Prologue:
"Our time is running out." The reddish she-wolf sighed, her yellow eyes staring out at the forest below her. The night air enveloped her in a shroud of darkness, hiding her muscular features and her large frame.
"Come now, Candela, don't say that. We will find your apprentice….we will find the one-"
"IT'S BEEN THREE YEARS SINCE I RECEIVED THAT PROPHECY!" Candela interrupted the wolf that sat beside her on the cliff with a deafening growl, making her companion shrink away, "And thanks to you we still haven't found the wolf in question! I'm beginning to think that shadow fooled me…I will have him punished for this insanity!"
"M'lady…" the other wolf spoke up, his voice fearful, "If I may speak…"
"No you may not!"
He cleared his throat, ignoring her comment, and spoke anyway, "These things take time to come true. Besides, you know I already offered you my daughter. What if she's the one? You never know until you try. Perhaps you're being a little bit un…un…" he choked on the word, catching himself when the crimson she-wolf gave him a menacing glance.
"Unwhat? Unreasonable?" She shifted, her pelt bristling, "The only thing unreasonable here is the fact that you want me to take that…that treacherous thing under my wing to teach her my ways. Bah! I do not trust her! She is not the one!"
"But she's only a pup!"
"Pups grow!" Candela snorted, "I have a sense for these things. I can feel it, Badger. There's just nothing out there…I can't sense our heroine's presence."
Badger looked down at his paws, his pride stung. In the darkness he almost looked like a shadow servant, his black pelt looking ghostly in the pale moonlight. The only thing that gave him away was the bright white fur on his face, chest, and legs, along with his yellow eyes. He was an average wolf, and therefore lacked this 'sense' that Candela spoke of.
"You can't feel anything at all?" he asked quietly.
"A small tingle every now and then I suppose." She sighed, "But nothing definite. Sometimes I feel it tugging at me and then, just like that, it disappears."
"Do you know where it's coming from?"
"OF COURSE NOT YOU IDIOT!" Candela trampled the ground impatiently, her loud voice awakening a nearby sleeping owl that flew out of his tree, startled, "If I knew I wouldn't have to hire you now wouldn't I!"
Badger backed away again, keeping his distance from the bad humored she-wolf. "Of course, M'lady. I'm sorry; I should not have asked such a dumb question." He apologized.
"Good. You acknowledge your stupidity. But apologizing isn't going to get me any farther. I don't want apologies! I want RESULTS!" she yelled again. Badger flattened his ears against his head.
"Then what do you suggest I do?"
Candela was silent for a moment before she answered, her yellow eyes beginning to glow red with anger at her servant's incompetence. She looked up at the moon and stars that were casting an eerie pale light down onto the forest, and sighed once again.
"I want my apprentice in two years. If I don't have her by then…well, you won't like the options I have for you." Her voice was quiet and calm, but beneath them there was a tone of evil that made Badger shiver.
"Yes…master…" he bowed his head, trembling with the thought of what punishments Candela could possibly have in store for him.
"Good." The she-wolf grinned.
A sudden flash of lightning illuminated the two wolves in a beam of purple light and then disappeared, followed shortly after by the roar of thunder. A massive black cloud was on its way toward them, already making its way to the tree tops below.
"I have to get home now before that storm hits or flight will be impossible, and I hate to walk." Candela barked, noticing the oncoming weather, "I'd better not be disappointed when I return to check on your progress."
"You have my word. I will not fail you!" Badger promised.
"Hmph." Was her only reply.
Badger watched from a distance as she began to change. In less than a second, her legs became as thick as tree trunks, and two wickedly hooked black wings rose out of her back between her shoulder blades. Smaller, matching black spikes came out of her spine and made a line down her back, and her eyes turned a pupil-less red. She turned to Badger once more to give him a snarl, making him jump nervously before taking off into the sky, giving the appearance of some deformed bird from a nightmare. Even the lightning seemed to avoid her as she turned into nothing more than a little black dot in the sky, flying above the clouds.
Badger let out the breath that he hadn't realized he had been holding and silently cursed at himself.
"Where am I going to find the chosen one? And I only have two years to do it! Gah!" He found a nearby boulder and hit his head against it, as if punishing himself for being a failure.
Another bolt of lightning filled the sky with static tension. The thunder crashed so hard that it knocked the muscular he-wolf off of his paws. He shook himself and stood up shakily, looking down below to see what happened.
Something had been struck by lightning- he could see it now. It was a tall, hollow tree in the center of the Dark Forest in flames. Black smoke reached up to the sky like a writhing animal. The storm had come, and it had reached him much faster than he had expected. To him, it was a sign that he should get back to DreadPack before he got caught up in all of it.
As he prepared to make his way back home in the opposite direction, some movement at the foot of the cliff caught his attention. It was a pair of red eyes. But his heart began to beat again when he realized that it wasn't Candela…just one of those repulsive shadow servants of hers that lurked in the darkness. He was planning on ignoring it at first, after all, why should he stop to speak with a lowly shadow? But its eyes were clearly following him, making his skin crawl.
"Sir…" he heard a female voice calling to him and froze in his tracks. Shadows rarely spoke, usually only to prophesize or say something ominous. Turning his head slowly, Badger lifted his upper lip in a silent, annoyed snarl.
"What is it?" he asked, irritated.
But the shadow did not reply. It only disappeared in the blackness, leaving behind a trail of ghostly mist. Badger hesitated and looked back to the direction he had to go, knowing that he could not afford a delay if he was to get out of the dangerous tempest that was now almost on top of him.
"Follow, my lord." The voice echoed in his ears. Badger realized now that he had no other choice. It could be important. He turned and padded off in the direction of the storm, following the trail of mist that the ghostly wolf had left for him to follow.
"This had better be good." He grumbled.