It was October when the leaves started turning into crescent gold as the days got shorter and the animals began going into hibernation.
Andria stood in a slim cotton dress with a thick fur draped around her shoulders to keep her warm from the autumn wind, standing on top of a small hill, her feet bare of any shoes. Burty had told her to keep her feet bare while hunting, saying something about feeling the movement of the earth and the species that hid in it.
She waited for him impatiently, tapping her foot against the soft, muddy grass and huffing in frustration, seeing that he was late again. Burty loved being late, he enjoyed seeing annoyance splashed across her face, it gave him something to mock about her, she always looked too perfect otherwise. That’s why she loved being with Burty—he didn’t make her follow rules like her mother did or remind her of her title; he let her be free.
From beyond the meadow, she saw a figure approaching, it was Burty running in his work pants , wearing one of his mud brown t-shits that had been patched up about a dozen times. He was barefoot, like always, saying he didn’t like shoes and that they were a waste of gold.
He approaches her with an apologetic smile: “Sorry I’m late, the chef made me collect water from the well all morning; my arms are dying.”
Andria rolled her eyes at him even though she knew that they both lived completely different lives, hers filled with opulence and grace while his lay in a darkened halo of wretchedness. He didn’t have everything she had, as he struggled to feed himself and the three other empty stomachs in his family.
Burty was fourteen years old with chocolate brown eyes and hair, whereas she was only eleven years old. Even at the young age of fourteen, Burty carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Being fatherless and an omega, he was the only one to provide for his mother and two younger sisters.
They spent their time playing in the fields, rolling through the lush grasses, and running through forests, hunting rabbits and squirrels for dinner. They only ever hunted small things, nothing too big, knowing their limits well.
It was the only time when Burty would let the weight off his shoulders and truly enjoy his youth; otherwise, he was always stuck beside the chef, who would make him collect water in buckets for hours at a time or make him clean the kitchen chimneys.
“Let’s go, before it turns dark.” Andria said, dismissing his apology.
They dashed into the forest in search of a squirrel to hunt down; it was difficult to find them at this time of year, but it was worth the try because Burty hoped the chef would reward him with a warm soup and a small loaf of bread for his mother and two younger sisters as a reward for his efforts. He didn’t mind sleeping hungry, as was often the case, as long as his mother and his sisters slept with a full stomach.
Running through the forest, the autumn leaves crunched beneath their feet as they ran towards the opening where the most nuts resided. It was the perfect place to find squirrels, seeing that they ate nuts.
Nearing the opening, they both slowed down to a walk as they discreetly walked towards it, making sure not to make any noise, knowing that a good hunter never makes noise.
They stand at a certain distance, using their heightened senses to detect movement, looking at the green grass and then at the leafless trees, hoping to see something only to come up short.
“I don’t think we’re going to find anything here today; let’s look someplace else.” Burty whispered into Andria’s ear with disappointment in his voice as he turned around.
“No wait! I see something up in that tree,” Andria whisper yelled at him whilst pointing at a tree across from them.
Burty turned to see a squirrel leaching onto the back of a tree using claws. It had orange-red fur and was a good size, looking more male than female. The pair had spent countless days and hours hunting down the furry creatures, but they still weren’t good at identifying their gender.
“I’ll go get it,” Andria said, looking up.
She walks slowly towards the tree, making sure not to step on any fallen twigs or leaves. She extends her claws to grab on to the tree as she makes the short climb up towards it, reaching the squirrel, who quickly notices her and moves onto one of the smaller branches of the tree, out of her reach.
Reaching out for the squirrel, with grunts of struggle while realising that her arm was too short, she decides to climb onto the other branch.
“ANDRIA DON’T! Burty’s panicked shreick reaches her ears, but it’s too late to turn around and go back as the tree branch snaps, its wooden skin splintering from the weight as it broke.
Andria felt the air leave her lungs as the world came to a close. She had thought that death would be fast, but it was slow. Even when she was falling, she felt her life flash before her eyes: her mother’s smile, her father’s loving eyes, her brother’s kind humor, and her sister’s ambitious curiosity to learn. She could even feel Burty mocking her in the back of her mind for being so stupid as a loud scream resonated through the forest. She wondered if it was Burty or herself.
With a loud thud, she landed on the ground, some of her bones cracking from the impact, causing her to let out a whimper of a cry as her eyes watered. The remaining branch pierced through the skin of her leg, causing her to let out a shrill of pain as black dots expanded over her vision, making her eyes flutter shut.
“Papa,” she said quietly, her final words.
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Sisters—what are sisters? if not the greatest foundation of friendship and loyalty, in a world where one can’t prosper without the other.
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Ariana rubbed the Islewood paste onto Andria’s wounds, using her small hands to gently spread the paste around just like the healer had told her to. They were in Andria’s chamers, a warm fire burning in the chimney to keep her warm.
Andria would have enjoyed the warmth in her room if she wasn’t in such a fatal condition, ,but Ariana knew that things could’ve been much worse if Burty hadn’t bought her back and tied her wounds using his shirt to prevent the blood loss.
It took Andria three weeks and a million lectures from her parents to heal, it wasn’t easy healing with her not having her wolf yet, her parents confining her to her chambers, and only letting her have one visitor at a time.
In those three long weeks, all her friends had visited her at least once, apart from Burty. She was worried that she had angered him with her foolishness, but when she asked her mother about it, she told her that he wasn’t angry and was just busy helping the chief.
Four weeks had gone by and she hadn’t seen him once, She tried looking for him, but no one would tell her anything about his whereabouts—even the chef wouldn’t tell her anything.
Only at night, when she was getting dressed for bed, she heard a soft, gentle knock on her door. She opened the door to see her sister standing there with her finger on her lips a sign for her to stay quite, ” Do you want to meet Burty?” Andria nodded eagerly as Ariana whispered to her sister, her voice a soft scalding across her temple.
“Come,” Ariana said as she took Andria’s hand and led them to the stairs. The stairs would have been an abbey of darkness if Ariana hadn’t been carrying a lantern in her other hand.
“Where are we going?” Andria asked, her voice shaking from fear, she was scared of the dark .
“To the attic,” came Ariana’s short reply.
“B...b...but Mama and Papa say we’re not allowed to go there,” Andria stutters out, the fear evident in her voice.
“Are you coming or not?” Ariana asked, walking faster up the stairs.
“We shouldn’t go,” Andria replied, her legs freezing on one of the steps.
“If you don’t want to come and see Burty, you can go back by yourself in the dark.”
Andria swallows harshly, making her throat hurt: “Ok, fine, but if Mama and Papa find out, I’m telling them that this was your idea.”
Ariana nods her head in agreement as they continue to walk on. “Why is Burty in the attic anyways? ”
“I don’t know, I just heard someone say that he was here.” Ariana dismissed them as they continued on up the stairs until they reached a dark oak door. It wasn’t smooth like the rest of the doors in the manor, it was rough with more texture to it.
With trembling hands they push the door open, making a loud creak descend into the silence of the room, almost scaring the girls. Their grip on each others hands tightening as they slowly walked into the dimly lit room, a small fire in the chimney keeping the room warm.
An obsolete chair and an old woman with grey hair sat beside a wooden bed. Her hands stretched out across the bed as if holding on to something, and the girls tiptoed towards the bed, holding their breath whilst trying not to wake the woman sleeping on the chair.
The moment their eyes landed on the figure on the bed , they both let out a shriek. His skin was tainted with large boils filled with mucus, the skin around his eyes was a bluish purple, and his cheek bones protruded through his thin skin; it was Burty and not Burty at the same time.
“Wh-what’s wrong with him?” Andria breathed out.
“He has the winter flu.” It wasn’t Ariana who replied, but the old lady whom Andria recognised as his mother.
“The winter flu, how?” Ariana asked.
“When Lady Andria fell from the tree, he tied her wounds with his t-shirt, leaving him vulnerable to the passing winds.” The old lady, whom the girls knew as Mrs. Folkins, said her eyes filled with grief as a lonely tear escaped her eye.
“Shouldn’t h....h...h...he have been healed by now? It’s been longer than a month,” Andria said, her eyes still wide with surprise.
“Girls, I have to tell you something, this... this might be the last time you see Burty,” Mrs. Folkins mumbled as she sniffled and wiped her tears with her hands.
“What?! What do you mean that this is going to be our last time seeing him?!” Andria shrieked out with stubbornness as she grabbed on to his hand, “I’m not leaving him ever!”
“Child, you won’t be leaving him; he will be leaving you because he can’t heal.” Mr Folkins spoke her voice rapsy.
“What do you mean he can’t heal?” Ariana asked, not understanding.
“The healers have announced that nothing can be done to give him peace apart from death...” Mrs. Folkins’ emaciated voice spoke.
“No. No. No. They might be wrong,” Ariana said, not believing what she was hearing, “but we can help heal his boils with Islewood, and that may help get rid of the rest of the flu!” Ariana exclaimed, her voice almost sounding cheerful with her solution.
“How do you know that that would work? Wouldn’t the healer’s have tried that themselves?” Andria asked, her voice laced with distrust.
“We have to try something; otherwise, we may not have a Burty left to save.” Ariana said she was trying to convince her sister and then looked at Mrs. Folkins for approval, who gave her a subtle nod of approval.
Mrs. Folkins knew nothing could be done to save her son, but the mother in her couldn’t give up on her pup. She needed him, he was her armour in the cruel world, her little happy place that made the burdens in her life disappear. She would do anything to save him.
Ariana rushes back to her chambers to get the Islewood paste. Coming back, she sees that Andria and Mrs. Folkins have turned him on his back, where the boils look more like burns than anything else.
“Come start overy here,” Mrs Folkins gestures to her.
Ariana spread the soft, jelly-like paste onto the tips of her fingers before putting it on his back. As she spreads the concoction, the boils begin to sizzle, the mucus in them reacting with the acid in the paste, which acts more like a corrosive venom than a healing detergent, making Ariana step back in a panic as Burty begins to whither and grunt in pain from the toxic reaction.
“What...” Andria’s unable to finish when she hears Burty’s screams.
“Ahhhh....h....help....please....it hurt.....” Burty screams out, his voice filled with agony as he withers from side to side like a dying fish.
The girls hadn’t known that Iselwood could be lethal when treating a virus like the winter flu because its acids were too strong for the victim’s skin, causing it to act like poison.
Burty lay withering and screaming in pain for what seemed like hours, repeating over and over,“Please...please..let..me go, let me die”
His mouth had started drooling out horrid white fluids, and Mrs. Folkins couldn’t take it anymore.
“Kill him.. kill him.. put the dagger through his heart so he stops.. stops screaming.. stops being in pain,” she said, her red eyes rimmed and her hair a strangling mess as she gave Ariana a dagger. Pressing her hands to her ears to rid herself of her son’s screams, Mrs. Folkins sinks to the ground, shaking, as she whispers to herself, “He’s okay. He’s perfectly fine.”
It was quick and easy to push the dagger through his heart as he let out his final shriek of pain, and it almost gave her relief to know that she had stopped his pain.
However, not everyone felt the same relief as she did when she felt someone pushing her forward harshly, making her land on the floor with a loud thud.
“What have you done, you monster?” said Andria, her eyes venomous black as they stared at Arianna with pure hatred.
She charges towards Ariana, smacking her head against the frame of the bed repeatedly, causing the skin to tear and blood to gush out, “How dare you, how dare you, how dare you hurt him....”
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