The Prophesied Luna (completed)

New Reality

Brenna’s POV

            In a few days, the second convening of the Grand Tribunal would take place but instead of feeling hopeful, I felt extreme trepidation about the future. I had sent my younger daughter, Ana as a representative of our coven to the former Council grounds to assist with the re-purposing of the place into a memorial for future generations and tasked her with finding the sunstone. After piecing together the timeline of Councilman Jestin’s visit to the Gold Moon Pack, my detection of the sunstone being used and Nari’s abduction, I was more or less positive that the sunstone was in that Councilman’s possession. Since we couldn’t find the sunstone on him during the clean-up of the battlefield, then it had to be hidden somewhere amongst his possessions or in the vault of the former Council’s grounds. It worried me that Ana found nothing even after the entire team had concluded the collection of all of the Council’s possessions. This could only mean two things, either the Councilman didn’t have the sunstone in his possession and everything was just a pure coincidence, or someone else had managed to get their hands on the sunstone after the Councilman’s death. Having lived over two centuries, I didn’t believe in coincidences and my gut feeling told me to fear the worst. 

            The only thing more concerning than the missing sunstone was the development of events in the 11 States, whose werewolf representatives have handed out only no guilty verdicts at the first convening of the Grand Tribunal. It was obvious from the verdicts that they handed out to the Werewolf Council defendants that the werewolves of these 11 States were not ready to accept witches as their equals. Since the first convening of the Grand Tribunal, covens all over the country were able to come out of the shadows and live out in the open safely and there were minimum reports of conflicts sent to the leaders of the Sacred Alliance. Yet, in our conversations, Ana told me that the reality on the ground was far from peaceful. The former Council’s grounds are located in St. Louis, bordering 2 of those 11 States and based on Ana’s accounts, many witches have been fleeing across state borders in search of a better life. 

                        “They’re not killing our sisters, Mum, at least not directly but they’re making up new rules everyday to keep our sisters off the best lands, and they’re working with the humans to continue keeping our sisters from decent jobs. Even the schools are still rejecting young witches and directing them to newly founded schools only for witches. As you can imagine, these schools are understaffed and broken down but there’s nothing that our sisters can do because the werewolves gave an irrefutable reason, that our kind needs to learn different things at school. It’s simply madness and in fact things are now worse than before. In the past, when we had to live in the shadows, at least we could tap into our own resources for ourselves and we could mask our identities when we dealt with the other communities. The new reality in some of the States now is that since everything is out in the open and we’re supposedly equal members of the community, our sisters can no longer mask their identities and they’re openly discriminated against. The werewolves of these States have also seized all resources of the supernatural community in the name of re-allocating resources more fairly and using this excuse, they’re been allocating more subpar resources to our sisters while taking away valuable resources like the forests.” Ana’s voice was heavy with worry but that was nothing we could do until the second reconvening of the Grand Tribunal. We needed witnesses and we needed the witch representatives of their States to make an official complaint to the Grand Tribunal. If not, we risked looking like we were trying to incite unrest to make gains for the witch communities in those States, and that in turn would only jeopardize the fragile peace in the entire country. 

            I have tasked Ana with gathering witnesses who were willing to testify and gathering those accounts to send to the witch representatives of those 11 States while I shared this information with the leaders of the Sacred Alliance. I wasn’t 100% sure that the werewolves would continue to stand with us on a sensitive matter like this but the blood pact had to count for something. At the very least, it should prevent the werewolves from betraying us. The blood pact didn’t link us in life and death but whoever betrayed a blood pact would be punished with weakness while those who honored it would be strengthened through the alliance. I did my best to push my cynicism to the back of my mind. I needed this alliance to work, especially now that my identity as the reigning High Priestess is known and my Kayla is in no way ready to take up my mantle or even acknowledge our kind. I needed to stay alive and finish the work of the Moon Goddess for my granddaughter and despite what the prophecy said, I was determined to spare my granddaughter the burdens of our heritage. If this was not what she wanted, then I’d do everything in my power to spare her. It would be the very least that I could do for letting down my Elfa and to try to make amends with Kayla. 

Finn’s POV

            “Papa, will you miss me?” Mirakel’s forlorn face brought forth a mix of emotions in my heart. In the past two weeks, we have made a lot of progress with Mirakel’s behavior, and he has been acting out less to get our attention and even the preschool teachers reported that he has been getting along better with the other pups. I was proud of my little pup and thankful to my mate for taking the first step to heal the cracks in our relationship. Only after we had come back from our vacation was I able to process everything properly and I was floored by how much Kayla had opened up to me. I had never given much thought to the trauma that Kayla suffered from her childhood and her captivity at the Moon Lake Pack because she had seemed to recover well a few months after her return. Then life kind of just took over until the monsters of our past crept up from beneath the beautiful facade, forcing us to confront our biggest fears. 

            After our vacation, we spent a day apart from one another so that Kayla could get some rest before going back to work and I could get some work done. I felt guilty that Kayla had to work weeks without a break just so that we could have had that vacation together but I wasn’t sorry. We really needed that but I wanted to help Kayla out without overstepping her boundaries. In the end, I suggested to stay with her and Mirakel in their apartment temporarily to help with getting Mirakel ready for preschool in the mornings. That way, Kayla would at least be able to get an extra 30 minutes of sleep in the mornings. I was nervous that she’d reject my offer but to my relief, she didn’t and I was overjoyed at being able to live with my mate and my pup, even if it was just a temporary arrangement. Our week together flew by and it was now time for me to leave for the second reconvening of the Grand Tribunal. I was reluctant to leave my family and our new found way of life together but I knew that I had to. Kayla’s grandmother had sent reports of the plight of witches in 11 States to all leaders in the Sacred Alliance and it worried me that the fragile peace that we’ve managed to achieve just 6 moons ago would threaten to disintegrate. Looking at the adorable face of my pup, I felt an unwavering resolve to make sure that things would never come to that. I wanted my pup to live in a better world than the one I was born into and knowing that he was no ordinary werewolf made me even more determined to ensure the equal rights of werewolves, witches and hybrids. 

            “Papa is only going away for work, Baby. He’d be back before you know it,” Kayla coaxed gently as Mirakel clunged on to my leg, refusing to let go. I chuckled and picked up my pup and nuzzled him lovingly. “Papa will miss you, Buddy. I hope you’d miss me too,” I said gently. My little pup nodded solemnly before turning to look at Kayla and then at me again. “Papa will come back? Back here?” His question revealed the deep-seated insecurities in his little puppy heart and I could feel the sadness from Kayla through our bond. “Papa will come back to us, Baby, and I promise that when Papa comes back, we can have a movie night again like yesterday, ok? Can you kiss Papa goodbye now and finish your breakfast?” Kayla asked softly. With her assurance, our little pup’s face lit up again and he planted a wet sloppy kiss on my cheek before bidding me goodbye. I hugged him tightly and instructed him to take care of our family as the man of the house while I was away before letting him go back to breakfast. Kayla walked me to the door and as I was contemplating if it’d be appropriate to kiss her goodbye, she wrapped her arms around my waist and caught me completely off guard. 

            “Be careful out there, Finn. Don’t forget that you promised that you’d come back home to us,” she mumbled against my chest. My heart swelled and I wrapped my arms against my mate tightly before planting a kiss on her forehead. “I’m going to a meeting, Kayla, not to war. Don’t worry!” 

            “I know I know but I just have a bad feeling about this. I’ve been behind with my Luna duties and both Reena and Tressa have been filling in a lot of work for me but I know that not everyone was happy with the arrangements after the battle. I have a bad feeling about this, Finn and I want you to promise me that if anything seems off, that you’d call for back-up and not head into battle without me.” Kayla’s scrunched up worried face reminded me of Mirakel and if I wasn’t so overwhelmed by the fact that my mate was concerned about me, I might have laughed at how adorable she looked now. 

            “Can I take this as a sign that you care about me, Kayla? That you’d give us another chance?” I asked half teasingly and half hopefully. To my delight, she blushed and struck me playfully on the chest. “Don’t try to change the subject now! I’m serious!” 

            “Alright, alright,” I chuckled, “I promise you that if things go south, I wouldn’t overestimate my big bad scary Alpha wolf and I’ll call for help from the powerful White Wolf. So there you have it. Now back to my questions.”

            Before I could finish my sentence, Kayla was completely scarlet and held her hand against my mouth before sputtering, “we’ll talk about it when you’re back. I was thinking of going to therapy together as a family. If we were to give this a second chance then I want us to do everything right. I know we can’t control everything but we’ve been through so much together. I want to make sure that this time we see all the skeletons and all the baggage before we set off on our journey together again.” 

            I swear if Mirakel wasn’t in the room, I’d have picked up my mate and taken her right here against the door in the entryway and I could only settle for the next best thing. Lifting her chin up with one hand, I leaned down to claim the lush plump lips that were now mine again. The taste of her sweet lips, reciprocating my kiss with the same passion, made me crave for more and I turned around so that my body was pressing hers against the wall. Her skin was soft under my fingertips as I slipped my hands under her oversized t-shirt and soon my pants felt a little too tight for comfort and my thoughts started to go back to my original plans. As usual, our little pup decided to remind us of his presence with perfect timing and just before I could act on my thoughts, a tiny hand tapped my leg. Kayla quickly pulled away from me, her face flushed perhaps from our kiss or our pup’s one again perfect timing. “Papa loving Mama? Can Papa love me too?” Mirakel’s innocent question dispelled any trace of the steamy scenes from a minute ago and we both laughed as we gave Mirakel a kiss on the cheeks. 

            “Alright, Buddy, Papa really has to go now. Be good and wait for me to come home, ok?” My little pup nodded and I gave Kayla a gentle kiss on the lips before leaving for the second convening of the Grand Tribunal.