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Shirayuki didn’t notice anything was wrong at first. She’d spent all her time with her grandparents before they’d passed a few months prior. She didn’t have any friends her age who might’ve heard her mention feeling like she was coming down with a very manageable flu that only came with an elevated temperature and achy joints, no congestion or fatigue. She did have medical textbooks she’d read front and back that should’ve given her a clue, but it had been years since she’d wondered about it. Years since her grandmother had sat her down and talked about how her body might change soon and what to expect when she blossomed into whatever she would blossom into. As the years passed with no change, she assumed she was a beta and those expectation slipped out of her mind in favor of more important things like memorizing which flowers were poisonous and which were diuretics.
Assuming she was coming down with something manageable, she spent another hour in the field collecting some herbs to help her through the next few days of a cold or flu. Eventually, the ache in her hip and the unexpected heat of the day wore her down and she was forced to call it a day. It would be good to get home and get in bed before any fatigue or dizziness hit anyway. She gathered the meager pile of plants she’d managed to collect that morning and made her way down the familiar path out of the woods and back towards the little lodgings above the tavern that she called home.
She had reached the edge of town when she encountered a sparse crowd circled around a small man with a smaller mind shouting strange vitriol.
“People of Tanbarun,” he cried. “Watch for the signs. Omegas who deny their place are sinners who refuse the will of God!”
The crowd answered with a smattering of applause and a few shouts of agreement.
“Omegas, repent! Return to the home, and you shall be forgiven in the eyes of our Father!”
“Repent!” the crowd responded.
Shirayuki was close enough now to blend in among the people who were also curious about the display. She’d heard about the exodus, of course; how a number of omegas in Tanbarun had suddenly disappeared one night. There were all sorts of rumors - that the omegas had been trafficked over the border, that they had all died and the government was covering it up to avoid a mass panic. The rumor Shirayuki liked the most was the one where the omegas had simply left. They were tired of being treated as property, as breeding stock , and had found a better life somewhere else in the world. She’d seen enough omegas being talked over and looked through to want better for them.
She frowned at the speaker doing more to rile up the leftover alphas and sympathetic betas than sincerely wishing for the return of “beloved” Tanbarun citizens. If he actually cared about the missing omegas, he would be leading a search party, not shouting until he was red in the face, wobbling on crates stacked high enough to allow him to look down upon everyone around him. She was about to tell him as much when she felt more people join the fray behind her, pressing her further in, and had there always been this many people this tightly packed together?
She needed out. Logically, she knew there was nothing to panic about, but logic had taken disappeared and had been replace with thoughts of being too hot too close get away . It scared her, which only added to the wrongness of the situation. She took a deep, calming breath to steady herself and instead found her knees nearly giving out beneath her.
“Steady, miss,” a voice said. At least, she thinks someone said it. Everything was a bit fuzzy now. Noise faded away. She barely felt the light hand on her shoulder. All she could focus on was that smell . Tobacco and clove and incredible.
The hand. On her shoulder. Without thinking, she tucked her nose in as close as she could get to the inside of this person’s wrist to get closer to the source.
“Okay,” the voice connected to the hand said. It sounded like she’d stuffed cotton in her ears, just barely able to make out the words. “Let’s get you out of here, shall we?”
It wasn’t until she was guided onto a bench around the corner and away from the crowd that her head cleared enough to realize what she’d just done. Dread crashed over her in waves.
The person who had either saved her or isolated her - she didn’t know yet because he was a stranger she had gone off with without a hint of a question - crouched in front of her far enough away to give her space. His lean body folded in on itself like he was used to making himself smaller, but his broad shoulders made the effort nearly impossible.
“Hey,” he said. “Feeling a little better?”
Shirayuki nodded.
“Good. Great news. Alright, are you feeling up to walking?”
Shirayuki cleared her throat, struggling to find her words. An issue she’d never had before. She forced the panic threatening to overwhelm her again down and said, “Yes.”
“Perfect.” He slapped his hands on his knees and stood. “Let’s get you home.”
“Home?” she asked. Had she mentioned going home with him? Was she making offers she couldn’t remember?
“You, miss, are going into heat, and it’s bad news for just about everybody if you do that on the street.”
Heat.
“I’m not an omega,” Shirayuki said. He had it wrong. The one omega her age had presented years ago, and an omega, already a rare presentation, presenting over the age of 20 was uncommon enough to be studied. She was a beta. She had to be a beta.
“Your flushed face and scent tells me otherwise,” the man said. “I take it this is your first?”
Shirayuki stared at him, unseeing, in disbelief. He was sweating, too. The day was hot. She wasn’t abnormally warm.
“Sorry, kid,” he said. “That’s a hell of a way to find out.”
He did sound genuinely sorry, but that only upset her more. Omega status was something to be pitied and avoided. She couldn’t avoid it now, so she was being pitied.
Well. Screw that. Screw this whole mess. Maybe she was an omega. Maybe she just had the worst flu of her life. Either way, she was not going to feel sorry for herself while a complete stranger off the street looked at her like she was a walking tragedy.
“Thank you for your assistance back there,” she said. Now that she’d dusted herself off emotionally for the time being, she stood and dusted her skirt off. She gave one final nod to the man and set off down the street.
Except it wasn’t a final nod. She felt him follow her almost immediately. Even breathing through her mouth to minimize the smells - and the pull of one particular scent that was still tugging on her brain even with the slight clarity she’d gained from her respite on the bench - she could smell the man following her a respectable number of paces behind. Had she not been able to smell him, though, he wasn’t doing a particularly good job at hiding. After about a block, she spun on her heels and asked, “Are you following me?”
The man immediately raised his hands in surrender, long fingers splayed wide to prove his innocence.
“I’m just making sure you get home safe,” the man said.
“And who will save me from you?” Shirayuki asked.
“Well, now. That is a good point.” The man gave a short laugh and scrubbed a hand through his dark, short-cropped hair. “Would you believe me if I swear I won’t touch you?”
Shirayuki folded her arms across her chest.
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess my word doesn’t mean much. We don’t really know each other, do we, but I can change that. Watch. My name is Obi. It’s nice to meet you.”
“I’m Shirayuki,” she said cautiously.
“See? Friends already. We know each other’s first names and everything.”
Sensing that she was still unimpressed by his efforts, he said, “Look. I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t trust me either. In any other situation, I would tell you to run the other way. But I have seen the things people do to omegas in heat on the street, and I never want to see anything like it again. You don’t have to trust me, but please believe me when I say I just want to make sure you get home safe.”
It could’ve been a story. This Obi could be lying to get her to let her guard down, only to pounce when they were well and truly alone. Obi could even be a fake name. Yet, she found his presence more comforting than alarming, and she didn’t really trust herself to be alone at the moment. What if someone else who smelled just as good wandered by? Would they try to make her feel at ease, or would they just take what they felt was owed to them?
Finding no better option, Shirayuki nodded and thanked him again.
“You have to stop thanking me, miss,” Obi said.
“Why? You’re doing me a kindness.”
“It feels less kind and more selfish. I don’t want to sit up at night wondering what happened to you.”
“I think that means you’re doing a kindness for me and yourself.”
They fell into silence after that. Now that he’d been given the okay, he followed at her heels. With him this close, she pulled out a handkerchief to hold over her nose. It was getting increasingly hard not to turn around and bury her face in the space where his neck met his shoulder and bite- oh god. It was getting out of hand again. The road swayed a little under her feet and the sun felt oppressively hot overhead.
By some miracle, between one blink and the next, she found herself in front of her own front door. She nearly collapsed against it, both exhausted from the fight to get there and relief at having succeeded, but Obi’s hand on her shoulder reminded her Obi was within touching distance. That was great news. Instead of crashing into a hard wooden door, she sagged into a muscled chest.
“And we were doing so well, too,” Obi said wistfully.
The next thing Shirayuki knew, she was waking up in her own bed, drenched in sweat, shivering, and exhausted. Moonlight filtered in through her window. When had she gone to sleep? She remembered looking for herbs- the protest. Obi. Omega. Bits of the last few hours filtered through her mind. Tears and pleasure and weakness. Feeling like something was missing in the bed she’d slept alone in all her life. She was pretty sure more than a day had passed, possibly two, but she was still wearing the dress she’d left in.
Heat. Now that her mind had cleared away the heavy fog of before, she could see the situation for what it was. There was no denying it any longer. She was officially an Omega, and she’d gone into her first heat.
Her feet slid off the bed and onto the almost painfully cold wood below. She let herself adjust first to the temperature change, then to her sore muscles supporting her weight. She limped over to her bedroom door and found it locked. She mentally patted herself on the back for her good thinking. Even in heat, she knew she didn’t actually want anyone in her bedroom with her.
The moment she opened the door, she froze. She’d been living alone ever since her grandparents had passed, so the person in her kitchen definitely should not have been there.
As slowly as she could, she slid her bedroom door shut again. At the last moment, however, with just a sliver of view into the kitchen, she caught of glimpse of vaguely familiar tanned skin. His scent wasn’t as strong now that she was past her heat, but if she concentrated hard enough, she could still smell tobacco and cloves emanating from him.
Obi.
He appeared to have noticed her too. He sent her a wave and a, “Hello, miss. Welcome back. Feeling better?”
She was feeling awful, actually, but she knew what he meant. Instead of answering, she asked, “You stayed?” She kept the door mostly shut in case she needed to create a quick barrier between them again.
“You asked me to,” he said.
Well, of course she asked him to. She was out of her mind on hormones. He’d promised- and he done it anyway. But then-
“My door was locked from the inside,” she said. Unless she’d somehow found the strength to lock him out after and then forgotten about it, there was no way that was possible.
His eyes widened slightly. “Yes! It was locked and it stayed locked. I sat outside. Nothing happened, I promise.”
Sifting through her memories, she could never place Obi’s face inside her bedroom. Taking internal inventory, she didn’t feel sore in any way that would indicate she’d been held down or taken in any sort of way. She allowed herself a moment to process this information. He’d stayed but he hadn’t stayed .
“I’ll be off now,” Obi said. “I’m glad to see you’re okay. I made some bread while you were, uh, you know, in there. It’s not the best thing you’ll ever eat, but I’ve been told it’s perfectly serviceable. I saw you had some dried meat and some fruit. Oh, and I made some tea. You should eat soon. Get some of your strength back.”
With one last, “Take care of yourself,” Obi made for the front door. He was almost out when she called out, “Thank you. For everything.”
“What did I tell you about thanking me, miss?” Obi asked.
Refusing to agree to not thanking him for going above and beyond for her, she said, “Take care of yourself as well.”
“I’ll be fine. I always land on my feet.”
With a wink, Obi was gone.
Later, when she’d bathed and had taken a seat at her kitchen table to tear into the stupidly delicious loaf of bread Obi had left behind - she almost wished she’d had a way to get in touch with him just to tell him how wrong he’d been about his bread being just okay - she thought about how lucky she’d gotten. She’d just happened to stumble upon a decent person who not only hadn’t taken advantage of a situation that he would have legally been allowed to, he’d also made sure she was safe and fed after. She’d been more than lucky this time, but she never wanted to be lucky again.
In the wee hours of the morning after Shirayuki’s first heat, she began to research ways to never go through a second heat.