Derium stayed with us for a couple of nights, but claimed finding food was too hard for him. He thanked Mylicous for his generosity and left. I stayed as promised with Yura and I would ask repeatedly over the years, for her to come with me to my place, where I wanted to live. I always got the “maybe one day,” response. After four years in she gave me a proposal.
I was up one night during the full moon. Mylicous had recruited two more people to the pack. Amurk who was a beefy guy, with short curly hair and broad shoulders and Linn who said she had traveled from a place called China. They both had stories, but Linn had stories about a lot of fighting, which intrigued me. The normal full moon activities were going on, while Yura stayed in with me. I was drinking on Mylicous’s drink he made, which had grown on me, when Yura approached me.
“Marry me, and I will go with you,” she said, catching me mid-drink, causing me to spit some out.
“What?” I asked, shocked, wiping my face.
“Marry me and I will go with you,” she smiled at me, “Usually the man asks the woman, but I didn’t think you were ever going to,” she eyes gleamed in the fire.
The response came out of my mouth before I even thought about it, “Okay,” I said, not that I regretted saying it, I just didn’t want to say it yet. I loved Yura, and if marrying her would get me back to Ireland, then that’s what I wanted to do. I know, not the right reasons to marry someone, but it was what it was.
“Should we tell Mylicous?” I asked.
“Well, yes, he’s going to do the ceremony,” she said.
“Ceremony?” I asked confused, throughout my many years of living, I never paid attention to the customs of man and woman joining together.
“Mylicous will use a blade he forged and cut our hands, we will then join hands and let our blood mingle, keeping our hands down and over a chalice filled with Mylicious’s drink, the blood will drip in, then Mylicous will say prayer on our behalf. After the prayer, we will then drink from the chalice, but we do not swallow, we kiss, and exchange fluids, then we swallow.”
“What happens after that?”
“We are together, then we spend the night together, like many before, only we are bonded.”
I smiled and didn’t even realize it, the thought made me happy. She had some tears in her eyes, I did not, I just felt happiness. She put her head on my shoulder, her heart was racing, so I put my arm around her and squeezed her.
“We will tell Mylicous in the morning. This is the first year his children were able to perform in the rituals of the full moon, so I don’t want to overwhelm him too much,” Yura mentioned.
I had forgotten this was their first full moon, I just hoped they remembered they were brother and sister after transforming. I heard the howls that let me know the night’s activities were coming to an end and they pack would soon be coming back inside. I threw more wood on the fire, because it was the dead of winter and I’m sure they’d be cold.
Mylicious’s daughter was first down the steps, she had a hateful look on her face, until she saw me, then smiled. She was quickly followed by Amurk, who put his hands on Amka’s shoulders. Amka turned around and quickly squatted his hand off her shoulder.
“I told you from the beginning I wasn’t interested, and you tried anyway,” she said and stormed off.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, it just happened!” Amurk yelled, throwing his hands up in the air as took the last step.
“Lesson to learn,” Mylicous said, coming up behind Amurk and shoving him to the ground. “When a female in the pack says no, it means no. Next time you won’t get just a bite from me, I’ll take your head clean off, in fact, you don’t get to sleep in here with us tonight. You can go sleep outside.”
Amurk, didn’t even respond, he walked past the rest of the group with his head down. Yura looked at me and I looked at her, “I think tomorrow is definitely a better time to tell him,” I said.
“Yes, I believe so,” she agreed.
We then retired to her room, where we would lay together, until she fell asleep. I would then get up and wonder about. I stoked the fire some more and was watching a stick burn when Amka sat beside me.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I don’t like these full moon activities, I mean the music, katajjag, the drinking and the dancing are nice. I just don’t like the mating part….,” she trailed off, acting as if she had something else to tell me.
“Go ahead child and tell me what you’re thinking,” I said. Her eyes swelled up with tears a little bit.
“I’m not drawn to any of the males here,” she took a deep breath, “I’m attracted to the females,” she said and sighed.
I put my around her and gave her a gentle hug, “You’ll be alright Amka, I’m sure Mylicous will understand.”
She sniffled a little, “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure, he one of the most understanding people I know, he understood Derium in the past, he will understand you.”
She took a deep breath and smiled, and I gave her another, gentle hug. She got up and went to her room, I stayed out by the fire a few more hours then went back to lay with Yura.
She was covered up
