Claimed│✓

THIRTY-FOUR: GIDEON'S FABLE

[thirty-three]

❆

[Gideon]

"Why didn't you tell me the story was true?" Brian mumbled from beside me. We were leaving today. The Elders had given their blessing for Maya and I to take this trip. I was going back into those mountains, those damn mystical mountains.

"I had no way to prove it to you." Who'd believe me when I didn't even believe myself.

"I remember when you ran away." he said, looking down at his shoes.

"Why?" We hadn't exactly been buddies when I pulled that stunt. Going off on my own into uncharted territory for the sake of escaping a perfectly good situation, a perfectly good home.

It wasn't my proudest moment but who needed those.

"I missed you when you left. It felt like a lifetime." he admitted.

"Why'd you miss me Brian? I wasn't nice to you." I wasn't nice to anybody then.It was still debatable whether I was any better now. I had been reeling from the loss of my home, moving to this place, meeting new people who wouldn't leave me alone and my grieving mother.

"You still aren't by the way but you've gotten better."

Smartass.

In those mountains,I'd gone rogue. I'd begun transitioning into my current state. The same one that was taking shape with Maya. I'd black out several times during the day,during the night, forgetting anything I'd done, waking up in blood that wasn't mine. Luckily, it was just animal but I always woke up hungry, really hungry. Like I hadn't eaten the thing, for some odd reason.

Whenever I could, I fought off my wolf for control of my body, failing most times. I'd have to get up there to remember how I'd finally succeeded in keeping him down, just under the skin.

He seemed to take advantage of my emotions the most, pushing forward during times of anger and frustration. Aggression always our first instinct. We liked to ask questions later.

So I kept myself blank, avoiding anything that would attract severe emotional distress.

I was having a hard time at the moment with Brian. I wasn't angry but I wasn't blank either. It was a strange mixture of conflicting ideals. I was going to miss him.

"Hug me." he demanded walking right into me. And so I did.

I hadn't hugged my father when he left to protect us from some faceless enemy that now had a face and a death wish.

I couldn't even hug him when he came back because he wasn't the same. He wasn't my father when he came back to me.

If I didn't return the same. I didn't want to come back at all either.

~

We'd said our goodbyes with no tears.Thankfully.

Maya's wolf brushed past me as she ran into the open field of grass behind our house. It was a bleak day, nothing much to note about it. The sky wasn't as bright as I'd become accustomed to it being. It wasn't as blue my mother would have liked,my eyes weren't as blue as she would have liked. She didn't want that as her last memory of her son.

She hadn't said that outright but she didn't need to for me to understand.

I pushed hard off my heels, catching up to Maya's darting figure, climbing quickly up the hillside towards the two peaks that jutted out from above the clouds high in the sky. Looking at reminded me just why I'd painted them.