Elisabeth had no idea what happened overnight, but she has never seen Gwen train this hard to be a musketeer. When morning rolled around, she sat in a rocking chair on the farmhouse's deck and sewed, and the entire time she did, she watched her daughter. Gwen was in the front yard with her training outfit on, and in front of her was the practice dummy that she pulled out from the barn. Sword and shield in hand, she put up an extremely good fight with it. She wore her father's musketeer hat on her head and had a serious yet determined face turned on. She was extremely confident right now, and Elisabeth saw this, but she didn't know why Gwen was so determined all of a sudden. Did something happen to her overnight?
Just like any other day, school was very uneventful for Artie. With a breakfast plate in hand, he stood in a huge stone room and sat down at the furthest table away from other students. The boys wore the same uniform as him: short, brown boots, black pants, and long-sleeved, white shirts with a leather tunic over them. On the other hand, the girls wore long, navy blue dresses with boots of their own. No longer was Artie a wolf. He was a boy, but he wasn't very hungry right now. He tried to sort out in his head what happened to him at the village and overnight with the mysterious girl. Was he her brother? No, he couldn't be. He was an orphan. Resting his head on his arms, Artie poked at his breakfast and sighed. He didn't want to be here. He wanted to be with Gwen. Was that unusual? He barely knew her. If he saw her again, would she pick on him for being a freak? Artie did not know. All he knew was that he was not human - he was a beast and a failure to Baroque Hungary.
Slam! Gwen's dummy slammed his sword into her shield-like mirror. Just think, if she didn't have it, that would have ended very differently. She definitely still had some training to do.
From where she sat, Elisabeth even said, "Oh, goodness," and she quickly dropped the quilt she was sewing into her lap. She sometimes felt like Gwen was too confident. Too much confidence never ended well. Just look at Alexander the Great. Yikes. What should a mother do, though, when her seventeen-year-old daughter was so determined to find her brother, even though he most likely was dead? What happened to her overnight that caused her to change her personality? Elisabeth had to know. After all, mother knows best. She rose to her feet and called to Gwen, "Gwen!" At the sound of her voice, Gwen stopped training.
She faced her mother and asked, "Yeah, Mom?" as she dodged another sword strike from the dummy.
"I need to talk to you." Elisabeth answered, "Come into the house."
After breakfast, Artie tried to sneak away from school again so he could see Gwen. The school he went to had a huge courtyard as well as towers. In fact, it was a castle. The school served two main purposes: education as well as an orphanage. The main castle was the high school while a cluster of buildings further away from it was the orphanage. An additional cluster of buildings in the first cluster were schoolhouses for the orphan children until they were old enough to attend primary education. That's as if they weren't adopted by then. Artie was one of those orphans. Whenever a couple came to the orphanage, they always passed right by him and picked up another child. Nobody was interested in the boy who turned into a wolf at sunset, until he met Gwen. Last night had been magical, even though he left so abruptly.
Artie wore his black cloak over his head and headed towards the castle's drawbridge. He wore this same cloak in the village when he snatched Gwen's mirror from her. Unfortunately, he never made it to the drawbridge because one of the school's bullies stopped him...Percival (or Percy). Dressed in shining armor, he just came back from knight class. On his way to the bathing station, he ran into Arthur. Seeing him, all he wanted to do was pick on him some more.
Percy, who tossed his shield on his back, chuckled meanly and asked,
"Well, well, well. If it isn't Arthur."
"I like to be called Artie." Artie corrected with a glare.
"Where is a loser like you heading to?" Percy asked him, "Shouldn't you be hanging upside-down in a cave somewhere?"
"For your information, Percival, I'm going to meet a friend."
"A friend?" Percy burst out laughing. He clutched his tummy with one hand and rubbed his eye with the other, "Who would want to be friends with you? The only thing you're good for is laughs and kicks." Artie cringed when he said that. "Aw." Percy sarcastically said when he saw his face, "Is the baby going to cry? If I was you, loser, I would return to the orphanage, where you belong, and get ready for your downfall at this Friday's Knight Strike." Artie stomped his foot in frustration, but he refused to fight Percival. Instead, he just turned on his heel and did exactly what he wanted him to do - return to the orphanage. Behind, Percy crossed his arms and chuckled meanly.
Back at the farm, Elisabeth led Gwen into the farmhouse's living room. She headed over to a table that had stacks of books on them and started to rearrange them. Gwen examined the room up and down. Her mother was redesigning it, and so far, it looked pretty dang good. Before, it was so messy, she and Elisabeth could hardly find their way to the kitchen, but now the room was spotless. Wow. Was it really this big?
While Gwen admired the rearrangements, she asked, "What is it, Mother?"
"My dear." Elisabeth momentarily stopped with the books and peered over her shoulder to her, "Did something happen last night?"
"Happen? What are you talking about?" Gwen's back faced her mother as she studied a few paintings over the fireplace. She refused to look her directly in the eyes.
Elisabeth shrugged her shoulders at her daughter's question and admitted, "It's just, I feel like you suddenly are even more determined to become a musketeer now. You're training ten times harder. Did something influence you?"
"I thought you weren't interested in my training." Gwen said as she kept her back turned "I thought you wanted me to get married."
"I do, but...you're acting strange. You're training even harder, and you're not even looking me in the eyes when I'm talking to you. You never do this." Just like Artie, Gwen cringed when she heard that, and she slowly turned to face Elisabeth.
She crossed her arms, and her foot started to tap,
"Let's hear it."
"I would, Mom, but you won't believe me."
"What gave you a crazy idea like that? You're my daughter! Why wouldn't I believe you? Come on. What is it? Oh." She cracked a goofy smile when Gwen suddenly blushed, "I know that look anywhere." Curious, she pulled up a chair and sat down backwards on it. Elisabeth rested her hands on the top of it and asked her daughter, "Who is he? Will he produce beautiful grandchildren?"
"Mom!" Gwen only blushed harder.
"I'm kidding, doll! When will you learn to take a joke?" Suddenly, Elisabeth whooped, and she hopped up from her chair, "Oh, Gwen! I'm so proud of you! Come on! Give your mother a bear hug!" She hurried to her daughter and held her arms out to her.
Gwen tried to protest, "Mom, it's not like that," but Elisabeth went ahead and pulled her into a bear hug. She lifted her daughter a few feet off the ground and kissed her like crazy. Smooch. Smooch. Smooch. She left a bunch of lipstick stains behind on Gwen's cheeks.
When finally, she set her down, she scurried around the room and thought out loud,
"Oh my! I have to start planning! What's my son-in-law's favorite meal? How will I show him the sights and smells of Irodia? How should I introduce him to the farm?"
Gwen tried to grab her attention, "Mom! You have it all wrong!"
Elisabeth ignored her, "I should get changed!" and she looked herself up and down, "Oh, who am I kidding? All my dresses are the same. But maybe I can spruce one up when he comes for a visit? Wait." Finally, Gwen's words found their way into her brain. When she faced her again, she saw that she wasn't smiling, "You didn't meet your future husband, right?"
Gwen shook her head, "No. I met someone even more important."
"What's more important than a husband?" questioned Elisabeth as she sank back down in the chair. She adjusted it until it faced the desk that had the stacks of books on it. Now it was Elisabeth's turn to have her back facing her daughter. No longer was she excited. She just went ahead and started to rearrange the books again.
Gwen took a deep breath as she tried to find her words.
"Mom?" she eventually managed to say, and she slowly approached her from behind, "I met my brother."
Elisabeth froze. She looked like a statue.
Her skin turned white as she tried to process the news. "His name is Arthur, isn't it?" continued Gwen, "And he's fifteen years old." Just hearing her son's name caused Elisabeth to whiten so much, she looked like a ghost. A few tears appeared in her eyes. Her son was alive. "I have to find him again." Gwen admitted, "Only then can I truly call myself a musketeer. Mom? Please say something."
"Are you sure your lover's name isn't just Arthur?" Elisabeth finally asked.
"No." Gwen said with a shake of her head, "He's not my lover. He's my brother. A sister needs her brother."
"A brother needs his sister." Artie said when he reached the cluster of orphanage buildings in the school. He paced back and forth in front of one with his hands behind his back, "Why does everything have to happen to me?"
"Is something bothering you, Artie?" a familiar, mysterious voice suddenly asked behind him. Arabella. She followed him to school.
Startled, the young man whirled around, and his emerald green eyes widened at the sight of the imp-like creature hovering in front of him, "Arabella! What are you doing here?"
"Isn't it obvious, little wolf?" she asked a she settled down on his shoulders and wrapped her arms around his neck, "You are a child of destiny. It's time you start acting like one."
Artie rolled his eyes, "Arabella, please. Look at me." He peered down on his left arm and gently pulled the sleeve of his shirt up to his shoulder, continuing, "I'm chained like an ox." Just as he said it, there it was. The chain. It enwrapped his entire left wrist, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not pull it off. That's because the chain was magic, and only the correct choice would remove it.
Artie showed it to the imp and explained,
"I'm cursed. The chain proves it, and there's nothing I can do about it."
Only a second later, another mystical laugh escaped Arabella's lips, and she lightly punched the boy's shoulder, "Oh, you're hilarious!" She bounced off his shoulder and moved over to his face. Artie did not want to look at her, but she forced him to by slapping his cheek. "Listen to me, boy," she explained, "I did not curse you just for the heck of it. I did it for a reason."
"What reason? The only thing I've gotten out of this curse is laughs, kicks, and scars. Don't you see, Arabella? I'm haunted."
"No, you're not." Arabella edged closer to his young face and tapped his nose, "You're just un-confident. The girl you met yesterday is confident, and you need her in order to look beyond the boundaries of your cursed self."
"Why don't you just lift the curse now and get this chain off me?" Artie once again held his chained wrist up to the imp-like witch, and she studied it carefully, "You do not know how discomforting it is when you have an itch you can't scratch."
Arabella held the back of her hand up to her lips and chuckled, "I'd love to, kid, but I can't. Not until you fulfill your destiny."
"Oh, so now it's 'your destiny?' What's next?"
"Hey, dudes, look!" another voice suddenly shouted from off to the side, "Arthur is talking to himself again!" Percival. He and his band of two goons had appeared from out of nowhere. They came here only to pick on Artie again. No longer did Arabella hover in front of his face. She disappeared just as fast as she appeared.
That was typical of her. "It's Artie." Artie growled at the bullies, "What do you want now, Percy?"
"Oh, just wanted to make sure you're still in one piece." Percy told him in a mean voice, "We don't want you falling merely after two steps, now. Huh, Arthur?"
His goons chuckled behind him, but Artie felt the anger building up inside him. "It's Artie!" he snapped.
"'It's Artie!'" Percy mimicked in a high voice. He brought his palms to each of his cheeks, "I'll call you whatever I want, loser. You're going to follow me to the training room so I can whoop up on you again."
"You don't want to get into it with me." Artie explained in a brave voice.
"Oh, ho, ho! Did you hear that, Rex and Dex?" Percy peered back to his goons who continued to smirk, "The loser is trying to be brave."
As Artie's anger continued to increase, the chain on his wrist glowed up. He pulled his sleeve back down so the goons wouldn't see it. Luckily, they didn't. However, anger brought out Artie's beastly form.
Wolf fangs appeared in his mouth, and he growled at the bullies. "What's you problem, loser?" Percival asked him, suddenly feeling a tinge of nervousness in his body.
"Uh, boss?" Rex and Dex asked behind him.
Artie fell to his knees in the orphanage's courtyard and got down on all fours. This was weird. Never in his life did his beast form come out during daylight. He shook his head of blonde hair as he tried to fight the pain. Finally, maybe after five minutes, he returned to his normal self as he calmed down. No longer did he have fangs, and the wolf tail that appeared behind him vanished. However, he felt exhausted.
In front of him, Percy scoffed and said, "Geez, Arthur, no wonder you'll never get adopted." He held his fist up to his lips and turned to face his goons, "Let's away to the training ring, gentlemen!" Artie rose to his shaky legs, but he didn't stay standing for long. When he passed him, Percival shoved him into a puddle of mud. Splash! The young boy landed on his back and grunted. Slightly dizzy, he sat up and held his muddy arms out to his sides. "Whoops. Sorry." Percival said, but he didn't sound sorry at all. Artie glared as he watched him and his goons walking away. Where was Gwen when he needed her?
Returning to her farm, Gwen explained everything that happened to her in the past twenty-four hours. Except, it wasn't that simple. How would you explain to your parent that your long-lost sibling was a wolf?
Elisabeth's palms grew sweaty with Gwen's explanation, but she soon asked, "Wait a minute. Arthur is cursed?"
"I think so." Guinevere spoke, "How could he turn into a wolf if he wasn't? Mother, I need to know. Is there any school or orphanage in the area where I may find him?"
"Jualaline." Elisabeth answered without even thinking.
"What? What's a Jualaline?"
"It's an orphanage as well as a school. I went to its high school before I married your father."
"And, is that where I'll find my brother?" Gwen wanted to know.
"Guinevere, I know what you're thinking." Slowly and carefully, Elisabeth rose up off her chair and gave her daughter a haunting look, "I can't let you go. How do you even know that this boy you met is your brother? What if he's an imposter? There are dangerous people out there, my dear. Very dangerous. Like the Ottoman Empire."
"I thought your goal for the Emberblight family was to save it." Guinevere said in a stern voice, "How can I save it if I don't at least try to bring my brother home? Trust me, Mom. When I find Illusion, it will be like none of this ever happened."
"You only want to use the mirror to guarantee you a position in the musketeer world." Elisabeth fought back, "You're not going to use it on your brother or this family. Only for you own selfish dream." Ouch. That hurt.
Gwen clenched her fists and glared,
"Mom, it's not selfish! Artie and I are the children of destiny! Only Illusion can save our family and Irodia from an everlasting war! If you ask me, I think the perfect first step is to become a musketeer! You can try all you want, but you're not going to stop me!"
"I know." Elisabeth sighed, and she brought her hand to her face, "That's what I'm worried about." She shook her head and rubbed her eyes, "You're so much like your father: strong, independent, and brave. You have his blood and everything."
"You need to stop living your life in fear," said Guinevere, "If you're not going to get out there and save this family, then I will. After all, that is a musketeer's job. To protect villagers from their enemies - both physical and psychological."
"I don't want to lose you though." Elisabeth sobbed. She reached out and pulled some of Gwen's bangs off her face, "You're all I have left."
"Mom, you won't." Gwen smiled sheepishly and picked up her mother's hand. She gave it a small shake, "I'll make you proud. I promise I will bring my brother home. We will find Illusion and save everything you love."
Elisabeth sighed,
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but very well." She pulled hair out of her face ad wrapped her arm around her daughter's shoulders, "Come. It's time for you to sleep. You have a big day ahead of you." Then just like that, she got up from her chair and guided Gwen towards her room. The young woman could not believe what just happened between them. Did her mother seriously just say that she could go on an adventure to become a musketeer? As the two marched, she turned her head away from Elisabeth and closed her eyes.
A grin stretched across her face, and she clenched her fist, mouthing, Yes! Finally, she could live the dream she's always had, and it was all thanks to Artie.
The school/orphanage started to calm down for the night. Late afternoon classes just got out, and students piled out of the courtyard so they could meet up with their parents. Artie, on the other hand, was not able to experience a family reunion. There was no one for him. No father and no mother. All he could do was just return to the orphanage. With school satchel over his shoulder, he made his way over to a stage where students put on school plays. The area surrounding him was empty. All the students were on the other side of the castle with their parents. When he made it to the stage, he pulled his satchel up over his shoulder and set it down. He pushed it out of his way so he could climb. He crawled onto the stage, like a person crawling out of a pool who refused to use the ladder, and scurried to the center of it. Artie always felt big and powerful when he stood on it. It was times like these he did not feel like a failure.
The sight of the mountain range beyond the castle's walls intrigued him, and he stared at it for a good while. "Who am I?" Arthur asked himself during this special, magical moment. It was so peaceful. He almost felt like smiling, but then something caught the corner of his eye. The sun. As soon as it did, the peace faded, and he felt nervous. Artie slowly turned on the stage so he could get a good look at the sun. Sure enough, it was setting. Then that meant...
Once again, the chain on Artie's wrist glowed up, and the design of Illusion appeared above the back of his hand. Yelling in pain, he collapsed to his hands and knees and tried to slow down his breathing. After fifteen years, he thought he would be used to this by now, but it still pained him to transform. The boy shook like crazy on the ground. His human teeth faded and took on the form of the familiar wolf teeth that frightened Percival and his goons earlier. Artie's attention moved up to the orange and pink sky, and he yelled into the atmosphere. Only a second later, a wolf roar replaced his yell, and just like that...there was a flash of light, FLASH, and in the place of the un-confident fifteen-year-old was the wolf with the hair-like fur running down his neck.
When his transformation ceased, Artie fell to the ground - CRASH! Wiped out, he lost consciousness. This was not an unusual side effect of the metamorphosis. It always happened. Now, instead of a boy resting on the stage, it was a wolf. The design on his forehead flickered a few times before fading, as well as the chain.
Arabella soon appeared over Artie's motionless beast form. Nodding, she set herself down on his fuzzy back and yawned. The witch stretched her arms over her head and placed them behind her neck.
She patted Artie's shoulder and said one last thing as the day closed out, "Good night, Artie."
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