WOLF

Connections

Taree winced as Jan threaded another stitch into her shoulder.
"Ever heard of anaesthetic?" She mumbled irritably.

"You've never seen what that stuff does to our kind, have you?" Jan replied curtly, "It's like how they say after you've been to the dentist to get a tooth pulled or something, you can't feel it when you bite your cheek. It's like that, but instead of biting your cheek the numb part is morphing without you wanting it to. But only that part. You'll suddenly get a disfigured shoulder that doesn't work because the bones are halfway between human and wolf."

Taree grimaced, deciding that the stitches felt better than that, and realising that her adoptive family had never allowed her to have anaesthetic as a child. 

A new figure stepped into the room, his brown hair hanging low over his shoulders. His slight frame resembled that of Vic, but his hairstyle seemed much more kept. That, combined with the modest way he held himself showed a clear relation to Jan.

"Hey, Aeschylus..." Taree waved shyly, "Sorry about your arm..."

Aeschylus looked down at his arm, wrapped in bandages to hide the series of small cuts and stitches. He looked back at her, a calm smirk on his face, "Nah, it's fine. Not too different than when my boys try to practice fighting on me. The girls have the sense not to," He added with a laugh.

Taree smiled, "I didn't know I was an aunt. No one mentioned you had kids," she glanced at Jan, who had stopped working on her shoulder and was staring at his younger brother in shock.

"You have kids?" He hissed, "Since when? How did you have kids before I even got a girlfriend?"

Aeschylus narrowed his eyes mischievously as he passed them to the kitchen sink, "We all know you don't swing that way, Jan. And as the second oldest, of course I'd be the first to give mum grandkids."

Jan stared at him for a moment, his mouth agape, "You could have told us!"

"Just don't tell her she's a grandmother," Taree smirked, noticing that Jan didn't deny it, "Don't think she wants to think she's old just yet."

Aeschylus clicked his fingers at her, clearly thankful for the idea, "See? That's totally why I haven't told you all. Don't want mum feeling old."

Jan rolled his eyes, finishing Taree's stitches, "How long ago?"

Aeschylus shrugged, "A few months. They don't want to leave their mother's side just yet, and I don't think the people around here would appreciate a dingo strolling through town with five kids, so they stayed back at the den."

Jan opened his mouth again, his eyes wide, but only mouthed the word 'five' a few times with varying degrees of confusion and disbelief.

Taree giggled, dropping down from the bench, being careful to not land on her injured leg, and leaving the room for Jan to process the fact that he was an uncle. She met Esben in the living room, laying on the couch with his legs dangling off the edge. Vic was talking to him casually, leaning over the back of the couch as though it had only been a few months since he'd last seen him, unlike Aeschylus who'd clearly been separate from the family for years. They looked up as Taree walked in, and Vic smiled. He stopped leaning on the back of the couch and strolled over to her. 

"How's your neck?" He asked pulling the collar of her shirt back to see the stitches.

Taree slipped from under his arm teasingly, walking backwards to the couch where Esben was watching her with an unreadable expression. "So, did you hear? Aeschylus has kids."

Esben grunted, "Just like him to not tell us. Not like we care about there being more wolves in the area. Not like shifters are being hunted into extinction by freaks like Badger." Taree paused. He wasn't anything like his brothers. He seemed bitter and dull, with just a spice of sarcasm differentiating him from a robot. "I've heard rumours about him," he continued, staring at the roof distantly, "Some say he used to be a shifter, or perhaps still is. Just thinks that his kind doesn't deserve to live. I wonder if he plans to commit suicide once he kills the rest of us."