Blood Runs Red

Chapter 5 - Anastasia

It had been a couple of weeks since I broke my leg and even though I was perfectly fine the day after, it took that long to get rid of Yuri's lectures and worries, I literally had to jump out of the garden's walls to go to my favorite place in the forest. I felt a bit bad for doing that to him, he'd probably be looking for me all over the castle a few times before he realized that I had sneaked out again, but I really needed to get out of there, the castle had started to be even harder to breathe in and Yuri wasn't helping as much as he used to...

This place, on the other hand, always helped me put things in perspective, always helped me think... The flowing clear river sound refreshed me all by itself, the large trees seemed to create their own symphony as their thick branches kept any sort of light to a small amount, making that my favorite place to go. That river dictated the end of my territory and the beginning of the wolf's territory...

"The beginning of Angelo's territory..."

I sighed, pretending the thought never even crossed my mind as I leaned my head on the tree right by the rock I was sitting on. Closing my eyes and breathing in, I could tell all the different kind of scents that came from the other side of the river, animals didn't usually come over what I couldn't exactly blame them for...

"You lost?" came a familiar voice from a relative distance, I didn't need to open my eyes to know who it was or even that he was smirking.

"Mutual ground." I simply answered but I couldn't hold back a slight smile. Was it for giving him a reasonable answer or was it for the sound of his voice...? My heart was beating lightly... "Don't be an idiot Anastasia! It's because you gave him a reasonable answer! For sure!"

"What are you doing here?" he asked and I opened my eyes to see him on his side of the river, leaning against a rock, sliding all the way to the ground to sit by the water.

I shrugged "Just thinking... You?"

"Just thinking." The smirk playing on his lips as he glanced from the water to me, told me that even though he was mocking my answer, he also wasn't lying.

"Why here?" I had a smirk of my own now as he seemed a bit confused "Why think here and not at your place?"

He turned back to the flowing water and I could've sworn that I saw his usual smirk falter for a brief moment. "Here I just feel..." He seemed to be struggling to find the words, but it was that time that allowed me to realize that I had seen that expression before... Reflect in that same river, looking back at me.

"Freer?" I risked.

"Yeah..." he nodded "Like I'm nobody important..."

"Like you don't have to live up to nobody's expectations..." he looked at me like he had suddenly realized something important.

"Like the world doesn't exist..." despite the fact that I had always seen him smiling, I had the feeling like that was the first time that I had seen it... It wasn't a smirk, it was a genuine smile... Or it felt like it...

"Like nothing else matters..." I found myself smiling as well.

"Like I'm not the next head of my species." We spoke at the same time without meaning to and we just sat there for a second, only the river and the forest could be heard, I don't know what was going through his head, but the only thing I could think of was:

"Guess we're not as different as everyone seems to think, huh...?" I mumble through a small smile, I really wasn't sure what to make of this, but I wondered if he thought that was a good thing or not... Which one did I want it to be...?