Dora turned to see Marcy staring at her in total confusion and surprise.
"Aunt Marcy?" She turned to a completely sweet girl on seeing her, "I was just coming down to dinner."
"How long have you been up here?" The next question followed, a confused look still on her face. She noticed Marcy's gaze was fixed on the mask on her hand.
Isn't that Naomi's? How come she has it?
Dora swallowed when she saw Aunt Marcy had her eyes on the mask. She couldn't tell her she was bullying the maid and had collected it from her. So a total queue of lies to tell her lined up in her head and she rummaged through, finally figuring out what to tell her.
"Um…the mask is mine!" She suddenly said, without letting Marcy say anything else, "I've been up here with it for a while...I was just about heading to the dining for dinner."
"Well..uh…" The old womam cleared her throat, "Before you join the others, you're needed in the Shaman's room. He wants to see you."
The dining was filled with so much noise, the older ones covering every detail of their day while the younger ones communicated using eye contact and managed to cook up a story for theirs.
Marcy was at the dining room; had joined them after taking Dora to the Shaman before she was told to leave them alone.
For a reason, she had that sinking feeling that she did something wrong. But she had seen Dora standing there with the mask in her hand, she couldn't deny that's what the Shamon had described.
"...and I begged Beta Marcy to join us at the Spa. But this woman seems to always love the kitchen more than going out for a breath of fresh air."
Marcy snapped out of her thoughts on hearing her and turned to the owner of the voice. It was Ciara.
"Wh…what?" She sounded so lost as everyone looked at her.
The last Omega just left the dinning room after dropping a jug of water and they were in the kitchen now; cleaning it up only for them to leave and come back the next morning to prepare for the ceremony.
"Mum are you okay?" Brittany calmly asked, placing a hand on her elbow which was placed on the table.
"Nothing…I'm just a bit nervous."
"Are we being invaded by rogues". Alpha Koan asked and the teenagers began tittering. "I wonder what you could be so worried about on a wonderful night".
"It's Dora…" Marcy whispered but everyone could hear her clearly.
"Oh...dear..." Nancy said in a shaky voice. "We forgot she never arrived to dinner."
Alpha Justin and Ciara looked horrified, Lebanon, who seemed to be the most quiet one at the table as he had never spoken a word but only talked one or two with Daniel who wasn't interested in talking either, dropped his fork on hearing the familiar name.
If anything happened to Dora, as the packs head warrior, he would be severely blammed.
"What about my daughter?" Alpha Justin inquired.
"It's nothing serious Alpha." Marcy quickly said when she saw they were close to snapping.
Daniel scoffed. They hadn't realized their daughter was at the table and suddenly wanted to gobble his aunt up just realizing it.
"The Shaman arrived a while ago and he suddenly looked up while we heading to his room on the second floor and saw her. He told me to bring her to him. I don't know why he was suddenly interested in her but she's with the Shaman now."
The dining room was quiet as everyone exchanged glances.
Beta Raiden suddenly saw how Barton was piling more food on his plate.
"I've watched you guys eat for a while now," Raiden started, breaking the silence as he stared at the teenagers at the table. "Did you skip lunch or something. Are you that hungry?"
"We didn't have time to eat lunch at the fields. Not with everything that happened there today?" Barton blurted and this time everyone at the table noticed the eye contact, the teenagers shared along with slightly kicking Barton below the table.
The older guests exchanged glances.
"What happened at the fields today. You just told us you went out for games. I thought an Omega brought you some lunch." Stacey demanded quietly.
"Um…aunt…I uh...guess we were so engrossed in the games, we forgot about lunch. Nothing really exciting happened."
"Yeah…" Nancy began and the teenagers wondered who let her speak. She was so clumsy with words. "It's not like we ran into a dragon or anything."
A loud thud was heard under the table and Nancy yelped in pain while Talia who was seated next to her, frowned.
But the older guests didn't even take her words seriously except Alpha Koan who became suspicious when all the other teenagers began glaring at Nancy. For someone who had ruled his pack since 16 for 9 years, he's familiar with different types of people around him.
People who lied and people who were trying to hide the truth. Definitely different types of people and not only were these kids telling lies, they were hiding the truth as well.
He had been in the game room with Alpha Justin, his Beta Raiden and Lebanon in a two to two tennis match and had heard the commotion going on in the kitchen.
Feigning to get some water he had gone out in time to see them rushing upstairs like they were being chased by something.
On the ground were they had dispersed from was a spalsh of mud and dirty water .
When he stooped low to inspect some traces of red, he noticed it was blood.
Blood!?
From a simple field game?
Were they wrestling in a mud pit or something?
"Dragons?!" Ciara laughed whole-heartedly. It was obvious, like the others, she didn't even take Nancy's words seriously . "It's been so long since I've seen those things around."
The teenagers exchanged glances. They looked back at Ciara with curiosity and awe in her eyes.
"Luna Ciara, you've seen a dragon before?" Beta Royce asked without hesitating.
"I've seen one, ran from one, almost got eaten by one, got smoked by one." Ciara counted off with her fingers ."I was so little then. I think 2 or 4."
"We've all seen one." Marcy quietly added with a small smile, surprised on seeing interest in everyone's eyes. Even Daniel's.
Naomi was the last one to leave the kitchen and was climbing back up to wait for the next set of dirty dishes she'd had to wash before retiring when she heard Luna Ciara say. "Dragons," A chuckle. "It's been so long since I've seen those things around."
She froze in her steps. Royce asked a question which was also pondering in her mind. It looked like the adults were ready to tell them everything they knew about dragons. She didn't want to miss this information, so she stayed, back-faced to the wall to listen.
"How come we've not seen one." Talia half-lied.
"Well Honey, that's because the Kitsunes signed a treaty with us several years ago when our grandparents were still alive." Ciara replied.
"Aren't Kitsunes…foxes?" Lebanon asked, finally speaking up for others to hear. He was about 23 so it was likely that he didn't know much about the dragons like the others did.
"Yes…but they can morph into anything using manna from their tails. They're magical and uniquely powerful."
Suddenly, Alpha Koan looked up when he noticed someone had eyes on him. On glancing up, his eyes locked with hers again. However he had not actually looked into her eyes before, he was stunned on seeing huge pink (azalea) colored eyes which widened when they made eye contact before she looked away, turning her bright blue hair with her fingers which also caught his attention.
This kid…
He snorted.
Kids this days and the way they dress.
Her hair was definitely dyed a bit too bright and those contact lenses she was putting on…didn't she realize how shiny they were. She looked like a freaking cartoon!
He looked around the table once Nancy bowed to eat her food, avoiding his searing gaze. No one did mind the way Nancy stood out in the room. They were all focused on Raiden.
"...They lived somewhere far off, out pack ,almost like an underground territory where..."
"Hey…" Ciara pouted like a child which made her look much younger. "Why do I feel like you guys have taken charge of my story. I want to tell it."
To avoid Ciara literally bursting into tears, they all agreed to let her tell the story while Alpha Justin, who was the oldest would chip in at anytime incase she forgot important facts or made a mistake. After all, the story of the Kitsunes are very complicated.
**
Dora shut the door like the Shaman ordered her to do when Marcy left.
Was she terrified? Terrified wasn't even a word compared to how she felt now.
She was terrified when Marcy had brought her into his room which had been prepared for a Shaman like him. Incense candles were left laying on the beside table, floors and even the window panes.
Strange colored floors, the colors which faded and changed every second was left lying In a weird symmetrical pattern on the floor trailing all the way to the bed.
But now she was more than just terrified since she just had to stand there and feel like an insect being scrutinized by the Shamon was sat at the edge of the bed.
The glow of the incense candles reflected on his completely bald shaved head, adding a soft glow of Yellow on the shaved head.
His hand was stroking his beard while the other was placed on his concealed thigh.
Just like Marcy, there was an unsettling feeling in his guts when he looked at Dora. Part of him felt like this was not the girl he had seen. According to Marcy, she was the only one standing on the floor, holding the mask. But why did he feel like she was not the one. He was even sure he had spotted blue eyes and not green. Was he seeing things now. Unfortunately, when you were 30 decades old, you tend to forget a lot of things. But he was sure he had seen blue.
But a greater part of him knew he had seen a prophecy about her and he had to give her the prophecy. It was his job as the Shaman.
**
"Several years ago…when the werewolves signed a treaty with the witches, new creatures suddenly rose up from no where to fill in the position as the new terrorists," Ciara began while Naomi had her back to the wall, praying no one suddenly wanted to get up to take something out or get something in the kitchen. But it looked like there was no need for prayers. No one was willing to miss Luna Ciara's true tale.
"They called themselves the Kitsunes. We served the Moon goddess, Selena, while they served their Iñari, their queen, Moana. Back then, both our kind and the witches combined couldn't defeat them, especially the ones who had 100 tails and more. Those days were horrible, horrifying days. It was a time we all prayed never repeated itself again."
"...What happened exactly?" Talia chipped in.
"...Oh dear…lives were lost. A lot of them. They wanted to wipe us all out of existence along with the witches because we refused to bow down to their queen and serve them."
A/N: Thinking of doing a mass release soon...
;-)