Waning Unity

Chapter Six

All it took was a twinge, just a twinge of blood-thirst, and Lume was over the edge again. In her neutrality she had balanced on the edge, teased it with her paw steps on the narrow ledge, never slipping or faltering. She veered away from the precarious danger only when she leaned towards the purity of a blue phase, preserving the peace, but as the hostility reared and the wolves launched at Fraser, Lume could see her paws stumbling and she watched herself slip from the edge, down into the darkness below into very dangerous territory.

The fall, she learned, was only scary until she had reached the bottom; by then, she never wanted to climb back up the ledge again.

“Lume!”

Fraser stumbled back, still struggling on three good legs, as he shouted her name. It was almost a command, throwing her into action as she leapt over him and caught one of the wolves by the neck, pushing her head up and away. The wolf snatched her neck from Lume’s fangs before the ancient wolf had time to snap her jaws shut and starve the younger wolf of oxygen. Immediately, her brother took the lead as he attempted to leap onto Lume.

She braced herself as he lunged, allowing him to touch her only to use his momentum and keep the movement going by lifting forcefully as he landed on her back. He was flung over her and crashed into the ground harshly enough to knock the wind out of him. Lume didn’t allow him the chance to get to his paws. She reached him in a single bound where it should have taken more.

“Lume, wait!” Fraser shouted from somewhere behind her. “I-I just wanted you to help me, not hurt them!” His pleas flew past her ears as she pinned her attacker. She turned, her eyes burning against Fraser. “I am not your guardian,” she reminded him with a snarl. This was not about him, this was about the wolves drowning in blood red essence and dragging her down into the depths with them.

“Boa, a little help!” The pinned wolf shouted to his sister. Lume paused her snarling, slightly amused. “Now why would she do that?” A look of confusion passed over the wolf’s face. “Because she’s my sister. I protect her, the same as she’ll protect me! You wouldn’t know anything about that. I don’t see how anyone could care enough to try protecting you.”

For the first time in a long time, Lume found herself smiling.

She lifted her head and looked to Boa, who hadn’t moved since breaking from Lume’s grip. She stared intently at the myth wolf looming over her brother. Lume tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes a bit, never breaking eye-contact with Boa. “Is that so? Does he protect you?”

“Of course I do!” her brother snapped, clearly infuriated by the question.

“Harrier is always there for his sister,” Fraser shouted at a distance. Lume had forgotten he was there.

Boa too had a look of certainty on her face, but Lume only had to repeat herself to eat away at the young wolf’s certainty. “Does he protect you … always?” Boa’s sharpened brow softened and her face went blank as she retreated inside her head, dwelling on all of the times Harrier wasn’t there. Harrier hadn’t stopped her from stumbling and twisting her paw. Harrier couldn’t stop her from getting sick when illness ravaged the pack. Harrier couldn’t find food when she was starving.

“Can you really count on him?” Lume’s voice hissed through her head.

Eventually, the small petty things became poisonous, spreading their influence through her mind until all the times Harrier WAS there for her simply disappeared. The time he had saved her from falling down a cliffside, the time he had stopped her from getting carried off by a hawk as a pup, even just mere moments ago when he rushed to her defense against the red wolf, putting his life in danger even now; it was if none of it ever happened, because to Boa, it didn’t.

“No!” Harrier shouted both to Lume and Boa, “It isn’t true, you know it’s not! I’d never hurt you, never!”

Lume’s head snapped down to Harrier suddenly. He had just signed a heavily binding contract with his words, words that would be very easy to turn against him. “Never …” she repeated to him, hissing the word in his face. Her head cocked to the side and her face relaxed into an expression of light contentment. “Show me.”

She backed off of Harrier and let him stagger to his feet. He looked at her with heavy confusion for a second. “What do you mean show—“

His words were cut off as Boa tackled him and shut her jaws around her brother’s throat.

~CL1