Riya POV
"aaaaahhhhh, my neck!!! what a night!!!"
Her mind had not yet realized what had happened. She was still in a daze that she was back home.
"Get up sleepy head, we have to start moving NOW", Ailyn rushed out.
"What? why?...what's the rush? I just woke up. BRUCE!!!", Riya yawned and bellowed for her mate.
"STOP YELLING!!!....", Ailyn countered with a strong voice in her head and then whispered back "he is not here.....our mate is NOT here....don't know where he is or what happened when we were in the dungeons"
Everything came back to Riya in full force, she remembered the events that turned her life upside down. How she became a rogue from being the alpha's daughter of the bluemoon pack.
"Oh no, what do we do Ailyn?...where do we go?....who is going to help us get our pack and family back?", whimpered Riya.
She was startled out of her internal discussion and battle with the thudding of paws and rustling of leaves not far behind her. Ailyn took control and stood in her fighting stance with her haunch raised and her hair bristling giving her a feral look to any on-looker who came across her. She was snarling at the supposed threat that was approaching her at inhuman speed and she was ready to take it down.
She waited patiently and soon a smell that smelt of power and home hit her hard in the chest, sending her flying into the near-by trees. Although she was ready for the attack, she was distracted by the smell that she smelt. For a smidge second Ailyn/Riya thought it could be Bruce, but they would recognize his smell from anywhere. This was NOT him, then who was this.
They didn't have time to ponder, cause soon they were pinned to the ground by the most beautiful creature they had laid eyes on and they were transfixed by it.
"What is happening?", was the only thought passing through RIya's mind at the moment.
Ariya POV
That fruit I had last evening was just beautiful and I think it gave me some energy or something. I felt renewed and strong and beautiful. Like I could destroy a whole army. I felt so strong and confident. I woke up to birds chirping around me in that beautiful meadow, sunrays shining on my hair and a cool breeze blowing through.
"That was some real good and needed sleep. I feel like am on top of the world", Ariya her wolf exclaimed in her mind.
"I do too. I feel refreshed and like my nightmares are over. Nothing can take me down anymore", Ariya responded to her confidently.
"Wow!....someone sure sounds confident and different. Are you sure you are alright?", queried my wolf. "Yes, yes I feel perfectly fine for the first time in my life. For the first time I feel at peace with life, strong and beautiful."
"Okay if you say so. Let's go and freshen up before we start on our journey again and am feeling starved. Come on now", chirped my wolf.
"RIght". I looked to my surroundings and saw the beautiful river in front of me. I agreed with my wolf that a cool clean bath was something nice to get away everything from the past in my life. And so I took a dip in the river and washed away my past.
Although I did not have any other clothes other than the tatters of rags I had for a shirt and jean, I didn't mind it. With the freshness that this meadow brought to me I felt everything about myself was new. Then I looked again to the tantalizing fruit trees for breakfast. Expertly climbing one of the trees I gathered as much of the fruit I could muster. Then put it into a make-do bag out of some really big leaves of teak. I had a few for breakfast until I felt full.
Dropping from the tree I lithely landed on my feet like a cat.
"cool that was awesome", my wolf chided me. "yes, yes it was".
"So now let's get going before we have any visitors."
"Visitors?" I questioned quite taken aback. "Girl you have so much to learn. Now let me go and let's go" "Okay, okay" and with that said I gave control to my wolf.
My wolf took control of my body. Before we could bound off to where my wolf was taking me, I stopped my wolf in mid-stride with the thought that I got struck with.
"What is it now? You had your fill right?"
"Yes, I just....I...I haven't seen how you look...I..I..mean we look. Can you go to the river p..pl...please?" I didn't know why I was stuttering all of a sudden. I just felt like the all powerful queen few minutes ago.
"m'okay. I guess you are right." Soon they were by the river side and I could not believe my eyes. My wolf was a beautiful bluish-silver with the silver shining off of her fur with sun's rays on them like glitter and her eyes were the same shade but glimmering in the bright morning light. I was mesmerized.
"I thought....I thought...we would look different"
"What do you mean?" "I mean all the years of torture and physical trauma, I thought we would be disfigured and ugly. But YOU are beautiful, no just awesome"
"hehehe thanks but, WE are beautiful both inside and out. Yes we did take all that but I guess the moon goddess did not allow it to affect us in anyway other than what was needed"
"what do you mean by that?" "you will understand when the time comes. Now shall we move?"
"Yes yes, please."
We started of our journey to safer grounds again. Ariya my wolf lithely moved through the no-man's land avoiding trees, rocks and jumping every other obstacle. She felt free and powerful as she always commented. I felt like I was floating in the air. I was at peace.
We were running for hours when suddenly a homely and powerful smell hit us hard, Ariya was immediately alert but she didn't feel threatened, that did not allow her to calm down and put down her guard. She went in full force and pinned down whoever or whatever this creature was.
We were staring into each other's eyes, oblivious to our surroundings. Suddenly we were overtaken by this searing pain in our shoulders and both of us were squirming on the ground whimpering and whining. For a second we looked at each other to acknowledge that the other was going through the same. Confusion crossed our minds.
Immediately we looked around ourselves, standing back to back. There was nothing or none around us. We were by ourselves and yes in no-man's land still. This time the pain seared through us to a level that both could not hold it and growled loudly and plopped to the ground into a dark and long sleep.
We could not understand what was happening.