Good morning/afternoon/evening/night to everyone, my dear readers. Here I am like, as usual, posting another chapter for you...
Well, If you could, not making you lose a lot of time, just let me know if you like this story... here some examples...
"Great story, keep it up!" "I think it sucks! Who made you learn to use the keyboard deserves to die!" "I just love when Humprey marries Oya...I just would love to see their puppies!" "Why Lilly is going to die...why?!"
In any case, Read and Enjoy!
Chapter 13: The Bitter Truth
GRIN's P.O.V.
I could feel someone dragging my heavy body…small wet particles were falling from its eyes, coming in contact with my fur… I could hear little sighs, followed by sobs and sad moans…
I opened slowly my eyes and I found myself in my den…I could catch a glimpse of a tan-red wolf standing outside the den, digging a deep hole firstly into the snow, then into bare soil…
Then that wolf went away for some reason. I blinked my eyes, and I saw again that wolf, dragging something and placing it into the freshly-dug cavity…
After a while, the wolf stretched its muzzle to the sky, and began to a long, mournful howl, shivering lightly for the bale. From the howl, it could be deduced that the wolf was a female.
A heartrending lament was produced by her, coming from the most remotes areas of her heart, able to tear the surrounding souls with ease, externalizing all her pent-up emotions to the world…
I saw her kneeling, almost collapsing for the suffering housed in her soul, but she turned her gaze to me while she was lying on the soft ground, saying softly, tears copiously invading her handsome features:
"Why did you just do that… sacrifice for him…If you only saw what that wolf did to that creature…But ,now that I've just found you…Now that i was ready to love you again…Now that I had abandoned all… My pack…My children…A safe fate into pack borders… And now, it's all useless…
...I loved you and I will always, ALWAYS, love you…"
My view was going to leave me again… But I had something stuck in my mind… She was clearly talking about me… But… what did I just do?
I collapsed into another faint, with world around me slowly fading away.
Two days after
I woke up after what had seemed days to me. My wounds had been treated with application of some medicinal herbs, favoring the hemostasis and the healing… Probabily I was treated by the same wolf that was involved in Valen's burial… However, she wasn't no longer present in the den .
I decided to stand up, my throat was so dry, almost as if I had walked in the desert for weeks, and so lapping a bit of refreshing, cool water from den's spring… but it proved to be a difficult challenge.
"Stop it!" A womanly voice cracked not away from den. I stopped and turned around slowly, only to see she was approaching me with a slow but determined pace.
I didn't know the stranger wolf, so I showed a bit of suspicion against her…Although she had taken care of my injuries…
"Who…Are you?"Is all that i've been able to say her.
"Well…" She began to say.
"…I'm…a friend…yes, i'm a old friend of his old pack…" She said, in a not very convincing manner.
I realized that it was a kind of a lie, she did not know that I had heard her during her desperate howl, and that I heard her soft words aimed at Valen, but, of course I couldn't force her to tell the truth if she didn't want to.
But I momentarily distracted my attention from the speech, to focus on what happened to Valen. I turned my head, looking outside the den, intently observing a bulging pile of earthy snow, under which it was Valen's lifeless body.
Ignoring her a bit, i went outside, limping slightly due to my right side's leaves-made bandage, to get closer to that mound of earthy snow.
Looking down to it, a single tear escaped my eyes… As in a flash all the moments spent with him reproduced in my mind… All the fun times…All workouts…He was always there in his times of trouble…Although with his biting sarcasm and ,sometimes, due his old age, showed peaks of intolerance… But I had learned to appreciate his merits as well as his defects…After all he was the father figure that I never had in my life, and the least I can do for him is show him how much I enjoyed his presence in my life...He made me feel secure and at home.
I lifted my muzzle and began to howl in mourn…A howl with whom i wanted to shout to the world my intense suffering…An howl that could sadden even the happiest people in the world…With full lungs I tried to cry all the intense emotions that I felt in that moment…
It was my first howling time like an almost-adult wolf, and has not been for happiness or contentment, but for an extreme sadness.
While I was howling, another voice enjoyed mine, merging her tormented moan into mine, creating a requiem of endless grief. Our voices blended harmoniously, threatening to touch the highest levels of Earth's atmosphere and to break the barrier between the human and the supernatural.
A two-voiced wailing continued incessantly for what appeard to be hours.
After that, I felt really tired, and went limping into my den, but I was stopped by her on the entry threshold of the den, tears streaming coupiously down her face, and shouted with a frightening anger:
"THIS WAS ALL YOUR FAULT!…IF YOU WEREN'T SO CARELESS… HE WOULD BE STILL ALIVE!"
My eyes widened in realization: She was right…
I was the cause of all this mess…What was going through my head…I thought I was doing the right thing…and I ended up screwing up everything i had… A life, a parent who cared about me… And all because of me.
I looked down in shame, after realizing everything… I was ready to face any consequences arising from having made those ill-deeds… I saw her rising one of her paws, clearly intending to hurt me… but right in the moment in which she was hitting me with all of her strenght, she suddenly stopped, falling on the ground and starting to cry her eyes out.
Saddened by her reaction, I couldn't help but try to console her in some way… but I felt the need to know the truth about her… about her relationship with Valen…about her feelings for him… I deserved to know…
I embraced her tightly and managed to whisper softly to her "It's everything ok…".
"HOW IT COULD BE OK, HUH? TELL ME HOW IT MIGHT BE OK!...HE'S DEAD...DEAD,FOREVER!..." She screamed looking into my eyes , and I was startled a bit, but suddenly her angry tone of voice softened a bit, almost starting to cry again "It was all my fault… If I told him before… All of this would never been happened…Why…why…why?!"
I didn't know what she was talking about… But my priority was to console in some way…
"Well…I think a rest can help us to feel better…why don't we go in my den an-" I was cut off by her sudden outburst:
"Sleep in your…den? AFTER YOU'VE SLAUGHTERED IN THAT BUTCHER WAY A BEAR?... I HAD TO KNOCK YOU DOWN, THINKING THAT YOU WERE GOING TO DO THE SAME THING TO VALEN'S MANGLED BODY…!"
I was shocked…actually, after seeing Valen sacrifice his own life, a total blackout had arisen in my mind… I remember also that I entrusted to an intense darkness force, that had surrounded my soul.
"I…I cannot remember anything…I swear! I'm not who do you think I am… Valen was my adoptive father…I would never have done such a thing to him, NEVER!" I said to her, accentuating the tone of the last word, stomping one of my paw on the ground, producing a small shockwave.
She stood up, and looked in my eyes: "So…that's why he sacrificed his life for you… I suppose you meant so much to him…" She then made an unexpected action: she hugged me.
"Thank you very much… at least he had another child to take care of…I'm happy to know that…" She said, hinting a slight smile.
That day I was really exhausted…Too much to bear…Too many injuries…Too many revelations… The only thing I wanted to do now was rest.
I said to her "So… How about a little rest? That might come in handy to us…" and she just nodded, too exhausted from the whirlwind of emotions to say anything.
So we just went in my den, literally collapsing on the soft den's ground… but before we fell asleep, she said:
"By the way, name's Oya…" and she didn't wait me to answer her telling my name to fall into Morpheus's arms.
I smiled slightly and shook my head at that, but I understood her: weariness had won its battle against our minds. Within a few seconds, I wandered too into dream land.
"You didn't earn my love, no… you never could…"
The morning after
Oya was already out, probably she went to hunt something to eat. That morning the weather was particularly cold, a blizzard seemed to want to invest the forest. I stretched out my limbs, but, man, I was really starving. I didn't eat for a long, long time, and my stomach seemed to beg me to swallow something in my mouth. As if on cue, I heard some light footstep approaching my den. My nose immediately smelled of something edible, but , right now, I would have eaten even the stones.
She come in carrying a succulent elk's leg, downed fruitfully.
"Here…" she said " …is the least I can do for you…" and so she put down to me that piece of meaty ham.
I didn't want to exaggerate, but my first bite was so greedy to have almost cracked bone to above which was attached to the flesh.
After I've finished, matter of seconds due to the high hunger, I began to talk to her:
"So, Oya… my name's Grin, and Valen took me with him when I was still a little pup…"
I began to tell her my entire story: the situation of my previous pack, my mother's sacrifice, Valen's goodness, our training, our developed father-son relationship, until getting to what happened three days ago…
I don't know how, but when I was narrating my story, I could see many emotions ran through her face: happiness, melancholy, guiltiness, negligence…
I told her what Valen told me about his pack: that he was the Alpha Leader of his pack, that this was his territory and that his pack was going on a long period mission, and that he was waiting for their return (although it seemed strange to me, I did not questioned about his explanation).
She sighed, and finally told me the REAL truth about her, about Valen and about their pack…
She was Valen's mate, she was pregnant, but Valen didn't know the truth… he thought he was impregnated by one of new Alpha recruits…so Valen killed several Alphas wrongly due to his thirst for vengeance, and she, as Alpha Leader, despite he was her husband, applied the law of the pack, but before condemning him to exile, she imposed on him a painful, deep wound on his face, sentencing him to bring a brand of his infamy.
Grin was petrified: of all the scenarios that he had thought of Valen's past, this undoubtedly proved to be the most catastrophic.
Then she told me that after about three years of wandering, she finally found him, but it was too late: she still loved him, and after few months, she abandoned her pack to find him… she told me that she climbed mountains, crossed raging rivers, struggled against nature that has bestowed upon her the impossible, rainstorms, blizzards, earthquakes, but nothing she could against one of the greatest forces that rule the cosmic cycle, Death.
I said, concerned, "So…now what are you going to do?"
She thought about most of the morning, but the only thing that came to her mind was to join a pack which she heard about that is very open to lone wolves like…them. They have to move north for few days, they're on the border between Banff National Park and Yoho National Park…
"Well, I just thought that…since we do not belong to a pack, what … what do you think about being a part of a pack?" She said.
Well, I have to say that at first that idea let me perplexed a bit, but then I admit that I was intrigued…have a new way of live my life, in a new community rather than alone… it could be a nice experiment.
I think she saw my growing excitement looking at my tail, that was wagging like crazy. She giggled lighly and said "Uhm…I suppose that means a 'yes'?"
"Yes… but tell me, do you know where can we find a pack here?" Grin asked her
"Well, unless you do not want to go back where you came from…" She answered him.
At this proposal, Grin shivered in fear.
"…We could move north, reaching another park… I've heard that they are friendly and welcoming…we have to travel for a few days, so before your wounds will heal, before we set off to that park… our probable new home!"
"Uhm…Tell me… Do you know our new home's name?" Grin asked with inquisitiveness.
"If i'm not mistaken, it should be called…" She squinted her eyes, trying to remember "…United Pack of Jasper Park…"
"I already like it!" I said, jumping… but almost immediately after I gritted my teeth in pain for my side's wound.
"Take it easy, cowboy!" Oya said, laughing a bit.
"I do not really know what's so…funny!" I said, also laughing a bit.
"Now, come on…" She said pushing him slightly into the den. "Go get some rest…"
"But-" I tried to challenge her, but she said, stronger "No buts, boy! You have to rest!"
So I was forced to sleep by her.
Uh...You didn't expect it, do you?
GrinWolf here...over and out.