☽☽ For the most patient and lovely i-freaking-lo_ove-me ☾☾

"Aedan, my boy, would you like to add anything to Gabriel's answer?" the Moon Weaver asked, regarding Aedan with concerned eyes. His usual dark-blue hood was down, and it revealed the silver hair, which fell to his shoulders. Thin skin around his silver eyes crinkled as he narrowed them speculatively after he had noticed Aedan staring into the void of the window, that overlooked thin birches and scattered bushes. "Perhaps, birches are far more interesting than studying the vital organs of our bodies."

Aedan's attention snapped to catch his teacher leaning over a desk in front of him, eyes flickering between birches outside the window.

"It may be interesting for some of you to know that birches can live for as long as 200 years. Well, that is if the conditions are favourable," remarked the Moon Weaver.

A huff hissed throughout the room. "Both issues are immensely fascinating!" someone scoffed on Aedan's right. "I wonder if that birch over there with trivial-looking branches and orange leaves might be as old as you are, Moon Weaver," Idris said, pointing haphazardly at a lonely tree. Someone behind Aedan suppressed a laugh.

Guilt wrapped around Aedan like a serpent, tinging his face with crimson. He didn't want his unusual daydreaming session to interrupt the lesson of his most favoured mentor. Was that what resulted from being in an excessive reverie? Gabriel had always told Aedan that dreaming was distractive. Was his brother really right or was Aedan just losing his realism?

"Let us disrupt our very engrossment with birch trees and leave it for later, shall we?" the teacher cut it. "Now," he clasped his hands together and broke into a measured tread, "we have discussed the consequent problems of hepatotoxic plants. Their drawings can be found in the book in front of you."

A sound of threads being stretched was heard, and the Moon Weaver's head whipped to the side, his eyes fixed on Aedan's brother. "Please, do not bend the pages and do not stretch that poor book's spine, Gabriel," he spoke slowly.

Gabriel muttered an apology and roughly straightened the page he had folded. Aedan was thankful to his brother for being on his generously good behaviour while apparent irritation etched his aquiline face. Gabriel looked up to give Aedan a wink as the other boy was about to whirl his attention back to the book.

Aedan placed circular spectacles on the bridge of his straight nose, and picked up a quill to note down significant points about toxic plants into his leather journal.

He pondered whether humans were prone to the same plants werewolves were. Aedan found himself fascinated by particulars, which his brother and cousin had considered unworthy almost always. The Moon Weaver had been giving them an endless flow of knowledge, and Aedan relished in slowing down to indulge into greater details that mattered to the subject. It was like swimming in the Glossy Lake and never feeling your muscles become fatigued.

The strained relationship between the werewolves and humans didn't let Aedan to interact with the latter kind as often as he would have liked. A once striving symbiosis had been terminated by political affairs that Aedan vaguely understood. Despite that, he looked forward to meeting the human girl - whom he had encountered a fortnight ago - again, even if their first encounter was short and, the werewolf had to admit, uncomfortable. He only regretted not being capable of gathering his courage in a fist to ask her name. A name told a lot about a person; perhaps if he had known her name, he would have known where to look for her?

His thoughts were interrupted when Idris nudged him. "Have you heard me, bookworm?". When Aedan shook his head, Idris pursued his lips together. "Alright, so Gab and I are going to sneak into the main building to find out what the Elders will be discussing during the Paclave meeting tonight."

Aedan swept his gaze across the room and noticed that their teacher had left, so had the other young werewolves. Frowning, he returned his attention back to his cousin. Idris was staring at him intently and tapping his fingers on the desk.

"Why won't you just ask your father? It's more foolproof than sneaking into a building and risking to expose yourself. Every single member of the Paclave would know the scent of the Alpha's son."

"Exactly, that's where your involvement lies," Idris muttered as if Aedan hadn't known of their usual routine before the Paclave gatherings.

"We need you to concoct an elixir that would mask our scent," Gabriel said, suddenly appearing in front of Aedan's desk. He flopped down in a chair, facing Aedan, and folded his arms over its backrest. Gabriel's steel-gray eyes were lucent against his dark shirt, locks of light-brown hair fell over his high forehead.

"You have promised us that you would talk to Uncle Isaac about this issue. You are of age now, it's more than fair to let you attend the meetings as a future leader of the pack," Aedan stated, as he was packing his studying materials as well as taking off his spectacles and placing them neatly into a fabric-made case.

He eyed his cousin again and noticed dark shadows under his eyes. Aedan had thought of Idris as being the most fearless out of the three of them, however now he thought that even Idris, who never tended to conceal his emotions, was hiding a secret. The way he tapped the desk with his long fingers and the way his copper eyes darted between the two brothers induced questions, but Aedan shrugged them to the back of his mind.

"Try not to expose yourselves and, for the sake of the Hunter's Moon, keep me out of this. If you get caught, it wouldn't take much for the Elders to figure out who helped you. It will upset the Moon Weaver's trust, and I wouldn't be able to use the Experiment Room for my studies ever again," with that Aedan swung his bag over his head and made for the door.

A loud growl escaped from Gabriel's chest, as he shot up to his feet and flipped the chair over, "Stop being a coward, brother! This meeting is important to us because we are the future of our pack," he snarled. "They want to decide on things that are significant to us, too, without even asking for our opinion! All you are doing is balancing the justice between us and their decisions, so stop being afraid."

"I don't want to get involved into affairs that don't concern or bother me. Why would I?" Aedan cocked his head slightly, "The Blackfang vermin is going to get what he wants anyway with Elias beside him."

"The Blackfang vermin and the traitor can plot away all they want, but they will not lay their hands on my pack," Idris growled, pounding his fist on the desk. Quill and ink vessels clattered to the ground as he rose up dramatically, "Over my dead wolf-body."

☽☽ ☆ ☾☾

The moon cast a pale light through the wispy, cobalt-blue clouds, still visible and lucent beside the moon. A chilly breeze ruffled the half-naked trees that surrounded the area, where the Silverfang Prowlers pack nestled in the heart of the Enchanted Forest. The breeze carried the Whisper of the trees along its journey, informing the gifted werewolves of the latest stories gathered across the whole Starleten.

"Woolfburgh Library's derelict building has been demolished," the leaves whispered.

"What a pity! It stored the knowledge of the two kinds for many summers and winters," they sighed.

"Humans neglected the knowledge, they chose to surround themselves in indulgences of pleasant food and fruitless indolence," they cried.

Aedan sat on a wooden bench with carved ornamental patterns on its backrest beside the Great Hall's main entrance, ignoring the Whisper. Numerous pairs of ignited lanterns flanked the path, paved with cobblestones, that led to houses and other places of the pack's quarters. Aedan stared into the blackness ahead between the lanterns as he twirled the empty bottle of the elixir he had made between his fingers. It slipped from his grasp, but he caught it reflexively before it even had a chance to fall.

Gabriel was right, he thought, I am a coward.

If there was anything Aedan could do to stop Elias, he would have done it already. He even thought of traveling to the Onyx Tooth pack himself to murder him on the spot. Aedan would have had the advantage of surprise, as none would be capable of scenting or hearing him. Without Elias, Thyrius Blackfang would have lost the courage that drove him to burn down villages and destroy homes of thousands of humans.

The people that swore to protect the pack were discussing their fate behind those thick, maroon walls made of brick and iron at that same moment. Were it not for Gabriel and Idris, the decision on the affairs regarding the pack members' welfare would have never escaped beyond the walls of the Main Hall.

A hand closed over the boy's shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"My boy, what are you doing here late in the night? You should be at home taking all the rest you can muster before tomorrow," said the Moon Weaver, stepping before Aedan.

His dark-blue hood covered his silver head completely, shading his face, but the silver irises of his eyes glowed and swirled with life under the moonlight.

"What is going to happen tomorrow?" the boy asked, rising up and gazing up at his teacher, his mentor, his example.

The Moon Weaver smiled under the hood, and the warm light, emanated from the street lanterns, carved around the apples of his hollow cheeks.

"You shall see tomorrow, for destiny has got other arrangements for all of us."