Sorry for the lack of updates. I have thesis at my school due this week and I have had to spend a lot of time on that (eek!). But I did get cards of my blog printed plus bookmarks made to give out at the show. Btw, feel free to jump over to my art blog if you want to see artwork that is taken directly from my writing. That's what my thesis is- work from stories I have written. It'll be on my blog the day after the show.
But here is the ending to the story. Right now, it's still in draft 2. Draft 3 will be next week but only those really interested in it, should maybe email or comment if they want to see it. I'd rather get up some new material than spam my drafts :)
My phase would have been much swifter if I had not been so scared.
He had sensed my fear and recoiled, telling me that maybe I would take care of this problem in my man form. The female back at the house would wait for me. She would have to. A strong, well-bred wolf like myself was worth the wait.
I knew he was wrong.
The rogue stared at me and I knew he would have never attacked me without challenging me first. Matter of fact, he was giving me the time and care to get up and strengthen myself before we fought. I even felt his cold nose against the pad of one of my forepaws. Gripped in fright, I snapped at him, taking only a bit of hair back with me.
I began to stand, my shaking legs akin to a newborn foal, and tried to find my bearings. I had to kick away the remnants of my ripped jeans to stand properly and more assertively. When I did, I realized how sorely outmatched I was. I didn’t know who he was and his age was uncertain but his muzzle was scored by small scars. He wasn’t just another young rogue here to gain reputation.
He had bitten Cleo for a mate. In his older age, he wished to have a young mate to continue his line. I growled, a disturbing noise that heightened to the intensity of an ivory fanged snarl.
That was it.
I was on the ground in excruciating pain that reverberated through my body before I even knew what had happened. Spots danced in my vision. He looked amused as I, once again, tried to stand straight.
I growled at him, gaining my footing, as well as a minute amount of dignity, back. I met his next attack with one of my own, leaping into the air but his weight threw us several feet from the spot where I had come from and we fell into the dirt, a writhing pile of fur and fangs. I knew I was bleeding and pain registered in blinding sparks throughout my legs and face. I wriggled out from under him, huffing out dirt from my nose and wishing I had hands to wipe it from my eyes. I was coughing, choking on the dust and it was slowing me.
And that was my only advantage- my speed.
He chased me, outraged his opponent had gotten away, and I felt his teeth at my hackles. It made me exert the last amount of energy I had to jump away and then pivot to face him, angling my mouth for his throat.
I connected.
But not well.
With winter coming, his fur was thicker than it would have been if this were July and so my teeth could hardly even find skin. By this time, He had pushed me to the ground and just when I was about to count my light as going out…
A jingling noise caught my attention. And my attacker’s.
I saw a set of keys fall beside us and the rogue turned to snarl. Lucek stood at the top of the basin. What an idiot.
It gave me enough time to scramble away and jump onto the wolf’s back. Having had no luck with penetrating his throat earlier, I bit my jaws into the thinner fur at the base of his skull. The impact must have been heavy because my jaw shook with pain from striking hard bone and he yelped.
He tried to shake me away but by now he was at least feeling a semblance of pain. And more.
Lucek had become my guardian angel, throwing a heavy stone at the wolf, angering him and making him not entirely sure who he wanted to rip apart first.
I went for his throat again, having less resistance now, and was successful as a fount of hot blood hit my mouth. I latched, digging my fangs deeper and deeper into the wolf’s skin until he couldn’t shake me away.
My final attack was ripping away, taking a heavy chunk of furred flesh with me. His blood painted the ground black, his body limped and he was bleeding out quickly. It was both satisfying and frighteningly gruesome at the same time. Having finished my objective, my other nature pleased, I limped out of the basin and took to the bushes to change back.
When I came down the basin and into the moonlight, my hands and my mouth were painted in blood.
Lying in the settled dirt was not a wolf but a man.
It was one of those moments where my mouth was open and yet I could not scream. My hands were shaking before my eyes. In front of me was the grotesque display of what I had done.
A sound to my side reminded me that I was not alone. I gave myself the reprieve of tearing my glance from the body and looked at Lucek who seemed oddly unaffected by the blood. He simply skirted the edges of the growing pool, his eyes widened more in interest than in horror at what I had done.
“Dude, what’s wrong?”
I wanted to remind him that there was a dead body in front of us.
“Crowe, it was on orders.”
He tried to kill me. I thought.
I should have felt more comforted by what my conscience had told me. It was self-defense. Yet, I had hunted this man. Was that really an excuse then?
“You gonna stare at it all night?”
I shook my head.
I wondered how I had gotten to this point, standing in front of a dead man, my hands and face smeared with blood. My clothes were tattered and I had only my jeans still wearable. Yet, they were also stained with blood and that was a stain that would not come out.
Even if it would, I would never wear these again.
It’s a path that all young werewolves travel down (males specifically) and we are taught how to defend our pack by either sinking or swimming. I had swum beautifully and yet when I reached the shore of my growth this fall, I was sick. There was satisfaction in what I had done but it was minute and short in coming. I could feel the presence of pack and my mother was the first to leave the trees. She was changed back but her eyes were still feral, her hands reaching my shoulders.
Even among my own horror, I had to wonder how it felt for her to send her son out to yield to his second nature and become a killer. Her lips pressed to my thick hair and I knew in the surrounding trees the others waited and had watched. I couldn’t cry and I did not dare whine for that was a sign of weakness that would come back at me later when Lucek was old enough to take on the fur and perhaps challenge me.
I just took comfort in the fact that tonight I could not deny what was really true.
The man before me was not human and neither was I. This wasn’t something I had done to impress a girl, it was a task I had completed to remind myself of what I was.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Introduction to Werewolves Part II
The next part of the story. I was going to cut it off at the first break but decided against it. Excuse some of the formatting. Sometimes blogger doesn't pick it up.
Our basement, like many others, was just another room of the house. In the summer when the dry heat made the upstairs insufferable, my sister and I would sleep on the couch and loveseat down there or play video games where it was not so dreadful. I wasn’t sure if other places were like this… but it was nearly twenty degrees cooler in the basement than in the rest of the house. For parents who did not want their children to whine incessantly about heat, this playroom down here had been a Godsend.
And in the basement was our alpha, sitting in the recliner by the TV, rather comfortable in the idea that his presence had made the room his.
Alphas are the type of people that even humans respect. By that I mean they walk into the room and there is a presence to them that draws the respect, love and fear that any president or dictator would kill to have. It’s charisma that shows that they are a natural leader and ruler of men and beasts. Our alpha, Dimitre Knight, was the true epitome of that. He was watching me with his strange, mismatched eyes when I descended the last stair to the room and I felt uncomfortable immediately, resisting the urge to meet his gaze.
“You know that girl,” he said.
I nodded.
A soft laugh escaped him. “You know what we normally do under these circumstances, do you not?” He stood and I thought he was going to approach me. Instead, he just focused his gaze on one of the paintings on the wall. It was “Mount Corcoran” by Bierstadt. My mom loved that painting because it reminded her of the Sawtooth Mountains. My dad had brought her that little piece of home since the Grand Tetons just don’t compare. That painting held Dimitre’s attention for some time, the silence drawn out.
I did know what he would do to her. Or, rather, what he would tell my father to do. Alphas never had to do the dirty work.
“But I am not going to,” he said. “Your parents will not be around forever and so I think it would be prudent to prepare for your future. She is a rather pretty girl, after all.”
“Excuse me?”
“Crowe, I want you to find this rogue and kill him. You are going to change this moonturn- I sense that. Therefore, since she is within your age range and she may survive the fever, I suggest that you avenge the infection that wolf has presented her with.”
Dimitre never suggested anything. He gave demands, he told and he requested but this was not a suggestion.
“I trust you will have this done before the next run, Crowe. Finals are in a few weeks… you may want to finish this task so that you do not disappoint us in your human life as well.”
I let out the breath I was holding in and when he dismissed me with a flippant gesture of his hand, I made my way upstairs, letting out my fear through rage when I was well out of earshot.
I ended up in the kitchen, realizing how hungry I was. But food wasn’t the most immediate thing I had to think on. It was that I was going to have to hunt a full grown werewolf by myself so I could impress a girl I wasn’t sure I cared that much about and probably die in the process. I was fuming. I had been hyped about changing since the time I knew exactly what it meant and now my coming of age was suicide. That had to be it. I had somehow disappointed my parents and my pack and they wanted me to die. They were only expecting my sister to live. That had to be it.
A hand landed upon my shoulder and I whipped around, baring my teeth and growling low in my throat.
My dad was looking down at me. I wished he were looking at me as dismissively as Dimitre was because even if I felt the pain of familial betrayal, it would have fueled my rage. Instead, I felt like the puppy I knew I still was.
Instead of giving me some parting words, he just hugged me. I whimpered, holding onto him as if I could borrow some of his strength.
“No wolf is taught how to find his prey, Crowe. When the time comes, you will just know.”
I jumped over the fence easily, looking back to see Lucek trailing behind. I laughed at him even if he was helping me. He was thirteen years old and even though he might come into his change soon, nobody thought he would. He was a lithe boy with a pasty complexion and dark hair and eyes. Romanian wolves were never as hardy or muscled as my people were- the natural lycanthropes of the Blackfoot tribe.
He was helping me measure my strengths and my weaknesses. So far, even with a bit of added strength, I could not even compare to a full-grown wolf. That was why we were trying to bait this rogue.
Speed and dexterity were my strengths at this point and so, as a pair and behind the alpha’s back, we had planned a strategy together. I could smell the rogue’s rank scent on the air sometimes, faint and hungry, but he didn’t venture too close. He was testing the boundaries, wondering when the stronger wolves would jump in to protect their pups.
It wasn’t lending to our advantage.
As we entered the field several blocks from my house, dusk had already begun to fall and my body was restless, my joints aching. As we walked through cool, blue green grass, I had to rub my arms to try to make the pain lessen.
“Is it coming?”
“I would have told you if he was close,” I said.
Lucek pushed at my shoulder. “Not the wolf, you idiot. Your change. Dude, you’re gonna explode out of your skin tonight, aren’t you? Oh my God it’s going to be awesome!” He said and made a wide gesture with his hands. Somehow, watching my friend reenactment my change as if my body was a grenade was making me less than enthused.
“I don’t know, Lucek, for the last goddamned time. Geez.”
I knelt in the grass and Lucek gave me a strange look. The moon was close and soon we would have to take Cleo over to Stanley for her first change. They were hoping I could help her with that. I wouldn’t be able to kill the rogue without having at least that on my side.
“We need to give the rogue some sort of opening. If he doesn’t see we’re relaxed, then he’s never going to attack us.”
“Didn’t he attack Cleo in broad daylight?”
“Yeah, about that. Human foster child versus soon to be changing son of the beta wolves of a werewolf pack. Something tells me he is just smart enough not to try that while I am at track practice.”
“It is a rogue.”
He didn’t get to finish that thought because an ear-piercing howl split through the air like lightning. We had memorized the harmonies of our pack members since we were babies and this wasn’t one of them.
“Get cover,” I said to him, pushing him off in the direction I wanted him to go. “Call out if he chases you instead.”
One would think that if he had wanted to piss off part of the pack, he would have gone after Lucek, being adopted by Dimitre’s mate and all. But no, he clearly saw that I was considered more valuable at the moment and his hulking wolf form bounded over the untamed grass in long strides.
Werewolves changed to wolves with an equal size and weight to their human form and maybe it was because I was scared but he was huge. I took off like a shot through the grass.
I could hear him panting, more distant at first, and I had a good head start. But a hundred yards became fifty quickly as his pace was twice mine. In the field, he had the advantage, but I was leading him into a small, dense wooded area that Lucek and I had gone over in the past few days and memorized completely. This should have been more difficult for me but even though I was a more slender werewolf, I was agile and so I had found track to be the most appropriate way to expend my excess energy in school.
It wasn’t particularly hard for me to vault over the fallen logs. It was only unsettling to feel my balance shift when my sneakers slipped on the wet leaves on the other side of the fallen trunk. I had to brush my hands together and shake them, getting feeling back. The bark was cold and hard, having dug into my fingers.
The thicker the woods were, the darker it became and I knew that I was not going to make it. The obstacles were far too easy for him. He wasn’t just an animal- he was one that was able to solve problems and make tactical decisions as he hunted me. I had known this was going to happen even if I had hoped that it wouldn’t. I was going to have to force my change.
I had been preparing since the discomfort had begun but it was always still with my father leading. I didn’t have him and I didn’t have the still, meditative silence to console me. Instead, I had this rogue wolf who wanted to rip me to ribbons at my heels.
I did the only sensible thing.
I began to shrug off my outer shirt clumsily, throwing it behind me. I pulled my undershirt from my pants and started to pull at it, finding the task more difficult than I had thought it would be. I paused in my efforts and looked behind me. The wolf was even closer. Not good.
I panted heavily as the burning in my legs began. I was a distance runner but running from a wolf, even on the rush of adrenaline I could not keep this up for much longer. Remembering what had happened to Cleo and knowing that my future was going to be far more grim than just a bite, I sucked my fear in and took another shot at removing my shirt as I felt the first rippling beneath my skin.
Oh god. It was really going to happen.
The shirt finally freed itself from my head just as I was rewarded with my vision spinning. My sneakers were slipping on the wet leaves and before I knew it, I was flat on my back and I was sliding down, down, down…
My hands tried to dig into the freezing dirt as I came down the steep hill, mud caking into my nails, rocks and sharp twigs nicking and painfully scratching up my arms and hands. It wouldn’t have been too terrible if my insides weren’t on fire and my body wasn’t trying to rearrange to its other self.
Oh god, I thought. I was curled in the fetal position, my hands strained as they grasped against the hot skin of my stomach. I heard the wolf growling at me at the top. But when my neck snapped back and I could see him there, he just stood. He was just smart enough not to try attacking a changing werewolf, especially one who might be changing for the first time.
The wolf ripped through me, turning me inside out, the phase being fueled by my fear and my need to hurt him. Unfortunately, when he slid down the hill on all fours and looked at me, he wasn’t scared. Just like every clever predator, the rogue had me just where he wanted.
Introduction to Werewolves Part II
Our basement, like many others, was just another room of the house. In the summer when the dry heat made the upstairs insufferable, my sister and I would sleep on the couch and loveseat down there or play video games where it was not so dreadful. I wasn’t sure if other places were like this… but it was nearly twenty degrees cooler in the basement than in the rest of the house. For parents who did not want their children to whine incessantly about heat, this playroom down here had been a Godsend.
And in the basement was our alpha, sitting in the recliner by the TV, rather comfortable in the idea that his presence had made the room his.
Alphas are the type of people that even humans respect. By that I mean they walk into the room and there is a presence to them that draws the respect, love and fear that any president or dictator would kill to have. It’s charisma that shows that they are a natural leader and ruler of men and beasts. Our alpha, Dimitre Knight, was the true epitome of that. He was watching me with his strange, mismatched eyes when I descended the last stair to the room and I felt uncomfortable immediately, resisting the urge to meet his gaze.
“You know that girl,” he said.
I nodded.
A soft laugh escaped him. “You know what we normally do under these circumstances, do you not?” He stood and I thought he was going to approach me. Instead, he just focused his gaze on one of the paintings on the wall. It was “Mount Corcoran” by Bierstadt. My mom loved that painting because it reminded her of the Sawtooth Mountains. My dad had brought her that little piece of home since the Grand Tetons just don’t compare. That painting held Dimitre’s attention for some time, the silence drawn out.
I did know what he would do to her. Or, rather, what he would tell my father to do. Alphas never had to do the dirty work.
“But I am not going to,” he said. “Your parents will not be around forever and so I think it would be prudent to prepare for your future. She is a rather pretty girl, after all.”
“Excuse me?”
“Crowe, I want you to find this rogue and kill him. You are going to change this moonturn- I sense that. Therefore, since she is within your age range and she may survive the fever, I suggest that you avenge the infection that wolf has presented her with.”
Dimitre never suggested anything. He gave demands, he told and he requested but this was not a suggestion.
“I trust you will have this done before the next run, Crowe. Finals are in a few weeks… you may want to finish this task so that you do not disappoint us in your human life as well.”
I let out the breath I was holding in and when he dismissed me with a flippant gesture of his hand, I made my way upstairs, letting out my fear through rage when I was well out of earshot.
I ended up in the kitchen, realizing how hungry I was. But food wasn’t the most immediate thing I had to think on. It was that I was going to have to hunt a full grown werewolf by myself so I could impress a girl I wasn’t sure I cared that much about and probably die in the process. I was fuming. I had been hyped about changing since the time I knew exactly what it meant and now my coming of age was suicide. That had to be it. I had somehow disappointed my parents and my pack and they wanted me to die. They were only expecting my sister to live. That had to be it.
A hand landed upon my shoulder and I whipped around, baring my teeth and growling low in my throat.
My dad was looking down at me. I wished he were looking at me as dismissively as Dimitre was because even if I felt the pain of familial betrayal, it would have fueled my rage. Instead, I felt like the puppy I knew I still was.
Instead of giving me some parting words, he just hugged me. I whimpered, holding onto him as if I could borrow some of his strength.
“No wolf is taught how to find his prey, Crowe. When the time comes, you will just know.”
I jumped over the fence easily, looking back to see Lucek trailing behind. I laughed at him even if he was helping me. He was thirteen years old and even though he might come into his change soon, nobody thought he would. He was a lithe boy with a pasty complexion and dark hair and eyes. Romanian wolves were never as hardy or muscled as my people were- the natural lycanthropes of the Blackfoot tribe.
He was helping me measure my strengths and my weaknesses. So far, even with a bit of added strength, I could not even compare to a full-grown wolf. That was why we were trying to bait this rogue.
Speed and dexterity were my strengths at this point and so, as a pair and behind the alpha’s back, we had planned a strategy together. I could smell the rogue’s rank scent on the air sometimes, faint and hungry, but he didn’t venture too close. He was testing the boundaries, wondering when the stronger wolves would jump in to protect their pups.
It wasn’t lending to our advantage.
As we entered the field several blocks from my house, dusk had already begun to fall and my body was restless, my joints aching. As we walked through cool, blue green grass, I had to rub my arms to try to make the pain lessen.
“Is it coming?”
“I would have told you if he was close,” I said.
Lucek pushed at my shoulder. “Not the wolf, you idiot. Your change. Dude, you’re gonna explode out of your skin tonight, aren’t you? Oh my God it’s going to be awesome!” He said and made a wide gesture with his hands. Somehow, watching my friend reenactment my change as if my body was a grenade was making me less than enthused.
“I don’t know, Lucek, for the last goddamned time. Geez.”
I knelt in the grass and Lucek gave me a strange look. The moon was close and soon we would have to take Cleo over to Stanley for her first change. They were hoping I could help her with that. I wouldn’t be able to kill the rogue without having at least that on my side.
“We need to give the rogue some sort of opening. If he doesn’t see we’re relaxed, then he’s never going to attack us.”
“Didn’t he attack Cleo in broad daylight?”
“Yeah, about that. Human foster child versus soon to be changing son of the beta wolves of a werewolf pack. Something tells me he is just smart enough not to try that while I am at track practice.”
“It is a rogue.”
He didn’t get to finish that thought because an ear-piercing howl split through the air like lightning. We had memorized the harmonies of our pack members since we were babies and this wasn’t one of them.
“Get cover,” I said to him, pushing him off in the direction I wanted him to go. “Call out if he chases you instead.”
One would think that if he had wanted to piss off part of the pack, he would have gone after Lucek, being adopted by Dimitre’s mate and all. But no, he clearly saw that I was considered more valuable at the moment and his hulking wolf form bounded over the untamed grass in long strides.
Werewolves changed to wolves with an equal size and weight to their human form and maybe it was because I was scared but he was huge. I took off like a shot through the grass.
I could hear him panting, more distant at first, and I had a good head start. But a hundred yards became fifty quickly as his pace was twice mine. In the field, he had the advantage, but I was leading him into a small, dense wooded area that Lucek and I had gone over in the past few days and memorized completely. This should have been more difficult for me but even though I was a more slender werewolf, I was agile and so I had found track to be the most appropriate way to expend my excess energy in school.
It wasn’t particularly hard for me to vault over the fallen logs. It was only unsettling to feel my balance shift when my sneakers slipped on the wet leaves on the other side of the fallen trunk. I had to brush my hands together and shake them, getting feeling back. The bark was cold and hard, having dug into my fingers.
The thicker the woods were, the darker it became and I knew that I was not going to make it. The obstacles were far too easy for him. He wasn’t just an animal- he was one that was able to solve problems and make tactical decisions as he hunted me. I had known this was going to happen even if I had hoped that it wouldn’t. I was going to have to force my change.
I had been preparing since the discomfort had begun but it was always still with my father leading. I didn’t have him and I didn’t have the still, meditative silence to console me. Instead, I had this rogue wolf who wanted to rip me to ribbons at my heels.
I did the only sensible thing.
I began to shrug off my outer shirt clumsily, throwing it behind me. I pulled my undershirt from my pants and started to pull at it, finding the task more difficult than I had thought it would be. I paused in my efforts and looked behind me. The wolf was even closer. Not good.
I panted heavily as the burning in my legs began. I was a distance runner but running from a wolf, even on the rush of adrenaline I could not keep this up for much longer. Remembering what had happened to Cleo and knowing that my future was going to be far more grim than just a bite, I sucked my fear in and took another shot at removing my shirt as I felt the first rippling beneath my skin.
Oh god. It was really going to happen.
The shirt finally freed itself from my head just as I was rewarded with my vision spinning. My sneakers were slipping on the wet leaves and before I knew it, I was flat on my back and I was sliding down, down, down…
My hands tried to dig into the freezing dirt as I came down the steep hill, mud caking into my nails, rocks and sharp twigs nicking and painfully scratching up my arms and hands. It wouldn’t have been too terrible if my insides weren’t on fire and my body wasn’t trying to rearrange to its other self.
Oh god, I thought. I was curled in the fetal position, my hands strained as they grasped against the hot skin of my stomach. I heard the wolf growling at me at the top. But when my neck snapped back and I could see him there, he just stood. He was just smart enough not to try attacking a changing werewolf, especially one who might be changing for the first time.
The wolf ripped through me, turning me inside out, the phase being fueled by my fear and my need to hurt him. Unfortunately, when he slid down the hill on all fours and looked at me, he wasn’t scared. Just like every clever predator, the rogue had me just where he wanted.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Introduction to Werewolves
Today I am going to post my first excerpt of a story I wrote for my EN 380 class (Writing For Young Adults) and if someone wants to write feedback, that would be nice... or any other comment. I haven't gotten beyond a second draft because of time constraints but having more of a direction would help! The story still does not have a name so anything like that would be useful as well. It's just the first part.
The tips of my fingers began to itch. Again. It was growing more common in the past months, and though rubbing them against my jeans had used to work, it was now a useless venture. I didn’t even try to. The cooling autumn air around me did as much as it could for the itching, and would have done more, if it were on the surface. However, it was like a thousand skittering spiders inside my body, ready to burst out.
It was a rather horrific image and, thinking back on it, I realized it would be appropriate to say my change would be much like that.
I rounded the corner of the long, barren street, and spotted my house near the end. We didn’t have many neighbors and it was how my parents preferred it. From what I had been told, they had lived in an apartment as newlyweds and the strife they had shared with the other tenants had made them seek a home far from others.
And I didn’t really mind. Pine trees surrounded the house, burying the dark log home in a thick scent of forest that was rather rare in this area. Iona was situated in a plain that was surrounded by the white-capped Teton Mountains that were visible in the distance no matter where you stood. In between those mountains and us was nothing but plains and hills, houses and power lines the only features that dotted the landscape. Other than cows. There are a lot of cows in Idaho.
I stopped at the end of the driveway. I just stood there for a long moment, digesting the scene before me and allowing my developing senses to envelope me. There were more than two cars in the driveway. My father’s truck peeked out from the garage and my mother’s car was just behind it. If seeing my mother’s car wasn’t unusual enough in the late afternoon, seeing a Fish and Game vehicle as well as a new BMW beside it was even more unsettling. It was the middle of Autumn. There was no pack meeting until Thanksgiving. Even if there had been, I would have known about it. With my changes coming so soon, I was being assimilated into the actual organization of the wolves among the pack.
Making my way up the porch, I struggled against my nature to be more cautious. This was my home… even with the uncanny feeling that something was undoubtedly wrong, I shouldn’t have felt unsafe. So I opened the door and I was assaulted by a scent.
Not just any smell. It was that of a female.
The past months in school had been difficult for me in this regard. Since the fairs had ended and the air had cooled, all of my normal senses had gone into overdrive. I had never been particularly interested in girls at my age and they had shown just as little interest in me but that had all changed. When I had walked into school that first day, all of a sudden I had noticed the length of their skirts, the tightness of their jeans… and in return I saw some of them stare back. In middle school I had always been tall but never toned as my young body was still adjusting but as my wolf was breaching the surface, those things smoothed out. There were few in my grade that thought I was fourteen years old.
I was too articulate to many of these rednecks to be fourteen.
The scent of the female I had in my consciousness was one I recognized. Cleo. I didn’t know her last name. It rolled off my tongue noiselessly as I was unable to hide my surprise at seeing her there. She was curled against my mom; her body was shivering and the heat of her fever prickled my skin. I didn’t have to ask what had happened. Ever since I had been a little boy, I knew what it meant if one of my kin bit someone. If it had been anything other than a bite, she would be at the hospital. They would be cooling her down so that she could break the fever. Instead, my mother was holding her, stroking her hair. Cleo whimpered and, in the back of my throat, I whimpered back.
I couldn’t help it. I knew this girl. Perhaps not well but my second nature was definitely intrigued. He didn’t want her to be hurt. I didn’t want her to be hurt.
I set my bag down by the couch and sat on the arm.
“We don’t know if she’s going to live.”
I turned to the voice- my dad standing against the wall, arms crossed over his broad chest, amber eyes fixed upon the girl. His nostrils were flared, detecting the scent of infection in the air far easier than I could. It wasn’t obvious but there was a hint of disgust in the curl of the edges of his lips.
“We found her this morning.”
We I mouthed.
“Brian and I.”
I nodded. The Fish and game vehicle belonged to Brian and Nadia yet I did not see them here nor did I smell them.
“Where’d they go?” I asked. I was staring at him even if he wasn’t affording me the same attention.
“They’re looking for the rogue.” He paused, blinked and then turned his gaze to me. “The only reason we even found her is that Brian got a call from one of her neighbors that a wolf had been spotted.”
“He was changed? In broad daylight?”
They were stupid questions and the answers were obvious but I couldn’t help but blurt them out. They pretty much came before I had even realized they had formulated in my mind. Perhaps it was because my father had drilled me from day one to never underestimate rogues that entered our territory. They are smart, he would say, They know how to dissemble a pack. That the rogue that had bitten Cleo was so careless stumped me.
“Crowe.” My father nodded towards the open basement door. I followed him downstairs.
Introduction to Werewolves
The tips of my fingers began to itch. Again. It was growing more common in the past months, and though rubbing them against my jeans had used to work, it was now a useless venture. I didn’t even try to. The cooling autumn air around me did as much as it could for the itching, and would have done more, if it were on the surface. However, it was like a thousand skittering spiders inside my body, ready to burst out.
It was a rather horrific image and, thinking back on it, I realized it would be appropriate to say my change would be much like that.
I rounded the corner of the long, barren street, and spotted my house near the end. We didn’t have many neighbors and it was how my parents preferred it. From what I had been told, they had lived in an apartment as newlyweds and the strife they had shared with the other tenants had made them seek a home far from others.
And I didn’t really mind. Pine trees surrounded the house, burying the dark log home in a thick scent of forest that was rather rare in this area. Iona was situated in a plain that was surrounded by the white-capped Teton Mountains that were visible in the distance no matter where you stood. In between those mountains and us was nothing but plains and hills, houses and power lines the only features that dotted the landscape. Other than cows. There are a lot of cows in Idaho.
I stopped at the end of the driveway. I just stood there for a long moment, digesting the scene before me and allowing my developing senses to envelope me. There were more than two cars in the driveway. My father’s truck peeked out from the garage and my mother’s car was just behind it. If seeing my mother’s car wasn’t unusual enough in the late afternoon, seeing a Fish and Game vehicle as well as a new BMW beside it was even more unsettling. It was the middle of Autumn. There was no pack meeting until Thanksgiving. Even if there had been, I would have known about it. With my changes coming so soon, I was being assimilated into the actual organization of the wolves among the pack.
Making my way up the porch, I struggled against my nature to be more cautious. This was my home… even with the uncanny feeling that something was undoubtedly wrong, I shouldn’t have felt unsafe. So I opened the door and I was assaulted by a scent.
Not just any smell. It was that of a female.
The past months in school had been difficult for me in this regard. Since the fairs had ended and the air had cooled, all of my normal senses had gone into overdrive. I had never been particularly interested in girls at my age and they had shown just as little interest in me but that had all changed. When I had walked into school that first day, all of a sudden I had noticed the length of their skirts, the tightness of their jeans… and in return I saw some of them stare back. In middle school I had always been tall but never toned as my young body was still adjusting but as my wolf was breaching the surface, those things smoothed out. There were few in my grade that thought I was fourteen years old.
I was too articulate to many of these rednecks to be fourteen.
The scent of the female I had in my consciousness was one I recognized. Cleo. I didn’t know her last name. It rolled off my tongue noiselessly as I was unable to hide my surprise at seeing her there. She was curled against my mom; her body was shivering and the heat of her fever prickled my skin. I didn’t have to ask what had happened. Ever since I had been a little boy, I knew what it meant if one of my kin bit someone. If it had been anything other than a bite, she would be at the hospital. They would be cooling her down so that she could break the fever. Instead, my mother was holding her, stroking her hair. Cleo whimpered and, in the back of my throat, I whimpered back.
I couldn’t help it. I knew this girl. Perhaps not well but my second nature was definitely intrigued. He didn’t want her to be hurt. I didn’t want her to be hurt.
I set my bag down by the couch and sat on the arm.
“We don’t know if she’s going to live.”
I turned to the voice- my dad standing against the wall, arms crossed over his broad chest, amber eyes fixed upon the girl. His nostrils were flared, detecting the scent of infection in the air far easier than I could. It wasn’t obvious but there was a hint of disgust in the curl of the edges of his lips.
“We found her this morning.”
We I mouthed.
“Brian and I.”
I nodded. The Fish and game vehicle belonged to Brian and Nadia yet I did not see them here nor did I smell them.
“Where’d they go?” I asked. I was staring at him even if he wasn’t affording me the same attention.
“They’re looking for the rogue.” He paused, blinked and then turned his gaze to me. “The only reason we even found her is that Brian got a call from one of her neighbors that a wolf had been spotted.”
“He was changed? In broad daylight?”
They were stupid questions and the answers were obvious but I couldn’t help but blurt them out. They pretty much came before I had even realized they had formulated in my mind. Perhaps it was because my father had drilled me from day one to never underestimate rogues that entered our territory. They are smart, he would say, They know how to dissemble a pack. That the rogue that had bitten Cleo was so careless stumped me.
“Crowe.” My father nodded towards the open basement door. I followed him downstairs.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Here I Am
Over the past months I have made a drastic decision in my life that despite having spent, and loved, the years of my college days at Ringling, that my heart does not seem to lay with only drawing. I think that many people have found that. College, After all, is a huge decision so many of us make at such a young age and like many, thought that telling stories through my drawing was what I wanted.
I still do-- nobody pictures my characters like I do, but that is not the point.
I am a writer.
I have always been a writer and taking these two writing classes here at Ringling has sealed my fate. I am a writer and whether I am doing it for an assignment or because I can't get a story out of my head, I will write.
And so while the ideas of graduate school float in my mind, I am going to try to create a writing network so that I can share my work with others, whether just readers or other writers.
I still do-- nobody pictures my characters like I do, but that is not the point.
I am a writer.
I have always been a writer and taking these two writing classes here at Ringling has sealed my fate. I am a writer and whether I am doing it for an assignment or because I can't get a story out of my head, I will write.
And so while the ideas of graduate school float in my mind, I am going to try to create a writing network so that I can share my work with others, whether just readers or other writers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)