To the pack house

        Celeste stepped out of the hallway, her eyes ranking over Ayz and Seha standing at the entrance of their home. 

          Home…

        She wants the old days back when she had the best of her summers in her gardens with her parents and the palace maids she had found the best of friends in.

       And she feels the shame burning her insides and clawing at her lifeless heart for daring to think of her hearty moments with Delian. 

       But she still could not wrap her head around the fact that he, her love, her Del had a vicious demon hidden underneath his skin and she was too late to find that out when she had spent almost every night of her tracing pattern on his cold skin. The coldness she grew to love. 

     The coldness she thought she could never survive without. 

      Now, here she was, in a foreign land without any familiar face to lean on, without any anchor when she thought she was drowning in the pit of the abyss with still her feet growing study on the white floor beneath her as her eyes never left the pair. 

       "You're here!" Ayz lets out, bringing her from her bitter thoughts to their hallway. She puffs out a long breath. Her legs remembered how to move all over again as she walked toward them in slow strides. 

       If anything, the last thing she wants now is to stand in front of the pack leader and feel like a sinner when she never had ever committed one in this entire stretch of twenty years. 

       They walked out of the front door, the sound of the key dangling as it was pulled into the keyhole when Ayz locked the door was faint but still caught Celeste's ears. 

     Halfway through the muddy road, Seha starts, "The pack house is just a few yards away from here. We kind of go there all the time and sometimes go as far as staying there." 

    "Oh…" Celeste made, she was really, really excited to see this pack house they spoke so many times about. But the nervousness that had got into the pit of her stomach and closed its hand around her gut, made her look the other way. 

      She looked to the side, admiring the trees and plants that had the prettiest of green color she had ever seen, but all she was caught was the roll of Ayz's eyes as he looked at his mate. 

    Her white pearly teeth grazed her bottom lip, making it flush red in a second. Somehow Ayz had always succeeded in making her feel estranged, unwanted. 

       It stabbed at her heart and cut through deeper than she thought it would, and it always caught her off guard. Why, she has no right to think that way, feel that way. 

       She was indeed an outsider and was seen as a threat. And on top of it all, she was a vampire. 

        They could never trust her. 

      At the end of the mud road, they walked, there was an opening to what looked like a tiny market. There were few men and women around, all of their scents mingling and creating a pleasant floral scent. 

        She tipped her nose in the air, in hailing a deep puff of air through her nose. It… it smells like peace. 

       A woman swirled her head from where she was standing at a makeshift shed with vessels laid on the ground as if to dry the clay. 

      Seha tossed her a smile but from the way he stiffened Celeste can sense the nervousness oozing out of his body. The lady doesn't mirror his polite smile, instead, her gaze wandered to Celeste and lingered on her for quite a good minute before her gaze rolled back at him again. 

        She raised one of her eyebrows, "Who is this?" Celeste can see the way her nose twitches and now she knows what that means. She was trying to her, as if to prove it true her eyebrows crease. 

         "Um, a refugee." Refugee? She wanted to ask Seha but before she could— not that she would.— the lady had already asked that. 

        "Yes." He kept the exchange short and curt, face sharpening. The woman was not having it as if Celeste spiked her curiosity, her eyes trailing back to her more times than not.

      She opened her mouth to say something but Ayz cut her off saying, "And we're going to the pack house." 

      "I see…" She let out, her eyes never leaving Celeste until it overwhelmed her, and she cut her gaze away from the women.

      She watched as Ayz tugged at Seha's wrist, making him walk along with him. Celeste pressed her lips in a thin line before jogging close to them.

      As they strolled through the street, Celeste's mind wandered to the thought she just doesn't want to think about yet. But it's inevitable, she knows that, or at least her mind knows that that's why it kept going there. 

        About what was going to happen to her when she got to the pack house. 

         "We are almost there. Do you see the creek over there? The house is just behind it." It's Ayz.

         And yeah, she sees it.