Veritas

Chapter 15

The year passed rather uneventfully. There were run-ins with rogues here and there, of course; but, overall, nothing exciting took place. Aislinn and Ryan continued their training, and Aislinn's dreams were under control once more.

After thinking about the situation long and hard, Aislinn decided that there was no reason her parents would have lied about her age. Rei had admitted to reading her mother's journal, and why she thought the theory held water; but, Aislinn just didn't accept it. And so, she decided that she had to leave before her next birthday. She had already seen Rei disappear on some errand or another, and feared it was to find a witch to help them. Each time Rei returned alone, she'd breathe a sigh of relief.

Still, the stress was eating her alive. She had begun to squirrel away non-perishable food for her journey, and bits of human money here and there. Whenever their supplies were running low, or they came across something valuable to sell, they would seek out a human city.

As mentioned, witches protected the human cities, and chose whether a werewolf could enter or not. When it was to their financial benefit to allow wolves in, they would begrudgingly accept it; but, the wolves were watched like hawks, and kicked out at the first shadow of trouble.

This was where Aislinn, Rei and Ryan found themselves about a month before Aislinn's 17th birthday. In an unassuming human mall, behind the counter of an overpriced candy store, a set of stairs lead the trio into the market of the witches.

While Rei bartered with a particularly frugal witch who was unwilling to pay top dollar for the rare herb Rei had brought, Aislinn had decided she'd use a bit of the money she'd tucked away to find a nice weapon to bring with her. She sneaked away to browse the different little shops, considering different potions and brews that could help her on her journey. Talismans and enchanted stones were displayed beautifully, and she had to resist the urge to touch them.

Finally, she came across what she'd been searching for: blades. Daggers, dirks, katanas, scimitars, rapiers, and more; if you could imagine it, this witch sold it. To Aislinn's delight, most of them were silver, too.

"Want a blade that bites you back, do ya?" The young woman behind the desk asked in an amused tone. She looked young, maybe in her early thirties; but, as with werewolves and vampires, you could never determine a witch's age by her looks.

"You could say that" Aislinn replied with a smile as she eyed a dagger made entirely of silver. "Are these enchanted? Silver is such a soft metal for an entire weapon to be made of" she reasoned, not wanting her weapon of choice to break easily.

The witch scoffed at the question. "These blades are made for the likes of you and the vampires, wolf-girl. There's no reason to enchant something to strengthen it when it already slides through the target like a hot knife through butter" she explained condescendingly.

Aislinn knew better than to take the bait of the witch's tone, no matter how much she wanted to quip back. She merely nodded her head and admired the blade a moment longer before asking "how much for the dagger?"

The witch eyed her strangely for a moment, before a wicked grin came across her face. "Free for the scent of burnt wolf flesh" she said with a cruel laugh.

Aislinn raised her eyebrows, finding herself in a bit of a conundrum. She wanted to buy the knife with cash, not an injury — especially not an injury she couldn't even inflict on herself. Before she could answer, though, an arm reached past her and grabbed the dagger she'd been looking at. Instantly, the sizzling sound and stench of burning flesh was in the air.

"Gah!" Came the familiar, manly voice of Ryan as he dropped the blade back onto the table.

Aislinn whirled around to look at him with wide eyes. "Why did you do that?!" She nearly shrieked at him.

He just gave her a smile while wincing, cradling his injured hand to his chest.

"Isn't it obvious?" The annoyed witch replied with a snort. "The typical misogynistic wolf-boy couldn't possibly let his dainty girlfriend come to any harm. Women are weaklings, isn't that how it works with you beasts? Take it" she said with disgust, throwing the blade on the ground at Aislinn's feet. "He paid your price, and I am a woman who keeps her word. Now get lost."

Unable to get a word in before the witch insisted they leave, Aislinn didn't bother arguing. Instead, she pulled out a cloth to carefully wrap the dagger in, mumbled a quiet "thank you" to the witch and led Ryan to a quiet corner of the marketplace.

"Seriously, why did you do that?" She hissed at him once she had him seated in front of her so she could inspect his hand. Silver was extremely dangerous, and even though he hardly had it in his hand for five seconds, she was scared at the thought of what damage could have been done.

"I'm fine, it'll heal soon enough" he replied with an air of nonchalance.

Aislinn glared at him. "That was stupid" she said frankly.

Ryan shrugged, but couldn't help grinning at her. "So you're my girlfriend now?" He teased.

Aislinn's mouth gaped open, and her face blushed crimson at his teasing. After several seconds, she started trying to stammer a retort, but her mouth mostly just opened and closed as nothing came out.

"You look like a dying fish" Ryan said, cracking up laughing.

This was enough to snap Aislinn out of her embarrassment, and she smacked his arm. "Shut up, you moron. This isn't exactly a safe place to be laughing it up" she scolded.

"Oh, come on, it's fine. I'm sure mom's making friends with some of them as we speak" he said with a strange smirk on his face.

Aislinn froze. She knew that Rei was going to look for a witch to help her; but, she hadn't expected a marketplace to be the location for that. Surely, Rei was too cautious to go around to strange witches in a public setting like this, explaining the situation. Then again...Where better to hire a witch than a market where they were practically selling their skills?

"Breathe, Ash, geez. I was just joking, she wouldn't do that here. Calm down, you don't need to go running away tonight. Don't worry" Ryan said, pulling the panicking she-wolf into a hug so he could rub her back to try to calm her down.

His words did soothe her at first, until she realized he mentioned running away. Did he know? He couldn't possibly. She had been so careful, there was no way he or Rei had noticed!

"You're being too cruel, stop teasing her. It's hurting me to watch" Kenji suddenly piped up, scolding his human.

"You're no fun" Ryan grumbled, but acquiesced nonetheless.

"Relax, okay? I was just teasing you" he said, patting Aislinn's back.

"Teasing about what?" She asked, trying to determine whether he knew or not.

"About you running away. Mom and I both know what you're planning" he said with a chuckle. "Really, I know you've been planning it out, and you kept it from us for a good while from the looks of things...Still, even if we hadn't noticed until you left...Do you really think we wouldn't catch up within a day?"

Her stomach dropped, and she looked down. Ryan pulled away from the hug to look at her; but, she was too ashamed to look him in the eye.

"Is she upset?" She murmured, referring to Rei. It hadn't dawned on her what it would look like to them if they'd found out, and she figured they were thinking the worst.

"Nah" he answered with a shrug. "We figured you thought you'd be protecting us, you get pretty freaked out every time we mention wi—" he began; then, realized where they were and thought better of it. "Uh...You know."

Hearing that gave her hope, so she finally looked up at him. "So you both understand? I can't let her do it, it's safer to choose another route. I figured if I left, then she wouldn't need to go through with her plan and you'd both be safe. It's too dangerous" she explained emphatically, grabbing his hand to further emphasize her point. Unfortunately, she grabbed his injured hand and caused him to pull away with a yelp that drew several stares towards them.

One of those was the disapproving stare of Rei as she walked towards them.