Alejo

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The sun was already in the sky when I woke up. I still felt weak, but much better compared to when I had fallen asleep, though parched.

I went to the bathroom and drank three glasses of water in a row before I felt better. Then I remembered that I had gotten messages from Morana, which I hadn't been in any state to read.

As I read them, my heart sank.

Okay. Any idea when you'll be back? Should I fix dinner for you?

I'm sorry for being rude this morning. I was upset about something, but it was wrong of me to take it out on you.

Can you please just let me know when you'll be back?

Are you okay?

I miss you

I'm so sorry

I swore and hurried out of the room and down to check out. All thoughts of my own tiredness, forgotten.

From the messages she had interpreted my message and the radio silence which had followed in the worst way possible, and I couldn't blame her. If it had been the other way around, I was sure I would have done the same thing. I just hoped she was relatively okay. That she hadn't ended up doing something stupid. And I hoped she had stayed at home that day and not gone to work.

As soon as I had checked out, I teleported myself to the apartment. The door to her room was open, showing that it was empty. I swore at the sight of it. But that just meant that I would have to go to her work. Though I rather didn't want to have to run into Dereck, that didn't matter. The only thing that mattered to me was to make sure Morana was okay and if she wasn't, make her so.

I did want to change clothes though. The ones I wore felt dirty from having hung at the coven for a whole day. So I went into my bedroom, but stopped.

She was on my bed, on top of the blanket, and curled into a ball. I could see her holding onto her phone, and she was still fully dressed.

Slowly and carefully, I walked over. I sat down on the bed and placed a hand on her cheek. The way she laid made her look so sad and vulnerable, and my heart ached with hers. But at the same time, I felt a small ray of happiness. She had been sad and upset, and, in that state, decided to sleep in my bed.

"Morana," I said softly and brushed away a few strands of hair from her face.

She stirred. Just a little at first, moving closer to me. Then her eyes shot up, as well as her body.

She stared at me. Her eyes were red and puffy and opened wide in bewilderment.

"I'm sorry," I told her and placed a hand back on her cheek. "I shouldn't have just gone silent like that suddenly. Something really came up though. It wasn't because of you."

She sat completely still for a moment, just blinking at me. Then she flung her arms around me and hugged me tightly. She pressed her eyes down to my shoulder and I was certain she cried again.

"I... I thought..." she mumbled, but didn't finish.

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her so she sat on my lap.

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I didn't mean to make you worry," I told her. I felt somewhat lost in the situation. I didn't know how to act, what to do, what to say. I just knew I wanted her to feel better, wanted her happy again.

"It was Mabon yesterday," I went on. Explaining everything, or as close to everything as I could, was the only thing I could think about doing. "I had completely forgotten about it until my coven reminded me. They... they had me busy all day, and I didn't have my phone on me. As soon as I was done with everything there, I was so tired that I fell asleep without checking my phone."

"Mabon?" she said and moved around a little so she could look at me. There were still some tears spilling out, but she already looked better. "What's that?"

"It's a witch holiday. Or well, it's what we call the fall equinox and we celebrate it."

"There are special witch holidays?" she asked next while moving her hand to dry away her tears.

"Yeah. There's eight of them. Mabon, then Samhain, which you would know as Halloween. After that comes Yule, which happens on the winter solstice. Imbolc, that's on the first of February. Ostara, the spring equinox. Beltane on first of May. Litha, the summer solstice. And Lammas on the first of August."

"How do you celebrate them?"

Her question had my mind thinking of the countless of times I had been put in that chair and having had blood taken from me. But I pushed through those thoughts. She seemed much better, and like her curiosity won over all other emotions and I was going to feed that.

"Different covens have slightly different traditions. Mine just mainly has one or two ceremonies connected to the holiday and then food and drinks," I told her, but felt like that was far too little, so I added the one of the only happy memory I had during any of the holidays. "One Samhain, when I was fourteen, me and a friend actually decided to go trick or treating. He is a bear-shifter, so he did a half-change as his costume and I dressed as a wizard and had a stick as a wand, which I used magic to have sparks come out of when I waved it. We managed to bring in quite some candy that day."

I smiled at the memory, and Morana had a smile to match mine. Then she turned her head towards the wall and seemed to look at something. I followed her gaze and saw the photo of me, Rick, and Maya that I had standing in the bookshelf.

"Was it with him?" she asked and looked back at me.

"Oh no, Rick wasn't born then. But it was with his uncle."

She nodded. "Do shifters get as old as us?"

"Na, but they do generally live longer than humans. It's quite normal for them to become about 120 years old."

She nodded again and then turned back to the photo. "And who's the woman? Is she also a shifter?"

"Yeah," I said and couldn't help but wonder if Morana asked because of jealousy. But I quickly pushed that thought aside because it wasn't like we had the type of relationship where jealousy should be a thing. "She's a panther-shifter. Maya."

"She's pretty. The three of you look close."

"Rick is definitely my best friend."

We both fell silent. She seemed to be out of questions to ask and I had no idea what more to say in that moment.

"I'm sorry," she said after a long while and I felt completely confused until she continued. "I shouldn't have acted like I did yesterday morning."

I stroked her cheek and gave her a gentle smile. "Already forgotten," I told her, but then remembered one of her messages and continued. "Though you did write that there was something that was upsetting you. Do you want to talk about it?"

She shook her head straight away. "It's nothing, really. Just some silly stuff."

I could see on her that she had lied, and it made me feel a pang of hurt. Why didn't she trust me enough to tell me? Had I really given her a reason to not trust me?

A part of me wanted to press on until she told me, but I fought that desire down. The moment was peaceful, and I knew that if I pushed there was a risk I still wouldn't find out, but I would definitely destroy the peace.

"If you ever change your mind and want to tell me, I'll always listen," I said instead and wanted to seal my words with a kiss to make sure she knew I meant it, so I pressed my lips to her forehead.

When I ought to have moved away, I found myself unable to. I had one arm around her waist and the other moved to her cheek. Caressing her, but also leaning her head up. Her hands were on my chest, and I wondered if she could feel the pounding of my heart. Our lips were only inches away from each other and I felt annoyed by the distance, wanting nothing more than to close it.