6: Saga
1168 Words
"Are you f*****g kidding me?" Robin groaned as he stared down at his phone.
We were supposed to be enjoying a coffee in a cute little café, but he couldn't stop checking for updates and it was ruining the mood.
"What is it now? Did someone disagree with you about what the best live Black Metal album released in 2012 was?"
My voice was dripping with sarcasm, and he narrowed his eyes and put the phone down on the table in front of me without saying anything.
I sighed, and picked it up, expecting to read a message from one of the women he had left behind or something equally inconsequential.
"Is that...?"
"What the f**k do you think?" he snapped, grabbing the phone back from me.
It was a picture of him - his passport photograph, to be precise - and it had been shared on a couple of the awful gossipy groups online that he did everything in his power to avoid at the best of times.
I opened my own phone and checked a couple of accounts myself.
"It must have been that check-in woman," I sighed. The passport picture was captioned with a reference to his middle name.
I hadn't noticed her take the picture at the time.
"Wonderful," he sighed, and sank further into the elegant but hideously uncomfortable chair.
"It's not so bad," I lied.
It definitely was, and he was clearly mortified, but I slid my phone across the table to him anyway.
"Hilarious," he scowled down at the comment I had highlighted: Attila the Hunk. "I'm glad my middle name is so amusing to people."
"I'm sorry," I sighed. I didn't really know what else to say.
He shook his head, and swallowed the expensive little espresso that had been cooling in front of him in a single mouthful.
"Let's just go. I'd rather not miss the flight on top of everything else."
"Robin, we don't have to leave for the airport for another eight hours."
"Saga..."he sighed, then glanced around.
"You know you're more likely to be recognized at the airport, right? If you're trying to avoid people you're better off waiting here."
He exhaled deeply, but nodded in agreement. That was what he cared about - a modicum of privacy.
"I need a smoke," he announced as he stood up abruptly.
The way he was fiddling with his nose ring made it clear that wasn’t what he actually needed; he wanted to shift into his wolf form, because he was frustrated and upset about the stupid picture being shared online.
“You need a vacation,” I quipped.
He didn’t find it funny.
“I could really do without your particular brand of bullshit right now, alright? I’m pissed off enough without you making it worse for your own amusement.”
Hurtful, but not unfair; he was usually fun to wind up.
I wasn’t as oblivious as he seemed to think, though, and this was clearly not an appropriate time to tease him.
“Sorry,” I sighed. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He laughed, and shook his head.
"Talk about it? Saga, some loser at the airport took a picture of my passport and shared it on a couple of websites, it's no big deal. It's annoying, but something else will distract them soon enough."
"Right," I sighed, and stood up.
He wasn't ready to talk about the fact he was running away from everything, and he was only going to snap at me if I tried to pressure him.
"We should pick up our bags and get back to the airport," he mumbled.
The thought of sitting in a dour, miserable silence with him for hours was less than appealing, and I offered him a sympathetic smile and made one last effort.
"Why don't we go and explore properly for a couple of hours, first?"
He sighed impatiently. Apparently, the suggestion was part of what he considered my particular brand of bullshit.
"I'm too tired for this."
I raised one of my eyebrows and left him standing by the table, emerging onto the bustling street and immediately regretting it because it was blazing hot and there were too many people around.
He shadowed me, radiating pure irritation until I flagged down a cab and asked for a ride to Castelli Romani in perfect Italian.
It took an hour to get there, but Robin was less than impressed by the fact I had dragged him so far for no apparent reason.
“What were you expecting to find here?” he demanded, following me through the car park we had been dropped off in as I made my way toward a hiking trail. “We’re in the middle of nowhere, it feels like it's a thousand degrees, our s**t is still in the city, and —"
"— will you calm down?" I snapped at him. "This is exactly what I was expecting, and it is exactly why I wanted to come here."
Because he was agitated, and he needed to spend some time as a wolf to ease his frustration.
He looked at me, still skeptical, but he seemed to understand what I was getting at, and he slowly began to nod.
"Let's go," he said quietly, and turned to start walking down the path.
As soon as we were far enough away from prying human eyes, he climbed up into the rough, twisting branches of an ancient cork-oak tree so he could stash his things.
He leaped down from the tree again as a large, black wolf, and waited patiently for me to hide my own belongings with his.
I would rather not have left the pure white Balenciaga mini dress in the canopy, but I had no other options, so I jumped down in my wolf form after leaving the flowing white dress tucked amongst the branches, and padded through the trees to catch up with Robin.
He hadn't bothered to wait for me; there was too much to explore, and he had needed the release that transforming into his wolf form gave him.
I was careful to remain out of sight; my white fur and flaming amber eyes were too distinctive for me to risk humans seeing me in my wolf form.
When I caught up to Robin, he was lying in the shade of a laurel tree, and I padded quietly over to join him, expecting to spend a quiet afternoon enjoying the natural beauty of the region.
The distinctive, spicy fragrance of the laurel tree was almost enough to mask the scents we were surrounded by, but as I lay in the shade and closed my eyes, I couldn't ignore the trace of another wolf in the air.
Not just another wolf - another werewolf.
Robin hadn't picked up on the scent yet, but I couldn't ignore it, and I left my brother to relax alone while I went in search of the other wolf.
- Writer
