Shaiden's Story :: Chapter Two - Prophetic
There are many different kinds of shadow. Some shadow is mundane and simply exists to balance out the gaze of light. Other shadow is sought out as shelter when caught beneath the heat of inescapable circumstance. Still other shadows are the manifestation of nightmare and the collective fear in the world. The shadow that held the young wolf Shaiden in it's clutches was that of a different sort.
After his mother's sudden and gruesome death, and the blow that had knocked him into shadow, things had become fragmented and scattered for Shaiden. There was the flash of electric steel, a figure wreathed in crimson, sudden and sickening motion, and wind as trees fled past. None of it made sense to the wolf cub as his mind struggled desperately to escape the hot cloud of shadow surrounding it. Suddenly the storm became muted and reality began to slowly bleed back into Shaiden's wounded consciousness. Heat and pain throbbed in his head as he suddenly sat up and looked around wildly.
"Slow your movements cub," a steely male voice spoke from a darkened corner of what looked to be some sort of hut, "Unless you want to be out again." Memories flooded Shaiden's head in an overwhelming wash. His glowing green eyes suddenly flashed to the figure in the corner.
"My mother..."
"She's dead."
"Where...?"
"Exactly where she fell."
"You left her!?"
Shaiden bolted to his feet and immediately regretted it. Heat bloomed in his pounding head and darkness closed in around the edges of his vision. He sank to his knees. The hooded shadow in the corner threw back his cowl and was dragging the cub to his feet with startling speed. The face emerging from the hood was that of a weathered coyote. The fur of his face was mottled brown and one of his ears was split in two, the scar snaking down over his right eye, which was a different color than his left. To complete the gruff appearance, his canine fangs protruded from his mouth, even when closed, and the handle of a sword was visible over his right shoulder.
"Never favor the dead over the living!" the coyote growled at the dazed young wolf in his clutches. "The morbid truth is that your mother is dead and you are fortunate to still be among the living!"
A new voice sounded within the small dwelling.
"Enough Barruko." The source was a grizzled old wolf in unassuming clothes leaning on a gnarly walking stick. A black blindfold was tied securely over his eyes and he did not look outwardly threatening, but nonetheless silently commanded control of everything around him. His gravelly voice was more than enough to immediately still the coyote who's name was apparently Barruko. A smile played across the old wolf's features.
"Keep handling the child like that and he won't be among the living for long." Almost as if on cue, Shaiden lost his battle to remain conscious and fell in a heap on the floor. The coat he had been wearing hung empty in the startled coyote's paws and both men had serious looks on their faces as they regarded the sight before them.
On Shaiden's back, bound tightly by leather straps, was a pair of black feathered wings, tipped with blue.
"Just as you said..." Barruko breathed as he looked intently at the young wolf. The blindfolded wolf held a paw out, fingers outstretched in the direction of the child.
"He is surrounded by the threads of what has been foretold since long before my age." The old wolf said evenly. "This is indeed the boy. His mother was right to bring him to me...I wish the task had not cost the both of them so dearly."
"If what you say is really true," Barruko picked up the young wolf and laid him on a cot against the wall. "And he really is the one who has long been prophecised by your kind, this won't be the only cost required of him."
Low conversation continued within the lean-to shelter on the side of a great mountain as history was set in motion. The young wolf, Shaiden, slept fitfully. The rainless storm raged on in the night.