Chapter 55: Fifty-five.

The silence in the dawning of that realisation was deafening.

To say Colt was astounded would have been an understatement. She was in utter shock, not only at what Maeve had told her, but that she had never realised it herself. When a shifter marks their mate, their mouth partially shifts. When she marked Elijah, it was exactly the same as any other shifter mark, her mouth went through a partial shift.

Colt's hand subconsciously travelled to her mouth, her fingers tracing her slightly parted lips, like she was trying to rediscover her extended teeth, or find any sort of connection to them, to show they had been there at all.

All this meant she does have an animal form, and according to Maeve she may even have two. She had never heard of such a phenomenon before. But, having always believed she had none whatsoever, this was a huge, jaw dropping to the floor style, realisation. Her eyes began to well up uncontrollably, like a damn that was cracking, all while a weight was being lifted off of her chest. She wasn't defective afterall. All her life had been spent thinking, believing and feeling like she was some kind of broken person, but it wasn't true. Colt wasn't broken at all.

"But, I don't understand?" Colt asked through her tears, trying to grapple with her mistaken perception of her own existence, to find some sort of equilibrium. "How was it possible? Why have I have never shifted? Or felt the inner drives and presence of my animal form? I couldn't even recognise Elijah's scent as my mate when we first met. Why can't I connect to that part of myself?" She rambled off all at once.

Maeve smiled a genuine smile noting the relief in Colt's countenance, despite her many questions. Reaching to stroke Colt's arm, she clarified, "Forms. You mean forms plural, and the truth is, your animals remain dormant, for your own safety. My job will be to wake them up. But first we are going to train. Your body is obviously strong, which is a good thing. It's your mind and your spirit we need to get into better shape. Which unfortunately can take longer for some. But we will start straight away when we get home."

"Dormant?" Colt asked. "What does that even mean?"

"It means that they are hidden within you, sleeping so to speak." Maeve sighed, Colt's need for answers were ruining her in flight sleep time, and her own jetlag was beginning to affect her.

She shook her head at the flight attendant walking by with coffee, grimacing lightly before she continued. "I spoke to your father, Colt, and did some research on you. I am telling you this because I want to be clear with you. This," She pointed at Colt, "You shifting, is dangerous, and I needed to know health wise how to keep you safe, and to do so I need to be aware of intricate details like your health records among other things."

"Right?" Colt asked, wondering how this related to her dormant shifter self, or selves apparently.

"Your blackouts." Maeve stated suddenly. "They aren't a physiological response to handle your escalated hormone levels at all. They are a fail safe to stop you shifting, when your body creates a physiological need to. You don't black out because your animals are asleep, you black out to keep them asleep." Maeve sighed. "Colt, this is because, quite simply your first shift will be worse than anyone else's. The extra strain and trauma from having more than one animal, would have most likely killed you when you were a child, due to the toll it would have put your body through, and that is why it hasn't happened yet."

"What!" Colt said, a bit too loudly with her body stiffening in alarm. Gaining them the disapproving looks from the other passengers about them.

"I will explain more once we arrive in Ireland, I swear to you Colt I will not let you die." Maeve said rubbing Colt's arm for support. "But, I must sleep myself now, I have been awake for around thirty hours and am shattered, Love. Okay?" She closed her eyes adding, "All will be well. I promise."

Colt simply nodded her head as Maeve began to sleep. She herself sat there looking like she had seen a ghost, while not being able to help but partially worry, that she herself may soon become one.

For the rest of the journey Colt's mind whirled with possibilities, but she just wasn't sure how to ask the questions, and so as soon as they got to Maeve's small wooden eco house in County Antrim, she crawled into bed and fell fast asleep herself. Her body was completely exhausted from it's adventure through the Amazon, and now thanks to all her questions, theories, and what if scenarios - So was her mind as well. She needed rest and to forget the world for a while, and her throbbing head found relief when the blackness of a dreamless sleep consumed her entirely.

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When Colt woke up the next day she felt more energised, if still somewhat muddled. She could make out the scent of lavender creeping throughout the house, and it brought her a sense of peace, and home. It was one of her favourite smells in the world, especially if combined with mint, hence why her garden at home was full of it, Even if the mint had become a pain in her ass to contain, because it spread like wildfire.

Stretching languidly, she got out of bed and found her way to the small bathroom and grabbed a quick shower. Unfortunately she was forced to let out a horrified shriek, because when she stepped under the water instead of the comfortable heat she was seeking, Colt found freezing cold water in stead. She was washed and out of that shower in under five minutes - a first for Colt. After towel drying her hair she threw it up on top of her head and went to find Maeve.

She found her in the warm kitchen, making bread of things by the looks of it.

"Ah, Colt good you're here." She said looking up with a smile and pausing, "However, you can go right back up to the bedroom and dry that mop right now. This is Ireland we are on the coast in winter, you will catch your death with cold wet hair. Now go dry it." She scowled at Colt, who then retreated backwards out of the room in shock.

When she returned with her dry hair in a ponytail and an added thick woolly jumper Maeve smiled.

"That's better, we can't have you surviving the jungle to die of hypothermia now, can we?" Maeve remarked.

"Hypothermia? Really with the temperature of the shower water?" Colt smirked. "I'm surprised I don't already have it."

Maeve laughed loudly. "Yes, but if it were warm you would still be in there, with your tumultuous thoughts and traitorous mind." She said pointing a dough covered finger in Colt's direction.

"I guess so." Colt shrugged. "But I can't help but be sucker for heat and warmth. It's my happy place." She laughed. "So, what's the plan? Where should we start?" Colt inquired, ready to dive in.

"Well first, I am going to finish making the bread for later. Then we will take a walk, and have a chat to answer some of your questions, including most likely your un-asked questions, Love."

"Can I help?" Colt enquired, not wanting to sit still with her whirring thoughts whole she waited.

"Now, there's an idea. You certainly can, come on." Maeve replied, nodding and moving away from the dough.

Maeve handed off the kneading work to Colt's young hands while she herself put the kettle on to make some tea.

Colt pushed and pulled at the dough, folding it back on itself, as the smells from the herbs within it invaded her senses, rosemary, thyme and more lavender. The smell was full of a calming warmth, and along with the repetitive actions her hands performed, squashing and reforming the dough, she found herself completely lost to everything else around her quite quickly. Pushing the dough forward, pulling it back, turning it around and repeating, again and again. It was hypnotic and Colt was completely entranced by it. So, before she realised it, Maeve was beside her tapping her on the shoulder.

"Very good, Dear." She smiled, guiding Colt's working hands away from the dough. "But, your teas gone cold."

"What?" Colt asked confused, shaking her head a little and snapping out of her trance.

"Your tea has gone cold." Maeve laughed. "Don't worry, I've reboiled the kettle, we will have another."

"Oh." said Colt, "Thank you." She added, while tidying up the dough into a more loaf like shape.

"Oh, don't you worry about that. Just throw it in the bin, I will pick up a loaf from the shop later." Maeve stated, while handing Colt a cup of raspberry tea.

"But, I thought..." Colt began.

But, Maeve interrupted with a knowing smile. "Oh no, it was never for eating. Purely a mindfulness task, to calm your whirring thoughts down. Though, I didn't expect it to take so long. Your bacon sandwich is cold now too, by the way." She added while pointing at the countertop opposite Colt.

"Oh." Colt frowned momentarily, not even sure when Maeve was cooking the bacon. But, the frown was quickly replaced by the grin which crept over her face, when she noted the lightness in her mind. "Well, thank you." She sighed, and threw the dough out as requested, before moving to wash her hands, and eat her breakfast.

Once Colt had helped Maeve clean up, they got ready to go out. Dress warm were the limited instructions Maeve gave Colt, as they prepared to set off to wherever they were going. Not that Colt had a clue about where that was. But thankfully, Maeve had arranged for Colt to be adequately supplied with winter clothes, to wear outdoors on the Northern coast of Ireland. So wrapping up sufficiently warm wasn't an issue.

"Where are we headed?" Colt asked, once they were both strapped inside the small rusted Vauxhall Corsa, and driving away from the small wooden house.

"Oh, my dear, that's a suprise?" Maeve answered with a wink.

"Really? Are we going to Scotland now? Or maybe Egypt?" Colt joked, making Maeve laugh thoroughly.

"No, I'm just teasing. We are headed the the Giant's Causeway." Maeve said with a smile.

"Well that sounds... lovely." Colt spoke hesitantly, unsure exactly of what that answer meant. "What are you planning?"

"Now now." Maeve reprimanded lightly. "Not every self growth experience has to be a trial."

Colt smirked, "You know, you are not at all what I was expecting." She said conversationally.

"Well to be fair, you were expecting a man were you not?" Maeve answered in her thick Irish accent, and a twinkle in her eye.

"True. But, that isn't what I meant, although I am curious about why Dad thought the shaman was a male and he travelled around a lot. When you so clearly are not male, and quite evidently have set up home, in that house for quite some time?"

"Ah, well. When you do what I do, it is best to have rumours like that floating around you. Otherwise, you end up with unsavoury males who want a powerful mate." She shuddered, "Also, I used to be inundated with people wanting help, whom I couldn't aid. But, their desperation made them.... persisitent, shall we say? They would get aggressive and turn up at my door - things got messy on more than a few occasions. Thus, if no one knows where I am..."

Colt nodded along, "You can help those you can, without threats from those you cannot?" She finished for Maeve.

"Exactly." The mysterious woman stated.

"You said mate, though." Colt stated. "Does that mean you are a shifter as well? Because I can't place your scent at all." Colt smiled curiously.

"I am. But I am an ancient breed, of water shifter." Maeve commented. "We age very slowly and are even rarer to find on land these days, than your wild cat brethren." She winked. "But, tell me what else were you expecting then, you implied it wasn't my gender?"

"Well you, Maeve, are a lot of fun to be around." Colt smiled honestly, "You are warm and nurturing, but you make me laugh at myself as well. I was expecting someone a bit more..." She trailed off not sure how to finish her statement.

"Reserved and serious?" Maeve supplied. "You were expecting me to be very fanatical about my faith, I think."

"Yes. I suppose I was." Colt admitted with a smile.

"My practice, is highly tied to the gods, Colt. They talk and I listen. I talk and they listen. Communication is a two way street, once you know how to open it's door. The art of opening those doors to communicate with our higher beings is becoming lost. Feck! The art of communicating with one another is becoming lost. But, that doesn't mean they are not still there, listening and watching over us. It also, doesn't mean we can't have fun. Joy is just as much tied into my life as dedication to my faith is. The Spirits that connect me to the gods guide me well and always have, and they like a laugh too." Maeve concluded.

Colt smiled, happy to have learned a bit more about Maeve's faith, and relaxed in for the forty five minute journey to the Giant's Causeway. The roads were mostly enclosed by giant hedges on either sides of the road to begin with, combined with tall bare trees towering over the top, making Colt feel as though they were actually driving through corridors instead of the countryside. But quite quickly they cleared them, and reached the coast line, and drove along side the sea. The crumbling cliffs that seemed to fall to the water below took Colt's breath away. The rock faces were a combination of dull pinks and browns, with the dull green of winter grass sprouting out wherever it got a foothold in the rough ground. It was like nothing she had ever seen before, the land fighting against the hungry sea that looked although it was trying to swallow it up.

As they neared their destination, Colt made an astonishing discovery that she had never expected.

"Is that castle falling into the ocean?" She asked.

Up in front was a giant fortress of a castle, or what was once a castle. The ruined building seemed to be disintegrating as it sat, battered by the elements and sliding bit by bit down into the hungry waters below.

It made Colt's heart hurt to see such a magnificent building slowly fade away.

"Well, they did build it in a stupidly precarious place." Maeve scowled unsympatheticly. "Its Dunluce castle. They were also warned not to put it there. But didn't believe themselves in cliff erosion at the time, so the idiots dismissed me altogether."

"They dismissed, you?" Colt asked speculatively.

Maeve just shrugged. "Not all is as it seems, my Dear."

"You are telling me you are hundreds of years old?" Colt clarified her question, turning to look at the obviously medieval building outside again as it faded behind them.

"I said nothing of the sort." Maeve smiled mischievously.

"But, you did. You said the people who built the castle dismissed your advice on where to build it." Colt argued, while smiling at Maeve's secret keeping skills.

"Did I?" Maeve asked back playfully.

"Yes." Colt nodded affirmatively.

"Alright, maybe I did." Maeve answered, with a shrug. "But it doesn't matter now anyway, we are here. Come on." She said pulling the car over and getting out into the wintry weather.

Colt sat in silence for a moment, before she clambered out the car after Maeve in a rush. The smell of the sea hit her first, the damp salty air mixed with the deep scent of seaweed assaulting her nostrils, as she took a deep breath in. The air was still despite the chill, and there was still a thick coating of frost on the ground. The blue sky above them though was bright and clear, so it was just the lack of heat from the mid morning that kept the frost from dissipating. All in all, the weather was quite lovely, especially for winter.

"Come on Colt, we are taking the green trail. Let's move." Maeve called back.

Colt trotted along, till she caught up with Maeve. "The green trail?" She asked.

"Yes, it's about two miles long, but very pretty." Maeve answered quickly. "We will take the blue one on the way back though. Since its quicker and you will be wet by then."

"I'm sorry, I will be what?" Colt froze mid step.

"You heard me perfectly well, Dear. Now come on." Maeve laughed, not breaking her stride.

"Shit." Colt sighed and ran after Maeve again. "I thought it wasn't going to be a trial?" She called forward making Maeve cackle.

Colt was half aware of the beauty around her, but she was too preoccupied by the worry about her impending dip. That preoccupation also caused her not to realise that the niggling feeling at the back of her neck was out of place at all, nor was it about the swim Maeve was eluding to. Colt was being watched and she didn't even realise it.

Author's Note: Thank you, so much for your patience with me. We only have 3 sheep left to lamb now, and a total count of 24 lambs so far. I hope you liked the pictures on the facebook page. More updates coming as soon as I can. B x.