The Alpha Twins and their Runaway Witch

52

After the drive home from the dinner, Binh tucked a well fed and sleepy Ariel into her chair in his living room, putting on another episode of her show. Ariel fell into her thoughts. Trying to make sense of what she thought she knew, and make it fit in with what she had felt tonight. Binh told Ariel was going to get her a lemon tea. She barely nodded her head. Already lost in her thoughts and memories.

Galen had told Ariel she was his mate, after he had already lured her in with food and clothes and other gifts. Revealing that he could shift into a wild animal. That magic was truly part of real life. It had seemed like a fairytale, a good girl with a tragic story and lack of parents meets her prince and is swept off her feet by a wild romance into the sunset and a happily ever after. Just like she had seen in so many of her favourite movies.

Ariel's heart twisted over the now ancient heartbreak she had felt. Galen had been just sweet, and giving enough to make her believe that it was something real. That she was finally going to know how it felt to be loved. To build herself a home and life with him.

In hindsight, it had been the reckless, flying headfirst through the free fall, all consuming kind of love only possible in a young girl's heart who doesn't know any better. How much it hurt when she finally fell out of the free fall crashing to the ground.  Finding herself enslaved under a witch and no better than a bang maid for a pack of deranged hyena.

Her absolute horror when the cackle explained her duty to all of them as a mate. She had tried to run only to be left paralyzed by the witch and the magic. Helpless, unable to move or even scream as the cackle tied her to a tree. She had still tried to fight every single second. Which is why she was whipped for the first time. But not the last

The visceral memory was starting to consume her, then Binh was there, Ariel felt him take away the nightmare. The memory was still there, under the surface, but the deep, uncontrolled emotional response dulled. "Wolves aren't like hyena?" Ariel asked the room. Three Hours Past Midnight flew to Ariel, preening through her hair to comfort her, sending her messages of how insulting the comparison would be taken by wolves.

Binh placed her tea on the table beside her, where Ariel could easily reach it. "No Ariel, these wolves are not like hyena you have known." Ariel heard his words. Her familiar and her grimoire promised that the dream eater would not lie to her. Not forthcoming, but would not lie.

Binh sat on the nearby sofa. Watching Ariel as she drank her tea, eyes transfixed on the screen, while her mind and body were overcome by an emotional nightmare that had taken her so deep it coloured every interaction she had with darkness, and hidden threats.

Ariel nodded, breathing a sigh of relief as once again the intrusive strong emotional response was absorbed by Binh. Leaving her clear to try and make sense of what she felt. What she knew. "I feel crazy," Ariel told Binh, looking away from her current favourite show as a lighthearted mostly comedy episode played in strong juxtaposition to her mood. "I am terrified to give in to what they are saying, I don't trust them. But since I touched their hands," Ariel didn't know how to try and explain the complicated, need and desire she was feeling. 

She wanted to run away from it, but she was as stuck physically as she was emotionally in her stupid wheelchair with her stupid broken leg. Finally managing to make herself say something out loud."I don't know, I feel like I want to try and curl up on top of both of them." Ariel grabbed a pillow from beside her, and put it to her face and screamed in complete frustration.

Binh ignored Ariel's loss of composure. Only gently laying a hand on her shoulder in support. She had been through a lot, a few minutes of screaming was actually a fairly reasonable response all things considered. Ariel pulled herself back together just in time for another cycle of the closing credits into a new episode.

When she was done her outburst. Binh was waiting. "You should rest, the hour has grown late." Ariel nodded, feeling especially exhausted after screaming. Binh was there the whole time, helping her move from the comfortable living room chair to her wheelchair. Pushing her down the hall to her room. "We have dinner plans with them tomorrow night. You need not decide anything tonight." He told Ariel.

She looked at him, eyes wide. "They don't even know my real name." She said, realising that she thought she might want to share her name with them. Ariel turned her head to look at Binh, he still didn't know her full name either. Feeling brave, like she needed to say it out loud and be heard. "Ariel, Briar, Rose. That is my whole name." Ariel shared her full name with Binh, shared it with anyone for the first time in years.

Binh was near grinning. "Thank you for sharing your true name, Ariel Briar Rose." Doing his best to keep from grinning too broadly. "I am sure the twins will be just as glad to learn your name tomorrow at dinner. If you choose to share it." Ariel smiled to herself as Binh helped her through brushing her teeth, washing her face, and getting her into bed. She had shared her name, and nothing bad had happened. Binh probably didn't even know she had been named for several cartoon princesses by her mother. Maybe he wouldn't even know the references and could never make fun of her.

As always, Binh stayed nearby while Ariel slept. Except tonight, he watched her last memory of her mother with her in the nightmare that had woven its way deep into her being. He promised he would not take away this one from her. He instead used his nature to highlight the good parts of the memory at the root of the nightmare, the smell of her mothers hair from the shampoo she had liked to use, the happiness Ariel had felt cuddling next to her mother on the couch to watch a movie they both loved.

Binh tempered the end of the nightmare, doing his best to soften the entrenched feeling of abandonment that was the core of the nightmare. Taming it into what was still a wild animal, but one that could be managed with care. The nightmares of what Ariel imagined could have happened to her mother after she had walked out the room, never to return; those he had never promised to leave and happily enjoyed the untrue nightmares. Light like popcorn, Ariel did have such detailed and complex nightmares that even untrue were enjoyable to consume

Binh was starting to question how some of the details in these nightmares stayed the same, while everything else changed around her. Ariel shifted, and finally fell into a deeper level of dreamless sleep. The moment Binh finished the last traces of the nightmares that would have haunted Ariel without him here, Three Hours Past Midnight, made his presence in the dreamworld known.

Her Grimoire told her the year her mother died, but not how. The bird communicated to Binh. Before swiftly leaving the plane where they could easily communicate. That at least explained how Ariel's endless nightmares all agreed with how old her mother would appear when she met her end. Binh felt something deep in his core stir learning that Ariel's mother had died, that Ariel would never be granted a chance to seek closure with her mother.

From his perch on her headboard, the raven looked at his witch. His Great-Great Grandmother had served a witch who had foretold the end of the second dynasty was approaching. Those invested in a long standing dynasty continuing were often slow to see that the writing was already on the wall. All the leading women in the murder of ravens he belonged too were certain that Ariel was now going to be the first in a new dynasty.

The last living matron of the second dynasty lay in a palliative care bed, where she had been for the past six years. Waiting for her magic to have a place to flow to. For the power and strength born in her bones to know where to go next. Miriam was an astonishing one hundred and seven. Her only daughter had died more than forty years ago, taken by a drunk driver. There was no one left. The dynasty would end. Silently in a modern palliative care room. No one marking the occasion. A rookie nurse, on her third shift standing by the beeping machine of the DNR patient, uncertain what to do.

Miriam in her current state had no idea that her daughter was dead. Had long forgotten her own magic. Miriam and long been lost to dementia. Had no idea that a distant relation through her dead, and previously estranged brother would receive the entire sum of the magic the Earth wanted to impart and share.

Three Hours Past Midnight was so proud of Ariel. She named herself for another person tonight. She had accepted her magic, accepted him, accepted her name and now shared it. She had not yet reached her full power. Every step forward she took was bringing her closer to the full strength of her magic being revealed to her.