philodox

I was born surrounded by pure Wyld. I don't think I could find it now, not while I walk on two legs as I do now. But on four legs, yes. The scent of cedar and Garou and kin would lead me right back.

Not that I would ever want to return.

I remember when life was simple, the two years before my Change. My family had to have known I would be the one of the litter to come out Garou. They watched as I grasped things easier than my littermates, eyes turned upwards to the elders and so eager to learn and listen. When they spoke among themselves, I came so close to understanding, again and again, and I hovered close hoping that maybe something would break through. Even then, I knew the howls that rung through the night were filled with sorrow. But I couldn't understand why.

Still, they did all they could to cultivate an innocence in us. Around the cubs, they were nothing but warm and loving, guiding with a gentle paw. We were precious, guarded as closely as jewels, even my siblings that never changed. Of course we were taught strength and survival, to never stop contributing to the pack. But every one of us was a gift from Gaia. Protected and cherished.

I remember the first time I ever smelled civilization. It was shortly after my first change, my family taking me out to hunt. Shortly after we'd cornered and brought down our prey, my face buried in still-warm entrails, I caught another scent. Like smoke, but not quite. It was underlined with something poisonous. Something rumbled past, the sound of rocks and dirt spitting out as it passed. It grew loud, but faded away soon after.

My Garou father raised his head, baring his teeth at the sound.

Humans, he said. Evil creatures, them. Lumbering carelessly, trampling down everything in their path with no care or consideration, spoiling the Wyld and casting webs everywhere they went. The Wyrm given flesh, as far as he and the rest of the tribe were concerned.

I'd heard the same words muttered from a distance before. "Humans" was always a word said with no small amount of spit and bile. It was because of them our kin were dying. It was because of their disrespect that the Wyrm was winning. And would win.

Something still didn't add up. I was born under the half-moon, and from the moment of the first change, an elder had taken me under her wing. I was a mediator, she'd told me. A guardian of truth and our duality, born to think, born to judge.

Rage and wisdom. Spirit and flesh. Two sides like day and night that all of us, but especially the Half-Moons, had to navigate.

But there was one that she never seemed to mention, one that I noticed quickly. Wolf... and man.

I'd become human by that point, though I showed no one. Naked, slow, clumsy, vulnerable. But human, nonetheless. At the time, there was not much appeal to that form. But that I could take it...

If humanity was something to be loathed, why could I assume that form? Why would Gaia play such a cruel trick on her own people?

I was thinking exactly as my mentor had taught me, but the naive question was met with a growl. She told me that it was a sad necessity, that in a world ruled by humans, Gaia had to give her protectors the ability to walk in human skin. It made humans no less of a threat.

It should have been a satisfying answer. And, for a while, it was. I stayed my course, learned what I could. I even bore a litter, doing my part to ensure the next generation of kin, though none of my cubs ever turned.

But, all through it, the innocence I knew from my cubhood was gone. There was doubt, complexity. Things my wolf brethren never had to worry about.

Duality, I kept thinking. Was the uncertainty, the constant creeping fear that slowly started taking over my mind my spiritual heritage, or was it my human half demanding to be heard?

In those few years, the sorrow in the howls was replaced by something new. Hatred. Rage. Something toxic was creeping into our sept, and not from the humans, but from ourselves. Some of my sisters were forced to breed, faster than their bodies could safely handle. I'd hear human screams being dragged closer and closer to the caerns almost as often as I heard the screams of deer, sometimes quickly snuffed out and sometimes lingering for hours. Muzzles were constantly stained with blood, and not that of wyrmbeasts.

I'd recognized the desparation for as long as I could form abstract thoughts. But it was turning into something more. We called ourselves wolves, but my kin never held grudges like this. They cared about survival, about each other and the health of the pack.

This kind of hatred from the Garou was something else.

It was human. It was human and they were too proud, too pained to recognize it.

I couldn't stay anymore. My homeland was diseased, and corruption was setting in. It broke my heart. Even to this day, I don't want to believe that they would fall. I remember how much they cared, the constant pain that all of us lived in knowing that the world threated to come down around us. They loved so much.

But they were broken now, maybe beyond repair, waiting for the whirls to drag them down where the Howlers, in their pride, had fallen years ago.

Others in the sept had seen it too, and together we'd set off for somewhere better, sadly unable to do any more for our brothers and sisters. We turned away, and let them spiral out of control in peace.

If anything could be said, I was finally given freedom to explore my human half. Carefully I stepped into the webs of the Weaver, taking great pains to avoid getting stuck in the strands and forgetting what I was. But what an experience it has been! Humans, in all their loudness, in all their clumsy ignorance and yet boundless knowledge, are fascinating. The complexity that had vexed me before was taken for granted among them.

I am sure that my old pack will never find us. We are separated by a wall of technology, carried to an island on a great white boat. It was incredible, standing on the outside, feeling as the cold sea winds whipped at my bare human skin! The other humans stared at me as laughs rang from my throat, but I hardly could care.

I am part of a new sept now, ruled over by Shadow Lords. Hardly ideal, but there's certainly more freedom. We are near a large human city. I still reflexibly refer to it as a "scab" sometimes, but it's still a place I like to visit nonetheless. It's beautiful in its ugliness, and I've learned to appreciate the structures and art of the humans. Such effort! But even a spider's web can be lovely, in its own way.

Griffin has abandoned me, as I knew he would. It's a bit painful to take the final steps in abandoning my heritage, but there isn't any turning back now. For a while, I considered falling under Cockroach's banner, partly out of intense curiousity and partly out of defiance, a true severance from my past. But for now, his tenets still elude me. Homids are better equipped for the arcane twists and turns of their cities. Pegasus was happy to accept me. Through her I've found a compromise, working closely with Cockroach's children nonetheless. My still-hungry mind latched onto all the teachings.

I do not know how close the Apocalypse looms, and even in a less restrictive sept, the mutterings and prophecies still are heard. I think back to my home, my heart aching.

My poor brothers and sisters. I hope that you will not ultimately be the cause of the world you loved so much coming down.