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| findemaxam48 |
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| rhodilwen |
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| wolfbladequeen |
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| Mareth_Ravenlock |
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| findemaxam48 |
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| wolfbladequeen |
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| findemaxam48 |
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| rhodilwen |
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| wolfbladequeen |
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| Mareth_Ravenlock |
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| wolfbladequeen |
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| findemaxam48 |
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| rhodilwen |
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| wolfbladequeen |
on: October 14, 2013 05:54
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Ooh, that is so... deep! I have been writing a new story... about... wait for it... wolves! *gasp* Here is the first chapter... it is quite long though... but I think some feedback would really help me to develop the story...
There is a wolf. She is running. Running away, rather than running to, or running for the sake of running. She pauses, and looks behind her. The fear in her eyes would be blindingly obvious to another wolf, but not to the humans who (to forces that) seek to destroy rather than understand. She spins round until she decides on a new direction, then begins to run again. She comes to a cave. A dark, secret place, just like she was seeking. A place where she could curl up and withdraw into herself to lick her wounds, then lie shaking against the cold stone ‘til morning came, and they would leave the hunt to pursue easier game. Night was their time of strength, when their sharply gleaming eyes would pick out every twitching whisker against the shadows. They were not nocturnal, sleeping at day as a wolf would (they seemed to need no rest at any time of day or night), but daylight revealed (reveals) too much about (of) them, so they chose to act as their prey instead of sneaking up on the sleeping, though that would not have been beneath them (so they operate while the night creatures are awake and vigilant, though slaughtering the sleeping and the defenceless was not beneath them).
She licks her shoulder, and the hind paw bleeding from the cut she attained (received) when she mistimed the leap. The memory of the sound of tearing fur was painful, but not so much as the thought of the hot breath and snapping jaws by her tail. It is said (rumoured) that they could take any form that they wished, always a predator, with the means to take down the wiliest of beasts, but she could tell they did not have the wild streak of creatures born and raised in forests. This was their one weakness, and the only reason she had outrun them. In a test of strength or stamina, she was at a huge disadvantage (they held the advantage), but weaving in and out of the trees she had grown up in presented no challenge to the young wolf.
No one knew where they came from. Supposedly they had come into being as a conflicting influence for the First Trees; for light always casts a shadow. They emerged, weak, and timid, subsequent to (after) the creation of the First Trees, the circle from which all life blossomed, and from which the children of those mighty guardians spread out to provide a home for the multitude of assorted creatures. The power of the woods remains unsurpassed, and untested. The woods are all that is. Beyond their borders, there are wild, half-finished lands filled with imprecise beasts (vague life forms). No animal would venture into those places with any hope of returning. It was folly even to linger by the shadowed margin where safety and certainty blended with the looming menace of the Outlands.
They featured in all the tales of the lone wolves, who were said to have been a threat to the close-knit packs before their numbers were strikingly (so much) lessened. But cubs still wandered alone, and the occasional grown wolf would choose to leave to find a mate in another pack (to find a different pack). Some cubs were safe, discovered covering and whining about shadows and distant blood-howls. These were always chilling, because each killing signified even scarcer prey for the rival packs, but the stories of howling that was ghostly and cruelly triumphant, rather than relieved and celebratory, were sometimes enough to ensure that the adolescents walked with their tails down and their hackles raised, growling at dark spaces that filled the empty places of the night.
As a pack member, she has scorned her whimpering pack of cubs. It had been her duty to look after the ones too young to hunt, but she had loathed the hindrance of the mischievous youngsters. One tiny nick, on the very tip of her ear, had confined her unnecessarily to the safety of the den. Admittedly, it had taken half a moon to adjust to the lopsided sense of hearing, but when that time had passed she could hunt just as well as before, perhaps more so, as she had trained endlessly in an attempt to prove her worth and earn back her place in the pack. Perhaps it was her disbelief of the stories about monsters that lurked in wait for any creature travelling alone, combined with her annoyance about being treated as if she had a missing limb or two, that had led her to leave.
After leaving, she had encountered just one other pack. They had not harmed her for trespassing, nor called her before their pack leader, but instead they had avoided her defiant stare, and dragged their tails through the rotten leaves in a gesture of pity. But this was her choice, and even if she had wished to return, her pack now saw her as an outlaw, a status almost equal to that of the dead. There had been an increase in these lately. Every few moons she would come across a carcass, left for the scavengers rather than treated to the traditional rituals of respect. This was another factor that revealed the abnormality of the deaths, and in some cases, disappearances. Many of the cubs that did not manage to find their way back to their dens after wandering off were never found.
She had stayed in the lands she had roamed for years, usually hunting only rabbits and voles, or fish when she came to a river. She had been travelling in a circle around the edge of her old pack’s territory, not (rather than) presenting herself as an envoy to another pack where she might hope to find a mate (,as sometimes happened when a young wolf wanted a change of scenery, or when a pack had dwindling numbers. Also, when two small packs were threatened, they would sometimes proffer a pact, and this would often be sealed by a couple of the cubs from each delegation switching packs. Each pack generally kept separate from all others, in an unspoken truce. Although sometimes pack would turn on pack, every wolf was aware that if their species began to fade, the packs would need to unite or face elimination. The pack leaders were proud, and only a universal threat would cause them to coalesce.).
(Many, many moons ago, an alliance of beasts had come from the Outlands, and the packs had joined forces, but it would take a singularly malignant force to bring about a reoccurrence of that significant winter. Even then, there had been those who had refused to collaborate. That minority had launched fight-and-flee attacks. This had proved fatal for them, and it was with remorseful hearts that the congregation of survivors had mourned their passing. Each pack that had perished had had their own traditions, their own variation of the wolf-speech, and their own values. For that to have been obliterated was a loss that had been felt for more winters than was countable, even for the wisest of the elders. Out of longstanding respect, the territories of those packs had never been taken, and any animal that was brought down in those woods would be left where it was. No wolf knew whether this was again out of respect, or due to a belief in resentful Traces that remained after the body departed, or in a vain hope that some had survived.)
She walked alone, although ‘walked’ is really no description at all. She would trot, or pad if she was on the trail of some much needed nourishment, or sometimes run for pleasure. When she reached a stream, she would gambol along the banks, or pick her way along the river bed, swimming confidently if the depth was suitable (sometimes swimming with the same confidence as the creatures of water).
Then she had reached a border shared by no other pack. Generally, no wolf would enter this patch of woodland. Superstitious fools, she had thought. There was no reason why a simple change in atmosphere, a difference in the amount of light between these unfamiliar trees should mean anything. Spiky, dark green branches like narrow bones, or sharp claws, grew unevenly along the weighed down branches fumbling away from the puce-coloured bark that wrapped around the twisted trunks. The trees grew thickly, and close together (grew close together, screening any life forms from prying eyes). There was a muddy stream trickling its way through the gnarled roots, and some tough-looking vines choking the saplings. There were not many of these. Indeed, most of the trees seemed to be ancient.
The wolf had entered this wood, and bounded contentedly along, until she reached a barrier of thorns that prevented her from advancing. After searching in vain for a way around, she had concluding that she only option was to turn to the left or right, and continue that way. But then had come a low growl, not a warning as would come from another predator, but a release of pent-up hatred. She had not shied away from the noise, although she had felt the danger, physically felt it as blood surging through her veins, wind skimming her fur, and atmosphere, pure atmosphere, forcing her backwards. That was when she ran. It was not a decision as such, more an uncontrollable urge to not be where she was. This is the instinct of a wolf, not to choose what course of action to take, but to take it without ever questioning why. (To a wolf, it is pointless, unthinkable even, to waste the precious time of life by dwelling on the possible outcomes of alternative actions, especially for those in the past. The future is also unimportant to wolves. They do take lessons from past mistakes, but every wolf understands that they may never know more than what they experience in the present, whenever that present may be, so they do not make plans, nor try to anticipate those of others. They can tell what their prey is likely to do next, but there is never any certainty. They live now, they live while they still can, because they believe that ‘tomorrow’ is not their right, but a gift from the First Trees
The shadow that had taken so many, perhaps for some darker purpose, perhaps simply to satisfy a need for sustenance, or a desire to rid the forests of the free creatures. And she had thought it was her turn. Then she finally began to believe in evil spirits haunting the forgotten places.
)
[Edited on 10/23/2013 by wolfbladequeen]
If anyone had happened to look out of a window on the east side of the palace, they might have noticed two figures in the darkness, dancing in a square bordered by living plants, out of time with the dancers inside but perfectly in time with each other.
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