Flannel
n. a kind of soft-woven fabric, typically made of wool or cotton and slightly milled and raised.
( n. In reference to Fire Emblem Fates: Flannel is a Garou, beings capable of turning into werewolf-like creatures. Living in Nohr, he is the leader of his pack. If he achieves an S-Support with another unit, he will have a daughter named Velour. )
Nishiki wasn't wrong when he assumed that Flannel forgot how old he was turning this year.
After living for countless years like Flannel did, it was easy to lose track.
He was born as the son of the previous pack leader of garous. His parents were never the overly sentimental-types, but if they were, they would describe the day of his birth in great detail.
It was on the night of the thirtieth day in October. The moon was high in the sky, in a perfect crescent shape that cast equally full light down on the living beings of the earth. The rays enveloped Flannel as he sat swaddled in his mother's arms, asleep after having cried for hours straight. Born in his garou form, he was a child in the sense that he was about five feet tall, and had nubs where claws should have been. But his fur was as starkly black-and-white as the rest of the garous, and his eyes were just as pronounced and dark.
He was his mother's spitting image the moment he was born, which explained her particular fondness for him. She held him close to her chest—close to her beating heart—as she hummed to him a song from old. The words were in growlish noises that were a dialect of speech unique to Flannel's pack, but in common language, it roughly translates to the following:
O Moonchild, never be lead astray
The great dragons and spirits always find their way
Hunt, fight, and do what is right
You are my image of black and white
O Moonchild, sweet child gone asunder
Become my weapon, dear child.
Become my hunter.
And it was the first proper noise he heard from his mother since her laborious breaths and grunts during the birthing process itself. The song ingrained itself in him, as did many other garou traditions and stories, but it didn't matter what sort of rules or habits they tried to put into his head.
From the moment he was born, Flannel was a unique individual that—while deeply loving and quite dependent on his pack—would march to his own beat, no matter who or what came into his life.
Even when he grew into adulthood, he never changed his ways.
He did get better at singing their songs, however, and despite constantly refuting the claims of doing such, he occasionally hummed the Moonchild Song to himself at night, when he thought no one else was there to witness it.
On nights like tonight, where a crescent moon hung in the sky, and Flannel thought back to all the days and nights he spent worshipping that moon, because it was the last thing his parents left behind for him when they disappeared.
When they died.
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He was born as a wolf. When garous reached a certain age, however, their human forms began to manifest. Some gained their second image sooner, while others were "late bloomers," so to speak, and they didn't obtain a human appearance until early adulthood or late adolescence. It was no wonder that the pack of wolves isolated themselves from humanity, seeing as only so many of them could even stand to uphold a human-like image, in the first place!
Still, Flannel was an early one, for sure, first able to transform when he grew to the equivalent of a six-year-old. It was a sweltering summer day, and his mother stumbled into their den, only to find her son splayed out spread-eagle on the floor, clinging onto the coolness of the shaded ground in contrast to the burning heat outside.
He was naked, young, and startling human-like. Tiny wolf ears sprouted from where his human ears should have been, and a short black-and-white tail poked out from his backside. He curled up on himself, with peachy-keen skin and a sensitive nose, and sniffled loudly as he was unhappy with this inexplicable change in appearance.
His mother laughed, and shifted back to her human form, herself. He was used to seeing her do this, so he only found comfort in her arms as she swept him up in her own. "Flannel," she addressed him. "What's wrong?"
"I look funny," he murmured. "I look weird."
"Yes, that's because you look like a human."
"Well, I don't like it. How do I change back?"
"Why do you want to change? I think you're really cute right now!"
"Moooom," he whined, and hid his face with chubby hands. "I don't look like you no more. Or like Dad. I don't like it!"
"Sweetheart, you'll always look like us, human-form or not."
He peeked through his fingers at her, with the tears spilling over into his rounded red eyes. "Really?"
"Really," she reassured him. "I promise."
"Well...okay!" Flannel immediately perked up, and wiped his tears away. "I'm cold. Where'd all my fur go?"
"Your fur is there, just not in this form," she reminded him in a sweet voice. "Momma's like that too, see?" She pointed at her own face, neck, and exposed arms to show off how clear and lacking in hair they were. At least, lacking in comparison to their wolf forms. "You're just fine. This is normal, sweetheart."
"But why?"
"To blend in with the humans."
"But why?"
"It was a gift given to us by the Moon Goddess," she recited dutifully, with a tiny hint of amusement in her voice. "One of the Great Dragons of old bestowed power among the beasts of this land. We are descended from those ancient beasts."
"That's a lotta complicated words you just said," he murmured. "You're too smart for me, Momma!"
"Is that so? Well, for you, I'd be anything you want." She carefully set him down, and he cooed for more carrying, but she ignored him expertly. "Now, before we do anything, though, let's find you some clothes. I wouldn't want you to catch sick!"
"Where we gonna get clothes, Momma?"
"The same place I get my books from!" She smiled. "We'll steal the clothes from the humans, of course! It's what I like to call dinner and a show!"
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Flannel never asked Nishiki, but he always wondered if the fox had any siblings. Sure, wolf packs and fox hamlets were full of all sorts of family relatives and longtime friends, but immediate family was different from those. The difference between Flannel's parents and Flannel's aunts and uncles was staggering, not to mention the different way that his first cousins acted from his second ones. Although everyone was closely linked to each other as family and friends, there were some bonds that were stronger than others.
So did Nishiki have siblings, who were equally vain as he was? Or were they modest in nature, and Nishiki was the one that stood out for his pride and egoism?
On second thought, he was too prideful and spoiled to have been raised in a family with siblings. Someone with siblings would have been humbled in some way, and Nishiki lacked any humility whatsoever. Although Flannel wanted to hear it from Nishiki himself, he had the feeling that the fox was an only child.
He wondered if they were similar in that regard, then. Flannel grew up by himself, but he was—by no means—an only child.
He remembered the revelation it like it was yesterday.
His father was quite different from his mother. Flannel's mother was kind, strong, courageous, but smart—choosing to steal knowledge from the humans, if she ever had to steal from them in the first place. While other wolves hoarded bones, bodies, trash, and treasure alike (and while she still indulged in those same things, herself), she was a woman of intellect and substance. She stole books, pamphlets, magazines and journals. From cookbooks to diaries, to romance novels and academic journals, Flannel's mother was adventurous and bright. She was knowledgeable, flexible, and novel.
She was everything that his father wasn't, and that wasn't to say that Flannel's father was a dumb man, or a close-minded man, or a sorry man, at that.
But that he was a quiet and reticent man, who was no more interested in books than he was in watching the grass grow. He stood tall and proud, with wildly long hair and fierce crimson eyes that—if his son would just live another century or so—Flannel would come to resemble greatly in the future. As leader of the garous, he was a no-nonsense character, despite the nature of the creatures he grew to be in charge of. Careful, wary, and reserved, he was totally different from both his son and his wife.
It showed whenever they trained for battle.
It wasn't anything like humans training for self-defense, or soldiers practicing for warfare. But the Garous were primal, powerful, and perilous as they went from one battle to the next. They were a brute-force kind of people, who relied on their sheer strength to see them through the end of the day.
Flannel's father was particularly hard on him, especially when he reached his late childhood and early teenage years. He wasn't any older than the equivalent of twelve years old when his father started increasing the intensity and frequency of their play-fights. It was the same time in Flannel's life where his play-fights were replaced by real fights, courtesy of his own father, as well.
His body getting thrown to the ground and his face getting slammed into the dirt was an example of such.
His father was relentless.
"Wrong, again!" he barked at him. "You hesitated! Never hesitate! The second you give into fear—the second you doubt yourself—is the second when you die!"
"Okay!" Flannel shouted, voice half-muffled by soil and fear. "Alright, okay, I'm sorry!"
"Don't be sorry! Will you apologize to me after a hunter strikes you dead with an arrow? Will you apologize to me after some Gods-damned poachers catch you in their net? Never be sorry!"
"Y-Yes!"
His mother, at first, always intervened here. She said that he was too hard on their son, but he never listened to her. They often got into small disagreements like this, but after some persistence on his end, she grew tired of trying to convince him. Flannel glanced around for her pretty figure, but found nothing except the hard ground pressed up against his face.
He felt nothing except for his father's hands at his back, the weight of his strength far out-matching Flannel's.
The air grew still.
"Yes what?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Good! And remember, I'm doing this for your sake, and not mine!"
"I know!" He hated when his dad did this: it was so hard to talk to someone when his face was smashed into the dirt. "I know!"
"Train harder next time! Focus on your strength and power! Stop fooling around!"
"Okay, okay, okay, I said!"
"Do you understand, Satin? Do you understand?"
"...Satin? Who's Satin?"
And the spell broke—or it appeared, depending on one's perspective—because the atmosphere changed all at once. What used to be a heated match between father and son turned into a confused conversation between two wolves, both of who were at a loss for words. Then his father's grasp loosened, horror filling his deep eyes, until he scrambled up to his feet and moved away from where Flannel was.
The young wolf found relief as the weight disappeared from his back, and his body could finally recover from the blows it received. But as he struggled to stand, he felt empty and hollow all the while.
It wasn't like his father to forget his name, or mix it up with another person's. Yet, he didn't know anyone named "Satin" in their pack, although there were other stranger, less common names that existed within their ranks.
As he searched his mind for an answer, Flannel's father ran out of the den, leaving his son to his own devices.
It wouldn't be until the next night that Flannel learned who Satin was, and who Glimmer and Patch were before that.
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"You're not our first child," his mother said simply. "Not even close!"
"What?" Flannel gawked, mouth hung agape. "What do you mean?"
"As you know, us Garous and Mánagarms live for a very long time, at least, much longer than the humans live for."
"Yeah, I know."
"You are twelve years old, in some aspects, but how old are you, truly?"
"Uh...at least...fifty?"
She laughed at his forgetfulness, but praised his remembrance all the same. "Yes, you're technically correct. So, before those fifty plus years, did you think your father and I never had children of our own? Besides you?"
"No! I mean, yes! I mean, uh, I don't know…"
"We had several children before you, Flannel. Three, to be exact." She held up her index finger, middle finger, and ring finger to emphasize this fact. "You are the fourth." She put the other fingers down, and held out only her pinkie. "And I love you no more and no less than I did the other three."
"That's…"
"Do you want to know more about them?" She spoke so gently and patiently, he wanted to cry. She sounded so sweet and kind, he wanted her to stop. "Do you?"
"Yes. Why won't Dad tell me anything, though?"
"Your father still mourns them. He finds it hard to deal with their absence, even after all these years, you see…"
"Even though I'm here?" Flannel crossed his arms and looked indignant. "Wow, thanks so much, Dad!"
"Come on, now, Flannel. Don't be like that. Do you want to hear about your siblings, or not?" She held out her extended pinkie to him, invitingly so. The digit wiggled as she smiled tantalizingly at him.
He sighed, but interlocked fingers with her all the same. With a defeated voice, he grumbled, "I do."
"Good, now listen well. I'm only going to say this once…"
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Flannel wondered what Nishiki would think of his family. He had three other siblings, although he never met any of them in person. But if Nishiki ever asked him about this strange development, he knew just the answers to give to him.
Patch was the firstborn child. If he were still alive, he'd be Flannel's senior by at least a decade in human years. In fact, at the time of his birth, Flannel's parents weren't even the leaders of the pack, yet!
They were two renowned hunters at the time, named Lily and Argyle. Childhood friends and sweethearts, they became close at a young age, and were still exceptionally young themselves when they first had children together. They were distant cousins to the then-leader of the pack, but were lost in the crowd of wolves that made up their home. Even back then, Mount Garou was bustling with life.
During the height of a peaceful era (or as peaceful it could get for a group of non-humans), Lily and Argyle conceived their firstborn: a male garou named Patch. The wolves of Mount Garou all had simple lifestyles, and they often named their pups after material objects and treasures reclaimed from humans, or after the beauty of nature in the mountains around them.
Lily gave birth to Patch in a meadow surrounded by flowers, and a single patch of sunlight shone in the meadow that day, giving rise to his name.
As first time parents, this silly mistake in naming their children was forgiven, but also repeated as more children came into existence—time and time again.
He was a brave, proud, and unshakable youth. He looked like his father in every respect, with the same unruly hair, same serious eyes, and the same aggression that showed in every step in his gait. He took up the path of a warrior and a hunter all too easily, and quickly outshone other garous his age when it came to killing prey or warding off violent humans. He was the first child to ever best Argyle in a play-fight, and he became the only child to win against the same father in an actual fight, as well.
Patch was no older than nineteen human years when he died, and his death happened as his life did.
Honorably, or so Flannel was told.
Patch died in battle, after a large group of human invaders attacked Mount Garou. During the invasion, over half of the wolves were killed or went missing, and Lily and Argyle were lucky enough to keep the remaining humans at bay. Together with the other surviving wolves, they came together in a last-ditch attempt to destroy the humans that traipsed into their sanctuary and ruined their lives in one fell swoop.
It was one of the first times that humans truly sought their species' destruction.
They never forgot it, just as they never forgot the way that Argyle turned into a mánagarm—almost on cue—as his son, Patch, was killed by an enchanted spear. It was quick and sudden, the length of the pole spattered with still-warm blood, his body crumpled into an awkward position. He died protecting both of his parents and the cowering pups of the newest litter, all of who were witnesses to the last breath escaping his lips, unable to do anything but watch as his life disappeared into the thickness of the air surrounding them.
As it did, Argyle transformed beneath the full moon, his white fur turning red, and his eyes glowing scarlet with bloodlust and rage.
That massacre affected both human and garou lives. with garous losing over half of their total population, while humans lost only a few dozen out of millions of living human beings.
Patch was their first, but he certainly wasn't their last. His sacrifice—combined with Lily and Argyle's bravery during the day of the fight—allowed his parents to rise to the top, and the year following their firstborn's death, Lily and Argyle were accepted as the leaders of the new pack.
They were the leaders of the new era.
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Flannel was sure that Nishiki would never get along with Patch, if he were still alive to meet the other today. His older brother would come off as too hostile, too abrasive, too gung-ho and foolhardy to earn the respect of someone as refined as Nishiki. But then again, they might respect each other for the pure bravery that one another exuded, and for the sacrifices they gave to the ones they loved.
But Patch was only the first. The second was vastly different from the first, and even more different from Flannel.
Her name was Glimmer.
She was born a short time after Lily and Argyle's rise to the top of the pack, past their initiation into becoming alphas. When it was established that garous became mánagarms after gaining power underneath the full moon, the new focus of the wolves' lives was to become top-notch fighters and hunters, so that they could reach a new level of strength and enlightenment. With human threats growing stronger every day, they had to anticipate the violent battles to come.
Glimmer was born in the midst of spring, on a cool day where a breeze lifted countless green leaves and flower petals into a wondrous flurry around them. The sun's light was reflected on a nearby stream, and the light glimmered so beautifully and brightly, it was as if nothing else existed in the world.
She was named after that wondrous phenomena.
Glimmer was nothing like Patch before her. She was cool, calm, and calculated, but strangely enough, disinterested in battle. She detested violence, bloodshed, and hatred of any kind. She learned of the strife between beast and human, and hated both sides for their ignorance and intolerance. Like Lily, she grew to love reading, and often snuck books with her whenever her pack raided a nearby settlement, or killed off a nearby group of poachers.
Her father grew displeased with this behavior, and so he forbade her from reading, fearing that the knowledge within the books was a disguise for some sort of awful corruption, instead. In fact, he banned any human-made objects from appearing in their pack. Lily, an avid reader and collector herself, frequently disagreed with Argyle over this matter, and their fights would escalate into that of greater issues, afterward. Glimmer grew sorrowful and weary over these confrontations, and so she would often sneak away into the night, and travel the length of the mountain to clear the madness from her head.
One night, at the peak of her adolescent youth, she encountered a human during this time.
It was another young woman, who looked to be the same age as Glimmer, if not slightly younger. She had flowing, long red hair, and sparkling green eyes that looked like the summer foliage in Mount Garou. Petite but pretty, this human girl was captivating in every sense of the word, and much more different from the wiry but lean Glimmer, whose black-and-white hair was worn short and whose longest strands only reached the sides of her cheeks, at best, and whose blood-red eyes scared off anything vaguely human.
At first, both creatures were hesitant of each other, which was to be expected after having heard countless, terrible stories about the violence each other's species wrought. Humans wanted to conquer everything—from land to livestock to other humans—while wolves sought to destroy anything that came their way, whether it be harmless travelers or awful hunters.
They were at a stalemate. But then, they realized they had a similar love for something that both of their families deemed as "forbidden," since they believed it had corrupted their daughters veritably.
That love was a love for books.
And so Glimmer befriended this strange human—a Nohrian named Renee—after striking a deal with her. Neither parties would attack each other or alert each other's family of their presence, and in return, Glimmer would steal books for both of them to read, while Renee taught her more about humanity in general.
It was such a wonderful arrangement that it lasted for several years. When both of them grew into proper adults, they even fell in love, and promised to run away together.
On the eve of their rendezvous, Glimmer headed out on her lonesome. As she was about to meet with Renee, she was stopped by her own parents. Argyle and Lily emerged from the shadows, and they looked at her disappointingly—Argyle more so than Lily. They told her they knew of her runaway meetings with Renee for quite some time now, and they never intervened because they assumed she would stop before things got worse.
They were wrong.
Renee revealed herself, too, and she was also not alone. Her parents—experienced poachers, they were—came out from the bushes, bearing arms and wearing sadistic smiles on their faces. Glimmer felt betrayed by this action, as did Renee, because in their eyes it seemed that each other had broken their promise. Before anything could even get cleared up, a fight broke out between the wolves and humans.
Renee was the first one to die, as she was killed by her own parents, who had always detested her love for books as well as her love and sympathy towards the monstrous wolves. An arrowhead through the chest was all she needed to fall downward, and Glimmer raced over to her side, then, forgetting the betrayal in its entirety. Renee gave a lasting, heartfelt goodbye—her hands caressing the softness of Glimmer's cheeks, her mouth reaching out to plant a soft kiss on Glimmer's lips—before she keeled over in Glimmer's arms, and died shortly thereafter.
Glimmer, blinded by rage and fueled by regret, attacked Renee's parents. Lily and Argyle rushed in to assist her, and they were too focused on their daughter to realize their own weak spots. The hunters aimed their bows at the parent wolves, with deadly intent and lethal expressions to match.
Glimmer saw this, and jumped in the way without hesitation. She didn't think except for the fact that she couldn't let her parents get hurt in this mess, one that started all because of her own foolishness.
The hunter's arrows struck her in the head once, twice, thrice, yet again.
She was dead by the second time.
As Argyle held Glimmer's dead body in his arms, Lily set upon the hunters, and tore them to shreds as punishment for their hellish crimes. She screamed all the while, her howls continuing long into the night—even when she transformed into a mánagarm under the full moon, herself.
The trek home to Mount Garou was a lonely one, indeed. Needless to say, the "no books and no human-made objects" rule was removed, and the wolves in Mount Garou were free to read and fiddle with the human-made knowledge for as long as they wished.
Flannel never realized how grateful he would be for such a privilege, much later on in life.
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Of all his siblings, Flannel had the feeling that Nishiki would like Glimmer the most—aside from Flannel, himself, of course. Yet she was far more agreeable than any of them were, Flannel included.
The third sibling, and the one closest to Flannel, chronologically speaking, was a wolf named Satin.
They were, unabashedly, the one most closely linked with Flannel himself.
In fact, they were still alive when the youngest wolf was conceived, and got to witness the pregnant days of their shared mother for a short while.
Emphasis on short.
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Satin was born considerably later after Glimmer was. Following the deaths of both of their cherished children, the alpha wolves of the pack in Mount Garou were too preoccupied with keeping humans at bay that they never had the time to attempt having children—again. King Garon's ancestors were the rulers of Nohr at this time, and there was an unspoken war between the dark kingdom and the solitary wolves that lived in the high-mountain ranges of said kingdom.
It was a trying time for everyone involved.
And yet, even in the midst of political disarray, love always managed to find its way.
Satin was born on a cold, wintry morning—much different from the summery days of Patch or the spring-filled days of Glimmer. And Satin was different from those two siblings, anyway, because they were neither battle-hungry nor starved for knowledge. They didn't crave the heads of hunters anymore than they craved the bindings of books.
They were neither of those things. In fact, they weren't much of anything until they grew up.
Being conceived and born in the midst of a civil war, so to speak, made Satin out to be an estranged, individualistic person. They weren't regarded with the same careful upbringing as their previous siblings before them, and many times they were left to their own devices while their parents had to quell neighboring human threats. Many times, they were raised by the other wolves around them, and seldom got to see their own parents in the flesh.
It was an exceedingly lonely time for them.
As they grew up, however, they took on a closer appearance to that of their mother. Satin had medium-length, black-and-white hair (but mostly white, like Lily's appearance had been) with exceptionally long ears and a normal tail. They were a slim fit for wolves everywhere, and almost looked sickly or dejected in appearance.
The reality was that they were simply off-kilter, strange, and unsociable.
They were everything that all of their siblings—Flannel included—were not.
They were incredibly fragile in their youth, too. They lost in all the play-fights and real-fights they had with Argyle, as well as the play-fights and real-fights they had with literally anyone else in the pack. So often did people forget they were the spawn of alphas, because they were ridiculously weak and meager in comparison. Others might think they were mocked because of this, but the opposite was true.
The garous were a proud bunch so it would never do them good to abandon or outcast one of their own. Satin was cherished, loved, and treated so well that it was expected that they would eventually come out of their own rut and stand up to the position of "future leader of the pack" that was given to them since birth.
Instead, the same eagerness to prove themselves later on in life—the same expectations and love of those around them—proved to be the very thing needed to set their death on course.
Satin practiced with Argyle, a fruitless task considering they were never strong enough to hold their own against an elder wolf, let alone the leader of their pack. They tried their hardest, only to be pinned down effortlessly in the end. With their face pressed against the dirt, arms held behind the middle of the back, and garou form reverted back to the weaker human form, they lost heavily and heartily.
Argyle seemed to think otherwise, however.
"Wrong move!" he barked. "You did the wrong move, again. How many times must I remind you to never hesitate? Experienced fighter or not, you can't let the enemy get ahead of you! Do you understand?"
"Yes…" they whimpered pathetically.
"Yes what?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Good! And remember, I'm doing this for your sake, and not mine!"
"I-I know…" Satin muttered out weakly, breath caught between the smearing dirt and the rattling lungs within their chest. "I know…"
"If you know, then show me. Train harder next time. Use your own strength and power. Never let up! Do you understand me, Satin? Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir! Yes, I understand!"
"Hmph. Very well." Argyle released his hold on his own child, and clapped off the dirt on his hands—to be rid of the thoughtless experience, rather than to clean himself up from the scrapple just now.
Lily, an onlooker to this phenomena as always, sighed disapprovingly. "Satin, come here."
The sorely beaten child ran to their mother, too eager to indulge in her warmth and love. "Y-Yes, Mama?"
"You know that's no way to do it, yes? Your father's too tough on you, still. So I'll try to talk to him, but in the meantime, why don't you try to train on your own?" She reached down to their level to try and sympathize with them, face alight with hope and eagerness. "Before today, you haven't been keeping up with your daily training, I can tell. So why don't you get some extra practice in, okay?"
They sighed, and wiped the tears from their eyes. "Yes…I'll try…"
"Good," she said, and stood up with slight difficulty. "He'll have to listen to me, though. Won't do him good to yell at a pregnant wolf."
Satin eyed their mother's rounder figure, which was something that came out of being pregnant and something that fascinated them greatly. The fact that the makings of a newborn pup were stirring in her stomach, somewhere, amazed them to no end. "Okay," they said. "I'll get stronger, for the baby's sake."
"That's what I like to hear. Besides, we won't have to be fighting for much longer. Your father and I have been settling business with the humans, as you know," she recited this information so happily, despite the obvious exhaustion coating her voice. "We've reached an agreement. The Dark Kingdom of Nohr will no longer hold an official war against the Garou and Mánagarm Tribes of Mount Garou. The new king and queen will stop sending soldiers over here to try and claim the land. Isn't that wonderful?"
"It is!" they agreed, voice colored with excitement for once in their life. "H-How is that possible, though?"
"All the years your father and I have been absent from your life...all those times where we were apart from you, they have all been for this moment. We were going to announce this tonight, after the hunters returned from their patrol, but I thought it best that you knew ahead of time."
"...Thank you, Mother."
And that happiness truly inspired Satin, For once, they didn't feel inhibited by their lack of strength. For once, they didn't feel like they were holding the entire pack down. For once, they didn't feel like a shadow in their previous siblings' light—they didn't feel that they had to be as strong as Patch was, or as brilliant as Glimmer had been.
For once in their life, Satin felt like they belonged, and it was the most beautiful feeling they would ever live to experience.
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Flannel knew what happened next. He knew that shortly after that revelation, Satin escaped into the woods to do some practice of their own. On the way back, they were ambushed by some Nohrian soldiers, who hadn't yet received news of the armistice between the Nohrian royalty and the Nohrian wolves. On the way back home, Satin would be beaten within an inch of their life, and strung up in a hunter's net, left out to bleed the entire night.
The following day, a hunting patrol would discover Satin's dead body hung up in rope, and they would desecrate the Nohrian soldiers who killed them, reinstating the civil war between the wolves and humans once more.
The peace that took years to achieve was destroyed in an instant, and decades would pass before Lily or Argyle would be able to fix what was broken. Decades would pass before the King and Queen of Nohr soundly died, and the new royalty in their place would give up the ghost once and for all.
Decades and decades would pass, and Flannel would be born at the end of it, and he would spend so much of his life fearing the tale of "The Net that Catches at Midnight," without ever knowing that it was a true story recited about his late sibling, Satin.
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Flannel wasn't sure how Nishiki would feel about Satin. There were always weaklings in a group of strong people, just as there were always bad apples in the bunch. But strength could grow, unlike the condition of already borne fruit. If they were alive today to see Flannel now, would they be proud of him for being so strong? If they were alive today to see Flannel as he was now, would they be happy for him as he rose to the rank of leader?
If they were alive today, would they blame him for the deaths of their parents?
Flannel always thought back to Lily and Argyle, and how they both met untimely deaths in the midst of his childhood. Just a few short years after his father gave him his first proper lessons in fighting and staying off humans, Argyle perished. Just several short years after his mother enlightened him on the existence of his past siblings, Lily died. And it was strange to think that for the first time in their lives, they managed to bear a child that would outlive them.
Flannel didn't know if it was good or bad luck considering he was the one to break the streak, because maybe it would have been better if—on that fateful day—those human poachers took him, instead of his father. It would have been better if he went after Argyle, instead of Lily who never returned to the pack after setting out after him. Flannel didn't know if it was a blessing to be alive after that escapade—and to take the position of alpha garou at the head of his people—or a curse to be left so utterly alone, as far as his immediate family was concerned. But one thing was for sure.
Everything that happened to him led him to joining Kamui's army, and his eyes and heart had been opened in ways that were closed so wondrously before. It was amazing to think he ever learned anything outside the seclusion of his home. Had Flannel perished in any similar way that his siblings and his parents did before him, he would have never learned of Valla (or, at least, of the invisible forces that threatened the entire world and the balance of life and death as they knew it—the actual name of this third kingdom had yet to be discovered by anyone that wasn't Aqua or Kamui), and he would never see the true dangers which lay behind the facade of Nohr and Hoshido going against one another.
If Flannel died, he would have never met any of his friends.
He would have never met Nishiki.
And he never used to think about this before, but the idea of not seeing the other again—the imagined sight of never hearing his beautiful laugh, his wondrous voice, or his teasing lilt ever again—was a fate worse than death.
Flannel was sure of it.