The snow beat sideways against Veila’s brow. She pulled her hood defiantly and sneered into the wind. The whipping gale spun a solid veil across her vision.

“Close the door, my Veila!” her mother called. “They will be back when they’re back. Your watching is only letting in the cold.”

Veila paused another moment before pulling the creaky wooden door shut in a huff. The crackling fire popped and hissed at the hearth. With the door closed, the howling gusts whipped through the cracks in the hovel walls with a harmonic moan. Veila’s small brother, Adum, huddled near their mother, his face buried in her side. The howling of the wind intensified and Adum let out a low cry.

“Stop that,” Veila snapped, cracking the boy with a quick flick of her knuckles.

“You stop,” her mother hissed. “You did your share of fussing at his size. Just settle yourself already.”

Veila rolled her eyes and fell against the hovel’s center post. She pushed her frizzy brown hair from her face and pulled her hood tight again. Fine wrinkles pulled around her pursed lips and furrowed brow. The bitter scowl belied the warmth of her freckled face and honey-colored eyes. She let out a sigh and relaxed her eyes. She watched her mother turn skewers of critter meat at the fire. The old woman’s hands worked deftly to avoid the ire of the scorched stone’s surface. Veila dropped her eyes to the floor where she traced some familiar shapes in the dirt. She did not like to make swirls and curves. Her preference was sharp, rectilinear tessellations.

Adum turned his face from his mother’s girth and craned his neck to watch his sister’s artistic effort. He gnawed his dirty thumbnail while he stared. His dark, beady eyes punctuated his gaunt, stained face.

Veila’s head slowly tilted to one side while she connected her shapes with lines. She looked up to see Adum watching her and quickly cleared her dirt canvas with a swipe of her bony hand. A gloomy Adum released a sigh and listlessly reengaged his mother’s side.

A low rumbling came from outside. Veila lifted her eyes and listened carefully. The sound separated into distinct intervals. A repeated booming. Veila clambered to her feet when she had placed it – barking. The hunters were back. She quickly moved to the door and threw it open, ignoring Adum’s cries and her mother’s protests.

Before Veila could strain her sight against the elements, two large shadows came bounding through the ice. Her face was met with the wet muzzles and lapping tongues of her father’s hunting dogs, Orna and Derda. They were a pair of sisters that Veila had helped raise from pups. The beasts’ wirehaired shoulders stood at Veila’s bosom, nearly three feet from the ground. She pushed the dogs away and they made their way into the hovel. From behind them, out of the swirling cold, stepped Veila’s father and the other hunters. Veila’s father stomped past her while the others shouted greetings to Veila before peeling off toward their own nearby homes. Each one held a sharp wooden spear in one hand. With the other, they dragged a rope with their quarry tied end to end. She saw various creatures with broken necks and blood-spattered fur. Her father carried a similar collection into the hovel and commanded Veila to close the door. She moved quickly behind him as he tossed his spear into the corner and collapsed into a large chair – the only piece of furniture in the hovel – and started to peel off his boots. His burly face was covered in a mess of coarse black hair. His nose and other patches of exposed skin were a deep red. He threw the collection of hunting spoils toward his woman.

“Plenty o’ critter meat here eh, Brunt?” Veila’s mother teased as she caught the carcasses.

“It’s nice to see you too, Shiya,” Brunt said with a grin. His twisted, cracked teeth highlighted his split and blistered lips. “We found what we could what with this blasted storm raging. What day is it?”

“You’ve been gone for three days,” Veila answered. “It’s Lastday.”

“Already?” Brunt replied with a deep sigh. “They’ll be wantin’ another damn council any day now.”

“The others,” Shiya interjected, as she handed her man a meat skewer, “they respect you.”

“Oh, I don’t want respect,” Brunt huffed as he snatched the meat-covered stick. “I just want some damn peace and quiet.”

“You sound like my papa right before he died,” Shiya said scornfully. “He had given up too.”

“I’m not giving up!” Brunt snapped, beating the arm of his chair with a great, gnarled fist. “I just brought more food, didn’t I? I feed you and bring firewood, don’t I?!”

Shiya’s eyes fell to the floor. Little Adum huddled in close and began to whimper. The silence was quickly broken by the sound of Brunt suppressing a raspy cough. Veila watched her father cover his face with his buckskin cloak before hacking violently underneath it. Brunt’s frustration with the prolonged coughing was obvious as he angrily beat his fist on the chair’s rickety arm again. Shiya silently urged Veila to take a small wooden vessel in which she had melted some snow. Veila took the small bowl with two hands and carefully presented it to her father. Her trembling hands made the surface of the icy water vibrate. Brunt snatched the water from his daughter and tossed it in the back of his throat, spilling half of it down his front. He swallowed hard and gasped for air as his ability to breathe returned.

“Now that sounded like your pa just before he died,” Brunt said, laughing between lingering coughs.

Shiya let out a twisted cackle, but little Adum let out another cry, quickly got up, and threw himself into his father’s lap.

“I don’t want papa to die,” he wailed.

“Oh, shut up,” Brunt said, patting the boy hard on the back. “I’m not dying. And if I was, you need not cry. That’d be one less mouth to feed.”

Brunt’s brutish humor was lost on his emotional son.

“He said shut up!” Veila shouted. “You sound like an injured rabbit.”

“Veila, we’re just playing,” Shiya demanded.

Brunt did not speak. He just locked his dark, cold eyes with Veila’s while he continued to rub Adum’s back. Veila glared from her father’s steely gaze to her mother’s disapproving one and back. She sighed again, crossing her arms and throwing her head back against the post.

“You think your bitterness makes you wise?” Brunt asked her. “You think barking at your brother makes you stronger?”

Veila did not answer as she continued to avoid eye contact with either of her parents.

“How many times have I said this, Veila?!” Brunt snapped as his deep tone began to harden again. “You are not strong! You are not fierce! That is not your nature! But you are clever! And to waste your mind and wits on these pissy tantrums with a child is as stupid as you can get!”

Veila’s head hung low as her father continued to admonish her, his voice growing colder.

“Just because we fight and hunt and dig and scrape by does not mean that our strength is all we have. Do you think muscle and power are what our village values in me? Is that why you think I’m the council warden?”

His question hung in the near silence as the dogs chewed and popped the bones out of some scraps.

“They want my mind and my memory,” Brunt continued, pressing a thick finger against his temple. “That’s wisdom. Knowing what’s worked before and whether it will work some more. That’s our power. Wolves are strong. Bears are strong. The ox is strong! Much stronger than us. So, we must be cunning – clever. You will never be stronger than me. But I’m afraid you’re already twice as smart. Now, I’ll keep it dumbed down for my sake. Waste your potential on cowing your brother one more time, and you’ll find the back of my hand!”

Brunt swallowed hard one last time and thrust the small wooden vessel toward Veila for a refill. She took it obediently and returned it to her mother, who carefully replenished it from a larger container. In addition to supplying Brunt with more water, Shiya took the opportunity to pass a fresh meat skewer to everyone. With food in hand, Veila, Adum, and their mother gathered ritualistically around Brunt’s feet and quietly gnawed at their charred skewers while the old man regaled them with his recent hunting feats.

Matt Hebert is an engineer and self-published author. His dopamine-fueled creative pursuits have spanned from chicken keeping, sand sculpture, acting, and public speaking, but writing is nearest and dearest to his heart. He lives in Bellevue with his wife and two daughters. You can find him on Instagram at @jerkofalltradeshebert or email him at matt.hebert.books@gmail.com