Six years ago...
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The sun was setting slowly in the west, casting a beautiful glow across the lilacs in the stray flower fields that were located not too far from Naporia. The very same ones from the morning of a great battle yet not a single body lay discarded on the patch of land.
Having been magically removed by the Clan Leader earlier to ensure the youngsters didn't stumble upon the jagged scene by accident.
Laying among the lilac flowers were three strange yet remarkable young witches.
Oddly dressed as a trio; Hestia in a plaid skirt, a white shirt and blouse, Ace in black slacks and a button up with suspenders whereas Alisa always wore her blue ripped jeans and her mother's old band shirt.
A shirt her mother wouldn't be caught dead in which would have to have been her human father's, at least that's what she chose to believe.
It was a piece of herself that she could touch but not truly understand. Modern natural music was forbidden which meant she would never hear that band's music but she loved to imagine she could one day.
Distinctively different tastes in clothing by the three teenagers but a friendship blossoming in silence and thriving in the shadows despite this fact among others.
Their unorthodox meetings at peculiar hours and partaking in weird activities that would surely get them in a whole lot of trouble.
"What happened here?"
"What do you mean?" Ace asked in confusion.
"Can't you feel the waves in the earth?" Alisa asked in a gentle voice as she grabbed Ace's hand and placed it on the earth under her palm.
The blonde boy only shook his head in response.
"Just focus very carefully," she instructed as she squinted her eyes.
"And you can feel the waves of sadness passing through the earth."
No matter how hard Ace tried, his magic just couldn't feel the earth's emotions. Their abilities were limited to manipulating only the magic within the earth but never the earth itself.
"You seriously can't feel that?"
"Nope," he replied, making sure to stress the second last sounding letter of the word to emphasise his point.
"What about you, Hestia?"
Alisa turned to their redhead friend who blushed the same colour as her hair when being suddenly addressed.
"Huh? Oh, hmm," Hestia said as she absentmindedly brushed her hands over the dirt.
She could definitely feel the magic within the earth's core but not these so-called 'waves of devastation' that Alisa spoke of.
With a shrug of her shoulder, she went back to the messy scrawls on her parchment.
For anybody knew, they could've been anything.
Hestia never shared her special book with anyone. The sixteen-year-old was quite secretive at times. Always nose deep in her scribbles on the parchment.
"Come on. You guys seriously don't feel the coldness of the dirt?"
"Okay, now you're just teasing us," chuckled Ace as he ruffled his blonde hair in slight embarrassment.
The brunette girl, of only twelve, frowned.
She began feeling a sense of confusion and doubt in her own abilities, choosing to brush the topic under the rug and never speak of it again.
"Hey, let's play tag!"
"Sure!"
The other two began chatting wildly between each other but Alisa's young mind was already miles away.
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"Do you know why you're here, Ryder?"
The young boy only mumbled a response as he crossed his arms across his chest.
He was disinterested in talking and he hoped it was obvious.
At only twelve, the boy was incredibly clever.
"Can you repeat that for me, please?"
The Omicron stated clearly as he crossed one leg over the other, getting comfortable in the brown, leather chair.
With an exasperated sigh, the boy rolled over in the leather lounge chair.
"Because the Luna is dead and our pack is doomed."
The boy repeated his previous mumble in a deadpan voice yet louder this time around.
With shock, the therapist flinched back visibly.
For it was true; losing a Luna didn't just affect the Alpha and their young child but the pack as individuals all felt a bond break in that moment.
A figurative chord inside of their brains that connected each member of the Sabor Tooth pack to their Luna.
The moment it had snapped, time had stopped, which caused the hearts of all involved to shatter.
The Luna had fallen, leaving her son alone in the field of distorted lilacs and dismembered wolves of their warrior force.
A great battle had taken place and the pack had lost more than just drops of blood.
The most affected from this was the twelve-year-old boy who had witnessed it all take place from behind the old Oak tree.
The memories were fresh from only a few short weeks ago but they felt hazier than a foggy morning to Ryder.
"Mum!"
"Ryder, stay back! It's dangerous!"
"But I want to help you," the young boy begged back, tightening his grip on his mother's left arm.
The woman turned back to her son in the haze of battle and crouched down to wipe off dirt from his tear-stained cheeks.
"Mummy loves you, okay? Just wait right here for me, okay? I'll be right back. I promise."
The Luna smiled sadly at her son as a lone tear fell from her green eyes.
For it was evident in her cold, frail bones that she would not be returning to her son at all.
"Happy Birthday," she whispered as she placed a gentle kiss on his forehead before turning away from him.
In a flash the woman was gone and he was standing alone watching after her distant figure.
The further away she got, the blurrier the vision of his mother became.
"And how does that make you feel?" The Omicron asked in a strange tone that broke Ryder out of the terrifying memory.
Relief washed over the boy but the moment it had come, it had been replaced with annoyance once more.
"This is stupid! I want to go home now."
"But Alpha Ryker asked me to assess how this incident has affected you."
Ryder shook his head, growing angrier by the minute.
"I'm fine. I want to go now."
"'Fine' is typically a word used when things are actually the opposite. Is that the case here?"
"Maybe."
"They also say 'maybes' are a whole lot like 'yeses', don't you agree?" The Omicron said as he began writing things down in his notepad.
"I guess."
A two-word mumble was better than one word, he'd give the boy that at least.
"Now, Ryder, can you tell me a little bit about how you have been feeling recently?" The therapist probed once more as he wrote some more notes down.
With a sigh, Ryder slowly unfolded his arms.
Silence filled the air for a few moments as the young boy searched for the right word to describe how he had been feeling lately.
"Empty."
One word to sum up everything that had happened and the monstrous swirl of emotions that rolled around in his stomach.
It all felt just too much to bear as if he were drowning in a lake, desperate to come up for air yet suffocating due to the lack of it.
The entire memory of his mother felt like a hollow, sore spot inside of him. Feelings of constant dread and depression.
Ryder felt as if he were slowly going down the rabbit hole with no way out.
The boy had a terrible feeling that the memory would haunt him for a life time.
The kind of haunting that made it difficult to build lasting relationships with other people - Ryder feared for the worst.
The Omicron had the power alone to decide whether he was capable to continue his Alpha classes or be excused under traumatic events.
Ryder didn't want to be excused; he desired to throw himself into his school studies and hope to never think of his mother again.
Some memories were just too painful to keep reliving.