Legends of Belariath
Lupine
26, and a fugitive right from birth. Borne of a Wolven pack Matriarch and her illicit liaison with her human lover, I had my future all mapped out for me the moment I was conceived. Rather than entering the world bawling at the top of my lungs, matted fur pelt sticky with amniotic fluids like a typical healthy Wolfen cub should be, I was as bare and smooth as a whistle, pink-skinned and glowing... just like a human, and resolutely silent save to gurgle a little. Embarrassed open-mouthed stares turned into expressions of sheer horror as realization sank in – The future heiress in line to the pack was a bastard child, and needless to say an outcast from her race. Barely four summers old, and not understanding in the least as to what was going on, I was hastily bundled up and smuggled onto a sturdy carriage under the cover of darkness whilst Mother was away. My last impression of ‘home’ being the image of Maeniel, the pack alpha’s sneering mien as he savagely shut the wicker basket and sent the horses on their way with a brutal crack of his bullwhip.
Having been sent off vulnerable, helpless and naked save for a tiny cloak and loincloth, I awoke to find myself in a spacious wooden cot wrapped in a comfortable shift, the dim light in the room almost painfully glaring after the pitch darkness of the basket. Gazing down at me with an almost amused smile was a decidedly handsome human male; his sharp, chiseled features almost rugged in their appeal. But even then as a tender child, the most vivid thing about him I remembered were his piercing murky-green eyes. I didn’t know it just then, but it was him from whom I inherited them. This bastard child had a father who loved her.
The Wolven upbringing that I had experienced prior to this, as well as their blood that flowed through me was never mentioned, nor ever disclosed. Any questions I may have posed towards Father with regard to my parentage were abruptly dismissed, and never to be spoken of again. No one seemed to mind my dead giveaway of a pet name that stuck, my unusually raspy tongue, nor the sharp canines hidden between my lips... something that always struck me as strangely different from my other human playmates. The years passed almost too quickly for comfort from then on, with me hardly even remembering my previous life back with my mother and the pack, from whom there was no word. In truth, she had spent countless days, months, years even; in her desperate bid to find me, but to no avail. Perhaps when she finally came stumbling into the small village I then regarded as home in my eighteenth summer, it might have been an ironic stroke of luck... brutally fatal, to say the least.
Snarling almost savagely as she stormed through the main gates that late evening, my mother was the epitome of animalistic wrath – teetering right on the edge of blind fury in her instinctive maternal protectiveness. The low rumbling snarl ensuing from her throat seemed like echoing thunder in the distance from where I stood, dumbstruck in my horror and numbness behind the flap of a blind as I watched her fell numerous guards, helplessly restrained by my father’s painfully tight grip around my waist. I couldn’t explain it, but it was then that I realized who I was. What I was.
“M-mother...?” Legs that seemed rooted to the ground rendered me incapable of movement even as I watched hordes of men wielding vicious machetes surround and restrain her, her sheer brute strength unfairly overpowered by their vast numbers. And then all of a sudden the violent flurry of action ceased, only to play out in a painful slow motion – From the blurred shadows of the surrounding forests emerged a lone, solitary figure, one I recognized as that of the presiding village chieftain, Iago.
“Well well... so we meet again, Regeane of Tael. Still as feisty as ever, I see... nothing’s changed a bit.” Smirking as he reached to roughly cup her chin and force her proud gaze to glare disdainfully up at him, Iago’s voice was an almost seductive purr, velvety smooth and husky with certain promise. “And what business have you to come desecrating the soil of our land this evening?” Mocking laughter ringing in the otherwise quiet evening air, his long smooth fingers stroked against her cheeks, almost deceivingly gentle given the circumstances.
Swiftly wrenching her head free from his death grip before he could react, my mother moved to sink her sharp canines into the fleshy hand just moments ago caressing her cheek, twisting hard enough to severe Iago’s entire hand above his wrist, contemptuously spitting the bloody appendage onto the ground. “I’ve come for my daughter, Iago. I want nothing else to do with your kind -- ” Abruptly silenced by a heavy blow to her abdomen by one of Iago’s henchmen, she lay slumped against the men that held her immobile, blood gushing from the deep gash across her belly and matting her once silky fur; ragged panting visible as steam in the chilly night, her slit grey pupils blazing in hardly subdued fury.
Clutching his profusely bleeding stump of a hand and staggering to his feet, Iago’s outraged snarl shattered the unearthly silence that loomed, leaving no room for doubt as to my mother’s inevitable fate. “KILL HER you fucking bastards! And after you’re done with her battered body throw it out to the dogs... I will personally see to snapping her bitch of a daughter’s pitiful neck myself, once I flush her out...”
Watching wide-eyed and utterly mortified at the unnerving turn of events, it was all I could do to keep from wrenching free from my father’s firm grasp and bursting out into the open, screaming at the top of my voice for them to leave her alone. Growling as he tightened his grip around me, my father’s harsh whisper stopped me dead in my tracks. “Don’t, child... Nothing will and can stop those brutes. Your mother is already considered dead... I will not have you endanger yourself even further!” His effortless display of unapologetic cowardice sent a sudden wave of loathing contempt flooding through me. Between him and Iago, I couldn’t decide whom I despised more right then.
What ensued could only be described as surrealistic at best. Barely in my eighteenth turn of the Great Wheel and without so much as a muttered goodbye, I was left with no choice but to forage back out into the unknown wilderness, forced to escape from the very people whom had sheltered me. -- Again.
This time, however, I was entirely on my own.