Realm of Wolves

The Medicine Shop

The carriage ride was slow and steady. It allowed me a close up look of the daily life of the citizens in the city. My attention zoned in on a family of four; a mother a father and two little girls between the ages of 4 and 10. It looks like they are just about got done with their morning routine and is leaving their home for the day. Their home is a simple two level stone dwelling. 

The father kissed the mother and went the opposite direction of the carriage. The mother stared off at her husband for a moment before directing her attention to her daughters. She took the youngest hand and pulled her to the side away from traffic while she directed the older girl to begin walking in front of her. 

The carriage is moving a lot slower than the woman and her children. I wanted to scream at Sho to move the thing faster but resisted the urge to do so. The streets are narrow and jam packed with other wolf drawn carriages and people on foot. 

I sat back in my seat disappointed to not know where the woman was taking her kids. The Prince… What was his name again? I didn’t care to remember it because I thought I was going to die. I opened my mouth to ask him but he was asleep. For him to fall asleep in an open carriage is astonishing. The man is probably exhausted, probably not as exhausted as me though. 

Oh! The food! I remembered the food and looked at the basket that was conveniently placed next to me. I began stuffing my face when I noticed the woman and her daughters from the corner of my eye. Excitement pumped through me as I sat up and began watching their movements again.

She was in front of a building that could be a school. She lovingly kissed her eldest daughter and ushered her inside. I forgot that the ceremony at the temple began at the c***k of dawn and only lasted about an hour or two. It felt like I was in that temple all day.

The carriage stopped again and the woman continued on. I sighed and turned back toward the prince. His position had changed, he is now laying stretched out on the bench. I took this opportunity to study him.

Immediately I realized he wasn’t wearing a whole lot of clothing. The tunic vest that he gave me to cover up was almost like a dress. Once he took that layer off, the only thing remaining was shorts that where loosely held together by string. 

“If you’re curious about what’s underneath we can always pay a visit to the garden of Yesenia and finish what you started.”

What I started! And what exactly did I start? I go over the events of the garden and blushed when I realized what he meant. I looked away embarrassed to even attempt to make eye contact. 

The Prince chuckled and didn’t say anything else. The carriage had begun to move again. We are now on a stretch of road that looks like an outdoor mall. We caught up to the woman and her younger daughter again. They where whirling around a little shop. 

“Stop the carriage!” I shouted 

Sho signaled the wolves to stop. “Whats…”

Ignoring The Princes look of confusion and Sho’s surprised exclamations, I jumped out the carriage and stepped up to the little shop. The woman greeted me right away. Her eyes shined excited to have her first customer of the day.

“What do you sell?” I asked her

“Seeds, dried herbs, creams, and elixirs” She responded

“A medicine shop” The prince said coming to stand beside him.

“Your majesty!” The woman exclaimed and fell on her face.

Her young daughter copied her mother and also fell on her face.

The Prince chuckled “You have my permission to stand in my presence.”

“Thank you your highness” the woman said getting to her feet along with her daughter.

Back home I am a very capable healer. I travel with my mother and a few other coven women and we go out to help smaller communities. We birth babies, end famines, cure plagues, break curses, and we even purify demons and help trapped spirits to crossover. The medicine shop reminds me a lot of my mothers workshop and greenhouse.

“Your shop reminds me of home” I told the woman

She nods her head in understanding. Crossing the space between us she gently takes my hand in hers and pulls them to her face. She breathes deeply and for a moment time stopped. The eyes of the woman clouded over unseeing, yet she saw everything. This woman is a seer.

It was a only a moment but it felt like she was gone for a long time. When she came back she nodded definitively and began running around the shop grabbing things off the shelf and putting them in a wooden box. When she was done she presented the box to me.

“For you my lady” 

I shake my head “No…”

“How much for the box?” The Prince asked

“No cost” She said placing the box in my hands “You will need them.”

The prince and I left the shop with the box of materials. I wanted to ask the woman what she saw what the future held for me. But I knew that she wouldn’t be able to tell me. Seers are the keepers of the past and future. While they can discuss the ripples of the past and offer guidance they can never reveal the future.

I opened the box and perused the contents inside most of the items here were seeds. Many of the seeds I did not recognize there were two however recognized on sight. The grape seed and the blood sage seed. When these seeds are combined they make a fruit that serves as a blood substitute for vampires. Seeing these seeds in this box makes me really nervous. 

I was barely 16 years old when the elder council declared the human race endangered. The vampires on my world had grown out of control and had been hunting and killing humans without any control. We offered the vampire king and alternative to human blood. 

The Red Grape.

The vampire king refused the alternative. He was willing to hunt the humans down to the last man woman and child. Then turn on everyone else; witch, wolf, elf, and fae alike for his source of food.

The war for Black Mountain began.

“What are you thinking about?” The Prince asked

I closed the box and shake my head at him. The woman said I was going to need the items in the box. It makes me wonder exactly how long I am going to remain in this world.

“We are here” The Prince said 

I looked up from the box and at the iron gates. Men in purple uniform opened the gates and allowed us passage. The path to the home is made up of different colored stones that crunched under the weight of the carriages wheels. Tall evergreen trees where on either side of the path. The line of trees where so thick it looked like a forest. As we get closer and closer to the home the line trees began to thin out and the path turned to cobble stone. The transition was so smooth that I would have missed it if I wasn’t paying attention.

Sho came to a stop in front of a stone mansion. The home looked like it was copied and pasted straight out of a storybook. I couldn’t decide whether or not the landscape complimented the structure or the structure complimented the land everything just went together. From the sky reaching towers to the symmetrically shaped square stones that made up the manor it is perfectly perfect. 

“Welcome to my home” the prince said as he led me inside.