My Mate, The Dragon

Chapter Twenty-Two

October 6th, 2019
(Posting a bit early for someone important)
--

Sheila

--

    "Can I please just send a letter to him," I leaned around Grandma Weni, my hands were behind my back. I had pestered her every day for the last two months about it. I just want him to know I'm safe and that I'm alive.

    "No, you will be ready to go back soon," and she had that same reply every day for the last two months. I groaned, my shoulders slumping, the backpack on my back weighing even more.

    "Stop groaning like a sick puppy, we are here." I looked up at the huge mountain. I raised an eyebrow, what were we doing at a mountainside.

    "What's here?"

    "Do you have eyes?"

    "Yes?" What is she getting at.

    "Then use them." I huffed, I shifted into my shadow wolf, now smaller than the trees, though larger than your average human. It was the best height for fighting.

I ran up ahead and down the path that we have been fallowing. I heard my teacher groan behind me. "Don't rush ahead on me! Stupid girl!" Then I heard paws scraping against the ground. She was besides me in an instant.

I slowed my pace for her. Truth be told she is over five hundred years old. She was too old to be running at the speeds I did, even though she tries to deny it.

In a split second she took a hard left and started rushing up the mountain. I almost ran into a tree if I hadn't gone through it.

I sighed in relief as I look behind me at the tree I went through. It turns out I could walk through items. Though the amount of walls I had to hit before actually doing it still has left me with hundreds of concussions. Still even now that I 'know' how to do it, sometimes I just run, full speed, into items.

I was on my feet in a second, the shadows licked the air around me. My tongue hung out as I rushed to catch up with my teacher. I put the wind on my heels and sprinted towards her back.

She was running up the mountains now, towards a huge cave in the middle of it.

Did I have eyes? How could I not have seen this before? Maybe I didn't have eyes? I almost chuckled aloud.

    This cave reminded me of my mate, who was so far away from me.

I was side by side with Grandma Weni in no time. I let out a playful growl, telling her I didn't like the trick she played on me minutes early. Her lips pulled back into a wolffish smile, and howled. It gave me a rush of adrenaline, I leaped with joy, I scrambled up the rocks, full speed.

We ran into the cave, into the dark. I noticed how Grandma Weni slowed to a stop. I saw her shift back to her human form. She had her shoulder straight but she was breathing hard from the uphill run we just had.

I was fine, after all I had to run around the three mile lake, twelve times, every morning, for warmup. This was nothing. Actually from how many times I've ran that at full speed, that warmup is now nothing.

The first time I ran that lake though, I thought I was going to die. Thought my lungs were going to give out and I was going to die. I remember collapsing at the finish line, and Weni putting her foot on my back,  nudging me, reminding me that, that was just the start.

The memory makes me laugh now, though in the moment, I just thought I couldn't do it. That I was too weak.

Now I am strong. I can do anything I put my mind too. Maybe fail a few times, but I can do it.

I had confidence. In my trade, my talent, myself. I think that was the hardest uphill battle both Weni and I had to face together.

I remember she made me sleep outside, in the rain, on the second night. I howled all night, for her to let me back in. Though the reason I was out there was because at dinner I said I couldn't do it, I couldn't do the training.

And what she had to say to my pathetic attitude was, "get outside and stay outside until you want to woman-up and learn."

Oh I learned, that next day she came outside in her fighting gear, and told me I had to fight her. It didn't go well for me because the fog that had accumulated from the night prior made me almost shiver to death. Though I fought her, I didn't give up when I lost.

At the end of that third day she went inside and I stayed outside, unsure if I had the privilege of going inside again. Minutes later she walked onto the porch, steaming soup in one hand, a blanket in the other. I still can remember her words, "I'm proud of you for staying."

I broke down crying for the first time in my life. Someone was proud of me.

"What are we doing here." I had shifted back into my human form. I looked at her, there was always a reason for everything. Always a lesson to learn.

    I heard a drop of water deep into the cave. "I'm going to teach you my last lesson." My eyebrows perked up. What her last lesson, already?

"I'm going to teach you how to control peoples minds." Her voice was quiet, unsure if I was ready.

I took a defensive stance back. "Are you sure? Are you sure I should know?" Sure I wanted to know how to read people's mind, and push them into movement, but I didn't want to control them.

She nodded her head, "my last student," I saw her flinch at the memory. "He..." another pause, this was clearly too painful to describe. "He didn't make the right choices with his talents, and oh, he had talents." She locked eyes with me, her yellow ones on mine.

"He created distruction, chaos, everything bad in this world. I had to..." she clenched her fists. "Put him down."

I gasped, a teacher having to kill her own student. I was in pain for her. She was now like a mom I had never had, though her I realized what a mother should be like. Firm but loving. Everything she did was firm, but full to the brim with love.

"As much as it will pain me to do so. If you start following down his path," she sat down, I followed after her. We looked into each others eyes.

I will have to kill you. She said into my mind.

—

Ooooooooooh yeahhhhh dome a day ahead of schedule.

Ooh!! She's learning mind tricks!!

Who was this other guy?

Poor Zaivinth I wonder that he is up too...

COMMENT AND VOTE PWEASE!!