[Forsaken] - Dehshay Bahsahrah

[lslaw.livejournal.com]

The darkness of the caves ceased to trouble me long before I became a monster. When even my eyes can't make anything out in the dim light, I find my way by touch and instinct. Handholds come to me with ease; my bare feet are as sure as a spiked boot.

When the dreams started, even when I hoped I could hold it back for five years, a year at least, I never had any doubts who I would go to when the time came; never had any reason to think that, when the pressure inside me grew too great, when the dams burst and the Change was on me, I would go to anyone but Hayden to learn how to be an Uratha. Hayden was a friend, but he was also already my teacher, and one of the few People who treated me with respect, not because I was wolf-blooded, or even in spite of it, but simply because it never occured to him to deal with me other than as an individual. We had our misunderstandings, it's true, but I got that territory means different things to Uratha, and I got that because of him.

I skirt the tunnels - claimed now, although I will check the markers - and keep to the older passages, between the Templar excavations and the grotto beneath.

It never occured to me that it would be losing him that Changed me, although I suppose it should have been obvious. I was left without that support; more, I was left with very little but expectations.

Darkness, once my penance, is become my sanctuary. Here I am alone. Here there are no expectations.

I've been Changed for eight months and I have been alpha of my pack, Hayden's pack, for two. My understanding of Forsaken lore is still fragmentary and I have no idea how to be an alpha. When I was a wolf-blood, no-one wanted to tell me stories of Father Wolf; now it seems impossible to convince them that I don't already know some of the basics. It took a lot just to get anyone to really explain what the Tribes were, and yet people look to me to be something of what Hayden was.

When I waver, the pack drifts; when I try to be decisive, they bridle. I don't know how to lead them. The truth is, I don't know if I can.

Darkness is simple, like rage. Both have purity too, but both can be misleading. In the dark, in rage, things seem more alike than they are. This is their trap.

I reach the bottom of the dry well; the symbolism is perhaps telling and I chuckle darkly. I look up and there is nothing but the tunnel, the light at the top distant and almost invisible.

For Helen, Quiet Life is the pack she founded with her brothers. For Boomer and David, it's the pack that Hayden led.

In the darkness below our territory, I let loose. This is my place, even my pack rarely come here, and I know that I am safe to let the fury and frustration roll out of me. Howling and snarling, I tear at the walls. This is the purity of rage, and of darkness; the abandonment of every deceit we practice against ourselves; the freedom to be true to who you are.

We have enemies at our gates and a war about to erupt. Station IX left I don't know what surprises in their territory, my father is doing something in his asylum that I can't believe is less than monstrous, and there is an alien war god stirring under Much Hadham. We - the Uratha of Hertfordshire and Quiet Life in particular - are outnumbered and frankly outgunned. If we're not to be dependent on outsiders, if the Protectorate is to stand, we need to grow; we need to change.

I don't know if we can do that.

My fist strikes sharp stone and it cuts deep. The pain cuts through everything, adding clarity to the purity.

I pause for a moment, letting the anger ebb away, and then I begin to climb. I scale the well and emerge into the graveyard; reborn in the place of death. The Mother shines above me, upon me.

My fears are unfounded. We... They are stronger than that and I will find the right way to lead them.

We will speak; we will change; we will grow.

We will rise.