Her Rejection's Revenge

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: MORE CASUALTIES

The chapter with Ajax was temporarily closed and I was glad of the reprieve for things were hectic in Neverland. It wasn’t only about hosting more werewolves and that we were short of place and resources. We were welcoming more members from different known packs.

“Griffin!” Miriam explained when we were pushing a patient on the stretcher into the medical room one day.

“Keep him there!” Dr. Kapadia yelled from the other side of the room. “I’ve got suspected COVID-19 here. We may need to shift this patient.”

I blew the bangs out of my face as I hustled to roll the stretcher out of the way. “How do you even know him?” I whispered to Miriam with a frown.

Her eyes were strained red, and she swallowed a hard lump as she approached me to have a closer look at Griffin. “He’s from my pack. Royal Mystic pack. Oh my God, Zee. Do you know what that means? Things are getting worse there.”

“Alright,” I said grabbing her arm to move her out of the way as Dr. Kapadia wheeled the contagious patient out of the room. We didn’t have a quarantine section, so I figured the COVID-19 cases would have to be separated from the rest. That would complicate things but for now I concentrated on Miriam.

Her distress was apparent in her beautiful green eyes, and even if I maintained my emotional detachment, I couldn’t let her deal with this alone.

“Okay Kuromi, let’s not jump to conclusions,” I finished my sentence as Dr. Kapadia and another assistant were out of the room. “Hold this,” I gave her the IV drip which I was holding for another patient, and which I didn’t have the time to hand on the stand yet.

Quickly, I turned back to Mr. Grey – the waiting patient whom I named such because his face looked a little wan and garish. I pulled the stand and attached the IV drop at the top, adjusting to make sure that the drops were dripping.

Now that I was done, I wheeled Mr. Griffin out of the way to the other side of the room so that we could have a more private conversation. I studied the man’s puffed face closely, putting on my medical gloves to examine any facial bone fracture. There weren’t any indication of any permanent damage, and I continued my inspection all over his body.

“Okay,” I concluded when I was done. Being understaffed had brought a few advantages – like me being able to do thing independently without the help of the doctors. “Nothing drastic here. Only the usual. Fractured ribcage and a broken nose. With a suspected knee injury which I would need Dr. Kapadia to check.”

It was actually usual for us for we were greeting more and more wounded warriors over the time. Which inexorably meant that the peace in werewolf community was precarious and about to fall apart anytime.

Miriam who had been shifting impatiently from one foot to another during my medical examination let out a strangled sigh. “Wars are becoming more common now that the Royal Mystic pack had fallen apart. The presence of my brother would have stopped all those atrocities. I am sure of it. He used to keep an eye of every pack – help put off strategic wars.”

I shook my head trying to put my thoughts in order. From what I’d gathered from Miriam, Prince Aerys had been a legendary force of power. A pity such a wonderful royalty had to go to waste. King Lancelot’s death as well was suspicious, but we didn’t have the necessary resources to go against Miriam’s evil Uncle Vincent Sullivan of Davenport.

“We don’t know that. Let’s treat him first and then we get to draw out own conclusions,” I tried to tamper the situation.

But my optimism was misplaced. Over the next days, more and more severely wounded members from the Royal Mystic pack came in one after the other. All had the same story – King Vincent had taken over the throne and was throwing out the loyals of the previous King Lancelot. There was no sign of the Prince Aerys or the Princess Miriam which was a sign of defeat for them.

Most of them were quite happy to see their precious little princess alive who no longer had to live in anonymity. Her pack members referred her with great reverence, even after her several attempts to dissipate them from sticking to royal protocols.

I realized something then. Miriam Sullivan was a gem. With her humility and self-effacing nature, I had completely missed the fact that she hailed from such a great family. I had underestimated her and her friendship. She was not someone who would offer help to just anyone, and having been the recipient of her friendship, I could only feel grateful now.

“Tell me more about home,” I pressed her one evening when we were on the beach with a bottle of beer in our hands. The ‘beach’ was in fact a very tiny bay surrounded with turquoise water and smooth pebbles. No sand in Neverland.

Her eyes got misty at my question and if she was surprised by my curiosity, she didn’t let on. “Home was back in the days when Papa would be healthy and he would guide us towards our education in every way possible,” she replied dreamily. I was fiercely glad that she had such a doting father whom she seemed to admire from the bottom of her heart. “Aerys and I grew up with every royal privilege, but he was the golden boy,” she sighed begrudgingly, although there were no negative vibes about the envy she was displaying.

“We were spoilt brats when growing up. And there was Lyenna Montgomery of dragon’s blood. Lyenna and Aerys were inseparable. They were mates, you see. From the beginning, it was decrypted that the King of werewolves and Queen of dragons would be reunited in matrimony to bring peace to the world. Some people at the Davenport court were against the match – many were but neither Aerys nor Lyenna was worried about their opinions.”

My heart constricted at how Miriam must have felt stuck between the two lovers – it would have been a lonely childhood for her with those two childhood sweethearts parading their loves around her. I clutched her hand.

“How did that make you feel? Left out?” I asked with sympathy.

“What?” she stopped to look at me in an astounded way. “No, I was the spoilt princess, remember? There was nothing I was left wanting for. The servants would bend over themselves to provide me my tiniest whim. And Lyenna – well she was cool. We got along pretty well.”

“Oh,” I muttered disheartened that I had revealed a piece of myself in the process. Stuck between an eccentric sister like Zendaya who always wanted to break the rule, and the prodigious son my brother was for my parents, I had always felt like an afterthought growing up.

She squeezed my hand more probably understanding my comment, but she didn’t probe further. “My father doted on me. We were amongst the strongest werewolves in the community. My family set up many camps to provide for the less favored ones.”

I gasped as sudden understanding dawned on me. “The Neverland?” I asked tentatively as I figured it must be one of the Royal’s initiatives.

“One of my brother’s projects,” she grimaced self-consciously. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I didn’t know that things were so bad outside my golden castle world. I was the princess and although I helped people, I couldn’t feel their pain,” she said lifting her shoulders to emulate the emotion. “Coming here helped me see that I was missing a lot of perspective from my privileged life.”

She sighed wearily, shoulders sagging in the process.

“Hey, no! You’re doing a wonderful job!” I protested passionately, not understanding how of all people, she could blame herself. “Nobody can blame you from what’s happening around here. You cannot be held responsible for every wrongdoing happening to werewolves. We’re doing what we can to help.”

“I learnt from you,” she admitted ruefully, and I did a double take at her confession. “When I came here, you were so focused on saving everyone. You devoted your nights to tend to me. Without you, I would have been dead. I owe you my life.”

I shrugged off the compliment, but a telltale blush crept over my cheeks to betray my pleasure. “You’re exaggerating,” I brushed it off nonchalantly.

“I’m not. All my privileged life, people have been trying to help me only to get things in exchange. Money. A favor. Friendship. A word put in in the right place. But you expected nothing. You helped me and moved on to another patient with the same fierce singlemindedness and devotion. It touched me.”

“T... thank you,” I stammered, no longer able to pretend that her words were not getting to me. Her kind words meant so much to me – I had been actually so grateful that life had given me another opportunity to fulfil my dreams that I hadn’t questioned my second chance.

“You should give Ajax a chance,” she ventured hesitantly. “Who knows what can happen after all? He’s nice and I know you like him.”

I huffed out a heavy bout of air. “He’s nice but…,” I shrugged helplessly letting the rest of the sentence trail in the night.

Without haste, Miriam picked up a smooth pebble in the shape of a heart – a rather ugly one and caressed the surface with the pad of her thumb. “You remind me so much of my brother. Aerys…,” she stumbled over the name, and I figured it must hurt to speak about him knowing that he wasn’t there. “… he changed.”

I c****d my head sideways interested in the story. “Changed, how?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know – Aerys Sullivan of Davenport seemed to have had a rather luxurious upbringing and I had nothing in common with him. Besides, what did it have anything to do with Ajax? However, I guessed Miriam had a point, so I let her continue.

“After Lyenna died, he stopped being that happy go-lucky guy I knew from childhood. He closed his heart to relationships and hasn’t been able to get over his first love ever since.”

“Lyenna died?” I croaked as I registered only that fact from her long sentence. “How? Was she killed by your uncle too? You said she was the Queen of dragons, right?”

Miriam nodded. “The Kingdom of Davenport and Throne of Fire was to be merged into one united front preceding the marriage of Aerys and Lyenna. Then, she was dead. We had no idea who killed her as it was way before my uncle returned to the kingdom. It could have been him.”

“You didn’t find out?” I questioned with a heavy heart. How sad would that be for the prince to lose his beloved at the hands of merciless murderers only beseeching power? But to not know what happened to the one you loved must be a living hell that the poor man had to endure every day.

“Aerys became obsessed in his relentless pursuit to find out about the culprit, but it was too late to save her. I should have been there for him. It wasn’t enough. He neglected us and went searching for dragons all over the territory in order to avenge her death. That’s all he managed to find out. A dragon killed her.”

I nodded. “Which explained why he set out after the dragons at your uncle’s instigations? Not even caring that he’d silver in his blood. He was out to avenge his beloved.”

Miriam nodded and a fresh bout of tears wetted her cheeks as she shuddered against the fresh air which blew our way. It was warm, but the stories were so sordid that we couldn’t help feeling morose. What a pity Aerys didn’t succeed to bring the culprits down, it was only in movies that the villains got to atone for their sins.

Real life s*cked so much that it didn’t even give us the satisfaction of seeing the wrongdoers express a certain amount of remorse over their actions. Take Braxton and Beatrice for instance. They were happily married, not even caring about what had happened to me. How was that fair? And if it wasn’t justice, what was the point of all this? Why bring us to the world only to make us suffer under the hands of stronger and richer adversaries.

I sighed as my negative thoughts overwhelmed me once again. No matter how I ruminated, it was not going to change the past or the status quo. I looked at the stars and prayed for a way out. Yet again.