So… This chapter is where it gets a bit more… graphic. Hence, the T rating. Nothing lemony, but… kind of bloody; and why yes, the entire chapter is indeed a flashback.
I also give you a bit of a dip into Sesi's culture (it is very important to her, after all.)
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It was winter that year it happened. It was winter, and Mother Earth had been raging furiously at all in Sesi's homeland for the near entirety of it. Colder than cold could have been imagined; herds of prey found themselves grieved and dreadfully sparse between her father's tribe and the humans her pack shared hunting grounds with. Only the strongest elk and caribou would survive, and stronger the prey became, the truer the statement would prove for her own people as well. The more able the herds, the faster, the more difficult it proved to even catch up without losing too much energy in the process, the stronger, the likelier it was to come back with dire wounds; or not at all… and for every hunter that was lost to either the harsh conditions or to injury, the sooner the younger generations would have to prepare to replace them.
It became no easier, the further they descended into the icy season. Desperate times had called for desperate measures on both the sides of the wolves and the sides of man. Members would come back, bringing food from the human's livestock. Pinned and trapped the animals were, it was forbidden; but when the Alpha, Atka, looked over his tribe seeing starvation looming over the heads of his subjects, newborns among them; he couldn't deny the right for one to feed their family.
What they hadn't counted on, however, was the humans reacting with such a livid rage as they would. They'd take to the skies in their flying machines, deigning to track the alpha's people down and running them to exhaustion before stepping out and shooting them, point-blank, once they could finally run no more. The leader wolf had never had to respond to such atrocities against his tribesmen and women before. Hunters could be killed and injured by elk or various other herds; it wasn't much a great thing for the wolves, but that's how the game of predator/prey works. It's, admittedly, fair that way… but to not even give your kills a chance to defend themselves was such a barbarous act, he'd had no choice but to respond by barring his people by any means of going anywhere near the livestock, no matter how he dreaded the consequences.
The bipeds wouldn't cease their own action however. It relented. Atka was now convinced they were trying to wipe out his people; between the threat of starving and the aerial predation of his people, he'd become desperate. Who was to tell what would happen if they'd found the den? He couldn't afford it. Not when his wife, Sura, was expecting; and so they moved.
They'd traveled long and hard. They were getting further from the humans, true, but morale was at an all-time low. Too many had been lost, too many were losing the fight just on the way to wherever they were going. Sura would sometimes worry that her own child wouldn't even make it to birth, and it was at times like these that Atka could have lost the will to go on, to just succumb to their fate. But they would go on. If not his child then at least some of his pack would make it.
And then something happened. Something,… like a miracle. A rag-tag group of adolescents, from here or there; packs all over Alaska, departed to look for… something better - greener grass on the other side of the hill. They'd stumbled upon them when what was left of Atka's hunters had spotted some caribou, which apparently the teens had too. They'd met on the hunting grounds, unsure of one another at first, but in the end had elected to work together; they'd bring in twice as much game for both sides. It'd been a hunt that day like had been forgotten, and for the first time in months, the leader wolf's men, women, and children could fill their bellies.
The younger wolves had happily shown the pack back to where they were staying so they could all rest for, at least, one night before they'd be up and moving on in the morning. But they wouldn't move on. In the end, they'd decide to join forces, keeping Atka as an alpha. The few teens had managed to bring morale back to what remained of the tribe, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, they were a spectacle to behold. Excited and enthusiastic about life; nothing could beat them. Soon his pack would know this feeling once more also, learning to once again be happy within their lives.
Later that spring, the birth of a princess had officially signified the turning of the cold. She would be named Sesi – Ice, in her native tongue, after what she had so bravely, and miraculously lived through. Mother Nature and her favorite creation had, in the end, tried to tear them apart, but she had failed, for they would thrive!
"All the money that e'er I had
I spent it in good company
And all the harm I've ever done
Alas, it was to none but me!"
The pack howled with a well earned vigor in their voices at the well, old Celtic song. Three months before the princess turned her first year, it was time for her rite of passage!
"And all I've done for want of wit
To memory now, I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be to you all!"
Atka would be taking Sesi for her first ever hunt at daybreak; this was what canidae parents usually would for their children, but for the family of the alpha it was a particularly special occasion. To kick it off, they'd start the night prior with a celebration of grandeur. They'd feast, and they'd dance and sing through the whole night under the Divine Lights, and finally when it was time to go they sang the familiar song 'The Parting Glass'. They'd learned this from a wolf native to the Celtic lands, who'd immigrated back in the late 1600's. He'd been proudly revered at the time, surviving a slaughter of his own kind and bravely making his way to the America's, all the way up to Alaska! He'd sung it from his way of Ireland, and they'd sing the same for him when it was his time to go. And now they sang it when it was time for their children to, metaphorically, 'go', and become their own adults.
'Forget sparring with the other brothers and sisters, this is the real deal!' Sesi beamed as she swaggered past the entourage of tribesmen and women, children too howling all in her honor, beside her father. Her father, Atka, was a proud elder by this time, white fur that once matched her own now hinted with silvery grey here and there, and twilight sky blue eyes that shone with wisdom.
She would be proud if she could be half the leader he was, one day.
"Fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate'er befalls
Then gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all!"
She cast only a glance to her mother, but what Sesi had seen… Sesi had previously thought she couldn't have had a bigger grin on her face, but she'd been proven wrong once she'd seen her mother's proud and bold smile at her daughter.
"Of all the comrades that e'er I had
They're sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e'er I had
They'd wish me one more day to stay.
Since it fell into my lot
that I should rise,and you should not
I'll gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all!"
A hearty howl could be heard after the last line as her and her father were now formally departing for the hunting grounds. She could still hear them in the distance, she thought, throughout her entire way there. Or maybe it had been her excitement getting to her… Either way she'd never been so excited for anything in her whole life! Even her first spar (a win, mind you) dulled in comparison, and even then the pride had been abundant that day amongst her parents and peers alike, and had thoroughly surprised the rest of the pack with her fair winning streak even after it, for she was tiny among Arctic Wolves (but hell if she wasn't fierce and bold in competition! They'd asked her to kill a caribou today, but if she could help it, she would bring back the heart of a bear!)
But she'd never get the chance. Sesi had been busy trying to prompt her father into playing in the snow with her like they used to do when she was but a wee pup, rolling about wildly before dumping an arm-full on him, laughing… Atka caved after the snow had been poured all over his head, and stooped down to getting an even-larger arm-full to return the favor, but while they'd paused from their hunting trip to enjoy the snow as they'd once had, neither had noticed the roar of an engine in the far distance that was only getting steadily louder.
Neither had noticed until the metal hellion was already upon them, and by then, Atka had already known it was too late for at least one of them if not both if he didn't act quickly.
Sesi had been utterly confused. She'd never seen such a thing in all her life, and had found herself rooted to the spot like a deer staring into the headlights of an oncoming car. She found herself, next, being forced out of this though when she was harshly shoved in the opposite direction and, her father bellowing at her to run. To which she complied. Her father was just as fierce, even more so, than she, and had actually fought off bears before along with many other terrible things. He'd led his pack through a slaughter and famine. If he told her to run from something, this something was bad, and she hadn't even the thought that he wouldn't be following shortly enough behind her… but when she turned, she couldn't have been more wrong. Atka had run the other direction, opposite of her, and with the plane.
She turned back, ready to go to her father's aid no matter the cost, but what she'd seen next halted her. A thundering 'CRACK!' and a deep, fleshy wound exploded open on her father's back leg, sending him sliding into the snow, staining the pure color a shade of crimson she'd never forget. The plane slowed, hovering just above the frost where her father now lay, immobilized but still alive, snarling loudly up at the bipedal monster that Sesi had an urge to run after and tear its throat out of… if her father hadn't barked out a loud "GO!" at her, all the while his gaze didn't leave the beast.
It was approaching him now, and Sesi had to tear her eyes from the scene. She ran, ran to the nearest patch of trees she could see, tears ran freely down her face when she'd heard the last 'CRACK!'. And she'd known he was gone. It'd felt like a part of her had left this world with that last boom of what she'd later come to know as a gun, and she couldn't hide her sobs when she heard laughing – LAUGHING - over her father's corpse, simply another pelt to add to their collection.
She'd tucked herself away under a semi-uprooted tree while she waited for the humans to go, but she also didn't move when they finally did, hearing the plane engine revving off into the sunset with her father on board. What was she going to say to mom? She cried freely now, she'd been so sure of everything just an hour ago, how did something like this come along and just tug it all apart so easily?...
She awoke the next morning, hearing a crunching in the snow not far from where she was hidden. She hadn't even realized she'd fallen asleep at any point… she must have exhausted herself out, but now she had whatever this thing was to deal with... 'please let it be an elk, I can't handle anything more' she nearly screeched in her own mind in frustration with it all. 'Or let it be a bear to come and eat me so I can be done!'
But it wasn't that easy. It would never be that easy. She heard voices, and no not wolves, not bears, not any kind of hoofed animal… She could only guess it was humans. She tried to listen in to what they were talking about but could only hear scraps of conversation here or there.
"… Been at it again…. Lucky if there's any left…' A deeper voice said. Who's been at what again? Left of what?
"… not all…. If we don't do this, though" This voice was getting closer. She tried to push herself further under the tree "They may as well be extinct." It concluded. She could now see thick shoes and some kind of wear similar to those of the hunters just a few feet in front of where she'd hidden herself. Of course her milky hide was no help here, the roots being quite well dirt-colored.
"Wait…" The closer one whispered, lowly "I think I see one."… And then she saw what looked like the weapon that had killed her father pointed at her, but with a lesser 'crack!' and her world had gone dark a second later…
"Since it fell into my lot
that I should rise,and you should not
I'll gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all!"
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So... wow, first serious chapter in this whole thing so far! Lemme know what you guys think, if I should do more chapters like this or not. :)
Song used in story is Shaun Davey's version of "The Parting Glass"