Beastmen Love-Chapter 28: Adapted Stories

"I think I’ll learn to like farming and gardening." Lee speaks, watching Astri’s smile.

"Me too. Also, she won’t feel as tired if I help." Wayde says.

Astri spots some puppy eyes behind some trees, they were watching curiously, but they were scared to go closer. Astri smiles and walks a little in their direction.

"Come. You can come closer." She calls them with a sweet voice. They show more of their heads looking at her curiously. "That’s it. Don’t be afraid. Come." She says, like she’s talking to puppies of the human world.

The puppies come outside and start walking in her direction. They start wagging their tails slowly when she rubs their heads and start playing with them.

Wayde, Lee and Zin felt their heart growing warmer watching that she’s a natural mother too.

She goes inside and takes some skins and makes a ball. She teaches them how they will play and soon enough the cubs are running after the ball happily, making Astri laugh.

The wolf cubs then turned their attention on getting her and not the ball, and she had to run away from them laughing.

Her laughter is contagious, so it made everyone who was watching smile too.

Soon more cubs appeared to play too, their parents watched smiling too and they started to realize that Astri is not a bad female, neither her males since they were watching too.

Almost everyone in the village knows that Ana is an annoying female, but when Astri had beaten her and they learned that she had a snake as a partner they thought she was bad.

However, it’s pretty much the inverse. She’s a sweet female and if she wasn’t she wouldn’t be playing so long with the cubs.

When Astri got tired of playing, she sat down under a tree and the cubs automatically surrounded her, sitting around.

"Do you guys like stories?" She asks. They look at her with confused eyes. "I’ll tell you a story about a boy. He was a leopard. When he was a little cub, their parents were attacked by an evil lone lion. His parents died trying to protect him, and before death his mother hid him. In another place, there was a group of apes. A happy female was so happy with her little cub, but one day the evil lion also attacked her cub while he was playing by himself. That tore her heart into pieces."

She keeps telling an adapted story of Tarzan to them. Soon enough their parents gathered closer with Wayde, Zin and Lee to also listen to her story.

"Tarzan was so sad because he didn’t feel part of that group of apes. He wanted to be like them so his adopted father could accept him and he could have friends. His mother took him and brought him to her chest and asked him what he could hear. What do you think he heard?... Her heart. Then she took his paw and put it on his chest for him to feel his heart. That, my son, is what makes us the same. Her words made him believe that he could do anything.

Everyone was so focused on her story, that they even voicified some emotions.

"Tarzan learned to climb trees, eat fruits, build nests, he found friends, but his father still didn’t respect him as his son. His father believed that Tarzan would be a danger to their group and he would never be one of them. Apes believed that a cat would always be a cat, they would eat their meat. Tarzan did everything to prove to his father that he would never kill his family, but also Tarzan had to understand who he really was inside of him. Tarzan could help his mother, his tribe members, and friends, but he still didn’t know who he was. He was trying to be an ape, but he wasn’t an ape. Until he had to embrace the other part of him when an old enemy appeared."

She hears the cubs voice their guess, she smiles even not understanding what they were saying.

"Yes, the evil lion. He attacked the tribe of apes. Tarzan had to embrace that he was an ape because he decided to be like his tribe, but he was also a leopard. He was both and that made him what he is. Even if the lion was bigger and more experienced, when Tarzan embraced who he was the lion couldn’t stop him. Tarzan could climb on trees, he was fast like an ape, but he was strong and had sharp claws and teeth. The lion didn’t have a chance. Tarzan stepped on the dead lion and roared to the world as a proud statement. The apes didn’t fear the new Tarzan, they embraced him and finally his father accepted him as son. Learning that it is not a matter of being an ape or leopard that makes a good beastmen, it’s who you choose to be that matters. There’re no evil beastmen, there are only beastmen who chose to be evil."

She ended the story and everyone was thrilled and feeling inspired. Everyone thanked Astri for the story and took their children to their own homes.

At dinner, after a nice bath, Astri was eating very relaxed.

"Where did you learn that Tarzan story?" Wayde asks.

"A book. But it stayed behind. I didn’t bring it with me. The ones I have here are more deep and complex stories." She answers.

"I want to know about them." Zin speaks.

"I might take days to read one story for you. Are you sure?"

"I want to hear too." Wayde speaks.

"Me too." Lee says. She smiles and nods.

"I’m happy. Every story has a teaching behind it, you can take good things from it." She says.

Next day, the children came back to play with Astri but soon it started raining and they had to go back home because they wouldn’t fit inside the cabin.

Since it was raining a lot, Astri took the chance to read the first book of Lord of The Rings for Wayde, Zin and Lee, but also changed the species of the characters.

They listen carefully, she had only read the first Chapter and then asked them what they thought.

"It has so many details I can actually imagine the places and situations." Wayde speaks.

"It’s true. The rabbit clan is actually fun." Lee says. Astri changed the Hobbits to rabbits.

"How can they live so long? That Bilbo is too old for a rabbit." Zin asks.

"You will discover the reason soon." Astri answers.

All three of them are looking at her expectantly, she chuckles and asks for water because her throat was dry.

Then she reads one more Chapter, she thought they would feel sleepy, but they’re actually listening carefully to every detail.

Every night she would read them at least two Chapters, when winter arrived she was almost finished with the first book because they would always get excited and ask for more.