Claimed│✓

FIFTEEN: WONDER

[fifteen]

      "Why the knife? I noticed you had one in the Pits." Eric asked.

      "I needed it to defend myself. Public exile allowed certain liberties to be taken against me in jest to others. I was not permitted to shift in the presence of others. It was for me to learn that the right was reserved for true warriors. But also it was my only defense for a time. My wolf left me out of shame."

      The knife was needed. I grew attached even after she returned I couldn't give up the habit of using one. I knew solitude too well.

      "I'm sorry to hear that." It was Richard. " I haven't met many wolves that could survive such a predicament."

      "Wolves have died from abandonment?" I asked.

      He nodded. "You must have had something worth living for."

      If I didn't know it then, I knew it now. It was my mother's counsel that had remained my most steadfast companion. They weren't my darkest days but they came pretty close. That was when I found the moon. I needed to see her again before I gave myself to Gideon's cause. I wouldn't be alone anymore, I wasn't alone now.

      "Have you killed a wolf before?" Brian's boyish and curious eyes met my own.

      "I aim to maim not kill. But no, I have not taken another's life." I replied. He seemed disappointed by my revelation.

     "But you're a warrior, you probably have better marks than Gideon does. You got a hit on him." Brian protested.

     "I only have the one I was born with. I have never officially been one." I replied.

      "That will change, once you have an audience with the elders." Eric commented. I gave him a small smile but my wolf was relieved, our birthright was close.

     "How did you do it?" John asked.

      I caught Gideon's eye, as I said,

      "I listened to him."

     The moon shined brightly from the window I perched upon in the spare bedroom. I chose to use the bathroom in the hallway, as it had no mirror. I would manage not to look once I ventured into the shower. I refused to look upon my reflection. I hadn't in a long time.

     Sometimes I wondered if the moon knew how beautiful she was. A perfect symbol of the Goddess. Did she know as she hovered above water how perfectly round she was, how regal a grey she glowed? I did.

      She was one of kind and I will forever be grateful for her guidance. Our time left spent bound together was quickly diminishing, on the night of my marriage to Gideon, I will be whole in blood.

+

     I'm in the dark and I feel like I'm floating.There is nothing around me except the cold and the wind.It is dusk and with that the close of the day.I can't remember what I must have been thinking at that time or if I was even thinking in the first place. My muscles are stiff and sore.The wounds on my back fresh and the dead wood I rest on wet and crumbly. This was my new home, a wasteland.There was no roof, nor walls to speak of. If I were to move even an inch, splinters would pierce my skin, that is how unwelcoming it felt.

      A small puddle of water is situated just in front of me.I crawl towards it slowly, waiting.What will I see? When I look into my reflection, the girl has her mouth wide open, her neck, her veins pulling at her skin, bursting from the inside but still no sound.It's me and I'm screaming over and over again with no reason to stop because no one will ever hear me.