Thursday Evening September 20th, 546 ALW. Fennur's Heart, North-Eastern Glacial Regions. ….
Mother took heavy long strides as she walked down the dark halls. With every step she made and Konan followed, the familiar smells of the Howling-Frost tribe intensified. Some calming.
Others not so much.
"I'm sorry— I didn't even stop to consider how hungry you must be after using that much Beast-Energy in battle with the Hollow-one." Mother called back to him.
"Using what?" Konan replied as they stepped out into the open grounds full of mostly sleeping bodies.
Mother clicked her sharp teeth as she sat before the still burning fire— now cooking Berkaals kill on a stick.
Surely he wouldn't mind….
Konan approached and sat across from her with Nuwetara.
She laughed. "I'm sorry— of course, you don't know. I'm sure most all of us assumed when a Lycan came for us, they'd be all knowing. But then again, who really is?"
Konan shrugged. More focused on the sizzling meat than anything.
"I think I should start from the beginning." Mother said.
Konan nodded as he watched Sulekha tend to Berkaal in the distance, wringing out rags of blood into his mouth with sprinkled herbs and salts.
A small fiery explosions swallowed the meats and got a jump out of Konan as he faced the flame again— burning orange and blue for a moment with new savory burning smells before normalizing.
"I prefer spice." Mother said casually, "Now, let's begin."
Konan nodded.
"You're just about as far north as one can be. Fennur's Tundra is the Arctic Continent and split by four regions or zones. The heart, the maw and the limbs. Fennur's Maw is south-east and closer to Empire-Lands. Fennur's Heart is furthest north. Safest place to be. The limbs are all closest to the empire-lands."
"Empire lands?"
Mother nodded, "About ninety percent of the world is run by Vampire-kind. The Blooded-Empire."
"Red eye people…" Konan connected the dots.
Mother nodded, "They don't all have red eyes, though. Thralls are slaves— they look normal aside from starving and pale. Humans allied to Vampires also don't have the reds. But NightBorn and NobleBloods do. They're the upper echelon of society and work to benefit FullBlood interests. FullBloods are the top of the pyramid. They have purple eyes last I remember. Scary ones."
Konan pointed at her, "Blue eyes is kin."
"Blue eyes belong to Werewolves." Mother corrected, "And not all of us are kin."
"Werewolves…." Konan said the word aloud.
"We descend from Lycans who decided— or had no choice but to mate with humans." Mother explained. "In many beliefs of Lycan origin, mating with humans was…. taboo. But after the wars, there were barely any left."
"You're different…. from me…." Konan surmised.
"Weaker." Mother said, "That's what most would say. But many of us are also less affected by the spirits."
Konan thought back on them.
"Beast-Energy also flows through us less potently. We have to cultivate it over many moons, perform rituals and even meditate for it to fully saturate our bodies and allows us its gifts…. and even then, majority of us can't do that. You don't have such issues."
"What is Beast-Energy?" Konan asked.
In the distance, Berkaal coughed and groaned in sleeping pain as Sulekha stitched his back wounds closed.
"It is your origin." Mother said. "It's the energy of all living things and elements of earth. An ethereal life-force tied to weather, wilderness, emotion and memory. Despite this, it is alien to earth."
"Alien..?"
"It's not of our world. At least not originally." Mother started, "Beast-Energy was injected into earth when a meteor crash landed here ages ago. The scientists of the Empire have learned to call it Obsidian-Zero or The Dark-Light Star. When I was a child, it was called Skypiercer. The name doesn't matter as much as the function. Back then, every continent was one. The Sole Continent. Pangaea. When Skypiercer crash landed, it injected Beast-Energy into the earth, leaving it to bleed into and intermix with all life and elements. It brought great storms and earthquakes that twisted the earth and split up the lands to what we now know."
"And the Lycans." Konan asked.
"It was around that time that Man and Wolf were learning that they were stronger together. We both know community. Tribes and packs. We know love and anger in challenge and heirarchy. We know to care of our young and weak. We are similar. The specifics are debated, but we know the main cause of your creation is man's proximity to and complex feeling for wolves. There was fear…. reverence… companionship— and the beginning of new evolution for both. Lycan was born when man and wolf merged under the influence of Beast-Energy."
"….and the Vampires?" Konan asked.
Mother tore a piece of meat from the stick over fire. "Around the same time that Beast-Energy flows found man in the midst of learning unity and cohesion, it also found found man elsewhere learning to give into greed and perversion…. and a rodent plague that was mutated by the meteor."
Konan hesitantly took a bite of food. The cooked meats felt like they shouldn't have tasted good after Mothers words. But they did. Spiced and flavored with sizzling fats that left the fibers succulent and fresh.
"The first cults emerged then. Tribes twisted by the greed and savage impulse of one who realized through cunning and deciet that he could attain much more than most."
Konan watched Sulekha meddle with herbs and salves in the distance.
"They stuck to the dark— to caves where they committed heinous sacrifices and other unspeakable acts. It's there where they also fed on and were fed on by virus infected bats. The sharing of blood, infection and greed influenced by Beast-Energy is what created Vampires. An inverse of Lycans in that way."
Konan stayed silent, trying to wrap his head around it all.
A land of oneness, split by a sky-shard pulsing with an alien energy that birthed his existence and the very existence of the beings trying to kill him. It flowed and existed in everything and nothing. It shifted the earth and wind and memory of everything.
"I'd say I'll give you a minute to process, but I don't think that would do much." Mother said. "So we'll get your mind elsewhere instead." Mother sat up, "Sulekha, come."
Sulekha dropped something but kept her head down on Berkaal.
"Young woman, don't pretend you didn't listen to it all. Join us by the fire." Mother said calmly.
"But Mother— Berkaal—"
"Berkaal is stubborn. Too stubborn to die. Leave the oaf— or do you want him to challenge you at full health?" Mother raised an eyebrow above her blindfold.
Sulekha sighed and stood up, walking over with a pack of dogs following to lick and scent her herbal fingers.
"I was being hyperbolic. Berkaal won't challenge me." Sulekha said as she sat beside Konan.
"You can't be certain of anything. He just faced the antithesis of his existence." Mother said.
"You keep saying that….." Konan said, "What does it mean? He says he doesn't believe me. Your ways are wrong. Why?"
"I know there are spirits of Lycan-kind watching over us." Mother said. "Because they don't speak to us plainly or answer our every call, Berkaal beleives them nonexistent. Or useless. He wished for them when a Coven slaughtered his pack before us. He lost his three sons. He prayed for their assistance. They didn't come. He forsakes them— and us. Maybe Konan here can teach him faith once more."
They all looked at Konan.
Konan shook his head, "I can't teach. Even in the memories of others, I'm the student."
"For now." Mother laughed.
"What is he talking about?" Sulekha asked.
"It's a long story." Mother waved her off.
Sulekha seemed somewhat content. Then she looked at Konan, "You won your challenge."
Konan nodded.
"What will you do now?"
Konan felt uncomfortable again. Just like her last question— and Vic asking who he was. Talking to her was like looking into a mirror.
"Will you fight more? Will you challenge Haurik? Do you have other skills to learn on the fly?" Sulkha's hair seemed to glow redder— twinning with the fire.
Konan scented her skin. He could feel it growing warmer— aside from the fire. A unique warmth. "Why are you angry?"
"I'm not….i…."
Konan blinked. For the first time, she looked as lost as he felt.
"I'm nervous." Sulekha answered— side eyeing Mother only once before continuing, "You're special. But you're young. Yet you're competing amongst adults. Adults who have killed. This could set a new norm."
"I don't understand."
Sulekha looked back behind herself over the crowd of sleeping werewolves. Her gaze lingered on two boys wrapped up in a dozen dogs. They wore the same face and bind-wrapping clothing. They both spoke in their sleep in different languages.
Maka and Ru. As they called eachother.
"Makari and Zehru— they're my cousins. They're special too. They'll only get more special as they get older. They won't survive a challenge against someone like Berkaal the way you did."
"…..Khal'mereth." Konan muttered the words.
Outside the cave, the winds howled in a low sorrowful tune. The fire cooking the meats turned blue and shrank with a depressed exhale of embers.
"W-what was that?" Sulekha asked as she looked around.
Mother continued eating. "Konan feels guilty."
"Guilt…" He repeated the newly learned word. He didn't like it.
Konan kept his eyes on the ground. He didn't want to look at the sleeping children anymore.
Sulekha cleared her throat. "I'm sorry— I didn't mean to. Ahh….. I'm such a hypocrite, I was just snapping on about how much I disliked everyone not thinking about you as an individual and here I am. I didn't mean to put that on you. You didn't have much choice."
Konan looked back at the fire— feeling it's heat fade as the word danced around the flames.
"I don't want anymore of your deaths…."
"Well, I've got news for you…" Mother said in between bites.
Konan, Sulekha and Nuwetara all looked at her.
She was sucking the marrow from a femur bone when she noticed, somehow, "—What?! Even I know we have to operate in reality sometimes!"
Konan fell deeper into his discomfort.
Mother snapped her hands in his direction to get his attention.
"Golden-child, did you forget everything I just told you? You're a Lycan. You're the only Lycan I've seen in the last two hundred and five years. You're stronger than all of us. In one fight— through twisted memory that wasn't your own, you learned an ancient martial language and defeated a Werewolf who's killed countless NightBorn Operatives without the help of a moon. If you don't want to see any more deaths, then shouldn't you do something about it?"
Konan's jaw clenched.
Nuwetara's fur stood on end.
The fire grew and flickered back to a brilliant orange.