Kael stretched out beside the small fire pit, his back against a fallen log as he watched Zara skin strips of meat from the bear they'd killed that morning.
"You know," she said without looking up from her work, "I've been thinking."
"Dangerous territory," Kael replied with a grin, earning himself a piece of bear fat thrown at his head. He deflected it. "But go on, enlighten me with your deep thoughts, oh wise one."
Zara snorted. "Shut up asshole. I'm serious for once." She paused in her cutting to gesture broadly at their camp the lean-to shelter built against a massive boulder. "I want to move."
Kael's expression shifted from playful to skeptical. "Move? We just got this place set up properly. The water source is clean, we know all the game trails, and we haven't had any hume trouble in months."
"Exactly!" Zara's knife sliced through a particularly tough section of hide with more force than necessary. "It's been too quiet. You know what that means."
He did know. In their experience, when the normal humans the 'humes' as they'd taken to calling them went quiet, it usually meant they were planning something. A coordinated hunt, maybe, or working up the courage to try driving them out again.
"Besides," Zara continued, "I'm tired of this whole damn country. There's too many of them here, and they all hate us. Remember what happened in Pennsylvania? And that shit show in Ohio?"
Kael winced at the memories. Pennsylvania had been three families with pitchforks and old hunting rifles. Ohio had been worse an entire settlement that had tried to burn them out of a cave system they'd been sheltering in during a blizzard.
"Where would we even go?" He asked.
"North. Canada, maybe. Or west to the Pacific. Hell, we could portal-hop if we had to. Find somewhere with fewer people, more space." She set down her knife and turned to face him fully, her pale eyes bright with excitement. "Come on, Kael. When's the last time we saw something new? Did something just because we wanted to, not because we were running or hiding or hunting for survival?"
He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. She had a point. They'd been living in reactive mode for so long that he'd almost forgotten what it felt like to make plans beyond the next meal or the next safe place to sleep.
"Fine," he said finally. "We'll move. But not until we've processed all this meat and-"
His words were cut off as Zara launched herself at him with a whoop of joy, tackling him backward off the log.
"Knew you'd see it my way!" she grinned down at him, her hands pressed against his shoulders.
"Zara," Kael groaned, "I'm tired. That bear weighed more than both of us combined, and I used a lot of energy redirecting its charge."
"Don't care," she replied cheerfully, then immediately tried to flip him over into a wrestling hold. "Come on, play with me. We just made a huge decision! We should celebrate!"
"By you beating the shit out of me?"
"By me completely destroying you in combat, yes."
Kael sighed but couldn't suppress a grin. This was vintage Zara. Serious and focused when the situation demanded it, but capable of switching to playful chaos the moment the pressure was off.
"You realize," he said as he wrapped his arms around her waist and used kinetic energy to flip their positions, "that I have supernatural strength, right?"
"Yeah, well, I have supernatural fire," she shot back, wriggling free and aiming a playful punch at his ribs. "And portals. I could just dump you in a lake somewhere."
"You wouldn't."
"Try me."
They grappled back and forth across the small clearing, neither using their full strength or abilities. It was a familiar dance, one they'd been performing since they were children a way to burn off excess energy and maintain the physical conditioning that kept them alive in this harsh world.
But even as they played, both remained alert to their surroundings.
"Okay, okay," Kael panted after Zara managed to pin him again using a move that definitely involved cheating with micro-portals. "You win. Happy now?"
"Deliriously," she replied, flopping down beside him in the grass. "So when do we leave?"
"Give me a week to smoke this meat properly. And we need to figure out where we're actually going. I'm not wandering blindly into unknown territory just because you're bored."
"I'm not bored," Zara replied. "I'm... optimistic. There's a difference."
"Right. And what happens when we run into another settlement that wants to string us up for being 'devil-touched' or whatever they're calling us this year?"
The playfulness faded from Zara's expression. "Same thing that always happens. We give them a choice leave us alone, or find out exactly why their ancestors were so afraid of people like us."
"You know what the fucked up part is?" Zara said quietly, staring up at the darkening sky. "They need us. The humes, I mean. Who do you think keeps the really dangerous shit away from their settlements? Those shadow cats that hunt in packs, the crystal wyrms, all the other nasties that came out of the Convergence. But do they thank us? Hell no."
"Can't say I blame them entirely," Kael replied. "We're walking reminders of how much the world changed. Some days I think they'd rather take their chances with the monsters than admit they need freaks like us."
"Their loss," Zara shrugged. "We'll find somewhere better. Somewhere we can just... be."