The Trading of Skin Chapter 1 Liei Oavn let fly his arrow.

. He missed, the missile startling his prey, a plump bird with speckled plumage and a breast overly broad in proportion to the rest of its body. Alerted to his presence, his target took flight itself, disappearing into the foliage with a quiet squawk and a loud drumming of wings. Oavn responded in turn with a groan of frustration and a dismissive swipe with the arm bearing his weapon. He had barely missed his mark, the arrow practically parting the birds feathers, rather than striking true. This was the story of his life; a string of almosts in comparison to his older brother, Didus, many successes ... with one notable exception. Didu

had his one significant almost, one that still stung him in a very severe way. Oavn had never shared in that kind of failure. Heaving a sigh, Oavn glanced over his shoulder at the horizon. He preferred to hunt at night, by moonlight, but the glow along the tree-line was growing as dawn approached. He had little time left to make use of the fading shadows. That also meant little time left to lament the loss of the bird that had escaped him. He got to his feet with all too familiar resignation, creeping off in search of his next target. He tried to quiet his mind and focus on the hunt, but every failure brought with it reflection upon the differences between him and Didu. Their mother had often said that Didu was truly their fathers son. Agile, athletic and handsome, the elder brother of the pair excelled at everything. Along with being a better hunter than Oavn, Didu was also more knowledgeable in the ways of the noaidi. He had taken to the craft of healer and the position of spiritual leader far better than Oavn had, and everyone expected Didu to take their fathers place as Anrs noaidi, when he was ready. In the meantime, their mother filled that hole as best she could, a vacancy none of them had been prepared to face. Oavn paused and cringed at that thought, his entire body tensing with grief. A year was not enough to numb the pain sufficiently when it came to his fathers death, especially when Oavn considered it a senseless one. Perhaps because he had never absorbed the spiritual teachings of the noaidi the way his brother had, Oavn had never been able to come to terms with the sacrifice their father had made to spare an animals life. He understood that bears were sacred and that killing one would have brought their village great misfortune according to their beliefs, but Oavn did not consider that something worth the expense of his fathers future, nor had the man considered how his loss would impact the futures of his wife or sons. All three of them had lost more than just someone they loved when his father had used his body to shield the bear from the hunters ill-thought arrow. They had also lost his guidance and the stability he brought to their family. They had lost a spiritual leader and their only true connection to others in Anr, because Oavns mother, Jask, was a foreigner...an outsider. In a way, without his father, Osku, around to remind folk otherwise, his loss made Oavn and his brother outsiders too. Oavn glanced at the growing light on the horizon again, stopping long enough to straighten his hat and gkti. Both were ill-fitting, the hats earflaps barely covering his ears and the gktis skirt barely reaching mid-thigh, but he could not blame his mother for those failings. Jask wasnt a bad seamstress, but she was uncomfortable with delicate needlework, awkward and slow as a result, and Oavn had always grown more quickly than his peers. It was a stretch for Jask to keep up with his burgeoning and bulky form, Oavn outgrowing his clothing faster than she could make them. She did not bother with any decorative additions, his clothing plainer than the average outfit in Anr. She simply did not have the time for them.

The pace of Didus growth had been much more controlled. Not that Oavns brother was a small young man - Didus build was almost as sizable as Oavns but his increase in height and breadth had been more gradual, and he was leaner and lighter-boned comparatively. Fair of face and confident as well, Didu caught the eye of every young woman in Anr. It had come as a great surprise when the one he had chosen for himself, Rana, the chieftains daughter, had turned him away. She hadnt at first, receptive to Didus wooing, and flirting shamelessly with the young man, but when it had come time for Didu to ask her father for her hand, something had changed. First the chieftain had refused him, a surprise to most, and then Ranas disposition towards her former love had cooled, as if she agreed whole-heartedly with her fathers decision. The entire situation had bewildered Oavn and had crushed Didus spirit. He was still bitter over the matter, avoiding women and displaying sullen indignation ever since. Oavn heard the crackle of dried branches and a rustling of the bushes. Perhaps he would not go home empty-handed after all. He crouched behind a small sapling, trying to keep himself hidden for the most part while he craned his neck to see if anything would emerge into view. Then he readied his bow, while he attempted to still his breathing. He had wanted to gloat over his brothers misfortune with Rana, tired of always being the loser and pleased to see perfect Didu fail for a change, but his brothers sadness over the situation had hung so heavily over him that Oavn had felt guilty about even considering it. True, he had been envious that all of the pretty girls in the village had fawned over Didu when none of them would look at him twice, but he still loved his brother and didnt wish him ill-will. With their father gone, family ties were more important than ever. Oavn wasnt ugly, just intimidating, and the temperamental blow-outs he had on occasion made things worse. The women in their village feared him. They had all seen Oavn beat a grown man to within an inch of his life not long after Osku had died. Oavn still suffered great shame over that incident, hating himself for that horrible moment where he had lost all control. The man had been disgustingly disrespectful towards Jask that day. He had man-handled her and called her Oskus Haldi whore. Oavn hadnt fully understood the reference, but he had known it was meant as an insult. He couldnt recall clearly what had happened after that, only that he had seen red and in a rage, had thrown himself upon the man with murder in his heart. It had taken three grown men along with Didu and Jask to pull Oavn, barely more than a boy, off again. By that point, Oavn`s target had already been bloodied, broken and beaten to unconsciousness, a far too excessive retaliation for a groping and a verbal assault. To add further insult to Jask, being Anr`s temporary noaidi she was forced to spend weeks tending to her antagonists wounds, performing her duties in uncomfortable silence while Oavn watched her, shame-faced, knowing her predicament was all his fault. From that day on, the odd girl who might have offered him a suggestive glance or a friendly word had given him instead a wide berth, averting their eyes. In fact, all of the villagers

had made a point to avoid Oavn after witnessing him lose his temper. The only person who had been truly forgiving of his tirade had been his mother. Seeing him severely disheartened because of the event, she had given him a warm smile and squeezed his shoulders encouragingly with her broad hands. Its okay, Jask had said, her husky voice softer than it tended to be. You were coming to my defence. What you did...its in your nature. You truly are my son, in more ways than one, while Osku bred true in Didu. They should have known better than to provoke you. Theyll know better next time. But Oavn didnt want there to be a next time. He vowed he would never let his anger get the best of him again. If only he knew how it had gotten away from him in the first place. He had to figure out that much in order to guarantee he could hold to his oath. It was hard to prevent something you couldnt predict. Movement in the bushes directly opposite from his sapling dragged Oavn back from his reveries. If he were going to bag this prey and arrive home the victor that morning he would have to focus his attention fully on the task at hand. He nocked his arrow and raised his bow, holding his breath while he waited. What came next would have stolen that breath away had he not been holding it. When the foliage parted, a ghostly form stepped out, silvery-white in the remnants of the moonlight and tinged gold along the edges by a reflection of the yellowing sky to the east. The beast raised its antlered-head as it emerged into the clearing, snorting at the crisp early morning air and pawing at the dew-sodden earth. A white reindeer, Oavn thought, a portent of good fortune. If he felled that prey, hed be doubly blessed with a successful hunt and the promise of great things to come. He shivered with excitement as a thrill ran through his tired body. He drew back the bowstring. Mere seconds before he released his shot, the animal swivelled its blue-eyed gaze toward the brightening glow on the horizon. Oavn could have sworn he saw the reindeer start with the realization that dawn was approaching. His own surprise at its reaction caused him to hesitate just long enough that by the time he let the arrow fly, the reindeer was also in motion, leaping to rush off into the brush again. Oavn missed his target, as he had with the bird, failing to pierce the animals heart as intended. Unlike with the bird, he did not miss the white reindeer altogether. The arrow caught it in the haunch, embedding deeply into its pale flesh. The animal screamed, but did not stop, pushed forward by momentum more than anything else. It struggled to maintain its footing as one leg failed to respond to its demands, relying instead on the remaining three to force itself past the leafy branches and in amongst the trees. Oavn remained where he was at first, rather than pursuing, dumbstruck. Its cry still rang in his ears,

echoing something that seemed like a female voice. That cry had sounded entirely human, not the bleat of a wounded reindeer at all, but the scream of an injured girl. Oavn straightened into a standing position, staring after the animal. His head spun and he felt nauseous at the idea that his eyes may have deceived him. Had that not been a white reindeer, bearing a majestic set of antlers? He had seen it clearly in the mixture of recoiling night and encroaching day, and had no doubt of it, but his ears told him otherwise. There was no mistaking that voice either so which should he trust his eyes or his ears? What does it matter, he told himself. I have to go after it. Every hunter knew it was wrong to abandon a wounded animal to languish and die slowly, a victim of the missed shot. The least he could do was put it out of its misery. It would have been much easier to track the beast in the dead of winter, or at least during broad daylight, but there were still ways of locating without prints in the snow or brightly sunlit signs. Oavn could detect traces of blood, and because the beast had been hobbled it had left very obvious broken branches and disturbed greenery in its path. He would find it...he hoped. As he searched, he berated himself for yet another failure. He had been presented with ample opportunity to get in a clean shot before the animal had fled, but he had allowed himself to be distracted by imagined fancies, some belief that the beast had displayed a show of human intellect. Why he had been possessed by such a bizarre notion, he might never know. Didu would have never given in to such a silly thought. His brothers arrow would have been promptly released and would have made a clean kill. Where are you? Oavn growled after several minutes of searching had still left him at a loss. The reindeer was bleeding badly, leaving a distinct trail, but it had gotten farther than Oavn would have expected. He was grateful the lighting was still dim enough that the bloods crimson hue could not be seen clearly. Every time he saw blood, and was still in his right mind while seeing it, such visions brought him back to the day they had brought his fathers limp form home from the hunt. The wound he had taken had been close to his heart and had gushed blood. Oavns mother had been summoned just in time to watch his fathers heart throb its last beat, the scarlet stream slowing to a sluggish ooze. Jask had known Osku was dead before she had even reached his side. That was the only time Oavn had ever recalled seeing his imposing mother ever lose her composure. She had crumbled like the snow falling from a badly-bowed evergreen branch, sliding to the ground in a grief-stricken heap. For such a large, strong woman, she had suddenly looked very small and fragile. That moment had been the worst of Oavns life, worse even than the time he had lost control of his temper. He wished he could wipe it from his memory once and for all.

Oavn had been left almost as helpless as his mother once he had realized what had happened, paralyzed by shock and not even finding the initiative to pull her from the dirt and usher her away. Leave it to Didu to come to the rescue again. As stoic as ever, he had swept into the centre of the village and scooped their mother up with soothing words and gentle motions. The older, wiser brother had managed to contain his own sense of grief until he was sure she was welltaken care of. Only then, once Jask, Oavn and Didu were secure in their home, had he dropped the brave face and succumbed to the pain of loss as well. After the worst of it had passed, and Oavn had been left with an empty, lethargic numbness, he had started asking questions, trying to understand why his father had done what he had done why such a sacrifice? He had had a feeling his mother knew why, so he had started by prodding at her. She hadnt offered him the answers he was hoping to get, responding with vague half-truths, ones involving little explanation. It had felt as though she were purposefully hiding something from him, and Oavn still grew frustrated if he thought about it too much. Why, Mother? Why would he do such a thing? It was only an animal? That had been Oavns first question. It wasnt just an animal to him, Jask had sighed. You know bears are sacred animals and to kill one that close to a sieidi, so close to a worshipped stone and without the proper prayers, would have brought misfortune to all of Anr. Your father only did what would have been expected from a true noaidi. He didnt sacrifice himself just to preserve the bear, my vvu. She called Oavn and Didu that often, a pet name that meant my joy. He gave himself to protect us all. If that were actually the case, Oavn wondered why he felt more vulnerable now, with Osku gone, than he had while his father was alive. There had been a time when the other villagers had treated Oskus family with reverence, because they were blood of the rightful noaidi. Now, even though one of the brothers would someday take their fathers place, nobody seemed to care anymore. They lived like outcasts within Anr, as if they had never belonged, and never would again. You know the people of Anr have never welcomed outsiders, his mother would tell him. Before we were sheltered by your fathers presence, but hes not here to force them to respect us anymore. They see only me, a foreigner, and forget that your fathers blood still runs in your veins along with mine. Have patience, Oavn. That will change again once one of you takes the noaidi oath. Once that happens, your heritage wont matter. One of you will be their spiritual leader, and the respect and status that goes with that position will carry over to the rest of his family, just as it did with Osku. Perhaps that should have brought peace of mind to Oavn, but it didnt. After seeing the way the other villagers really felt about his family, and having that compounded by memories his own bad behaviour, he would always be suspect of anyone in Anr who treated him with kindness

or reverence. He would always wonder what they were really thinking, and if any positive response to him was a sincere one. He wasnt sure he wanted to live with that sense of mistrust. Before he could contemplate the matter further, Oavn came to a point where his prey had clearly stumbled and fallen. There was a splattering of blood and the foliage had been greatly disturbed. He saw no sign of the reindeer, so it had clearly risen again and pressed onward, but by that time it would have become staggered. It wouldnt have been able to go far. Now Oavn only had to scour the nearby forest and he would come across the animal eventually, dead or alive. He grinned, already able to picture the welcome he would get when he returned to the village with the snow white body perched atop his broad shoulders. For a moment, they would forget his mothers background and his own lack of control, and celebrate the good fortune he had carried home to them. Oavn pushed back the leaves before him, and moved into the thicket beyond. It was much easier to follow the blood trail now that the sun was peeking up over the horizon and illuminating each ruby red drop. He just had to follow the glimmer to find his runaway prey. Allowing his eyes to search up ahead, he caught sight of a silhouette that looked out of place, a graceful shape that was not part of the warm-season greenery. Then it moved, a slight shudder accompanied by a plaintive sound. Oavn was sure he had found his lucky white reindeer. Slipping his bow up over his shoulder and drawing his duodji, with its antler handle and scrimshawed blade, he advanced upon the animal to put an end to its suffering. It took only a few more paces forward for him to realize that this was not the reindeer he was looking for, or at least, based on the naked feminine human form before him, he assumed it wasnt. Only, he could definitely identify the arrow jutting from the young womans bloodied thigh as his, the fletching dyed to match the colours of his household so nobody other than Didu could possibly lay claim to his prey. Bewildered and horrified by the idea that he had somehow shot a person instead of a beast, Oavn crept quietly forward. From a distance, one might have mistaken this girl for the animal, curled in on herself the way she currently was and her skin as white as the reindeers had been, but her fine, white-blond hair did nothing to suggest she had borne the majestic set of antlers Oavn had clearly seen. As well, his eyesight was certainly not bad enough to mistake her thin lithe form for the rugged four-legged one that had stepped out of the bushes, even if the lighting had been dim. Before Oavn had reached her, the young woman must have heard his approach because she twisted where she lay, trying to get a look at him. The act apparently caused her great pain because a tremor ran through her body and she yelped, extending a small shaky hand towards her bloody wound. Her face creased with pain, her eyes finally met Oavns, as blue as those he had looked into when he had been inclined to hesitate with his shot.

Her gaze tugged at his heartstrings when the same look of intellect, that self-awareness contained within that differed man from animal, captured Oavn and left him consumed with guilt. This was the beast, in truth a girl, whom he had targeted and injured. He rubbed frantically at his eyes. How had it been possible to confuse the two so completely? Either his sight or his mind was playing tragically dangerous tricks on him, and this innocent young woman had paid the price for it. He had fouled up again, worse than anticipated, and now he had to make amends. Sheathing his duodji, Oavn crouched beside the woman. She whimpered something once she noticed him there, and to his surprise he recognized that the words were in his mothers dialect, a strange and archaic version of the Samit tongue that in Anr only he, Didu and Jask understood. Was this girl one of his mothers people? He had never met another of her kind. Be still. Im going to lift you, very carefully, and take you to a noaidi for healing. Hearing him speak in her tongue brought an instant look of relief to her tortured face. She smiled at Oavn weakly, a gesture that nearly broke his heart, bringing with it another wave of guilt, and she reached out for him. Tightly grasped in one of the hands that she extended towards him he noticed a snow-white deerskin. Had he mistaken her for the animal because she had been wrapped in that? He felt even worse for it, thinking he had seen her as a reindeer because thats what his vivid imagination had wanted him to see. As he gently took her in his arms, he asked her for her name. Gazing up at him with gratitude, she managed to whisper Liei before collapsing into a dead faint. Pulling her in close, he listened to see if she lived. Her pulse was not strong, but it was there, and she was still breathing, but she had lost a lot of blood thanks to his mistake. Tense with anguish, he struggled to a standing position while cradling Liei to him. He carefully shifted her so she would be easier to carry, draping her deer skin over her in order to protect her from the wind and no doubt a slew of prying eyes once he arrived with her at Anr. He was surprised that she still gripped the skin firmly in her hand, even in unconsciousness, and she was much lighter than he had been expecting for a woman of her height, a frail thing that was mostly skin and bones. He soon wished she had been dressed properly because he found contact with her along the way horribly distracting. Oavn chided himself for noticing things about her he should be ignoring at a time like this. Her face held a sublime natural beauty, one that stirred feelings in him none of the girls in his village had ever done, feelings reinforced by her current state of vulnerability. Every careless movement that, as he struggled to make his way back to Anr and his mothers healing skills, resulted in contact skin to skin made him quiver slightly and caused his groin to ache, generating lustful animal thoughts. It took all of his willpower not to bury his face in her silken hair and breathe her musky scent in deep. The only thing that allowed him restraint was a series of constant reminders that the girl in his arms was likely dying, and it was all his fault.

She stirred very little as he staggered his way onward, just enough to assure him she still lived. He was grateful for those movements, inspiration to keep him going. While she did not weigh all that much, he had quite a distance to clear in order to reach his home, and by the time he was most of the way there, his limbs felt like unresponsive rock and his breath was coming in ragged gasps. Fortunately, his mother had grown worried when they had awoken to his absence and by mid-morning he had still not returned. Jask had sent Didu out to find him, worried that Oavn had been hurt or even killed while on the hunt. Oavn had never been happier to see his brother, close to collapse himself when Didus form appeared amongst the trees. Oavns arms and legs trembled violently when Didu took Liei from him. The deerskin slipped aside to reveal the girls injury and the older brother frowned. Oh brother, what have you done this time, he said, noting the colour of the fletching jutting from the wound and shaking his head. Oavn, with an ashamed whimper, slid down to his knees on the mossy ground. I...thought...she...was...a...reindeer, he admitted breathlessly. It...was...an...accident. Its always an accident with you, Didu retorted, his expression stern. Well, at least you had the good sense not to pull the arrow. She would have bled out otherwise before you got this far, and shes in bad enough shape as is. He turned, clutching Liei to him like a large doll and began to head back to the village. He paused briefly and turned to look back at Oavn when he realized his brother wasnt following, Come on then get to your feet and come along. I cant carry the pair of you, can I, and I have a feeling that with this disaster youve caused, mother will need the both of us to help her with tending a wound as severe as this one. Lets just hope she can save her. With a curl of his lip and a harsher scowl, Didu turned again and walked away, leaving Oavn to pick himself up off the ground. Dragging his exhausted body to its feet, Oavn drew in a deep ragged breath. His brothers words stung, but not as badly as his own internal dialogue, slinging blame and insults for yet another failure. He wondered if he would ever be the one to get things right for a change, if he would someday be able to offer the world something that Didu couldnt do better. With these thoughts in mind, and several prayers to the gods to spare Liei from his incompetence, Oavn followed tearfully after his brother.