Not A Mate

Family Lines

Meanwhile at the Smaten household:

"The settlers dragged her out of the prison cell, foolishly as she was quite willing to walk to her death; she knew the council's decision. She also felt it was worth saving all of the children if it cost her life, her brother had not been permitted to see her after they took her to the settlement." Mary Smaten dictates to Jake as he weeds her tomato plants, Mary keeping an eye on the two cats scampering back and forth in a nearby walnut tree.

Jake pauses and looks up, "can you explain who Nancy is related to directly and how they are related?" Mary nods her head, "I will; but Maahes would be a better choice in this case, However I imagine that depends on how well your science skills are." Jake winces in response, she continues; "alright then." She gives him a look, "you might want to crack a book then or your grandfather will run you through the ringer. Witches tend to be good at the biological sciences. They are also kinda good at chemistry, the best chemists in the witch community tend to make medicines for other supers." Jake nods his head, and Mary zooms her eyes on Zipper who is hanging from a branch ; but Dang isn't bothered so she just watches.

"As to her lineage, Nancy as you know has Lobo for an uncle. In this country she also has a few sloth distant cousins and a rare thunder bird shifter. Maahes, while raised in the same tribe as Scartooth and Lobo, was a 'Luck Born'." She turns and gives Jake a look, "this was explained yes?" Jake nods his head, "yeah I got the full explanation for the luck born already. Though with his age how could an American Lion be a luck born?"

Mary smiles, "well as with anything the Gods are fickle beings. Maahes' mother was a cougar, while she only knew she had a larger than normal cub, yes he was born in his cat shape. It was her cub, so she did what she was suppose to. One of the hunters for the tribe had killed his mother and seeing she had been nursing he found her den and discovered the cub. Knowing a cougar cub is not that size he brought the cub back, figuring that Lobo would be able to tell if he was a shifter or not. His first encounter with Maahes as a cub Maahes hissed at him."

Mary smiles thinking about it, "apparently Scartooth thought it was very adorable. You know how young kittens when they run into a person the first time they hiss at it. Here this little ball of fuzz was hissing at a giant wolf in human form, very cute." Jake laughs, "I could picture that scene very well."

Mary nods her head, "Scartooth had to teach effectively a six month old baby how to shift form. They used her because they thought he might react better to a female cat than the funny smelling wolf. As the child still needed to be nursed and Scartooth had not had her daughter at this time. The only way one of the women of the tribe would nurse him is if was in human form." Jake nods his head picking a horn worm off of the tomato plants. "That is a reasonable request, I hope it wasn't too hard to teach the baby how to." Mary points to a small bucket for Jake to drop the worm into for the chickens, "it didn't the baby was too hungry to argue. It wasn't easy however as a cat's vision and that of a human baby are very different. So she had to hold her hand on his cheek and shift with touching him so he could understand that there was something different."

Jake drops the worm in the bucket and then carefully examines the remaining plants, there is never just one horn worm. "Well, I'm sure trying to get a baby to do enough thinking to come to the understanding of dual forms would be tricky. So that's all the family Nancy has?"

Mary goes back to watching the cats, who are out of sight except for their tails in the tall grass bordering the edge of the forest. "Yes, as oddly in this country the 'specials' are all in one family line; with a rare 'luck born'. The rest of the world is vastly different, most of their 'specials' are all 'luck born'. It is thought that is because the 'native people' of this continent worked with the 'specials' verses killing them from not understanding them."

Jake pauses on a cherry tomato pulling three horn worms, "is that what happened? They just killed them? I thought that non humans had been known for a few centuries." Mary nods her head watching the cat tails dance in the tall grass, "I'm sure your grandfather has spoken to you about the various 'inquisitions' over the ages against the supers?" Jake frowns, "yeah; and then they'd cover it over by calling it a search for heretics." Mary nods again relaxing once the cats come out of the grass to lay in the sun, "it was worse for 'specials'. Especially for the mega fauna types, I had heard a story how in one of the middle aged zoos at a duke's palace a mastodon was born. They killed the baby and then slaughtered the whole herd of elephants and burned all of the bodies thinking it was evil."

A branch breaks behind Mary and she turns to see Jake look pissed off and a tree branch on the ground just outside of her garden from the walnut tree. She shakes her head, "get a grip on those emotions Jake. There is a lot of ugly history out there that you need to learn about." He still looks like he wants to kill something, "why? Why do I need to know some sick bastards killed a newborn because it didn't fit what they thought it should look like?"

Her husband come up behind Jake placing a hand on his back, "because Jake. If you don't know that bad deed of people how can you smile upon the good things? How do you prevent it from happening again?"

Mary nods her head agreeing with her husband, "Jake here is a hard truth. There are those in the super community who have problems with people like Nancy and her family." That made Jake look angrier, "for the love of the Gods why?" Mary shrugs her shoulder while shaking her head, "I have no idea. Maybe they are jealous of their power?" Another branch falls as Jake's face turns red and Dang rushes over, "jealous of their power? What trite! I saw what that power did to Nancy, I doubt she would object if she lost that extra power."

Dang jump's onto Jake's shoulder and Jake shoves his head into the cat's side as Greg tugs at Mary's pants. "Um, Mrs Smaten. Dang said to tell you that June made Seamus very angry and that he might do something wrong." Mary freezes and very slowly pats Greg's head, her husband going white faced. Jake looks between the two raccoon's, "what's wrong?" Mary answers, "my son's future sister in law might have just set off Seamus. I don't know what she did to do that, but being a demonic entity."

Jake nods his head getting the point, "I'll get Doug and head over there with him; should Brenda come with?" A female's voice rings out, "come with where?" Jake turns around, "I need to take Doug as your sister got Seamus angry. Brenda's eyes go cold, "I bet I know what happened." She turns to Doug who had come out with her, "my sister doesn't like 'specials', she thinks there is something wrong with them. She also has a personal issue with cursed shifters. One of out childhood friends became cursed and they had to be put down."

Doug gets the gist and runs back into the house, most likely to retrieve his keys and Brenda turns back to Jake and her future parents in law. "I will go with to attempt to settle this down. I love Nancy, and how close she and Doug are. I won't let my sister interfere with my future because she cannot be polite at least."

As they head to the car Dang speaks, "I'd hurry. He is attacking the guards and if he can best them they might shoot first with blessed ammo." Doug goes white faced knowing that for a cursed blessed ammo with do damage if not outright kill a cursed shifter.