Cursed Flames

Meeting the Pack

After a brief moment of silence, the same girl from earlier and another girl had run out from one of the rooms. They had come to see Flaro. Nobody was introduced yet, but the second girl seemed to be very friendly towards him. She walked up and introduced herself. "Hey! My name's Phoenix." Flaro shook her hand. "My name's Flaro. It's nice to meet all of you." The first girl moved Phoenix out the way and shook Flaro's hand tightly. "I'm Elera. And sorry about earlier. I'm known to be a bit... jumpy when I meet new people." Flaro chuckled a bit. "That's fine. I may not look like I can defend myself, but when push comes to shove I'm sure I'll be ready." Reyna spoke up. "I'm sure you've already heard my name from the idiot farm boys from before, but just in case you didn't catch my name, its Reyna." Phoenix and Elera sat down next to Reyna and got a little quiet. Flaro was still filled with curiosity. A moment or two had passed when he finally asked, "So... what types of wolves are you guys... if I can ask of course." Reyna answered, "We can't tell you just yet. We may trust you to be down here, but a wolf's identity needs far more trust to be exposed so freely." Reyna then asked, "So explain to me... how DID you become the prince of the Magma kingdom? You said you were the first, yet here I am thinking they were extinct." Flaro's ears perked up. "Oh! Based off of the books I've read growing up, we were under attack from other kingdoms. We managed to get some people out undetected, including the king and queen. Once it was all said and done, we found another place to call home. A hidden one at that. Sadly the kingdom was eventually found, and destroyed leaving only me, my mother, and two sibling." Reyna kept quiet while Phoenix and Elera asked a few questions all at once. "How did you, your mom, and siblings survive?" "Who found you?" "Why did your father not make it out?" Flaro's ears slowly perked down as he was being bombarded with questions. That's when Reyna barked at the both of them. "Girls! Give him some time to breathe. Like he told me earlier, he is trying to find his family and is probably confused as to what's going on." Both of them shut up almost immediately, and they're ears folded down. Flaro tilted his head slightly. Reyna cleared her throat. "Sorry about that. They get excited easily. Honestly, I fell like they're pups sometimes." Flaro went straight to ask, "Why do they listen to you so well? I've only known people for obeying orders because of their parents or royalty." Reyna chuckled nervously. "I may not look like one, but... I'm their alpha. It's a bit complicated but it is what it is." Flaro asked another question. "What caused them to follow your lead?" Reyna stated, "I brought them here. I never asked them for anything more than good behavior, but they both think they owe their loyalty to me. It's sort of strange being an alpha to two different types of wolves..." Flaro wanted to know more, but he was told a wolf's identity earns trust. Reyna spoke up, "Well, that's enough questions for now. Phoenix, serve everyone some food please. Elera, get everyone a drink. I have to go pick up the shipment I missed. Falro." He looked up. "We'll continue our talk after dinner." Flaro nodded and they all set out to do what they had to. Flaro didn't have anything to do so he sat at the table awkwardly. Phoenix had given Flaro his bowl first, then Elera gave him a drink. When they were done doing their chore, they came to sit with Flaro and eat dinner. Or at least that's would've happened if they weren't too busy staring at him with curiousity written into their expressions. Flaro didn't seem to mind it though. In his own kingdom he was looked at the same way just for different reasons. Flaro finished his dinner and thanked the two for being kind enough to let him eat some of their food. Phoenix and Elera gave warm smiles back to Flaro. Flaro got up from the table and found a place to rest for a bit as the girls finished their food and did whatever they would do afterwards. Once Flaro had drifted off into a deep sleep, he opened his eyes to reveal that he was back in the pocket dimension. It was strange. Cyote was nowhere to be seen and everything was awfully quiet. Flaro stood up and looked around. His ears suddenly twitched in the direction of a faint sound he could hear coming at intense speeds. He barely leaned back enough to dodge Cyote's dagger in time. The blade was mere centimeters from his neck. Cyote then swipe tripped Flaro knocking him off of his feet, and she quickly put the knife to his neck. Flaro, very terrified, kicked Cyote off of him and got back on his feet. He got in a fighting stance and readied himself for anything he could think of. Cyote was fast to regain stability and got up at the same time as Flaro. They stared at each other for a moment. Flaro felt his stomache curl into knots, but he wouldn't let that get to him. He simply sharpened his claws and bared his teeth. Cyote smiled and cut her own hand with the dagger. She then marked an X on her forehead with her own blood. Flaro rushed towards Cyote and tried to cut her with his claws. To his own surprise, she was gone again. Only a second after his realization, Cyote had grabbed his throat and had the dagger at his back. "You're slow." Cyote let Flaro go, and he collapsed to the floor gasping for air. "If this were an assassin that you were fighting, you'd be dead." Flaro glared up at Cyote still gasping for air. Cyote dispelled her dagger and watched Flaro as he struggled to get up. "I told you we had to train if you wanted to be able to use my powers. If you can barely stand up to an assassin, how well do you think you'll do against the demon king?" Flaro shook his head and said, I wasn't ready." Cyote barked at him, "That's the while point of this training. I thought that since you were a wolf you'd at least be vigilant. Instead you complain that you weren't ready." Flaro stood there for a second. Cyote scoffed and turned away. That's when Flaro took advantage of his opponent. He tackled her to the ground and held her neck with his claws ready to cut into her skin. Cyote was a bit surprised but laughed. "Turning my own words against me huh?" She then grabbed Flaro's tail causing him to let go and become vulnerable. Cyote knee kicked him in the stomache then got her dagger back out. Flaro was still dazed and didn't know what was going on. Cyote grabbed his hand and started to cut an X onto his palm. Flaro, being helpless, had to watch as Cyote slowly dragged her dagger across his hand. The blood started to flow towards his hand and spilled put of the wound. Once Cyote was done, she grabbed Flaro by the neck, picked him up off of the ground, and had an intimidating smile. "This is what I'm training you to do, so of you think you'll get lucky enough to accomplish anything unexpected right of the bat, hahaha... don't hold back!" Cyote punched Flaro dead in the face and he woke up with a massive headache that almost knocked him right back into his sleep, and some blood dripping from his hand. There was no cut, but there was blood from the wound. Elera and Phoenix both heard the commotion and came to check on Flaro. As they were rushing over, Reyna had just gotten back with the supplies. She noticed everyone was gone from the main room and put the stuff away before noticing the other girls trying to help Flaro. They were crowding over him and were grabbing things from multiple different rooms. Elera ran out of the room towards an ice box and grabbed a small block of ice, wrapped it in a towel, and ran back over to Flaro. She carefully placed the ice on his forehead to help with the headache. Phoenix was wrapping his hand in bandages to help stop the bleeding and starting saying a little chant under her breathe to ease the pain Flaro might've been feeling. Reyna walked in and asked what was going on. Elera replied, "Flaro's hurt!" Phoenix whispered, "Speak quietly. He has a headache." Reyna asked, "How did this happen?" The girls shrugged and Elera replied, "He was sleeping a minute ago. The next thing we hear is him gasping and he was bleeding and holding his head." Reyna looked at Flaro, puzzled as to what could've happened. His face showed signs of pain and his ears were folded down. She couldn't ask him to explain anything because he was almost knocked out and had a hard time speaking without bringing himself pain. She just sat by him and waited for the other girls to finish up what they were doing. "Give him some time to heal. I'll make sure he doesn't get any worse." The other two wanted to argue but knew it would hurt Flaro in his current state and left to clean up anything that needed cleaning. Flaro wasn't asleep, so Reyna had to make sure that if he needed anything that someone was there to get it for him. Now, it may seem a little strange that Reyna, Elera, and Phoenix were being so nice to Flaro, but you have to remember that despite their differences, they are all the same race. An endangered one at that. So Flaro being sick or hurt or whatever it was he was experiencing was a big deal. Reyna felt Flaro's forehead for a fever, but what she felt wasn't familiar to her at all. His body was warmer than it was before but it felt natural. That's when she noticed that Flaro was trying to move the block of ice off of his head. Reyna grabbed the ice and moved put it on a nearby table. Flaro seemed more relaxed now and his ears lifted a bit. Now the room was mostly quiet other than Flaro's heavy breaths and Phoenix's voice coming from the other room. Reyna watched quietly to see if Flaro wanted to say anything. He didn't for a few minutes. And so it was that way for a few hours. The girls would check in every now and then, and not much would change. Until around midnight.