Something To be Protected

***BRIAR'S POV***

"U..Uh, uhm, M.M..Mr. B..Briar, d..d..did I do something wr..wr..wrong?" She was slightly scared as well. It wasn't just nerves that she was feeling. Well, I guess that was normal, fear and nerves were closely related after all.

"No, you didn't do anything wrong. It's just, this is the ancient language of the wolves so not very many humans can read it."

"Oh!" She seemed even more shocked and nervous upon hearing my reason for being surprised. Hahh, I guess I was a little too shocked when she read it, now she is afraid of it.

"B..B..but it's just written in English. I find it easier to understand than the Athean texts."

"There you go again." I narrowed my eyes at her. "There you go making it sound like you aren't from around here."

My words actually made her slap a hand over her mouth. I don't think that she expected to say that out loud. That was clearly something that she had meant to keep to herself.

"Uhm, I..I don't know what you're talking about. I..I didn't say anything at all."

"Are you not from around here, Addie? Are you adopted or something? Who are you really?" I was bombarding her with questions and I truly did feel bad about that, but I couldn't help it.

"I..I'm not adopted. I was born to my parents. I have never stepped foot out of this village. I..I swear that I have never been anywhere in this world but this village."

Her wording on that made me think. She had never been anywhere in THIS world but this village. Did that mean that she has been to places in other worlds? Was that the reason behind her knowledge that she had despite the fact that she shouldn't know about it? And if that were true, how had she been to other worlds?

I doubt that she was able to just move freely between this world and ones parallel to it. That would be a stretch for anyone to believe. No, that probably wasn't it at all. So what was it? Hmm. Could she have been reborn?

That was a possibility, in all honesty. I had heard about people being reborn before. They remembered their past lives and were especially gifted with magic and other aspects of life, but I had never heard of someone being born into this world from another one. But could that be what had happened here? I guess I just needed Addie to trust me more before I would find out for sure.

"Well, let's move on, shall we?" I smiled at her and tried to ease the worry that she was feeling. Let's talk about what these runes mean. You said that you thought this meant it had to do with nature, right. Well, you are absolutely correct. This rune that looked vaguely like a tree is indeed something that would give someone an added bonus when it comes to things to do with any form of nature. This would actually be one that we use when dealing with our herbs. We need to keep the herbs healthy and alive."

"That makes sense." She smiled, clearly moving beyond the tense moment that we had shared just moments prior. "Can you tell me about these runes?" She asked as she held out her wrists, showing me the marks that she had been born with.

"Yes, let us get to them now."

I flipped the book open to the first of the two that she had. The one on her right wrist, the pure white marking. It was three lines in all, two of them parallel to each other but one was higher than the other. The third line went in a diagonal from the bottom of the upper line to the top of the lower line. It essentially formed a bit of a zigzag.

"This mark here," I pointed to her wrist as I spoke, "is the mark of the sun. It signified light and, in this case, magic that has to do with spiritual elements. This is like enhancement magic, healing, and blessings are associated with the sun rune. Those that possess light magic are rare, but not as rare as those that possess dark magic."

"A..are you telling me that I have magic?" She was looking at the mark on her wrist with worry and awe. She was scared of it, yeah, but she also seemed excited like any child would.

"I don't know. Have you ever done anything magical?" The truth was that I didn't know if she had magic. There could be another reason she was born with runes aside from her having magic.

"I don't think that I have." She sighed in disappointment. "That would have been interesting, though." She laughed like it was a wistful idea. I still wasn't sure, though. She could just be a late developer since she was human. "What does this rune mean?" She pointed at the black mark on her left wrist. That one had been the one to shock me the most when I saw it the first time.

I flipped through the book again, going to the page that contained the mark that was on her left wrist. It was different than the other mark. This one was a little more intricate. It almost looked like a mouth that was open and ready to swallow everything.

"This mark has two meanings." I said but she was already reading about it.

"Gluttony and darkness." She seemed so surprised by what she had learned. "S..so does that mean that I will be greedy and evil?" Her eyes shook when she looked at me.

"Not at all." I shook my head at her. "The gluttony is just another part of the darkness aspect." I began my explanation with a smile. "Do you know how black is formed? How did the color itself come to be?"

"Of course. Black is the absorption of all light. Likewise, white is the reflection of all light." Again, she knew something that she shouldn't know. This was something that was taught to adult wolves in the academy. So how, HOW in the world did a young human child like Addie know this?

"You are, of course, correct. So, think about it in those terms." I continued to explain things and ignored the unusual things about Addie. "If black absorbs, or eats, all the light and colors, then the darkness does the same thing. That is why darkness is also gluttony. It will absorb the other magics and make it their own."

"S..so it would absorb light, fire, wind, all those kinds of magic?" She was so smart to have already grasped that.

"Yes, and likewise, light magic would repel those magics. It would repel all but dark magic. Those with dark magic are even more rare than those with light magic."

"And if I have them both that would make me an anomaly." For some reason that seemed to upset her.

"If you do, indeed have them both, that would make you very sought after and important. So, let's keep that a secret between the two of us, for safety's sake."

"Why are you so good to me?" She looked at me with sad, almost pleading eyes.

"I think there is something special about you, Addie, something that needs to be protected."

"Thank you, Briar. Thank you for protecting me."

For the rest of the day, we talked about the different runes and what they would mean. This would be the main focus of her lessons for the next several weeks. I wanted her to know the runes like the back of her hand. She needed to know what the rune meant without even thinking about it. And since I didn't need to teach her the language, I even let her take my runic dictionary home to study it. Of course, only on the nights that I joined her family for dinner. And then I would also pick her up in the morning to make sure the book was protected the entire time. I would never get another one of them, ever. I needed to preserve this copy for as long as I could.