Chapter 321

321 Crumbling Walls... And a call for help

Feeling the walls she’d learnt to build around herself finally groan for the last time, the Luna gave in to the call of the wild.

She’d been offered help many times before and all those attempts had been eating away at her resolve. This time, she wasn’t able to do anything without any help. It almost felt like fate was playing a cruel trick on her.

For a long time, she wanted to scream in frustration each time she found that she was only getting weaker, but that could only last so long. Now she was surrounded by creatures that had ventured into places alien to their habitats for the sole purpose of helping her.

Her resistance crumbled at last and she gave in, speaking of everything that had plagued her mind. She spoke of the escaped prisoners that threatened the king’s coronation and the victims she’d managed to save.

She mentioned the lack of power that made her useless. Her weakening state sapped more of her strength with each passing day. She spoke of the training moments in the colossal gym that she wasn’t able to attend.

She spoke of Kyle and how much she wanted to help him. She spoke of the family she’d not had so much time to spend within Sirius. She spoke of her adoptive family that she hadn’t even gotten the chance to get to know as well as she could have wished.

When the Luna was done talking, she felt a thousand times lighter and had barely noticed the tears that were streaming down her face.

“It looks to me like you’ll be needing us more than we had realised ourselves,” the lion concluded, inching closer to her face. Katie moved back to escape the approaching lion only to collide with the tree she’d been leaning against. Before she could complain(not like she could. Against the king of beasts, she could do nothing), the lion was licking her face.

“I’m not sure if this is helping,” the blue-eyed Luna found herself giggling. She wrapped her arms around the lion’s massive neck, drowning her arms in his majestic silky mane in an attempt to move him away from her.

.....

This, however, proved useless. The struggle against the lion was futile. It was much stronger than she was in her weakened state.

When the lion was sure the salt of tears was gone from the Luna’s face, it stopped licking her, “You’re much weaker than you were described by the creatures of the reserve.”

The girl sighed, “Yeah... I’ve just been talking about that.”

“It’s decided,” the lion finally pulled away from her and bowed, “We will be your strength for as long as we are able and for as long as you need us to be.” The lion declared. A bear and three more lions made themselves known to the girl, drawing closer to the first lion and bowing in a similar gesture...

‘I worked so hard to make sure I was the one everyone had to depend on. I never thought the tables would turn so fast...’ while she wondered how she had reached this situation.

'

Growing up in Brigadia and even earning the title of Rogue Killer and one hell of a reputation, she couldn’t have thought the words would ever escape her, but they did, “I’ll be counting on you. Lend me your strength,” she could have sworn the lion leading the group smirked at her reply... or was it simply her imagination playing tricks on her.

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Lina Sirius, princess of the Sirius empire, fell into her bed with a washed-out ghostly expression frozen on her face. She was so mentally exhausted, she qualified to have smoke coming out of her brain similar to the animations she’d watched as a child. Oddly enough, the small analogy did run across her mind a couple of times.

At last, her finals were over. Three days of gruesome examinations, courtesy of her parents. Honour, who had come to the palace with her, hung her jacket on the coat rack beside the door, chuckling at the girl’s antics, “Why did they have to make our class do everything in three days while the rest of the school gets to have their exams spread out?” Lina screamed.

“I would guess your parents made that happen, but what do I know?” Madeline replied with a shrug, popping a chip into her mouth from the half-filled bag she’d carried from Honour’s house on their way to the palace.

“I wish I could be more like you, Madeline. You don’t have to go through all this work and risk brain damage. I am wondering though. Why don’t you have to go to school again?” the girl whined.

“I should have my share of school, but the king hasn’t had everything concerning my presence here sorted out. In the meantime, I won’t be able to proceed. Hopefully, I can finish without being held back a year.

Luckily, I didn’t develop scholastic ambitions. That would have been problematic. Being the daughter of the Seeker...” her expression darkened, “Is said to be too dangerous for that kind of ambition.”

The girl stared at the ceiling in thought before continuing further, “I asked my grandmother to at least let me follow my dreams of becoming a chef and opening up a restaurant of my own someday. I’m not the only one with that dream, but I have the talent for it. I don’t know how she did it, but she was able to convince the alpha of our pack to let me apprentice in my free time.”

“Oh, that’s cool. I wish there was a rule against me going to school. Maybe something like... rulers have to learn more about their kingdom and how to rule it instead of wasting their time in school or something like that?” Lina continued complaining, sounding less and less like a princess.

“Do you want to be a ruler though?” Madeline asked with a raised brow, “It sounds like a hassle.”

“Huh, ruling the wolves isn’t a hassle. It’s fulfilling. The royals bear the responsibility of keeping the wolves happy and satisfied with the world as it is. I’m not nearly as good as my dad when it comes to making decisions and doing the right thing when it counts, but he gives me something to look up to,” the girl’s complaining tone had completely vanished from her voice as she explained.

This specific topic lit up a fire in her eyes that the other two girls had never noticed before. ‘Huh, Lina as a queen. Now there is a thought I would have never come up with,’ Madeline thought to herself.

“It must be that royal blood of yours talking,” Honour sighed, “Have you forgotten the meeting we have with the king today?”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot,” Lina’s voice was now coming out of a large pillow, sounding muffled and even more childish now.

“No, you completely forgot. We should get going now,” Honour walked up to the girl and started nudging her.

“Honour, we could at least first sleep for an hour before having to deal with matters of the empire?” Lina nuzzled deeper into the pillow, her free hand searching for another to bury herself under.

“You can sleep when you’re done talking to the king. You know he rarely calls on you. It might be something important,” Honour replied in a serious tone.

“Do you think it would have something to do with my grandmother?” Madeline’s voice silenced the room.

Lina peeked at her from underneath the pillow, “We’ll find her, Madeline. The hunters are going to be notified to keep a lookout for her when they finally make a sweep of no-man’s-land.”

“I know... but how long do you think it would take the hunters to go through the different parts of the world? What if the rogues have...”

“Don’t allow yourself to think like that? You’ll run yourself crazy. For as long as you haven’t felt that pain in your chest that suggests she has died, you are allowed to hope and pray for her safety,” Honour stopped her, flinching slightly at her odd words... ‘Pray... To whom, I wonder.’ “Put a smile on that face. We have a royal to meet.”

“I’m a royal too. You should put on smiles when coming to meet me too,” Lina held her nose high, having sat up from the bed.

“Ugh, you know what I meant Lina. Let’s get going,” Honour chuckled, now making her way for the door. Lina took that to be a signal for them to actually leave and got up from the bed... against her will.

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