Beastly

Chapter 4

If she were completely honest with herself (which she wouldn't because the look on Winston's face was too much) Hariel would admit that she had messed up. Thinking further on it, she reached out to Winston to spite the crowd that laughed and humiliated him. She had wanted to show them that their ideation of beauty and desire was baseless and shallow. Hariel wasn't ignorant, she knew she was considered to be highly desirable to beastmen based on every interaction she had with them – including Ren despite his gentle nature toward her. She had wanted to show Winston that despite the scars, despite his sheer presence, he was valued.

Worthy.

Having him sitting around the cooking pit of Ren and her house made her ever so slightly regret pulling his awed and shocked self through the crowd with Ren acting as a buffer.

Slightly.

A smidge.

Winston looked to her with the gentlest of smiles, face utterly relaxed and her regret died a quick death. How could she regret showing someone they mattered?

With a small sigh, she faced Winston wondering if he would be as...relaxed as Ren was with their situation.

"Winston, I'm going to be blunt here," she started, "I am not looking for mates, I don't like how dependable wom- females are with beastmen. I am fully capable on my own and want to live like that. I don't want someone around me who'll bend over backwards for anything I want or say. I'm...new to all of this but I don't want to be treated like a fragile flower."

Winston sat in silence for a long moment, taking in her words before he straightened his back and gave a firm nod, "Then I will be your Guardian, if you will have me."

Guardian. Ren had touched on what exactly it meant when they were defining their relationship. In the world she now lived a Guardian was a beastman who devoted their life to a female without ever mating with them. It was an extremely one-sided relationship where the female held all he power over the beastman. She could demand almost anything from him and he would do it- for love, for the hope that she would one day mate with them, for desperation to not being alone.

When Ren had asked if he could be her Guardian and explained, she was appalled. It was cruel to feed a beastman the slimmest of hopes of a mateship – of love- just to use them so selfishly. So she changed it a bit with him.

"From what Ren has told me, I just can't accept Guardians." She said honestly, but quickly continuing upon seeing his immediate dejection, "I want a partner."

Winston's eyes widened in surprise, "A partner?"

Nodding she continued, "I don't want you to take care of every little thing for me. I can hunt on my own, I know how to sew seeds, I can take care of myself just as well as you can take care of yourself. But together it would be easier if we worked together. You can hunt, and I can cook- things like that where we have an equal exchange."

"She lived on her own in the wilds without any help for a long time." Ren stated, "She is the most capable female I have ever seen or met."

A small burst of pride filed her chest at Ren acknowledging her abilities. She knew it was true, but the affirmation that it was recognized among others was a great feeling despite not needing it.

Winston looked to both of them with a somewhat blank expression, doing well in hiding his emotions from Hariel as she couldn't smell fear or other emotions like the people here. When he nodded and agreed to her terms of becoming her partner, Hariel wasn't very surprised. She was offering more than anyone else, and she could tell that he was – not quite desperate but close – for companionship.