Disclaimer for the entire story:
The incredible characters and their personalities of Twilight have been created by Stephenie Meyer. I have done my best to keep her characters as similar to her books as possible, but because I am not her they will stray a bit. Plus it's my story! Everything not created by her has been created by me.
The Prologue, Chapter 1 and 2 are specifically about my characters. If it's Twilight people you want, go directly to Chapter 3. You'll miss out on a fair bit of background story, but that's where it really gets interesting anyways...
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Werewolf of the North
Prologue
I
I had to get out of the house. I could not stand it anymore. My Mother was crying again and Father was drinking. Well, trying to drink anyways. Over the past week and a half I could not think of a time when he had been sober – or at least coherent.
Tonight, after realizing that he had finished up the last of the entire general store's supply of whiskey he had finally taken all of his monstrous rage out on the only person in this world that still had faith in him.
I knew that he had been close to the end for quite some time now; it had all started with his face.
As I now walked towards my spot and pictured Father's grinning face when he had first heard about the gold rush in the Yukon I couldn't help but smile. It was a simply infectious smile, and "was the reason I married him," my Mother would state proudly to anyone who would listen.
Yet the more time had progressed in this godforsaken wasteland of a place the more the realization was starting to sink in that the gold rush wouldn't much longer.
There was only about three or four places where gold could still be reliably found; the rest of the fields had either been wiped clean or swooped up by the mining companies.
Most of the men who had just arrived in town expecting to see the sparkling overflowing fields of yellow beneath the constant whiteness of the snow had been sorely disappointed to find that the event of the century was coming to a close. They had missed it all.
The brave gentlemen who dared to remain and search the land that had been combed over a thousand times already were slowly beginning to give up hope, leaving in small groups in the same way they had come.
"I hate the Yukon," I stated to myself in a rather calm manner that came nowhere near close to conveying the actual frustration that I now had pent up inside of me after one year and eleven months.
I sat on a frozen log in the middle of the clearing I had arrived at. It was my favorite place in all of the gold mining territory. Being completely surrounded by thick and dense pines and evergreens on all sides I was easily able to forget the large expanses of snow-covered ground that had seen too many men traverse them in such a short amount of time.
After about three minutes of sitting, four minutes spent pacing, and another three minutes with my face pressed deeply into the snow I decided that I had left my Mother entirely too long with my drunken – and by this time most likely enraged – Father.
I was a selfish child; usually when Father got like this I would simply leave, sometimes to another room, sometimes to the town two miles to the east of here. I had always asked my Mother to come with me, yet lately I had even given up on the possibility of her agreeing.
As I was trudging along the side of the path that led back up the big hill and through the town I heard a bloodcurdling scream.
"NO HENRY STOP!"
I continued walking slowly, my ears still ringing from the sound of my Mother's scream that the gunshot didn't even register until after the shot had been taken.
I continued walking slowly up the hillside, forgetting that I was now out of step, curious as to whether I had imagined the noises or if they had indeed been real. Considering the fact that I heard another gunshot as I approached the crest of the hill, only able to see a sliver of the growing rooftops, I was surprisingly calm.
I knew this day would come. In fact, I had prepared myself for it mentally many times before – this wasn't the first time Father had brought out the shotgun.
As I stood at the end of the first building I had reached, the hotel that now had all of its current residents either looking out from the windows or standing on the porch staring in shock, it finally occurred to me that the bastard had shot himself as well.
When I looked at the splatter of red that was now slowly making its way down the wooden siding of Father's general store to pool on the ground I saw my Mother, slumped on the ground into a sitting position at the bottom. She was keeled over as if she was about to vomit, her face now completely destroyed; the beauty of her face had been ripped and shredded in a hundred different ways by the bullets. The already pale porcelain face was covered with strands of her blonde hair that had become wet with the excess blood and sweat that continued to slowly seep out of her face.
Yet as I looked at her I took comfort knowing that her eyes were not closed in pain. I could tell that she had been standing very close to the shotgun and she had not been in pain when it happened.
The anger that I was now feeling inside my slight frame was not sadness for my mother; in fact I was celebrating that she had finally been released from the prison that had slowly but steadily become our life.
As I looked at her white dress that was once beautiful but now only bloodstained I felt the anger crash over me in waves, one after the other, letting it seep into my body. It started in my head, and slowly as if it had been poured, washed down through my body, over my shoulders and into my skinny arms, filling even my fingertips with hatred, all the way down into my legs to my feet that were too small in my boots that were too old. I wondered why this felt the way it did, so I decided to stop for just a few moments to indulge in my curiosity. The rage felt cool, soothing.
I looked at my mother's dress; the only thing I had bought in my entire life was the splotchy scarlet birthday present I had presented to her only yesterday, that she was now wearing. I had waited ten years to present her with the efforts of my hard manual labor and saving of coins – and he had ruined it, had wrecked her; wrecked their beauty beyond repair.
Now she was dead and everything was ruined. It had all been undone in a single action.
It felt like I was spending hours contemplating whether or not to look at Father. From the crowd that was now unnecessarily gathering around the scene that had just taken place I couldn't see him anyways.
I turned and left, walking back the way that I had come.
II
As I reached the bottom of the hill I heard a young woman's voice calling after me. "Damien! Please wait!" she cried.
I didn't even bother to look back – I knew that she would follow me anyways.
While Penny was the most beautiful girl in this tiny town, not even she was enough to make me want to stay. I continued walking even after I heard her trip and fall through the snow.
Feeling a twinge of guilt arise inside of me I decided to humor her, and turned around to help her up.
"Thank you, thank you," she whispered hopelessly as she saw me approach. We had talked many times about leaving this wretched place together after I had learned that she hated it somewhere close to as much as I did.
But all of that was over now
The minute that I felt her hand grip tighter around mine than needed I knew this would not be easy.
"Where are you going Damien?" she asked, her eyes becoming misty. "Are you leaving now? I thought that we wouldn't be going until spring." She tried to continue but faltered.
I shook my head, not having the courage – but I think it was really the patience – to explain to her that anything I had told her previously did not matter anymore.
"No?" she asked quizzically, matching her question with her lopsided half-smile that she used whenever she didn't understand what was happening. I always enjoyed her facial expressions; those I would miss the most.
"No," I whispered, quiet yet firm, but most importantly final.
"But, but…"
I absolutely hated it when she got this way, but at this particular moment I found it helpful, because as she sank back down to her knees and placed her beautiful face into her hands it gave me time to start walking away.
I heard her whimpering softly behind me, but continued to walk forwards.
After walking for about ten minutes or so I decided to give in to myself and see how close Penny was behind me, and to my displeasure, she was awfully close.
When she saw me trying to peer over my shoulder she started running, which is a very hard thing to do when traveling across ice-covered snow.
Her melancholic mood had completely changed when she saw me hold out my hand in invitation towards her. She paused though, unsure if I was actually asking her.
I couldn't help but allow the smallest of smiles to escape my stoic face. How odd we must have looked, me, with my hand outstretched to the nothingness, with Penny, twenty feet behind looking at me questioningly.
With all of the energy she had left to muster, she decided that I was indeed serious – which I was; I could never be cruel to Penny – and sprinted the remaining distance to place her hand dramatically in mine, once again squeezing tightly.
"I don't know why you tempt me the way you do Damien," she said rhetorically. "In fact I don't even know why you love me, or why I love you."
"It's better not to ask questions about things you don't know," I said a little more indifferently than intended.
She turned her head, waiting silently for me to turn mine. I eventually gave up and faced her straight in the eyes, which I noticed had lost any sign of tears that I thought I had seen before.
"You always used to say the exact opposite," she replied curtly, obviously hurt.
I turned my head back to the front and focused on the place that we had now come to. I had strayed from the southward path quite some time ago, and had now reached the large expanse of forest that bordered the lake we had been walking across.
She stopped abruptly, so that I was now a pace ahead and the only thing connecting us were our hands. I tried to let go of her hand to continue, now very irritated that she had stopped behind me, but she only tightened her grasp on me.
"We're not supposed to go into the forest Damien," she warned, managing to hide the fear in her voice quite well. She was by far the most easily scared of the forest legends told by the Inuit traders and was always adamant about following the sheriff's rules.
I looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to make this one final choice. She was clearly torn, which was expressed by the way her body went absolutely rigid, as opposed to the odd quirks most others allow when forced with making an important decision. I loved it.
"Do you promise that there will be no more questioning after this?" she asked dramatically.
I continued staring at her, allowing only my eyes to soften, promising her no more questioning if she followed me here and now.
The way she looked so unsure before had completely changed now. She made her decision with an air of confidence I had never seen before.
She took a step forward to stand beside me, in the thick evergreen foliage that now surrounded the both of us.
I morphed into my wolf form, laying my stomach onto the snow that melted instantly at my touch to allow her to climb onto my back, gripping the fur along my shoulders and took off through the forest into the night.
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