(2024-05-07) The Answer

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Author:	Mishell
Summary:	A question has haunted Oslynn all her life. She finally finds the answer. Well, AN answer.
Rating:	T for Teen

For the first thirteen years of her life, Ozzy'd had to do without a mother, and for the past five years she'd had two of them.  The stern investigator with the silver hair and the soft-handed ginger noblewoman, neither of them proper family and both of them acting more like prison wardens than mothers.

Having two prison-warden mothers was bearable when you had a wonderful auntie like Celestine who would dance naked with you under the moon and teach you how to make tiny carrot seeds grow into sweet, fat, bright secrets under the dirt.  But for the past three years, thanks to the panic about the wolfmen, Ozzy barely ever saw dirt, much less the moon.

And she'd finally had it.  Safety be damned; there was nothing safe about going crazy.  Luckily, in their latest "safe" house, she'd found a window upstairs just large enough to wriggle through, and she'd only twisted her ankle a little bit jumping down.

Tonight the forest seemed to reach out to her tenderly, moon-silvered tree branches sighing with relief as she limped under them on her bad ankle.  Her bare toes scrunched moss, her nostrils flared as she breathed in the scent of dead leaves and wet earth.  For just a moment she was as happy as she'd ever been.  Almost as happy as the day five years ago when she'd found out she was a princess.

She smiled to herself a little crookedly at that thought, eyes closed, head tipped back so she could feel the breeze making chaos of her curls.  Just the way Merelda hated it.

She wasn't a princess, of course.  Even at thirteen she'd known it was just a fantasy, but a fantasy no one could tell her no to without telling her the truth.  And of course she wasn't good enough for the truth.  But despite that, one wonderful awful night three years ago, she'd figured it out anyway.

Someone with a lot of money. Someone who could never claim her.  That was all she knew for sure.  Until she put it together herself… too late to save him.

A nobleman, a Lord Graves, with blond hair like hers under the gray, someone who called her "Oslynn" when she hadn't even introduced herself.  Someone who protected her just as though she were one of the other respectable people or small children in that group, instead of a filthy rebel witch woman.  There had to be a reason he let her keep those pups, why he kept her safe in the center of the pack.  And she knew the reason down to her bones.

She was his.

The very thought of it filled her with a warm glow that rose up through her chest and into her throat, almost choking her with joy.  But then it was washed away by the cold blast of grief, the memory of rushing to heal him too late.  Seeing his eyes blaze candle-flame orange as his face twisted and his teeth sharpened, brown fur bristling all over him…

She squeezed her eyes and fists shut, centering herself in the here and now.  In the forest, where she belonged.  She took a deep breath.  Kept walking.

She didn't even know where she was going.  She had no idea how to find Celestine.  Malcolm would notice she was gone soon and worry.  He should be a man now almost, but he wasn't, not really.  He was taller than her but somehow still always seemed small.  Definitely still a boy when he played with the pups - dogs now, really, big rowdy blighters.  Henry - or "Hank" as Mal often called the big mastiff now - answered to no one but him. 

Thaniel would worry too, but more quietly so as not to—

No.  Thaniel was gone.  Nearly a year and she kept forgetting.  Zeke had been gone longer; that one she'd finally accepted.  Pretty soon there'd be no one left to worry about her at all.

Why did that thought fill her with the first sense of true relief she'd felt in days, months, years?

And then she felt it.  Heard it?  Smelled it?  Something.  Hairs rose on the back of her neck.  How had she wandered into such deep, tangled darkness?  She could no longer see the way home. 

But she did see something familiar.

Eyes, glowing in the dark, like twin candle flames.

"You," she whispered.

Of course he didn't reply.  Couldn't, anymore. 

She opened her arms.

A moment's taut silence, as though the whole forest held its breath.  And then as though released from a bow he came loping through the brush.  On all fours, like one of the dogs, but so big, her heart seized with fear despite herself.  

She set her jaw and stayed where she was, kept her arms open.

She was his.