Mother.
Dinda ran down the alley, she didn't want to see who was chasing her. Or how many. She turned and hid behind an old mud wall, knowing they weren't far behind. She dared not peek, keeping still and catching her breath as she made herself as small as possible in the shadows. Hearing footsteps approaching, she took a quick breath and, thrusting herself from the wall, she continued running, like a scared little mouse running from big fat cats. Big fat cats that wielded huge butcher knives. She risked being captured every time she stopped to pick up the dumplings that dropped onto the rain-soaked ground. The bao dumplings she had stolen from the market. But there was no way she would go home empty handed.
I must get back to Mother.
The alley led to the other side of the marketplace. Being a small girl in the rain, she knew she could weave through the crowd of people without anybody noticing. The market was bustling with activity as customers haggled with stall owners, buying goods in preparation for the big Naga Festival. Meat, fruits, joss-sticks, paper lanterns, firecrackers, and bao dumplings.
"Thief! Thief!"
"Stop her!"
They barely noticed the small-bodied teenager with black lips scurrying by with her arms full of stolen dumplings. It was only when her pursuers yelled out for someone to stop the thief that people started shooting sharp glances in her direction. But the noise, the crowd, the narrowness of the walkway between stalls prevented anyone from intervening. To avoid further unwanted attention, she slipped into another dark alley. By the time the angry men followed her into the labyrinth, she had disappeared into the shadows.
After a few turns and a secret escape route, Dinda managed to lose her pursuers. She stood quietly for a moment in the shadows, catching her breath once again, waiting to hear footsteps coming around the corner. But they never did. She was finally safe to go home.
Dinda's dwelling was a small hut that looked like one strong gust of wind could blow it down. It looked abandoned and sat on the outskirts of the valley. Despite its meagerness, Dinda was happy to return to the humble structure. When she entered the hut, it was quiet, except for the firewood crackling in the fireplace. She unloaded the dumplings next to the fireplace, placing the soggy ones nearer the fire.
"Mom?"
She turned her attention to the frail body lying on the bed, her face turned to the wall. She was so thin and frail that Dinda could see her spine poking out from the bottom of her neck all the way down to her tailbone. The sickly sight of her mother always brought sadness to her eyes.
"Mom?" Dinda repeated softly, not sure if she'd get a response.
But the frail figure turned slowly to face her daughter. The woman continued to fight to live despite looking worse and worse every day. Dinda had been horrified when she'd come home one day and her mother wouldn't turn around when she called her name. When she finally did, she'd stare at Dinda with blank eyes.
"Wait, Mom." Dinda grabbed a small cup of water sitting on the table. She didn't know how long the water had been sitting there but it didn't matter. She rushed over to her mother and sat beside her on the bed. She carefully helped her sit up and sip from the small cup. "Slowly Mom, drink slowly." Water dripped out from the side of her mother's darkened mouth. She imagined her mother smiling, her features lovely and full and pink with health. But when she blinked, her mother stared back at her blankly as though she was invisible.
Mom, do you still recognize me?
Her mother began to cough uncontrollably and Dinda tapped her back gently. "Easy. Take it easy." Eventually the coughing subsided, and Dinda cradled the back of her mother's head and lowered her back until she was comfortably resting on the pillow. "Get some rest, Mom."
As she moved with a sigh and a heavy heart to place another piece of wood onto the fire, she passed the small makeshift mirror on the wall. She stopped for a moment and looked disapprovingly at her own reflection, rubbing her hand softly along the pale skin of her face. Then she used her fingers to trace her black lips. She gazed at herself as if it was the first time she'd ever seen her own face. The somber expression reflected back to her gradually changed into anger and frustration and she abruptly turned away from the mirror. She looked down at the dumplings and then back at her mother, who had turned back to her wall-facing position.
"Mom, we need some meat," Dinda said. "We can't eat plain bao all the time. I'm sick of bao and salted tofusoup." Then, with an edge of determination in both her voice and her narrowed eyes, she clenched her fist and promised, "I'm going to find us some meat."
There was no response from her mother. Her body lay completely still. Silence. Even though Dinda had just seen her alive, that terrifying doubt crept into her mind. As it had many times. "Mom? Did you hear me?" she asked. She slowly walked over to her bed again, hesitant to get too close, afraid of what might be waiting for her. Her mother still lay motionless, so Dinda leaned over the body to see her mother's face. Her mother's eyes were wide open, staring at the wall.
"Mom?"
She didn't respond.
Dinda breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her mother blink. It was a sign she was still alive. Maybe she heard me.
"I'll be back soon," she assured her. Before she left the hut, she wrapped a scarf around her, covering her neck and her black lips. When she walked out the door, the rain had stopped and a heavy fog descended onto the village.
They said Mist Valley was the wettest village in the whole of Angkhora Kingdom. Nestled at the foothill of Banjaran Mountains, it would rain a few times a day. Precipitation was such a common occurrence that the local villagers placed wagers on the time of day the rain would start to how many buckets it would rain in one day. On this day, Dinda was thankful for the rain and the fog that had rolled over the village. The weather provided adequate cover for her to find and steal some meat for her mother.
She returned to the marketplace, in search of a butcher or farmer who was too busy to pay close attention to their goods. She'd even settle for another villager who had purchased meat for their family and was too distracted by the busy commotion of the marketplace to notice when she relieved them of their recent meat purchase.
But when she reached the market, she was disappointed to find that the conditions were not conducive to her planned heist. The stalls were closing and the crowd had quietened down. With such a small crowd and very little to distract the shop owners, it would be difficult to steal unnoticed. The possibility of feeding her ailing mother had become less and less likely.
As she stood at the edge of the marketplace contemplating her next move, somebody caught her eye. A boy. Standing suspiciously near a butcher stall. He looked to be about the same age as her, but he was tall, muscular, savagely handsome... and shirtless. She wondered what he was up to, because it was obvious by the way his eyes were constantly darting from one side of the marketplace to the other that he was definitely up to something. So, she watched. She moved to the edge of the marketplace and tucked herself into a dark corner between a knife forger and a frog seller, hoping that no one would find her presence suspicious the same way she felt about the boy.
After watching quietly for a while, there was finally some activity when the butcher turned his back to clean the blood from one of his butcher knives. When the butcher's back was turned, the shirtless boy reached over, grabbed a haunch of meat, and leapt away from the stall into an alley. Dinda was amazed at how swiftly and stealthily the boy had managed to steal the meat. He'd swiped, turned around, and leapt on all four limbs, like an animal, into the dark alley. The butcher was still cleaning his knife and completely clueless that he had just been robbed. The boy made it look so easy that Dinda was confident that she could repeat the deed and return home to her mother fulfilled.
She waited. Then she slowly left her secluded corner and walked toward the butcher's stand. Just as she walked past the stand, the butcher dropped the butcher knife that had just been cleaned. "Damn it!" he shouted in frustration.
Dinda froze in her tracks when she heard the anger in his voice. She watched as he turned his back on his meat again to rewash the knife. She inched her way closer and closer to the stand until the meat was within an arm's reach. She reached out and wrapped her hand around a flank. But just as she started to pull the flank in, a large meat cleaver came crashing down onto the counter, only a hair-width's distance from her hand. Dinda's eyes were wide with terror, but fear kept her from screaming or running away, until she saw the butcher reach for a second cleaver. She could see the rage in his eyes as he swung the second cleaver down toward her hand. She screamed in terror at the thought of the blade severing her hand. Hundreds of thoughts about how she'd live life and continue to provide for her mother with one hand flashed through her mind as she stood frozen, unable to move, as though trapped by the horror of the bloody image about to unfold. And just as the cleaver whistled through the air on its journey to her limb, two large hands grabbed her shoulder and yanked her away from the counter. The cleaver slicing home, right onto the exact place where her hand had been holding the flank.
Before she had time to focus on her near disaster, she felt herself being flung over someone's broad shoulder and whisked away at incredible speed. Speed that felt like leaps rather than running. She could see the butcher giving chase, but he was getting farther and farther away while the sound of him cursing grew fainter and fainter. After turning down several alleys and blending into the dense fog, the person finally stopped running and set Dinda down on her feet.
She took a moment to orient herself, the ride had made her a little dizzy and her stomach was shaken. Once she was stable, she looked up and saw that it was the shirtless boy who had whisked her away from the butcher's cleaver. She stared at him, unsure how to react. Should she show her amazement at his strength and speed or should she express her anger at his audacity to intervene in her business.
Who are you?
"You've got to be a little faster than that," he said with a chuckle. "You almost lost a hand, maybe even an arm."
"Yeah, I know..." Dinda caught up with her breath "...thank you. I guess I'm not as good at this as I thought. Not as good as you," she continued. "I suppose I'll have to find a new way to get food."
"Aww, don't give up so easily. Old Uncle is a tough butcher. But don't let him scare you. He won't chase you too far and leave his stand unprotected. And he definitely won't call the guards," the boy said.
He looked at her hand "Is your hand alright?"
"Errr, yes, thank you." Dinda checked all her fingers. She hadn't lost any.
"My name is Sriga." He offered his hand to her.
She looked at his large palm, reluctant to shake it. "I'm Dinda," she replied with a murmur.
"Hi, Dinda. Nice to meet you." He smiled, and for a brief moment she was speechless. No one had ever been so friendly toward her. She had no friends, and her days were spent pilfering or skulking in shadows... or home with her mother, which she avoided more and more lately simply so she wouldn't have to watch her mom slowly waste away. But this boy, he seemed genuine, and he had saved her from losing her hand. Then she caught his eyes as he glanced down at her lips. She quickly covered them with one hand and scurried to pull her scarf back up to cover them. It had fallen when she was slung over his shoulder. He stopped smiling when he noticed her urgency as she covered her mouth.
"You're not afraid of me?" she asked.
"No, why would I be?" Sriga shrugged.
She self-consciously placed her hand over her mouth again, even though the scarf was covering her lips. "Most people see my lips and they think I'm sick or cursed," she said. "Either way, they never want to get too close, so they don't catch whatever they think I have." She could hear the sadness in her own voice and turned her gaze to the ground. Sriga stepped closer to her and carefully reached for the scarf around her mouth. He pinched it with two fingers and started to pull it down slowly.
Dinda pulled away sharply, "Hey!" This boy is so rude! "Where are your manners!?" She scoffed at him.
"Err, I just want to..." he replied softly, "just a peek."
Dinda studied him, her fingers gripping the edge of the scarf over her lips like a defensive shield. He looked at her, curious and eager.
Hesitating for a moment, she finally gave in to his open expression of curiosity and pulled the scarf down slowly, revealing her upper lip. "Here. Satisfied?"
"You're weird," Sriga said and shrugged. "But I like you."
What!? I'm weird!? You're weirder!
She opened her mouth to say so when an angry voice called out, "You damn bandits!" The voice startled the teenagers and both their heads snapped up to find Old Uncle running around the corner waving his cleaver. Shocked, Sriga and Dinda backed up against a wall. The butcher had them cornered and approached the scared teenagers slowly. "Let's see where you're going to run to now..." the butcher growled in a deep, hoarse voice.
Suddenly, something strange started happening to Sriga. Long sharp claws protruded slowly from the ends of Sriga's fingers. "Don't come near, Uncle." Sriga said, his voice trembling. "I don't want to hurt you, Uncle."
"You, going to hurt me?" The old butcher chuckled. "Ha ha. You think your little claws scare me?" He lifted his cleaver and turned his narrowed gaze to Sriga. "I will chop you and your girlfriend into pieces and sell your meat!"
Dinda hugged Sriga, her body shaking with fear. "Don't come near, Uncle," Sriga warned again, his voice surprisingly calm in the face of the butcher's threat. Then Dinda watched in amazed horror as his eyes transformed and enlarged. A deep feral growl came from within him, she could hear it rumbling in his chest, she looked at him, confused, the moment feeling surreal as she tried to process the transformation unfolding infront of her eyes and also stay alert of the threat advancing in the form of the butcher and his raised weapon. Dinda watched as Sriga began to grow taller, stumbling away from him and pressing herself against the wet brick wall at her back as she watched his neck stretch up until it was elongated and his face morphed into something hairy, ferocious, with sharp fangs extending from his mouth.
Werewolf. A Gray werewolf.
Sriga stood towering above Dinda, breathing down on her heavily as she craned her neck to look up at him and pressed more firmly into the brick to try to gain some distance. She looked on in horror, but it was obvious to her now—how he was able to carry her and ran so fast. So strong. He howled into the sky and flashed his huge, hairy chest.
Aoooooouuuuwwwwww! He howled into the misty air, turning from her to face the man with the knife.
The old butcher stopped in his tracks and dropped the cleaver. He took a couple steps backward and Dinda couldn't help but notice the wet spot in his pants. The butcher screamed, turned around, and ran.
With no warning, Sriga grabbed Dinda with one arm, lifted her up, and proceeded to scale the wall with speed and agility, unlike any asura she'd ever seen. As he scaled the wall, she looked down only for a moment before the speed and height made her giddy and she buried her face in his hairy chest.
As he reached the top of the wall, instead of climbing onto the roof, he propelled them both into the air, executing a perfect landing on the roof, with Dinda still in his arms. She looked up at him, even more dizzy and at a loss for words. Though she felt she should be, she wasn't afraid. In fact, she felt safe... protected, his appearance feeling familiar in a strange way. Although it was impossible to tell through his elongated mouth filled with razor sharp teeth, it almost seemed like he smiled at her before taking off again, running across the roof.
"Wait, what are you..." but before she could finish her question, Sriga leapt off the roof and flew across the air above an alley, almost flying. As soon as his feet hit the other roof, he did a tuck and roll to lessen the impact of the landing, cradling Dinda in his arms like a precious egg. After the roll, he was right back on his feet and running in one seamless motion, never missing a stride, with Dinda still tucked securely in his arm.
As he ran toward the next ledge, Dinda noticed that the closest roof was at least twenty yards away. "It's too far!" she shouted. "You can't make it!" But Sriga was oblivious to her warning and continued running. He leapt, and they glided through the air for a few seconds. The sound of his paws landing on the roof sounded like a horse's hooves galloping in a field, and she let out the breath she had been holding. Apparently, he knew his own ability and needed no guidance from her.
He continued running, and when he reached the next ledge, he flipped into the air, landing smoothly onto the aimed for roof. Dinda screamed in delighted terror. At the following ledge and subsequent leap, Sriga landed on a small, thin rope that stretched between the two buildings. As soon as he landed, he instantly pounced off the rope and reached for the roof, his momentum not slowing in the slightest as he continued across the rooftops like a highway made for his kind. Sriga was prepared to run again, but Dinda pushed her way out of his arms. "Wait! No more! Please!" she yelled. "No more!" He set her down, confused, and looked back toward where they came from to make sure no one was following.
She sat down, out of breath, as if she was the one doing the running and jumping across rooftops. Sriga kept his distance and sat down too, and she watched as he took deep, heaving breaths and slowly reverted back to his human form.
They were silent for a moment as they stared at each other, and them he smiled and shrugged. "It's my turn to ask. Are you afraid of me?" Sriga asked, his expression giving away a hint of worry that she might be..
Dinda looked away while she decided on her response, then turned back to him and said, "Of course I am!" Though her voice held no venom.
Sriga chuckled. "I understand. I am an asura. People have always been afraid of me." He looked away with a mixed expression of pride and amusement.
"I thought werewolves were just a myth. I've never seen one before," Dinda said.
"Yeah. We're the last ones," he said.
"We...?" Her curiosity was growing.
"Me and my brothers..." his voice trailed.
"Where are they now?" Her eyes narrowed.
"They..." he stopped and looked away. His mood changing swiftly to a somber brood.
"It's okay, you don't have to tell me." Dinda saw sadness well up in Sriga's dark eyes and slowly placed her hand on his bare back. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She knew the pain of caring for family... perhaps he lost someone.
Sriga wiped his face and asked, "What about you? Why are you trying to steal from butcher carts?"
"My mother," she said softly. "She's sick and I have to get her food." Sriga looked at Dinda and she looked the other way.
"We can help each other out," Sriga promised. And she turned back to him with a small smile.
***
Dinda and Sriga bonded from day one. They would help each other find food and devised plans to attain all of their needs. Together, they figured out who and where to steal from without getting caught. Their friendship blossomed. Over time, Dinda's infatuation with Sriga grew. But she was careful not to show her true feelings for fear of him not returning her affection.
One day as Dinda sat atop a roof, she watched Sriga leap from rooftop to rooftop carrying a large sack slung over his shoulder. When he was on the next roof over, he threw the sack in the air toward her, jumped from the roof, flipped in midair, landed on his feet, and did a front roll before standing up and catching the sack in one hand before it hit the ground.
"I'll never get used to that. How do you do all of that even when you're in human form?" she asked.
"Training. I was trained by the best. I was a student of RAMMA," he said with his hands planted on his waist.
"RAMMA? What's that?" Dinda asked curiously.
"The Royal Academy of Magik, Martial Arts, and Matematika," he explained.
"Magik, Martial Arts, and what?"
"Matematika. Divine Matematika," Sriga further clarified. "It's a school where they train warriors for the Light King. They identify young talent and groom their strengths further. They also teach the principles of the Art of War," Sriga explained. Flow like Water. Ride the Wind. Be strong as a Pack." Sriga showing off his knowledge and Dinda felt a little lost in his barrage of citations.
"It's in Angkhora," he continued. "They prepare you to fight for the Light King. Wars..." Sriga said with a heavy tone in his voice.
"That sounds amazing. You must be very special to be enrolled there," Dinda quipped with a sinking voice, knowing that she would never fit into such an elite school. She had never been to any school.
"They recruit youths with special abilities, both human and asura," Sriga explained. "Some students are there because of their physical abilities and some are there for their mental abilities."
"And which one were you there for?" Dinda jokingly asked. They both laughed, knowing that she was insinuating an obvious answer to the question.
"One of the gurus at the school, a woman named Longnie, saw me fight in the Fighter Tournament," his eyes lit up.
"You were in the Fighter Tournament?" she wondered.
Sriga bashfully responded, "Yup. She was impressed by my fighting skill, especially since I had never been trained formally. She called me savage yet graceful."
"Wow. Are you famous?" Dinda was becoming more excited with her newfound friend.
Sriga chuckled before answering, "Famous? No, but I have many fans," he boasted. Then, he handed her the sack that he had been carrying. "Here," he offered.
"What is it?" she asked.
Sriga nodded his head. "Go ahead and open it."
When she did, she saw that it was filled with blankets and shawls.
"You said your mother gets cold at night and you can't ever seem to make her warm enough, right? These should help. There should be enough in there for you as well."
She looked at him, speechless and touched. Their eyes locked on each other.
"Thank you," she blushed.
"You're welcome," he smiled. They looked at each other with grins on their faces in awkward silence for a moment.
Dinda broke the quiet, asking, "So, do you still go to RAMMA?"
"No, not anymore."
"Oh, why not?"
"They found out I am a werewolf."
"A werewolf can't stay in RAMMA?" Dinda's curiosity deepened.
"No. Apparently not."
"When the guru saw me fighting at the Tournament, I was fighting with my claws. I did not tell them I am a werewolf. In fact, I hid my true identity from them."
"Later, when a brawl with a fellow disciple happened, the anger brought out the werewolf in me. I couldn't control it. I almost killed the other student. That was when they kicked me out. I was only there for a few months."
"So, what's wrong with being a werewolf?" Dinda asked.
"It's due to the War. The War between Angkhora and its enemies—the Clans. The stupid War. ..." Sriga took a moment to continue. "The Wolf Clan is an old enemy." His face disappointed. "They saw me as a threat and asked me to leave the school."
Dinda could empathize with how Sriga felt. She had felt it her whole life. An outsider. Rejection. She stuffed the blankets back in the sack and moved closer, wrapping her arm around him to console him. She lowered her head down and rested on his shoulder, feeling the rhythm of his breathing, letting herself sink deeper. But after a moment she pulled back, reminding herself...
I must not.