As much as Dawn didn’t want to say so, she still had to admit she had been sulking the entire morning. She had stayed in her bundle of blankets and heaps of snow since the night befor— Wow. She really was pathetic. First, as a normally independent person, no, the person other people normally depend on! And then, she had even needed Luna, Luna of all people to find her and bring her back home. Her literal apprentice! Gosh!
Even when Dawn had gotten home, she had immediately gotten ready for bed, and didn’t even bother thanking Luna before just upfront and brutally asking her to leave! To one of her best friends too! Wait, Luna might even be her only best friend now because Amber wasn’t talking to h— No! She couldn’t even think about that! Goodness! She was so pathetic she couldn’t even hold on to a new best friend… She had opened the windows, letting in the thick lush snow, shapeshifted into her wolf form, and burrowed into a snow, wolf, and blanket heap on her comfortable bed.
She began to drift off into sleep again, but she snapped herself back awake. It wasn’t last night anymore! She couldn’t sulk anymore! Well… She could… But she shouldn’t sulk anymore! The sun arced higher and higher in the sky and Dawn still found no motivation, no motivation at all to get back up.
Finally, Luna rang her door-howler, and told her it was already midday, while placing a crystallised rabbit on the kitchen counter, only making her stomach grumble more. She then told Dawn that Chris, who had retired from Alpha status half a decade ago, needed to step in, while shooting her a reproachful look. A blast of terror shot through Dawn. Was she losing another best friend? But it quickly wore off, with Dawn just too emotionally and physically tired that she didn’t have enough energy to care.
“Luna, just— just go. Please.” Dawn said. “Just give me some time, and I’ll be back to normal, perfectly cheerful and I’ll act more perfect than ever.” She said the last words in a singsong tone. Luna understood she wanted to be alone, which gave Dawn a tiny bit of hope that they were still best friends, and left to go join a territory marking patrol.
Dawn lay on her back, staring up at the skylight blanketed with thick, lush snow. She was freaking out so much, like this, even more than with Amber, over an unrequited crush? Seriously? That no one even confirmed would be good for them? With a response that wan’t even a true rejection? And she hadn’t even shed more than a tear at the loss of Amber’s friendship. God, Lupa, Wolfiens, all the spirits above, she was so absolutely, extremely, excruciatingly pathetic. Pathetic!
At half-past two, she finally coerced herself into getting out of be— Nope! She was still absolutely pathetic! She couldn’t even admit to herself that she had needed her grumbling, starving stomach to get her out of bed. How on earth could she have been so hungry anyway? All she had done all day was just lie on her bed and be miserable. It was almost as though she wasn’t pathetic enough! Gosh! She was so pathetic she couldn’t even think of any words apart from “pathetic” to describe herself.
She stumbled into her kitchen lopsidedly, and grabbed the crystallised rabbit Luna had left clumsily. She gulped it down in less than a second, yet still she really was excruciatingly starving.
She sighed. She knew she would have to go out and face the world eventually, but she was still not ready yet! No ready, at all! She hobbled to her door, fatigued yet still ready to go out. Fumbling with her robe, then dropping it, she paused for a second. Just on the off chance she might need to use a bow and arrow, she strapped her harness on, putting in a spare set of clothes and a spare bow with a full set of arrows. She then transformed into her wolf form, and streaked out into the snowy daylight.
She bounded happily across the snowy plains, and rolled across the cool fluffy tundras and into the snowstorms. She sniffed the air, but she couldn’t scent anything with all the billowing wind and the buffeting gusts, so she padded to her favourite sheltered clearing, in a tiny alcove by the woods closest to her home. She breathed in the deep pine scent, closing her eyes, and padding forward, making her way around tiny tree roots, until… she scented something else. Opening her eyes as quickly as she could, she ran forward though she realised seconds too late what she was heading for.
A thud rang through the clearing as two bodies hit the ground. A hand reached toward her, and, she gratefully accepted it. “Are you okay?” A voice asked above her, and she looked into the eyes of her not-so-former crush. A sea of pink spread across her cheeks, as she realised she had shifted back in surprise, and before Dusk saw anything he wasn’t supposed to, she was decked out in her full set of hunting gear.
“Of course I am, Dusk,” She said coldly, holding herself up and tilting her nose to the air, while coiling her free-falling silver waves into a tight bun and tying it. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You know…” Dusk awkwardly shuffled his feet. “I was… I just wanted to come and check on you, you know? You know, after last night, I just…” Dawn stared, agape. For her best friend to know she was feeling upset was one thing, but for the boy who caused it — It really was horrible!
“Dusk, just stop it already! If you really want to reject me, don’t try to pick up the pieces, it’ll make it worse!” Dusk began to start speaking again, but she yelled back. “No! You don’t really understand, do you? If you did, you would never show your face again! I hoped, I committed, I was always there, but you still leave, don’t you? So Dusk, I’m setting you free. I won’t hold you back anymore, I won’t make you feel obligated to me, I won’t make you feel like you are obliged to date me, but I’ll have you know, we won’t be anything, ever again. You won’t have to ever see me again, if seeing me as your partner for the masquerade ball was really that terrifying.”
Dawn stormed off in a hurry, grabbing her sling. “Dawn — wait, no!” Dusk reached out and grabbed her waist, pulling her in. Her breath hitched, and the fading crush reignited, flickering slowly, gaining traction with every heartbeat passed.
Dusk’s mouth opened and closed, then he turned away, and murmured, “Never mind then.”
The mere idea that Dawn was so pathetic Dusk couldn’t even begin to talk and reason with her was so horrible to Dawn, and she didn’t even want to think about it, but from the dark depths of her mind, it crawled up, and left no space for any other thought.
She needed… space. The humongous clearing didn’t seem so big anymore. She grabbed her bag, and hurried away into the woods, her heartbeat slowing with each step away from him. The brisk walk was invigorating, and cleared her mind enough for her to remember what made her come out in the first place, on that wintertime afternoon. Hunting was always her way to regroup and relax, and as she transformed back into a wolf, packing away her things and tying them to her leg, she began to dash through the thick snow and forest.
She lifted her nose to the air, and scented an extremely faint whiff of a crystal deer. She didn’t need to eat a whole one, but still, she had to get out, had to stop and refocus throughout everything. She streaked through the woods, picking up speed, dodging around the tree roots, leaping through gaps between low-hanging branches, running through the patch of ethereally white trees in the woods near her house, until she finally came to a stop.
The buck deer stared at her, slow and unmoving, blinking at her while eating some of the glowing white leaves, munching at a slug-like pace. They made eye contact, locking eyes from across the clearing, until Dawn had made a decision. She lunged. Sadly enough, for the buck at least, it moved a second too late. She pounced. Blood spurted from the neck, and the deer went down.
Tearing out a rather large heap of meat strips from the carcass, she began to eat, filling up on the rich, raw, still-warm meat. After she finished, she grabbed the deer by the leg, and dragged it back to camp. She knew she didn’t have to, as it was hunted outside a patrol, but she still deposited it on the snack pile. It wasn’t the best, as it was torn open already, but it would make for a good afternoon snack for a wolf later on.
She went back to her house, having made up her mind that she would stop talking to Dusk, and let Mellie have him. They deserved each other, after all. The two little mean wolves who wouldn’t let her actually try. She knew she was not making any sense at all, and it wasn’t Dusk’s fault he hated her, but she was still so angry, and sulky, that she just needed someone to blame and to make fun of in her head.
Sprinting back to her house, she bounded in, and curled up on her sofa. She picked up her holograph projector, opened it up, and was about to put on a sappy, human-soap-opera-like book that automatically turned pages when she said a word, when she saw, in the little human-phone pop-up section of her wolf phone pop-up, a tiny message saying, “Voicemail received. Time: Last night, over half-a-day ago.”
Intrigued, Dawn clicked on it. That was when she realised Amber was the only one with her human phone number, apart from the university. But then, it was the winter break after all, so it probably wasn’t the university, and probably was…
“Amber…” Dawn breathed when she saw the contact info of the caller. She hurried to dial the voicemail number, slipping up and dialling wrongly multiple times in her hurry, until she opened up her voicemail and listened to the message.
“Dawn! Hi! I am so sorry, I swear! I didn’t realise what I had done! Don’t you worry, I know entirely who you are. I broke free of the bewitchment John made on me! Did you know he used the necklace he gave me? Anyway, I am really sorry, truly. I hope we can still be best friends! I am at the University, but I might be booking a flight back home tomorrow or Wednesday, so maybe you could swing by tomorrow?”
The message filled her with hope, and happiness as she realised that Amber actually considered her a possible “best friend”! But the golden bubble of euphoria that swelled within her began to deflate, as she realised that the only way Amber could’ve broken free of John’s spell, was if she discovered it, and now that Dawn knew, for sure that John was a dark spirit… He would go to many lengths, Dawn was sure, of making sure the discovery wouldn’t have spread far.
“Amber! Amber!” Dawn frantically called Amber’s number over and over, and when it didn’t work, she left a warning in Amber’s voicemail. “He could try to kidnap you, or… or… harm you in some way! You’ve got to get out!”
She pondered a plausible decision for some time, then grabbed her coat and sprinted out her door, barely locking it up behind her. She dashed through the trees hurriedly, running through the densest woods, which was the quickest and painfullest way to get to the portal, and leaped through it into the shack without a second thought.
Hurrying out through the woods, with thin gashes on her cheeks, she dashed out onto the road, practically flying towards the university. No! She had to get there in time! She ignored the weird glances cast her way by farmers along the road she was dashing across, and finally made it to the administration office, panting, with her hands on her knees. She might be a werewolf, but no one could manage a twenty-seven kilometre sprint without breaking into a sweat or getting a stitch.
“Dawn? What are you doing here? You know you’re not late for school or anything, right?” The receptionist, Angel, looked at her, her eyes wide with surprise, but it quickly turned into a little bit of laughter as she made a joke.
“No, no. I know,” Dawn panted, “But I’ve got to ask about a… a… first-year called Amber,”
“Amber? Her? Isn’t she like, very mean? I would even say she’s meaner than Felicity and her gang herself!” Angel snorted, her eyes narrowing.
“Please! It’s urgent!” Dawn begged, half-surprised by Angel’s words, and half-worried about how much Amber’s personality had changed since John’s curse.
Angel scoffed again, and sighed, rolling her eyes. “Well, you have been my favourite for four years, so I guess I can let you up…”
“Gosh! Really? Thanks so much!” Dawn practically screeched, grabbing the set of keys Angel held in an outstretched hand and flying up the staircase.
“Oi! You better return those! And she better really not be as mean as she seemed! If you don’t reprimand her at least, I’ll—“ Dawn was too far up the stairs to hear anything else but the wind whistling through her hair as she dashed down the corridor, fumbling with the keys and finding the one for Felicity, Amber, Marlina, and Leila.
Click! The key turned in the lock, after many attempts by Dawn’s shaking, fumbling hands. The door burst open, and she saw Felicity, Marlina, and Leila doing some weird shaking dance. They stopped the music, and glowered at Dawn, obviously fighting the urge to say something rude, and instead asked, their voices quivering with suppressed emotion, “What are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for Amber.” Dawn said bluntly, not bothering to hide the annoyance in her voice by having to deal with those three.
“Oh! Her? Well, her stuff is over there, but we really don’t know where she is, or care really,” Felicity said, rolling her eyes.
Dawn hurried over. She had a sudden idea of why Amber wasn’t picking up her phone! She could’ve flown back to Las Vegas! She hurried over to Amber’s bed, then her stomach dropped. An unopened parcel lay on the bed, spiking Dawn’s intrigue and urgency. She grabbed it, and inside it found Amber’s passport, ID, and a flight ticket booked to head to Las Vegas booked for the day after. Her stomach dropped like a bullet. Oh no! Really? Could Amber really have been kidnapped?
She felt even more more certain when she searched Amber’s stuff, and found her favourite set of clothes missing, and her favourite perfume half-open. When she couldn’t find Amber’s phone or keys, she was sure that Amber was still out there, somewhere, which worried her worse than practically anything else. The unknown fate was even worse than anything else.
She grabbed all of Amber’s stuff, and ran out of the room. Felicity grumbled at Dawn having interrupted them for seemingly no apparent reason as Dawn slammed the door shut. She ran back down the stairs, depositing the keys into Angel’s hands, practically yelled, “She’s missing!” At Angel, then left abruptly.
“Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?” Dawn repeatedly mumbled to herself. How could she double check and be sure that Amber was kidnapped, and not that she was on a road trip of some sort, or a visit to someone in town, or something along those lines.
Then she thought of it. She remembered in the course she took on dark demons from a few years back that demon portals always leave some kind of trace. She guessed that Amber was in the University at the time of the call, which Amber’s call seemed to prove, and set off on a loop around the school grounds. She was pretty sure that Amber might’ve been close to the lake, so she headed there first.
Running footsteps in high heels had made their tracks across the soft riverbank, and so Dawn followed them to the pet boarding house. On the opposite side of the hall which held Luna’s cage, she found a phone, which looked like Amber’s, lying on a bench covered in black and red dust. She blew on it gently, brushing it off, and saw that it in fact was Amber’s.
There was a shatter across the screen from when it was dropped somehow, in the shape of a spiderweb, although it was dented and bent like it had absorbed a great deal of power. She picked it up, studying it, and she was sure it was broken. She saw marks on the bars where they were bent inwards, and the pets inside were very obviously shaken. She looked around and saw a few limping around, injured.
This was the first sign of demon portals, collateral damage on nearby living creatures, structures, and objects, apart from what it was made on, which, seemed to be the bench and the floor to Dawn, based on how unharmed they were.
The second sign, which Dawn saw more of as she searched, was the blood-red and black dust that she found on the phone and scattered in a circle around the bench, with more and more blood-red grains going towards the middle, until she found the third sign.
If this wasn’t enough evidence, the dark metal badge in the shape of a crown, dripping with black blood, lying in the centre of the blood red grains was sure to be enough. She was relieved, finally knowing that Amber had been kidnapped, but then, the feeling sunk in. Amber wasn’t on holiday somewhere, she was in the dark realm. Amber wasn’t enjoying her winter break, she was being forced into a whole other world. Amber wasn’t meeting up with her family, she was being held hostage in the demon dimension.
Terror coursed through her veins as she realised that as of this moment, this time, she didn’t know where Amber was, in the whole entire universe.
Her paws beat the ground, thumping the soft earth as she sprinted through the village. She was too worried to care about the thorns piercing her paw pads, as she sprinted back to the portal.
She burst into the pack square, knowing full well that they were meeting for a quick snack break, and began ranting on, panting heavily. “You— guys! Am-ber is- is- missing! W-we nee-d t-to help— her! I-I know— she’s i-in the dem-on dimension! W-we can s-save her! We can do it!—” Dawn was cut off, and Lily tentatively put an arm on her shoulder.
“Dawn, dear… Well… Wouldn’t we be better off not saving her?” Lily trailed off nervously. “We know she’s important to you, but…”
“She burned down quite a bit of the moonlit forest!” Mellie blurted out from behind angrily.
“So, yeah, Dawn, I don’t think it’d be wise to go and try to protect such a dangerous fireos…” Lily finished. “I’m sorry, but you won’t be finding backup from us…”
Dawn’s mouth hung open in shock. Amber was a good person! But… she guessed that the impression on the rest of her pack mates wasn’t the same as her… “Guys! Come-come on now! She’s a nice fireos!”
Snorts arose from the watching werewolves. “Nice? Her?” And “Never in a million years!”. Dawn turned in a small circle in desperation, her eyes meeting everyone’s but not a warm speck within each of the stone cold stares.
“Dawn, I think you should get some rest… You don’t seem to be feeling very good…” Lily said softly.
A tear rolled down Dawn’s cheek, and she ran off. She guessed this was what she got for befriending a fireos, and for disagreeing with her pack mates.
She disappeared into the woods, wiping the salty tear off with her sleeve. She paced around a separate clearing, until she got a hold on her emotions. Who could she ask? Who might say yes?
She walked out of the woods, ten minutes later, and she found Luna. She was talking to Celeste, but when she noticed Dawn she bid her goodbye, and came up to Dawn. “What’s going on?” She asked lightly.
“Luna, please, help me find Amber. I know she did horrible things, but she’s a good person! She’ll be grateful! This… this… choice you are making is dooming the only good fireos!” Dawn pleaded.
Luna spun round, staring straight into Dawn’s eyes. “Her? Seriously? Again? No! Dawn, please listen to me! She’s been stealing my best friend all school year! All I hear from you now is just ‘Amber this’, ‘Amber that’ and random crying. Do you know what this has been like for me? I—“ She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry Dawn. I’d help you if it was anyone else, just— just not her… I— just can’t, okay? I know I should be your perfect apprentice and best friend, but even the best would refuse to help a fireos.”
Dawn understood, but still she found herself blurting out, “But why?” And for a moment, it felt like the roles were reversed from where they were, just a year ago. Luna pleading to do fun activities as best friends, but Dawn taking her to do training exercises which turned out to be a fun birthday surprise for Luna. Luna’s exuberant expression of joy filled Dawn with warmth, but now… it felt like they would never get back to that same understanding again.
Luna’s eyes flashed with apology, but she took another deep breath and continued, “Dawn, I’m sorry. I’m still your best friend, no matter what it seems, but… I’m not her’s. And I don’t think you understand that I just can’t, okay? I can’t betray my pack for a fireos, let alone my best friend’s seeming replacement best friend…” She said those last few words with a kind of neglected bitterness, then, after staring at Dawn seriously, her expression hardened, and she walked off.
She left Dawn with an increasing doubt of her pack mates, who she thought would stick with her through thick and thin. Just one small disagreement, and it felt like her world was crashing down. Her only true family. They were supposed to be by her side no matter what happened, and she was supposed to be there for her pack mates. But now that she had seen what Luna, the poor orphan she took in, her best friend, her apprentice thought of her, thinking she was neglecting her pack, she couldn’t begin to imagine what her pack thought. She thought back in time, and realised she had missed so many more pack patrol arrangements and group calls just due to worrying about Amber. It seemed, almost as though she was too loyal to an outsider, and it was breaking her apart from her pack, her family, her world. Her worlds were colliding, and they were each destroying the bond she had with the other. But… she could still hope, couldn’t she? She could do everything she could to make it better, get them to make up with her, once she found Amber. She would make them like each other, and their world would be fixed. It would. She took a breath, and then it caught in her throat. She still had nobody to turn to about the Amber situation, and she doubted anyone would choose to help her. Well, there was technically… but she would disapprove of her friendship with a fireos more than the rest, and Dawn didn’t want to turn to her for even more help…
She walked from door to door on the busy road. Door after door opened, and door after door closed when they heard she was asking for help about the Amber situation. She had asked practically everyone, from the Psis, to the Deltas, and yet nobody at all even gave a hint of being open to helping someone like Amber. What was bad at all about someone like Amber?
She sighed, and sat down on a bench. She didn’t want to have to, but it seemed she had to go to her last alternative. Standing up, she brushed herself off, taking long, slow, unwilling strides in the direction of the glimmering beacon above the sorcerer’s nook.
The cobbles leading towards the homely square were neat, and as she peeked her head in, she found it deserted. That meant Merlina could only be in her strange house and workshop combo.
When Dawn reached the neat door and door-howler which resembled Merlina, she found herself taking in a breath. This was it. This was it. Her last chance to find Amber. Her last chance for her envisioned future with her new best friend to exist. And… it was also a time for her to get over her pride and go to her old mentor, Merlina, and make sure that after this, she wouldn’t ask even more of Merlina.
Another breath, another step, a raised hand, and she was standing right where she needed to be. Right in front of Merlina’s doorstep. About to find out the fate of herself, and the fate of Amber. She was about to find out what would happen to her friendship, her new best friend, and what would happen to her bond with the pack.
She took a breath, she swallowed her pride, she took a step, and she pressed the door-howler, right on it’s shiny black nose.
