Beastmen Love-Chapter 35: Faith

Astri and her group arrived at the tribe again. They walk together to leader Shung’s cave, Lee takes half of the salt they made to bring it to Shung.

"Now forward we can provide salt." Lee says.

Lee and Wayde discussed together how to bring that business to work, Astri lets them take care of that and stays quiet behind with Zin and Cyprian.

Shung was very happy to know that now they never again would worry about salt, but Cyprian’s strong aura caught his attention.

"That is Cyprian. He will be with us now forward." Lee speaks.

Shung can sense that Cyprian is powerful, someone who is not to provoke.

Ana waltzes inside, pushing Astri away.

"Oh sorry. I didn’t see you there." Ana lies.

Zin hisses with his tongue, angry with Ana, but Astri holds his hand.

"Don’t lower yourself, Zin." Astri says.

Cyprian didn’t like to see Astri being bullied too, so he looks serious at Ana.

"Hi! I’m Ana. The Stone Tribe Leader’s daughter." Ana says to Cyprian, with a sexy smile and inviting voice.

Astri rolls her eyes already bored.

"I think I want to wait outside. My brain will melt watching this." Astri says walking outside, and Zin follows her hissing to Ana.

Lee and Wayde come to Cyprian with Shung. Ana got closer to Cyprian, and Cyprian stepped back a little.

"Cyprian, this is Shung. He’s the Stone Tribe leader. His tribe is our partner." Lee speaks.

Cyprian greets Shung with a nod.

"I’m glad we have more powerful beasts here. This way we will be less attacked and our females won’t die or be captured." Shung says.

And Cyprian answers with a nod again. He actually doesn’t care about other females.

"Are you... a dragon?" Ana asks Cyprian.

She always looks after other males’ beast marks to know if they’re single. Cyprian’s beast mark is on the right side of his chest. It was covered a bit by a cloth bag that he was carrying for Astri.

"Yes. He is." Lee answers and everyone around is shocked.

Ana is trying to count his marks but she can’t with that cloth bag on his shoulder.

"How many marks do you have, handsome?" Ana asks with a sweet voice.

"14." He answers coldly.

Everyone but Wayde and Lee are shocked. Some beasts were even amazed.

"You’re the strongest beast of all time. Be my male. I’m in my period and can give you a litter soon." Ana tries getting closer to cling on him, but soon she stops when she feels his aura pushing her away.

"I’m not interested. I’m here only for Astri. If you bully her in front of me again or if I discover you bullied her again, even Astri won’t stop me from wiping out all your males." Cyprian speaks.

Ana is burning in anger.

"Again she got the strongest male. She’s not an eagle, she’s a damn fox." Ana says walking away.

Lee and Wayde made everyone believe she’s an eagle whenever they questioned her beast form. Everyone can smell bird on her so they didn’t question further.

"I apologize. She’s a little too spoiled." Shung says to Cyprian.

They walk outside and meet with Astri and Zin. They were holding hands and Astri was singing softly playing with Zin’s hands.

Zin is always overwhelmed with happiness with Astri, she shows affection to him in front of everyone not even caring about what others think.

"Done?" Astri asks them.

"Here, yes. Now we will go to see how all the buildings are going. Do you want to come with us?" Wayde asks her.

"Maybe later. I’m going to see Dieg now. We can meet later."

Lee, Wayde and Shung smile respecting her decision. Shung is happy to know that he died protecting someone who also loved him very much.

Cyprian is impressed when they arrive at a grave. The grave has many colorful flowers on top of it.

Zin stopped walking and holds Cyprian’s arm. Astri keeps walking and kneels near the grave.

"Who is it?" Cyprian asks Zin.

"Dieg. Her late mate." Zin answers.

"Look at that. Full of weeds. I’m sorry I didn’t take good care of your grave, but sometimes that will happen. But know you’re still loved, ok?" Astri talks as if he was still around, removing the weeds.

"He died protecting her from monsters." Zin says.

"I see.. And she still cares for him." Cyprian speaks.

"She said she always will. She doesn’t see males only as pleasure objects or pawns to be sacrificed for her. She’s different." Zin answers smiling.

Cyprian always gets impressed by her, in all his time in that world he never saw a female like her. They watch her talk a bit more with Dieg, then she comes back to them.

"Do you believe he’s still around?" Cyprian asks Astri.

"Who knows? Why wouldn’t he be? We have souls, if we are energy like Nature, and Nature is around us, why are the dead not around us too?"

"It’s true. It makes sense, but no one ever connected to dead beasts." Cyprian speaks.

"It’s a matter of faith. I believe that Dieg’s soul will always be around, and I should cherish his existence somehow and always be grateful for what he was for me. I believe it’s the same as cherishing Nature, because his soul is probably with Nature now. Sometimes, we don’t need to see to believe, right?"

"Yes. You’re right." Cyprian answers, smiling.

What she said makes sense. Most people are far from Nature’s existence because they only believe what they see, but to actually see Nature, it’s a matter of feeling it.

"He was lucky to have you." Zin says to Astri, as they walk holding hands.

"And I was lucky to have him. He was a brat like Lee, but without the dirty mouth. For sure you would have hated him." She giggles.

Zin is happy to see that now she doesn’t get sad anymore when she remembers about Dieg, she only has the good memories.

They go to the cabin. Astri first checks her crops and flowers, and Zin organizes their things inside the closet. As she was removing weeds, Cyprian helped her.

"Can I ask you something private?" She asks him.

"Sure."

"Why did you want to kill yourself?"

"Why do you want to know?" He asks.

He’s a little embarrassed that she had to meet him in such a state.

"I don’t want to judge you. Myself already wanted to kill myself sometimes, thinking that all suffering, pain and humiliation would be over. But I held myself onto the hope that I could achieve a better life." She says.

He didn’t imagine that she also had such thoughts.

"I’m glad you didn’t."

"I’m glad you didn’t too."

"I... I didn’t know what else to do with my life. I didn’t want to work for anyone. I didn’t find a female who I really liked. I was lost thinking that if I don’t want to be part of anything, also tired to live year after year alone, maybe it was time to end my life." He softly says, removing weeds.

"Loneliness hurts. I understand. I was slaved, and had to work with many kinds of things just to survive. Humiliation was a normal routine, but that wasn’t what had hurt the most. Being lonely, not knowing who I was, not having an identity, was the worst. Have you ever been among many people and also feel like you were in the middle of the ocean alone? Looking around and not feeling part of anything." She says, then looks at him. His chest hurts to hear her words." Hope is something hard to hold on to. Because we need to believe in something we will never know that it will happen tomorrow. But if we really believe, good things will happen." She says with a smile.

She’s the good thing that happened for him.

"Thank you for sharing your story." She says.

"Thank you too. I’m happy you saved me to try again."

She nods, smiling. After taking care of her garden, she goes inside the cabin and starts sewing a new bed. Cyprian is shocked when he discovers it was for him.

"I can sleep on the floor." Cyprian says.

"Everyone deserves a nice bed. Don’t worry, I like to have things to do to spend time." She speaks.

Zin doesn’t like that she’s doing something for another male, but he knows Astri is good and will always treat others well.

After sewing most of the bed, Astri asks Cyprian to put lots of clean grass, with no dirt, inside. After several minutes he comes back and she finishes sewing the bed.

"All done. Comfy bed for you." She gives the bed to Cyprian.

"Thank you."

"Let’s make dinner? I’m up to make some fluffy scrambled eggs. I think it’s someone’s favorite." Astri goes to their tiny kitchen.

Zin smiles happily and helps her cooking.

She makes a lot of food, all of them eat a lot so she fries two chickens and roast part of a deer. Then make some salad and noodles. Cyprian is drooling, smelling the delicious food, it looks different but it smells great.

Wayde and Lee arrive, they were smelling the delicious food from far away and knew that their mate would welcome them with her delicious meals.

Astri always greets them with kisses, and that tradition of hers is very welcomed by her mates. Cyprian is never tired of watching that little different female. He feels that he can be happy with her.