Part 1 Hunted Alone Hungry

Hunted. Alone. Hungry.

Hunted.

At first it was just whispers from the spirits. They care as little as I do about the details of the current affairs of the world. But from random snatches of rumors stitched together like an ill fitting quilt here is the picture that I have been able to assemble on why I am being hunted.

It would appear that some members of some dark skinned breed of my kind wanted to ingratiate themselves with the local humans, by designating me as a convenient scapegoat, thus drawing away attention from their controversial natures. The order appears to have come from most high, an important and powerful member of my kind with the cumbersome label of justicar. The order then traveled to the local baron of my kind. He then approached the local human inquisitor. Now there is a word that I have learned to fear. Members of the new religion of the cross that will decree any other religion, including that which I practice, as a heinous heresy, punishable by death. He then appealed to the human justiciar. He himself then decreed that the local human earl should assemble a human detail to hunt me down. The local baron of my kind assembled himself a hunting party to follow suit. And in an unprecedented alliance, the silver haired wolves allied themselves with the local contingent of my kind to give me hunt as well, no doubt to ingratiate themselves with the local humans as well.

So now I am being pursued by all kinds, Norse humans, vampires, and werewolves.

They have already managed to drive me away from home.

The spirits urged me so, reporting on the encroaching of the approaching hunting parties.

And now I am being relentlessly pursued, at night by vampires, at day by humans, and day and night by werewolves, relentless hunters.

Luckily my flight thus far has led me through some very dense woodland, which allows me to flee during the day as well, safe, sheltered from the lethal embrace of the father sun. But my strength is failing me, the pace of my escape slackening.

Thanks to the insistence of the spirits, even though I rue them that, for it pains me to be away from home, I had gained a head start. Oh relentlessly did they badger me as well, trying to impress upon me the urgency of my plight and the urge to depart. But oh was I loathe departing my home.

But now, inexorably, they are gaining on me.

Alone.

My breed is solitary by nature. We don't mingle with others of our breed, let alone with others of our kind, and even less with humans.

Some of us will visit with others of our breed if our homes are close enough to thus allow it.

Some of us will receive as temporary guests members of our kind that are passing by our home.

If some tribe of humans that follows the old religion happens to live near our homes, we might entertain mutually beneficial relations based on that common ground, to the point where we might be asked to officiate at their rites.

It sometimes happens that those of my breed will form bonds with some of the fae that are equally bond to the tree we call home.

It will also happen that we form bonds with the local beasts that have laid claim to a territory that encompasses our home.

But that is a lot of ifs, and they only come together for a surprisingly short number of the members of my breed.

Also some of us every so often will give rise to offspring.

But that usually weakens us and produces offspring weaker than we were, as if by producing offspring we were halving our powers and sharing those halves between sire and childer.

So that practice as well has been discontinued.

Most of us will have their sole company the mighty tree that we call home.

It is said of us that we are spirits of the tree, but then we would be offspring spirits, for the trees that we call home have spirits of their own, with whom we can commune. And the company of those spirits are all the company that the majority those of my breed will have their entire lives. Those spirits will be our family and our friends.

And now I have been driven away from mine.

That is why I was so loather to leave my home, why the spirits had to be so insistent, impressing upon me the direness of my situation and the impending peril.

And now I feel utterly alone, cast asunder from the only family I have ever had, bereft of the only love I have ever known.

Adrift, lost in some nameless patch of woodland where my feet have never walked before.

Hungry.

There are several ways for me to draw sustenance.

The most basic is to feed from blood procured from the animals that have their territories comprising my tree, always taking care not to kill them.

But that is the basest form of feeding, which only feeds my body and even that barely.

There are two ways to pay homage to the spirit that inhabits my tree, and both involve blood.

I can practice blood sacrifices of local animals, though I have also learned to do that without killing them. I know that my spirit only requires a few drops of blood shed on the roots of the tree, not the life of the animals that I am sacrificing.

I will also sacrifice from time to time, on holly days and remarkable occasions, a little of my blood.

And thus sacrificing blood for my tree, feeding blood to the spirit that inhabits my tree, performing a holly ritual in homage to the tree and its spirit, I feel infused with a flush of energy that feeds my spirit and quenches the hunger of my body.

And there is this connection with the spirit of my tree: that together we are greater than the sum of us, that our auras feed on each other in a manner that enhances both of us, the spirit of me and the spirit of my tree.

Apart, we both get progressively weaker, and wither until we die.

I am already wilting, feeling my strength failing me, draining away from me.

Having been driven away from home by my pursuers I have been driven away from all the company that I have ever known and the only sustenance, corporal and spiritual, that I have available for me.

I am questioning the wisdom of the spirits that drove me to flee, since my flight seems to guarantee death as sure as the one I would have met had I remained waiting for my pursuers. But now fleeing I am. And even though I have a vague idea what from, not even the glimmer of a notion where to.

And so I am now.

Hunted. Alone. Hungry