Haad ahlGerr

He had faint memories of a bright white landscape, of his feet being quite cold, and of teeth and brilliant gold eyes. Those memories were supposed to be washed away by time or his mother, but Haad still sometimes wondered what they were about. As a child he was rarely afforded much more than the basic education that the other Budak received, but as he grew older and would start exploring his surroundings... his punishments, while not physically painful, were certainly harsher in ways than the normal folk that R'ly kept around in the facility. Though he'd been born up in Bok, where the snow was an almost constant presence, and where that first zoo was built, he spent a lot of time watching from the observation areas over the Astel facility. He had watched as a dozen of his peers, Budak bred for rich folks to have as servants in their own warm and well-appointed homes, had been auctioned off and replaced by others from the labs.

His mother's facilities were clean but also a bit scary to him. He'd been in one other, belonging to another Peridian that his mother envied. The clacking of hooves and extended claws on the slick wooden floor of that strange facility weren't present in the Gerr breeding house; they'd installed textured padding on most of the hallway floors just so that R'ly and her father might move around silently on their hooved feet...

Haad remembered the weirdly-limb-heavy striped breeder they'd visited with a little twinge of R'ly's power warning him away from such things. Liintaelavaan was a 'real' animal master, with the Pelatih designation that followed from his education - or, as R'ly asserted, from his parentage lumping dozens of features onto him. R'ly's demeanor around that specific breeder-animal master was oddly changed that one day, when Liin had started 'looking too closely' at Haad.

What he would certainly have found, and what Haad's own four-footed sire certainly did when he was two up in Bok that one faintly-recalled day, was the level of psionic potential in his genes. That was something that R'ly didn't wish to deal with just yet. She'd explained once or twice, whenever Haad asked, really, why she was doing this. Because she needed him as a servant, as a Budak he was there to 'keep the peace' with the wolves at the door. If he wandered too far away from the zoos, those wolves might destroy everything she'd built there.

And as a child, he was fine with that. It made him feel somewhat more important than he might have otherwise. She certainly didn't dote on him, he'd been truly mothered by one of the middle aged Budak whose duties it was to be a wet-nurse as well as a helpful trainer for young servants. But R'ly had always made it eminently clear that Haad was 'very important to her'. So Haad lived reasonably well, if a little under-active. R'ly had done all the research necessary and managed to pay off at least one other Peridian who viewed Haad's genes in a lab - under a different name of course, but that breeder knew full well who his parents were. They kept secrets between each other, R'ly and this other breeder, and when he died all those secrets went with him.

Haad began to develop powers, when he was around 10 years old, and that worried his mother to a strange degree. So she encouraged him to use only a couple of them, not even those which were quite strong and very, very apparent to anyone with the ability to examine DNA with a power. She'd taken him on just enough trips around the world that he was impressed with certain places, and used those places to 'daydream' - literally dreaming, projecting into minds of the children and less-resistant others around him. Even R'ly could feel those dreams, but she was careful to never let them overtake her own mind. But entertaining the Budak? Oh that was perfect, that was just the right job, wasn't it? So he was put to the task of distracting her Budak before they were 'readied up' for sales, and when things were slow around the facility.

He put them in mind of a lush, warm beachside resort, where sand between their toes wasn't gritty but felt like silk, where the sun was the only thing beating down on their skin - and not his mother's power forcing their limbs straighter, their skin smoother and shiny. It saved a lot, she said, on anesthetics, to keep them psionically distracted instead of wasting valuable resources on Budak that would hardly remember it anyway.

Haad knew they did remember, but he could still put a more pleasant spin on their experience. He was always actually looking to be helpful; when they went to visit the Zoos he would join in the cleanup and watch the feedings with a bucket of scraps, or water down the walkways after a party. He would sniff at the air and get so many wild scents... Including those that were faintly familiar, always lurking around the north-eastern edge of the Bok facility. He was forbidden to go into the tunnel system in that Zoo, except if R'ly was with him. And she always held his hooved hand tightly when they were there. He caught glimpses of the blue and grey wolves, and the green and white ones, and those who had arms in addition to four legs. Haad wondered whether he would really want to run with them, or if he was content to be here, among the servants.

It was when, one day, he was at the edge of the Zoo's middle ring, near the 'winter woodland' enclosure, that he too-idly thought about those wolves. There were pictures, photos and paintings both, on the enclosure observation deck's walls - how the Ice Wolf had evolved and been made to evolve a bit more recently. What about seeing them up close? They hardly ever came close enough for anyone to view them, that was something he'd heard frequently enough from visitors. Maybe he could change that? He did. He tried, anyway. As a thirteen-year-old blossoming into his strongest powers, he sent out a call to those wolves. Come to me, let me see you!

And they answered.

A group of four long-furred wolves, all slightly more colorful than the paintings and photos showed, virtually ran into the area from their hiding spot below the hillside. And while this absolutely delighted the visitors, it positively mortified his mother. He could tell that for some reason, even though many of the visitors to the park were thrilled and would gush about it to their friends - to bring them here, it was pricey but worthwhile they said - that R'ly was terrified of this.

She punished him, not physically. She made sure that when he imagined using that power, the wolves would turn on him in his eyes. They were fierce, dangerous, deadly. And while he knew in his mind, he knew very deeply, that they were kin to him, he also believed her lies, the illusion was so strong. Or more aptly put: he was still too inexpert at trying to resist her influence, he believed the forced emotion of fear was his own.

Over time, this would happen with other abilities as they surfaced. He tried his hand one time, at shaping one of the Bayaran kids that were around the breeding house. He changed that boy's hand to resemble a flipper - and it wasn't even painful, it wasn't because he was aiming an illusion of a beach or a pleasant night sky at him, it was because he was also actively preventing the child from being in pain. While the boy was delighted that he had a flipper for a hand, all of a day later he realized that this was also a very bad thing when someone wanted him to bring a delicate serving tray to their lunch. That time, Haad was punished far more firmly - with both a stunning terror of using this power on anyone, as well as a backhanded hoof to the skull. R'ly was beyond furious. He dared not do this again, until and unless she alone willed it.

That time, he did fear on his own. He still in some way loved his mother, but R'ly was more scary now that he was growing up. Not 'ooh oh no the rich lady will sell me off' like he'd heard some other Budak say about her. But she will punish me ... by not allowing him even a little of his own power. He resented this, surely. But he kept it to himself. For many years.

As he became a young man, he occasionally tried nudging her toward allowing him to leave the Breeding House or the Zoo grounds on his own - if he was allowed to wear something, he could put that Budak pin that was requried also on it, right? He knew enough that the Budak and Bayaran leaving the auction house had to wear them at all times if they were out and about, but he didn't have any place to put it? R'ly had always told him he had fur, he didn't need clothing.

But she had fur too, and she--

It didn't matter. She taught him, whether she intended to or not, that certain people were to be avoided at all costs, and that others were 'safe'. See those three men with their blue and purple diamond-patterned sashes? They are bad. They will take you away. See those two women with the eagerly searching eyes, how they consult each other and look at datapads and point? They are bad. They will drag you into a lab and part us forever.

But he knew why the Zone officials wanted to see him. They knew why the Peridian had their "breeder's eye" on him. He did know he was special. Haad was still young, though, even a teenager wanted more to feel like he belonged than to fear exile or lonliness. As a Budak he was never really 'alone'. He... did sort of want a little time to himself, but he knew objectively that wasn't possible. He was too important to his mother's needs, and she was too paranoid about letting him out, for him to ever really get a bit of down time for himself.

Haad did some research on the sly, when he could, though. He could hear tourists talk about people, about places. And though he couldn't really see or feel their memories, he got the gist quite well. How big parties with lots of fancy dress outfits felt. How scary it was to go through that 'dungeon crawl' over in the north-west of Astel's cliff system. If he ever left evidence that he'd been snooping around the library, he might get punished, but in the end he could hardly read the advanced subjects of most of their contents. The Peridian guides? They were well above his education level, of course. No Budak 'should' be allowed to know those secrets of the lab. Maybe hold the book for their Lady or Lord, but not read it.

He'd noticed his mother acting a little odd while they were at the Bok estate. Not just the wolf-nervousness she always carried with her there, but something else. She'd gotten a call from someone claiming to be an official and it was something that Could Not Wait. He smelled her before she arrived - she smelled of clear water and wolf fur, she smelled familiar. He knew he'd never actually met this stunning upright wolf woman, but she was very much kinfolk to him.

Lheevdho arrived with a stack of papers and an angry look. Haad didn't think much of it, he was distracted as always by his mother's insistence that he be doing 'something else' whenever visitors were around. But - something was wrong. Something was bad, he felt her panic and the other woman's angry response to whatever she'd done.

Oh. Mother had tried to shoo her away? It didn't work? That was odd. That was scary in and of itself, really, and though he felt deeply sickened by his own impulse, Haad raced over to where the women were squaring off.

He had seen, down on the exhibit grasslands, how antelope would lower their head, how a predator would turn such a way to protect their own neck to ready themselves for an attack. This blue-furred wolf woman wasn't merely circling, however. She ... she did something incredible, he watched as her shape changed not only from a two-footed woman into a four-footed wolf, but into water. The smell of that waterfall of hair she had, it was literally water, falling. She was amazing, but she was attacking R'ly and he could not allow this. Protective, not even because his mother had bid him to act but because she was his only real family.

He sprang between them, and with all his might wished that they were at that pleasant beach, that sun-drenched resort.

And they went there.