Beastmen Love
Chapter 80: Forgiveness

Chapter 80: Forgiveness

On the next day, Beau decides to go have breakfast with everyone and sees Astri sitting next to her spouses. It is always cramped since everyone built the habit to come have breakfast together.

Astri looks at Beau and feels his energy is even sadder and colder.

"I can’t believe I caught you using a knife again. Bad spouse!" Lee pinches Astri’s cheek.

"Ouch!! At least the food is good. Come on. I went through worse. A little cut can’t make me stop doing what I like." She says rubbing her sore cheek.

"That’s why I forgive you."

"Then take that back, you chicken! She’s not a bad spouse." Cyprian says.

"All right. I’m sorry." Lee hugs her.

"It’s been 3 days since I last saw her. She looks calmer." Beau thinks.

"I’m happy you’re feeling better, Astri. The food you prepare is delicious." Koa says.

"Thank you! At least someone here is grateful." She speaks.

"Thank you! Your food is the best!" Her spouses say at the same time, scaring the cubs at first.

"Shh.. Don’t be scared. Your fathers are not angry." Astri says, rubbing their heads and kissing Yuki’s little face and preventing her from crying.

After some time eating a little more, Astri decides to go check the plantation by herself. She spent too much time down, she wants to do something.

She checks if the earth is too wet or not, then starts plucking the old leaves and checking if the plants are getting sick in that environment.

While she stands up satisfied to see everything is fine she hears the door opening. Beau comes inside and she is impressed to actually see him there.

"Beau. Do you need any herb?" She asks.

"No.."

"All right."

He tries to speak something, but his voice feels stuck.

"I.. wanted to say sorry." She softly says.

He looks at her curious and also stunned.

"For what?" He asks.

"Since the last time we talked you seem to be distancing yourself. It wasn’t my intention to hurt you." She says.

"No... Don’t apologize. You didn’t tell any lies. What you said is true.. So true it made me run away afraid of hearing more like a coward. I’m sorry."

She smiles and sits down on a small wooden seat to start working on making new seedlings.

"Don’t treat you badly for this. Changes often hurt before getting comfortable. Sit, let me teach you how to make seedlings." She says.

He sits down next to her and she teaches him how to prepare the earth.

"The earth is life too. This one is filled with the remains of plants, tea leftovers, food leftovers, and vegetable scraps, eggshells. Mixed with dry leaves and common earth it makes it rich for new plants to grow. First, let’s take these little vases and fill them with earth." She teaches him and he listens carefully doing what she tells him to do.

When he’s done with the first one she checks it before giving it back to him.

"Now it’s yours to make it grow. Nurture it with water, sunlight, and love. I’m sure you can do it." She says.

"Love?"

"Everything is life. And everything wants to be loved." She says.

She keeps on working on new seedlings.

"Why don’t you ask your spouses to do that?" He asks.

"Because I like to do this. Plants and water are the most important things in the world, we must respect them as our own lives."

He looks at his seedling, then rubs the vase a little.

"Thank you for teaching me. I’ll take care of it." He speaks with a little smile.

"See how brilliant they are? It even took a smile from you!" She points at him chuckling.

He looks down blushing, but still smiling. They keep working in a good silence.

"When I was little, I was forced to take care of plantations. Then when I could run away from where I was being locked, I started to realize that I missed the plants. In the end, they were everything good I had besides the other little orphans I took care of." She says softly.

"I’m sorry to hear that."

"Don’t be. It was a necessary pain for me to know their importance in my life. Sometimes it hurts before healing. And if it doesn’t hurt it’s because it wasn’t something important."

He sighs slowly, thinking deeply.

"I don’t like to think about my past. It makes me feel overwhelmed. After hearing what you told me, about I might sink, I realized that I did this myself." He says.

"Yes, I understand."

He looks at her wondering what she meant about that.

"You understand?" Not handling his curiosity, he asks.

"When I was little, I was raised in a place called orphanage. Do you have that in Aquaterra? A place with cubs or young beastmen who lost their parents."

"No.. At least not with this name. Normally orphans simply stay with other families."

"Well, an orphanage is a place for the ones who don’t have other families to stay. Some orphanages are good places, but there are ones run by evil people who are paid to only take care of the orphans and they only care about that. About getting rich using innocent souls. If I asked for more food I would be beaten. If I didn’t finish things fast, I would be beaten. If the plants weren’t raised fast enough I would be beaten. Crying was worse, so I had to stay quiet even if it was hurting. When males wanted to force sex on me, I had to fight alone. When I was old enough they expelled me and made me live on my own." Her story is something that she hardly says out loud. "When I was expelled, I couldn’t protect the others anymore and I wanted to blame myself for not calling someone to lock those monsters, but at the same time, I didn’t dare to do so because those kids didn’t have where to go and they would be sent to who knows where. So I decided to travel, far away, thinking I would forget. I thought it would feel less painful. But it didn’t."

He’s sad to hear about her hard past.

"Your suffering.. And the kids’ suffering are not your fault." He softly says.

She smiles. "I know. But it’s hard either way. I understand feeling overwhelmed by your past, but if I didn’t decide to change the way I see it, I wouldn’t ever trust my mates. I wouldn’t ever find who I am. I for sure would be dead now if I kept hiding things inside of me in the wrong way."

He nods, now understanding. After opening her heart, she feels a little lighter.

"Thank you for hearing." She says standing up and bringing the vase she was working on and taking another one.

She starts to work putting earth in the new vase and he watches, feeling his heart beating faster and faster, like he wants to explode.

"Can I..." He says holding his trembling hands on the vase she gave him.

She looks at him and recognizes a panic attack.

"Can I.. Tell you my story?" He asks.

"Of course. If you want."

He gives a trembling sigh and looks at her. She exposed her past to him and he related to her. He feels he can open himself too. He has many things in his mind. He wonders if she will judge him if she will look at him differently.

His breathing started to grow faster too and she holds his hand. Her hand and energy were like the warm light of the sun on him, he pressed his eyes together and tried to gather the courage to speak.

"It’s all right." She says rubbing his hand to call him down. "Do you know what you’re having right now?"

He denies it with his head.

"Let it go." She softly says and then hugs him, shocking him.

Barely did he know that her hug felt like a sharp knife cutting thick and painful ropes around his body. He felt his eyes filling with tears and his lips started to tremble.

"Claud?" She says in her mind.

"Yes, love? Do you need help with the plants?" Claud answers.

"Tell everyone to stay away from the room I am in. Beau is having a panic attack and I’m helping him. Don’t let anyone come."

"Yes... I’ll make sure no one goes there."

Claud sighs. Claud takes a little glance into Astri’s mind and sees Beau crying in her arms.

"Poor thing.."

He decides to not watch further. Beau suffered from hiding things for a long time, everyone can see he’s a good male, but his energy carries a weight that is tangible to the ones who are more sensitive and Claud noticed that in him long ago. Beau will open himself to someone he trusts and he found this someone.

Beau cries for a long time. He tries to stop but he can’t. Astri keeps hugging him, letting him cry as much as needs. She wished she had someone to do that for her long ago, but she is happy that she can help someone.

After he gets calmer, they sit side by side and she keeps holding his hand to give him strength to speak.

"When I was younger, I killed my mother and all of her mates."