WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU

19 FEBRUARY, FRIDAY, EARLY MORNING

I didn't sleep well at all last night, which was weird for me. Usually, I could fall asleep through anything, so I had been told.

Savy liked to attribute it to the carefree nature of a young pup, even though she was a whole year younger than me.

Dad had said the ability to sleep through the storm was a gift and patted my head. Mum usually found it less amusing.

FLASHBACK:

"Sam, I've told you a hundred times, young ladies shouldn't be sleeping out on the porch!" This was Mum at the breakfast table on a regular summer morning in my memory.

"You said I shouldn't nap on the porch... Technically, I wasn't napping..." I tried to explain.

Now that Mum lost a technical point, she turned to Dad, "I can't believe you locked her out on the porch!"

Savy cackled, "If the thunder hadn't woken me up, I wouldn't have realized you weren't in your bed."

Mum face palmed, "I should've checked on you before I went to bed."

Dad rubbed her back, "It's fine, darling. Our Sam is tough."

"Yeah, I'm tough." I said, "It wasn't a big deal."

Well, not to me, since Dad was the one who found me and carried me up to my room. I had woken up in my bed that morning as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Tbh, I had almost thought I dreamt it all, until my family (mostly Mum) brought it up.

"What were you doing out of bed, Sam?" Dad asked then.

"I saw a cat." I told him, "I wanted to follow it into the woods and see if I'd become smart but it got lost and I couldn't find it. When I got back, the door was locked so I decided to wait till Mum opens it in the morning."

See, I was such a sensible kid like that.

Mum was wearing a OMG expression, but she didn't say the words. She did look at Dad though. It was a "You deal with it Mister-who-locked-out-your-own-daughter."

Dad cleared his throat a little, "Sam, it was probably just the packhouse cat."

We used to have a packhouse cat. One day she would disappear and never came back. As kids, it was our largest mystery case. It never got solved though.

"And you shouldn't be following cats into the woods at night. You shouldn't follow anything or anyone into the woods at night. In fact, you shouldn't be leaving the house on your own after dark!" Mum was really on the roll.

"Okay, mum, chill!" I had to stop her before she thought of more things I shouldn't do.

"Sam, this is serious! It's dangerous!" Mum said, sounded exasperated.

"It's fine, Mum. A little rain never hurt anyone." I tried to reassure her.

"It isn't just the rain, Sam." Mum said.

"She's fine, darling. What doesn't kill her would only make her stronger." Dad said. I think he meant to comfort her, but it didn't work.

Mum looked like she wanted very much to disagree, but she decided to move on, "Never mind, the important thing is that you're safe. Next time, new bedtime rule for pups: You aren't allowed to leave your bed after we tuck you in."

"Me too?" Savy asked, "That's not fair. I wouldn't have gotten into trouble."

"Why would you need to get out of bed?" Mum asked.

Savy kept quiet.

"What if I need to use the toilet?" I asked.

"You may use the toilet, but you need to go straight back to bed." Mum said.

"Can I wash my hands too?" I asked.

"Yes. Please do." Mum's mouth was pressed in the thin line now, "But go to bed straight after."

"What if I dropped something on the floor?" Savy asked, "Can I get out of bed to pick it up?

"Can it wait till morning?" Mum's patience was beginning to unravel.

"Not if it's Bluebell." I said, refering to my new blue fluffy bunny toy.

"Or Flora." Which was Savy's new magenta bunny toy.

We had won them that same week at the twin's birthday party. They squeaked when they were squeezed, so Savy and I liked to squeeze them at bedtime. It helped keep us awake.

Mum didn't like them. Dad thought they was really funny at first... Until Mum made him in charge of bedtime. After that, it wasn't so funny anymore.

Anyway, I could sleep through the storm on our front porch, I could sleep through Savy squeaking her megenta toy bunny. I had fallen asleep from the back of Dad's motorcycle, at preschool, on a plane during the worst turbulence the air stewardess had experienced in her 10 year career (I heard her tell her college so).

As Dad said, it was a gift.

END OF RANDOM FLASHBACK - I kind of digressed. my point was that I used to be able to sleep through anything.

But last night, in the comfort of my lemon scented sheets and golden clam shell bed, I couldn't sleep.

I kept worrying about the fightdogs... So now they were no longer in cages, and they've gotten paying warrior positions and a pack to run in, you'd think they were fine. We're even building them their new home in Princess Town. Everything looked like it's going well on the outside... Just like with Ki. On the outside he was always smiling, but every now and then he says something that made me feel like he never stopped being a dog. Did he forget how to be a wolf?

How long was he in the fight cages? If I pieced what he had told me before together, maybe a few years. Could a few years make you forget what it meant to be wild pack wolf?

Mate seemed to have recovered faster, but he had only been there for a few months.

What about someone like Fluffy? Fluffy was in a Vampire's keep since he was three! I never knew what he was thinking - did that mean he never knew what was really going on? How did he see the world he runs in now? He used to talk so weirdly when I met him. Now in school, he was always reading his textbook, and although he was always smiling, he didn't really talk much, especially to the other kids. Unlike EJ, who seemed to enjoy highschool social life, Fluffy was serious about studying and guarding me.

But that's because I was the one who gave him ice cream right? Or was it because he didn't want to be stuck with my much stricter Luna and betas?

Didn't he know, that as a wild pack wolf, he was free to go? But where would he go? Well Fluffy was a special case, his Papa was still otw to bring him home. But what about the others? Besides fighting as warriors, what else could an ex-fightdog do?

And then I remembered Mate's world domination hobby - maybe putting him in charge of an army of desperate and lost ex-fightdogs might not have been the best idea. I remembered the Death God and the Blue Demon Warriors that had plagued the Gold Packlands and culled off the majority of their rogue population.

Yeah... It's hard to say if their existence would make this world a safer or more dangerous place. Definitely more dangerous for rogues... Which made me worry about Daisy and her little rogue family. I wondered how they were holding out? Did they get their paperwork settled?

Would the Princess Town accept ex-rogues too? But they would just be normal wolves... Not warriors. That's okay right?

And then I worried about... I can't remember anymore. I might have fallen asleep, but each time, I would dream - not dream travel, or dream vision... More like stress dreams about going to school in my PJs and forgetting to bring my exam paper to the exam so Mrs Henderson wanted to do another home visit to see dad and had to ask Mrs Martinez to make pickle sandwiches in our classroom (since the home ec room was now closed for renovations because the termites from the girls washroom got to it)... well it made perfect sense while I was dreaming anyway.

If you were wondering, the stress part was in the fact that my Dad hated pickles in his sandwiches.

Anyway, I woke up really tired and out of sorts. My mind was all jumbled... which might explain this diary entry.

It didn't help that my body hurt all over from the training session last night. I guess sleeping late and badly didn't give my body the amount of rest to fully recover.

Maybe Ki could glow me well again... But Jessica said that if you took unnatural ways to recover from exercise, (e.g. paying a healer to speed up the healing) your muscles might over-heal, and your legs would grow ugly muscle lumps.

Jessica's cousin knew this girl would couldn't stand any pain, so she used a healing oil on her legs after a run everytime. By the end of highschool, her calves were larger than her thighs! The other kids called her Popeye Legs.

So maybe I shouldn't ask Ki. Just in case.

At any rate, I was the Alpha. I could take it.

I felt much better after 10 minutes in a warm shower. That was the moment I realized that Boo had sneakily siphoned Mate's power to heal while I was showering.

{Just a little}

But the steam and water amplified the effects so... Gah! I checked my legs... Okay. Whew, my legs looked pretty much unchanged.

When I got down to the breakfast table, Mum had her hair in curlers. It wasn't the first time, but it was enough for me to ask, "What's the occasion, Mum?"

Mum patted her hair, "Oh, nothing much really. Laura said it would help add more volume."

"Why do you need more volume?" I asked.

"I need more volume too." Savy said, and then she cackled so we all knew she didn't mean her hair.

"Your music is already loud enough." Mum answered primly, "I could hear it this morning from my bedroom!"

"That's because you have really sharp hearing, Mum." Savy complained, "It was so quiet, I nearly went back to sleep."

I guess having wolf parents really added a damper to your music volume.

Ki came out of the kitchen, proffering a silver tray with WAFFLES! Suddenly I felt truly alive again. As he placed my breakfast in front of me, I noticed his broad shoulders... Like Mate, the two of them were really similarly built - in fact, they were almost symmetrical.

"Is there anything the matter, goddess?" Ki put down the glass of cold pressed orange juice.

"Urm... I was just wondering, do healing muscles make them get bigger?"

Now, everyone looked up to check out Ki's muscles - he was wearing a well pressed shirt under his apron, so its not like we could see any of it though.

"Like if I used healing on my muscles, would I get bigger?" I decided to be more specific about it.

"Oh Sam!" Mum sighed, "Please don't try something like that! You're a girl!"

"I'm just asking." I said. I probably shouldn't mentioned that I've already done it.

Ki's smile never faltered though, "I see. If you wanted muscles like mine, you would need to heal it in a very specific way, goddess."

"Please don't!" Mum sounded alarmed.

"Don't worry, Mum." I said. I was feeling rather relieved myself, "I'm not trying to get more muscles. I was just curious."

And then because I really was curious, I asked, "Did Bell heal his muscles in a very specific way too, Ki?"

"Sam," This time it was Savy, "It's obvs. Ki and Bell have totally unnatural male bodies! Come on, they both look like underwear models AFTER photoshop."

As usual, Ki acted as if he hadn't heard and busied himself pouring coffee.

"And how would you know what a natural male body look like, young lady?" Mum asked mildly.

"How would you know what underwear models looked like?" Was what I wanted to ask.

Savy shrugged, "I'm just repeating what the other girls were saying."

Okay... so I wouldn't end up with Popeye Legs? Not from the sounds of it. But maybe just to be safe, I should use Mate's healing more sparingly.

I think I understood why healers had to go to healer school now. This entire healing thing was far more complicated than I realized. Now that I thought about it, leaving Boo to auto-regulate it might not be exactly the wisest decision. It felt a little bit like how Beta Lucas was the pack's informal pharmacist. He was self trained - as in he tested all the medicines on himself and could treat anything he had ever needed treatment for himself. This was a surprisingly long list of ailments.

And then again, Beta Lucas and all his patients (including Dad and myself) had survived alright. What didn't kill you would only make you stronger, right?

"Oh my, look at the time!" Mum got up, "I better go check on Sabre. Sam, your ride should be here soon. Don't keep your beta waiting. And remember to come home straight after school. The Lorents are coming over for dinner tonight."

Ah! Which explained the hair curlers. I nodded but I couldn't resist the opportunity to tease Mum (just a little), "Don't worry, Mum. As long as you remember to take off your curlers, I'm sure everything tonight would be perfect!"

Savy cackled softly.

Mum pressed her lips together to give me a censuring stare, but I could tell she really wanted to smile. She gave up and shook her head, "Oh Sam! Whatever will I do with you?"

And she glided out of the room and up the stairs.

Welcome to my Friday. I didn't exactly feel TGIF, but overall, I was feeling much more ready to face a new day now.