The Goddess's Chosen

Side Quest

I had no idea what I would need for the next two days, but food and water are definitely high on the list. We are only allowed to bring one small bag to keep the herbs in, and I wish I could say that it would be easy because it is only two days, and two nights, but I never liked camping under the best of conditions. Gabe, on the other hand, seemed to be excited about venturing into the forest for two whole days. Eventually we settled on bringing a large bag of jerky and a canteen with fresh water each, a lighter and some newspaper to start a fire, and a couple of those head lamps. We did not want to carry any sleeping bags, so we opted to wear heavy jackets and long johns under our pants. I felt like I looked ridiculous, but then again, we will be in the woods, so it doesn’t really matter. Before sundown, we ate supper, consisting of steak, mine was medium rare, with a baked potato and salad, with the Alpha and his mate, Luna Constance. Luna Constance reminded me of my mother, very confident in her position and kind. She was gorgeous, about 6’0”, long braided black hair that reached right above her butt, she had light brown eyes and beautifully tanned skin. She looked like you would think an Amazonian warrior would. After supper we went to the back yard and Alpha Jonas told us what we would be looking for. We needed to find Kapikacchu, and Safed Musli for strength building, Ashwagandha for stamina building, and Saffron to keep muscles from hurting with the new strength. He told us that while these are not native to Canada, they grow them here to help with training wolves as they prefer all-natural methods. He described the kapikacchu as a bean like plant, that wort of looks like pea pods, but grows from a tree. He said that the Safed Musli is an herb, and it is a bunch of small white flowers. The ashwagandha plant was small and green with a single red berry, apparently, we needed to collect three berries from this plant, and I already knew that saffron is from a purple flower with red and yellow stamen. Luckily there were not a lot of ingredients, but looking for plants in a forest is like looking for a needle in a haystack, I just hope that we can find them before time is up. “You have about ten more minutes.” Alpha Jonas’ voice rang out, shaking me from my thoughts. I was doing my best to draw the plants from the books so I know exactly what I was looking for. I was not an awful artist, but let's just say I can hardly draw a perfect circle. At least I have the gist of it, and should be able to identify the plants should we come across them. “I have to pee, I will be right back, I am not a fan of peeing in the woods.” I say, throwing my little notepad in the pouch we have for the plants. After using the restroom, I slid a few pieces of toilet paper in my pocket, would just be my luck I’d wipe my ass with a poison ivy leaf. Looking at my phone, I had about 3 minutes before we had to venture into the forest. I walked up beside Gabe, who looked like he was ready to go. “One more thing” Alpha Jonas said, stepping in front of us. “No magic. This is a test of endurance and strength, and magic cannot help you. If you are to have my strength, I need to know that you can handle it.” He continued, “good luck out there. I will see you in two days.” Fuckin hell, here we go, I thought to myself. And Gabe and I took off running into the forest.  

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We had ventured for about two hours in the forest before calling it a night. It was cold and we found a decent sized clearing where we could build a fire. Gabe collected some leaves and dirt and made makeshift beds for us around the campfire. As we sat by the fire, we talked about his childhood. His father had trained him from the time he was 5 years old to fight and to survive in the wilderness, which was how he knew to make the elevated dirt/leaf beds. I used to think of it as a game, but then when he turned seven, his father taught him how to hunt and to gut and skin animals. He said that his father wanted him to be able to survive in the wild, if need be, as a hunter it made sense. But when he turned 12, that is when things got worse. His father would take him on scouting missions and make him watch as they stoned and burned witches. He told Gabe that we were evil, and to not be trusted, and that is when he told Gabe the lies about his mother and my coven, instilling a deep hatred for my family in his heart. Gabe told me that a week before his eighteenth birthday, his father gave him the talisman that he was wearing, that blocked his powers. He said that soon he would be going on his own missions to bring the witches to justice and that the talisman would protect him from their magic. I told him some about my own childhood as well, studying spells and potions since I could read, but was never really any good at it. Clara and I had been best friends since third grade. I knew her from my village but never spoke to her, until one day I was sitting by myself in the library reading one of my mother’s plant books. Clara had always loved plants, so she came up to me and asked me questions about it and had been friends ever since. We went to a mostly human school, everyone in our village did. My mother thought that it is important for us to learn to blend in to mundane society and learn their customs, so we celebrated Halloween and Samhain, and Christmas and Winter Solstice. Basically, both the Pagan and Christian versions of nearly every holiday. It was a good childhood, I even took human fighting classes, I was a black belt in karate and Tae kwon do. I told him about his mother coming and visiting, she would always bring me a chocolate bar. I told him how much she loved him and how much she hated that she could not find him, and that it led to her taking her own life. After we had talked for a few hours, we decided that we should get some sleep, so he stoked the flames and we lied on the leaves and went to sleep.  

     I half expected to see Hecate in my dreams, but she never came, and I was slightly disappointed. In the morning, we ate some of the beef jerky we had brought and cleaned up our makeshift camp. We wandered nearly all day before finding the flower to get saffron. I collected three flowers, to be sure. It was tiring walking on the uneven terrain, always being vigilant. I swear at one point I heard howling and growls, and had to remind myself that I could not use my powers. Gabe had a bowie knife that he had grabbed from the wolves’ collection of gear, and reassured me that we would be fine, that one time he had fought off a regular wolf on his own. I hoped that there was nothing too serious around here being werewolf territory, but I had no idea. We did not talk much during the day as we were both exhausted from lack of sleep and hiking all day and trying to focus on finding these plants. We had run out of water around supper time and we found a small running creek, where we decided to rest for a while. “I did not think walking would be this exhausting.” I complained, pulling off my hiking boots and rubbing my feet. “Aww, the princess is uncomfortable?” Gabe chuckled. I picked up a small pebble and chucked it at him, hitting him in the chest. “You better be careful; I may have to defend myself.” He says, walking over to me, looking down at me sitting on the ground. As I looked up at him, I was at a loss for words. He was definitely gorgeous, and all I wanted to do was stand up, wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him so hard that it left us both breathless, but I couldn’t, so I cleared my throat and turned away, instead. I began rummaging through my coat pockets, before producing more jerky. I pulled out a piece and began chewing, and trying to think of anything other than how close this man was standing to me, and how badly I wanted to jump his bones. I was extremely attracted to Gabe, there was no denying that, but right now I needed to focus on the task at hand and saving Hecate. I did not need distractions, and Gabe could distract me for days. After a moment of me ignoring him and chewing the jerky, he huffed, or laughed, hard to tell, and walked back to the creek. “Hey, what is that?” he asked. “Haha, very funny, you can’t scare me.” I said turning back towards him, hushed me, and pulled out the bowie knife. In a crouching position, and holding the knife in his right hand, he slowly moved towards me and motioned for me to move behind him. Not wanting to hinder whatever he was doing, I moved behind him, but prepared myself to fight as well. I still remembered how to fight, those classes were my favorite things growing up and I still practiced my katas every now and then. With one hand to the side, keeping me behind him, and the other hand holding the knife, he kept inching towards the tree line. Then we heard a loud growl and the sound of something heavy running through the forest.  A second later, a large werewolf jumped over us and twisted midair back towards us, so that his back was to the creek and our backs were to the trees. I was not a fan of this new positioning, because an instant fear that this wolf would not be alone. He was absolutely huge, more the size of an adult grizzly bear than a wolf. He had jet black fur and gold glowing eyes that were set on me. He snarled and I could see that each of his canines were easily two inches long. f**k me! I thought bitterly. Neither karate nor tae kwon do teach you how to fight an aggressive werewolf. Slowly I bent down to pick up a sharp, jagged looking rock with my right hand, never taking my eyes off of the large beast before me. Gabe started moving, positioning himself between me and the wolf once again, but the wolf snarled, never taking its eyes off of me. Hearing more leaves crunching and twigs snapping I look behind me, just as another, smaller, light brown wolf, came barreling out of the woods towards us. “GABE!” I shout, and pull him out of the way, right before the brown wolf would have collided with us. “Stay behind me, Cas.” He said, trying to protect me once again. “No, you watch the black one and I got the little brown one.” I said shooing his hand out of my way, earning a look of disbelief from Gabe. Now there were two very large, very aggressive looking wolves staring me down like they wanted me for supper, not even paying Gabe any attention. “You sure?” He whispers and “Mh-mm” I nod, not looking away from the wolves. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him inching to his left, to get around the wolves. “Come on, who’s a good doggie?” I said, keeping their attention on me, earning another terrifying growl from both wolves. I start backing up a bit, keeping their eyes trained on me, I could see that Gabe had made it behind the black wolf, and it hadn’t even noticed. I could see him hold his hand up and count down from three. On one, he jumped on the black wolves back, and I dove under the brown one’s belly and pushed up with the stone as hard and quickly as I could. I drew some blood, but the wolf and jumped out of the way before I could do any real damage. The black wolf was somewhere to my left, dealing with Gabe, and I was face to face with the brown wolf, its golden, glowing eyes glaring at me. It was harder to tell if an animal was about to pounce than if a human was about to strike, so when the wolf jumped towards me, I almost didn’t get out of the way fast enough. I hit the ground as quickly as I could and spun around as soon as it was over, and behind me. I ran to the tree line, hoping that it would be too big to maneuver effectively between the trees. I used a tree trunk to help myself spin around, tearing my hand on the bark. It stung like a b***h, but I did not have time to think about it, because the brown wolf was right behind me. f**k, f**k, f**k. I thought to myself, as I ran towards a tree with a large trunk. I was about to attempt something that I had never quite gotten the hang of. I ran towards the tree with the wolf hot on my heels and jumped and attempted to do a flip off of the trunk to get behind the wolf. As my luck would have it, it did not go so well. I managed to get a few steps up the trunk, but my flip turned into a half flip and I landed right on the wolf’s back. I gripped as hard as I could onto its fur as it snarled and snapped at me, trying to get me to let go. I held on as tight as I could with my left hand and took the rock and started bashing the wolf in the nose as hard as I could with my right hand. Blood started spraying everywhere and the wolf was getting angrier and angrier by the minute. In one move, the wolf jerked left and swung my body off of its back and I landed hard on some roots on the ground sending a sharp pain all over my body. The brown wolf positioned its self over me, anger shining through its eyes. It snarled and opened its mouth over my face, but before it could do anything, a loud howl came from the direction of the creek, and the brown wolf took off in the opposite direction, back into the forest, followed by the black wolf. “CASSANDRA??” Gabe yelled for me, I could not yell back because the wind had been knocked out of me, but he came up to the trees and I moved a bit so he could hear the leaves moving. “f**k, Cas, are you ok?” He rushed to my side, checking to make sure nothing was broken or bleeding. “I’m....fine....” I wheezed. He ran and grabbed the canteen and poured some water in my mouth. I sat up slowly, my back still really sore from landing on the tree roots. “What...happened?” I wheezed again, slowly regaining the ability to breathe properly. I noticed his shirt was covered in blood and reached my hands over his chest and shoulders to make sure he wasn’t injured. “I’m fine, it isn’t mine. I stabbed the and blood sprayed all over me, I am ok, but he did cut up my arm pretty good.” I looked towards his left arm that he had tucked against himself, not moving. “Let me see...” I said, breathing a bit more easily. He repositioned himself so that his left arm was facing me and pulled off his coat. I grabbed the canteen and poured water on this arm to wash the blood away. He hissed in pain, but didn’t flinch. “It isn’t too deep, but we still need to bandage it to keep it from getting dirty.” I said, pulling the toilet paper from my pocket and gently dabbing his wounds. Gabe gave me a funny look and I shrugged. “What, I didn’t want to wipe with leaves...” I said, and continued drying his arm. “I have on a tank top, hold on.” he said, and pulled off his over shirt and then a white undershirt tank top. I doused the shirt in water and placed it over the claw marks on his arm and wrapped it snuggly around his arm, securing it with a safety pin that I had pinned to my pants. “You just keep on of those on you at all times?” He asked sarcastically. “Ha. Ha. And yes, you never know when you will need one.” I said, clasping the safety pin and making sure that the shirt was snug and wouldn’t fall down. “Came in handy, didn’t it.” I said, and stood up slowly, nearly falling over because of the pain in my back. He put his t-shirt back on, and then his coat and he too stood up. “Let me see your back.” he said, gently lifting my coat and shirt. My back hurt, but as he ran his cool, soft fingertips up and down my back, I had to bite back a moan. “It is bruised pretty bad, but you can stand, so nothings broken.” He said, then he placed a soft, lingering kiss on my spine, causing me to release a soft moan. “Ahem...” I cleared my throat and yanked my coat and top back down. “We should refill this and get going in case they come back” I lifted the canteen and walked towards the creek. As I uncapped the canteen and held it under the cool running water, Gabe came over and sat beside me. “What’s the deal?” he asked. I sighed. “What do you mean, Gabe?” I asked, standing back up and recapping the canteen once it was full. “You kiss me, sometimes act like you like me, and then you turn cold and walk away.” he said, and I could hear the pain in his voice. “Gabe...” I said his name and sighed again. “I like you; I will admit that, but right now I cannot allow myself any distractions. We have a series of very important tasks ahead of us, and I cannot allow myself to think of anything else. I’m sorry.” I said, tears building in my eyes. Gabe bit his lip, and nodded his head, then turned and walked, following the creek. “Gabe...?” I jogged to catch up with him. “What?” he asked without looking at me. “Please say something.” I pleaded. He stopped short, nearly causing me to crash into the back of him. “There is nothing to say. You are right. We cannot be distracted by each other right now.” He said, now turning to face me. “I like you. A lot. I have ever since the first time I saw you at Walmart. I am not so clumsy that I would be caught, but something about you captured my attention and I almost wanted you to see me.” He said, raking his fingers through his hair. “Promise me, that once this is all over, that we can try to see if this could be something. I won’t force it right now; I understand where you are coming from. It won’t be easy for me to keep it reigned in, but I will do my best, just promise me.” He begged me. Tears filled my eyes. I wish that things weren’t so complicated right now. I would love to be able to love and to be loved by him, I want that so badly but right now is not the right time, so I nodded my head. “I promise.” Was all I said and he grabbed me and hugged me best he could with his one arm and my bruised and aching back. He placed a quick kiss on the top of my head and grabbed my hand and we continued walking in silence.  

     We continued like that for about an hour when I looked to the right and screamed in joy. “KAPIKACCHU!” I jumped up and down and ran over to where the plant was growing. I double checked my journal sketches and it matched! “You turning into a Pokémon?” Gabe asked, walking to my side. I rolled my eyes and laughed. “Haha, no, another plant!” I pointed out, plucking a few of the beans off of the branch like vine it was growing from. “Two down and two to go!” zipping up my pouch, and with a skip in my step, I head back the way we were going. This has been one hell of a day, and we have one more to go. I thought to myself, glancing over at Gabe. He was so beautiful and he would wait for me, for all of this to be over, and I was excited.  

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     When it came time to set up camp, it was extremely cold out, so I helped Gabe make the dirt/leaf bed again, only this time it was wide enough for two. “Nothing is gonna happen, it’s just super cold out right now...” I said, wagging my finger at him. “Yes ma’am” he said, laughing at my idiocy. The night passed quickly and uneventfully. The next morning, we ate more of the jerky, and saved the rest for later, then we cleaned up the camp site and began searching for the other two plants. Today was worse than yesterday, we were both sore, the jerky was not sating the hunger. I wanted to whine and complain and take a nice hot shower, but I knew that I couldn’t. If I wanted to succeed, I had to keep going, and if I wanted to seem like a strong and capable high priestess, I had to keep my whining to myself. My feet hurt, my back hurts, my legs hurt, my stomach hurts, I am hungry and cold and tired...I kept whining to myself, all the while walking with my head held as high as I could. “If you need a break, we can sit down for a while, Cas.” Gabe said, I am sure he noticed my slight limp and slow pace. “NO. We need to find two more plants and only have today to find them. We need to keep moving.” I said, forcing myself to walk a little faster. You can do this, Cas, you are a high priestess, Hecate chose YOU! Now man up and move your ass!! I mentally encouraged myself to move quicker, and that is how the rest of the morning went. I would start hurting and slowing down, then Gabe would ask if I needed a break, I’d say no, then mentally push myself to go faster. We found the next plant around lunch time. It was the Safed Musli. I was so excited and grabbed a bunch of the little white flowers. We kept going until I physically could not and had to rest. I would say it was about 2:30 when we stopped for about an hour and filled up on water and ate the rest of the jerky. I was so hungry that I even tilted the back and ate the small bits, as if that would sate the hunger. After our lunch break, we continued on. We walked for about two hours when I saw them, the last of the plants. I ran as quickly as I could to grab them, unfortunately for me, there was a very steep drop off that I did not anticipate. I lost my footing and slid, falling down the steep slope. I grabbed at anything I could, trying not to fall. I rolled and rolled, and got cuts and scrapes until finally I stopped rolling. My body hurt all over, and I just laid my head down. “GABE!!” I called out to him. “CAS!! WHERE ARE YOU?”  he hollered back. “DOWN HERE!” And I began flicking my head lamp on and off, hoping he could see. “DON’T MOVE. I’M COMING DOWN” He called back. And I didn’t move. I looked down at my hand, just realizing that I hand my hand wrapped around grass and something else, and I would have jumped for joy if I could. I had managed, in my clumsiness, to grab an entire handful of those little red berries of the ashwagandha plant. Slowly and painfully, I open my pouch and dump the berries in. It too Gabe about ten minutes to reach me, having taken the clow way down the slope and not the express way like I had. Once he got to me, he checked to make sure nothing was broken and I showed him the berries that I had collected on my way down. “Thank f**k. I did not want to have to climb back up that slope.” He said, helping me to my feet. As soon as I put pressure on my left leg I screamed out in pain. “I don’t think it is broken, just a bad sprain, hang on.” he said as he leaned me against a tree and took off into the trees. He came back just a moment later with two sturdy looking sticks and some ivy vines and he braced my leg and secured the sticks with the vines. “That werewolf strength would certainly have come in handy now, huh?” I asked through gritted teeth. Gabe laughed and put my left arm around his shoulders and he put his right arm around my waist. It did not take too long for us to reach the tree line because we did not have to stop and sleep or go painstakingly slow digging through bushes and other plants, we could just keep going. We got back to the edge of the forest in about 5.5 hours. The full moon was high and we had about an hour and a half before midnight. As we broke the tree line, Clara, Ava and Rachelle ran to us, making sure that we were alright. “What the hell happened?!?” Clara half shouted, with tears in her eyes. “Oh, you know, rogue werewolf attacks and rolling down a cliff, nothing too bad.” I said with a laugh, and Gabe joined in. “You’re joking...right.... she is joking, right?” Ava said to me and then to Gabe. “Not rogues, and nice flip, kid.” Devin came from the tree line with a smug grin that I instantly wanted to punch off his face. “THAT WAS YOU, YOU GINORMOUS DICKHEAD” I screamed at him, the wind picking up instantly. “Woah, little witch, I was following the alphas orders, he needed to know you could defend and wouldn’t use magic” he said, lifting me up and carrying me bridal style towards the house. “Hey, what the hell man?” Gabe grabbed Devin’s arm and spun him around, “Listen hunter, I don’t want your girl, I have my own mate, but if you want to spend another half hour getting back to the mansion, I can set her back down.” He said and I shook my head. “This is fine, I want a hot bath.” I said glaring at Gabe, mentally telling him to back off.