He could feel the bones on his skin, tremble, and feel the ache in his stomach louder than a drum. The breeze passed through his fur as his ribs pounded.
The sound filled his ears clearly as the taste of metal took over his throat. Clouding it and nearly drowning him from the inside.
His heart is about to give out any minute and his brain is on the verge of explosion.
Everything felt like it was spinning, his paws barely able to retain momentum as they stubble over pebbles.
..........
It was quiet momentarily before a soft voice woke him up: "Hello, hello. Are you alright?" A splash of water hit his eyes, and he shook it off in a quick motion with a glare: "What the hell is your problem?" He mutters, trying to push himself up.
"Woah slow down, Wolf you don't want to hurt yourself more than you already did now." The Wolf spit out some blood from his mouth and licked his teeth, "I can handle myself, human but thank you."
She shook her head. "Maybe you can, but you're not going to get very far with those wounds. It's probably something internal. Also, I'm not a human; I'm a Witch, and my name is Regina Corneilus." "Regina Cornelius?" the wolf repeated as if he knew her. Yes, that's my name, and you are?"
The wolf bit down on the bottom of his teeth, "Do I have a say?"
"I'd prefer to know your name," she states with a small smile, and the wolf rolls his eyes. "Leo," he mutters, and the Witch puts a hand on his ear. "What was that?" the witch questions, and the wolf stomps his paw, howling in pain.
"Shit!"
The Witch jumped back, "I told you, you need help." the wolf took in some deep breaths and sighed, "Fine, it's Leonard by the way. Leonard Wolf but you can call me Leo."
"Leo", she repeated tapping her lip, "I like that name, now let me help you, Leo it's starting to get cold."
He shivered, "I guess it is."
..............
"It's cold is it not?" I nod to my mother's question, "It is, mother."
She laughs, "I'm surprised you're even out here, really you need to be asleep. A long day ahead tomorrow, I scheduled another meeting with the Bellums. Their children will be coming tomorrow as well and I expect you to act accordingly can you do that?" "Yes, ma'am," I respond as my mother turns her eyes back to the letter.
Her eyes went wide and her nails crumbled beneath the paper, "Fuck!" She yells out as my father smirks, "What is it, Regina? Don't you like what you see?" "Shut the fu-", she raised her hand but quickly lowered it and smiled. "Can someone please take my daughter back to her room, I need to process this information accordingly."
။
"Yes, Lady.Acres." "Two of you will go and one will stay and make sure, she doesn't leave her room til the morning. Don't forget to tell the chef to give her that same soup that she didn't finish. That is her breakfast and lunch if she doesn't finish it again."
They nod and one of them grabs my arm, "Come on Lady. Victoria, you heard your mother."
I glance back at her and she glares at me, my father doesn't even look my way.
"You should have sent her back, a while ago, Regina, she has no business being I grown folk conversation. That dammed Seamstress-" "Shut the fuck up, Reynolds!" The usual yelling followed after that and I tried to drown it out as I was being dragged to my room.
Thinking about what in that letter made my mother mad and the good times the Wolf and the Witch had before they became enemies.
The semi-good times.....
"Why do you want to please them so much?" The Wolf asked and the Witch giggled, "It's not exactly pleasing them, it's, more about changing their perspective of me. If their perspective of me changes then it will start to change for other creatures."
He scoffs playfully, "You don't know that." "Well, no I don't but I can try." He smirks, "True, nothing wrong with trying." He leans on her shoulder, "It's all we can do really, right?" "Right." She said with a nod, not fully believing herself. We can try but sometimes the result will remain unchanged.
No matter how many bricks we put on the wall, it is no guarantee of safety.
Even if the person behind it tries to say otherwise they can still turn on you at any point in time. The Witch knew this and truly didn't believe she could sway their opinion, she knew there would always be hate. A creature that would always terrify them, a mistake that would change their judgment.
So she tries to drown out the truth and have hope. Hope that she would be wrong about the humans, hope that she could trust the Wolf.
She turns to him, "I want things to be better for us, I don't want what happened before to happen again.'
The Wolf starts to flick between auburn and midnight again, his eyes going cold as he looks off into the distance. "Yeah, I can see your point." "I'm sorry that happened, I didn't know they were going to do that." "But you didn't stop them from tearing me apart, were you scared?"
"Of course, but I wasn't going to let them kill you, you didn't deserve that."
"Does anybody?" The Wolf questions and the Witch went
quiet.
"No, especially if you haven't done anything wrong." She put a
hand on her arm, "That's why I protected you."
"Because I didn't do anything wrong?" "Exactly." "So, if I did do something wrong, would you have just left me to die?"
The Witch was quiet, "How about we change the subject, what defines good and evil to you?"
"You didn't answer my question." She sighed, "I will answer when you answer mine, okay? Now, let's try again, who is evil and who is not?"