A Felon's Tale Chapter 1

  From where I sat, I could see her perfect figure reclining tranquilly beneath the liquid blue sky. The sun shone relentlessly upon the open plain around her; it made her hair gleam with pulchritude. Wind stirred the tall grasses and drew rasping complaints from the crowns of the nearby forest; it nipped at the edges of her clothing and tossed her hair playfully. Flowers and other flora cast their sweet scents into the breeze; but they paled in comparison to her perfumed essence. Her beauty and charisma could captivate a room with her presence, and for the moment, she had certainly captivated me.

      "Hfffststsss...."

      I swatted absent-mindedly at the noise.

      She travelled with movements so saturated with grace, she could easily win the envy of a thousand of the most impressive swans. A peal of laughter escaped that perfectly sculpted mouth; I was reminded of birdsong, chiming bells, any number of such delicious sounds.

      "Hffestssts!..."

      As she spoke, the musicality of her intonations created -

      "HEPHAESTUS!"

      I cringed. "What?" I growled.

      My younger brother nudged me with his foot. "You're late," said Demitri. "Father is already in a bad mood, and now he's going to be worse."

      With a groan, I unfolded the endless expanse of my legs and pushed myself to my feet. "Magnificent," I murmured.

      "What were you doing?" he asked as I stretched. "Having another inner monologue about Jewel?"

      I lunged at him angrily; he ducked out of my reach, snickering infuriatingly. Before I could swipe at him again, he turned away from me and jogged in the direction of our family's home. As he moved, his shape blurred, losing its definition and reforming into that of a young wolf with a thick gray and brown coat.

      Scowling, I leapt after him and became a wolf myself. My longer stride helped me to overtake him easily; therefore, it was I who reached our house first. In front of the wooden structure stood our father in human form, his expression dark. I bowed before him, my eyes downcast, ears back, and tail between my legs in submission.

      "You're late, Hephaestus," he rumbled. I flinched both at his repressed fury and the use of the name I hated so much.

      "I apologize, Father," I said, holding my position. "I lost track of time. It will not happen again."

      "I will see to that," he promised, leaving the meaning of his words in ominous mystery.

      Demitri arrived behind me; I eased out of submission as he mimicked my earlier motions. "Well, now that you are both in attendance," Father began pointedly, "we can begin. You will first warm up by practicing your solo hunting skills. I want you back here within fifteen minutes with a respectable catch. Hephaestus," he added, stopping me in the midst of my departure, "you have five minutes. Be mindful of your time."

      "Yes, Father." I inclined my head to him and bounded after Demitri, indignation flooding inside of me. Father's punishments were always harsher than necessary, but in this instance I found slight relief in the lack of yelling. I couldn't dwell on it long, however; to avoid further disapproval I needed to focus on the task at hand.

      I loped to the summit of the grassy knoll that overlooked my home. The village spread out before me, made up of buildings scattered like rocks across a sandy shore. To one side, a forest of hardwoods lapped against the plain, which stretched for miles in the opposite direction until it reached the hazy silhouette of the distant mountains. A constant breeze ruffled my fur and blew the tall grasses like waves on the sea. Limitless blue sky provided a ceiling for this diorama, dotted with a few cottony clouds.

      This was the territory of the Sanguem Lupem, one of the oldest werewolf packs in history. We lived here, far from "civilization," to avoid human detection, for the existence of the species was our most guarded secret. My father was the leader, or "Alpha" as we werewolves called it, of the Sanguem, and had led since before my birth. Most of the pack was made up of my father and mother's old blood lines of purebloods - werewolves with two 'wolf parents - along with two or three other lines. A few other small units of pures and the occasional halfblood - someone with one human parent and one werewolf parent - and newblood - bitten werewolves - completed my extended family. Together we came to about two hundred werewolves, a remarkably large number for an old blood pack.

      Staring intently down the slope, I caught a twitch of movement in the grass at the base of the hill. My long legs collapsed into hunting position and I slunk through the tall stalks toward it. Before long I could hear the shuffling of my prey and trace its scent to the place where it rested; I muted my movements, trying to edge as close to the creature as possible.

      It moved suddenly, and before it could flee I shot from my hiding place like lightning, sinking my fangs into the rabbit's back. With a squeak of fear and pain it went limp, and my mission was complete.

      I shook it once, twice, to ensure its death, and trotted back over the knoll with my prize. Once having made my way back to my father, I wordlessly placed it before him and bowed.

      "Well done, Hephaestus," he said with little inflection in his voice. "Once your brother returns, we will continue."

      With a repressed flinch at my name, I sat beside him with my catch, awaiting the next part of today's training.

      As juveniles, every werewolf had to undergo basic training to guarantee that they had a certain amount of knowledge in the areas of fighting, hunting, and foraging. Once one reached the age of eighteen, one had to complete an adult ceremony. In most packs, including my own, this involved fully participating in a hunt to prove that one could contribute to the pack's welfare. At the completion of this, the said werewolf's family threw a celebration to mark the rising of rank from juvenile to adult. One could also choose a profession to learn at this point – depending on the pack, there could be a need for den makers, pup watchers, teachers, and the like.

      I had begun to eye my rabbit with hunger when Demitri finally appeared over the hill. He trotted towards us, lacking visible fruits of his efforts.

      "Where is your prey, Demitri?" Father asked imperiously.

      "It's still in the forest, Father," he answered, bowing his head in respect. "I couldn't bring it back on my own." I stared in confusion; what did he mean by that?

      Father's interest seemed to have been piqued as well. "Hephaestus, go help your brother retrieve his catch."

      "Yessir." Obediently I followed Demitri as he retraced his steps over the knoll and into the trees. He led me past the well-worn hunting trail, further than I would have though possible to travel in fifteen minutes, and into a small space between four trees, where a fully-grown stag lay dead with a clean slash through its throat.

      "What the hell, Demitri?" I cried incredulously. "How could you have possibly stalked and killed that in under fifteen minutes?!"

      "I got lucky, I suppose," he said modestly. His humility only irked me further.

      "Got lucky? This is a male deer nearly twice your size, and it's been slain as easily as if it were a fawn. How do I know that this wasn't set up to make it appear as though you killed it?"

      "Hephaestus, would I really do that?" he asked, apparently hurt by my suspicion.

      I snorted, unable to accuse him of such a thing without proof. "Come on, let's get this to Father," he said when I didn't answer, and fixed his jaws on one of the deer's antlers.

      "No way," I refused. "You should have thought about this before you killed something you couldn't bring back by yourself. I only caught a rabbit because I could easily retrieve it."

      "And because it was all you could catch in five minutes," replied Demitri knowingly. "Look, I don't believe that Father was very fair, either, but you shouldn't take it out on me. Part of being a pack is teamwork, and knowing that there's going to be someone there to help you when you bite off more than you can chew."

      I snarled under my breath; once again, my younger brother had bested me.

      Grudgingly I took hold of an antler, nearly splintering it in my jaws, and assisted Demitri in dragging the stag back to Father. After enduring his emphatic praise of my brother and his implied dissatisfaction - Why couldn't you be more like him? – I went through a few spars with Demitri until Mother called us in for dinner. The sun was setting, gilding the grasses and treetops with a shimmering gold and painting the sky in a myriad of warm colors. With a last glance at the enchanting scenery, I stepped inside with my brother.

      As we passed through the doorway, I was complementing Demitri on a move he'd used when a pair of furballs lovingly attacked my legs. "Festus! Festus!" they yipped, bursting with excitement. Laughing, I bent to pick my sisters up, one pup in each arm.

      "And what have you two been up to?" I asked beneath their incessant sniffs and occasional licks.

      "Festus! We saw a badger today!" cried Faun.

      "It was big!" Willow threw her paws up to demonstrate, nearly falling backwards out of my arms.

      "I bet it was bigger than you," I agreed, grinning as I put them down.

      "That it was." My mother appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a rag. With a bow from my brother and myself, she stepped over the scampering pups and hugged us each in turn. "How was training today?" she asked.

      "It could have been better." Father appeared behind us, wiping wisps of his long, graying hair away from his face. With a pointed glance at me, he pushed past us into the dining area and continued, "Demitri completed all of his tasks with flying colors, however." Mother began to congratulate Demitri, and my good mood sputtered out of existence.

      Despite being the Alpha female, Mother tended to leave the formal duties to Father and kept most of her attention on being maternal to myself, my siblings, and the other children of the pack. Unlike Father – and, by extension, me – she was built stoutly and at best only came up to my shoulder, despite that I had yet to finish growing. Demitri took after her in terms of body structure, excepting his youthful strength and potential height advantage. On the other hand, Mother always compared me to Father – our extremely lofty stature, long limbs, angular features, and especially our tempers, though I resented that last observation. Our similarities were apparent in our lupine forms as well, for we both took on an appearance close to that of a maned wolf, what with our extensive legs and the thick ruffs along the backs of our necks. But, as far as I was concerned, our likenesses ended there.

      Mother announced that dinner was almost ready, and as she returned to the kitchen the other four and I began to take our seats at the table. My younger sisters hopped into their chairs, their tails wagging and nails scrabbling on the wood.

      "Willow, Faun, what have I told you about sitting at the table?" called Mother without looking.

      "People, not puppies," they groaned in unison, melting into little girls with audible reproach.

      I caught Faun's eye and winked, grinning; with a skillful display of control, I waved at her with a hand-turned-paw. She giggled, restoring some of my good humor.

      Finally Mother carried in the plates of portioned roasted deer and laid them before each of us in turn, Father first. My serving consisted of mostly the rabbit I had caught, and as I stole a glance at Demitri I noticed that he had the largest helping of the stag next to Father's. Frustration ignited in me again, and after our customary wait for our Alpha to eat first, I dug into my food with particular ferocity.

      The sit-down dinner was one of our more human traditions, despite our pureblood werewolf lineage. It was perhaps because of our ancestry that we had adopted this custom, for it made us feel more civilized, as opposed to the confusion and instability of a freshly bitten newblood. It was a daily routine for us, much like the routine of many humans – the father and children arrive home after a day of work and education to settle down to a meal with the mother and younger siblings.

      "So," Mother began after a short, uncomfortable silence, "Demitri did well today?"

      "He did wonderfully," agreed Father, and he took a haughty bite of venison. For me, such praise was rare to nonexistent; for Demitri, it fell like rain in a summer storm.

      "This stag he caught is delicious," she replied, nodding.

      "That's because you prepared it, Mother," Demitri told her, bringing a fond smile to her face.

      Father chewed his mouthful with contemplation, and when he had finished, he said slowly, "If I may be so bold as to say, I believe his adult ceremony will be completed as flawlessly as his training is progressing."

      Nearly losing my appetite at the sight of the blush on my brother's cheeks, I interjected, "And what about me, Father? Do you think my adult ceremony will go well?"

      Father's eyebrows lifted in regal surprise, and he used his next bite as an excuse for deep thought. "Well, Hephaestus" – I repressed a flinch – "your ceremony is less than a year away, and yet your brother, junior to you by two years, is outdoing you in training. If you were in my position, how would you answer this question?"

      The answer was clear – first-born son or not, he expected me to do badly in, perhaps even fail, the most critical rite of my life, and he wanted me to be the one to say it aloud. Determined not to give him the satisfaction, I replied, "Well…I would tell myself that, despite that I wasn't progressing the way I should be, there is always room for improvement and I would have to work harder in order to sufficiently fulfill my training. Then, with a polite encouragement, I would change the subject by nonchalantly commenting on the weather."

      Faun and Willow barely concealed giggles, giving me a sense of accomplishment; Father, on the other hand, was not amused.

      "I believe our answers differ, Hephaestus," he said stiffly, giving me a warning glance. "Your reply was decent, but redundant. Words and encouragements can only go so far. And when your fifteen-year-old brother is catching enough food to feed the entire family while you're still bringing back rabbits, further measures must be taken."

      He lifted his nose to gaze imperiously upon me, telling me to stop this while I was ahead. I refused to relinquish my argument and boldly held eye contact. "Father, that task was unfair, and we all know it. The only thing I could have possibly caught in five minutes was a rabbit. You gave Demitri three times that amount to catch a stag."

      "A task that normally would have taken several grown 'wolves hours to complete," he said, his voice rising. My accusation seemed to have riled him. "Part of your training is learning that the pack is a team, and you must pull your weight on that team and not simply fend for yourself."

      "I wasn't fending for myself, Father; I was trying to follow your orders!" I retorted, my volume increasing to match his. "Just because I fell short when you set me up to fail – "

      "You dare accuse me of sabotaging you?" Father leapt up, his chair skidding backwards.

      "No, I'm accusing you of refusing to give me a chance to redeem myself!" I mimicked him, too stubborn to back down.

      "Hephaestus, if you are going to succeed me as Alpha –"

      "I'll never be Alpha under your instruction!" I snarled.

      "DO NOT INTERRUPT YOUR ALPHA!" he roared.

      "So you're not my father anymore?"

      Red in the face and clearly struggling to restrain himself from killing me, Father raised a shaking finger towards the door. "Out," he said. Then, "GET OUT!"

      My family's frightened faces flashed by me as I spun and darted put of the room and into the night, snatching the rabbit from my plate as I went. Once outside, my flight did not cease until I had reached the edge of the forest. Only then did I slow to a walk as I followed the all-too-familiar path through the trees.

      Insubordination, I thought, shaking my head. My old friend had visited yet again, with the typical results. To defy, disrespect, or otherwise insult the alpha was a heinous crime in werewolf society, especially when the Alpha was one's father, especially one's Alpha has a temper, especially when one had already disappointed the Alpha once -

      - and especially when one is a repeat offender, I thought, ripping an angry bite out of my dinner.

      My steps quickened as I passed beneath the moonlit trees, trying to put as much distance between myself and my home as possible. Eventually I came upon an embankment in the forest floor, and, shifting into my wolf form, I slid into the hidden entrance to my temporary den. I patted down the bedding and lay down with my food, finishing the meal my pride had cut sort. For the moment, I was blessedly free of my father's wrath; once morning came and I was to return, however, I would have to come face to face with the repercussions of my insubordination.

      As I went to the entrance of my den to toss away the picked-apart rabbit carcass, I cast my gaze across the forest around me. A chill breeze blew past, ruffling through my mane and dislodging a few early fall leaves from their branches. I sighed, wishing for my bed within the protective walls of my home. "Magnificent."