WerewolvesAlexa climbed on her dark horse in the first hours of the morning. On the courtyard of the castle, in the corner of her eye, she could see Charles, her trusted advisor, friend and pack member by the entrance of the palace, his lips pressed together, a wrinkle on his forehead and his arms crossed in front of his chest—signs he still disproved of this journey, but she felt she was doing the best that she could, she felt guilty for leaving the Castle and the Kingdom on her pack member's hand, but she also felt an incredible excitement of going outside of Amora's City vanities. She did not want to say goodbyes. She hated goodbyes, especially since her mother said goodbye and never came back. Alexa was unable too say goodbye without feeling death looming overhead, and she did not wanted to alarm the villagers of her absence in the castle.
As she led the horse through the village, through the gates of the outside wall, she inhaled the spices, of her homeland one last time the smell of turned earth, mixed with water, of sunflowers and wheat the pepper and coriander mixed in the air always gave her a sensation of belonging, it was everything she had ever known, she knew that she was safe here, that her friends were here and she was trading what she knew and did all her life, for something unknown. She would miss it here, but she also would know a lot about her kingdom that she did not knew before, and that perspective made her smile, being the Princess and then the Queen at the age of fifteen, her whole life she was sheltered in the Amora City, she knew the rest of the kingdom by maps and from the dignitaries of far away that came to her requesting something, but she never saw how her people lived, she never knew by seeing and being there and talking to the people of villages the rest of the Kingdom and she longed to learn more, so she could serve better her people, she needed to see for herself instead of always relaying on third hands accounts, and this mission would allow at least a portion of that.
As soon as Jax, her horse, breaded from a specific breed of horses called the Lusianos, battle horses that were not afraid of anything and extremely intelligent that some of them could understand the spoken word, crossed the threshold of the gates, she motioned him to gallop, feeling the wind on her face. Racing the horse felt like freedom. No royal duties, no people to protect, no pack to help. It was only her, the horse and the world around her. Once the castle was but a blur on the horizon, Alexa let the horse calm to a quick trot.
"Thank you," She patted the horse on the neck thanking him for the race and started talking to him, since there was no one around to make an actual conversation. "You know, Jax, this is the first time I'm going out of Amora's village and Castle since I was a child. I've always wanted to know the rest of the kingdom, but with being the Queen and the Natural Alpha, my responsibilities made that impossible," Alexa sighed and the horse nodded his head, surprising her. "I know I'm not crazy but almost seemed like you are agreeing with me."
The horse neighed at her, she was used to talking with the horse, since she started raising it, she would always talk to him as if he was a person and being the intelligent horse that he was he answered in his horse like manner.
"Right, you don't need to be so sensitive."
She fell silent for a couple of minutes, her thoughts misaligned. This thing that she was trying to do had never been attempted in the history of the kingdom. No werewolf and vampire worked together towards a common goal, since the dawn of time, vampires and werewolves had been enemies, since they canceled each other, the speed and stealth of the vampire against the strength and agility of the werewolf, the venom of the vampire was mortal for a werewolf and the bite or the scratch off a werewolf would mean a long and suffering death for the vampire that received it, then they were both races that the humans had alleged fidelity in exchange for protection and after the first war, rancor and mistrust between the two races was woven into the hearts of everyone, so it was not easy for a vampire and a werewolf to trust enough on each other to work together at least not without a third party to mediate them, like the Council of Merchants from C´taria did with the Treaty. Before the treaty, werewolves and vampires were at each others throats, because of resources that both parties had and were not willing to share with the other, and because werewolves often thought of themselves as saviors of humanity, before they were created, vampires had free reign to hunt and consume humans, and that was proving to be the end of humans, or so the religious texts and the Council of Merchants told everyone but in each war the humans were the mass casualty of both Kingdoms.
Humans in both kingdoms rely on the werewolves or the vampires to protect them, to guide them in exchange for their loyalty, it was a choice forr them, werewolves or vampires, her people were always aware that she was a werewolf and even asked when she was to make the pack bigger, as it was done for hundreds of years.
C'taria the continent in the other side of the river, was populated only by humans, governed by the council of merchants, a group of humans that were capable of magic, and those with magic were able to mediate a truce between the vampires and the werewolves or they would all end up extinct, since they also needed the trade that came form both kingdoms, they needed the food that Zulcan sold and the Jijum ore, the magical ore and other more commons from Elatre.
She kept on the trail that led to the Emerald River, crossed some villages, but choose to sleep outdoors, to not attract attention to herself. Her inner wolf was happier and easier to control when it was outdoors due to its wild nature. When she was younger her wolf was always present and she had to keep herself and constant mental battle with it, now that she was a woman, it was easier, her mental barrier was always up, keeping it from taking control, but the wolf was always there waiting for the perfect opportunity to take control, she relied on it to help with strength and and she tried hard to make it so the wolf would not affect her decisions, like other kings in the past had done with disastrous outcomes.
After the week that she agreed to meet with Edwin, she was at the edge of her kingdom, on the place marked for them to meet. Unable to see him anywhere, she shrugged her shoulders as she dismounted the horse. She'd never been far up north, and the cold temperatures came to a surprise to her and she could feel her wolf weakening. It never came in conversation when they set up the meeting point that she had never traveled before, but she had received some training to follow the stars, to start a fire, but she had never used those skills, she hoped she could still remember those, because she was feeling cold and sooner she would need to built a fire to warm up.
The barrier, that separated the two Kingdoms to prevent the werewolves from crossing the border and end the Icy Sun spell, shimmered in a gray light so it seemed like smoke, or a heavy fog and apart from the smell of pine needles and fur from small animals that could live on the snow, Alexa couldn't tell anything unusual, it was the first time that she was at the border, and her curiosity took the best of her. She raised her hand, even though she knew the stories, that the spell that was cast to create the barrier would kill or incapacitate a werewolf and she also knew the Treaty by heart. She knew she would be unable to cross it, as the magic would prevent it and death would follow if she tried, she was warring with herself, because she wanted to know how the barrier would feel, but at the same time she felt foolish for being so curious, she wanted to know what would happen if a werewolf only touched the Barrier but if something happened to her and she died that would be a fools death. But she also was not interested in crossing, only in feeling through barrier, so she gritted her teeth and went ahead, touching the barrier.
A terrible pain, like shards of glass climbed her arm and her bones seemed to shatter under a fire.he let out a scream, grabbing her hand with the other and nestling it close to her chest, breathing rapidly with tears in her eyes. She fell to her knees, sobbing with pain, until her wolf kicked in and eased the pain, reducing her heart rate and normalizing her breathing. Her inner wolf lurked at the edge of her consciousness and she battled with it to keep control.
She controlled her breathing for a few minutes, still kneeling in the snow, her eyes closed, fighting a battle against her wolf. As soon as the wolf receded, she opened her eyes. Her fingertips were black, and even though the pain was no longer so strong, she could still feel it.She felt a fool, so stupid to leave everything to the wind and just follow her curiosity, but she had to know that what she had been told was true because she always questioned everything, and she knew that most of the times, what she read in books, were curated versions of the truth only what someone wanted other people to know.
Propping herself up, she moved a few steps to reach her horse, who looked at her as if in judgment.
"I'll be fine, Jax, don't look to m like that. You would have done the same."
The horse neighed and shook his head.
"Right, right, I know we should not break the rules. They are there for a reason. There are always consequences to our actions. I know, I'm an idiot, but how would I know that the books were telling the truth?" Alexa went to the saddle bag to take a piece of dried meat and bread, since she had to heal magically and keep the wolf at bay, she needed to restore that energy by eating something.
"I promise, I will never do it again. I've learned my lesson."
Alexa moved to sit up against a tree, nibbling on the bread and the meat she had removed from the saddle. Over a week old now, the bread tasted stale and while the dried meat proved to be salty, she wanted a real cooked meal. Being so up north, she had no choice but to eat this and wait for Edwin. As she made a fire, the smell of animals close by made her salivate, invoking memories of stew and all the recipes she could make.
Throwing the meat into the saddlebag again, she picked up the bow and the quiver of arrows that were safely stored in the saddle.
"Well, I can smell some rabbits, let's see if I can catch one for dinner. I will not be far away"
The horse looked at her with an inquisitive expression, or what she thought was an inquisitive expression, since horses don't have expressions.
"No Jax, I will not let the wolf out. It is dangerous," pulling the string of the bow to arm it, she kept talking to the horse, "and I don't believe preparing a rabbit for dinner will be hard, an I know what recipe to use to make a tasteful stew."
Even if in the kitchens they were frightened to have her there, and she was asked multiple times to not go, because she was a queen and the place of a queen was not in thee kitchens where servants gossip about everything and theey were afraid of her because every King and Queen that existed had been feared in the way they treated subjects so the same fear also applied to her, but she loved cooking, and having learned how to cook was certainly about to became a skill that she would be grateful to have. Remembering the Cook begging her to not come to the kitchen made Alexa smile, because she was always fond of Alexa and would asked her to come to the kitchen when the servants were not there so she could teach Alexa how to cook if she was that interested in it, but after a full moon, she felt the need of cooked dishes and the company of humans she would come down to the kitchens and do something for herself to feel more human than werewolf to get reconnected to her human side.
The wind brought the smell of a rabbit and she relied on her heightened senses to pinpoint its location, she was against the wind, so the rabbit would not pick up her scent, she crouched down, picked up and arrow and knocked on the the string, pulling it up, she took a breath and released the string, the arrow made it's way into the rabbit. Jumping of excitement she picked up the rabbit, bringing it back to where the horse and the fire that she lit were.
"Now… we need to prepare it, right? I saw the cook do this a couple of times, I can do it"
Alexa picked up the hunting knife that she wore on her boot and placed the rabbit on the stone to start taking the skin off amd chopped it to fit into the pot that she had bought.
She struggled to take the skin off and when she finished she had blood smeared all over and the rabbit had chunks of hair still attach to it.
"Well, it's better than nothing," she picked up the chopped rabbit and placed it inside of the pod, she went to the river to pick up some water and wash the blood away from her hands and face, even if the water was freezing cold.
Placing the pot over the fire she added some herbs that she had on the saddle bags and some salt to it.
"Now we just need to wait until it boils." She explained to the horse.
Staring at the pot, over the fire, her mind wandered to the lullaby that her mother used to sing. She could not remember the lyrics of the song, only the rhythm. Her mother sang to her after the first tournament, to prevent nightmares brought on by the challenges, which were cruel and bloody. Oftentimes, they required children to be ruthless to each other, even human children, beating themselves up until they were unrecognizable the first tournament was the one meant to create the first part of the pack was held with people close in age with the royal, since she had been seven at the time, so were those the ages of the participants of the first tournament. In some challenges, the children were put up against predators. That was the reason why she was so against the tournament. She knew her wolf woulds love the cruelty, the struggle, the blood and the ruthlessness, but she had hated it. Her father joked sometimes, in anger, that if she had not shown herself being such a precocious Natural Wolf, then he would be certain that her mother cheated, because she did not find any trace of the aggressiveness inherent to the Werewolf, like he had and his father before him had, and so forth until the first Alpha, that made her feel unwanted and a disappointment, but it was never her father that she had wanted to please or to emulate.
Years after her father's death, she still remembered those words, soaked in disappointment and embarrassment that still made her heath ache, but to contradict the words of her father she used to say to herself that she was stronger than all of them, because she was able to controller the wolf better. She did not allow the wolf to dictate her actions as a human, and she was a better queen and person because of it.
She took the pot out, after tasting the stew and started eating eat, thinking that if she had some cabbage and some carrot would taste better, and deferentially the taste of rabbit hair was not welcomed on the stew, she needed to learn how to skim a rabbit better.
A crack on the snow and a smell of a smokey fireplace made her jump, opening her eyes just in time to see Edwin crossing the barrier.