Golden Duty: A Golden Novella

Chapter Four. Understanding

"Come try it," I coaxed. "I think I got it right this time," I told Lena, holding a steaming cup in front of her.

She wrinkled her nose, "I really don't like coffee, Prin- Sophie." She was really trying. For the first two months, she called me "princess" and I kept on telling her that to do so would blow our cover. After all, we were posing as dirt-poor soon-to-be college students who had deferred for a year and were on their last great adventure.

We settled in a quaint town in Germany where not a lot of people were. This a great first step for me, since I had been around none people for the first eighteen years of my life. The people here were stand-offish at first but they warmed to us around the end of the first month. We found a small motel-apartment where we rented a room for ourselves, and the landlord kept to himself. In fact, besides giving him our weekly payment, we rarely got to see him around.

While my parents deposited money into an account for me and Lena to use, money that would have allowed us to live and eat better, I wanted to completely immerse myself in the human world so I did what any eighteen year old did and got a job at the local coffee shop. As a royal, I had been schooled in most languages, so it wasn't a barrier when we chose where to go.

I was quite fortunate that the shop was in dire need of help so they hired me even if I had absolutely no experience. Lena and I had been in this town for just over two months and we were settling in quite nicely. We planned on moving to a bigger town in the next few weeks so I had given my notice two days prior.

It was sad, really, since I had developed a friendship with the shop owner's daughter, Adelina, during my stay here. At first, I thought she was stuck up, but it quickly became apparent that she was very friendly once she got to know you. She was just wary of letting people into her and her father's lives because of their experience in the past.

Adelina and her father were abandoned by her mother when she was five years old, not even leaving a note when she left. While she was growing up, her father devoted his life into raising her and making sure she had everything she needed. When she hit her teens, her father finally started dating a woman who turned out to be a gold-digger who was only after her father's money. At the end of that relationship, a huge part of her father's fortune was gone, thanks to his ex-girlfriend blowing it on extravagant things.

They soldiered on, though, and managed to open this coffee shop with their remaining funds. And while they had been used to living a comfortable life, they had deftly managed to adjust their lifestyle by adopting a more frugal way of living.

I found that this town was full of people who had the same or similar circumstances — people who were trying to recover from some thing or another and who were actually thriving. Sure, this town was small, but it was full of people who knew what mattered and did everything in their power to keep those important things in their lives. For Adelina and her dad, it was this coffee shop and their small family, for others, it's a child who got through a terrible illness, still for others, it's a small piece of land that was their parents' only legacy.

When I handed in my notice, Adelina and her father were sad, but they understood that I was only passing through. Adelina made me promise to keep in touch and to tell her of my travels after I had left here.

"It's different, I promise. Come on, Lena, please?" I gave her my best puppy-dog eyes.

She took the cup I offered and took a small sip. I could see that she was trying very hard to maintain a straight face as she placed the cup on the table.

"So? How as it?"

After a few moments, she spoke up. "Is coffee supposed to taste like the bottom of a pot?"

I gasped in mock outrage. I had, so far, not learned to fix a decent cup of coffee. I heard a laugh from behind me and saw that Adelina's father had his head thrown back.

"Dear Sophie, you only have a few more weeks here. I think you should let Lena's tongue get a rest from your coffee creations."

I frowned. "But it's not a creation. It's the peppermint spice we have on the menu."

He walked over to us and took the cup for a sip. He calmly placed the cup back down and went back to his place behind the counter.

"So? How was it?"

He mulled it over for a few moments.

"I think, Sophie, that it is very fortunate you are a smart and beautiful girl," he told me.

"I don't get it."

"It is very obvious that your talents lay elsewhere."

Lena laughed out loud upon hearing that while I felt my cheeks heat.

"I am only joking, dear Sophie. But please, in the future, leave the coffee to me and Adelina."

I huffed and proceeded on cleaning the tables.

Adelina came in as we were closing the shop and handed me a small velvet pouch.

"What's this?" I asked her.

"It's a gift, Sophie. Something for you to remember me by," she said with a smile.

I opened it and out came a charm bracelet which had a coffee charm on it.

"It's not much, but see, you can fill it up with charms from the other places you're hoping to visit. It's not real silver or anything, but I've been told it doesn't tarnish."

I knew it wasn't silver for my skin would have been instantly burned if it was. I continued looking at it, feeling tears prick the back of my eyes. When I looked up at her, her face fell when she saw my tears. I gave her a fierce hug and whispered my "thank you" in her ear.

———0———

It was last week of our stay here and several of the townspeople I had formed a relationship with had dropped by the coffee shop to hand me and Lena going-away gifts. One of them, an old blacksmith, gave Lena a wicked-looking knife. Lena had stopped a robbery in his shop while he was there alone, one of them holding him at gunpoint as they proceeded on emptying the meager contents of his cash register. Lena heard his whimpers of pain with her wolf ears and immediately sprung to action. Another, who made handmade jewelry, gave me earrings made of steel that she had formed into thick small hoops and added semi-precious stones. Yet another, who sold specialty paper, gave us each a notebook she had made.

I finally got it. I got why we had to protect them. Because although they were weaker physically, their hearts were strong. Even if they had gone through things that would have brought the most powerful wolf to their knees, humans got up and pushed through, keeping a smile on their faces. Us wolves, we were so used to being immortal, not having the shadow of death or disease loom over us that we took it for granted. We knew we were going to live forever so we didn't appreciate the small things that came our way.

But these humans, these frail beings, knew what mattered. And sure, there were some bad apples, but mostly, humans had their heart in the right place. They never stopped trying.

And even being the physically stronger of the two species, wolves needed to understand that we had a bigger role to play in this world. We didn't need to lord over each and every being, we needed to use the strength given to us to maintain the delicate balance of life and death. We shouldn't let the games of greed affect this balance, for with the strength gifted to us, we were also entrusted to care for and protect those who needed it.

I was fondly looking at the charm bracelet Adelina had given me when I heard the bell over the shop door ring. And suddenly, the most wonderful scent reached my nose, just as I heard a female growl from Lena's table.

I looked up into the most wonderful hazel eyes and a single word formed in my mind.

Mate.