Chapter 2: Back Home
For the past five years since leaving Avalon, it's rules and rigorous training which would start before Dawn, I have been able to finally just kick back and enjoy being back home living as a regular Osupa. I definitely needed to come back to Karaya, as a social being and a pack creature, to be together with your own again it made me feel complete. I remembered the scents, the sounds a different kind of harmony.
I was home with my family, I had given my childhood to the worship of the Goddess and missed so much, going to school, learning to cook, learning the trends, going to concerts and festivals. I almost didn't remember the faces of my mother and father, I had missed growing up with my 5 siblings, and I was excited to be able to regain my link to the pack! It took me a while, but with my brother's help I achieved it. I always have to be mindful and very cautious of the information I share within the Link, but with the espionage training that I have received from my Tía Ayiti, my father's sister, it has become substantially easier. My mother is sister to our Alpha, and an Alpha herself, from her I learned stealth, precision how to hold resistance for speed for long periods and guerrilla tactics. My father fed my mind with books which I would write my own notes with my own opinions, which in my own young mind I was basically correcting what was already written.
Since my return I have continued to practice in my Priestess duties with our High Priestess Yaya and work to get my High Priestess title, however I have engulfed myself in combat training with General Braka and his nice Cleo, my sparring partner, we are taught combat in Avalon yet father though it important I learned The Osupa way.
I also wanted to learn as many languages as I could. I decided I wanted to be out in the world and know more of It, maybe even find my mate! I would spend a month in Berlin, another in Paris, another in Buenos Aires, another in Johannesburg, and so on and so forth. My most trusted partner in these missions was my brother Urayoán, who was also my best friend. I would focus on learning the languages, studying the people, their demeanor, how their government works, what are their intentions, which were the local werewolf packs? Were they hostile? My mission was to blend in with the population and gather as much intelligence as possible escaping complete detection.This required a lot of self-control which as children we are trained in. This was something I had an edge on since they train us on this to no end in Avalon.
I already knew that other Supernatural species existed, and everyone knew that I could not share privileged information, even if achieved through espionage. So my main mission was to try to find other werewolf packs and try to broker truces and alliances with the Goodwill that I was a Priestess of the Goddess. Easier said than done.
The last time there was a great Werewolf War, word had gone around about our particular methods of warfare and how we carried our affairs in our pack, other packs found our use of technology and espionage as cowardly... Not that it would stop them from actually asking for that gathered intelligence and technology to acquire an alliance, but that was always out of the question our technology was something we NEVER shared... Hippocrates!
We are aware that The Werewolf High Council covets our technology and information among other resources we posses, but we are not their subjects and didn't have to share any of it with them. We live solely under the jurisdiction of Avalon itself and it was only to them which we answered to. To avoid any interference from them we have refrained sending spies to watch them. If an Osupa spy were to unfortunately be caught within The Werewolf Council walls, it could mean war, and that has always been something which we avoided at all costs. We treasured our freedom to live our live in peace.
After a while I could only stomach so much of this newfound job I have been entrusted upon, true that I had met lots of people and made many friends in other packs around the world, yet since many knew that sharing our tech was a big no way, they didn't care for treaties. Most packs prefer to work individually, which was very foreign to me.
So for the past 7 months at the very least I have been home all the time and perfoming my Priestess duties as the Guardian of The Cardinal South Temple. Not that I was doing anything particularly special, I would perform rituals and bring comfort to worshipers seeking Blessings from the Goddesses. I was enjoying a break from traveling so much. I would enjoy hanging out with friends, spending time with my brothers and sisters, surfing, running through the mountains in my wolf form, enjoying my time with my father and fixing his father's old car, he always dismantled it so that we would help him rebuilding it again and again.
At night we would sometimes gather with some of our neighbors or go to The Alpha's Fort grounds and enjoy a night of bonfire. Telling old stories and recounting our history, drinking to old battles and those who we considered fallen heroes. Stories of unrequited love and pitiful destruction of rejected mates and the dangers that come from not following the will of the Goddess. These would go on late Into the night with the sounds of the drums and once in a while somebody would stand up to dance, and make the drums change the tune to follow the rhythm of the dancer.
I felt so at peace and I expected myself to find my mate when I turned 18, but after a year of searching and waiting none was found. Of all my siblings it was only Bayoán who had found his and it took him years... I didn't want to wait years. So I decided I would go and start taking missions again and travel after the break. I wanted to visit Polynesia and meet more islanders, if I found my mate there it would be awesome to keep the island life!
I was verifying various diplomatic missions there, I had already turned my papers to Director Gloria at OPIA to head out in that direction. I was willing to visit from Hawaii to New Zealand, I was ready to leave in a couple of weeks and was hopeful that I would find what I was looking for. But everything happened so fast I never got to that.