FRIDAY
Ire bubbled under my skin. My usual dormant beast had been awoken again. My limbs were trembling because of the effort I used to keep myself from dashing at the tree and tearing him apart. He looked at us one by one through his dark cold eyes.
"Do it... Let's see how fast you can cover the distance before I slit her throat." He materialized a long bladed silver knife and put the blade to Dawn's throat and I tried as hard as I could to stop myself from moving from the spot I was.
"Doesn't anyone remember me?" He asked.
His voice was wounded and cold, like as if he had swallowed a rock that tore its way down to his belly.
Everyone was silent.
"I do."
Jhan's voice tore through the silence and carried along with it a blanket of surprise that covered us all.
"One hundred and fifty years ago."
The man looked intensely at Jhan before a wide smiled crawled into his face.
"Yes, you do. How could you forget?"
SATURDAYWhen I got back home it was already the break of a new day. I stayed in the parlour and as far away from Dawn as possible. I felt a rising hatred myself that was overcoming me. It was my fault she got hurt the first and instead of me to protect her I let her down. How was I sure I could still keep her safe, even now.And Leya, I had almost blurted out Dawn's name at the time that Lupine was counting me down. I had betrayed her whether she knew it or not. But there was nothing I could do, it was either Leya or Dawn and I chose Dawn. So what is the black wolf wasn't there? Then what could have happened.Over the next few days I stayed at home Dawn got better quickly.Jhan had agreed to keep Dawn a secret from the higher court, Jereum did whatever Jhan did so I guess got lucky at that. Tia on the other hand was just all round sympathetic. She was in support of my relationship with Dawn but at the same time she felt bad. I could see the pitiful
MONDAYFor the next two days I made sure I did the complete opposite of what Tia had told me. After I told the others after all the things we did together and finally getting that off my chest. Jhan told me to be more careful. Tia merely smiled. Jereum clearly glowered and Leya patted me on the shoulder.I spent the hours trying to devise a way to speak to the wolves, to go to them in a way that would not cause the beasts to attack and rip me to shreds. The wolves didn't like us. The way they spoke when they mutilated me. I wanted so badly to dash into that forest and bellowed until one of those giant wolves comes out of nowhere.But I knew inside me that I was scared. I was scared of them and thinking about my encounter with them only made me more scared. I had barely escaped the last time and going in there again only made me more freighted.But anyhow it was I had to communicate with them. Both powerful species have a mutual enemy which can also
SAME DAYI spent the rest of the day with Dawn. She ate happily and cheerily. Talking about things that happened to her in her high school and recounting events to me that I could not even understand. Evening fell and Leya came in with a small bowl containing a weird liquid. She carefully dabbed the liquid on Dawn's face with a cloth and I wondered what the medicine could be made of that made it such a wound healer. I had asked Leya what it was at the time that she was still tending to Jereum's wounds, but she only smiled at me sheepishly and since then I had been too creeped out to ask her again.Dawn winced as Leya brought the cloth to the slit at the corner of her lips. She tightened her locked fingers with mine and I looked at her reassuringly.Leya finished."Thank you Leya," Dawn said. I had told Dawn her name earlier when Leya had brought in her dinner.Jhan was doing a good job to keep her parents fooled. He said he'll knock on their door i
THREE WEEKS LATER. MONDAYI had been shackled in this dark, moist and mould smelling cell for all I knew could have been up to a week. No one had come and from the looks of things, no one was coming. The only company I had were the two adjudicators that stood outside my prison. I was thrown into this place; the female adjudicator had taken much pleasure in shackling me to the walls. These chains were nothing; I could break out of them as easily as a hot knife slicing through butter.I felt a slow healing crack in my skull mend itself. Whoever had struck me had been leathel. Before I reawakened I had had several flashbacks of Jhan. I had had these before, my clan leader murdering my family. But this time I could easily tell it was just my mind playing with me.Jhan had never killed my family, it was all just in my mind and the fake flashbacks must have probably been caused by the extreme disorientation I was feeling in my head. Same goes for the first time
MONDAYJhan had brought me back to our original town, to our home. I had stayed shackled in that room for three weeks and during that time, the higher court had deemed it safe for us to return to our town. Tia hugged me once I walked through the door."What happened?" She asked, holding my face in her hands.I remembered how our last conversation had ended and I felt ashamed for how I had treated her. Pushing her aside roughly without even thinking about it."I'm sorry Tia. I'm sorry for what happened before all this."She looked at me with content.“I'm just glad you're alright,” She said."You have a lot of things to explain Kaldar," Jereum said, he had appeared out of nowhere as usual. "Like how took on a whole horde of adjudicators but you couldn’t even knockdown Leya.” I smiled at his humour.“Dawn is worried Kaldar,” Tia whispered to me.I walked up the stairs and got to the firs
TUESDAYDawn slept like a baby. She breathed out softly and the sound of her gentle sighs made me know that sleep brought calm and peace to her. The moonlight was shining bright today. She had her head and a hand on my chest. She insisted that I slept by her and I agreed as long as fulfilling her wish would make her happy.I didn't sleep not because I enjoyed watching the gentle rise and fall of her back, but because sleep wouldn't even come to me. I was sure it would take a long time before I would drift off into the oblivion of rest and peace. The thought made me envy Leya who would sleep or sleep-mode whenever she wanted to.I heard a slight rustling from the grasses outside, it should be an animal or a small rodent but it reminded me of the wolves. I needed to do what I had to do without putting any of my family in danger. Going out at night right now would be dangerous but I could relate with the beasts. I was scared of what might happen, I might meet
SAME DAYThe wolf had told us to come back once say had gone halfway through. I had pointed out the fact of the sun but it, or should I now say she reassured me that it would be cloudy day. I didn't have much to say after that except for the task given to me by the higher court and the wolf thought to me that it would arrange for our visit to its tribe. Of course Tia couldn't hear what we said to each other so I had to tell it to her once I finished a statement and got a reply.The white wolf had been staring. It had stated back at me unblinkingly. And even as we departed I could still feel its gaze burning into my back.We got back home at day break and my smile I had put on by my success was immediately inverted when I met the irate expression of Dawn as I walked through the door.I paused. I hadn't gone through the window because i knew that if she was still asleep, she wouldn't be as engrossed in it as before and may wake up as I got into the room. I
MONDAYI and Tia told Jhan and Jereum about our progress the next day and Jhan was highly proud of how we had managed to pull off such a feat. Jereum, on the other hand, kept a good distance from me but I pretended not to notice lest his pride kicks in. We had already discussed the plan several times and we had gotten into our required clothes. Leya, who was hinting off great amounts of reluctance to follow us, offered to stay behind. I had noticed her slight cringing when we spoke about the topic of the giant wolves."It's gonna be okay," I had been repeating these same words to her over and over again but yet my words did not seem to inculcate any form of willingness whatsoever into her. Like her encounter with the red wolf had left her shaken. I gave her a small pat on her blonde hair and kissed Dawn before leaving the house. With Leya at home, Dawn had all the company she could get. They could do all sorts of things together and probably braid each other's blonde h