Tikaani
10:39 PM | Posted by
Breanna |
Tikaani was born beneath the full moon, a sign of greatness among her people. However, as she grew from cub to wolf, her people began to lose confidence in her destined power. She was a silly young wolf in their eyes. Even as she grew to a strong, powerful female, she found that she didn't care for prophecies or rules. Tikaani wanted nothing more than to strike out on her own and be subject to no one. She was in charge of her own life and her own destiny. When she was finally old enough, she took charge of her destiny. 
A new enemy, however, had risen up outside the forest and as she drew further from the pack, she came closer to them. They walked on two legs, if you could call their jerking and dragging a walk, like the humans that she had always been taught to avoid. These beings, however, smelled like the deer and the elk she had hunted after their spirits had gone. These beings were not alive, yet they moved, they watched, and they ate. Tikaani knew not what to call these beings so she took to naming them the not-breath.
The not-breath were a blite upon the land and a force of terror among the two legged people. Tikaani, despite her hate for the taste and the smell of the not-breath, spent much of her time fighting them and destroying them. She knew that they could not be killed, for they were already dead, but they could be made more dead. In her battles to protect the humans, she found herself growing bitter of them, just as bitter as she felt towards her pack. They still treated her with fear. The men would look on her black fur and glowing amber eyes as a dark sign and would attempt to kill her. They chased her away even after she hunted the not-breath for them.
It was on one particular night, after she had been chased away once again, that she decided she no longer cared to rescue the humans from the monsters they had created. The not-breath was their own fault, they could deal with it. She would, once again, strike off on her own and be free. She was on her way back into the mountains when she heard the cry.
Someone, not a wolf, was speaking in her tongue.
"Help!" the cry called.
Tikaani was confused. Humans could not speak the wolf tongue, yet here was an unmistakably human voice calling to her, howling to her. The smell of the not-breath was strong and she knew that it was they who caused the human to call. She shifted uneasily, unsure. Tikaani had decided not to help the humans any more. They did not deserve her help. But this human...she had to see.
Running, the young wolf came across a grave yard. She had always thought the human ritual of burying their dead was a terrible waste, so many carrion would go hungry without the bodies to feed from, and it only caused havoc in the spirit world. Whereas the spirits of animals were allowed to wander back into the great sky, alone and ready to return, the humans would stay. Among so many other spirits, resting and attached to their bodies that were left decaying beneath the ground, how could they go? Humans cannot be alone. It was their habit of burying their dead that caused the not-breath to come into being. The young wolf shivered as she came among the cold head stones. It wasn't just the presence of the not breath that made her fur stand on end, it was the spirits of those bodies that drifted among the graves, unaware of the happenings around them.
The wolf stopped as she came to the gathered not-breath. It wasn't their dancing and chanting that made her paws quiver, that she had grown used to, it was that they had somehow learned the use of a pot. Since when did the not-breath wish to cook their food? A chill ran across her back and up her tail. There was a young girl tied in the pot and it was this human that was calling out in the wolf tongue.
Quickly, so as to rid herself of the awful smell and shiver of the situation, Tikaani plowed into the not-breath. She did her best to make them dead enough that they could not rise again. The carrion would do the rest for her when morning came. It took her most of the rest of the night to rid the grave yard of the not-breath, though some of them escaped into the trees, and when she had finally finished, the wolf was exhausted. She could barely keep herself from dashing away as the spirits began to brush through her, gathering around a sense of death and violence that she carried with her. The not-breath she could handle, the spirits she could not.
Tikaani bit through the ropes that held the girl bound, chastised her for her stupidity and her humanness, then turned tail and fled from the spirits. Before she made it far, the girl called out to her, once again in the wolf tongue, and Tikaani stopped. She could not shake her wondering at how it was the girl had come to learn her tongue. The girl, who said her name was Fallon, told the wolf about her parents being taken. The people that she called ninja assassins were not familiar to the wolf, but deep in her gut she felt something cold at the mentioning of their name.
The girl's pleadings melted the wolf's heart and she finally agreed to accompany Fallon on her journey. Tikaani did not want the girl to think her soft, she still hated humans, so she told her that she would only come if the girl would share some of the sour cream and onion Pringles that she could smell, hidden away in the battered pack the human was carrying. Such morsels were rare these days, even among the humans, and Tikaani had taken a liking to rare things. Luckily, the girl's love for her parents was strong enough to allow her to agree. This gave Tikaani some respect for Fallon. She was at least willing to do what it took to get to her parents and she was brave, despite her stupidity. Tikaani knew that if the girl were left to her own devices, she would be made a meal by the not-breath long before she would ever find her parents.
It was the start of a strange and adventurous relationship for the both of them and it would become the beginning of a new era. Neither of them realized it at the moment, but the decision to join forces would change everything and the empty barrel that once held the sour cream Pringles they shared would become an object of great desire, a symbol of something great.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Music
