Post by Kaziph on Jan 16, 2010 1:27:05 GMT -5
Nuri, after traveling south for a season with loyal Amaya at his side, had once again come north. The meadows for some reason were more homely to him than the other lands on the island, and he hoped that one day he would simply die in them rather than down south in the barren plains of Akeldama or in the marshy stench of Yorian. His thin, lanky white frame moved effortlessly across the territory. The brute's jowls hung open, tasting smells as well as scenting them. He loved the winter season, even though now his bones had begun to ache. Nuri was in better shape than most wolves his age, regardless of his slim diet. He would live many more years, he knew, and the thought pleased him. There were, after all, many more stories about the island to tell to those who would listen.
He came upon an old tree, one that he had known his entire life, and stood by it. The tree was perched on a ridge, near the eastern edge of the meadows. Not far away the Ravilin forest began, and it's shadows sometimes stretched out into the valley on the east of the ridge. In the afternoon, the tree's own shadow reached out toward the forest, almost as though it longed to go home to its brothers in the rich woodlands. It was, however, to forever remain a loner, just like Nuri. The white wolf lowered himself to the ground, resting after having traveled for a full day with few stops. It was time he settled down and took life as it was. For many seasons he had been traveling, learning, chasing down Thatcher, watching his children grow up from a distance... it pained him, slightly, to know that he would never be close to them as a father should. But he had told Larka that when they mated. His place was not to lead a clan, or to be a part of one. He had never been anything but a loner, just like his mother. Nasir had been the pack wolf through and through, taking lead after Fawkes's line had gone from the island.
Oh but years and years he had known, only eight in counting, and so much more was there to see. He marveled at how things changed, how wolves changed, and what those changes brought about. He knew, now, that he would never go north again. The passes were too challenging, even for a young wolf, and his older bones would be more easily broken and less likely to heal correctly if they were. The ice bridge would never feel his warm pads crossing it again, but he did wonder if his sister - or any of his other family up north - would come back south. Nasir was harsher than he had been, so perhaps she would live to make it back to their birthplace again after all. Thoughts of his family soothed him as he drifted off into sleep, and there he dreamed of the forest.
The woodlands were full and rich on the day that his father brought him and his sister into pack's territory. He had been a cub, only months old, and Azariah had decided that they needed to know the half of their family they had gone without. Their mother, a loner, had waited at the borders. He remembered the sunlight shining down upon his snowy back, flashing off his father's silver form, and he saw in his dream Nasir's cub-hood frame bounding ahead of him, always the leader. The faces were familiar, bittersweet memories of bygone years, and the alpha had looked kindly upon them. Napanee's face was reflected in Fawkes, once a loyal beta like his own father then. Strange how things turned about on themselves.
Names flooded through his mind, stories and legends and memories passed down through time. Shepo and Lazarus, Ziba and his love Danza, of Tahoma the first beta of the forest and her mate Titan. Naji, Wildfire's youngest and last daughter, now long dead, and Ghost and Phantom, both of Wildfire but from a different brute than the dark colored loner, Thunder. Oh, what he would have given to know such wolves! Such power was behind their names, and such legacy they had left. Would he, and others like Larka, Kira, Thaddeus... Thatcher, and the wolves of Kameskai, too, leave such a history behind? He wondered if the wolves of old had ever felt the same emotions, for they were all knowing, perfect in the stories. Surely, they too, were confused at times. Surely they felt loss and betrayal, heartache and joy.
His muzzle curved into a smile as the characters from the stories he had been told began to speak to him in his dreams, whispering of the past and the present and the future. They knew things, they did, and they told him. It won't be through you, dear Nuri, the said quietly, that this legacy will continue. A black wolf, a brute, stepped toward him in the dream and rumbled into his ear, Look north, my grandchild, and see what's coming in the new seasons. They will both come, although one will not be as strong as the other. Our story is not over, not until all of the wolves of the island - of Ravilin, Kameskai, Domasadar, Quantias, Travil... all of them, all of the blood of them, has gone. Remember that, and know that it does matter, it does make a difference. There was a serious glint to the wolf's bright blue eyes.
Another wolf stepped forward, and there was a white one beside her, a brother to her. Above all else, young one, [this from one who was ageless, beyond the Golden River's shores], remember this. The black wolf touched Nuri's forehead with her nose. We are important, our stories are important, and our blood is important. For without us, there wouldn't be you, or any wolves on the island today. Had we not succeeded, passed the trails of our age in our own day - all of us, loners and clan wolves alike - you would not be here, nor would the others even from distant shores. This island would not exist if not for us and our spirits, the Maker's chosen ones who animated our bodies. Never forget what we before you have done for you, and never forget that you are a part of a story now, too. One day you will join us, and look proudly upon your kin. You cannot say that blood doesn't tell, her last words were full of laughter, for her body was his own but in a different color, a different time. It's more important than you know.
Nuri licked her chin, for she was an alpha and he a mere loner, a great-grandchild that had never run through her woods. The first alpha. I will remember. May it be that others do as well. He closed his eyes, and this time his dreams were of chasing hare through the brush and brushing flanks with a good friend. Shadows of the past mingled around his slumbering form, and they smiled as at him as they faded into obscurity, brushed away by a raven's wings as he swooped low over the wolf below, still keeping watch over an old friend's child, still keeping his charge.
