Chapter 47
DOWN THE MOUNTAINS.
Joshua:
These two young lads had brought to us the nostalgic feeling of loving — To lay down your life for somebody, so willingly, and without hesitation. It was a beautiful sight to behold, so we pardoned them and let them go. We had once loved as sweetly as this, but as we grew our lives became tasteless, like ash. No cold, we just lived to die and make rules for others to follow.
Once they left, and the council meeting ended, we all went back to our original states, sitting on our regal chairs and watching time slip through our fingers and eat through us. But I, I felt like I needed to taste again. There was already no original state for me, I was going to find my love again.
Jason:
As we left the mountains, there was a dome of intense silence between us — a dome I wasn’t sure how to break. Clarissa was too preoccupied with her thoughts like we were just walking like living boulders, the cold was so intense that at a point, I knew we would both die if we didn’t transform or at least make a fire and warm ourselves up.
I walked sideways towards Clarissa and held her shoulders to stop her from moving.
“Let go of me, Jason.” She said curtly, shrugging my hands off her shoulder a d walking farther into the night.
“You’re not even transforming, we’ll die if we continue this way!” I said running to meet up with her again, and trying to take her hands in mine.
“I said you should let me go Jason!” She yelled again, this time she tripped on a stone and I rushed to her rescue as she fell — holding her steady in my arms, while she kicked and yelled as though she were a child, and not the leader of a pack.
“Stay still Clarissa, what have I done? Why are you so angry?” I asked, confused. Did I not just save our lives hours ago? Or was I mistaken?
“What have you not done Jason? I think that’s the question.” She said, I had released her now and she was sitting beside me, panting with cold air emerging from her frozen lips.
“I’m confused, maybe you should give me a hand, tell me what I have done, or what I have not done, please.” I pleaded, lizards scurried by. Squirrels, communicated from tree to tree, the night was alive with the banter of wildlife — both the identifiable and the unidentifiable.
“Okay,” she began, ready for the battle I had apparently initiated.
“For what you did not do Jason, you did not value your life, you simply threw it away, just like that!” she shouted at me.
“I-“ I began but she cut me off again,
“Listen to me Jason! This is not a joke. I am grateful that you saved me. But, you do not get to give up your life for me! You have a pack to go back to, you have family. You have things to accomplish, you do not throw your life away like that, do you hear me?!”
“Clarissa, it’s not what you think, I’m not suicidal or anything.” I tried to explain.
“Then why did you do it Jason?” “Why?”
“Because because , I don’t know why I did it, I just did.” I stuttered, my heart beat hardly against my chest, as I thought.
“Forget it, I’m going to pick some wood for a fire.” Clarissa announced, and sauntered off into the woods. My chest contracted, and I could hardly breathe. How was I expected to let her be killed before my eyes — how was I supposed to live after that? I got up and followed into the woods, we’re we picked wood for a fire.
“um, Clarissa, we can just transform and go straight home. We don’t really need a fire.”
“I need to clear my head. Let’s just sit for a while.” She said and carried on with her wood fetching like I was not there. The silence that flowed between us was a sharp one that impaled me as the minutes linked to for hours. And as we sat by the fire, I watched the reflection of the flames flicker on her face — her eyes were a lake on fire. It was funny how I looked at her each time like I had found a new thing. As beautiful as the first day we met, yet I could not tell her that.
Clarissa:
I knew I was being ridiculous, but the thought of Jason hanging in my place infuriated me the more. Why was I chosen to be the one to shoulder all the grief. At the moment when Jason was ceased, my world was about to end. The guilt alone would have eaten me up whole.
Besides that, the thoughts of his death sent chills down my spine, painful chills, like somebody was hacking away at my existence. I knew that I would have survived because of Cisca, but I also knew that nothing was ever going to be the same from that moment.
I tried my best to be grateful and suppress my anger, but as I dug up more memories of us, the laughter we had shared, the kiss we almost had. The pack we had built together and the stories we had shared, I was plunged afresh into a raging sea of fury — and no I was not exactly angry at him. I was angry at the universe for placing us in such a situation, does one always have to die to save the other? I wondered if all our happy moments stood side by side with the bad moments. I knew it sounded like child’s folly but I had wanted my life to spread out like a fairy-tale told in an epic. I wanted to be so happy, that I was mad when I almost lost someone who made me happy, no matter how brief the moments were.
After we warmed up by the fire, we transformed into our wolf forms and stomped the fire out, and we continued our journey home. Jason walked on eggshells around me, and I pitied him a bit. He probably did not understand why I was so angry and not talking to him, however, I thought or in a way, I knew he would have felt the same way if it was I that gave up my life for him.
We got home by midnight, and I was to spend another night with Jason and his pack. I missed my daughter and Nolle, and I also could not wait to tell my pack that we had been approved and recognized by the Elders as a pack.