aircannonsinc We Need a Plan
We Need a Plan
I turn and follow Meadow at speed, without hesitation at getting away from what my heart cannot bear to see anymore, as we come up against some of our patrolling sentinels walking the path. Looking as confused as us.
"The fog has done something to the pack. They can't get in. Ensure no one crosses the rune line or gets too close to the boundary until I say otherwise. Pass it on via the link. Everyone is to stay home and stay safe until we figure this out. That's an order. The alpha is not to be trusted even if he stands at the border...Understand?" I snap aggressively, tears starting to blind my vision, but I have to swallow it down, pull myself together, and seem like I am in control. Meadow has turned broody and quiet, yet her emotion filters through, and I taste her equal heartache to mine.
The guards nod, glancing from her to me as though expecting her to say something, looking equally afraid, given they are some of the males from the village and not from our usual sentinel packs. All our fighters, warriors, and strongest are in the fog with our alpha. We couldn't be in a worse position if we tried. We lost them all in one fell swoop. One tragedy has taken our protectors out from us in the blink of an eye.
We hit the main doorway at speed and zoom straight for Sierra's room, scaling the stairs without a pause but meeting her halfway up to the final landing as she comes bounding to find us.
"You see it?" I ask briskly as we close the gap, and I grab her in panic. Her small hands and cool skin are enveloped in mine, and worry and confusion are written all over her delicate face. Right now, she doesn't seem like my mother figure, but that she's looking to me for answers as a young and scared femme.
"I did. It climbed up the walls of the boundary and can be seen from every direction of the homestead. What's going on? There are so many awful feelings in the air and noises of wolves howling in the forest" Sierra is pale and trembling, and her words catch in her throat, almost choking the last ones out as I frown at her. We didn't hear them howl from our side, but that means more are behind the stead and around the village border now, where the wind would have kept their calls from us. They must be surrounding the perimeter, looking for a way in.
"We don't know. The fog has more than a third of our pack, more than half the adult wolves, and Colton he's with them; they seem different. I think it's some curse or spell or something." I blabber it out almost incoherently as the tears finally scratch my voice and turn my throat hoarse. Meadow is pale and staring out past Sierra's head at the window along the corridor, watching the fog settle halfway up our view from up here. My gut tightens, and I pray it doesn't get higher than our magic does. I don't know how else we would stop it if we didn't have the Runes.
"Different, how?" Sierra queries, and Meadow doesn't hesitate to place her fingers on Sierra's temple to show her. I think Meadow is in mild shock and doesn't know what to do or say. Seeing Cesar that way it's shaken her to the core because I know that despite her fiery and strong nature, he is her world, and she would crumble without him. Cesar has been her mate since her young teens, and they have become so completely one over the years that she doesn't seem to know how to function right now. I'm only six months into a mate bond, and despite how much I love him, I still know that I can be strong on my own two feet and have proven so in the past. I am not too used to falling back onto him in every way, just yet to be as lost as Meadow seems.
Sierra's eyes widen in horror as she sees exactly what we did as the memory filters through, and she covers Meadow's hand with her shaking fingers as she inhales sharply. Her already pale skin seems to white out further, and her body instantly seems to turn frail and sway so that I reach out to steady her.
"It can't be. That kind of dark magic with multiple hosts is almost impossible to implement on such a scale. This is no normal witch or simple spell. This is so beyond my knowledge or skill." Sierra grabs onto my outstretched arms to steady herself as she falters on her feet, and I blink at her, my mouth drying with the realization that this is something major. My heart is racing, my nerves are already taut, and I struggle to breathe as the weight of this disaster seems to come down even harder over me.
"So, this IS a spell. How do we break it, get them home, and okay?" My mouth is firing out words as part of my brain tries to take control, even if my insides are trembling and my biggest urge is to curl up on the floor and sob.
"We don't. I don't know how to deal with this... I don't... I ...don't know... We must check the library downstairs, read the grimoires, get the Shaman, and figure this out. I'm primarily a healer and a seer, although I can conjure protection spells and an occasional bond, but this is way over my gift limit. I have heard of this kind of magic but have never seen it. I didn't think one witch alone could do this." Her voice fully breaks, and tears stream delicately from the corner of her eyes. Shaking with the sheer knowledge that she doesn't know how to fix this. I know the Shaman was out there too, and no longer with us, but I can't find the words to say it.
"Maybe that means it won't last. Maybe it will fade out as the fog does?" Meadow asks hopefully, suddenly finding her voice and sounding nothing like her usual sassy self. Sierra lifts her palms helplessly, almost in response to saying, 'I don't know.' Her eyes are full of fat and unshed tears, and her breathing has become labored. Here we stand, three femmes in various states of emotional distress, faced with a huge problem, and the only ones left in the pack with the ability to do something about it is us. We're so screwed.
"It didn't work when I cleared the air around them," I point out, close to manic, my emotions rising in my throat to choke me, but I hold it all in and breathe slowly to ease my heart rate and try and think clearly. I must remember I am the Luna, and my people will look to me to fix this.
"That was only seconds. Maybe it takes more time." Meadow is grasping at straws of hope, yet something in my gut tells me she's wrong. A clue that it's not easy to undo whatever is out there. I don't think clearing them from the smog alone will work.
"The Shaman, he's out there, isn't he? I can't link him...... we need him... Oh my god, Okay, so..... We go downstairs and start looking without him. We look, and we find something, anything. We can't just sit here and freak out, right? We've lived through worse. We can do this." Sierra hastens us with a nod, visibly shivering and afraid, yet like me, she is trying to reel it all back and return to a composed state. She knows I need her to be with me and figure this out. The shock has hit, we reacted, and now we need to be the Luna and Rema and do something about this. For our pack, for our people, for our men.
"Radar?" Sierra adds in a hushed tone, her eyes misting again as she locks a gaze on me, a begging question, and held breath, and I can only nod sadly, telling her that he, too, is out there in the fog, lost to us. She gasps in a semi-sob and shocked inhale and clutches her chest, emitting a woeful stab of pain in the air around me and confirming how deeply she feels for him before pulling herself back together and lifting her chin defiantly. An even stronger will to figure this out.
"Let's go. I turn and gesture for them to come and don't wait in heading where we need to be. “They need us to save them."