Chapter 1: Walk like a Furyan
"Wake filinea, we have only a small amount of time before you move on."
Harry's eyes opened slowly and he rolled onto his back, a wide yawn erupted from his mouth as Harry sleepily looked around. His eyes landed on a woman in leather, her dark hair in braids that fell down her back with multi-colored beads adorning it. She smiled down at him from where she stood kneeling above him. Her smile made him feel warm and loved, as if she'd been waiting for him for a long time and he gave her a soft sleepy smile in return before he fully woke up, his brain coming online as his last memory flashed before his eyes. Hissing in shock, Harry jumped to his feet and snapped his wand up towards her, "Who are you?"
"Do not be afraid, filinea, I mean you no harm. I am Shirah, I have come to bear witness and to guide you on your next journey." She stood slowly, the warm smile ever present as she clasped her hands together and looked him over. Her eyes traveled the length of Harry's body and then back up again, she nodded her head as if she'd found what she was looking for and then spoke. "Your arrival was decided by fate long ago, told to me in a waking dream as I witnessed the fall of my race. The promise of your arrival, of the avenging of our people, was foretold on the last day of Furya's reign."
"I… I don't understand." Harry frowned.
As he spoke the hazy fog that surrounded them faded away in a swirl of color as a vast valley of graves slowly appeared around them, millions of graves continuing on for as far as the eye could see. The terrain was rocky with sharp mountains all around and the sky a muted red with grey clouds. It was wholly alien and Harry took it in, questions popping up in his head as he tried to figure out what he had to do with all of it.
"This is Furya… a planet of the dead. Once it was a great world, filled with a race of warriors that were like no other. We were strength, loyalty, instinct, protection, love, family, pack… we were everything." Shirah looked sadly out into the valley, her eyes skimming the endless graves as she spoke. "Then death came, riding on the back of a coward who feared the end of his reign. A prophesy was given to the coward, his reign would end by the hand of a male alpha Furyan. The coward amassed his fleet, the Necromonger's, and attacked Furya. We were strong, we were fast, but they were far greater in number and were not troubled by the weakness of pain. They are dead, but alive, they feel no pain, no emotion, nothing but the drive to cleanse this universe until Underverse come."
"I'm very sorry for the loss of your people, but I still don't understand what this has to do with me?"
Shirah laughed softly. "Filinea, you will give voice to our peoples rage. You will bring strength to the Riddick; you will bring love and life. You are the heart of the Necromonger downfall."
"That's the second time I've heard that name… Who or what is the Riddick?" Harry growled, frustrated with the conversation. She answered questions, but every answer brought up more questions, making him feel as if he was only skimming the surface of what was going to be another life or death destiny.
"The Riddick, he is your mate, Filinea."
Gob smacked, Harry stared at her unable to get a single word out of his mouth. There were so many things wrong with that sentence, the two biggest being "he" and "mate". He wasn't gay and for that matter, he didn't know humans could have mates. He knew of magical creatures being mated, but never a wizard/witch with no magical creature blood in them at all.
"But… I'm not even gay!"
Shirah giggled, actually giggled, and the world dissolved around them into the same white haze that it had started out as. Pictures began to form in the haze all around them of a man tall, muscled, shaved head and black goggles. He was strong and fierce and had an aura of a deadly predator as he moved, glided, through the pictures.
"Shall we pray together? I have already prayed with the others. It is painless." A tall black man says as he kneels before the Riddick, the man robes billowing softly in the night breeze.
"It's pointless." The Riddick says quietly, his low growling voice mocking as he speaks, tying ropes in knots from his spot on the ground.
The other man, dressed in robes and a turban, nods with a serious look on his face. "Just because you do not believe in God, does not mean He does not believe in you."
The Riddick turns towards the man, silver eyes glowing preternaturally in the night and growls, "You think someone spends half their life in a slam with a horse-bit in their mouth and not believe. Think they'd start out in a liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped around their neck and not believe. Got it all wrong, holy man. Oh, absolutely I believe in God. And I hate the fucker."
Harry felt something, hearing that voice, looking at the Riddick as he spoke; a shivery, tingle that raced up his spine and stole his breath from him like a thief in the night. The man was gorgeous in a strong and silent kind of way, body packed with muscles upon muscles, strange glowing silver eyes shining in the firelight. The blunt words and the firm clench of his jaw as he spoke, the unabashed anger in the voice, pulled at Harry, made him want to touch and love, to comfort. It was strange, he'd never been a very tactile person, preferring to keep a fairly hands-off approach to most people, but something about this man awoke some dormant instinct inside him that called to Harry like nothing else ever had.
A tall, slight squirrely sort of man walked through a desert with a group of people, wiping sweat from his forehead, tired and worn. A bottle slips from his bag and falls to the sand below, he curses and turns around to pick it back up, but someone else has reached it first. The Riddick picks up the bottle as the man speaks nervously, his hand held out to shake the Riddick's.
"ParisP. Ogilvie, antiquities dealer, entrepreneur."
The Riddick smirks, "Richard B. Riddick, escaped convict, murderer." He uncorks the bottle and starts chugging down the amber liquid.
"That's a particularly good shiraz, a lovely drop, it's very expensive…" He sighs. "By all means, help yourself."
Harry turns to Shirah, a question on his lips, but another image forms once again…
A young boy is trapped beneath large animal bones, an oddly vicious creatures jumps onto them, snapping with it huge sharp teeth as it's long scythe-like tail whips around. The boy cries out, yelling, Riddick turns back from far ahead, a torn look on his face, before he turns back around and keeps going. A young blonde woman comes to help, shining light onto the creature; it hisses in pain but continues to try to get to the boy trapped below. Riddick turns again at the sound of the boy's yelling growing louder, at the woman's screams for it to get off of the child. Finally Riddick drops the load he is carrying and runs towards them, growling in anger as he catches the large hammer headed creature and begins to fight it. His muscles bulge as he grips the head tightly, the creature snapping it's head forward, sharp teeth barely missing Riddick as he struggles with it.
Suddenly the shine of a blade flickers in the dim light and Riddick guts the beast, the sing of it rings through the air as he delivers slice after slice to the creature's vulnerable belly. The creature cries out and falls to the ground, but Riddick is right on it in a second, grabbing the head and giving it a vicious twist, the snap of it's neck is sharp in the quiet of the night.
"Did not know who it was fuckin' with!"
The imagine freezes on Riddick, his eyes shining silver in the dark, a look of satisfaction on his face as he stares down at the dead creature. Harry feels his breath catch all over again, his body is flushed with heat, butterflies churning in his stomach as he looks at the image. He can't help but take a step closer to the image, raising a hand as if to touch the man who had fought a creature like that with a confidence that Harry had never seen before. The image rippled as Harry touched it, the face of the man slowly dissolving away at the touch.
"Still feel the same, filinea?" Shirah asks, stepping next to Harry with a smug smile on her face.
Blowing out a gust of hot air, Harry murmurs, "Oh, shut it. Yes… apparently, I'm not as straight as I thought I was."
All of the still pictures began to dissolve, bleeding back to the white haze like before and Harry feels disappointment at the loss of them.
"Time grows short; I must impart the gift I came to give you." Shirah touches her chest, eyes closed as she whispers a quiet prayer before opening her eyes to pierce Harry with a soulful look. "I give you our power, our strength, our blood… giving you the ability to stand beside the Riddick so that he may avenge our people."
Lifting her hand from her chest, it glowed a silvery blue as she pressed it to Harry's chest. "This mark carries the anger of an entire race… but it's going to hurt."
Harry cried out as her hand seared into his skin, thoughts, imagines, feelings, power, strength, life… a million voices screamed simultaneously within his mind. They screamed for death. They screamed for their sons, they screamed for their daughters, they screamed for their way of life. They screamed for vengeance for their people.
"Use this gift well, filinea, use what we have given you to make the Necromongers pay for what they have taken from us." Shirah pulled her hand back from Harry's chest and then leaned down to kiss his temple. "You will bring honor to our family and preserve our line… I thank you, filinea, for what you will give to our people."
Harry came to with the sensation of falling and he gasped, trying to reach for something, anything, to catch his fall. There was nothing around him, nothing to grab onto to keep himself from falling. He felt the wind whipping around him, heard the sound of it whistling as he fell, but he couldn't see anything, not even a hint of light. Gripping his wand tight, Harry cast a Lumos charm, but nothing happened. Trying it again, Harry cursed when still nothing happened.
Harry didn't understand why it didn't work? He had felt his magic within his body prepare for the spell, he had even felt the spike as he cast the charm, but the air around him remained as dark as before the spell. It was pitch black and he wondered where he was… what he was falling towards. He knew that it was going to hurt when he finally hit the ground, maybe even kill him. A slightly hysterical giggle slipped from his lips when he thought about having been sent to another world, universe, whatever, and dying right after being sent there.
Just then he saw a spark of light erupted far below him, coming closer and closer as he fell. He strained his eyes trying to figure out what it was, where it led to, but he couldn't see anything except for a white light. The light came closer and Harry braced his arms over his head to protect his fall. The feeling of his body being squeezed through a small hole made him lift his head, it had felt just like apparating. He had just enough time to register a wet muddy ground below him before he fell onto it, a wet splat sounded as he hit the earth below him.
Groaning, Harry cautiously turned over onto his back and looked up into the sky, two twin suns blazed up above the mossy swamp he'd landed in. He could hear the sounds of the forest around him, animals foraging to his left, spooked by his fall they stampeded away as they sent out the call of a predator among them. Harry heard the wind whistling in the trees, the chittering of small animals below the ground, he smelt the scent of them, smelt their fear as they scented back if it were his own.
Blinking, Harry rose up to a sitting position as he realized the train of his thoughts and looked around at the seemingly empty forest around him. It looked empty, but he knew it wasn't, he could still hear and smell the animals all around him. How was he able to smell them, let alone hear them?
"Furyans are some of the strongest instinctual predators the universe has ever seen. We are strong, we are fast, we can smell our prey from miles away. We can sense their emotions, their pain, they are weak in the presence of our gifts and they are defeated because of it."
An image of a man standing before children, a teacher, flashed in his mind when the voice spoke and in an instant he knew the answer to his own question. "Oh, holy fuck, I'm a Furyan now?"
As if that question broke loose the dam holding everything trapped within his mind, a flood of information flowed through his mind and in a second he knew what it meant to be a Furyan. He knew their, his, peoples history, the beliefs and structures of the Furyan society, the hierarchy of Furyan packs. He knew it all and he stumbled back at the strength of the Furyan race. He felt rage for his people's genocide, needed vengeance for the death of a race of proud warriors that he was now a part of… that he was now one of the few Furyan's left in the universe; only a small number had survived the genocide at the hands of the Necromongers, most due to the fact that they were not on Furya when it happened.
With that knowledge came the realization of who he was and what his purpose was. Harry was a Furyan Omega; probably the last in existence. He felt the power of an Omega at his fingertips, it swirled and danced with his wizarding magic. The two bonded together in a balance of yin and yang, one taking up the slack where the other was incomplete. Harry felt powerful like he never had before and it humbled him. His magic and the Furyan power had melded together in a way that he'd never thought was possible, his power so great that he worried that he wouldn't be able to contain it.
But, he would. It was his duty to be strong and capable. It was his duty to give strength and guidance to his pack, to be the voice of reason and compassion when called for it. It was his duty to stand beside his mate, the Riddick, the Furyan Alpha Prime, as he laid waste to the Necromonger race. Harry felt the beginnings of their bond unfurl inside his chest, calling for his mate, only an echo of what would be like once the bond was complete.
The bond pulsed inside him and he closed his eyes as a wealth of emotion floated over him, his mate was angry, confused and hopeful, then like it never happened at all, the emotion was gone. He needed to find his mate, now.
TBC…
Translation:
Filinea – Furyan familial term of endearment to an Omega in the speaker's family.