Under The Crescent Veil

9. The meadow

As Nora and Nyx were enjoying the calmness the beautiful scenery of the meadow gave them, the Alpha's sister asked, "So, how's your back?"

"It's fine," Nyx replied curtly.

"You know, if you want to talk about it, about what happened, I am here for you."

Nyx scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"I know it's weird for me to offer this, but believe me, I am a pacifist. Even though my people are part of this war, that doesn't mean I entirely support it. I am against using such violent tactics as they did on you."

"Oh, cut the crap, will you? I am sure your big brother has done the very same thing to my people."

Nora sighed. "First, Silas might be bigger, but I am still the oldest. Second, yes, Silas has done some terrible things, but for a couple of years he tried incredibly hard to go about this war as peacefully as possible."

The soldier shook her head. "There's no such thing as fighting a war peacefully," She mumbled.

Silence fell between them again until Nora asked again, "So, how old are you?"

Nyx gave her a knowing look.

"Come on, Nyx. We can't hold anything against you. At least not your age. Do you really think we can come up with some elaborate plan against HPS because we know your age?" Nora raised her brows.

The human girl sighed. "Fine. I am twenty-one."

"Wow, I knew you would be young, but not that young. How good of a soldier are you that you climbed the ladder so high, so quickly?" Nyx let out a humorless chuckle. She was not even a warrant officer, but her corps did have a reputation. That she knew.

"I wasn't a good soldier," Nyx ripped some grass from the ground and started to shred it into smaller pieces. Her frustration about her military career bubbled up to the surface again. "I was just really young when I started at HPS."

Nora adjusted her sitting position, fully anticipated to what Nyx had to say. She was almost – literally and figuratively – hanging on to her lips. "How young were you when you joined?"

Nyx was hesitant to answer. She knew she had to give in somewhat with her information to get more from them and Nora gave her a great tool of measure by asking herself every time she was given a question: can the werewolves use this to come up with a plan against HPS?

And for this question, the answer was no. "I was ten."

A loud gasp echoed through the meadow. "No way! That's cruel! How-how is that even possible?" Nora stammered. "Are your parents part of the HPS or something?"

Right when the word 'parents' was said Nyx stopped shredding up the grass and let everything fall from her hands. An angry expression plastered on her face. "No," She managed to say without blowing up. She could feel the heat of fury rise in her chest. Her hands started to tremble.

"Then how come you ended up in that place so young? Did they encourage you to go? How is it that a ten-year-old ends up in a war she could hardly understand?"

"Oh, I understood alright," Nyx gritted out.

"But how? I can't possibly understand that parents would send out their daughter off to war?!" Nora was outraged. Children, or pups as the werewolves also called them, were almost sacred within the werewolf community. This had two reasons. One, parents were incredibly defensive when it came to their pups, mostly because of their animalistic instincts. Two, werewolves had a harder time conceiving than humans, making every baby and child even more precious.