Ryan and I sat in the heat of the morning, fanning our faces but still sweating a lot. We were at the Agríos equivalent of a post office. I had been completely ecstatic to find they had one here because it was something we never had with the Pack. If you wanted to talk to someone far away via mail you had to take a two-hour trip to the Capital and check your box there. Which was why sending letters back and forth took so long. So far I had sent seven, and still awaited a reply. We payed extra to have it delivered straight to the Pack, so they knew we were trying to contact them. I may be forcibly removed from my home but I was not ready to give up and wait for stupid Mr. Damia to help me. I had already decided if I didn't get word back I would run away.

    Then again...I really liked it here. I loved the food, I really loved feeling pretty. The culture and traditions were a lot more appealing to me. I really didn't want to leave Ryan, we had grown pretty close over the last week I had been here. Maybe I could convince her to come with me? Maybe I could convince my mom and Felix to come here. I'm not sure if they would like that. I'm not sure if the wolves would like that. It was one thing for a parrot to adapt to a forest, it was another for a wolf to adapt to the jungle.

    "I feel bad we had to miss your friend's birthday." Ryan sighed. "Today was it?"

    I ground my teeth with frustration. "I can't believe I'm going to miss Felix's familiar ceremony."

    I know technically I wasn't allowed to come with him to the actual circle, but I wanted to be there, for moral support. Kosmos knows I had been racked with nerves the day of my ceremony.

    "I just hope he doesn't do anything stupid." I sighed. "Felix kinda does that, he's really emotional and doesn't always think straight."

    I wanted to blurt out, we're a pair of not straights, but I decided against it. I'm not sure if I could trust anyone with that side of me yet.

    "He sounds really nice. I wish I could meet him." Ryan breathed wishfully.

    She stood up, and stretched. "Come on, let's go for a walk in the jungle. I'm burning up in the sun, and the letter's not going anywhere while we're gone."

    I paused my lips. "Yeah, why not."

    We started of on one of the trails out of the city. Most of them led our to privately owned groves of fruit trees that occasionally a pair of dirty, poor, orphans like ourselves would steal from.

    "Did you see Pedro this morning?"

    Pedro was the head of the boys hut, and boy did I know him. He was by far the hottest guy I have ever seen, and that's not saying much because my hot guy options were super limited.

    "No, I got up early to stalk the post office remember?"

    She grinned. "That's cause he was in our hut, cuddling Julia."

     "Huh." I didn't want to say I was disappointed but man, that was the fastest any of my crushes have came and went.

    "She's lucky, I'm pretty sure every other senior had their eyes on him." She continued to chatter.

    "You can say that again." I sighed dejectedly, not gonna lie this was turning out to be a pretty miserable day so far.

    She gave me a look, and suddenly I panicked. "I mean, he's lucky cause obviously-"

    "No no, I'm surprised but pleasantly." She stopped and gave me that weird look. "I thought people were only like that here."

    "Like what?" I asked, tugging at my shirt collar and forcing my self into the hole of panic and self-denial.

    "Oh please. You know what I mean. Don't sweat it." She gave me a friendly punch on the shoulder and continued on, humming a tune to herself.

    I felt a pleasant, warm, glow in my chest and cracked a nervous, shaky, grin. Oh, well. I was pleasantly surprised as well. I hadn't really planned on telling anyone, but as far as I expected that to go it went pretty well.

    About thirty minutes later we found a wild mango tree, and guess what we found in it.

    "I swear!" Peri croaked, wobbling dangerously in his tiny parrot knees. "I only had one!"

    Lucy flew up to Ryan's shoulder and after a moment Ryan turned towards me. "He's lying."

    "Peri!" I scolded. "You're a bird, you can't just eat all day. You can't fly if you're fat."

    "Don't weight shame me." He said bitterly. "Now please extend your hand so I might descend to your shoulder."

    "Behavior like this will get you eaten." I wiggled a finger at him.

    Peri let out a dry laugh. "I'm magic, eat me and you die."

    "Will other animals eat familiars?" I asked Ryan, as she cuddled Lucy happily.

    "Not that I've seen. Familiars don't eat other familiars, and normal animals had a tendency to stay away from them. Who would want to eat a spirit anyway?" She shrugged.

"True." I agreed, "I guess you're off the hook then Peri."

He bit my ear playfully, and we started back. We wanted to get back before lunch. Only when we arrived back I discovered something was waiting for me.

"Are you Craig Anwir?" The mailman asked once we had walked back to the medium-sized building.

My heart skipped a beat. "Yeah?"

He held out a small sealed price o paper. "This is for you."

My hands were shaking with excitement as I opened the fragile envelope. It wasn't a very thick piece of paper, and fear and confusion built up inside my chest as I realized it was only a few sentences long.

There is nothing more I can do, please stop trying to contact us.

-Neve Vlasta

    I wanted to cry. Despite it being so short, her few words cut deep. What about that sweet motherly side of her that I had seen on the Scobi bus on the way to the Capital? Whatever happened to trying her best to claim me back? What about Felix?

    Ryan was reading it over my shoulder. "Well I think there's only one thing we can do now."

    I glanced up at her, blinking furiously. "What's that?"

    She acted like it was obvious. "Well if your Chief going to insist on cutting herself off from you, we're going to have to go to her."

    Now I was even more confused. "You mean...?"

    She nodded. "We'll run away, you were already thinking of doing that, right?"

    I was dumbstruck. "Yeah I was, how did you-?"

    She shrugged. "I'm good at reading people. Shall we make plans then?"

    I nodded slowly. Folding up the letter and storing it away. I guess it was settled then, we were going to run away.