I found this in a notebook some time ago. It was meant to be the start of The Pact, but I decided that I didn't like it and cut it. I've tweaked it, and given it a different ending so that it meshes with my other story, but this is what happened after Larka fell.

Let me know if you want me to include Larka's time with Rar's pack, because right now I have no plans to add to this...because I haven't written anything about it. If I do post what else I have written, know that it is mostly about Larka and Skart.

~The Kerl

Hazy images flashed before my mind's eye. I tried to focus and lock onto something, anything. A boulder, or was it a tree stump? A hole, but what was in the hole? There was something…missing…

With the images came a dull pain that grew more intense as I tried to distinguish some meaning in the images. I shied away from the picture into the dark numbness that surrounded me to recover, but the images followed me and refused to be ignored. This time they flashed faster, seeming to blur into a stream of flowing images.

A rock – a hole – a stream – some dirt – something pointy-no, lots of water, but cold. And snow, all around, blowing into my face until I could no longer see the cascade of things my mind was shooting at me. I blinked, but the snow was falling fast and the wind whipped it everywhere. It was in my eyes, and in my nose, and my ears. All of my senses were lost and the claustrophobia began to take hold of me.

Before I knew it, the snow was replaced by an acrid smoke that choked me as I tried to inhale. I peered through the smoke and saw that I was standing in a small clearing in a forest.

That was when I became aware of the cause of the smoke. A fire, more intense than anything I had ever known, licked up dry tinder all around me. It was ash – not snow. The heat on my body was agonizing, and once again I tried in vain to return to the cold recesses of my mind. As the heat intensified, I realized that this was wrong. Everything had seemed familiar until this point, because no fire had ever affected me like this. It was familiar, true, but I had not died. No, I had escaped and left Kar…

For a brief instant, I was freed from my external suffering as I became aware of a strange, urgent tugging sensation from deep within my chest. If I really am somehow reliving the moment in the woods, then Kar should be here. It was an insane thought, because what I needed was to escape from the fire. However, all I could think of was Kar. I searched about desperately with my eyes, only to be met with an ever-rising wall of flame. Where is he? I tried to call out to him but the smoke caught his name in my throat.

Kar. I threw my head back in despair, ready to succumb to the hell fires around me. Kar was gone. Where was the point in going on? My body shook as a wave of heat rolled over me and I slumped to the ground, defeated. I was too confused to realize that this fire could not be real, too exhausted to comprehend what was happening to my weary body. I was so weak… How long had it been since I had last hunted? I closed my eyes as the flames came nearer, and I tried to block the popping of the burning vegetation from my mind.

But then I heard a different sound—a sound so unlike the roaring of the blazing forest that my eyes shot open and my ears pricked up as I slowly lifted my head from the ground, searching for the source of the cry.

It came again. This time I recognized it—almost. Something was screeching in a loud and rather angry voice. In my state of mental torture, I knew that the voice was calling to me, but this was not the voice I wanted to hear. I shifted my gaze toward to sky, clouded with smoke, and caught a glimpse of the owner of the unpleasant voice. It wasn't Kar, of course, but by this point it did not matter to me. I couldn't stay in the woods any longer. The eagle in the sky wheeled right and my eyes followed his path as he disappeared over the treetops.

My heart caught in my chest. To my immediate right a tree had fallen to rest against a rotted tree that had already caught on fire. If I acted quickly, I would be able to jump out of my fiery cage. If I could position my landing correctly, I would be able to escape. So that's what I did. I hauled myself up, ran headfirst at the tree and jumped through the flames. However, my paws never made contact with the tree as I had anticipated. They met only air.

And I fell.

But the pain was gone. My mind's eye, freed at last from the burning forest, beheld glimpses of things far from the burning wood I had left behind. As I tumbled through the air, I viewed my parents. I saw they were together and happy. I saw Fell, dear Fell, asleep under an elderberry tree as a jumble of cubs raced towards him. Were they his? I tried to focus on the cubs, to learn who their parents were, but someone was calling my name.

Then his face was before me, handsome and whole. The instant I saw him my heart stuttered. You could never tell that all of his fur had been burnt away, unless you had seen what his coat looked like before. He was a magnificent grey with brown flecked across his back. His ears were tipped black, as was the small space between his nose and upper lip. He appeared healthy and strong—just as he should. However, this Kar was not the Kar that I'd grown up with. This Kar was troubled by something. He was in pain and I longed to ask him what had brought such sorrow to his life.

As I parted my jaws to voice my question, Kar's face faded from my sight and I found myself staring into a pair of eyes that did not belong to one of my kind. Though not wolf, or Varg as we call ourselves, these eyes were not to be taken lightly. The familiarity of the piercing yellow eyes dawned on me, but still left me confused.

"Larka!" The urgency in the tone of the voice made me realize that it had been repeating itself, and loudly, for quite some time. "Larka please! Can you hear me? Answer me, Larka," the voice pleaded, and the eyes widened into a state of exasperation. "It's me, Skart. Can you hear me? Please answer me! We can't lose you again…" I felt my brow pucker in confusion at his last request. Lose me again? What did that mean?

Skart must have seen my expression change and his response surprised me. His razor-sharp beak shot forward and out of sight before I felt a sudden pain on the tip of my ear. A low, pathetic whimper escaped from my mouth, followed by a brief yelp and more whimpers as the effort of making sound caused me to become aware of the immense pain shooting through my body.

"Larka! Larka, are you awake?" I tried to adjust my head to hold his gaze properly, but I hurt too much and only managed a feeble nod. The worried look in his eyes lifted somewhat, but not entirely.

"Skart…?" His name came out in a raspy voice. I coughed to clear my throat and groaned loudly as the pain returned.

"Larka, we must get you out of here. Can you move?" It was more of a command than a question, so I again attempted to raise my head. I lifted it a few inches, but dropped it back to the rocky floor. My eyes closed wearily.

"Can't…move," I gasped.

"Larka, listen to me closely. We need to move you quickly, but I can't move you myself. I need to go find someone to help. Do you understand?" I felt my brow furrow at his words. Where are we, and why do we have to get out quickly? Nothing made sense through the pain. Again I attempted to open my eyes. I could just barely make out the feathered body that was Skart through a hole in the rock wall before me. It seemed I was in some sort of…some kind of…I couldn't tell. There was rock and dust everywhere. "I can explain everything when we get you out of there, but for now I need you to tell me what hurts."

I took a deep breath, but the dust made me cough. "I…can't feel…paw," I struggled. There had to be more wrong with me than that. The pain was too intense. "Sides hurt."

"Are you sure? That was a long fall." What fall? "I'll be back soon, just hold on."

A gust of air shot through the opening as he leapt into the air, stirring dust within my enclosure. I started coughing again, but the pain in my side soon became too much too ignore and I passed out. Unaware as time passed, I faded in and out of consciousness, in and out of pain. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I recognized the familiar sound of nails on stone, but I couldn't decipher what that meant. Someone was calling my name again, but it was a different voice. It wasn't Skart. And it wasn't Kar.

I found myself unable to muster the will or the strength to crack my eyelids to find out what was going on. There was a tug above my shoulders, and my right side felt heavy. Eventually I realized that I had less difficulty breathing. And why was I lying in the grass? Where am I? I knew I was supposed to be somewhere – supposed to go somewhere, yet I couldn't recall where. I was surrounded by voices. My belly growled as I caught the scent of a fresh kill. Hunger was eating at me, but why was that? And why was my throat so scratchy?

It occurred to me that there were questions I should be asking myself, but I couldn't think of any sensible answers to any sensible question I may ask. My memories began to fade away, and with them something that caused me great pain. I would welcome the unknown darkness if it meant that the pain would go away.

Hope you liked it!