Kehrareth

[three wolf moon]

The hunter strode ahead, with the boy behind. He was not tall, but he was solidly built, especially in the arm and shoulder, strength built from drawing the longbow he carried with him. He walked without too much care for quietness, seeming assured of the location of his target. He showed the boy with him how to follow a trail by sign, scent, and track. Then, he showed them their prey.

A buck was there, drinking from a stream. The boy and the hunter were downwind, and it was distracted. Quietly, the hunter instructed the boy to draw his bow. The boy, excited, tried to calm himself as he took the proper stance as the hunter had taught him. He drew the arrow back, not outward, as he lowered his bow toward his target. This was it, his first kill. He would grow to be a great hunter, like Halueth who was with him now.

The buck lifted its head and looked in their general direction. Thread the needle he thought, repeating Halueth's mantra as he aimed for its eye. But in so doing, he looked for too long. He looked into its innocent and unknowing eyes and saw the life that it had. His mind raced as he considered ending the beast, and his arm began to burn with the effort of holding his bow at full draw. His arm began to slacken.

An arrow was loosed. The boy's heart dropped as he heard the sound of the its impact on the buck's flesh. It sickened him. His knees shook, and he reached out to steady himself on the trunk of a nearby birch. He noticed that he still had his arrow when Halueth strode past him, looking down at the boy with a gaze laden with judgment and disappointment. The hunter had done what he could not and slain the beast.

The boy was filled with shame as he followed the hunter into the valley where the beast had died. It hadn't died instantly; it ran for quite a bit before the arrow wound in its neck caused it to bleed out. When they found it, it was splayed out inelegantly, red blood wet on tawny fur, eyes staring upward with glazed vacancy. The boy imagined that he would feel triumph, but the boy learned in this moment that there was no glory in death. He watched Halueth blood and skin the fallen beast. When he felt his limbs could move again, he went to help him butcher the creature which would feed his clan for days.

Death may not be glorious, but something could come from it.

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A pale elf returns home.

He sees the blood, shining in morning's sun, starkly red against white fur.

He sees the bodies, broken, defiled. Splayed out, some dismembered.

He sees the black crossbow quarrels protruding like a porcupine's quills.

He thought of the buck that day, of Halueth's arrow and how he had hesitated.

He looked at the carnage and knew that those who had committed this murder would not.

He pushes the thoughts aside.

He smells something acrid. Poison.

He feels nothing. Awareness drains from him even as he finds Halueth's den with instinctive certainty.

He takes up the bow of the hunter.

He would not hesitate, either.

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[three wolf moon]

A young wolf crouched low in the brush. He was barely more than a cub, but with each passing day it lost more of youth's scrawniness and gained the compact muscle that it will need to thrive as an adult. His white fur was a disadvantage in terms of camouflage, but he hid himself well among the dense foliage of the Moonwood. The wolf waited, pale eyes bright with canny intelligence as he held vigil for his prey.

It never came. The other wolf found him.

A larger, more experienced female pounced into the brush that hid the young wolf. The two tussle, teeth gnashing, until play is over. The older female regarded the younger male with a sober look which turned him sheepish. She always had a way of making him doubt himself, of making him wonder where he had gone wrong.

You are too concerned for hiding yourself. the older wolf chided the younger wolf, her student, in the way they speak-without-speaking, a language of instinct and gesture. Let the forest hide you, Lakas. Shade of canopy and thickness of brush will shield you on their own, as is their want. You make much noise attempting to force the issue.

She was right, of course. He had gone into the brush, breaking branch and crushing leaf, scaring away prey and drawing a hunter to him. An amateur's mistake, but some day he would be able to move as silently through the forest as his mentor does. Yes, Isilfarrel.

A blur of fur and shifting flesh left a female elf standing in place of the other wolf. The transition is smooth and effortless, for doing such is intrinsic to their nature: the birthright of the Lythari. "Good. You will have plenty of time to practice while I am gone, but I expect results when I return," she tells him, tone playful but with a firmness to it which suggests she means what she says.

The younger wolf followed suit and took his first skin. Like Isilfarrel, his flesh was nearly as pale as his fur is when he is wearing his second skin, and his eyes remain angular and wolfish despite his changed face. His disappointment was made obvious by his expression. "You are leaving again. Why?"

"Obligations to the people in Silverymoon. Duties I must attend. Oaths I must uphold," she answered. Mysterious, as always. What did she do in that place, the Silvery-moon? She never told anyone anything other than she had friends there she worked with, but it wasn't the Lythari way to be so close with outsiders. It intrigued and worried her student in equal measure. "Do not fret, little one, for I will return when Lharast is upon us, and when I do it will be with gifts for you."

The student's worry was pushed aside with indignance at being called 'little', and he let his offense show on his face. Isilfarrel only uttered a soft, knowing laugh in response, and as she walked away through the brush he admonished himself for being so easily goaded. He watched Isilfarrel go until he lost track of her movements through the wood, and resolved that he would show his teacher improvement when she returned.

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The pale elf moves through the brush with swiftness and fluidity. His bare feet were silent upon the peaty ground of the wood. He instinctually avoids obstacles and detritus which might have given his presence away; hidden from sight without conscious effort. His thoughts are empty of anything but the Hunt. He felt as an arrow in flight, unerring and with singular purpose. He could smell the stink of their recent passage on the air: that of mildewy cave-dirt and acrid fungal spores. He would be upon them soon, and already he was impatient for it.

Vengeance could not come soon enough.
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[three wolf moon]

Every time he failed, he gave his mother a gift.

She didn't expect such a thing. Jastra seemed to have few expectations of her son at all, but that only made him want to please her more. To make her proud of him. So the son searched for something worthy to present to his mother, and then he would tell her of how he failed another of Halueth's tests. He didn't understand the hunter's strictness with him. Others in the clan had been trained by him in the ways of hunting, trapping, and warfare, but none had experienced such harshness from the hunter. Was it because he was the youngest of them?

It wasn't fair.

The mother's son was about to settle upon a gift of wildflowers--bright asters--when a glint of gold in the afternoon sun caught his eye. It had come from the husk of an old, gnarled tree. It was bare of bark, wizened to the point that he feared that a mere touch would cause it to crumble. It bore a charred fissure in its trunk, a scar likely left by lightning. The canopy above shifted, and he saw the glint of gold again, somewhere within. Inside this long-dead husk of a thing, treasures of great beauty were hidden. He was struck by wonderment that something which was dead could yield such beauty. He prised what he could free with his hunting knife, perhaps greedily, and went to return to his mother.

She would have the prettiest things. She deserved no less.

She was delighted to receive them, of course, but her joy was no greater or lesser than it was for the other gifts that by now littered the den they shared. Each one a failure. The son told his mother, then, of his persistent failures--how he could never do any right by the hunter and how he wanted to get up. His mother, Jastra, smoothed his tousled hair away from his face and dried his tears with her thumb. "My son, everything in this life is a trial, but each trial does pass. Fail or succeed, we are meant to persevere, to carry on with whatever is left. These troubles will pass, and you will move forward."

It wasn't what the son wanted to hear, but it was what he needed. He looked around at all the gifts he had given his mother as she sang to him, then: all the bits of carved wood and bone and natural treasures. Each one was a failure, but each was a lesson, too.

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The pale elf stands at the yawning mouth of the cave in the cold wind of winter's night. He looks behind him, then all around. He hasn't missed anything, the tracks in the snow were clear.

He has lost the trail.

His quarry had gone to ground and escaped.

He had failed.

His mind swam with rudimentary thoughts and memories of his failures, embodied in the gifts given to his mother--each a failure. Each a lesson.

His mother's words came to him in fragments. "Persevere," he says to himself, his voice made raspy by lack of water and the cold. "Carry on."

He steps into the cave and begins his descent.

"I will carry on for you."

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[three wolf moon]

As always, Giilvas led the way.

Of the two youths, he was the older, though they were close in age. It was Giilvas, then, whose will and personality were the stronger. He had a penchant for tricks and riddles.. and for trouble, and so it was that he often pulled his best friend into these things as well; for wherever Giilvas went, Lakas would be at his heels.

As always, he had led him astray.

"We are lost," the younger of the two said. There was no judgment in his tone, his words were more an observation, but Giilvas was proud. He never wanted to admit to a failing, a quality that he had always hated and admired in near-equal measure. Sometimes he wished for his confidence, but it got them both in trouble as much as it helped them get out of it. This time, Giilvas had the idea to steal one of the hunter's trophies. He was certain to be gone, his friend had said, and of course the two youths ended up having to flee carelessly through the woods; and here they were. Lost in another world.

"We are not. It is an adventure, my dearest friend! There are not many who can boast that they have found one of the sacred Glades of the Green Folk!" there was confidence in his voice--there always was--but the apprehension which lingered there did not escape the notice of his friend.

The forest they were in was beautiful, but it was not the Moonwood they knew. Unwittingly, they had stumbled upon one of the Ways into the Green Place, where the Folk did reside. Among all elves--for there were other elves, the lorekeeper had promised them--it was the Lythari who were closest to this place. They could freely pass in between their world and the world of the Green Folk, so full of wonder and magic.. and danger, Lakas was always sure to remind himself. Close they may be to their feyish ancestors, the lorekeeper was always sure to remind the young ones that they were also different in ways they could never understand.

The two friends were trapped in a Faerie Glade, where all paths lead nowhere. It seemed that every which way they went ended them up in the same place. "It is not so hopeless," Giilvas said, taking his friend's hunting knife from him. "The Fairer Folk love their games of wit. We will have to be twice as clever, my friend."

The two friends started to walk again, then, with Giilvas marking tree bark every few paces--just a single nick with the knife. Picking their way through the enchanted wood this way, they began to note patterns in the trees they passed. When Giilvas finished with this, he returned the knife to Lakas. So relieved was he to be gone from this place, he made no issue over the ruin he had wrought upon the implement's cutting edge.

Giilvas dipped into a ridiculous, flourishing bow as he gestured to the two trees, whose branches formed an arch before them. "After you, friend of mine. Keep your wits--as well as a little faith--and you are never lost." Lakas only made an annoyed grunt at the display as he sheathed his knife and stepped through. He was struck then with immediate familiarity: the was fresh and chill and smelled faintly of pine, and nearby he heard the sounds of Starfall Pond.

This was home.

His friend was quick to follow him through, and the inseparable two looked at one another for a time. Giilvas was smiling, but Lakas wasn't. He was the first to look away, though, to hide the grin that threatened. "It was pure luck, Giilvas, that we did not find ourself a redcap's lunch or worse," he said, and for once it was Lakas who lead the way home, with his friend laughing behind.

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Lost. The simple, rudimentary thought raced through his mind and vanished just as quickly, as a hare darts into its warren.

The pale elf looks around, scrutinizing the cavern he found himself as best he can. The dark is nearly complete here, but he knows he has been here before.

He remembers Giilvas: his smile, his quick wit and way with words.

He remembers the trees, the knife.

It is that very same knife that he draws, with surety, from his belt sheath.

He cuts his palm and makes a mark on the tunnel wall.

He inhales deeply, taking in the scent of the blood, and forges on.

At each juncture, he makes a mark in blood.

He allows wit and faith to guide him forward.

Deeper down, into darker depths.

The pale elf stops. There is a sound.

Voices.

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[three wolf moon]

"Still yourself, sweet one, and allow yourself to become clear. The fast-flowing river is clouded with mud, but the gentle brook runs pure."

Hacathra had a voice like the gentle yet inexorable flow of water over riverstones worn smooth. She spoke with the confidence and sincerity which comes with advanced age, yet she was also yielding as the yew's branches in wind. As the Lorekeeper she kept the traditions and names of the clan Larthanien alive in word and song, but she was also much more. The hearts and spirits of the clan were also her charge, and she tended them with as much tenderness and care as she did the garden which grew around her den. The future grew under her watchful eye. Every child knew Hacathra for her kindness and words of wisdom, but Lakas knew her as the mother of his mother.

He stared down at the herbal concoction in the clay cup. It smelled of chamomile, lavender, mallow, and yarrow, but he wasn't much for the tea Hacathra was so fond of brewing. Still, the vapors calmed him some, and so he drank. He found the taste disgusting, and flinched. The Lorekeeper laughed her soft laugh, and the troubled youth felt his worries easing from him.

"Tell your worries to me, sweet one."

And so he did.

He told her of how the hunter came to the den he shared with his birth mother. He told her of how he shouted at her, admonishing her for her 'soft' treatment of himself; of how the hunter said she was making him weak. He told the Lorekeeper of how the hunter had said he would never become a man if coddled so. He was hurt and confused by this in equal measure, for the hunter was not known to give his other students this treatment. Being singled out so was unheard of as far as the youth knew.

When he was finished pouring his worries out, his cup of tea was drunk dry, though he scarcely recalled drinking it. The Lorekeeper took the cup from him and eyed the detritus that settled at the bottom of it with a pensive hum. After a while of silence, she spoke, and the future listened.

"A hunter sees the relation between its prey and the things around it. A thirsty deer will go to a stream, a rabbit will always run to its burrow. It is the same with people."

The youth didn't quite understand, and his confusion was plain enough to see that Hacathra couldn't help but laugh at his impatience.

"Look at the people, and you can see these connections. Even in harsh words, there is hidden meaning. Why does Halueth pay you such attention? Why does he go to your mother? Ask yourself these questions, and you understand relations between people. In this understanding, you see how they feel about one another."

The youth thought on her words. Why did he matter so much to Halueth, when there were many others in the clan who did not take to hunting? Why go to his mother instead of admonishing him more directly? He looked at the Lorekeeper, then, with dawning realization.

Was Halueth his father?

Among the Larthanien, it was not custom to form family groups due to the small size of the clan. The ancestors believed that such things only divided a clan already so few in number, and so instead children stayed only with their birth mothers, with the entirety of the clan acting as family. Most went their whole lives without knowing who fathered them. This policy must work, the youth reasoned, for the clan has persisted through the centuries, but still he has wondered where it is he came from.

Was this the answer?

If it was the truth, he wasn't certain how to feel about it. Halueth was distant and aloof--and often a bit blunt in manner--but he was also a fine hunter who provided for and helped to protect the clan. Would Lakas grow to be like him?

Hacathra stared back at the youth, and she saw the questions he had to show for his answers. She gave him no opinion of her own, but she set her hands on his shoulders, firm yet yielding, and said:

"A truth known in your mind is only a partial truth. It is only when your heart, too, accepts it as its truth that it becomes truly yours."

After a quick but spirited embrace, the Lorekeeper released her grip upon the future. Lakas left the den feeling more uncertain than ever, and yet strangely at peace. He looked to where Halueth was, stretching a doe's skin over a rack to cure while the youth's mother looked on.

I will make you proud and then we will see if you can be my father.

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They are five to his one: elves, but completely unlike himself, their skin black as pitch.

He has heard of the them, of course, but they seemed creatures from story, figments to scare children.

They are real enough. The mangled remains of his clan are proof enough.

Their deaths would not go unpunished. This he promises himself.

For vengeance to be complete, all of the murderers would have to answer.

All must die, the thought was less words and more feeling, a primal outrage which made his blood boil.

How?

The pale elf surveys the camp from his hiding-place. It is simple enough: a set of tents and a place for captives, little more than a pit dug in the cave-clay with a wooden lattice over the top.

One female to four males.

He watches them revel in the death they have wrought. He watches them celebrate murder.

One of the males smiles, drunkenly, at the female, but she rebuffs him with a look and a sharp word.

The pale elf does not understand the words, but he understands that look, the rejection.

He is not her favorite.

The female takes her arm and puts it around one of the other males instead. The pale hunter watches his posture grow rigid at her touch, but he does not dare move away. The hunter understands this, too.

She is not wanted, but she is dominant.

And in the other male, the one rejected, who glares: Envy.

The pale elf settles down to wait and watch. In time, they would show him how they can be killed.

Time that he has, for his life was for the Hunt, now.

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[three wolf moon]

How easy it was, to create life, and how wonderful.

The lover watched the slow rise and fall of his love's chest as she reclined in the grass alongside him, deep in her reverie. He traced a finger over the smoothness of Takari's skin, pausing to rest his palm against the firm curve which had of late formed in her belly. It was nothing short of a miracle to him, a thing of such wonder it hardly seemed real.

But there it was: a tiny blessing steadily growing within the body of his love, created from their joining in devotion.

He rolled onto his back and stared up toward the clear noontide sky. The sun was at its zenith, and it warmed him. His thoughts were turned toward the future. He thought of Halueth, who may be his father. He thought of his distance and his chastisements. He thought, too, on the uncertainty of his parentage, of the absence he felt, created by the Ways of the Clan.

He would have liked to have a father.

The lover looked over at his love where she lay. Young though he was, fresh into his seventieth year, he felt absolute certainty that he and Takari were meant for one another. He could not bear to keep distance as Halueth--and the other males of the clan--had done. Nor could he stand by and watch the seed of their union blossom away from him. Made drowsy by the warmth of noontide sun, he allowed his eyes to slide closed, but not before truth had resolved itself within him.

He would be different.

I will be a father.

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How easy it is to take life, and how terrible.

The first falls to the blade of his packmate. The Hunter had seen him frequently clutching at the medallion he wore. It was a lucky thing, a talisman to him, and it was an easy thing to steal it. Sure that he knew the culprit, he turned on his most hated rival for the affections of the female who led them, taking a knife to his sleeping throat.

He gave thanks to Hacathra for her wisdom.

Four.

The Jealous One is, in turn, killed in a rage by the female for taking her preferred mate.

The Hunter felt no satisfaction. It would not return Takari to him; would not bring life back to their child that would never be.

Three.

Numbers diminished, the murderers break camp and traverse deeper into the tunnels. The Hunter follows, marking his way in blood as he's done.

One of the males breaks off from the rest. He makes words with his hands. The Hunter has seen this many times by now, how they speak-without-speaking to avoid the predators of the tunnels or enemy notice. He has studied them and understands: Return Soon.

The male goes into an adjacent tunnel and starts to drink a pungent and sour-smelling liquid from a vessel. The Hunter sees his target, neck exposed as his head tilts back to drink with relish, and takes the shot without hesitation. The arrow pierces his throat through, a cleaner shot than the black elf deserves.

The Hunter became the son Halueth had always wanted in that moment, but the thought does not bring him joy; only the pain and rage of loss.

Two.

By now the female and remaining male are aware of his presence, or at least know that they are being hunted. They move with urgency, now, though the Hunter notes how the remaining male looks at the female, assessing her weakness, her vulnerability. Upon his cloak was a crest, a symbol identical to the one worn by the Jealous One, the one the female killed for her mate. Clan-mates, then, if not blood family.

He makes the gambit. The two cross blades, but the female is the stronger.

One.

Wearing second skin, the Wolf that is the Hunter pads closer to the female. His fur is stark white in the black gloom, but there is no light. He keeps quiet and lets the shadow hide him. The female is bent over the bloodied corpse of the one who turned on her. She is victorious, but wounded. Tired.

Vulnerable.

The Wolf pounces. Teeth find throat, rending flesh. The screams are drowned out by flowing blood along with cries of hate and rage, until there are no sound save for the wet tearing of flesh. Still the Beast continues to savage the corpse, until death was a certainty. Dim awareness returns to the Hunter who was the Beast.

It is done.

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