ᴡᴍᴍᴀᴘ: ℌ𝔢𝔯 𝔊𝔬𝔩𝔡𝔢𝔫 ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔦𝔫𝔰

Temperance of the Savior: II

Athanasia had gotten what she had come here for, and now it was time to head home. Home. It still made her stutter sometimes, how welcoming home really was. 

She hadn't forgotten how cold it had once been, no heating during the winter, nor proper clothes per the season, her life spent wasting away within the walls of a palace for concubines when her birth was that of the noblest blood. 

She loved expressing her devotion for the palace now, papa being the helping hand at times, decorating the rooms with fresh rose clippings from the gardens for their scent.

She sometimes wondered to herself, whether she was going too far in her life as Athanasia. Whether she should have been more humble, more modest, more truthful than before. 

Then she remembers what "her" life had been like when she bowed her head to others instead of the other way around. 

Some could only learn through the force of her hand, her life would not be spent in vain this time. She would not be forsaken, not like Jennette would be. 

She is finally where she really belonged, and nothing would change that, she would attack with all her might.

Claude stares above at the snow falling heavily down upon them, making it hard to see through with the wind in their faces, and he stares into Athanasia's eyes. 

Confirming she was indeed, ready to leave, well prepared for what was to come- he sighed, relieved, and wiped away some of the snow stuck on her eyelashes with a light touch. 

Her cheeks flushed red from the cold and she lets her mana linger around his hand, wanting to let him know that everything was okay. 

That everything would come around for them, that all this was worth the trouble they were going through. That it had to be done. He would understand everything soon.

Felix, all too happy to go back, proceeded to ask for Athanasia's hand so they could all teleport, when Claude snatched Athanasia's hand, tucking her arm against his own and glared warningly at Felix. "Felix...." 

Claude couldn't tell him to take five steps back from them when they were about to teleport, so he grumbled a little in his head before grudgingly allowing Felix to hold onto him instead, and in a blink of golden light, the three of them blinked out of existence.

They left behind three sets of footprints that were quickly being covered up by the rapid falling of heavy snow, and in minutes, none of their tracks remained. 

Wiped away with the snow, they were lost to the wolf pack that had been tracking them up the incline, the scent vanishing into the air. 

Their strength in a large pack of fifteen made it possible for them to instead, take down a moose that was limping behind a stampede at the frozen lake, and they soon forgot about the humans that had, for a short while, held their attention.

Their fangs ripped into the carcass, snarling between each other as the alpha pair dug into the feast before the rest. Their snapping jaws clamping down on the meaty tendons, the still fresh meat, steaming as the blood dripped into the snow. The crack of a bone sounds in the air as the female crunched down on it for the marrow inside. 

The others snuff at the snow, paws digging at the ice and tails tucked behind them, some wagging in anticipation. The pair steps back, licking their blood stained fur, the male's ears twitching this way and that, keeping watch for the pack as they too, tuck in.

The alpha pair's vertical slit pupils of the brightest blue, hone in on the shadows of the hooded figures standing near them, and they dip their heads, ears flicking forward to acknowledge their presence.