Faith’s point of view :-
-------------------------
Finally, after a week’s struggle, Sunday came. It’s not like we are completely free today, but the school is off and mom is going to train us. It can’t be more fun than this. She is really cool with us. After finally getting late sleep in the morning, we got ready to face a new challenge with mom. Cassia Romaro, the queen of all supernaturals and the keeper of all kinds of power. It’s not easy to get success in her challenges, but this is what we like. A tough challenge to prove what we can do. And today is one of the day to prove ourselves.
“Good morning, kids. All of you made it in time today. Excited for today’s new challenge?”
“Very.. Let’s get started.” Hope jumped up in excitement.
“We will.. But first, let’s hang out for a little while together. It’s been so long since I got some alone time with my babies. Let’s sit down here.” We couldn’t refuse her wishes. It’s true that we don’t get to spend much time with her because eighter we are busy with our study, or she is busy with her work. This is the only day we get her free. So, to have some alone time with her, we all sat down on the ground surrounding her.
“So, tomorrow is your 16th birthday. What is your plan for tomorrow?”
“We haven’t thought anything special yet.” Mirth replied to her.
“I have thought of something. I was thinking about travelling around the city and finding our mates. It’s time for us to find our other half.” Hope expressed her thoughts with dreamy eyes, making all of us shocked. How can she say that to our mother so frankly? But she didn’t mind anything and laughed to brush it off.
“I know you are craving to find your soulmates. But be careful. Sometimes things dosen’t go as we plan. Sometimes moon goddess test us by giving us someone who dosen’t need us. Sometimes, our mates break our hearts as well. But do not break for whatever happens in your life. Trust in our mother. She has written happiness for all of us. Maybe it’s sooner or maybe it’s later. If not with the one written for us, then with someone who needs you in life. Like your uncle Sean and aunt Cole. Aren’t they happy in their life?”
“We understand, mom. We won’t jump to any conclusion before checking out the reality. We will be patient and let our mate come to us.” I replied to mom. She is right. From the stories we have heard about our parents and godparents, we know that getting a mate is not that easy, even if the moon goddess has made them specially for us. We have to stay strong for every surprise that is coming in our way.
“Mom? Did it hurt really bad when a mate rejects the bond?” Hope’s excitement is gone, and she is now scared of getting second thoughts.
“It hurts more when they choose someone else in place of you. But you are strong. You are strong than a mate bond. Fight with it if necessary, but don’t let it take a pleasant part out of you. Always remember. Your family will be there for you all the time.”
“Thank you, mom. I will be strong. I will choose the right path. And I know that I got all of your support for the rest of my life.” We all went near her and hug her. I love it when we share some family hug like this.
“That’s my brave girl. I think all of you understood what I meant. Now, let’s get started with our training.” She got up from the ground and we did the same as well. Dusting off the dirt from our body, we got ready to hear the challenge.
“So, today’s challenge is about teamwork. I will be the enemy and you have to catch me. You have to work together and complete the task. Trust each other. Let’s get started. I am going to run first because I am the enemy.. In exact five minutes, track me.” With this, she started running. But stopped a little forward.
“And yeah. If there is any problem or if you feel any danger. Howl.. Rest of your family is on alert.” After saying her last words, she vanished into the forest.
“Okay.. This challenge is going to be exciting. Truce, you will track her scent. Faith, you go up and get the visual. Hope and I will look for her around. Who ever finds her first, use the mind link. We will be quiet before catching her. She is sharp. Even a little sound will help her find us and it will become hard to catch her.” Mirth gave us the game plan. It’s a perfect practical plan. We all agreed to it without any question.
We waited for five minutes. After the time was over, we started tracking her. Truce went first and tracked her scent, that went east from where we were. Then we started running. She is not stopping anywhere near. So, after running for a few miles, we stopped and tracked her again. This time, Truce couldn’t find her scent anywhere near. So, it’s time to get visual. They motioned me and I know exactly what to do. Climbing on the tallest tree’s peak, I started checking for her. There is a possibility that she is hiding on top of the trees, so that the wind can blow her scent to another side when she is hiding in a completely different place. Just as I thought. Once I was on top, I saw something move from another nearby tree.
‘We got her. She is about a mile to the west from our location, on top.’ I told my group in the link.
‘That’s great. We are going to surround her. I am going to take the lead and stop her from going far. Rest of you come from all three sides of her. We will catch her in the center, leaving no place to escape.’ Mirth gave us our next plan.
‘Rodger that. Faith, stay on top and keep following her. Hope, take the right and I will take the left. Mirth hurry and stop her before she gets out of reach.’ Truce cleared what part we each are getting. Without wasting any time, we started moving according to the plan.
I kept following mom from top of the trees. It was getting hard to move from one tree to another while keeping my eyes on her. But I am not going to back up when we are this close. I can’t fail my brothers and sister. All of a sudden, she was vanished from my eyes. The tree tops became silent aging, and that means she is on the ground aging.
‘Truce hurry.. She is on the ground. I lost visual on her.’ I informed everyone in the link.
‘I saw her. She is going right. She is going to cross me. Truce hurry..’
Hope screamed in the link and for a moment, we thought we were not going to be able to catch her anymore. But in the next moment, I heard them say that they caught her. In the next second, I also reached to the place to find that Truce and Hope were covering her from her right side and front. Mirth and I also covered the left and back, trapping her in middle.
“You have nowhere to run, mom. Surender yourself.” Mirth announced to her.
“Not so soon, my boy. It will take a lot more than what you guys did to catch an enemy. Try harder.” By saying this, she grabbed a nearby branch and climbed the tree to move beside us in less the time we need to blink. We were all amazed by her speed and stood in our place frozen like solid. How fast did that happen?.
“We.. We need to follow her before she gets far.” I told everyone to bring them to the game while I was myself watching the way she went is shocking.
“Faith is right. We need to move. No plans.. Just follow her until we catch her.” With Truce’s one word, we all started running behind her, in hope of catching her.
But she is not an easy prey to lose so easily. She is the queen of all supernaturals herself. Catching her is not going to be easy. We ran behind her for another few miles until we all became tired and started falling behind. Seeing that, she picked up her speed and in less that a second, she vanished again into the forest. Seeing her nowhere around, we stopped to take a breath.
“Where did she go? She was in front of us a moment ago.” Hope asked, while huffing and sweating furiously, like the rest of us.
“She’s not making any exception for us. It’s going to be hard to finish this challenge.” Truce is now holding his legs to ease the pain he’s having.
“We have to think of a better way.” I said among them.
“Let’s use our strengths again. Sart from the beginning. Truce, let Lupo come out and track her. His nose is sharper than ours. Faith, get up again. See if you can find anything. Once we get a clue about her location, I will use my speed and follow her while you guys try to surround her. But this time, if we surround her, we will not tell her to stop and directly attack her and pin her down.” Mirth is sounding angry now and wants this fuss to get over soon. We all agreed with him without any complain because there is nothing else we can think about at this time. He is the one to lead us from the beginning, so he would keep the lead till the end.
We did as he said, and Truce changed into his wolf form. He started searching on the ground for her whereabouts, while I went up on the trees again to check if I can find her. But there is nothing. Tress are all calm as the wind passing from the lake was blowing swiftly, making a whistling sound in my ears. Everything is so calm.
‘Lupo got her scent. She went towards the lake. This is our chance. If we hurry, we can outsmart her and trap her at the edge of the lake.’ Mirth’s announcement gave a hope to our hearts. Maybe now we can catch her.
With the hope of blocking her way, we ran from all directions and reached the lake. But once we were at the edge, we realized that mom is not here. How is this possible? Where can she go? Lupo tried again to catch her smell, but even he can’t find anything around us. What just happend? Did she actually got vanished?
“Lupo’s saying that she was right here. Her smell ends in here. But where is she?” Mirth said that once he transformed into his human form again.
“I checked very carefully on the trees. She is not there.” I told them as I just came down from a tree.
“If she is not on the ground or on the trees, then where is she?”
“Maybe in the water.” We all were shocked to hear Hope’s reply to Truce’s question.
“Water is the only place where she can hide and we can’t see her. Or nighter can we smell her. From the stories we have heard, she can hold her breath underwater for a very long time. She’s a part mermaid to say. I’m sure she is in the water.” After hearing her suggestion, we agreed to her as well. There’s a huge possibility that she is in water.
“I’m going down there. I can hold my breath underwater longer than all of you and I am better at swimming as well. Let me go in and check there.” Hope volunteered to check the water.
“But is it safe to go alone?” I stopped her because I don’t want to take any risk on her life as well as my two brothers.
“What can happen under water? There is no one to attack me there. I will be quick.” Without listening to any of our words, she jumped into the lake and disappeared.
A few minutes had passed with no trace of her. It was taking longer that what we thought, making us all worry about her. At last, we decided to go in and search for her and got ready to jump in, when finally she came out of the water. And to our surprise, our mother was with her. She did it. We did it. We finally caught her. We won the challenge..