Prologue.
Lightning lit the dark summer night; the humidity was suffocating, rain would make the animals sigh in relief. It was nights like these that there was peace in the forest where I had grown up. A week had passed since the cast on my hind leg had come off and my best friend and I decided to wait for the stars to come out, but saw lightning instead and decided to stay and watch the beautiful bolts flashing like fireworks in the night time sky.
The last light flashed across the sky when the cooling rain finally released itself from the grip of the grey clouds and fell like a waterfall down the valley; it started to rain harder and harder, the lightning flashed more and quicker, and the thunder became louder, I got to my feet began to run for some shelter and Ryker quickly followed. We ran straight to the cave we have always lived in an opening by a huge rock, it once had roots and fallen trees covering the entrance but after the long season of no rain it had dried up.
These were the images that flowed through my mind, we were safe in the cave, settled in for a long cold night of rain pouring and thunder shuddering the earth beneath our feet.
It wasn’t always like this, in fact things had changed completely and I don’t think I had ever had that time back with Ryker, I sat just under the shelter away from the water pouring down from the sky. Watching the water, I began to admire the sky as it lit up and soon the thunder followed.
This was going to be the end and I knew it, I stared down at this creature that changed my entire life, my childhood. He was human. All creatures of my kind should always be afraid and stay far away from them, but not me, I was looking not only for revenge but peace, it was my duty. The human next to him was different as I looked at him and I wanted to do the same to every creature of that kind, but I had formed a bond with him that I couldn’t do it, not to him. I closed my eyes and channelled everything of me to the core of my emotions, I was going to end all of this, but that would mean the end of me as well, sacrifices had to made to keep the peace were the words that drilled through my mind as I felt the pain of my skin and bones burning.
But I guess I’m getting ahead of myself, after all this is my “tail” so I guess I should start where it all started, which was when I was born,
I was the last-born puppy, which wasn’t always a good thing for us, born with a white coat with only a light brown star-shaped marking on my chest, making it look like a dirt mark on my coat. I could still hear the words my mother spoke to me when I was ready to be named, she had said “and I shall call you Aelle as you have the purest coat with a beautiful birth marking of the stars above.” I had always woken up at this time with fright, as I knew my younger years were bad.
I was young but can still I remember the terrible happenings when I had just opened my eyes, there was fighting and pain, my whole family was dead as far as I could remember, something had happened to them and I was the only one that had been saved. I had forgotten my past very quickly as I was young and I didn’t want to remember.
I am a wolf.
My only and best friend was a rabbit but his the closest creature I had to a family, and I would protect him with my life.
As for my eyes, which you could say is what made me different, was a unique eye colour; they were not brown, green, or even golden yellow. My eyes were bright blue like the sky on a sunny day, like the ocean on a clear day, everybody I had met had always admired my eyes for its beauty, but with beauty came flaws as it made me stand out so I could never make friends with my own kind, and they thought it was different and weird.
As I grew older I discovered my oddness increased as my fluffy tale became longer and fur had turned silk-soft and longer than most wolves coats. One creature had said “Your white body makes your pretty eyes shine like the mountain pools of water.” I never could understand that but I accepted it. My tail was long enough to wrap me warmly around myself in the winter night.
It was my first spring after a long winter, that I was lucky to have survived, in which I had discovered that I didn’t need to make other wolf friends, or be part of a pack, the little creatures that I looked out for could be my friends, and Ryker by far had become my favourite and best friend, even if he was a rabbit. After we became good friends he stayed by my side most of the time. He became a good friend, he loved to play silly games and tricks with me and our conversations would be very odd and unusual but I began to love it because it would always make me laugh. It’s never hard to spot him in a crowd of his own kind, he had a grey colour all over his body which wasn’t as shiny and silky as most, some white on his stomach, mouth, inner ears and tail; his eyes were golden brown with an ever twitching black nose.
It was at this time that I had decided that I was happy, I was complete, and I was home. I was no longer afraid of my future, and the past had stopped hunting my dreams, my life had reached its peak!
Or so I thought…
