Hannibal The Summoned. Episode 7

Angus’s Secret.

Angus looks at the human in disgust. He sighs, puts Kaira down, and walks off into the woods because Samson and Kaira did not get dinner. So he decides to get it himself to escape this disastrous human.

Shera and Hannibal look at one another, confused, as Kaira runs up to Shera shouting, “Mom!”

Lifting her, Shera kisses her forehead, smells sweat, uttering “oh, love you stink, we need a wash.”

Kaira looks down embarrassed not saying a word, Shera turns to Hannibal remarking “can you check up on him, I'm worried, just don't be seen.”

Nodding his head, Hannibal walks off in the direction Angus went, with the fly following Hannibal. Shera walks to the river right beside the camp and cleans herself up with Kaira.

Samson sits down beside the elder, he looks at her. Noticing she was asleep, he gently picked up the elder in a cradle position, brought her back her long tarp, and placed her gently on her bed area.

Samson breathes heavily as he walks out of the tarp, itching his ear. He noticed the chair where the elder sat, thinking it would be a good idea to sit on it, but as he did, as he placed his cheeks on the sticks, the chair fell apart, as he was too heavy, making him fall on his back.

He stays there, sighing, deciding this was a good time as any to fall asleep, and as soon as he closes his eyes, he falls straight to a slumber. Meanwhile, half an hour later, Shera and Kaira finish washing up and put back on their clothes. Shera makes things fun for Kaira, asking, “What do you call that tree?”

“Oak.” Kaira remarks.

Nodding her head Shera saying happily “correct, and what's that animal up on the oak tree?”

Thinking for a moment, Kaira blurts out, “flying squirrel.” Smiling Shera nods her head once more.

Shera looks around as she decides that they will walk back to the camp; however, as they get out of the opening that would not be in the cards, she senses the air, a presence, around the riverside further up the stream. Only one thought, believing it to be a threat, Shera looks at Kaira, and tells her to go home without her, which she does, and Shera braces herself for what this thing was or could be.

Kaira gets home without incident, and as she gets home, she notices her father asleep on the ground. Shera, on the other hand, walked towards the presence she felt; it was faint but still noticeable.

She slowly walks to a bush where now her heart races, pulling the bush leafs aside, seeing a human child cowering in fear, giving a sigh of relief she utters simple “go home now, child.”

Shaking his head, the child utters in fear, “No, I can't, please don't eat me.”

“Why...?” Shera asks.

The child utters, “My friends would think I'm a coward.”

Realizing now what is happening, she gives another sigh looking up and around seeing no one, she then looks back at the scared child putting out her hand, the child looks at her hand seeing the claw like nails and elongated fingers to his, the child swipes her hand away saying again “please, please, don't eat me.”

“Listen, boy, go home now or I will do as you think,” she says in frustration.

The child still doesn't move; all he did through the fear was soil himself. Shaking her head, she grabs his hand, lifting him to his feet, with the child falling to the floor because of his weak legs, through the fear of what is in front of him, growing in frustration, she asks, “Can you walk?”

Nodding his head to say yes, she rubs her eyes “ok then child, follow me, I won't hurt you, but you will be hurt if you dont follow me.”

Shera walks off to the river leaving the child to think, the child sniffed his nose wiping the tears from his face. He then slowly gets to his feet peering out behind the bush seeing the Tiefling kneeled at the river with it back turned away from him.

The child steps out of the bush with Shera hearing the rustling of the leaves she says, “you ready to go?” standing up not looking at him.

She begins to walk of in the direction of the human village, the boy following a few steps behind nervously fidgeting with his hands they said not a word to one another.

About a mile outside the village, up on top of a slope visible to be seen in the distance, Shera stops. The child, not looking where he was going, bumps into her.

Scared he rases his hands covering his eyes afraid on what the Tiefling would do, but all Shera did was say this “go home, say you fought me and won to your friends.” gesturing towards the town for the child to go to the village.

The child looks at the village confused, then back at Shera, with her simply turning around and walking off, not saying another word.

The child just watched as she disappeared behind some bushes and trees. As she walked away, she looked up to the sky, seeing it was getting dark rather fast, so she headed home slightly quicker.

Getting home there was everyone happy, well mostly, at least Angus was here although still angry looking, carving on some wood.

Earlier that day, Hannibal walked through the woods trying to follow Angus. But no luck, he couldn't find him, high up nor low down, he was about to turn around to walk back to the camp however, before he did, he saw what looked like horns, so he took a few steps and out popped a deer running off in the opposite direction.

Sighing, he remarks, “I guess not.”

He looks up at the large tree branch, thinking he might see better from up there, so he climbs up the tree looking around and waiting, waiting and waiting until he again sees horns, but this time it was him, Angus, he being on the ground crouched walking past Hannibal, not seeing him.

As he went out of view, Hannibal stayed above in the trees, climbing across them as silently as he could. As he went, he came across Angus kneeling behind a bush, Hannibal sat on the tree with one of his legs dangling from the branch while the other was bent to his chest, holding onto it.

Just watching what Angus was at, the fly flew onto the bark beside Hannibal, also watching both what was happening.

Angus looked at the trap he created, mumbling to himself, but as a horned deer came into view, he shut up and waited, waited for the deer to walk onto it, slowly but surely it gradually grazed towards the trap with Angus muttering to himself, “come on you little...”

The deer stepped around it, and Hannibal thought, "Just use geasa, and it would be easy. Why isn't he?" Itching his head.

Angus thinks for a moment concluding to run at the deer, so he gets up and as he does the deer jumps in fear, turning around and kicks, but as Angus ran, he trips over a stick falling into the deers kicking hoofs, pushing him back into the bushes where he ran from with him saying, “Ow damn it, why don't you just make me go faster even yet.”

Once the deer kicked, it placed it's foot in the trap and as it did the rope got pulled and lifted the deer by its leg, sitting up Angus not noticing Hannibal looks at the deer ready to take its meat, so he humainly as possible killed it and started skinning it, taking its meat, him frustratedly mustering louder than before being able to be heard by Hannibal.

“Of course, Samson does not get the food, they would rather goof off and train, the one thing Shera told Samson not to teach her. And this would be so much easier if they did it, they have the power to, but it all falls on me, a powerless Tiefling, a disgrace to my kind, why, father, why not give me powers like them?”

Hearing this, Hannibal narrowed his eyes not in anger but in confusion, as how a tiefling does not have powers?

Angus finished up collecting what he cut, but he realised he forgot to bring something to carry the meat, so he started cursing, hitting his face. After a moment, he thought about what he could do. Looking down, he decided to use that.

Taking of his body armour placing each meat slabs onto it like a plate, as he did that the fly flew by Hannibal's ear, with Hannibal hearing it he tries to swat it away, the fly lands on the bark with Hannibal hitting the bark thinking he got it but it just flew out from between his fingers flying away from him.

The noise of the bang alerted Angus, jumping to his feet, pulling out his knife, looking around, and eventually he noticed the human sitting in the tree, asking, “You have come to take me out, have you? Well, I'll kill you first.”

Shaking his head, Hannibal remarks, “I'm not here to kill you.”

Not convinced, Angus remarks, “I don't believe you?”

Smiling Hannibal says, “Well, you can believe what you want, but I amn't.”

Confused, Angus says, “Then why follow me?”

Thinking for a moment, he remembered the only thing she said not to do was to avoid getting caught, but that was out the window, so he decided to tell him, “Shera’s worried about you, so she told me to see how you are doing.”

Staying quiet for a moment, Angus looks down at the meat, thinking. Shaking his head, “you're just trying to make me lower my guard, so get down here so I can kill you.” he says while pointing at him.

“No,” Hannibal says playfully.

But Angus having none of it he grabs a loose stone and throws it at Hannibal missing him but only barely, with Hannibal remarking “here stop, I didn't want to say this but if you hurt me, you hurt Shera.”

Taking that as a threat, Angus says, “If you hurt her in any way, I'll...”

Hannibal intrudes, “No, no, you are not hearing me. From the training I did with her there today, we found out that if you hurt me in any way, you will hurt Shera in the same way.”

Confused Angus remarks, “I don't get it.”

“Neither do we.” Hannibal retorts.

Then a silence fell between them. Angus thought that the human had heard his secret, and he is going to tell everyone how much of a failure I am as a Tiefling. he looks back up at Hannibal, “Here, human, how much did you hear... me speaking that is?”

Nodding his head, he says not intending anything with it, Hannibal says, “everything.”

Feeling embraced, his face goes redder than it already is, he picks up the armour that held the meat, saying with a sigh, “You better not tell anyone about this.”

Nodding his head in agreement, he hops down saying, “I notice you call me human, my name is Hannibal, ok; do you need a hand with that, it looks heavy.”

Staying quiet, Angus shakes his head. He continues walking faster ahead of Hannibal back to camp. Getting to the camp, he notices Samson lying on the floor with Kaira lying beside him, so he doesn't say a word. He starts on dinner, with Hannibal standing just watching him.

Looking at him in frustration, “If you want to be some help, and not stand there like a fool, get me two sticks that are shaped like this,” he says, putting up his hand in the shape of a Y.

Hannibal looks around, seeing exactly what Angus was talking about, so he grabs two and attempts to give them to Angus, but he remarks, “You know how to make a fire, don't you?” Hannibal shakes his head to say no, itching his face. Angus says, “Right, you are useless then. See, put the stones around the fire, and plant the sticks beside it, one on each side.”

Doing this, Samson woke up, he looked over to see Hannibal kneeling next to him with his back turned, then he noticed Kaira lying next to him, sleeping.

He sits up carefully, trying not to wake up Kaira, however, she wasn't asleep. Samson stood up and so does she, attempting to scare her father but her jumping and playfully hitting her father's back she shouts “boo.” It didn't scare Samson, but it did scare Hannibal.

He jumps up and bumps into Samson, looking behind himself, he sees an intimidating male Tiefling. Hannibal says, “You scared me, you... You were sleeping there? Did you sleep well?”

Samson says not a word, he just looks at him emotionlessly. Hannibal nods his head, trying to avoid the awkward silence. Seeing this, Kaira tries to speak, trying to step out from behind Samson. However, Samson had other plans. He holds out his hand, stopping her.

He points at Angus, understanding what he meant, Kaira walks off to help Angus. Leaving Samson and Hannibal alone, seconds passed that felt like minutes with Hannibal avoiding Samson's intense gaze, with a whisper for the first time Samson spoke to Hannibal, uttering “Tá muinín agam as mo bhean chéile, ach níl muinín agam asat..”

Hannibal looked down at the ground, understanding what he meant, he did not say a word to him. All he did was go back to putting the sticks into the ground.

As he did, he just looked over at Samson as he went into his and Shera’s tent, picking up a piece of paper, drawing, and writing down something.

He walks outside and goes straight to Angus, handing him the paper, grabbing it, he reads it (an féidir leat é seo a dhéanamh, déanfaidh mé an bia.)

Nodding his head he remarks “I'll get draw a few ideas and I'll show you later, yea?”

Smiling, he takes the place of Angus as he stands up. Samson whispers loud enough for Angus to hear “ná inis do Shera”

Nodding his head, Angus goes off and starts drawing stuff on the ground, trying to think of what kind of design to make.

However, before he could start, Shera stepped out from behind the bushes. Angus looks up from cutting wood. He crosses his arms and frowns, trying to think. Shera walks up to Angus, asking, “How are you feeling now?”

Angus replies with a sigh “oh I'm fine, just awfully tired and because of the thing over there.”

Pointing at Hannibal she says, “who him, he’s under my command, summons is not to do anything their summoner says not to do, he will not hurt anyone in this camp by my command.”

Hannibal looks up at everyone as he was finished with the fire trying to think on what to do, as he looked around the annoying fly flew around his face with him swiping it away, Shera and Angus look at him with Shera remarking “you think that is a threat?”

Angus simply remarked, “Yes,” as he walked off.

Looking at him, thinking what the matter was, she put on a happy face and went to Kaira and Samson to help with dinner.

Later that day, they finished prepping everything to eat, and Kaira ran off to fetch Angus.

She reaches him and says, "Dinner's ready." Angus smiles, putting down the stick.

They both arrived back moments later, and Angus started to secure the meat onto sticks and place them over the fire, asking, “Can one of you light that?”

Kaira didn't see anyone move, so she went to the campfire wanting to use her Draíocht, she puts out her hand, but before she could say anything Shera notices this and runs to Kaira holding her arm, remarking, “I told you before, you are not going to use Draíocht whatsoever.”

Angry Kaira says rather loudly, “But why can't I?”

Raising her voice also, Shera says, “because you're too young,” saying that Kaira storms off away with Samson going after Kaira.

Watching all this unfold, Hannibal sat on the rock far from the campfire, thinking that Shera and Kaira were the same person; they both had the same temper.

Shera sits on the log next to the campfire, putting her hands on her head in frustration, as Angus turns the meat cooking, not wanting to disturb her from her thoughts.

So, he continues cooking until all the pieces of meat are cooked, though there is only enough for the Tieflings.

Angus grabs a stick that holds a slab of meat and goes to Shera, tapping her on her shoulder, he holds it out to her, remarking simply, "Eat." She looks up, smiling slightly, grabs it, and looks back down at the fire.

Angus walks off to give the food to the others, leaving Shera alone, just staring at the campfire, not wanting to touch the food at the moment.

Moments pass and Hannibal walks up behind her not knowing what to do, so he just sits down next to her, noticing she tries to put on a happy face but fails, tears start to fall from her face without her fully crying. She looks away in shame, thinking "Why am I crying in front of this human."

However, Hannibal said not a word, he just looked at this woman trying to put up a front for everyone as she feared what others would think of her, this was the first time he felt empathy since being summoned.

Wiping tears from her face, she clears her throat and through a trembling voice she says, “what is it Hannibal?”

He turns his head to the fire and utters, “I want nothing... but if you want to talk.”

Smirking, she composes herself, thinking, not to tell him what's wrong “why would I tell a human my problems?”

Hannibal smiles at that, he doesn't say a word for a while, as they sat there, Angus steps seeing them sitting together just in ear distance. Hannibal broke this nearly endliss silence by asking “how does Draíocht work?”

Thinking she takes a second before answering “how did my mother put it, picture Draíocht as a cup of water the more you use it, the more water is gone from the cup, but each time you rest or eat something let's say you replenish the water in the cup you get it.”

Hannibal nods his head, saying, “I get it. What age did you learn Draíocht?”

Narrowing her eyes she smirk's knowing what he's getting at but obliges “I was five when i learned Draíocht first.”

Pouting his face, he remarks, “And what age is your wee one?”

Again, she narrowed her eyes but complies saying “she's seven.” Trying to understand he remarks “what's the point though not teaching her.”

Standing up not having it Shera says, “I'm not hearing it from a summoned, you are staying up tonight too, protecting this camp tonight too.” walking off to her tent.

Nodding his head, Hannibal remarks, “As you wish.”

Hearing this, Angus hides as Shera walks past him; he decides to do the same, so he goes back to his tent also, but keeps an eye on the human outside.

Hannibal stays there a while just looking at the fire fade away, thinking on it for a moment, he decides to keep the fire going, so he throws a few small sticks onto the fire, watching it light up to a safe amount.

With that accomplished, he decided to watch the camp from a good advantageous point, so he looked at the trees around the camp and saw a tree that had a long, fat branch that he could lie on.

He goes up to the base of the tree and climbs to the fat branch, and it perfectly looks over the entire camp, sitting back against the bark, relaxing. The fly had different ideas. The fly flew around his head once more, getting frustrated with this fly, he sat off the bark as the fly landed onto it.

Seeing his opportunity, he smacks the back dead on where he knew he didn't miss, turning his hand seeing nothing, no fly on the tree, no fly on his hand, so he just sits back on the tree looking at his hand but as he did, he started to have a seizure until he stopped uncurious.

To be Continued

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Written/Story by: Ethan McCloskey