Sometimes waking up feels like a lot of work. When you remember that you have a lot of tasks ahead of you, you would wish to go back to sleep. Yes, that shit happens sometimes and I experienced it in the morning. It was a hot afternoon and according to Drake, a full moon would fall upon us tonight. I had been thinking since morning. Something had been bothering me. I couldn’t quite figure out exactly what it was. Was I worried that I was going to officially become a Luna or was I worried that I wasn’t capable of proving anything to anyone? Or maybe I was worried that I had been told that I didn’t have the profound capability of becoming a Luna and had been threatened as well. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was. I had a lot to do this summer break, I thought. And proving to be strong is one of them.
There was no need to be in anything tight. I was going to be changing into a creature of four legs anyway. I have done it more than once. When you turn into a werewolf, there are certain solicited factors that you notice about yourself that are not quite accessible in your human form.
Like your sense of smell, it becomes more enhanced that you could pick up scents from a considerable long awkward distance. On some occasions, once turned, a werewolf could pick up the scent of his or her mate from many miles away. Yes, it is that strong. The mate bond is kind of very brutal when it comes to such attributes.
Another thing is vision. Your vision when you turn becomes so sharp that you can even use it in the dark handily. You could see in the dark just as much as you would see a mosquito in the daytime. All things about turning are fascinating because everything that makes you normal becomes naturally altered.
I grabbed a loosened light trouser from my wardrobe, it offered enough adjustment for me to turn without tearing them into shreds. I picked a blouse that wouldn’t tight me too. I placed them all on my bed so I wouldn’t rumple them before I wear them. I wasn’t sure if I would need footwear since I wouldn’t be needing it most of the time. The last time I turned during training, I left my shoes in the woods and wasn’t able to find them after I was done with the training
I heard a gentle knock at my door. Before I answered the call, I looked down at my cloth. I wasn’t putting on my bra but I wore a white singlet over my chest down to my tummy. Since my tits weren’t piercing through, I considered it worthily attractive to take the door without minding what I was putting on.
“Come in.”
The door opened and I couldn’t believe what my eyes saw.
Audrey.
What exactly is she doing in my room? I sprung up to my feet immediately, my eyes widened beyond my control. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
“What does it seem like I am doing?” she murmured
She peered past me, smiling, and then back to me. She studied me through knitted brows. I didn’t want it to seem like I was anxious or afraid so decided to sit back down.
“Our Luna,” she bloated, the corners of her lips spreading in a senile smile.
I tried to read this woman. I tried to channel a lot of my conscious energy into finding out the reason why she was in my room. The all-white she wore from her head down to her legs gave me a mental picture that she was some kind of an odd, historical, Asian abbot. She covered her head with a white veil, leaving out only her nose as though there was a pandemic she was running away from. She wore white gloves over her palms, a tall white gown over her body. She stood in that door watching me, giving me cold, delicate shivers. I couldn’t even speak. I didn’t know exactly what to say. I thought this was a woman I had agreed that I was going to fight, including her child? What then was wrong? Was I afraid of her?
“The full moon will set upon us today,” she said looking around my room. “Were you duly informed?”
I kept quiet. I didn’t reply and I wasn’t sure if I had an answer to that question. She closed the door and then slowly began to walk inside the room “What exactly do you want?” I asked. I wasn’t too comfortable with my posture. I was sitting. She was standing. There wasn’t much I could do from the sitting position if she attacks me. But then, I didn’t want to stand up because it would finally reveal the only thing I had been struggling to conceal- fear. I couldn’t allow her to see that her mere presence alone in the room was giving me headaches, and chills.
“To make friends.” She licked her lips.
“Friends?” I felt my brows arched.
“Yes, friends.”
“With who?”
“Us. Both of us.”
“Are you serious?”
“Like never before, dauntless Luna.”
I wanted to laugh. I didn’t. I couldn’t. “I never told you that we ain’t friends. Why would there be the need for it when we ain’t quarreling?”
“I never said we are. But both of us know that our relationship with each other hadn’t taken the best of turn, hadn’t been well established.” She half-smiled.
I crossed my hands on my chest.
“I didn’t remember making up anything that didn’t make the best of turn. There wouldn’t have been a speck of dust if you hadn’t been the person that raised them.”
“And that is why I want to be the one to drench it,” she said almost immediately. She went past me, gently, and began to look around my wardrobe, the way to my kitchen, the fireplace. “It is very terrible for someone to come out of the blue to steal your life’s work. When you think that you have made something for yourself and then someone out of nowhere comes to take it. The pain, the guilt, it’s quite incomprehensible.
Especially to a mother.”
I only listened but didn’t talk nor respond. I knew exactly what she was talking about, the context of the whole grammar.
She blew away a strand of long hair that hung on her face and she turned to look at me. “Do you know what it takes for a mother to see her child pass through pains?”
“I am not a mother yet. So, I wouldn’t know.”
She laughed, a long and sincere type of laugh. “I love that answer,” she said trying to control herself. “There are some questions that are better answered if experienced.”
“Might be true.”
“Yeah. Anyway, I hope you will forgive me for being rude the other day. It was not intentional.”
I raised my brows. Like I said before, I wasn’t sure if I could read this woman. I couldn’t say for sure if she meant what she said or not. “I will say it like that if I were you.”
She smiled for a few seconds before she awkwardly changed the topic. “Do you have a cup?” she asked.
I frowned. “A cup?”
“A glass of wine cup.”
“I have seen one of those around.”
“Where can I get them?” she asked.
I was confused. I didn’t know why exactly she suddenly developed the need to handle a glass cup. “Should be in one of the drawers in the kitchen cabinet. First rows by the left.”
She smiled with one side of her cheek. She went inside my kitchen, without wasting much of our time, she brought out two glass cups. She slid a hand inside her white garment and brought out what looked like a bottle of whiskey. She shook the brown small bottle and opened the lid. “I did my findings. Heard you like whiskeys.”
I shrugged. Who told her? And why would she dig up to know what kind of drink I like to take? Something was not just right. “Not all the time.”
“Whiskeys and coffees. What would life be without them?” she asked and continued to shake the bottle.
I didn’t answer her. I just stared at the bottle. After shaking it vigorously, I shifted my glance back to her. I wanted to know what she was up to. She placed the cups and evenly distributed the whiskey until she filled the cup to the brim. She took one and sipped from it and then held out the other one to me. “Take. . . drink. Drink to a good and healthy relationship from now on. The type you would witness from mother to child.”
I choked on a laugh. I didn’t know what she was thinking but I wasn’t planning to drink that. “Sorry, I am not in the mood for alcohol. I have a task ahead of me tonight.”
“A sip wouldn’t bother your task,” she said. “Drink.”
Honestly, more than a sip wouldn’t bother me. What bothered me was the result after the sip. She drank from the wine cup, I saw her doing so. She had poured the content into the cup from the same bottle too. At least, this offered me some sort of glitchy assurance that I would be okay if I grab the bottle and down the whole content right inside my stomach. Sure, that should be a pretty good idea, a convincing one too. It would be a brave thing to do, right? It might also be a stupid thing to do. I decided to argue further with her. Doing so would finally let me know how much she wanted me to drink it, I thought.
She still held her hand out to me- with the cup in her grip. I looked at it and then looked at her. “Here isn’t the right platform for that.”
“You are acting as if your mother is going to scold you for drinking alcohol. Sorry, I didn’t ask, are you still seventeen?”
I smiled. “Someone that dug up my favourite drink wouldn’t find it so hard to dig up my age too.”
She brought down her hand, looked down at the floor, and laughed. “Taking it or not?” she asked.
“I prefer the latter.”
She aligned her brows, one being taller than the other. “Are you afraid?” She asked.
I shrugged again. But this time, it was more like I shuddered and twitched away from something painful. The question wasn’t what I had expected. Honestly, I was scared. Damn scared of her. But I wasn’t supposed to tell her that I was scared or was I? I cleared my throat. “Afraid of what if I may ask?”
“Of the unknown,” she replied.
“Of course, everyone is afraid of the unknown.”
“Not at this rate,” she said. “It is as though you are afraid of me.”
I shuddered again. What exactly was she expecting? With this snowy appearance alone, it should be enough to send the message ‘I am really a scary woman’ to anyone that mistakenly sees her in the dark in the middle of a forest. “I will drink it,” I said.
“You what?” she asked. My expression had changed into something worrying. I was sure she wasn’t expecting me to make such a statement
“Yes, I will. But only if you would adhere to my only condition.”
“And what could that be?”
“As you can see, I was busy as fuck before you walked inside my room,” I said.
“So?”
“So I would like it if you would walk away immediately I take a sip of the fucking whiskey so I could get back to my business.”
She opened her lips, expression set pensively. She might be trying to find out what I was up to. I was sure of that. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if what I was about to do was right or wrong. I was not sure if my plan would really work out either. If the drink was poisoned, then I could be taking a very big risk myself. But then if it wasn’t, it means I had successfully proven to her that I wasn’t scared of her or whatever she thinks. “Fair,” she said.
She stretched out her hand again, holding the cup. I took it from her and then did what I think wouldn’t be realistically possible. I sipped it but didn’t swallow. I didn’t bother to give her back the cup, I kept it on the table.
She began to look at me, her head static. Her eyes turned raven and her lips began to rub against each other nervously. I didn’t want to remind her to leave because I didn’t want her to find out that I hadn’t swallowed the drink- yet. “Do you like it?” she asked.
I nodded.
“I told you it tastes great, didn’t I?” she said. I nodded.
She remained silent for a while looking at me. “So we have toasted to a healthy relationship from mother to child?”
I realized she was trying to get me to talk. That was smart of her. That means she was trying to make sure that I swallowed the nonsense she had given me to drink. “Agreement,” I said softly. “Leave.” I managed to contain the drink at the back of my tongue without spilling them.
She glared up at me. She stood there for a few more seconds before she finally agreed to leave. “See you soon,” she said on her way out. “It’s going to be a rough game.”
See you never!