Chapter 4- Understanding your history
1253 Words
Dyami POV
I’m trying to get her to realize there is no reason to panic for just long enough for me to fully explain our heritage. But yet here we are, her throwing a tantrum like a child and shooting a bunch questions my way without even taking a breath in between. After going on her rant, she finally notices the blank stare that I’ve plastered to my face and stops for a deep breath. I raise my eyebrows in a challenging manner as if to say, “are you done?” and she simply nods looking over to the fire.
“Catori. We are descendants of a long-ago Cherokee tribe of werewolves. The legend is that they began as spirit warriors and when one’s body fell wounded his spirit would blend with the next closest being in that instant. This spirit fighting went on for a millennia before a young warrior got greedy during his astral attack. At this time his body was fully intact, but, yet he wanted to share the being of a wolf in hopes that its ferocity would help his tribe in the battle. Before him, no one had mingled spirits into another being unless their own body was too damaged to return to. So, with this new-found ability, this warrior used the wolf to his advantage in the battle. After returning home, he explained what he did to all of his closest brethren. What he hoped to keep among his tribe got out as word traveled. As more learned of the possibility, many tribes thought this to be an amazing feat and from then on chose to use whatever aggressive animals they could to handle their battles. Our distant ancestors chose wolves for their battles. Nearby tribes used bears and even others mountain lions. The use of animals in battle was growing and it created an imbalance with the Great Spirit. No one knew the looming issue they were giving way to. Until after the first time this magic was used to create a fight over love. When a young man of no status fell in love with a princess of a neighboring tribe, he used his astral spirit and blended with the wolf spirit in its body in order to kill her husband. He planned his attack at night while she slept, and she awoke to the horror of her beloved being torn to pieces by a wolf before her. She stabbed the wolf before he was able to run away. When he got out of sight from this tribe, he went to unmingle his spirit from the wolf’s but because of his jealousy, he was causing this creature to lose its body. And for his selfish actions the Great Spirit then eternally bound his soul with the wolf’s.
When his spirit landed back in his own flesh the boy writhed with pain at the fact his mind now shared its space with another’s spirit. He ran to the medicine woman in hopes of her being able to remove the presence in his mind, but she had no good news. The great spirit spoke to her of the boy’s greed and warned that from that moment on his soul was to be in eternal torment for his actions and there was no way to remove the wolf’s spirit. There was a second warning, however, that if spirit warriors continued to offer up his other creature’s bodies to save their own against the balance that the world is supposed to have, then they too would suffer the eternal connection with those beings. The boy rushed to speak of his mistakes, but he was turned away time and time again. No one wanted to heed the warning given to them by the boy and medicine woman, and because of their stubbornness, many shared his fate. Hundreds fell into the anguish that came with sharing your own body with the spirit of an animal. As many lived long lives sharing their bodies with another, they later wondered if death would bring peace to their spirits and end the curse. Though it was the hope of many, it was untrue as the genes passed along. Then as they bred amongst tribes, they also found that pieces of the spirits were given the ability to pass on as if creating the offspring they would, had they been alive. Being birthed into the supposed curse was less brutal as time went along because having the counterpart was all they ever knew in life. Eventually the counterparts went from being a curse to some and were instead seen as a gift from the great spirit. Living this way, the two souls worked together. Many even discovered that they could allow the animal being within them to take over and they could shift and use a blend of their mind and body with that of their animal counterpart to create a much larger and stronger being altogether… Thus the creation of the werewolf, werebear, and werecat.
Generations and generations later most of the supernatural beings have disappeared due to the bloodlines being tainted over time and many do not even know of the possibility of being a were-creature anymore. Typically, even the ones who do possess the genes rarely have a reason to turn unless severe upset lands in their life. That and with dim bloodlines, they have to get the genes from both parents for it to be a possibility. You were your mother and I’s only child and little did I know that her family carried these genes as well as mine. With our family having not had a wolf come about in so long, it appears that there is a strong bloodline on your mother’s side of the family. They may even be purer bred having kept the bloodlines alive by searching only for another werewolf to be their life mate. This sadly could also possibly explain your mother’s death. She may have been on the verge of turning and was unaware which could have drove her to insanity and she may…”
I trailed off at the thought of Catori’s mother having possibly committed suicide when she was so young. I know that this is a sensitive subject and I have already dropped a lot of new information on her. I wave off that thought and in feeling I have done my best to describe our heritage, I look at Catori in hopes that she can understand. A look of awe crosses her features… then one of shock and pure terror… and as the tears well in her eyes, I can see a realization in the way she tenses up about where my story was going. I reach out to touch her hand only to have her yank away and take off into the woods with rage now apparent on her face… I take a swig of my beer and sitting back, I watch her disappear behind the trees. I shake my head to myself before dropping it into my hands. I’m worried about how she will handle so much information and I don’t like to see her run off angry. With her wolf just below the surface, I really hope she manages to gain control so that she doesn’t hurt someone…
- Writer
