd always wondered what it was the made her keep the weak and damaged next to her. Did she want to add him to her collection of freaks? He refused to give her the satisfaction. He didn't care if she had saved him. When he was strong enough, he would find someone stronger to kill him. Then all this unbearable pain could end and Qingqing would get her wish.

He grimaced at the thought of her and his throat closed up with overwhelming emotions. How stupid he had been. How could he have ever thought that a female as kind as her, would forgive him for hurting or killing those she cared for? He had been naïve. And now, he would never see her again...

The youth came back with seasoned meat. Muir could only take a couple bites before he remembered how much Qingqing liked to add medicine to meat. His stomach then twisted and he could palate no more.

For another seven days Muir was cared for by the wolf. Occasionally the healer leopard would stop by to see how his pupil had progressed with his patient. But besides them, no one else came to see the wounded eagle. Unfortunately, it did not mean he was left in peace. Though he couldn't see anyone from his place in the shelter, from morning until night, he could hear commanding voices and vigorous movements of beasts building their new village.

The wolf, Oliver, would tell him about the unique building styles their queen had introduced to them and he gushed about her care and consideration of everyone in the village. No one resented her when she barked an insult or two because they came to know the female was all bark and no bite. In fact, they often laughed at her irritation, which only made her more irritated. Oliver talked about Queen Bailey more often than not and it became clear to Muir that the wolf was in love with his queen. When he pointed this out, the wolf's face turned tomato red and he ran from the shelter with cries of negation.

When Muir finally had the strength to stand, using the short ceiling beams to support himself, he walked to the door flap and opened it wide. What he saw amazed him.

His shelter was uphill from the wide glimmering lake, giving him a clear view of the construction he'd only been able to hear till now. Homesteads on wide plots of land surrounded the lake. They were built like nothing he'd ever seen before with thick, blackened beams of wood in H shapes and white, straw and weed filled mud between them forming walls. The buildings had legs that stood on tall, wide stones buried deep into the earth, wooden walkways around the outside and steep roofs of bundled straw. The homes that looked to be finished had females and their mates using clay to decorate the white walls with pretty stones and carve great wooden doors with pattern designs of geometric shapes or leafy vines.

He stood in awe watching a village no none could have imagined being erected. And for the shortest of moments, he forgot about Qingqing.