"Lilith, please stop that." I looked up the tree where the strange female had found herself in. Her dirty bare feet swung in the slight breeze and the blue shawl I had given her, tucked over her head as if she were a child hiding from a monster that lingered underneath her bed. "Come now. You need to come down." I pressed my hand to the bark, asking the old oak for forgiveness of her antics as she moved her feet in the air.
"You do not need to ask for forgiveness, Ambris. I asked for permission. It was given." She lifted the shawl from her head, peeking out at me as she gave me a lopsided smile. The shawl fell back into place and I closed my eyes with a sigh. I did not know what Mene wished for me to do with the female, she was such an odd creature and it was hard to keep track of her at times.
"Still, it is getting close to dinner and you shouldn't be up the tree." Sitting up there looking like a great blue ghost, I really didn't know what to do with her at times. She had been with us for over a month and I still didn't know. I cared for her as I should, as I had been told but she hadn't settled in with us like another would have.
Her feet swayed and I was reminded of a child sitting on a chair too high for them. There was so much about her that was both childlike and sombre. She was a female who had seen too much of this world but it was like when Mene put her back together she didn't do it smoothly. She was jarring at times with how her emotions and moods were. "I was trying to see the trees." She said it lightly and I let out another sigh.
"You can see them from the ground." I glanced around at the edge of the small forest we sat inside. There was much you could see of the trees. So much so that you didn't need to climb them with a shawl over your head.
She let out a small, out of tune hum for a moment. "You see them differently without eyes. You can hear them, feel their voice inside your chest. It thrums through you and if you listen hard enough, you can hear what they say." The words were said calmly and evenly with a hint of awe and I shook my head slowly. She was a female who saw and heard too much now but there was little I could do to fix that. What Mene had done, was done. There was no fixing it.
"Still. You are a wolf, not a monkey. I don't know how you even managed to get up there." I shook my head, feeling too much like a caretaker of a large child rather than a half mad female.
There was a moment's pause, "Up where?" Lilith asked it softly and I closed my eyes for a brief moment.
"Lilith, you are in a tree." I looked up at her again and she slowly pulled she shawl back from where it covered her face.
"Oh." Her eyes widened and her ease was gone as she gripped the tree tightly with her hands. "How do I get down?" She swallowed and looked down towards me with a heavy dose of fear as her knuckles turned white with the strength of her grip.
"I am not sure how you got up, so I'm not sure how you will get down." I studied the tree, trying to plot out how she had even managed to scramble up there but I couldn't see anything that would help.
"I-I-I-" She swallowed again before she turned those now timid eyes onto me. "Can I have some help?" She asked it in a choked whisper and my heart ached for the female. She was so childlike one moment and then it was like her brain remembered what was done to it and I was left with the cracked shell of who she used to be. Timid and always afraid of punishment.
I gave her a slow nod to calm her fears about asking for help and for getting stuck. "I'll get some of the larger males and we can get you out of the tree." I turned my gaze towards the inner territory wondering who I could call to help when there was a faint thump and oomph behind me and when I whirled around, Lilith was standing as she wiped off her robe with her hands. I shook my head slowly before holding out my hand for her. "Come on then, it's close to dinner and we should get to the hall." I gestured with my hand and she adjusted the shawl around her shoulders before taking my hand. Her hand was so dainty it always surprised me. She felt like she should break, as if she wasn't truly there, just an intangible form that was a whisper of living. I patted her hand in sympathy, knowing just what it took to get her to feel like that.
She moved along behind me as we started our walk to the dining hall. I wondered what it was that Mene wanted her for. She had told me that she would stay with us until such a time as she was to leave but she never told us how that would come about. I didn't know what divine intervention would happen next but I could feel it building in the air, it had been since Mene had rescued Lilith from her male and punished him.
The reminder of it always shocked me. Mene had brought balance but never before had she directly helped a single shifter before. Yet Lilith stood as she did, her belly holding faint lines and her womb healed, undamaged by what she done to it. Mene had used her magic to fix it and to push the consequences onto Adam. Her infertility for his fertility. I did not understand why Mene would have interfered as closely as she did but I knew better than to ask. She was still seething with rage and I did not wish to risk another communing with her, lest she keep me across the tide and allow my body to die. We could not afford to replace me, not yet.
"What's for dinner?" Lilith asked it softly and I let out a small hum.
"Venison and vegetables." We were on a meat heavy diet for the next few weeks as the priestesses and priests learned how to commune with Mene with their wolves, their fur taking over the skin as they tried their best to interpret the whispers of our goddess. It was an exhausting process that required a lot of calories specific to their wolves, so protein was key for the process to continue and for them to build up the strength in their wolves to continuously do it.
Lilith didn't respond to my statement, merely trailed behind me, her hand in my own as we made our way across the territory. We hit the road and she stopped abruptly and I frowned, looking back at her. She was staring down the gravel driveway, her eyes narrowed. "It comes." She said it abruptly and my frown deepened with confusion.
"What comes?" I knew better than to disregard her words. The female had a close connection with Mene, even closer than my own. Mene whispered to her constantly, as if the veil between us and the tides was thinner for her than it was for us.
"Change. Mene speaks. Will we listen?" She tilted her head, her dark and wild hair falling over her shoulder as she did so. "It rumbles in the earth and the air. A decision has been made and it will all change." She looked at me, her blue eyes shifting and swirling with the darkness of her wolf, both of them so shattered their was no true distinction between them anymore. "Mene's will will be done but the cost will be great. Can we afford to pay the price?" Her voice was almost hollow as she said it and I gave her hand a gentle squeeze to bring her back. It was a tactic we used on the moonborns when they started getting lost between the veil over the tides.
"It matters not if we can afford it or not, the price will be paid regardless, Lilith." There was no backing out, no trying to negotiate, no trying to change it. Mene would make her will known and the price would be paid, whether or not we could afford it. "We need to get to the dining hall." I tugged on her hand gently, urging her to continue our walk.
She slowly started after me, allowing me to lead her towards the dining hall. The walk was silent, Lilith lost in her own mind and my own mind turning with what she had said. I had known something was building but Lilith saying it was just a confirmation of something I already knew. Something was coming and it was coming fast. I could see the others entering the hall and spotted Isla and the two moonborns that followed her. Lilith let out a small chirp of excitement and let my hand go as she bounded across the grass towards them.
I shook my head with a small sigh as I watched her. She had an affinity for them as if she was drawn to them like a moth to a flame. She cooed over each of them, her dainty hands smoothing down their white hair and her voice soothing any fear they might have had. I had asked Isla if Lilith was a bother and the old female shook her head, telling me that Lilith was easing them, that she was caring for them as they should be cared for. She had no qualms with the mad female we found in our care because she seemed to understand the moonborns more than most.
If it was just the moonborns it wasn't all that bad but Lilith had a tendency to wander. I had never seen another shifter that was as she was. Nothing could hold her attention and there were moments when she would forget what she was saying or simply wander off and get lost. Her being stuck in the tree was just one of it. She would find herself in the forest, without anyone around and it would take us hours to find her or she would wander back into the territory without a sound. Dealing with her, with that, was stressful for me. I had to keep her safe but she made it difficult and complicated at times.
I shook the thoughts away and went to look for her but she was gone. I gave a heaving sigh as I looked over the inner territory, trying to figure out where she would have gone. She wasn't in the dining hall, I knew that much, I didn't have to see her to know it deep within my bones. She had wandered off once more.
That crazed female of yours just walked into my bar. Tulip's voice was clipped and I winced before lifting up the hem of my robe and jogging for the building. There was no reason for her to be in the bar and I knew that both Tim and Nexus made her a little... unbalanced. She didn't do well with Alpha males. I didn't blame her after what Adam had done to her but she didn't need to endure more of it.
The small, almost derelict, building came into view and when I was close enough I pushed open the door, ignoring the muted clank of it hitting the broken bell. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust but when it did I spotted Lilith standing in front of Nexus, his broad arms were crossed over his large chest and he was glowering at her with an intensity I would have shied away from but she stood firm underneath it.
"I didn't kill her, I simply didn't save her. There is a difference, female." His words were a cold rumble and I watched as Lilith tilted her head at him.
"Is there?" She stressed the question and there was a heavy silence that followed it. I allowed the door to close as I started my way across the bar towards her. "Refusing to save someone is the same as killing them yourself, there is no difference to Mene." She said it with a heavy dose of something that made the hair on the back of my neck want to stand up.
Tim set a glass on the bar, his eyes narrowed. "You are just a half mad female." The words were harsh and she slowly turned her head to look at him.
"Insanity brought on by the hands of an Alpha male. It is not by my own will that I do not know my own mind." The clarity she showed was almost heartbreaking. She understood just how badly Adam had broken her yet at the same time she couldn't grasp it, lost in her own mind. "There are sins against your soul, just as there are sins against his." She pointed to Nexus but her gaze did not move from Tim's form as he gave a low rumble of anger from deep in his chest.
I bared my teeth at him in warning as I grasped Lilith's arm. "We do not throw that at those unable to defend themselves, Tim." Censure lay heavy in my voice and he turned his face away but the sound stopped. "Come, Lilith. We need to go to the dining hall." I tucked her arm between mine and pulled her away from the two males who were looking less friendly by the second. There was no reason for her to rile them up but I knew she couldn't really control what she did when Mene whispered to her constantly.
"What is for dinner?" Lilith looked up at me, her expression soft and I gave her a small smile in return.
"Venison and vegetables. You will like it." I just needed to ensure that she made it there and didn't get distracted. I pulled open the door, leading her through before I let it close behind us.
I held her arm firmly and refused to allow her to pull away and wander off once more. We slowly made our way back towards the dining hall. There was a small silence before Lilith started radiating that wary stillness once more. "Will they put me in the dark?" The question was choked and said on a whisper and I let her arm go to wrap around her shoulders. I pulled her close and pressed my face to her hair.
"No. No, they won't." I held her tightly as she trembled in my grasp, the horrors of what Adam were still open wounds on her psyche and I wasn't sure if she could ever be free of them, if they would ever heal. "No one will put you in the dark again." My soul wept for hers, a female taken from the moon, barred from hearing her voice and her whispers. She was stuck in the endless dark until it had broken her, destroyed her. Adam had brought her nothing but destruction and I knew he saw nothing but creation in his actions and it sickened me deep to my core.
"I'm scared of it." It was a hushed whisper as her trembling grew just a fraction worse.
"I know, Lilith. I know." There was no part of me that judged her for the fact she needed to sleep with the lights on, that she avoided the dark places where no light seemed to go. She only felt safe when light encased her, enveloped her, be it moonlight, sunlight, or man-made artificiality. I did not blame her and I did not judge her for her fear. I rubbed her arm and forced a smile onto my face. "Let's go and get something to eat." I looked at her, trying to catch her gaze through her wild hair that I could never get her to keep neat and tidy.
"We can eat supper and perhaps you can sit with Isla and the vessels. I am sure she would like the company." I allowed my tone to turn perky and it had the desired effect as she slowly straightened her shoulders and lifted her gaze to look up at me.
"They are pretty things." She said it softly and I nodded.
"They are and they do love your company. So let's go and get some food." the dining hall was close and I knew I just needed to keep her focused on it for a few more moments before her hunger would click into her head and she would remember she needed to eat.
As much as I didn't understand her, as much as I grew tired at times from trying to keep her where I could see her, I felt for the female. She was broken, her sanity was in shards and she was put back together as best as it could be but she was still enduring what had been done to her. I could not fault her for that. My soul ached for her and wept for her because Mene could not. I knew Mene did not love the state she was in, she had brought her back but I knew Mene wished she could have done more. However there were somethings that could not be fixed, magic or not.
I pushed the thoughts away, squeezing Lilith slightly as we made it to the dining hall and through the open door. Her belly rumbled loudly and she pressed her hand to it as if in shock. "I'm hungry." She looked up at me in surprise and I nodded, rubbing her back before I let her go entirely.
"I know. How about you get your food and go sit with Isla and the vessels, hmm?" I pointed them out and Lilith nodded, giving me that lopsided smile before she started that odd humming tune and headed for the food. I watched her with a heavy heart.
I didn't know what Mene had planned for her and my only hope was that it wasn't something that would destroy her anymore than she already was.