Alone but with purpose!!
After the war, my parents where on the run. They never told me what we where running from, but running was all I knew for the first half of my life. When I turned nine years of age, my parents found an oasis of sorts and we settled down. Our new home was next to a lake the color of deep green emeralds. The lake was feed by small rivers the color of a clear blue sky that derived of melted ancient glaciers. The lake was in the middle of a clearing surrounded by huge ever greens. You would have to walk miles to find the edge of the dence forests and although there was not much underbrush, you could not see far into the thick wood as the boughs blocked out most light from above and the thick bases of the ball pine kept light from intruding at the base. It was beautiful and haunting at the same time.
The winters where hard here, cold, bitter, and at first very lonely with just my parents, me and my younger sister. However over time other shifters would stumble in, they too, where on their own for one reason or another. Some times it was a single shifter, other times a whole family would stumble into our midst. The first was a family of dragons, the father and my dad became quick friends and he became my father's beta to our newly formed clan. My father never asked why they where alone or running, but he always gave anyone that came into our area a choice. He told them they could leave or they could stay and help build a life with our clan. All he asked was they decide in 2 days time. He was very clear, for them to stay they had to take a blood oath of loyalty to my family and an oath to keep the secret of the location of the emerald lake clan, promising it would never reach outsider ears. If they did not want to stay my father would allow them to leave but he would always insist on walking them to the boarder of the forest.
When he returned from those trips there was always a distant sadness in his eyes and he would lock himself in his study for days, drinking heavily. I thought he was just sad and wanted friends, it wasn't until I got older that I found out that anyone who wondered into our area really did not have a choice at all, if they did not chose to stay and take the oath, my father walk them deep into the forest and put them to death. He always said it was for our safety and the safety of the clan, but he would never give any other explanation than that. Over the years it was something that although I did not understand or like, I became accustomed to. It became my mission to try to convince every stranger to stay. My best friend never understood why, but he always backed me up.
Over the years, our little clan grew and a village emerged by the lake. We where not a pack, packs where always made up of one type of shifter, but we had several. Me, my sister and my parents where wolves, I had not met my other half yet, she would not come to me until my 18th birthday, that was 2 weeks away. But our clan had a family of snow bears from the pine forests, two brown bear families from the deep south and even a rare golden bear said to only be born to the purest of white bears found in the farthest reaches of the North. We had foxes, vampires, witches, a few ware cats and even a couple of dragons. Over the years when Wolves would stumble across our village and had only 2 choices, stay and take the blood oath or be put to death, some chose death. I never knew how the wolves knew they would be put to death if they did not chose to stay, my father always gave the same choice to everyone, to stay and take the oath or he would escort them out of our territory. It fascinated me that the wolves always seemed to know the escort out was just a walk where at the end they would be lead to their death. Although I understood when they chose death, it always broke my heart.
You see, wolves have one goal in life, that is to find their mate. Once a shifter comes of age they are paired with another chosen by the Moon Goddess herself. If the wolves stayed they practically where giving up their mate and there one purpose in life. I came to the realization that I would never find my mate, I was ok with it, and when my dad stepped down as alfa I would step in and rule our clan. I trained every day and was one of the strongest in our clan. But I had a purpose, a future, without a mate most wolves could not say the same and without purpose, death was their only true option.
