It rained, the rain was cold, and the skies were grey. The stench of death was hanging around in air that made Rose nervous. Something was very wrong, something bad was coming and it made her full of anxiety. She was told to go hunting for the ceremony. She had just caught a big boar, and had her furry friend by her side.
Her wolves were all helping to drag it through the forest, every movement you could hear the leaves crunch beneath your feet, fall was here, and the leaves all fell and the air was dry. They had to hurry and take the prey to the den. A bit before they got there, she smelled blood and smoke, and lots of it. A wave of panic and distress crashed down on Rose "Stay here!" she commanded as she ran as fast as she could back to her comrades and loved ones. All the trees around her den were on fire. There were demon corpses and wolf demon bodies everywhere.
She ran to the main den to see if anyone was there, all she found, were her parents, comrades, and friends and loved ones bodies on the floor soaked in blood, with their eyes closed and weapons still in their hands. It was such a horrific site that she could not cry. She just felt every little hope, dream, memory and her heart, shatter and rip into a million different pieces.
She walked over to her parents and hugged them dear with her eyes trembling. Wondering who could do such a disgusted thing, and who was capable? This was a pretty strong pack, there were not many people but it was home. Home was where your friends and family are, where you laugh around the fire telling battle stories, it was where your friend would get drunk from sake and then you would laugh at them the next day embarrassing them. Where the wolves and their pups can run around freely playing with each other.
Whoever was responsible was long gone, leaving no trace of who they were. She threw her head back and howled, a long; mournful; sad, distressing howl. In the distance you heard all the other wolves howl back. The wolves knew what happened, and came running. She got the wolves to help her drag her parent's bodies outside and together they dug a huge whole for her parents.
She would bury her parents together; they were always together when they were alive, so now they would be together in the afterlife. Right before she put the dirt on them, she took an old but elegant necklace with a symbol in the middle, off her mother's neck. That necklace was an old family heir loom, and the point of the ceremony was that necklace being passed on to her.
She held it in her hand and squeezed it tight, then put it on her neck. Then proceeded to bury her parents. The wolves seemed really depressed, the whole atmosphere was depressing. The wolves usually ran around, fought with each other, barked and whined. But on this particular day, they were silent and just sat there comforting each other with soft caring licks. She didn't bring all the wolves with her on the hunt. She only brought 5 in total, 4 grey wolves and her wolf Kiba. Kiba was also grey, but was much larger than the other, and more skilled in combat. Kiba spent a lot of time with Rose ever since she was born in fact. Rose sometimes rode on the back of Kiba when her travels were long or if Rose was tired, this wolf was most attached to Rose and she often tried to care for her, Kiba loved Rose so much that she and the other wolves would guard her with their lives.
Kiba sat by her through the whole time her parents were getting buried. Once her parents were buried Rose went to go find some flowers to put on their graves. She found flowers; in fact, these were her mother's favorite wild flowers. They looked like lilies, but they were blue, and had a wonderful smell to them. Since the fire destroyed everything, Rose only found one more blue lily. She picked it and walked back to the grave where her wolves are. She placed the lily on the grave, and walked away, taking one more glance.
The wolves followed her, and they went to the place they left the boar. "Hurry up and eat, we leave as soon as your done." Rose commanded and sat down against a tree staring into the sky. Kiba came and brought her a piece, nudging her trying to get her attention. Rose looked down, and smiled at her efforts, she rubbed Kiba's head and smiled, "no you eat without me; I'm not hungry, maybe later…"
Kiba whined, but understood and ate without her. They ate hungrily until they were stuffed. Then Rose signaled the wolves to follow. She could run awfully fast, she was the fastest one in her pack, and could hunt the best; her fighting wasn't too bad either. They ran towards the woods until night fell upon the land. They stopped and decided to sleep for the night; they needed to rest if they wanted to go anywhere.
Rose usually slept up against Kiba because she was soft and warm. She cuddled up to Kiba and the wolves and decided to sleep and deal with everything tomorrow. She woke up early because she couldn't sleep; she kept having nightmares about her now deceased pack. She decided to think about their next destination. Her father once mentioned something about the eastern wolf demon tribe, and how strong they were. She decided to stop there, and maybe see if they might have an idea on who killed her comrades.
She whistled and the wolves woke up and waited for her next command. "We head East! To the eastern wolf demon tribe!" Rose suddenly turned into a grey mist and the mist rushed to the ground revealing her true form as a wolf. She was also a grey wolf, but she didn't look like the rest. She has bright purple eyes, and she didn't spend much time in this form unless she was traveling far distances. Her fur was soft, and her paws were soft and not too rough.
She lead the way and they ran for two whole days. They had another half a day to go, so she decided to wash up in the stream as her humanoid form and let the wolves sleep and rest up. Every time she tried to sleep or take a nap she would have terrible nightmares and wake up crying or in a panic, so Rose refused to sleep. She often found herself thinking about what happened, or how she could have stopped it the moment she knew something wasn't right. Rose decided to go hunting for the wolves until they woke up to distract herself. Rose walked to the pack after she went hunting holding a few rabbits. "Sorry guys, it was all I could find so eat up. And you all better share! We all need some energy if we're going to make it the rest of the way." Rose stated while tossing the rabbits. She tossed the last one to Kiba and the wolf ripped off a piece and tossed it to Rose. "Fine, but I only want this one piece, you have the rest. I'm strong so I don't need food all the time. I'll last until we finish traveling." Rose smiled. Kiba knew she was just acting this way, and she was actually torn up inside and tired.
Rose and the wolves proceeded to eat then they got ready to go. "Kiba, do you think your strong enough to carry me for a little while?" Rose asked as she rubbed behind Kiba's ear. Before she knew it Kiba ran behind her and then carefully lowered herself and went in between Roses legs, then fully stood up lifting Rose up on her back. Rose was taken by surprise and laughed, "Okay, okay! Alright everyone, I know your all tired, but the eastern demon wolf tribe was the closest tribe to the south! I'm sure once we get there they will allow us to rest inside their territory for a while. So let's keep heading east! We should be there before sun down! Let's go Kiba." The wolves all barked in response and Rose gripped Kiba's fur then leaned forward as Kiba ran and the wolves followed.
They ran for quite a while but sensed something coming their way, Rose signaled them to hide, and she also hid behind a tree. It smelled like a bunch of human blood, so it's safe to assume that it's a demon that just passed by a village. Rose had a little special ability; she was pretty fast and could often determine her opponent's next move. She often used it to her advantage, and often used her strength or surroundings to her advantage.
Since Rose was already worn out from all the traveling, she had to defeat this demon fast before she grew to tired. Finally a demon rushed out of the trees, he stunk of dead men and had blood dripping from his mouth. He was huge and dark purple, and was almost as big as the trees. He carried around a huge chain and had 3 eyes. He voice was raspy as he laughed and talked about his last killing. Finally he stopped in the middle of the clearing, and looked around and laughed. "I know you're out there, you and your little pet wolves will be my next meal! Then I will continue to the east to eat more puny wolves!"
Rose knew no way was he going to take another step towards the wolf demon tribe; Rose had more than enough destruction. She stepped out from behind the tree, "Listen here you idiot! I don't care where you go, but you're not going past me, so I suggest you turn around if you want your life spared! Go somewhere else!" Rose demanded as she pointed at the demon. The demon proceeded to laugh, but then said "Fine by me, It will be easy getting past you!" he ran towards her using his left hand to try to grab her.
Rose quickly stepped out of the way. He ended up using his chain slashing it everywhere trying to catch her. Kiba felt like Rose couldn't keep it up forever, so she wanted to help. Out of the bushes she crept out, she snuck up behind the demon thinking she was un noticed. But the demon did notice, and so did Rose. Before the demon could quickly turn around and try to scratch Kiba, Rose ran as fast as she could and jumped and pushed the huge wolf out of the way before the wolf could get injured. Kiba usually worked and teamed up with Rose, she never usually acted on her own unless she thought she needed to.
But Rose pushed Kiba out of the way just in time, Kiba didn't get a scratch. But as soon as she hand swiped by, Rose screamed. The demon had put a large cut down her arm. "Stay put Kiba!" Rose commanded. While the demon was laughing even more about how he damaged her, and how they were now 'finished', Rose jumped onto a tree branch and jumped onto the demon. She used a dagger she had on her and as fast as she could she stabbed the demon multiple times on the neck before it could react fast enough to get her. Once the demon fell down she pointed at the demon and whistled and soon enough all her wolves were viciously attacking it trying to also push it off the cliff. Soon enough the demon fell off the cliff tumbling to its death, Rose just stood at the edge of the cliff and watched it fall down, "Stupid demon…" Rose shook her head while holding her arm trying to stop the bleeding. 'It's almost sunset…' Rose thought. She whistled calling all the wolves towards her. "We have to hurry! We're almost there". The wolves all started running and Rose went on Kiba's back again and they followed close behind.
By the time they reached the boarder of the eastern wolf demon tribe, all the wolves were panting heavily. Rose signaled them to stop, "Everyone, we will walk the rest of the way, I know your all exhausted. And I can't hold on to Kiba much longer in this state." Rose hopped off and all the wolves walked over to her and licked her hands and rubbed up against her encouraging her to go on.
They ended up walking until it was dark, and Rose's injury and lack of sleep was taking their toll. Kouga was outside with the rest of his comrades around a fire. They were all laughing and talking. Rose was pretty far away from the den, she was a little ways from the boarder of the territory. Kouga felt like something was up, something was in his territory, but it must have been weak and accidently wondered in, so he ignored it. It won't be much of a problem, unless it continues to come further into his territory.
While Rose was walking, she was somewhat using Kiba as support. But every step she took got harder and harder. She was exhausted, hungry, her vision was blurring out and it felt like her legs were turning into liquid. The wolves all noticed how wobbly her legs were, and eventually she started staggering kept a close eye on her. The wolves always did that, they were like a close family; Rose did a lot of things for them, and cared for them a lot. Rose treasured all of her friends, even the wolves. So in return, the wolves respected her and also treasured her.
Rose could barely see anything now, she stopped. She tried forcing her legs to move. Her leg moved forward, but as it touched the ground her body gave out. Rose collapsed, she was un conscious on the cold hard ground and she was breathing heavily. Kiba and the wolves started panicking and pacing around. Kiba started licking her face trying to wake her up. Roses eyes slowly opened, "Kiba I'm cold… can you lay by me? Guys. Come here." Rose quietly commanded. The wolves all gathered around her. "Farther in the territory should be the wolf den, let someone know we're here then go run and meet him. If someone won't meet up then go and bring someone here. I can't keep… going." Rose's eyes slowly closed and she fell asleep again.
The wolves just stood there worried for their master. Kiba was lying with Rose keeping her warm. Kiba wanted help NOW, and let off a vicious loud growl that snapped them out of their trance. They ran quickly into the territory, because if they didn't take off that moment Kiba would of tore them apart for their stupidity. As soon as they had some distance, you could hear a loud long howl, followed along with the other three of the group.
Kouga and the others heard this, everyone got really quiet and listened. "Those aren't our wolves!" Someone from the pack shouted. Other people started talking, "That's a distress howl!" "Do you think someone is in trouble?" "Maybe it's someone from another pack" "what pack could it be?" everyone spoke among themselves in confusion. "Everyone quiet! Listen up; I don't know who it is, or why they're all the way out here. I'm going ahead because I'm the fastest. If it's foe, I'll get rid of them immediately, if its someone from another tribe then should help them, we at least owe them that, they came all the way here." Kouga shouted to the group. He quickly descended down the mountain leaving everyone in the dust because of his jewel shards.
Kouga kept running towards the howl until he caught the scent of wolves other than his own. He went towards the smell and quickly stopped. He found himself staring at the four grey wolves. Usually wolves were not grey, unless they turned grey with age, but these wolves were still pretty young. So wolves like this were kind of rare to see. They all barked at him, but he couldn't understand them, they were all barking at once. "Be quiet! What's wrong? What happened?" Kouga tried to squeeze a word in.
They all turned around and ran backwards a little bit, then looked back at him expecting him to follow. Kouga quickly caught on and ran with these strange wolves to where they were they were taking him. Before he reached there, he could smell blood, so someone must have been hurt.
Him and the wolves finally reached Rose and Kiba. Kouga gasped as he saw a HUGE, grey wolf wrapped around only one wolf demoness. 'It was only one person? Why are they so upset and concerned?' Kouga thought, he shook away these thoughts and rushed to the injured person, he saw that her arm was bleeding. Before he touched her Kiba let out a loud, viscous growl and let her teeth show. Kiba was not very trustworthy, and very protective.
Kouga jumped back and flinched, "Why you doing that for?! Do you want my help or not? You don't have a lot of options right now, just look at her, she needs help. So I'm gonna have to carry her back to the den." Kouga calmly spoke to the large wolf trying not to upset the wolf even further. "You must be pretty worried, but don't worry I'll take care of her okay?" Kouga said in a reassuring tone. Kiba gave Rose one last lick on the face and un wrapped herself from the girl and backed away allowing Kouga to pick her up. Kouga carefully picked her up bridal style holding her against his chest.
"I'm going ahead so just follow my scent and keep going towards the den" Kouga shouted and ran off. The wolves usually didn't follow directions from anyone other than Rose, but since he was the one in fact, holding Rose, they did as they were told. Kouga ran up the mountain and ended up at the top.
He finally made it to the den and was quickly surrounded by everyone. They were all talking about her furs, and how she was a girl and how pretty she was. "Everyone get outta my way! Ginta! Hakkaku!" Kouga called. The two ran over to him, "what's up Kouga?" they asked also looking at the girl in his arms. "Go get the healer, this girl must have been attacked, she has a cut on her arm and she must be sick" Ginta and Hakkaku quickly nodded their heads and ran to go get the healer.
Kouga carried her to the main den. Which was basically his den because he was the leader of the pack, that den was also the largest. He hugged her close and jumped through the waterfall trying to avoid her getting wet. While he put her on the bed, he quickly ran out when he heard a commotion. He ran to the source and saw his comrades pointing spears and weapons at the small group of wolves, and the brown wolves of the pack were growling not letting them pass by. Everyone was all amazed by how large one of them was. "Hey! Let them through, they're with the girl." Kouga commanded. Everyone put their weapons down and the wolves backed away and a small path was clear to the main den.
The grey wolves all ran towards the main den and jumped through the waterfall to where the scent of their beloved master was leading. Once they were in they all went to the bed and started nuzzling their master. Kouga came in and saw them being affectionate. He wondered how they came to love her so.
The healer came in next; this was an older type of woman. Most elders stay in wolf form, but some don't, so this person decided to stay in this form to better help the sick and injured. She pushed her way through ignoring both Kouga and the Wolves and put a hand on Roses forehead. "She has a fever, and this cut it pretty deep, as long as it stays clean and someone rewraps her bandages every now and then she should be okay. It looks like she pushes her way very hard, she must not get very much sleep either, they're bags under her eyes." The healer said as she analyzed. She got out her cloth and wet it with the water, and started cleaning her wound removing all the dirt and blood she could.
The wolves were watching the healer very carefully, making sure she was doing no harm. Once the healer was done cleaning she wrapped the arm in bandages and left a wet cloth on her head. Then covered her with furs keeping her warm. "Keep her in here, she needs rest. Make sure no one wakes her. I will be back in the morning to check on her; hopefully she makes it through the night." The healer stated and walked back out.
Kouga was still leaning against the wall, wondering where she came from, and where the rest of her pack was, other than these wolves. He left the cave and blew out all the torches except one. He decided to let the wolves be, they were to attached to their master, especially the large one. He left the cave and told everyone to not enter the cave until the girl has recovered.
Two full days past, the fever was gone and her cut was getting better. The huge wolf never left her side but the smaller wolves mostly stood outside the cave preventing all from entering except the healer and Kouga, and sometimes Ginta and Hakkaku. Ginta and Hakkaku mostly came in just to be sure she still was alive.
The moment Rose opened her eyes; she let out a blood curdling scream, and then screamed for Kiba, she quickly sat up covering her eyes. She alerted everyone in the pack and her wolves ran in. She calmed down once she realized it was just another nightmare and felt a tongue on her cheek. She let her hands down and looked to her left, "Kiba!" she yelled in relief and jumped out of the furs and hugged Kiba.
Kiba and Rose were playing around on the bed, and eventually Kiba got her on her back and started licking her playfully, Rose was laughing tossing her head trying to avoid the licks. Rose heard small voices and put her head down against the bed. Still upside down Rose saw a bunch of strangers gathered around upside down. Rose quickly turned upright and backed away quickly to the edge of the bed extremely nervous and even a little frightened.
Kiba and the wolves felt her fear right away and immediately started growling at the wolf demons. Kiba was in the middle and two wolves on each side, they started slowly walking towards the crowd making them back away. Someone from on the crowd went to go fetch Kouga to tell him the news. Kouga just got came back from patrol when someone told him. Seeing no one around, they must be in the main den, which was not good. Those wolves were un predicable, Kouga, Hakkaku and Ginta ran towards the den.
As soon as he entered, everyone made a path for him, Kouga walked in front of the crowd and sighed, "I thought we were just starting to be friends too." He shrugged. "who are you?! Where am I?!" Rose demanded. "Brave one aren't yah? I'm Kouga, leader of the Eastern Wolf Demon Tribe. You've been passed out for two days so we've been taking care of you in the main den for this whole time! So how about you show us some respect?!" Kouga said starting to get angry.
Rose looked at him in the eyes for a second, then whistled making all the wolves stand down and come to her. "Now where's the rest of your tribe? What tribe are you from and why did you come here?" Kouga asked more calmly, talking was much easier without wolves growling at your feet.
Rose immediately looked down, and her tone was much more saddened, "My name is Rose." She took a deep breath "And this is what's left of the Southern Wolf Demon Tribe…"