well i'm in pain from falling asleep on the beach and getting my ass burnt, but other than that im proud of myself for typing this up after getting back home at like 3 in the morning today. anywho, hope this isnt too confusing :P
claimer: i own the plot, most of the characters, Shifters, and a whole bunch of other stuff that im too tired to name right now. CP owns the rest :P
52.-Life of the dead
I stared at the old woman, my life just seemed to be getting more complicated every second, and I wasn't able to do anything about it.
"Angela, what do you know of my grandmother?" I asked her, she had been my only relative and I had lived with her my whole life, but I seemed to know nothing about her.
The woman's brow wrinkled even more as she thought, "What is her name, I know of many people." She replied, her green eyes staring into mine.
"Fonda, from Menefer." I watched with confusion as her eyes grew wide and her mouth opened half way in what I took to be astonishment, which only intensified my curiosity.
She sat silently for what seemed like an eternity, and thankfully I had perfected the art of patience from Faolan's lessons with Oromis. Unfortunately, seeing as Dorran had never actually been to Ellesméra he had never fully mastered the skill.
"What do you know of her?" he blurted out, his fists clenched in anticipation and the thought of knowing a bit more to the meaning of our existence.
The witch closed her eyes and now even Cadara seemed interested in what she had to say. The girl leaned forward and took the old lady's hands, causing her healers eyes to shoot open, startled out of her thoughts.
She turned her head and looked straight at me, searching for some resemblance between me and my dead grandmother.
"Yes, I know all about your grandmother, although I didn't know the two of you were related until just now obviously. She was a very remarkable woman and I suppose now is as good a time as any to tell you of her life." She took a deep breath, preparing herself for the oncoming story. Solembum appeared from the shadows and curled up on her lap, apparently also interested in what his companion was about to say.
"Have you ever heard of the legend of the Shifters?" she began, continuing when I nodded my head, opening my mind so that Dorran could hear the story that Tala had told me so that he might comprehend what she was about to tell us.
"Then you have obviously heard of how the Shifters came to be. But what I bet you didn't know was the name of the very first werewolf, and Shifter. Fonda." I stared wide-eyed; the first werewolf had appeared during the dragon wars, which meant that my grandmother had outlived many normal human life spans. Did that mean that Dorran and I were destined to have an abnormally long life as well? The fact that my grandmother had been a Shifter, let alone the first, was also definitely a shock to the system. I waved my hand for her to continue and she carried on, her voice rasping assiduously.
"The Shifters separated from the werewolves and lived however they pleased, killing whenever they felt like it and existing by their own will. Fonda was a powerful Shifter and soon realized that every time she took on a soul her humanity shrunk, and she was scared. She voiced her concern to the others of her kind and soon a group of the newest Shifters felt that their elders were oblivious to the fact that they were powerful enough to overtake the land and rule to their liking, and broke away, disappearing for many years, and the other Shifters forgot about them.
"What the stories have graciously left out though was the formation of an elite group of humans that had met with the wild Shifters and realized the power they could gain from becoming creatures like them. The only problem for them was that they possessed no magical powers and the only craft they were skilled in was the mixing of herbs, mere healers that were tired of healing the injured and getting nothing of great value in return.
"The healers banded together and created a potion that was able to contain animal souls and dispose of them in the drinkers' body, enabling them to shift forms and become what they wanted most. The society had no name in case they were discovered, and their existence was known by only a few select individuals. The old Shifters were unaware of their forming and lived their days in the forest, certain that the younger generation of their species had perished long ago.
"Imagine their surprise when on the night of a full moon a mob of long lost Shifters and healers stormed their caves and killed them all on sight." She looked around and smiled to us, her wrinkled face supporting a look of eagerness and tragedy at the same time.
"Only one survived the attack, and she did so by transferring her souls into a necklace that the werewolves used to absorb the souls of their prey, like the one around your neck." She said, pointing at the exposed silver just visible from the opening of my shirt. Dorran hissed from beside me and Angela cackled, "Of course, werewolves can't touch silver anymore, a trait that developed when they learned how to kill without absorbing the animals soul. And plus the fact that some souls got away and roamed the forest on the full moon, entering some werewolf bodies and intensifying their senses and instincts, also explains why they have no choice but to transform when the moon is full." She grinned at Dorran, showing that she wasn't unaware of what he was before he became a Shifter, which I was sure we were now.
"Anyway, the healers used the talismans to capture all of the Shifters departing souls, a few escaping their clutches of course and floating into the sky, alerting the werewolves to their presence in the forest. They then applied the souls to the potions and became Shifters as well, relishing the power and plotting the downfall of the dragon riders, unaware of the werewolves that were stalking them in the shadows, their minds more human than the Shifter's and able to think clearer.
"Meanwhile, Fonda had retreated deeper into the forest, her powers gone from the effort of losing all of the souls and her form human and weak. She stumbled upon a small village, Menefer, and became the healer for the village, ironically enough, and resided there for many years while the werewolves destroyed the Shifters, leaving none alive.
"Then one day a man came to her shop, gravely injured, who ended up being a dragon rider, the race she had been opposed to from the very beginning and had tried to wipe out. After a few days she fell in love and they soon had a child, your mother. He left soon after, returning to duty, and she was left heartbroken and having to raise a child on her own. She protected the child from numerous attacks from the healers that were turned into Shifters, until one day, on the child's sixteenth birthday, she awoke to find the girl gone with the newly broken talisman that held her animal souls left on her pillow as the only proof that the girl had existed at all and what had become of her. She had stolen the souls, becoming a Shifter herself because of the magical talent that had been passed down to her from her father, and she had disappeared.
"Once again, your grandmother was beside herself with misery and began to make the forbidden potion that would help her to absorb souls once again, in the hope that she might be able to track down her daughter and either teach her how to control her new powers or to kill her if she was too savage. But she didn't know exactly how the healers had made it all those years ago, so she had to find out herself, which took many years to perfect. Before it was completed she awoke one night to hear crying, and on her doorstep she found you, her granddaughter, who she identified right away by the magic that emitted from your presence." She looked at me sadly, "I know not of what happened after, only that she raised you and taught you her healing trade, her death is as much a mystery to me as it is to you."
I felt like crying but the tears wouldn't come, instead I felt dizzy and faint, my head spinning and nausea rising in my throat. A steady hand grabbed my shoulder so I didn't fall, I wanted to thank Dorran but I couldn't take my eyes off the old witch.
My brain attempted to digest this new information, but it was too much. I sat down heavily on the dirt floor and put my head in my hands. So my grandmother had been the first werewolf and Shifter, had escaped the rampage of the self-turned Shifters, gone into hiding, met a dragon rider, had a daughter who later became a Shifter herself who had me and left me on my grandmothers doorstep. My mind was swimming with questions but the first one that came to my head seemed the simplest and probably most important, "How exactly do you know this anyway?" I asked, looking up at the witch with curiosity.
She smiled knowingly, "We met once and she told me after I read her future, not one of the clearest or desirable, but very interesting indeed." She replied, her eyes gazing into the distance, reliving the moment.
Then another thought occurred to me, something that Tala had told me, "So, the wolf sword belonged to my grandmother?" I asked her, who in response reached behind her and drew out the gleaming silver weapon, the diamond moons shimmering in the candlelight. She ran a wrinkled hand over the blade lovingly.
"Yes and its purpose is a mystery other than it was meant to be used to aid the wolves." She handed it to me and I tied it to my belt that Dorran had given me what seemed like a life time ago, its weight reassuring against my thigh in its sheath.
There was still one more question that I needed to ask, one that I had always wondered about but never had enough courage to ask my grandmother.
"Who was my grandfather Angela?" The woman smiled sadly and looked at Cadara who was still sitting with her eyes wide and transfixed on the old face in front of her.
"He was the rider, Brom."
And that's when all hell broke loose in the form of a small, green ball of scales.
Hopefully everyone can guess what happened so not really any secrets there. as i said before, hope this wasnt too confusing. if ur brain is just totally swamped and you just dont get it, review or PM me and i'll tell you in what will hopefully be a more undertsandable way :D
PLEASE REVIEW!!-hhuuuggeee thanx to everyone that has, im aiming for at least 800 by the time this story is over, 1000 would just be totally awesome :D
-Firesilk:D
