Bessa

The Best I Can Be

The year slips by again, the long nights, the even longer summer days mix as one in memory.

Odin has come back bruised again, the older pups are picking on him. His knuckles are bloody and his lip bleeds. His brother is in no better condition. They bleed for their sister.

"Where they juveniles or pups, Odin?' His father questions turning his head to the side, stopping the butchering of the kill. All their hands hold blood.

"Pups."

"Did you show them who you were?" The wars of white show from his father.

"I did." Odin flashes his blunted whites back. 

"I've had enough of this, I'm going to their mothers." Taking a step outside.

"If you fight his battles he will always need you to fight his battles, Bessa."

"I don't need you to fight for me, mother." Indignation pulls the shoulders back on the future Alpha. There are glimpses that flash before me with Odin, the future him standing rigid, unbending. Never yielding. 

"When he shifts, that's when his Wars will start. He has to get through this himself. If you fight for him, he will be mocked and the harassing will get worse. Trust me." 

"I can't stand by while he comes home bloody every day?" Frustration seeths through the spaces of my teeth.  

"He's still young, there will be a time where he will no longer bleed." Odin stands taller from his father's words. 

"Come here, Odin." Luki stops the butchering of the kill. Swatting at Odin's head. "You need to duck quicker, you need to protect you right with this left." He makes Odin's left hand turn into a fist and the next thing I know they're playing war across the backyard and Odin is not making out well with the way Luki does not consider him a pup. Odin thrives on this while my stomach drops.

Elska is sitting on a log, listening. Always listening to everything. She gets up and walks with her toes first before going inside.

She has been hovering near the fridge and asking, "what's that?" Trying to open the door, pounding on it because she wants the dessert I made. Figs stuffed with cheese drizzled in syrup. The Savage had a crate of fruit waiting for me when we got home from the summer grounds. Fabric in every color. My female will wear the Silk of her Lineage proudly.

"After you are done with the butchering, would you like to eat dinner with us, Borson?" The traction of his hand stops with the downward cut of the knife. 

Everything halts. 

"Yes, I would. I would love that." Those comfort greens have never stopped looking at me the way his memories have shown. They have never stopped their caring or loving. No matter the vileness that I stab him with over and over again. 

This is the fifth time he's stayed for dinner. He was able to tuck the pups into bed and watched them fall asleep.

I almost touched him when I walked him to the door, closing it behind him after he told me goodnight.

"Your hair looks pretty cut like that." He says over his shoulder. "I only trimmed it," touching the ends.

"It looks nice." He keeps butching the animal dividing it into pieces making Ryeson and Odin hang it on hooks to dry in the smokehouse that he and Luki just built.

When he's done he's drenched in blood.

"You can shower inside if you want. I'm sure that there is something that will fit you." He smells of the hunt, of blood when he passes by. Not touching but oh so close. So close.