Elenor Neaera: Meryl Streep
Robert Naeera: Tommy Lee Jones
MADELINE
Pain.It was the all-encompassing, intense, and sharp kind of pain.Throbbing, and swirling through her body, leaving no part untouched. Peeling her eyelids apart with some difficulty, they remained narrowed, gazing at the glaring blue sky as it slowly rocked above her.
It was such a vivid colour, striking against the remnants of trees around her. A charred brown, almost black colour, against the bright blue sky was startling, to say the least. Yet, somehow it bought her hope, the light against the dark. She almost snorted at her thoughts, how ironic, such a quintessential example of good and evil.
Being jolted from the gentle rocking, she winced at the intensification of pain. She did wonder, momentarily, why the wound was still so painful, especially considering the general pace at which shift-were were inclined to heal - she must not have been passed out for long if she was still in such pain. But it was the least of her worries, ranging from a pack of rouge wolves, to shifting in a town full of wolves, and being requested by the couple who found her. Whoever, they were.
She chose to ignore her blatant honesty with Xavier, hoping to skip past that part. It was embarrassing enough that it happened in the first place.
She felt her cheeks warming slightly in response to her thoughts, twitching slightly at the state Xavier had found her. She attempted moving her fingers slightly, only to find she wasn't able to shift them at all. Furrowing her brows she tried marginally harder before making the effort to adjust slightly. Her hand, was entwined with Xavier's who was walking next to her. She appeared to be laying on some sort of medical bed, as she was carried through the forest.
Donald would get a kick out of this one.
Looking up slightly, she met Xavier's gaze, who'd been intently staring at her the entire time. No matter how hard she tugged, he wasn't letting go of her hand. Rather, he seemed on the verge of laughing at her frustration, and the look of genuine amusement in his eyes left a tingling feeling in her stomach. It was as though, the more time she spent with him, the more confused she became.
"I'm sorry dear," the voice came from just behind Xavier, and Madeline propped herself up slightly to find the source. Elenor walked a few paces behind them, struggling to keep up with the speed of the wolves. Xavier growled slightly, glaring at both Elenor and Robert, who looked sheepish in response to his anger.
"We didn't mean to overwhelm you, we were just excited to meet you," she trailed off slightly, as Xavier's glare intensified.
"It's okay," Madeline began, clearing her voice, "It wasn't that, I was just exhausted and..." she trailed off again. She couldn't remember a time where her parents weren't cautioning her against revealing what she was, it wasn't logical for her to start revealing herself now.
"I was just exhausted." She finished, looking at the couple pointedly. Xavier must have surmised she was a wolf, it was the obvious one given the circumstances. But, she wasn't sure if he'd realised that wasn't the extent of her being.
Xavier gave another look towards the couple before nodding in Madeline's direction. Lightly furrowing his brown in return to whatever expression her face held, she sighed before the group holding the stretcher stopped, and lowered her to the ground.
Pushing herself up, and folding her legs underneath her, Madeline winced at the pain still throbbing through her body. Stretching her limbs slightly before looking at Xavier expectantly, a single eyebrow raised.
"Madeline, you asked earlier why your wolf was infatuated with me?" he prompted her, and she simply nodded in reply,
"Have you ever been taught about mates?" He asked, and this time refrained from indicating any response.
"Madeline, a mate, at least to most primal of the shifter races, is the shorter term for a soul-mate. A, person you are inexplicably attracted to. A person, whose being is the perfect other half to yours." She gaped at him. It wasn't hard for her to figure the rest out. If she was feeling his emotions, if him smiling filled her heart with joy, it was an easy assumption that he was her soul mate. Shaking her head slightly, she could feel his emotions moving through her, as though they were her own. Of all the emotions he was feeling, the most potent was that he was afraid.
"So, not mates as in friends then?" She asked, smirking at him. He laughed, shaking his head, crouching down beside her before taking her hand,
"No Madeline, not friends." He said rather decisively. Knowing as much as she did about mate-bonds within other species, she felt an innate sense of trust in Xavier, and took a deep breath.
"Xavier..." she hesitated before Martina's insistence had her continuing, "I'm not simply a shifter-were, I'm more I guess..." She paused again, fighting the hesitation buried so deeply within her. She was about to share a secret, that had been ingrained into her as just that, a secret.
"I'm a hybrid, half-shifter, and half-faerie."
She didn't bother explaining any further than that, it wasn't hard for him to work out. She was a hybrid, and that had a plethora of implications beyond defining her actual being. He nodded, almost dazed by her revelation as she glanced toward Elenor and Robert.
Elenor, stood smiling and nodding as though the biggest secret Madeline held, was no secret at all to her.
"We know," she said, looking towards Robert, "We mentioned a friend earlier, but that was not it at all. It was our daughter, twenty-five years ago, she left us a letter detailing everything that was to occur in our future, and subsequently yours, her daughter, up to this point. She said, we would be the ones to summon you here and beyond that, she had nothing more to say."
She was stunned, to say the least. Madeline wasn't able to form a single coherent sentence. Her mother, not the one who'd raised her, but her actual mother. It wasn't that she was confused, more stunned by the amount of information she'd learnt in the past few hours. She sat there, in a simple attempt to absorb everything.
"Madeline", she looked towards Xavier, making eye contact, before glancing away. The emotion in his eyes was too strong, and overwhelming for her to deal with at this point in time.
"I didn't want to say anything, because I didn't know who, or what you were. All I knew is that the Faerie Royals had advised us to call you in," he said nodding towards the Naeera's, before looking back towards her, "beyond that you were simply a human scientist."
He said almost apologetically. She supposed it explained his stand-offish behaviour when they first met. She nodded, smiling graciously before catching up with his sentence,
"Wait," she said, eyeing Xavier and the couple suspiciously, "If you're my mothers parents, and you're the Faerie Royals, that makes me..." she trailed off again, maybe she should have listened to her parents, and not left for the town, "Wow."
She finished her sentence breathlessly, giving Xavier a look. He didn't seem to have understood exactly what she'd said, still stuck in his head thinking about her, as his mate. Madeline let herself drift into her thoughts, and memories.
"Maddie dear, we've got visitors." Huffing, she got up before running down the stairs.
"Ma?" She prompted, looking around the room.
'Through the veil, Madeline."
Of course, it was all secrets and hidden truths these days. Rolling her eyes, she pushed her power forth before stepping through the thin gap in the veil.
"Markus, this is..." Madeline, didn't hear a single word she'd said. Staring intently at her parents companions, it was as though they stared at her with reverence. It was confusing, at the least.
"Princess," they said in sync, before bowing their heads.
She raised a brow at their choice of name, as her parents started laughing.
It was a choked chuckle, she remembered that much. They'd gone on to claimit was simply a nickname, but now she was annoyed at their dishonesty.
"Those bloody liars," she mumbled quietly.
"Who?" Xavier asked her before she remembered she wasn't alone.
Madeline found herself looking up at Xavier sheepishly,
"Uh," she glanced around quickly before her gaze fell on Elenor and Robert.
"My adoptive parents" she quietly said, "they're Fae as well, did you know?" she directed this towards the people claiming to be her grandparents.
"We knew you'd been given to someone trusted, Adelaide's letter begged us to understand," they said looking at each other, "But we didn't really realise why until now."
"Who were they?" they asked,
"You mean you haven't figured it out?" She directed towards them rhetorically,
"Madeline Alvarez...'" she explained moving a hand towards her body and waving it up and down.
"Unless they changed their last name?" Madeline was suddenly second-guessing everything she knew.
"Oh, we'd assumed it was a coincidence." Elenor replied to her, easing her mind a little. At least that part of her life hadn't been a lie.
Everyone paused momentarily, perhaps thinking over everything they'd learnt in the past few hours. Madeline wasn't sure where to start with the processing. She knew she'd have to contact her parents, explain what she'd found out, although no doubt they'd know about the princess part. She wondered if the reason they'd always seemed miserable was that they were afraid of being condemned by their monarchs.
"Would you allow them back?" She asked suddenly, staring at Elenor and Robert intently, "Would you allow my parents back to live with the Fae?"
"Of course," Elenor said softly, "We can't condemn them for doing something towards the greater good of our kind," she paused as her eyes glazed over, and Robert touched her shoulder.
"Although, if you're the mate of a were, I doubt you'll want to inherit the crown..." she trailed off looking at Madeline expectantly.
"I'm not 100% sure about what I do and don't want at this stage," Madeline began lightly, "But I'd like to hope you both have plenty of years left in you, so an answer isn't needed immediately."
They both nodded and stood at the same time, as Xavier slipped his hand from her and began standing as well, "We need to get back to the village," he began, looking down at her, "I linked them to inform them what was happening, but we'll have to talk with the Elders, as well as discuss what happened with the other wolves."
"What did happen with the other wolves?" Madeline directed at Xavier, she'd almost died, and the least she expected was an explanation, although she didn't think he'd withhold one from her anyways.
As she waited for him to answer she glanced around her once more to find wolves walking towards the centre of the clearing, little vials and jars in their hands. She smiled slightly knowing they would be collecting samples for her since hers were long lost somewhere in the forest.
"Word has spread that we are weakening, between the inability to produce offspring and the weakness of malnourishment, we're not as strong as we used to be, they know that, and they're making their moves. Which is why we're desperate to find a way to fix the issue..." he trailed off, looking intently at her injuries, before lifting her in his arms and beginning to walk. Opting to ignore the stretcher laid perfectly in tact on the ground. She hadn't noticed that she was still only wearing a shirt, and him only a pair of pants until Martina popped her head in,
"Now, can you touch him?" she asked expectantly before Madeline pushed her far back into her head, she'd forgotten her clothes shredded as she shifted, and he'd given her a shirt. Madeline smiled lightly to herself as they began their way back to the village,
"Sleep," Xavier said, "You lost a lot of blood, and you could use the recharge."
Madeline was too comfortable in his arms to argue, and slowly closed her eyes before drifting off to sleep.