6 FEBRUARY, SATURDAY, STILL SLEEPING
I woke up disoriented and uncurled myself on a firm white sofa. The room was silent except for the sound of gentle breathing. I sat up, Sir Sparkalot falling out of my lap.
Quickly I picked up the pink unicorn and hid it in my baggy sweatshirt. Be careful Sir Sparkalot, we're in another dream. One without mate. I could not feel him anywhere near. I remembered my last dream without mate and shuddered.
Please don't be Sabre's memory! Please don't be Sabre's memory!
It might have been selfish of me, but I didn't want to share anymore of the little human's past. It was too truamtizing.
The room I was in was well lit. White stone floors and columns with tall arched windows. The fireplace was the size of 4 fireplaces back home! It was huge. The fire was huge too, and blue, and contained behind some kind of gold gilded glass panel. Something magical about the fire and the glass. I crept closer and the blue fire lept out at me, only to splash on the glass wall and fall back. What a strange, strange, fire. It was like it had a mind of its own.
Staying low I retreated back to the sofa. I listened carefully to the gentle breathing. Someone was sleeping. I couldn't smell anything. There was a large golden bowl of red roses on the white marble coffee table in front of me, but I couldn't smell it.
I carefully crept over to whoever was sleeping and felt quite surprised to find a woman. She was beautiful, her honey brown hair fell over her slender arms, but I could see her face was tear stained.
She didn't look young or old. I couldn't place her age at all. There was a very neat half bowl of roses in front of her. a pair of scissors, more roses laid out on the table, arranged according to size. The largest flower heads on one side, the smallest ones on the other.
"Who are you?" Someone was at the doorway. I looked up, "Fluffy?"
Bright blue cornflower eyes blinked at me, "Goddess?"
I shook my head, "Fluffy?"
He brought a finger to his lips and moved towards the sleeping woman. I stepped back. His face softened at the sight of her and he took off the jacket hung jauntily on his shoulders and wrapped it around her.
I watched the tender gesture, the lady breathed a shuddery breathe and seemed to suddenly sleep deeper. They were mates.
Was this Fluffy's mate? Was this even Fluffy? Fluffy in the future? I couldn't quite place this Fluffy's age either. He was broader, and more muscular, and unlike the Fluffy I knew, this Fluffy had an amazing wolf. Strong and vibrant, calm and clearly Alpha.
"Are you Fluffy?" I asked.
The man shook his head, "My name is Heller."
Oh. Was that Fluffy's name? I got excited. I found out Fluffy's name!
"How do you know Fluffy?" Heller asked me. Then he changed his mind.
He gestured for me to follow him out of the room. I did. Outside was an even grander room. It was mostly an open space, a foyer of some sort. The dome ceiling above us was clear glass and I could see the full moon shining in. The same fireplace was opened on this side too with the same fire and another similar gold gilded glass fence around the hearth.
Above this fireplace was a huge portrait, there was Heller, standing with his arm around the back of an ornate chair which his mate sat in. She was smiling. She held a baby in her arms and had a very small child hugging her knees.
"That's Fluffy before he was taken away." Heller nodded at the painting. I looked at both children, the baby had brown eyes like her mother, but the small child on her knee was blond with bright cornflower blue eyes. Such a beautiful child!
"Fluffy is a girl?" I asked.
Heller shook his head, "No, he was my son."
"You named your son, Fluffy?" I asked again.
I don't know why, but the questions just came out of my mouth like that.
Heller shook his head again, "My son's name was Alaric. Fluffy was his pet name his mother gave him."
Oh, like a baby nickname.
"Why was your mate crying?" I asked next.
Heller looked surprised, "You don't know, goddess? She prays every night in tears."
Why would he think I knew something like that? Except that he really thought I was the Moon Goddess.
"Please Goddess. I've searched every cave and city on the Mountains for him since the day he was taken. My Luna, she cries every night in prayer. Is my son alive?"
I nodded. The intensity of Heller's feelings stunned me for the moment.
"I knew it!" Heller exclaimed.
"Now please goddess, I would give anything, please just tell me where I might find him." Heller said, "I would ask for nothing more."
I shook my head, "I'm not..."
"Papa?" It was a girl's voice, "Who's that?"
The girl ran down the first flight of wide marble stairs and then threw herself over the banister, half sliding and half falling and finally landing on her feet in front of us.
Cool. She was older than me, I think, but not that much older. Definitely still in highschool... If they even had highschools here. Heller made it sound like we were on the Mountains.
I looked around the grand foyer we stood in. I looked outside at the white leafed trees. I had thought they were snow, then I realised they were leaves... And now on third look, they were flowers.
Black Mountains. Land of the eternal spring, for the magicked trees which flower all year long, even during the frost.
The girl tried sniffing at me, but there was no smell.
"Adelina, this is the goddess. She has heard our prayers for your brother's safe return." Heller said.
"About time." Adelina said, once she ascertained she could not smell me at all.
I shook my head, "I'm not."
"You're not going to help us? Do you know how many nights my mama has cried to you? Do you know..."
Adelina's anger was swiftly held in check by her dad who quickly picked her up and put her behind him, "Forgive her goddess. She is young and impetuous."
"Every mountain maiden a princess." I remembered my dad said.
Heller looked relieved, he half joked, "I might have spoiled this princess though."
"I mean, I'm not..." And then I thought, what of it? Who I was or who I was not?
"Fluffy is in the plains. In the Green Packland. He was enslaved, but is free now and learning to run with a pack there." I said. That would be the information they needed.
"Then I will set out at once." Heller said.
"It's fine. Take your time." I told him, "Wait, you are going to leave the Mountains? It's dangerous. You'd have to pass the warlock lands, there are rogues, and vampires..."
"I'm going to find my son and bring him home no matter what." Heller said.
Well okay, at least the Green Packlands was closest to the mountain.
"Okay, then watch out for the warlock's enchantments, and the rogues. But once you get onto the Green Packlands, you can ask any Pack Wolf there, ask them to bring you to Alpha Sam." I said, "Make sure it's a pack wolf! Don't talk to rogues or free wolves."
I was beginning to sound like my Mum the first time I took the train on my own... but the plains was nothing like the mountains and I seriously worried.
What if he took a wrong turn, got robbed by rogues, got tricked and sold as a fightdog? What if he picked a fight with our warriors and ended up in the dungeons or dead?
Just to be sure, I walked back into the room where Fluffy's mum was sleeping. Heller and Adelina followed me inside. I picked up the scissors and snipped off a lock of my hair.
"Show this to the wolf you meet on the Green Packlands." I told him, "Even better if you meet a warrior on duty."
Heller nodded reverently.
And then because his reverence was just uncomfortable for me I said, "I'm really not the Moon Goddess. I'm a blue wolf, just a girl like her."
I pointed at Adelina, who looked at me curiously. She stepped up till our noses were inches apart. We were the same height. Her honey brown hair was the same length as mine. Except she had bangs.
And she had boobs. Grrr... Darn it.
"You have no smell." Adelina said.
"I'm a dream travelling blue wolf." I answered.
"I've never heard of a blue wolf." Adelina said.
"I'm a collector's item." I joked.
"What's in your shirt?" Adelina poked me where Sir Sparkalot buldged out.
I pulled out Sir Sparkalot, "I accidentally brought him along."
But the moment I took Sir Sparkalot out, the ring inside made a mysterious humming sound.
"How?" Now Heller was interested, he smiled, "It seems like your pony has eaten something special."
Could he sense the magic? Even if he couldn't, he could definitely hear it. The sound stopped when I shook the toy hard.
Heller came closer, I clutched tightly to Sir Sparkalot and stepped away.
I wasn't sure of Heller's intentions now. And it seemed he was also undecided, "Where did you get this? It has a very unique magical signature."
"It was my grandmother's." I answered. Assuming he meant the ring and not the unicorn.
"I'm guessing your pony has eaten the Idonia Family's secret seal." Heller informed me, "Only the heir of the Idonia family possesses it."
"Idonia? Alpha Jin's family?" Adelina asked.
"Who are you?" Heller asked.
Who? What? And then right at that moment I remembered something Grandma Luna had told me before. Long long ago on the Mountains, where there was so much magic in the air that spells could be spoken, if a young pup wanted to learn something from their elder, they said a simple spell, "Tell me the story about ____." And once cast, the elder would be bound my magic to tell the story.
And since I was on the Mountains, I opened my mouth and said, "Tell me the story about Idonia."
Heller paused. And then he smiled, it was a smile exactly like Fluffy's, unreadable and beautiful. Oh boy. Maybe that wasn't the best move.
But then he spoke, "A long time ago, when the Moon Goddess still roamed the mountains, there was a black wolf named Jin. He was handsome and strong and ambitious. He had the magic of foresight, and used it ruthlessly to expand his territory. The Moon Goddess had enough of his tyranny and came to set him straight, but he fell in love with her at first sight. He promised to change his ways if she would be his mate. Because she wanted to experience love, she agreed. They had a daughter together. After many years, the moon goddess faded away, having spent too long on the earth. She was never seen again.
Their daughter grew up and fell in love. Jin opposed the marriage because they were not soulmates, so the daughter ran away with him. It was said they ran to the plains to find their freedom. The daughter left with the Idonia Seal, a sapphire ring with magical spatial abilities that could access incredible riches.
Jin's world darkened after that, except that in that same year, he met his soulmate. They began anew, and he built up the Idonia Estate from scratch, and till today, the Idonia Family was at the top of Grey Mountain, and always ranked Top 10 on Black Mountain."
"Wait, but he's still alive today?" I asked.
Heller now looked at me in a new light, "Yes. He says he is unable to die without seeing his daughter again, but she must have died long ago. Without the magic of the mountains, I doubt wolves could live beyond a few centuries."
"Two centuries is considered a long life for a wolf in the plains." I informed him.
"That is why I must bring Alaric home. How can we watch him age and die before his time?" Heller said again with renewed urgency.
Okay... if you could live for centuries, what's a few more years?
But Heller also had other things on his mind, "And you child, could you be Jin's descendant, the heir to Idonia?"
Me? The heir to Idonia? More like Idonknow. Hahahaha
And then I woke up, still clutching Sir Sparkalot to myself. I sat up and look around the dark room. I could smell the lemony fragrance in my sheets and oh, I was sitting in the middle of a ridiculous giant golden clamshell.
Oh wait, I had a dream. Something about Grandma Luna's ring and Idonknow? And Fluffy's name? What was it? Alaric! Yay! I found Fluffy's name! More importantly, I remembered it!
And then my alarm rang. I was already up, but it took a while to find my alarm clock. It was tucked on a small ledge by the head of one side of the clamshell.
I read "7AM. SAT. 6/2"
But it was still dark. I plodded to the windows and drew back the thick curtains.
Oh! It was already light outside.
And Oh! again, the curtains weren't covering full length windows. They were sliding doors and they connected to a rooftop terrace.
I slid open one of the doors and stepped out. The rooftop floor was wooden and damp and cold, but not icy. Hmmm... I walked to the edge. I could see the packhouse from here and the muddy slushie icy lawn after yesterday's show fight, I mean snow fight or whatever it was that happened.
What a mess!
I returned to my room, and then just out of habit, I took a shower, changed and headed down to join my family for breakfast... I opened my bedroom door and found myself facing the still unfamiliar stairway. Okay... now I just needed to find the dining room.