Passage Ten

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    “Our heritage is very wide known in stories, even though we are considered evil,” sighed Tom, looking up through the opening in the trees at the stars which twinkled down on all of us, making my coat glow in the moonlight. It was a full moon, so we all had the urge to just howl our hearts out.
    “Shall we have time to howl?” I squeaked, holding in the howls erupting in me. Roush nodded, and the howls ceased, knowing they could come out later. Tanya made a face at me, and whispered something about my obsession with wolf heritage.
    “You yourself said something was odd about this one man hunter?” asked Tom, nudging his snout towards my direction. Great. Now I had to tell that story all over again!
    “I hid like normal when a hunter came through the bushes, but he had a buddy, a man in a black overcoat,” I shuddered, remembering what we had to do to those men. “The man didn’t have a gun, but he looked through each bush individually. He said he could sense I was around, and stared right at me! I knew he could see me, but he turned away, telling his buddy that they should try farther north.”
    “I was about a mile north of her at the time,” added Tanya. “Those men smelled weird. They smelled like fish and rotten eggs mixed together. They reminded me of rotting prey, their stench could truly be smelled from a mile away!” Roush looked at his paws, and looked towards Tom expectantly.
    “This is no ordinary man. Roush shall tell you,” he said simply.
    “I guess I must, for the protection of the pack. This is no man, he is a wolf, like us, I believe, but he has turned away from wolf heritage. Far back when Angel created us, there were a few fallen wolves, wolves that wanted to create their own species, and planned to overthrow Angel’s rule,” whispered Roush, his harsh voice sinking deep.
    “The fallen wolves, as we call them, were discovered, and kicked out of the packs altogether. They had gotten what they wanted though. Being kicked out, they created their own pack, and they called it a clan. Their leader, a wolf named Marashu, wished to create a species, so unfolded his true side, pure evil. His shadow left him, making the dragons. Very odd creatures that didn’t stay near humans at all, they worshiped Marashu on their hands and knees.
    “They then created minor dragons, lizards, snakes, things like that. They created the alligator to protect their sacred places, the swamps. Those creatures, though, forgot all about their creator and his creator, so dragons had to wipe them out. They left the alligators, but made a better alligator, the crocodile. They recreated snakes and lizards, and they all remembered him from then on, afraid he might destroy them.
    “Meanwhile, Marashu was busy creating more and more. From his shadow he had created the dragons, from his paws he created the alley cats, who were rebels in everything they did. From his complete evil side, he created humans worst fear, complete darkness. Nothing, just silence and pitch blackness for almost ten hours of the day.
    “Angel, on the other hand, had planned to stop them in their tracks. When she and a few patrols went to find them, Marashu was waiting, his army sitting, wondering when Angel would return, and waiting. Prey was hard to find, so Angel’s troops grew weak from starvation. With no luck for more than three months, they turned back, a few troopers even falling from starvation and weakness. Angel grew worried they might find Marashu on her way back.
    “As her bad luck had it, they did run into him. This time, he was strong, and he was growing. Dragons blocked their path, their raging fire rushing towards the unprepared troops. Angel slashed at Marashu, a terrible, life or death battle. Angel slashed, Marashu side stepped. In the end, Marashu clawed at Angel’s chest and…” Roush halted and started howling, as if he knew Angel. We all started howling in unison. My heart sank, for I knew what must have happened to Angel. Werewolves could live very long, very prosperously, but her life had been taken away by a traitor. We howled at the moon, and howled our last hatreds, pains out towards it. The moon was our source of life. Without it, we might have even disappeared forever. Faded into the past, humans maybe not even remembering to tell tales of us. We would become gone from history.
    “So, wait. Angel was our ‘mother’ and we’re really just wolves with human traits?” squeaked Mooki. Roush nodded, and Mooki turned back to her father, who looked down with great eyes.
    “I am sorry I was so immature about that. It’s just, none of you wolves know how long the
Elders have lived. You don’t know how terrible our lives have been, and how we must eventually die,” Cosh whispered, another Elder. “We have lived since the beginning of the wolf times, and even a little while before then. We have lived for centuries, helping wolves that get stuck on their journey to being an Elder.”
    “What do you mean?” asked Nina, obviously confused.
    “The Elders have lived for centuries, and the only way to become an Elder is do a heroic deed in life, then you almost get immortality,” Roush explained.
    “What great deed did you do?” I peeped out before I could think.