* * *

The next morning, Sage wasn't feeling breakfest. In fact, she threw up at the smell of food.
It threw Remus into a spiral, causing him to call Makenzie and google the sense of nausea.
All in all, it was another version of heat. Just unnatural to their kind.

Did he spend money on human contraptions to ease up the pain? Yes, including a heating pad, multiple warmers that had very cute stuffed animals to hide them.

And a whole list of other things, and he thought it was funny when Sage caught him shopping on the household iPad and frowned. "I don't want presents."
"It's not considered a present when you need them munchkin. See look, it's another belly warmer." She pouted, holding up the tablet to zoom in further and she smiled to see one was a bear and another was a husky sort of pup.

"Cute."
"That's what I thought, you put them in the microwave and they warm up." She nodded, though she felt somewhat guilty in terms of seeing Elenor the following morning. Who denied the offer of breakfast as she went to go and return to her own cabin.

"Ellie mad..." Sage whispered with a frown, and Remus simply leaned over his chair as he had gotten up the moment before and nodded.
"She might be mad, but we make the rules and we have to follow through when they're broken. No matter who it is." And that caused Blake to laugh from his position on the couch.

"That's how packs work, there's a fine line of shit you can and can't do. And he's the top dog." Remus narrowed his eyes off towards Blake in a slight warning but also in suspicion.

"Top...Dog?"
"Alpha. He's Alpha, and the way to stay Alpha is to make sure everyone remembers it. If your brother isn't punished now then he could do it in the future and others will think it's okay to do things against the Alpha's say so...And that means?"
"No Alpha rule."
"Bingo." Sage had managed to smile at Blake's term and wiggled in her seat with a proud grin.

"Pol-it-ics. Politics are hard." Either man had scoffed a laugh and agreed with her instantly.

"Yep Munchkin, and wolves make it unbelievably harder than normal."
"And humans?" Remus tilted his head and shrugged. "We live in America hun, it indirectly involves us." She nodded and took another sip of her tea. Eyeing the toast and going directly to the chopped fruit that Remus had given to her.

Blake had made himself useful in the kitchen, apparently the rogue had worked in the kitchen in the first pack he had managed—The kitchen and construction team and thus he was well versed and either.

Which caused Sage very interested in the likes of it.

"I learn how to bake after bear hunt," Sage said with a happy grin.
"Well I can certainly help you with that, the Alpha children where I used to live were spoiled rotten. 'Make me this, make me that,' Fucking slavery in that pack."
"That's why it's falling." Remus kindly admitted and Blake smirked.

"You just made my year, Alpha." Sage had been offended by that comment but simply took another sip of her tea, however her head took a slight turn off towards the dining room's door.

"Remmy?... I think Birdie's here."
"Birdie? Do you have pets?" Blake questioned and Remus laughed while explained to the newbie that Sage had given the Ember circle coven leader a nickname.

"Did you feel them cross the line hun?"
"Yes?" She responded in a questioned sense and it caused Remus to relish in the fact that she was learning her abilities. Though he realized he wasn't the best to teach it.

"Will you be joining us, Blake?" Sage turned to look at her charge with a polite smile and it grew when he said that'd he'd be on the guard. As the witches would be coming to the house instead of the packhouse, as it didn't pass well with the pack's view, though Sage didn't know that.

Nor did she know he had a very thorough conversation on how it was a Council's direct order.

"Birdie want snacks...Or tea?" She said, and a very angelic laugh had come from the front door. Aurelia had come straight to the Alpha's residence as instructed by Remus late last night.

Her fellow coven members were flocked outside the house and perched.

"Well aren't you a proper hostess...I've brought a new tea if you wanted to try darling, it's meant to aid cramps you might be feeling." Remus was thankful, and Aurelia could see that from where she stood as it took a bit of stress from him.

She worked rather delicately around the kitchen, but Sage enjoyed the way she simply swayed her hand and close to instantly a kettle appeared before her in the air that was bubbling and steaming with water. And all Aurelia had done was drop a bundle into the top.

"Barely take a moment, but before we get into details I want you both—Or the three of you to realize that I hadn't meant to leave without telling you both. It is something that we discovered after we left."
"In my blood?"
"Yes Sage, in your blood...It was this sort of layer, it was dormant if you will."
"Human blood wouldn't be dormant." Aurelia shook her head at Remus' comment and unsteadied a knife from her belt and offered it up to the Luna.

"It's better if I show you directly." Sage took a moment or two to blink down at the dagger, and while Remus was about to offer to do it for her. It was a rather unhesitant decision as it ran down the center of her palm.

But the blood had been placed into a vial, and after a few gracious drops Aurelia waved her hand over the Luna's palm and the cut had healed within seconds.

With a given few drops of a potion, Aurelia stood up and lifted the blood out of the vial and dispersed in into the air. Separating the smallest fragment to show the layers of blood Sage held.

"It is better with the lights off...Now my witches discovered this a bit after our trip here, but seeing that it is already detectable it means it is no longer dormant, and it's grown."
"What exactly are we looking at?" Remus question, and sure enough it hadn't made any sense.

The blood seemed to be in four layers.

"Alpha Remus, would I be able to use your blood as a demonstration and...What is your name?" Blake had been startled, surely the witch could tell that he was a rogue, but he too was asked to use his blood for the demonstration.

"My blood might be too dirty for that test."
"Don't say that." Sage shot back at him, and sure it was slightly hypocritical but Blake did appreciate the Luna's attempt of making him feel better with not so many words.

While Aurelia had gone to heal Blake, but Sage had taken her mate's hand and licked it to enact the healing process quicker.

"I suppose that works just as well," Remus smirked off to the witch and nodded, but kissed his mate's forehead in an effort of thanks. But Aurelia simply busied herself by giving drops to each of the blood vials and pouring Sage some tea.

All before the blood was dispersed into the air as well.

"Here we have yours, Alpha. Do you see this clump of a singular color? That is the Lycan blood, and that is found throughout each of yours. Yours is 100% percent Lycan and then there is this tint over twenty-five of it at the top." Remus was hypnotized by this analysis, and nodded for her to continue.

"That, I want to say is the Alpha blood, or in that range of extra oomph that you have compared to your pack members. Sage has that as well, at an equal twenty-five percent. But it's a strange combination of these tints. Sage's percentage doesn't manage to fit into a hundred percent box. As there are overlappings. She is Lycan, but her blood has made room for other types...But after taking a look at Blake's, this mutation is from their time in the Underground." Sage nodded taking a sip of her team and humming.

"That why we can touch silver?" Sage mentioned, and Birdie smiled. "I am sure that is one of the many symptoms of this mutation, but I want to make it clear that Sage's scale is more than a simple one hundred. And if it makes it any better Blake, Rogues aren't much different than pack members."
"Yeah, I'm just not that colorful compared to those two." Sage huffed at Blake, and he rolled his eyes and apologized after saying another negative thing about himself.

"What's the purple?"
"That is what appeared after we left, that is the dormant that arose. I don't know what it is, but it is something."
"You...You came here to tell us it's just something?" Remus growled, and Sage glared at her mate and placed her hand onto his thigh to settle his anger.

"My witches have been attempting to study and find an answer, I assure you it is being kept a secret. But there isn't an ounce of human blood in her...It is of the supernatural populations, but with demons and vampires having their own clans...Goddess even Crescent Moon's blood would identify differently than another pack. Alpha there is hundreds of possibilities to what that twenty-four percent is—Twenty...Twenty-Six?" Aurelia had waved the other samples to the side as she continued to zoom in, and this looked beautiful to the eyes of Sage.

"It seems to be growing, though it isn't harmful."
"It's not an illness?"
"No. It's supernatural blood. It's just unknown. However, cross-species relations haven't happened in centuries. I'm worried that it's...It's that fellow we discovered the last time that injected her with his blood. That was our first theory." Remus sighed, his hand moving down to grip onto Sage's as he rubbed it in an attempt to soothe both himself and her rising heartbeat.

"I'm afraid Sage doesn't know much about the supernatural world."
"I assumed as much, though I'll take for being the first other being she's come to accept besides my niece."
"You find Raven?"
"We're making leads, and it's more than what we knew." Sage sighed with a better breath, but Aurelia had taken out a rather old book and opened it to the center page to see beautiful doodles of the different species.

"Lycan."
"Hmm, there are a few. Werewolves, Vampires, Witches, Demons, Mermaids."
"Mermaids pretty." Remus was quick to debunk that thought as they were very vicious and very protective of their land.

"My blood is shared to find rel-a-tives. Will that make it hard?" The witch shook her head, but smiled rather brightly. It was clear that she was building an understanding of what is happening, it was just simply as confusing as the rest.

"No, this is still identifiable to your parents, Sage. I did run this under a normal test just to be sure." Blake narrowed his gaze for a moment and then rose his hand, much like one would in a classroom.

"You live in the human world right? The hell do witches do?"
"We do live in the human world, I'm actually a bio-chemist. Most witches are in the world of biology or botanists. We like to study about life and plants, so this is both of area of expertise." But it caused Sage to lean to her mate and question what the second word meant.

"Botanists, work specifically with plants, Luna." Sage looked very interested, especially when she reached behind her to show Birdie her drawings. "You certainly have the makings of making your own little herb book."
"Herb...Book?" Remus had heard—from multiple she-wolves that Sage putting her focus into something outdoors would be grand.

Especially when the weather gets warmer.

"That'd be great idea hun, especially when you start the garden?" Sage gasped, she completely forgot about that for the spring and nodded fitfully."I want to plant flowers."
"I can certainly help with that." She let out a faithful wiggle, the unknown distinction of her blood hadn't bothered her anymore.

Sage was simply happy that there wasn't anything human in her.

"But you cannot claw yourself again, that worried a lot of people here Luna. Some wounds cannot be healed." The she-wolf felt her shoulders slump and she nodded in agreement, leaning into her mate and she looked up to him.

"I'm sorry." It was clear that she was, but the gravity of the situation has had the entire pack shaken up. And he would need to answer their questions.

Aurelia had informed either Remus and Sage—Or more so Sage techniques that someone could take to null the symptoms of the menstrual cycle. And she refilled the pads and introduced tampons, while Remus did want to help he knew that Sage was starting to get embarrassed with him knowing.

Even if it wasn't necessarily human, it wasn't normal.

So the witch had offered words of confidence, understanding and allowed Sage to show her her paintings and drawings.

"I do think you should make your own little book Sage, or start journaling."
"Journalling?"
"Yes, here...You can use this one to write your thoughts down, maybe your questions or what you did for the day. But remember to date things, it keeps everything organized...Here, I'll start it." She dated it, and started to write a small description of the day, what happened, and left a reminder bullet note for the types of tea that were for one type of pain for the other.

"I like this idea, I'll do it every day."
"This will be a good idea darling, to get your thoughts down. And you know what, nobody is allowed to read this because I've locked it."
"L...Locked it? How?"
"Magic sweetheart, you can write whatever you want but only you can read it." The Luna of this pack hardly had any secrets, here she could let herself think.

"And this...Is for your garden, perhaps you can write what you know about the plants, their growth. I think that would be a fun project for you."
"I learn to journal. Thank you, I like the moon and wolf cover." She said, tracing over the design. It was a solid purple color, metal borders, and a Norse wolf with a buckled hatch.

But Sage didn't know about Norse mythology.

"If you need anything else little wolf, don't hesitate to call. Perhaps your wolf scientists can lead to where your relatives are or your original pack. Do tell me when they do? It'll aid the research."
"Okay. Thank you for the tea and things." Aurelia had cupped the young wolf's cheeks and offered another smile.

But this one was a knowing smile.

"I'm just a phone call away." Sage nodded once again and followed Aurelia down the stairs to see both males rise on their feet. The witch knew that they would be cautious.
The she-wolf behind her was a Luna after all.

______

Date: 06-09-2021

Time: 3:55

Words:  2590

 | QUESTIONS |

Who are your favorite male and female characters?

Any predictions on what will happen next?