C16 The damned sixteenth year

. . . from here Larissa tells the story from her perspective.

As often as I could I spent time with my dragon. Sometimes, when it was already late and I had forgotten the time again, I even stayed with him in his cave at night. I used to light a fire and fall asleep on his warm belly. At the court, of course, they were worried about where I was in the beginning. After some time this became quieter regarding. When Crux was big enough, I climbed on his back and he rose with me into the air. To fly over the roofs of this world with my friend was indescribably beautiful. Past lakes whose waters glistened like diamonds in the sun, over great mountains whose peaks rose mighty against the kingdom of heaven. On Crux's back I felt no fear; I enjoyed this freedom when I looked hundreds of meters down and the world at my feet was so tiny. But very often we stayed near the Dragon‘s mountain, caught our food and sat together. Then we talked about God and the world. His language was impeccable. He had a deep, dark, almost booming voice. When he laughed, it was like the whole earth was vibrating. I shared almost everything with Crux. When I was worried, I told him, when I had a bad dream, I told him. I always kept him informed of what was going on in the clans. I especially liked hunting with him. Despite his size, he managed, again and again, to approach his prey unnoticed and to kill it. He either burned it, devoured it in one piece or impaled it on his curved horns. If I couldn't be with him once, it wasn't the end of the world for him. Most of the time he slept then and dragons can sleep long and deep. My other time I spent at the farm or in the forest with my circle of friends. Well, it was just my brother Tim, my cousins Frederick and Sebastian and my dearest friend Sven. I had grown up with them and shared a deep connection with them. They never felt jealous of me, although sometimes I was spoiled more than they were. Not with Crux, either. They had great respect for me for raising the dragon. After Crux had settled in the Dragon’s mountain, I showed them his new fortress. They were astonished at the sight and more and more often they came there and made friends with the dragon and he with them. Then we flew out together on his back. Emily also came to visit Crux very often. She always brought him a dragon cake, which she baked herself. It was enriched with good herbs that strengthened Crux after a long day; he liked it very much. Seeing my dragon get on well with the most important people in my life filled my heart with pride. I had done everything right, nobody had anything to fear from him.

In the evening I often sat with the boys in one of the living rooms of our castle. We played cards, drank wine or blood and told each other stories. My father used to invite Stephan and his family to dinner with us several times; my uncle Michael, my aunt Margot and my cousins ate with us almost every evening. From time to time others joined in, such as Emily and to my great regret Claus as well. I couldn't stand him. He was wrong and deceitful, only my father had always been too blind to see it. After we had eaten, I felt an incredible heat inside of me, which worried me very much, because vampires never got hot. Despite everything, I got involved in a game of chess with my brother. Tim was just starting to checkmate when my head started booming and I noticed things that seemed impossible. My senses, it seemed to me at least, had suddenly been sharpened many times over. My head was still grumbling violently, I heard the flies crawling on the walls in the kitchen and could that be possible? Yes, I even heard the very clear snoring of my dragon in his cave.

"Check and mate, sister, you've lost“, Tim looked up and became perplexed at my sight, "Um, tell me, are you all right? You look strange.“

To cover up the situation would take more questions off my shoulders, at least until I knew what was happening here.

"I think I caught something at dinner that wasn't so fresh. If you'll excuse me, I'll go to bed.“

Sven had also noticed that something was wrong. He stared at me with Argus‘s eyes. He stopped me at the stairs in the great lobby.

"Lis, are you all right?"

"I don't feel so good, I'm going to get some sleep, hopefully tomorrow morning everything will be better.“

"I may be wrong, but there was a great heat coming out of you. I’m surprised that nobody else has noticed it. Maybe you should contact Emily sometime.“

"Maybe. Good night.“

I turned my back on him and walked straight into my room. The night was hell. After hours of turning back and forth, I finally fell asleep. I was dreaming of confusing things and I felt so hot, like I was in a fever. But I knew it couldn't be. We vampires never got sick. In my dream the moon suddenly appeared in its full splendour. A full moon. The balcony door was wide open, had I left it open? But it didn't seem like a dream to me anymore. No, I opened my eyes. The moon shone in on my window and lured me with its cold hand. Am I crazy? That wasn't the body I was stuck in anymore. It was covered all over with brownish fur. Since the balcony door was already open, I jumped out of the ledge into the deep black night. Hopefully nobody had seen me, in the village never all slept at the same time. There was always a certain hustle and bustle. Where would I go? All I could think of was the forest. As inconspicuously as possible I sneaked there. When I arrived at the clearing, I accelerated my pace, the woods just passed me by, but I still saw everything clearly and unambiguously. In a fraction of a moment, I had reached the forest lake, four miles from my home. The moon shone brightly over my head, in the reflection of the water I saw another figure. Could it be? Or was that a dream? No, I'd never dreamed so real. I had felt the heat inside of me, had noticed how my body was changing and now I saw something. A werewolf whose fur wore the same colour as my hair, that of the ebony; even my eye colour didn’t seem to have changed, it remained sapphire blue. To make sure it was really me, I bit myself in my own paw. Ouch! That hurt, and I still didn't wake up. That was actually me, wrapped up in a body still alien to me. A lot to start with, I had to digest that first. How could that be? Was there possibly a spell behind it? Further away I could hear a noise, a grunt. It was a boar. His strong smell penetrated deep into my nostrils. Immediately my hunting instinct came up and I hurried to the sow. I hid behind a stone. It was a wild boar big enough to impale a human. But no match for me. I stalked myself, made a huge jump, grabbed it with my claws and bit it in its throat. It died instantly and I ate most of it. Then I howled once strongly up, straightened my snout thereby towards the moon. For a while I still walked around in the wolf costume, this body wasn‘t so bad at all, I will get used to it quickly. The dawn was indescribably beautiful. With the rising sun, I turned back into a vampire. I wasn't far from the castle, if I hurried, I could still get to breakfast in time without anyone noticing. Past the horse stables, through the garden and finally climbed up the house wall and I was back in my room. As if nothing had happened, I slept another two hours.

The kitchen bell took me out of my sleep and signalled that breakfast was ready. I was sitting at the table like I had been whacked. My metamorphosis had demanded a lot from me physically. I couldn't stop thinking about last night. I looked over to Tim, looked at him closely to see if he had any signs of being a werewolf. But he only stuffed himself with a large slice of bread with fruit spread and drank warm milk with it. My father saw that my plate was still empty.

"But, child, don't you want to eat anything? You're always a brave woman when it comes to eating, aren't you?"

I was still full of the wild boar, but of course, I couldn‘t say that.

"Oh, you know, I should lose some weight. After all, I'm your daughter and I have to make a good match to get married.“

"Whatever you say.“

That's bullshit. Of course I didn't have to lose any weight and getting married was out of the question. But my little lie was enough, everyone continued to eat happily. My mother always took her tea after breakfast in the ladies‘ room. Today, for once, I joined her. Mother had always had an open ear for me and I urgently needed advice. The ladies' room was located in the basement, in the rear part of the castle. It was furnished according to mother's taste, playful, with comfortable armchairs, a large canapé, at whose feet a warm lambskin lay, and wine red velvet curtains on the windows. A fireplace provided the necessary warmth and a massive bookshelf provided good reading material. Since I had never accompanied my mother to her tea before, she had become particularly attentive and immediately turned her attention to me.

"My child, I‘m glad that you‘re here with me. But my gut tells me something's bothering you. Are you heartbroken?"

"No, Mother", I smiled slightly, "that's not it.“

How and if I should even tell her, that worried me. But why keep behind the bush when that's exactly why I was here? I loosened my tongue.

"You know I went to bed early last night. I couldn't sleep for ages, and then it happened.“

"What happened?"

„I, I … have turned into a werewolf.“

She was speechless. As strange as it seemed to me, it was for her.

"Please don't be angry about it, Mother.“

"Why should I be angry? I knew this day would come.“

"Come again?"

I couldn't believe my ears. Had she known all this time what was inside me? She took my hand and put it in her lap. That's what she used to do when she wanted to calm me down.

"Listen. You were born that way because I wanted you to be. I wanted to have a special child carrying the blood of all three tribes. Therefore, when I was with you in other circumstances, I always carried an enchanted moonstone with me, which caused you to be endowed with the powers of a werewolf. Your father, he knows nothing about it and he must never experience it either, you hear, nobody must experience it.“

"Why not?"

"Because he knew nothing of my plan, he could misunderstand it. And it's none of everyone else's business, not even of the witches. I don't know how they‘d react to it, when they’re always worried about the balance of nature. You have to promise me you won't tell anyone, you hear?"

"All right, but what about the transformation as such? How should I behave in the future?"

"If you can avoid it, don't change at all. Otherwise, do it when no one‘s nearby and hunt only far away from here, never in the fishing grounds of the vampires or the werewolves themselves.“

Whew! That was hard stuff. How was I supposed to do that? My mother wouldn't let up until I swore I wouldn't tell anyone. Deep down, though, I knew I couldn't. I had to trust others with it. I couldn't carry that burden around alone with me. Of course, I listened to mother's imploring not to tell father. I loved my father with all my heart, but I didn't know if he could handle it. And I didn't trust the witches enough except for Emily, but I didn't want her involved. So all that remained were Tim, Frederick and Sebastian. Although it was raining cats and dogs, the three of them were about to ride out with the horses. It came handy, I would join them, but I would determine where it went. I vehemently stood in the front door of the stable and didn‘t let them pass, they were supposed to listen to me. My brother and cousins were four years older than me. Even though I was still his little sister, Tim didn't like it when I cut in between. I closed the stable door. Frederick jumped off his horse and stood against me.

"What are you doing? Can't you leave us alone? We were going to ride down to town, to the prostitutes.“

"This will have to wait. I got something to show you.“

Tim shook his head. "And what‘s so important that you stand in our way and forbid us to ride out?"

"I haven‘t forbidden you to ride out. I'll come with you, but we'll change the route. We have to get far away from here. The walls here are as thin as paper and I don't want anyone else to know.“

"Know what?", Sebastian asked.

"Be patient, you'll see.“

Now I had aroused their curiosity, they couldn't help but follow me. The horses weren‘t afraid to take us wherever I wanted, even in this heavy rain. We trotted on them comfortably through the forest; I was in no hurry. I noticed how much the three had changed. I had grown up with them, shared all their childhood memories with them. Until three years ago, they had been rather boyish. Now they had become young, handsome men. My brother and the others had gotten a muscular, taut body. Their features had become more prominent. Frederick and his brother Sebastian wore their hair a little longer; it was black and curly, like their mother's hair. Tim, on the other hand, looked very much like our father, but what these three young men had in common were their ivy green eyes. Frederick and Sebastian now wore a beard, my brother used to shave it off. From a closer source I knew that they were very popular with the ladies because of their attractiveness and they themselves didn‘t seem to be averse to them either. They had all already had sexual contact with another female being, they often enough rubbed it in my nose. Mainly they did it with the prostitutes from the nearby villages and when one of them gave them a very special sexual pleasure, they rewarded her very generously. Our people had plenty of money. We stopped at a big chestnut tree. That was far enough from home. I checked to see if nobody was around. The coast was clear.

"Well, sister. What's so terribly urgent?"

I came immediately to the point, let the power flow through me and turned into the werewolf. The horses were frightened and shrunk back, threw their riders down and ran away. My friends lay on the floor, staring stunned into my face. Their mouths remained open and they were speechless. I signaled to them that I posed no danger by lying on the floor and whimpering like a dog asking for attention. After some time I finished the play and took on vampire shape again.

"Well, what do you say?"

"What do we say to that? Lis, you just turned into a two-meter werewolf right in front of us on broad daylight.“

"I'm aware it must seem very shocking to you, I'm in the same situation. But I had to involve you.“

Tim was beside himself. "Who else knows about this?"

„Except you, only our mother knows. And she told me not to tell anyone, father in particular.“

"And now you're dragging us into this? If mother tells you anything, it's for a good reason, so why are you doing this? Why couldn't you keep it to yourself?"

"Because I need a pack“, it burst out of me, this urge I tried to smother, but couldn't, "a wolf‘s nothing without its pack. I can't go to the other wolves, they won't accept me. You're the only ones I trust one hundred percent.“

"Look, Lis“, it was Sebastian, the meek one among them, who now took the floor, "we're not werewolves, probably we couldn't serve you well enough, like a werewolf needs from its pack. I don't even know if we could go hunting with you.“

"Why not? What‘s the difference between vampires and wolves in their hunting methods? Aren't they both monsters and don't they both kill in the same bestial way? Wolves hunt in packs, doesn't mean vampires can't. We'd hunt off the hunting grounds, I'd never put you in danger. Guys, come on, I need you guys right now. You're my closest friends. Please give me some proof that you trust me too. Accept me for who I am, because it's not my fault. And if it can be arranged somehow, then you won't tell anyone.“

Concerned they stared holes into the sky, as if nobody wanted to understand how I was just. Tim approached me with just a few steps, grabbed my hand and looked deep into my eyes.

"You're my sister no matter what. I will always support you and never stab you in the back. So, yes, your secret is safe with me.“

His embrace made me feel safe. Frederick and Sebastian also swore their loyalty to me and joined in the embrace. All three of them stood around me, forming a kind of wall to protect me. I‘d still need this protection, because the strength of a wolf is its pack.