Hey, guys! This is my first ever fic! Super excited for this experience and I hope you guys enjoy! Feel free to review and leave commentary 3
The People of the Moon were a well respected tribe of Native Americans that resided in modern day Lima, Ohio. They were one of the most ferocious and mighty tribes in the area, yet it was rare that anyone ever saw them in person. They were mainly known for this, their elusiveness, the fact that they seemed to travel in the shadows. Their reputation was well deserved though. The only assumption that was incorrect was that they traveled in the shadows. In reality, no one saw them because they weren't looking at the right time. The People of the Moon were nocturnal.
They're days started when the rest of the world was sound asleep. One might think they were doing this to avoid people, but that wasn't exactly true. They went to great lengths to isolate themselves from other tribes, but this was just an aftereffect of years of isolation. They thought that the sun would burn them up, the same way it dried up the bricks they used for their homes, seeing as they were similar in color. So, for the most part, they remained wary of the sun and their skin stayed silky smooth. Plus, you know, the fact that the beasts were asleep at night.
These beasts had been terrorizing them since day one. And instead of packing up their things and hauling ass, they decided to strike back. That was their way of life. Defending and hiding from the beasts during the day, attacking during the night. The system worked well for a while. But, it wasn't a permanent solution.
At one point, the People of the Moon experienced a tremendous loss. One of their elders lost her entire family in an attack. Her husband and their sons had been on patrol one night and were attacked, at least that's what she'd heard. So, naturally, the woman went out to avenge her family. Only, when she found the beast it was crying. She was so taken aback by the tear-inducing scene that she herself began to cry. The beast looked up to see what had disturbed her and met the sorrowful brown eyes of the elder before her. The elder abandoned her weapon in the bushes and moved toward the grief stricken animal, feeling a sort of call that she could only describe as the magic of the moon. The moment that her hand met the animal's fur created a bond that would later prove indestructible.
The elder brought the large creature to her village and while it was originally met with shock and terror, eventually the villagers went out in search of a beast of their own. The tribe was then known for their magical connections with animals that were at least thrice their size.
Then, the Europeans came.
They asked no questions when they ran through their village killing the animals that were lazily scattered around the place. The worst part was that they watched on as the tribe screamed at the feeling of their connections being severed. They did not care for their cries, only their land. As one can imagine it wasn't hard to do so. After all, these men had guns and horses, they wore strange clothes and the people were grieving. The People of the Moon didn't put up much of a fight. Until they were told that they'd have to assimilate or run the risk of being sold as property. Not wanting to forsake the moon, most immediately refused to assimilate. Unfortunately for them though, they weren't sold. They were slaughtered.
Those that remained, witnessing the cruelty of the colonizers, saw no other choice but to convert. But, they never turned away from the moon. Those that weren't killed from there were abused even as they tried their hardest to learn English and study the Bible. In school they learned that the animals they were bonded to were called wolves, though the depictions they'd seen failed to recognize the size of the wolves they'd known. The only answer their teachers would give them was that the wolves they'd known were a subspecies.
Only four families of the tribe survived to graduate from school, and on the day of their graduation they were forced to pick a last name that would be recorded in the town hall's files of converts. They chose Durand, Avaline, Bedeau and Sinclair.
These four families stuck together through everything that the colonized world threw at them. But, as hard as they tried to forget about their severed bonds, they often dreamed of the pain they'd felt when it happened. One night, each of them woke up screaming and they all ran off into the very forest their wolves had lived in. The moon was full that night. Just as they hadn't forgotten it, the moon hadn't forgotten them.
In a grand attempt to ease their suffering, the moon made a way to mend the magical connection by giving them the abilities of their late friends. They took on the personalities of their wolves as well as their senses, even their magic. They became were-wolves. From there on, they'd be able to protect themselves against the people who harmed them, and then some.
They were able to live in peace for generations after that, referring to the original werewolf families as the Four Families, and hiding their wolf forms from the humans around them. As the years went on, they learned more about the magic in their systems, discovering that they were born human and were only transformed within the weeks after a life threatening experience, which sadly often occurred between ages sixteen and eighteen because they were Native Americans. Furthermore, they observed that the further away a given werewolf was from the original bloodline determined if they had excess magic, or a special ability. Only wolves within the Four Families had a special ability aside from their heightened senses and wolf strength. From this it was determined that the Four Families were to be held with the highest respect amongst their community. Of course though, as all things come to an end, they were discovered. But, surprisingly they were spared. Little did they know that the people of Lima had a much more sinister plan for the were-wolves.
Limians formed an anti-werewolf organization called the Purifiers. They claimed to want to protect the werewolf name by taking care of wolves that got out of line, like a sort of supernatural police. They specially trained to fight werewolves and studied everything about them, finding out that the only thing that could bring long term harm to them was pure silver. They soon became "fluent" in werewolf body language and fighting strategy, and they never passed up an opportunity to show off this knowledge. As time progressed though, the population of werewolves had decreased so greatly that it became crystal clear what the Purifiers intentions were. They only let them live at first so that they wouldn't fight back, creating this corrupt little organization to slowly but surely bring an end to their kind.
At this point though, the werewolves had enough. The Four Families banded together and acted as the representatives for all werewolf kind to tell the Limian council to back off peacefully, they knew that violence would only lead to more bloodshed and that was the last thing that they wanted. The Four argued the case that the Purifiers were becoming too powerful and soon, their people would cease to exist, and at first the council left well enough alone. But they came back with an offer they couldn't refuse. In exchange for their services, the organization of anti-werewolf groups had to be deemed illegal. Considering the abilities of the Four Families, the Council accepted, passing the bill that would illegalize groups like the Purifiers from running rampant.
The new laws allowed for the identities of the werewolves to remain hidden in private council files, meaning that werewolves were permitted to live their human lives in peace and civilians would be none the wiser, so long as the Four continued to serve as valuable members of society, taking on jobs as architects, police officers, surgeons, lawyers and entertainers. But because the ex-purifiers already knew the names of the infamous Four Families, they made the executive decision to change their names. More recently, they were known as the Corcorans, the Lopezes, the Lerouxs and the Berrys.
Unbeknownst to them, the purifiers were still hard at work, training their offspring to hate werewolves and although the art of werewolf slaying was mostly lost, few purifier families still practiced, including the Fabrays. Not only were they still teaching an illegal practice, they were plotting something big.
There had been a security breach in the town council and although it involved an entirely different matter, the purifiers took it as an opportunity to uncover the identities of the Four Families they'd been taught about, but when they reached it, the breach had been repaired. They'd only been able to extract a single file, that of Catherine Bethany Leroux, and luckily for them, she was expecting. It would be an odd notion to someone who didn't know Russel Fabray's plan, but to him it was a godsend. See, Russel had the idea to find a werewolf who'd be willing to sniff out others. He thought it might take some persuasion to get one of them to turn on their kind but he had the funds to do it, after all he had been pocketing offerings from the Church for years, but if he could get his hands on the baby he wouldn't need to pay anyone off. He could raise it as his own and teach it to be loyal to him. Even though he despised the creatures, he figured eighteen years of raising one would be worth it if it meant he could kill hundreds.
So, that's exactly what he did. He found Catherine's address and watched the woman and her family until she was meant to give birth. When she did, he swooped in and stole her right from her crib, leaving a note that read, "I know what you are." Just as he'd hoped, the family went into hiding. All that was left to do now was raise a kid and force it to turn as soon as possible.
Rachel was tired, which was a first, but all things considered her mood was within reason. It wasn't even lunchtime and Rachel had already been victim of a hate crime. That dick and his friends assaulted her with their slushies and proceeded to throw her into the dumpster behind the school parking lot. There was no way she could simply recover from this one as she had through the beginning of the week. At least it's Friday.
It was a regular occurrence, the slushies, the insults, and the hate, but at least those she could rectify with some soap and water in the girls bathroom and a brief inner monologue of all the things she'd be able to do once she got out of this hell hole.
William McKinley High School was notorious for its ruthlessness when it came to its hierarchy. It didn't necessarily matter what you'd done for the betterment of society, nor did it matter what your parents did, unless of course, you were Rachel. Rachel's fathers were probably the only known gay couple in their neighborhood. Her father LeRoy Berry was the head surgeon at the Hospital so naturally, his name got around. As did his openly homosexual relationship with his husband, Hiram Whittaker. Seeing as Lima had been a conservative "christian" town since it was founded, they weren't exactly met with open arms when they'd adopted Rachel. Hence, her current situation. Imagine if they knew who my mother is, she laughed sardonically. Better yet, wait until they find out I like girls!
Luckily for Rachel, there was only two weeks until summer time, if she included the weekend, meaning she only had to put up with this for a little longer. Inevitably she'd have to face it again for another year, but she was counting the days. One might wonder why she didn't just tell someone about the abuse she'd suffered daily. The truth is, no matter who she told, they couldn't do anything about it. At most Karofsky and his sidekick Azimio would get a detention but that wouldn't stop them… She did have one good thing going for her though. The warm weather around this time of year meant that she at least wouldn't get sick with pneumonia or something. But who's to say that staying in that dumpster a second longer wouldn't get her caught with some new strand of HPV? Without a second thought,
Rachel got up to swing herself over the lip of the dumpster easily, thanks to her regular exercising and dance classes.
She took one look at herself covered in sickeningly sweet multi colored stains and had to fight back the tears that threatened to spring from her eyes. Everything's gonna be okay, let's just...get home, she tried to soothe herself, glancing around to find her bag sloppily discarded off to the side. She went over to its spot on the floor to search for her phone, turning up with no luck. It was likely at the bottom of her bag, buried in the books she hadn't been able to exchange in her locker. I'll just have to call my fathers when I get home, she conceded.
She spotted her car in the lot and quickly made her way to it, justifying that if she spent another minute in the proximity of the school she'd break down in tears where she stood. Rachel really hated the mess she was making but she didn't really have another option if she wanted to get home as soon as possible. With that. She immediately went for the knob on her car radio, blasting whatever song was on. Carly Rae Jepsen? I guess it'll do, she shrugged, lightly tapping with the beat on her steering wheel.
All she could think about was the class she was missing as she turned to take a short cut. If she didn't think about Spanish class, then she'd be forced to think about the fact that no one would even realize she's not there. She didn't have any friends that were gonna call her and ask her where she was or if she was okay. All she had was her talent. Her talent would get her out of Lima and onto Broadway.
So, focused on what the future would look like, she disregarded the burning sensation she felt in her head from the tears fighting her restraint.
Maybe if she wasn't so set on distracting herself she would have noticed the unlicensed black car that followed her as she drove up the block. If she hadn't been resisting the urge to sob she could have noticed the other two cars as they eagerly approached the crosswalks at the three way intersection. If she hadn't blasted the music so loud she could have heard the angry shouts coming from around her car as the light turned green. Maybe if she'd just told someone she was being bullied she wouldn't have been shoved into that damned dumpster, and she wouldn't be dying alone in the middle of the street.