© 2002-2024 Ruth and Heidi
Part 3

**It wasn't you I saw,** Wildlight answered. **I turned to speak to you, and saw only branches where I thought you were.**

Speaking of what he'd seen earlier brought his now-characteristic frown back to Wildlight's face. High Ones, whatever was making him feel this way had to stop. Now. The eldest elder hadn't taken his lead on his earlier line of questioning. The only choice was to be direct.

**Why is it now, though,** he continued almost immediately, **that whenever I see you approaching from the side, or scent you but can't see you, that I feel the need to put up my guard? And why is it, when I try to speak of the night of the bear-beasts attacks with Wren--the part before I 'passed out,' as she says, that her eyes always seem to try to glance in your direction? There's something that both of you know and, for some reason, you're not willing to tell me.**

Still rubbing at his short beard, Snapjaw eyed his chief. Wildlight was not just cutting to the chase, but going right for the throat. The elder could still think of many ways to deflect the straightforward questions. Blame it on the dreamberries he could smell even a few paces from the other elf. Explain that many elves got twitchy after passing out and losing a day as Wildlight had done. But the whole situation was beginning to make Snapjaw uneasy. He had known going into the chokehold that there might be consequences. It was one thing to evade vague questions, but another to allow such misgivings and shadows of doubt to plague Wildlight. The old elf did not want a chief who was twitchy and always looking over his shoulder, or, worse, thinking himself as nutty as a squirrel. That wasn't good for the tribe. Too bad Wildlight wasn't more like Crimson -- Snapjaw's cousin-chief had never caught on to the trick. But Wildlight was admittedly brighter and more suspicious than his ancestor had ever been.

Snapjaw lowered his hand from his face and tucked it into the crook of his other elbow with a quick shrug of his shoulders. **You passed out because I choked you and then put you in your furs where you belonged, with Darkrider to heal your wounds.**

Wildlight stared in disbelief, mind reeling. Snapjaw had what!? It had to be the dreamberries trying to take ahold again. It had to be. No elf turned on another unless there was a challenge. It was the Way--and if any elf adhered to the Way, Snapjaw was that elf.

But memories that had been pent up, stored away due to surprise or because of a restriction of bloodflow to his brain, refused to be held at bay any longer, perhaps because of the very dreamberries the eldest elder smelled on his breath. He remembered now, all too well, taking steps toward Snapjaw's den and being attacked, so to speak, from behind. A lip twisted up in a snarl and emerald eyes blazed defiantly as he turned his thoughts back to the here, the Now