Two more days of avoiding Aidan completely, and Kyle was grumpy that he still couldn’t stop thinking about the afternoon in the storehouse. He’d done everything short of knocking himself out to escape those memories, and he hadn’t been successful in the slightest. His mind ran circles through the images of that day, reliving each and every sensation and touch.

His inner wolf wasn’t helping any, having become more restless than ever before since getting a taste of what it wanted. Kyle had hoped maybe that a bit of fooling around would be enough to grant him some peace from his animal half, but that hope had died quickly. To his animal’s instincts, he’d merely had a taste of what could happen, of what he could know. His wolf spirit wanted so much more than that, and the sexual aspects were the least of it. Somehow, openly enjoying Aidan’s touch had unlocked another floodgate of need from his instinctual side, and his wolf now wanted to simply be around the alpha.

He stared down at the pages of the book he was trying to read, realizing he had been reading the same sentence for the past ten minutes without understanding a word of it. Every time he tried to focus on the words, his vision would blur and his mind would go galloping off in the mental direction of Aidan once more. He closed the book, knowing there was no way he was going to be able to focus with his thoughts and his wolf working together to make it impossible.

Mags, who’d been humming to herself while she sat in the grass nearby, looked up at the sound of the book closing. Kyle had been all but cleaved to her side once she reappeared, wishing to have his help with more mundane tasks. She was older than most werewolves in the village, and doing things like chopping wood or gathering certain herbs were beyond her capabilities. Kyle normally performed the mundane, everyday tasks she required with a certain air of resignation about him. The past couple of days however, he had taken to them with a vigor he’d not had before.

“Are the old tales no longer of interest to you?” she asked innocently.

It was only then he remembered she’d given him the book to study. He had absolutely no talent for the spiritual aspects of being a shaman, but she trained him in all her other duties. There weren’t many injuries or ailments that he couldn’t treat, and he was sure he had read the entire library of lore at least three times over. The book he had sitting in his lap was another book of stories, but one she had apparently borrowed from a neighboring sept’s shaman. He was supposed to be memorizing it, and while he normally took to learning the old tales with a certain noticeable level of enthusiasm, his heart just wasn’t in it this time.

“I guess I just can’t keep reading dusty old stories for long periods of time,” he said, shrugging as he set the book carefully in the grass next to him.

She leaned forward, plucking a flower from the grass. “How odd. You always enjoyed those dusty, old stories. It was getting you to chop firewood that was always the struggle before.”

He glanced at the side of her cabin, where the massive stack of firewood he had chopped earlier lay. “I guess that’s changed.”

“Which is even stranger. Even as a boy, you loved old stories, no matter what kind of stories they were. You would follow me around anywhere to try and get me to tell you a story, or three. All the other children avoided me, either scared of the crazy wolf, or disdainful. Not you though. You heard me tell a tale one time and I never lived in peace from then on,” she chuckled, curling the flower and stem around to add to a chain she was making.

He shifted uncomfortably. “That was quite a while ago Mags, and I’m not that little kid anymore.”

She cocked her head, squinting at the chain of flowers as she worked. “Ah, but we never really change, my dear.”

He looked askance at her. “I’d like to think I’m quite a bit different now than I was as a kid.”

She nodded, still not looking at him. “Oh yes. On the surface, you have changed greatly. We all wear masks to conceal that which we truly are within. Over the course of time, we of course, alter those masks. Sometimes we choose an entirely different mask, such as you did, while others simply add to the mask, or edit it with minor variations over time. Yet that does nothing to who we truly are, save for perhaps coloring it ever so slightly at the edges.”

He sensed a lecture coming. “Is this going to be another water metaphor where you end up telling me that I’m still going to die and that I haven’t actually changed at all?”

She chuckled, tongue poking out between her teeth as she threaded the next stem through a loop. “You are incredibly sensitive, you know that? You were like that as a boy too: sensitive to the slightest change in another person, and most certainly their opinion of you. Back then of course, you reacted to the merest slight with tears and wounded expressions, running away at the first sight of confrontation. You still avoid them by confronting them aggressively, with bristling anger and sarcasm.”

Kyle squinted, trying to make sense of that. “How…is confronting an issue…avoiding the issue?”

“Truly confronting a problem means facing it with the willingness to see it entirely. It requires you to be willing to see where another’s perception is flawed, as well as your own. It means being completely honest, not just about your anger, but about your vulnerabilities. You avoid confronting issues by attacking them. You hide behind your anger and bitterness, so that no one can see just how sensitive and fragile you really are,” she said, satisfied with the current link and moving on to a different flower.

“Thanks for the breakdown of my personality and motivations. No wonder you don’t talk to people at our celebrations,” he told her, now suddenly aware he was making the scathing comment to cover his discomfort at the accuracy of her statement.

“Don’t feel bad. Most everyone does it. Concealing themselves so they’re not at risk. When you open up to another, you make yourself vulnerable, putting yourself in their power. It’s very normal,” she said.

“You don’t seem to have any problem with it,” he said, leaning forward to rest his arms on his curled legs.

“I learned a long time ago that while it’s very normal, it’s also the greatest source of unhappiness. When you spend so much time hiding who you are, you can find yourself unsure of what to do when the moment to open up comes along. Too many hide themselves, even when they’re safe, and hurt themselves worse than if they had just let their guard down. I don’t hide myself, as it has caused me great pain, yet it has freed me all the same. I wouldn’t give that up for anything,” she said happily.

“It’s probably what makes everyone think you’re crazy too,” he pointed out.

“True, but what’s madder: living openly, or hiding yourself and pretending you’re happy? How am I less sane than one who hides every source of pain they’ve ever felt so deep within themselves that the only way they can express it is to beat and abuse the world around them?” She asked as she fussed with the petals of the next link in her flower chain.

Kyle huffed. “Oh come on, not you too! I already told Lily. I know I can be a grumpy bastard, but I’m not that bad.”

A small smile formed on Mags’ face. “And when did I say I meant you?”

The counterargument he had ready died on his tongue. “Uh, okay. Then you lost me. We were originally talking about me, then about you, so…who did you jump to?”

“Why, our renowned guest of course. keep up with the conversation, Kyle. One would think you were the crazy wolf in the woods,” she said with a small laugh.

Kyle blinked. “Wait, wait, back up. You’re telling me you were talking about, Aidan?”

She finally looked up blinking owlishly at him. “Well, of course. Who else would I be talking about?”

He knew better than to point out that the leap of subjects didn’t make sense. “Okay, why are we talking about Aidan now?”

Mags frowned, fingers pausing in their work as she thought about it. “It’s funny. When I think of you as a child, I cannot help but think of him as well. I knew you both so well when you were just pups, running around here.”

He straightened. “You…dealt with Aidan?

“Well certainly,” she said, as if it should be obvious.

“That’s…his family hardly saw you though. And I gotta say, other than being the pack shaman, I can’t see how you would have crossed paths with him any other way,” he said.

She sighed heavily. “It’s true his pack did their best to avoid me. The less I was around, the less I would see, or so they thought. It’s hard to hide the truth about yourself from someone who knows themselves.”

He thought about that for a moment. “Are you saying they avoided you on purpose?”

“A proud pack, and a perceptive shaman, so of course they avoided me. They didn’t want me to see through the cracks, because then I would be obligated to try and assist. That would mean they too would have to pay attention to the fractured mirror, and they merely wished to continue on as they were, in peace. It is the way of things with many packs, particularly ones who bear a noble and famous history as his did,” she said, sounding sad.

“There were problems in his pack?” he asked in surprise.

“To the outsider, that man’s pack would have seemed to be as true to our way as any pack could ever get. Noble warriors and wise leaders both hailed from it, and Aidan is no different. Perfection of that sort comes at a cost, however, and there has not been a member of that pack that did not pay for it,” she said.

He ran his hand through his hair as he tried to understand what she was saying. “Aidan’s family wasn’t happy?”

She gazed at him solemnly. “When you strive for perfection in the eyes of others, happiness is just a show, rather than a state. That alpha grew up with plenty of expectations placed upon him, more than any child should ever have to bear at so young an age.”

At that, Kyle rolled his eyes. “Having a lot of responsibility heaped on you isn’t an excuse to be a dick. If this is your way of making me feel bad for him, you’re doing a really lousy job of it.”

“You will do what you will with what I tell you. I place no expectation upon you for how you perceive things. But you are not making the leap of understanding that you should. You are wiser than that, but you refuse to see, because you don’t wish to,” Mags’ voice had grown stern as she watched him.

He shifted uncomfortably under her glare. “Then spare me the hassle of trying to figure out what you’re hinting at.”

Sighing, she shook her head as she returned her attention to her work. “Think about what it meant to have the expectation of greatness heaped on you as a child. Your pack no longer becomes your family, but the enforcers of tradition and rules you are too young to understand. Failure is not tolerated, and it’s punished harshly. Where in that is the joy of childhood? Where is there room for curiosity and happiness? How can anyone feel the warmth of a home, when that home is a prison of raised hands and harsh criticism?”

“They beat him?” he asked, surprised since he couldn’t remember even having heard the slightest whisper about something like that happening.

“Tell me, what was it that Aidan did to you as a child? What did he do to others like you?” she asked without looking up.

Kyle had no idea how she had even known about that in the first place. After Aidan had left to lead his own pack at the edges of the sept’s territory, he had done everything he could to try and forget the alpha had even existed. Until a few days ago, he hadn’t given Aidan much thought at all, let alone mentioned him. He and Mags had never discussed him, until today.

She nodded, even though he had remained silent. “Good. Think long and hard about it. Now, imagine it coming from your parents, your siblings, all your pack. Imagine it all day, every day, every time you came in the door, when you took your lessons, when you ate, before you slept, when you awoke. Imagine that was what your home was. There are worse things you can do to another than leave a few bruises.”

Her complete attention went back to the chain of flowers she had begun to shape, leaving him to his thoughts. He never had a clue that there was even the possibility of Aidan’s home life being anything but wonderful. Aidan’s pack had always been treated with a deep respect, and they were consulted in many sept-related matters. Kyle had grown up seeing this golden family, and envied them even as he feared their youngest son. Aidan had always appeared to have a life far better than his own.

Not for the first time since Aidan had returned to the village, he had to reevaluate how he saw the alpha. Where once he’d seen Aidan raised in a prosperous and beloved family and having everything he ever wanted, he could now only see the world Mags had just described. Kyle’s own pack had been disgraced by association before he’d been born. A member of his blood family, an uncle, had shown great cowardice in the face of the enemy to such an extent, it had been deemed treasonous. The stain had followed his family, but it had not changed the bond within his pack.

How different could his life have been if that mark on their collective honor had driven deep, to fester and become bitterness? Could he have been only a few choices away from having the same sort of pack Aidan had growing up? It would have been easy for his pack to resent it, driving themselves and the next generation to rise above the sin a coward had left them. Instead, his pack had continued on, eager to prove they were not the same. They never lost that noble spirit, nor had they lost the meaning of a pack, being a family to Kyle from the moment he came into the world, until they left it only a couple of years before his coming of age.

How many times had he witnessed Mags trying to catch a wounded creature so she could tend to its wounds? More times than he could keep track of, and almost every time, the animal would hiss, snarl, and try to fight her. It didn’t matter that her intentions were based in compassion and kindness, the creature was hurt and afraid, and all it could do was fight, hoping to survive.

Could that have been why Aidan had been so cruel and aggressive when they were children? Was the answer behind Aidan’s mean streak simply the product of a scared and injured child, left with no option but to lash out at the world around him? It would be easy to point out that Aidan was no longer that child, and his old pack was long since dead, the victims of the same war that had taken Kyle’s pack from him. Yet, if Kyle were to point that out about Aidan, he would have to point to himself as well. Mags was right. Kyle avoided dealing with his vulnerabilities, hiding them from others and himself with a bitter attitude and a sharp tongue. It wasn’t that far of a leap to see that perhaps Aidan was hiding from himself as well, behind arrogance and dominance.

“Masks,” he whispered, realizing now what it was she meant.

“We fear not having them, but the truth we all know, deep down, is that we can’t live with them either. You must be willing to take yours off in order to save yourself, and perhaps him as well,” she told him quietly.

Kyle looked at her, wide eyed. “Why do I have to be the one to do it?”

“Sometimes in life, we must do the things we don’t want to do to get the things we need. One day, you’ll know why you had to take the first steps, but only once you have walked well past the place you started in. Your bond only says that you both have the capability to be something great, but it is not simply handed to you. It takes work, as love always does, and you are bound to that greatness, so it’s in your best interest to try to make it something worthwhile,” she said, hunching over to see her work from a different angle.

He knew that she’d known, the old trickster. “I wouldn’t even know where to start, or if I even want to!”

“Oh, you want to. You’re just refusing to say so. As for where to start, try a conversation, an actual conversation. Approach it with what you now know in mind. If you do, in time you too may see the face behind that ugly mask of his. When I remember the day I found him in the woods, trying to hide his tears from me, looking upon me with hate for seeing his pain, I almost weep every time. Gaia has chosen you to see beneath that mask, and you must be the one who finds out how to weave the path to that place,” she told him, holding up her work in the sunlight.

He hadn’t been paying attention to exactly what she was doing, but now saw she had been making a plaited necklace. Mags didn’t have the strength to collect and chop her own firewood anymore, but she hadn’t lost any of her dexterity. She’d been working steadily for the past couple of hours to create a necklace of flowers and stems, laid out so that each of the many layers lay against one another seamlessly. The individual colors of each flower were sprawled out in chaotic fashion, with no discernible effect. It looked beautiful though, the irregular fashioning of the colors and sizes of the flowers making it look like the necklace had been plucked directly from the grass.

“I don’t think I can do that Mags,” he said weakly.

She smiled at him from behind the necklace. “Kyle, do you really think I accepted you as my apprentice simply because you’re strong and capable? It wouldn’t have mattered if you were a genius at crafting salves, memorized the best locations for herbs, a master at stitching wounds, if you weren’t capable of kindness and compassion. You contain a fount of understanding and love within you. You need only tap into it and lead him to it as well. Have some faith in yourself for once.”

Kyle sighed. “You make it sound so easy, but he’s not going to make it easy for me.”

She laughed, the sound free and loud. “I said to be compassionate; I never said anything about making it easy.”