MEREDITH THE TIMID COULD BARELY lift her body from the forest floor. Her palm caressed her stomach. There was no wonder why she had to inhale deeply for her skirt to fit her without suffocating; it was bloated – like Remus, who could not walk her back to her tree, and Dandelion, who could not fly anymore.
Meredith's pace was cut into half from her added weight with a mere palm-length distance from the ground. Who could blame her when Laura's soup was the best in the whole lone mountain? The corners of her lips now numbed from sporting a full-blown grin the entire dinner. Though she wanted to stay for the grand food and music, she knew she had to go back.
'Grappy is waitin' for me,' Meredith thought. Upon the thought of her grandfather, her only family for the span of two hundred years, her wings fluttered. Her pace increased by a quarter.
A couple of arm's length from her incoming form, a meadow revealed from her line of sight. The corners of Meredith's eyes crinkled upon confirming that she was nearing her home.
"Finally!" Meredith's ears twitched.
One flap. Two flaps. Three flaps.
A twig snapped, followed by the heavy footsteps that disturbed the tranquility of the lone mountain. Six silhouettes racing across the meadow that Meredith was about to cross followed the noise. Five of them were chasing the leading silhouette.
Six pairs of fangs far lengthier than hers gleamed under the cloak of the night. Their tails and bony torsos showed as they loomed over their prey. Their gigantic furry ears, which were ten times bigger than hers, were a reminder for her should she dare to make a single noise. Its disfigured limbs on all fours reminded her of a deer's body after it took a rough fall from the peak of the lone mountain.
'Why are they here? The lone mountain is the farthest mountain from their territory!' Meredith stopped the urge to bite her lips. Her restless mind was bombarded by the question even her Grappy could not answer; she was sure of it.
Meredith's wings shook, freezing her from her spot. Her hands now covered her trembling lips as she hid behind an acacia tree. Her wings had long vanished while she held her breath. She knew she was a cod most of the time, but she learned not to be, especially in the throes of danger. And the fangs she saw? She was sure as heck that they belonged from the Strigoi race. She saw them once before she arrived at the slopes of the lone mountain.
Holding her breath, Meredith dared to take a peek upon hearing the clamors and grunts from the center of the meadow. Muffled conversation permeated the stale air. As owls hooted, a series of fangs tearing a flesh chorused; this was followed by a stench of blood.
Meredith's eyes widened. Her amber eyes flashed in frantic as her frenzied mind went into static upon the sight before her.
A white-furred lion, more on a werelion, was being bitten by five striga. They tore chunks of flesh from the growling yet unmoving werelion on the ground. The smell of apricot mixing with the stench of blood made Meredith frown. Biting her nails, her gaze remained fixated on the werelion whose growls started to mellow – a clear indication of the werelion's dwindling strength.
'I can't let that werelion die, right?' Meredith asked herself at the back of her mind. Her heart pounded from the thought of using her powers.
And so, Meredith flicked her right wrist.
On cue, vines crawled like slithering snakes on the meadow's floor. They crept, unnoticed by the predators. Thorns as small as Meredith's nails littered the small vines, and before they could take a massive chomp of flesh from the werelion's neck, the vines pulled the five striga – throwing them midair before they got tangled in the weave of thorns and flowers.
A series of muffled noises followed by the tails trying to escape between the vines where the last movement shown from the ball of thorny vines hanging at the apex of the meadow.
'I swear, Grappy will crawl from his grave when he sees this.' Meredith could not help but imagine the humongous one-eyed nymph. A lone tear and a bitter grin painted her face upon the thought of her beloved Grappy.
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By the fifth hoot of the owl, all movements seized.
But Meredith's attention was not at the unmoving striga inside her cocoon of thorns. Instead, she cocked her head as she blinked upon meeting a pair of hazy blue eyes which reminded her of Remus’ tales about the deep trenches of the sea.
"Ye alright, dear beasty?"
Twigs snapped as Meredith inched herself closer to the unmoving werelion. Now crouching a mere meter from the heaving furred beast before her, she poked the werelion's tail with a stick she happened to pick up.
With her chin atop her knees, Meredith's right arm trembled when she dared push the tail away from the convulsing strigoi's rear.
"Pst! Hey, can ye hear me?" Meredith yelled – though it was all in her head since her supposed yell was only a tone higher than her whisper by a hairbreadth.
Meredith cocked her head and mumbled to herself. "I am sure that I met his gaze earlier." Biting her lower lip, she inched her bare feet closer – enough for her to poke his back.
A cluster of clouds moved, paving the way for a single ray of light to kiss the meadow. Under the moonlit sheen showed Meredith a clearer view of an adult lion. Though littered with bite marks and blood, the grassland's beast could not hide its silky snowy white fur. Meredith leaned more. Her gaze fixated on the lion’s eyes. She could vividly remember its deep blue eyes.
Amid the faint whistle of the western wind and the diminishing hoots of the owl around them, Meredith's ears twitched. She could hear his heartbeat slowing down. Meredith's gaze wandered.
A soft escaped from her lips upon seeing the periwinkles dying around the black wolf's body. "So that is why ye are running from them, dear beasty," said Meredith.
After being poisoned, the werelion could not contain the multiple wounds from the five striga.
Gone was the distance she conjured between her and the dying werelion. Meredith hovered over the heaving werelion. The werelion's tongue hung to the side of its mouth, a clear indication that if she would not move now, then it would be too late.
Without letting go of the stick she had used to poke the poor beast, Meredith reached out. Her trembling fingers reached for the white lion's ear only to stop midway when her Grappy's grumpy face flashed at the back of her restless mind. Curling her fingers, she withdrew an inch away from her target. A pair of wavering amber eyes looked around.
What welcomed Meredith's unfocused gaze was mere silence.
Releasing a shaking breath, the Spring nymph reached out her trembling fingers again.
It was a magical moment of wonder and fear.
As the cocoon of tears loomed at the apex of the meadow, the moonlit sheen paved a way to draw out hundreds – if not thousands – of fireflies around the two silhouettes at the very heart of the forest. None of the owls' hoots and the crickets buzzing noise faltered the ashen Spring nymph from her decision.
Meredith's pounding heart never seized. Instead, it resonated with every fiber of her being. Like a siren's call to a nomad, like a moth to a flame, Meredith the Timid was irrefutably drawn to the heaving furred beast before her. Though hundreds of answers filled her frantic mind, one was certain – destiny.
Meredith, a believer of destiny, knew that whatever the werelion was doing before her, the higher forces willed it to be, just like what her Grappy would always say. She, the last of her kin, was the only healer that could bring him back from the throes of black and white. She placed both of her palms an inch above the black beast's head, her poking stick long forgotten before she muttered under her breath.
"Faurereium."
Faurereium, an ancient word for ‘heal’. Since nymphs used the old language of Ruam to perform their magic spells, Meredith was taught by her Grappy. Though the healing spell she conjured was an art lost to the new world.
Ever since the queens of olds cursed destiny and time, the ancient civilization of gold and glory was lost. What remained was a mere relic of the glorious old-world – Torah. It was now a world of eat or be eaten.
This was why Meredith the Timid would not dare to take a step away from the lone mountain. The evidence of brutality was heaving for life before her.
The warmth traveled like slithering vines from her heart to her palms, giving an equally comforting illumination to the werelion who had stopped heaving and was now breathing normally. And slowly, as the embers of Meredith's healing magic dwindle, what was lying on the ground with his silky white fur turned into a man with ash blonde hair in his splendid naked glory. His face was against Meredith.