R E M
"You're safe,"said a voice faintly familiar to Rem, although it bore no comfort.
She didn’t know how long she had been staring at the ceiling before her vision finally focused. Her mind swam in a fog, the face of the warg appearing, Ronan in hisvarúlfurstate... She blinked, and blinked again, holding it as her eyes stung. Then she thickly swallowed as thirst filled her.
"Water," she pleaded with a cotton tongue.
"Sit up," the voice commanded as someone helped her up. Rem’s head grew light, her hair draping over her shoulders.
She was in a room. She knew this room. It was the one back at the Warden residence. The morning sun shone through the bay window, little particles of dust moving in the rays.
"What happened to me?" she asked in a dreamlike state, coughing from a dry mouth, not looking to see who was in the room.
"It's alright. You had a…strongreaction, let’s say," a woman said, and Rem looked to see that it wasFiona.
She handed water to Rem.
Rem drained the glass without taking a breath, despite how she trusted a rabid raccoon more than Fiona. If it were to poison her, well, that would have been done already. She coughed and cleared her throat. "How long have I been out?"
"Just for ten hours or so."
"Just?" she croaked and glared at the female.
Rem averted her gaze from the Elder’s eager eyes and looked out the window on the other side of the room, the faintest glow from morning visible through the glass. She scratched her nose and finally seemed to grasp just how long she had been out. "Why are you here? Where is Ronan? Where is Nia?"
"Ronan just left not but a few minutes ago, and in that timeframe, I woke you up. Just in time for the sunrise.”
Rem sharply looked at Fiona, not trusting that Ronan wasn’t here.
"What do you want, Fiona?” Rem demanded.
The Elder Witch’s hair was frayed, strands hanging out of the usually meticulous braids.
She spoke with urgency, her bloodshot eyes ravenous, as if she had been desperate to speak to Rem. “To have a chat. It seems my curse interacted with the change, and they have all noticed. So, now we talk about how we deal with that. I’ve been working what I can, but I may not be able to hide it fully… I was worried the large one wouldn’t leave the room, but he seemed to respect your need for privacy—for his dear Alpha’s sake—when I said you might need to quickly change clothes. So, while he thinks you are undressing, you are going to listen to me and put on your best lying face for this, Rem.”
Rem considered her, aware that the Elder Witch was, frankly, alarmed. "I need more water first," Rem muttered.
"You can get it. You need to stretch your legs, anyway," Fiona said, retracting her warmth to allow the familiar indifference to return.
Rem decided not to argue. Her knees locked as she stood. Her legs were stiff as a board as she neared the water bucket to scoop more into her glass. She drank desperately, water dribbling down her chin.
"First… I need to know what happened to you, on the trail?" Fiona asked, the false warmth returning.
Rem placed a hand on her stomach as she burped, a queasiness telling her she drank too much. “Why are you here, Fiona?” she reiterated.
“That is clearly my concern, not yours. What happened on the trail?” she persisted.
"What did Ronan tell you?"
"He gave me his side of the story. I want yours now.”
"What did he tell you?" Rem repeated as she stared out the window, her forehead gently touching the glass as she looked around the yard.
Where was he?
"That your veins turned black, and he suspected that the oncoming full moon had a role to play in that."
"Then that’s what happened,” she said, leaving out the bit about the warg.
