The sky blazed with the bright colours of sunset as I leaned back in my chair, the cold breeze blowing across my face, somewhat soothing the throbbing headache that pounded behind my eyes.
"You okay? You've been grumpy all day." I groaned, sitting up as Rachel placed my cup of hot chocolate on the table before us.
"Have I? Didn't mean to, I have the worst migraine. I didn't get much sleep last night." Rachel slipped into her seat, eyeing me as she sipped on her mocha, the familiar smell of coffee making me wrinkle my nose.
"Oh? Why's that? You normally don't have a problem with sleep." I snorted, taking a sip of my drink I sighed as the warmth trickled down my throat and through out my body.
"That's an understatement. I had a weird dream. It was so realistic that I couldn't get back to sleep. In fact, I don't remember sleeping at all." Rachel frowned, leaning back in her chair as she sipped her drink.
"Weird. Maybe you sleep so much that you don't remember getting into bed anymore?" I shrugged, resting my head on my arm as the quietness of the day swept through me.
"You have to go home early today, don't you?" I asked, yawning as the thought occurred to me. Rachel nodded, tapping on her cup absently.
"Yeah, Ceres wants to have a date night or something. But besides that, guess what he told me yesterday?" I frowned, resting my chin on my hands as I looked up at her. Her dark green eyes were narrowed, crinkling at the sides, her mouth pulled down at the edges as she stared at me intently. I sighed, a heavy feeling settling in my stomach.
"You're going away for a bit?" Rachel blinked in surprise, shaking her head at me.
"How did you-? You know what, I'm not going to ask. Yeah. Ceres wants us to visit his family for a celebration in a couple of weeks. He wants us to go for a month." I groaned, scowling at the thought of my best friend being amongst that assholes family for a month.
"I'm guessing you have about two days to prepare?" I asked, the heavy feeling in my stomach now solidifying into a stone, weighing down on my heart. She nodded, tossing her cup back as she drained the last of the mocha.
"Yup. Apparently we leave tomorrow. When I'm supposed to pack my bag, I'm not entirely sure since Ceres wants us to cuddle all night, but yeah." A dark feeling fell over us as we stared at the cups sitting on the table in front of us.
"Are you going to be alright?" Rachel asked, her voice low and heavy with concern. Leaning back in my chair, I shrugged.
"It's only a month, right? What could possibly happen in a month? I'll be alright. What about you?" She shrugged, picking at the empty cup.
"I don't know. I'm not sure I'll have the strength to deal with those people for a month. But, I promise I'll come back." I smiled at her, shaking my head as I downed the rest of my hot chocolate.
"Pinky swear that we'll meet back here in a month?" I asked, sticking out my pinkie as we simultaneously rose from the table. Rachel snorted, shaking her head as she wrapped her finger around mine.
"I promise." We said together, smiling at each other. We tossed our empty cups into the bin and turned to give each other a hug.
"Thank you, Tera, for everything. I love you." I smiled, hugging her tighter before we pulled apart.
"Nah Rach, thank you. I love you more." We giggled before Rach looked down at the watch on her wrist and turned away, waving as she headed in the direction of her home. I sighed, burying my hands in the pockets of my jumper as the temperature seemed to drop several degrees.
"Damn it." I muttered, pulling the thick wool closer around myself. I really needed to get a thicker jumper but I always forgot whenever I left the house.
"Too late now." The crunch of snow beneath my heavy boots made me smile. I'd been awake when the snow had begun falling last night and it was still one of my favourite things about living in Quelia, even though the town I'd come from was only a couple of hours away, it was too far down the mountain to get any substantial amount of snow. The cold wind blew through the trees as they grew thicker and I shivered slightly, eyeing the spot where I remembered seeing the woman with white hair last night.
"It was a dream. Had to be a dream. There's no such thing as people turning into wolves, woman." I chastised myself, shaking my head as I turned to find the place I'd walked off the path last night. I was surprised I remembered it as I walked over to where the plants had been unceremoniously trampled. I looked into the forest, searching for the place I had seen the wolves last night, biting back the urge to go looking for those spots of blood in the snow. It wasn't likely I'd find them again especially since it had snowed last night, but the urge was still there. Shaking my head, I turned away, anxiety eating at my stomach. There was nothing there. No matter how real that dream had been, there was no way it was reality. People turning into wolves? Please. I crossed my arms in front of my chest, walking away from that place, when a crack above my head made me pause. Looking up into the trees, for a moment I didn't see anything. I was about to walk away when a blast of wind rustled through the leaves and the sleeve of a thick jumper caught my eye. I leaned back on my tiptoes, trying to see through the thick canopy, when a pair of emerald green eyes looked back at me. There was a boy in the tree, his coal black hair fell in front of his eyes, he seemed to be trying to hide behind the tree trunk but what I could see of him seemed a bit too skinny for what was normal.
"There's a child in a tree." I blinked. "Why is there a child in a tree?" The boy stared at me, seemingly frozen as he clung to the trunk of the tree like a koala.
"Hey monkey, what you doing up there?" The boy didn't respond, just looked hurriedly around him like he was terrified of something.
"Hey, hang on, I'm not going to hurt you. Are you with anyone? Where are your parents?" He didn't say anything, his eyes were wide with fear as he stared at me, clinging so tightly to the tree I could see his knuckles were white, even from my vantage point. I raised my hands, opening my mouth to tell him he was alright, when his head shot up and he pulled himself against the trunk of the tree, staring at something right over my head. I blinked, turned around to see what he was looking at and almost jumped out of my skin. A few paces behind me stood a kid, probably a few years younger then me. He didn't seem all the intimidating, in fact he was a few inches shorter than me and wearing glasses, but something about the way he held himself made me automatically slip into a fighting pose. I turned and looked up at the boy, who was now staring at me with his eyes as wide as saucers. Discreetly, I indicated for him to climb higher, and the boy deftly pulled himself into the canopy of the tree.
"You okay? You're talking to a tree." The boy said, running his hand through his light brown hair. I frowned, my muscles tensing as he took a step closer to me.
"Yeah, there was a cat that looked like it was stuck. You must have scared him 'cause he jumped off." I said, attempting to look casual as my heart threatened to jump out of my chest.
"Really? Damn, I like cats. Would've liked to chase it off myself." I blinked, my handing tightening into fists in my jumper pockets, swallowing as I instinctively backed off from the boy.
"I'm sorry, are you looking for something? The towns in the opposite direction, there's nothing but houses past this way." The boy shrugged, smiling as he walked around me. Too late, I realised he'd managed to place himself so that I had to walk past him, no matter which direction I was going on the path.
"Yeah, I am looking for something, but it's alright I think I found it. Tell me, do you remember anything about what happened last night, Tera?" I froze, staring at the boy like he had three heads, my brain scrambling to figure out how I knew him. Was he a customer? I couldn't remember ever seeing his face before, and yet, something was niggling at my memory. There was something familiar about the way he turned his head, the way he held his shoulders, but yet not in the exact way he was doing it now. For a moment, I thought I was nuts before an image flashed through mind. Now, I knew I was nuts.
"I broke your leg last night." I blurted, before my brain could tell me how completely nuts that was. The boy frowned, twisting his leg as he looked at it.
"Yeah, can't say that was my favourite experience. Sent to kill the Alpha-Heir and get wiped out by a human girl interfering where she doesn't belong." The boy grinned, looking up at me with dark brown eyes. I swallowed, resisting the urge to check on the boy in the tree. I could handle this. If he attacked, I had to handle it.
"What's an Alpha-Heir?" I blurted, looking around for somewhere to turn. If this boy could turn into a wolf, I doubted running into the forest was going to do anything but severely slow me down.
"Your friend, Zakynthros. We were supposed to kill him. Imagine our surprise when a human jumped out of the trees and saved him and his friend. Now, we have an even bigger mess to clean up." I watched as he took another step towards me, flexing his hands as though anticipating a fight. I did the same, my hands hidden inside my jumper.
"What do you mean? What does that have to do with me?" The boy shrugged, smiling at me as he adjusted his glasses.
"Nothing really. It's just that, you know, you saw us shift and all. I mean, it's not like Zakky boy should've altered your memories or anything last night but I still would've been told to make sure you don't remember anything." I swallowed, thinking back to when Zak had tried that voice thing on me.
"Are you going to do use that voice thing on me as well? It didn't work too well last night." I said, hoping to distract the man. Instead, he just tilted his head, frowning at me.
"So, it didn't work? Interesting. No, Tera, I won't be trying that one." He shrugged. "I don't have the power to do that. No, I've been sent to do something else." I swung my hands up, only just blocking the fist that came flying towards my face, side stepping his other fist came flying towards my ribs. I grabbed the hand that was aimed at my fast, moving to twist it over my shoulder, when he took hold of my arm and twisted it behind me.
"Sorry, no hard feelings, I'm just following orders." He smirked in my ear before I felt on of his hands snake around my jaw, pushing my head upwards as he gripped my head tightly. I looked up into the trees and locked eyes with a terrified boy, staring at us from above. He seemed to be locked in place, fear making him look like an animal, but there was something in his eyes, like he wanted to help. I swallowed and as the man began to twist my neck, I kicked out.
I didn't know I'd hit anything but as the sickening crunch of bone against bone echoed through the forest, I couldn't help feeling relieved as the hand disappeared from around my face. The mans screech of pain echoed through the trees as he stumbled away from me, holding onto his leg as blood poured from it. His knee cap hung uselessly behind his leg, his shin bone tilted awkwardly to the side. He glared at me, hobbling on his leg as he took a hold of his kneecap and pushed it back into place. I stood, horrified, as with a disgusting crunch his bones began to slip back into place.
"Bitch!" The man shouted and before I could react, a large brown wolf had launched itself straight at my face. i screamed, throwing my arms up over my head, when another wolf came flying from the trees and slammed straight into the brown one. I flew to my feet, watching as the pure black wolf ripped into the brown one.
"I take it you're Teranika?" I jumped, swinging around to find a man smiling at me, his dark blue eyes narrowed with worry. He had salt and pepper hair and a strange squiggly mark along his jaw line.
"Who are you? Who is he? What is going on?" I asked, backing away from the man when he took a step towards me. A squeal ripped through the air and I turned to find the black wolf make his way over to us, blood dripping from it's snout, the brown wolf no where to be seen.
"I'm Llewellyn. This is my son, Zakynthros." The man, Llewellyn, indicated the wolf, who shook himself off and then suddenly appeared in front of me as a very pissed off Asian man.
"What the hell are you doing, Tera? Are you looking for trouble?" I bristled, my body still pumping from adrenaline and fear.
"Looking for trouble? WIth you lot? What the hell would I do that for? I just finished work, I'm going home, that boy, man, wolf, thing just turned up and started talking about ALpha-Heirs and memory altering and then I'm pretty sure he tried to kill me, and you're standing here accusing me of looking for trouble? What the hell have you gotten me into?" I screamed at him, watching as expression twisted.
"I didn't get you into anything. No one made you interfere last night-"
"Interfere? He said they were trying to kill you! And- OH for fuck sake, what the hell did you do to me?" Zak blinked, looking at me with confusion.
"I didn't do anything-"
"Bullshit! I met you for the first time yesterday and now I'm seeing people turning into wolves! Did you inject me something when you took the bag? Is this how this little scam works? What did you do?" Zak was silent for a moment before a sneer crossed his face.
"Are you saying we drugged you or something? We had nothing to do with it! I don't want to deal with a human knowing about us! And why haven't you forgotten?" Zak demanded. A hand took hold of my arm and twisted me around so I was looking into the exact same blue eyes as before, just framed by salt and pepper hair.
"None of this is real, okay? It was all a dream-"
"WILL YOU BOTH STOP THAT? It feels like a parasites crawling around in my head. If you aren't trying to pull some stupidly elborate trick on me then what the hell are the both of you here for?" I screeched, wrenching myself out of the mans arms. I was breathing heavily, looking at the two of them liked they were both nuts when they turned to each other.
"I was looking after a little boy, who seems to have run away. We were looking for him when I heard you scream." I swallowed, deliberately not looking up at where I knew the boy was crouched.
"Why would anyone give you a child? He'd probably be better off away from a crazy person like you." Zak sneered but Llewellyn grabbed his arm.
"Calm down, Zakynthros. We have no choice, she's been targeted for helping you last night. We've gotta take her with us." I blinked at Llewellyn, shocked at the nonchalant way he'd declared that.
"Me, go with you? Why the hell would I go with a bunch of conniving, evil men-" Zak groaned, staring up at the darkening sky like he was waiting for something.
"This is real, Tera. We're not evil. I promise." He sighed. I opened my mouth to reply when what little light there was left, suddenly disappeared along with the two men standing in front of me. Instead, I was greeting with the solid black wolf and a multicoloured wolf staring at me with the same eyes.
"Okay, I've just gone completely nuts haven't I? All of you aren't real and I've just finally lost my mind!" I announced, throwing my arms in the air as I turned to look up at the boy in the tree. But the moment I did, the quiet forest air was ripped apart by a heartwrenching scream.
AN:
Well, this kind of sucks. I had to rewrite this because I discovered that Tera has no reason to voluntarily go to Fortitudine. Why would you go with a bunch of random strangers to a place you've never been when all you want to do is sleep all day? Anyway, I'm not the greatest fan of this. I don't know what's wrong with my writing these days. Everything feels so empty.