Louisa's POV
"Yeah. You didn't know about it?" Mana asked. He looked very confused.
"No! I know nothing about it!" I said emotionally.
"Well... You've lost me..." Mata asked. He looked twice as confused as his brother. "Do you know that you can talk to animals?"
"Yes! I've already known that," I replied.
"Do you know that werewolves can't communicate with animals?" Mana asked.
"Yes, of course, I know that!" I said.
"And you don't feel anything suspicious about being able to talk to animals?" Mata asked.
"No! I mean... Yes! But..." I couldn't even articulate my thoughts properly.
"Well, You've lost me as well..." Mana declared.
"But I'm a werewolf!" My eyes were wide open. "I don't have magic power!"
Both Mana and Mata covered their heads and said, "OK, OK! Maybe we're wrong. Please don't be angry at us! We're just two stupid tuna heads..."
Who am I? I thought to myself.
In despair, I looked at Lucian.
He didn't look as surprised as I had expected.
"Lucian, they said I'm a witch..." I said.
"Miss Louisa, they are probably just too scared," Lucian said. "When people are scared, they say things that they don't mean because they aren't in their right minds."
"But I can talk to animals... I can communicate with them! I mean..."
"Miss Louisa, please do understand that I'm trying to concentrate on looking for Gianna and Leo. I can only solve one problem at a time." Lucian said.
He looked more than disturbed. It seemed that he really didn't want to talk about this with me ever again.
"Sorry, it's my fault. I shouldn't have mentioned this right now..." I lowered my head and apologized.
That man's wife and brother were missing and the only thing I talked about was me, me, me.
I was so stupid and so full of myself.
Lucian must have noticed my disappointment. He said, "Miss Louisa, I understand that you've got a lot of questions about your background. But I don't think it's wise to believe what other people tell you. You should figure it out by yourself. Reading is always the best way to find out more about our questions."
"Because people will lie and books won't?" I looked at him and asked.
Lucian looked at me with a strange expression on his face.
"Sorry... I must have said something stupid again." I said.
Lucian said with tenderness in his voice, "No, Miss Louisa. You're right. Books are written by people and sometimes they can be written by deceptive people who have evil agendas. I guess the only thing you can do is to read as extensively as you can, listen to all voices, and draw your own conclusion. But before that..."
He took a pause and laid his sight on Mana and Mata, "I do prefer that we use our discretion when it comes to the things that we aren't very sure about."
Looking intimidated, Mana and Mata covered their big mouths and nodded.
At that time, several black shadows appeared on the road in a distance, blocking our way.
"Stop your horses or we will!" I heard a man's hoarse voice.
"Walk away, rogues!" the soldiers shouted.
"How dare you tell us to go away?! Do you know who we are?!" a voice shouted rampantly.
"No," the soldiers replied, "But we know you'll be dead if you don't get out of our way!"
As we moved closer, I could see the rogues standing in front of us in the flickering torchlight.
Barefoot and covered in ragged clothes, they held giant swords and knives in their hands.
As soon as they saw me, they grinned from ear to ear, exposing their rotten teeth.
"Look at that! We hit the jackpot tonight!"
"What a lovely tender little she-wolf!"
"I want to lick her all over from head to toe."
"Look at her pets! They've got tuna heads!"
"She's a freak. I bet she's into kinky stuff."
Mata looked at me and asked, "Do you need us to hypnotize them, Miss?"
"We can make them bump their stupid heads against the rocks." Mana narrowed his eyes and added.
I frowned and said to Mana, "Please don't ever do anything like that to anyone."
"Why not? I'm sure the rocks will be OK," Mana mumbled.
Lucian moved forward and said, "We're in a hurry. Please go away."
When they saw Lucian's face emerging from the darkness, they started to get more excited.
"Oh là là! Things just keep getting better tonight. What a handsome man!"
"You can keep the girl. I want the man."
"Wait a moment... The emblem on his cape... I saw it somewhere..."
"Fuck, they're the White Walkers!"
"Are you fucking kidding me?! What are the White Walkers doing here in the middle of the night?! We've got nothing to do with them."
"They're here in the middle of the night. Of course, they have something to do here."
"And I guess we are having something to do with them now..."
"I've told you so! It's bad luck to see dead druids! We shouldn't have come out at all tonight!"
"So what shall we do now?"
A brief silence.
"Can we just walk away as if nothing happened?" one of them asked.
"You mean, walk away just like that?"
"Yeah..."
"What if he stops us?"
"Then we'll beg for our lives..."
"But that would look really bad."
"We're rogues. There's nothing on earth that could possibly make us look worse than who we are now."
Then, they lowered their weapons and started to move slowly to the side of the road, looking at the sky as if they were just wandering about.
"Stop," Lucian said.
All of them immediately threw away their weapons and kneeled on the ground, trembling and crying out -
"Please don't kill us!"
"We're innocent!"
"We haven't done anything and we're just taking a walk after dinner."
"We didn't kill those druids! I swear! When we got to their camp, they had already been disemboweled."
"We were terrified and ran away..."
"We saw ghosts! It must be those ghosts who killed them!"