I heard about the wrestling sport where Shun was the most excellent player.
The prize was worth 100 gold coins. I watched him fight on the stage. Boys are uproaring their cheer for him while I remain observant at the corner. Shun wasn't wearing an upper piece. It was the moment, cranky to think, that I was pleased with his hunk body. He was drenched in his own sweat and every time he defeated an enemy, the cheer resonated louder.
The guts he had to cheer with the crowd subsided when he found me in the crowd. The fat guy beside me was too busy to watch him, I enchanted my voice with a finger to make it sound like a man then asked, "What are those armbands for?" It had something to do with the rules but it ruined my view of his biceps.
He answered without glancing at me, "It has an enchantment that balances the strength of the players."
"Oh, to make it fair..." And as I observed, the first one to fall out of the stage loses. Shun was cracking the opponent's arm when I saw him looking at me. I looked away, and instantly, his opponent was outside the stage. I approached the stage after the host announced the final chance to defeat Shun. All of their mouths were put into silence when I raised my hand.
I've never been into combat but to wrestle with him made it sound interesting to me. Part of the rules was to remove the upper piece, so I enchanted my upper cloth into underwear in a snap. Shun can't lay eyes on me now and it made me want to entice him more! The armbands made me feel stronger. The sport truly screamed equality.
The sport started, and he gestured for me to come at him first. I did the opposite. He tried to make the game simple by lifting me on my waist, hanging on his shoulder, and almost throwing me outside the stage. It only halted him when I wrapped my arms around his waist and gracefully swung my legs backward and both of us tumbled. I kicked him to break free and pushed him outside the stage. I got the uproar of the crowd.
It was the beginning of the days when I was entitled the Priestess of Venduque. But before that day ended, I chased Shun on his way home and gave him my 100 gold coin prize.
"Why are you..."
"You need it, no?"
"..." He was just staring at me.
"Your second worth prize plus my prize. That's why I played to double your prize."
"And why?"
"Because you need it."
"How did you know? Were you stalking me?"
"Ever since you found my address, yes," I smiled at him, a daring one, "to watch your tongue if you will tell anyone else what you saw."
"Your tantrum?" He chuckled. And it was the first time my heart made me smile. "Ah, yes, I saw that. But it's mine. I won't tell anyone else."
"Yours? You wanted to own what you'd witnessed?"
"Exactly."
I knew then that my embarrassment was safe with him. I put an enchast onto my lips and gently blew the contusion in his forehead, it healed. "I knew you meant to be defeated."
He touched his forehead, then we exchanged stares for a moment. "... T-Thank you." Then he invited me for a treat.
It was the beginning of our friendship. His friends became the circle where I belong for the first time. Boys all around the campus were treating me with courtesy, my cleverness became eminent, and some of them idolized me. 'Dandeline, please, marry me!' were what others said to flirt. Everyone respected me when my name was enlisted amongst the scholars, what made me peculiar was my gender. Shun was my closest friend for my whole school life in Venduque until it went through the boundary.
Others noticed it before we did. Shun's presence was important to me every day. He was my grandmother's favorite boy, I'd made sweet memories with his family as well. The day his mother died, I never left his side until he and his siblings felt better. I was there baking with them, playing with them and the dogs, and spending the nighttime with sincere conversations—small moments I cannot forget with him.
Through him, I realized I was misjudging manhood throughout my life. Being the head of the family isn't easy, every day, they have to think about what their family should eat or where they can get the supply. He was working day and night for it. There were times that he sacrificed his own needs to sustain the needs of his family daily. Oftentimes, he skipped class and tasks, so I did the tasks for his sake. My support was his strength.
My father must've felt the pressure in building my family, he must've become bitter, and lost his source of support ever since he lost his lover—my mother. Not that men think high about themselves, but it was the prize of the responsibilities weighed down on them. Nothing is more cowardly than a man who runs away from his responsibilities to his lover and child after the pleasure.
"When will you get married?" Shun's little sister questioned us directly while we were baking one evening.
"Hey, you're too young to ask that," her brother counseled.
"So we can have parents again~!"
It was the beginning of the tickling heartbeat whenever we looked at each other. I was determined that my future was secured with him. I was determined to make him feel the same.
A tragic reality happened when my grandmother died. I was about to claim my degree and become an official Moon Priestess but she couldn't make herself present the very day I graduated. Shun took me one evening on top of a mountain, with sparkling lights above a picnic mattress, and a guitar. He made it to comfort me, he played the instrument to calm me, and we had another fun and sincere conversation while the stars were watching above us.
He was the saddest person I've met but he has the brightest smile that could affect me. The place became romantic the second I kissed him on the cheek. Neither of us abstained from the desire for more kisses and I figured out he was a good kisser; passionate but slow, protective arms on my waist and exploring hand, and he had the arms I loved to squeeze because he was a fluffy hunk!
It was the moment I couldn't conceal who I really am. He halted when he found my emerald eyes. And I confessed, "I am... a human-werewolf hybrid. My mother is a werewolf but was killed by her own kind. A love for humans is an abomination to them. Shun, I'm sorry that I kept it. This is also the truth I cannot accept."
But then he held my cheek and said, "I think it's beautiful." His words pulled me to him and painted his lips with my kisses. "Marry me." His whisper tickled me the whole night and we soon decided to make each other whole.
We got married. Built the ideal family we had where gender wasn't a competition but a role that made us functional equally. We lived, including his siblings, in my grandmother's house. We support each other's careers whereas he was an airship engineer and I was a moon priestess. We planned to have more dogs and children. It was merry.
One night, I was excited to surprise him with the life we had made in my womb. The dogs and his siblings were sound asleep but I was expecting him to come home. I fell asleep in the living room and he still didn't come home overnight. It was winter, snow was falling, I paid a visit to the airships park only to find him not. Employees were busy, so I asked them about my husband, and told me the tragic news. I waited anxiously without eating anything until afternoon.
It was the time that the horrible incident I don't want to happen, happened. Shun was found dead by the rescuers in the crashed airship. His skin was half burned. I cannot forget the numbing pain it caused me when I embraced his cold and lifeless body, my weeping shaken the whole house of the park. The emotion was something I couldn't bear and eventually lost two important lives—one in my womb. My gift for Shun became the flower on his grave. He died along with my dreams.
Days were short as hours, weeks were short as days, and months and years were not enough for me to move on. I lost my career within that span. I lost myself as well. I enchanted the sweet smell he had to put it in the bed. His smell made me feel he was beside me, yet it only reminded me of the colorful life I lost; his touch, kisses, and warmth. I longed for everything about him. I protested on top of the mountain where Shun proposed.
Under the full moon, I summoned a huge enchast underneath my feet for supplication to the goddess. "Please... take this bitterness away from me," I pleaded, weeping. "I can't take it any longer. Please give me a chance to make it better." My tears dropping on the enchast was my offering. And shedding a bucket of it knocked me out in weariness.
I saw a vision in my dream that night, I was with a man in this place and it feels so real. In reality, I found myself alone, yet that vision that I knew for sure came from the moon was comforting. The joy it brought me was unquenchable. I concluded that the bitterness was finally stripped from me.
Slowly, I move on. I came back to my profession and spent my life dedicated to it until I aged 50. I became a veteran. I've come to know several werewolves in the Vengeance pack. I was always present on their occasions. They are one of my dogs. Knowing their background has something better to do with our relationship, and Biaco has the most tragic one. I'd come to know Mraz, Tanya, and Elibur. And they all respect me as one of their fur parents.
Both of Shun's siblings got married. It reminded me of the day I lost my little one when one of Shun's siblings begged me to revive her child. I never wanted her to suffer that same grief, as a result, I created a spell or more likely completed the missing spell I copied before. I offer the child's body as the moon's proxy in exchange for her life. I didn't have the consent of the parents but I urged them not to spread the news. I don't want to be the town's fake healer. In fact, heartless it may seem, the child was just my subject in my experimentation.
And they named her Linly.
I observed her throughout her growth. No signs of the goddess until she aged ten. This lovely girl became so close to me and my seven dogs. And I always treasure her, and her family, as part of Shun's treasures. The success and joy in Shun's sibling's family reminded me again and always about him. I visited his grave countless times. And one time, something peculiar approached.
A young woman laid white flowers on Shun's grave. It was my first time meeting her. "It's nice to finally meet you, Madam Dandeline. My name is Lanasia! This man... he was your partner, right?"
"How did you know me, child?"
"The Priestess of Venduque." She was confidently smiling at me. She was wearing the uniform I used to wear back in the academy. "The number of women in the academy is continuously increasing because of you. And I am one of them! Your title will forever be a legend in that academy."
"Oh, I'm happy to hear that."
"And I've been looking for you. I'm also a genealogist. We are indirect relatives."
"So, you want to connect me to your family tree? You're so diligent for this matter."
"I am! I want to see the promises unfold before my eyes. You, Madam Dandeline, your name was adopted from the name of the flower, the dandelion. Your grandmother, Layven, adopted from the flower, lavender. Your very ancestors named Rossy, her name adopted from the flower, rose, have prepared a plan for you!"
"What?" I thought she was trying to impress me. Or some sort of show-off. Until she said,
"The moon has answered your supplication. She has tethered you to a mate."
Dying in curiosity and confusion, "Tell me more," I replied.
We were riding a horse and she was in the front. She took me to a gloomy forest. Nothing but disappointment awaited her, bewildered and perplexed in front of a huge owl nest in a tree. "I knew I left him here! Where could he possibly be...!" she ranted. Above came an unordinary owl, Lanasia pet the owl in her arms which gave her the slightest relief. The owl, from the first glance, contains a powerful enchantment, but this young woman can make it responsive with her enchast.
"This is bad. H-He was taken captive!"
We rode on the horse again and followed the lead of the owl. We crossed a desert for 24 hours, a drought land for twelve hours, and a hot town as our destination albeit surrounded by trees. We arrived at night. People were busy with their laziness outside. And slavery was sore in the town; some dark people were being fed with provender, played by drunk men, and forced to work overnight.
This law gradually became inhumane as years continue to flip the calendars. The owl rested on a window of a mansion. I instructed Lanasia to stay outside, I prepared a fake pouch of silver coins and knocked on the door. A greedy woman, the landlady, was blinded by my offering in exchange for the man I was looking for, thinking he was enslaved. Yet none of the enslaved men intrigue me. I only felt pity. I felt like I stepped into hell the moment I entered the town. I figured already that the woman was a slut.
I was about to withdraw when the money-desperate woman told me about a slave in a locked room. "He was doing a great job at first but lately, the boy has become stubborn," she reasoned. The boy was severely beaten and weak. And the first time I saw him, I became furious, not to him but to those who have done it to him! I felt greater care for the boy than anyone else. I feel like I'll die and feel the pain of losing Shun again if this boy dies. From those symptoms, I knew that was the effect of the mate-bond.
I summoned a colossal enchast in the sky of the town and showered a thunderstorm that burnt the place down. Some lucky people escaped. I put myself into the fire and took the boy in my arms. The fire didn't harm me or him but it burned the mansion with every step I made. Lanasia took the boy and ran into the forest and I stayed for a second to curse the town. The wickedness in this place is unimaginable, or it was just my anger for what they've done to the boy.
Lanasia and the boy were laying on the dried leaves when I caught up. She was trembling exceedingly because of what I'd done to the town yet she was not in the place to scold me. I embraced the boy, my chest felt comfort, sorrow, and care towards him. The moon has mated me to a boy far younger than me!
Inevitably, the boy is affecting my emotions. I don't want him to die. I touched my lip through the tip of my finger, put an enchantment in it, and kissed the innocent boy to heal him. All his bruises vanished. The full moon was directly looking down on us that night. That was how I met my mate, Hessuel.
Lanasia built a wagon through a tree using her enchantment. Hessuel was unconsciously laying on my lap on our way back home. I was staring at him, putting enchantment in him for his recovery until I noticed his perfect nose. I slid my finger on its bridge.
"What can you say?" Lanasia broke the silence.
"... I want to reject this mate."
"But why?"
"Isn't it obvious? I'm not a fan of pedophiles! We're like mother and son instead of mates! This will not work out."
"..." She gave me a necklace. "He owns that, passed down by my ancestors up to me, it came from his father. You don't have to be with him at the moment. Just give yourself a chance too and let him find you someday... when he has finally recognized himself as the sole survivor of silver wolves."
"He is?" I stare at Hessuel. Having dark skin would not be his only problem, but the threat of the Vengeance pack. I know how much they despised silver wolves. And unfortunately, the moon has mated me into one. I can't let this boy die. At least, that's all I can do. It felt more like an obligation than a romance.