Bab 32: Briar, are you a...
I started to go to Mr. Briar's every day. I was learning more and more about the foliage and plants that were near his house, around the village, and the ones that he apparently brought and planted when he moved here.
"Briar, where did these plants come from?" I asked him as we tended the herbs in the garden and prepared them for the cold weather. "You said that most of them are special, even magical somehow so, where did you get them?" I had been watching this man closely and trying to learn from him and about him at the same time.
"Well, most of them came from the city. I bought them there a long time ago, before I was banned from there."
He continued on like this was nothing at all. How could he drop something on me like that, saying that he had been banned from the city, and then just leave it at that. He needed to say more than that! GAH!
"Briar, why were you banned from the city?" I was so curious now. Even though I knew it was rude of me to ask, I just had to know.
"Let's just say that some people in the city didn't agree with what I had to say about some things. The King got annoyed with me and told me to leave and never come back."
"The King?" I gasped at the words that had just come out of his mouth. "You angered the king of the wolves? And he didn't execute you? You are very lucky, Briar." For some reason that made him laugh softly like I had something funny.
"The wolves, at least the higher ranked ones, don't kill humans as much as you might think." His voice was soft and even, he seemed to be telling the truth, so how come it went against everything that I had ever been taught?
"I don't understand." There was evident shock filling my voice, I couldn't hide it right now.
"I know that you have been told to fear the wolves, and you should. They can be cruel and evil beings at times. However, most of the time, they ignore humans. Humans aren't allowed in the city unless they are servants or merchants. They are allowed to work in houses or sell things to the market and buy things for their own villages. Admittedly, the merchants are treated better than the servants. And it is only the lower ranking wolves that use humans as servants since they can't afford to pay for another wolf to be their servant. That, or their status is too low for the other wolves to be their servant."
"So, you're telling me that I need to fear the lower ranked wolves but not the higher ranked ones?" I tilted my head in confusion at his words. That didn't make much sense to me either.
"No, you should fear all of the wolves. It's just that you are not likely to meet a higher ranked wolf, so you do not need to fear being executed by them. In truth, they're more likely to imprison you before killing you out right."
"Briar?" I called his name as I stood up. He was still bent over his little garden and looking at the plants.
"Yes, Addie." He stopped, stood, and looked at me in the eyes.
"Are you a wolf?"
It had been a little over a month now and I had been suspecting a few things about him as the days had gone by. Some of the things that he said didn't match up with the things that I knew to be true. He had disappeared for two days out of nowhere, cancelling lessons completely. He seemed to talk about his past as if it were a very long time ago, way longer than the thirty some odd years that he looked to be. And he knew so much about these plants that came from the city. From the wolf city. And they were probably only sold to the wolves and not humans.
"Addison, why would you ask me that?" He looked shocked, a little taken aback and not at all like he was denying it.
"I..I..I don't know, Mr. Briar. I..i..it's j..just th..that some of the th..th..things that you have s..s..said seem off or somehow different to me. I..I didn't mean to upset you, or offend you." I was scared. Not scared of him, but of upsetting him. I didn't want to stop being his apprentice.
"Would you not be frightened to meet a wolf out here? That would be bad, right? Wolves live in the city or in their villages, right? It would be scary to have them coming into a human village and living secretly among them." Why did he sound so calm right now? Wasn't he going to get angry with me for asking him that?
"I would never be afraid of you, Mr. Briar. I couldn't be. You're too nice. Wolf or not, you're my friend, my mentor, and I trust you." I put all of my feelings into that declaration as I told him how I honestly felt.
"You shouldn't blindly trust people, Addie, that can cause you more woes in the future. However, I am glad that you trust me. I hope to never do anything that will break the trust you have so kindly placed in me." He smiled at me and turned toward the house.
"Wait? Does that mean that I was right?" He hadn't answered me at all.
"Addie." He stopped, turned back toward me again and smiled. "Didn't I tell you before that everyone has secrets? Sometimes, they're best left undiscovered."
That, in not so many words, was him telling me that I was right. He was a wolf. He was a wolf, but he was living here with us and helping us.
"Will you ever confirm it for me? Not now, but maybe one day in the future?" I asked him. "I will never think of you differently than I do right now, Briar. I trust you just as much now as I did yesterday and the day before. And I know that my trust in you will never falter."
"Thank you, Addie." His smile was kind and filled with emotions that I didn't understand. Was he happy or sad right now? "Maybe I will tell you about my past one day. Maybe I will be able to bring myself to talk openly about it with you. However, you're hiding something from me too, aren't you?" He looked at me knowingly, his vivid eyes piercing me like they could see straight to my soul and knew about everything.
"I..I..I-."
"Don't worry, Addie." He interrupted my faltering with a smile. "I won't pressure you to talk about it. Maybe one day you will tell me about it all as well. Maybe, in the future, there will come a day where we will tell each other about our pasts."
He walked back toward his house after that. He didn't say another word on the subject and I didn't bring it up again for the rest of the day.
***BRIAR'S POV***
That kid is very sharp. She had already been able to figure out what I was after just a month. She's probably been suspecting it for a while now. Hell, none of the people in this village even suspected me and I have been here for ten years now. How had she figured it out so quickly?
Maybe it was because she wasn't like the other people in this village. She didn't talk like most of them. And she didn't act like them either.
Now, don't get me wrong, she acted like them in most ways, all that mattered anyway. However, there were some things that just didn't add up for me. Like when she was talking about the book on medicinal herbs that she read. There was no book like that in this village and there wasn't anyone who would have passed through town who would have let a kid read it if they had one.
Not to mention, I had once heard her say something like 'in my Adelaide times'. Who was Adelaide? And what did Addison have to do with Adelaide? Aside from the eerily similar names that is.
Who exactly was Addison Mercer? And where exactly did she come from? Was she really the daughter of the merchant? Was she really just some super smart kid that picked up on everything super easily and just didn't like people to know that about her? Or was there something more?
And while I was at it, what was with her eyes? Not only did she have runes on her arms but she had two differently colored eyes. Neither of those things were what I would call 'normal'. She was unlike anyone else that I had ever met, and that was saying something. I had lived all over the country and I had lived for a long time. For her to be such an enigma was definitely a surprise to me.
I had a feeling that there was more to the story of the girl named Addie. I wasn't going to pressure her to tell me. though. I could try to figure it out on my own or I could just wait for her to feel like she could tell me herself. Either way, it didn't matter. I was going to train her regardless. It didn't matter to me who she was or where she came from. What mattered was that there was something special about her, something that a healer truly needed.
Hadiah
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