Enstranged Hearts

Beyond Human Comprehension

The architecture of the compound was a quilt of styles, apparently multiple generations of piecing together the landmark as conscientiously as possible.

The most ancient part seemed to be the main house—a huge log structure that sprang organically from the scenery around. Newer add-ons spread out, creating a jungle of architectural complexes that mirrored the ways Aria spent her whole life studying the biological systems of those humans.

The clan's history started to become a complex scientific hypothesis. Transformation capable guardians (or more correctly, their clans of Werewolf) had been ecological regulators for thousands of years.

They weren't myths, they weren't Vanir, they were a well adapted biological adaptation that kept fine lines of methods just right and in their proper balance.

It was a museum of supernatural history.

Aria expected the typical thing: family memorabilia, but she found something entirely different.

The intricate genealogical charts hung on walls that resembled more complex ecological maps. Carefully constructed display cases were lined with artifacts who mingled blurred lines between historical documentation and mystical preservation. Some photographs showed families that looked as though they were as genetically consistent as possible.

The same amber eyes. The same muscular build. A sense of the same watchful protection that was somehow encoded into everything else.

'Kai ponderd over the old photograph, watching as she examined it.’

'We’re not just a family.' “We’re guardians.” It stationed itself into the air, with a weight of a meaning.

A side room yielded an elder of the Wolfe clan, Elena Silverclaw, who reminded Aria of a combination—but more of an academic than of matriarch—of the two. She seemed to vibrate the air around her nearly on the verge of feeling something.

Elena’s voice had an academic precision to it and an ancient wisdom to it, but her words sounded as if she was talking about the supernatural.

'It's an ecological system as complex as any biological network,' it's noted. Balance is everything.”

That’s what a scientific training taught Aria to ask: the fundamental question.

“Balance between what?”

Elena’s laugh was both sad and a bit knowing.

“Between worlds. From the older systems that predated human civilization long before modern understanding. So we’re not shapeshifters in the popular culture sense. We’re protectors. Mediators.”

Suddenly the clan's history began to reveal itself like some kind of complex scientific hypothesis.

For thousands of years, transformation capable guardians (termed werewolf clans… or more accurately) had been ecological regulators.

They weren’t mythical creatures, they were a sophisticated biological adaptation which kept delicate environmental balances. Kai helped them evolve by thinking that “we were keystone species.” “Management of populations prevents ecological collapse and maintain territorial boundaries and prevent over predation.”

It was scientific and supernatural.

These weren’t legends. They were a highly biological system that was beyond human comprehension.

Something even more extraordinary was found in the Genetic records. The Wolfe clan had intermarried strategically for transformation while avoiding genetic degradation all by having a unique genetic line. The genetic adaptation wasn't magical, it wasn't magical transformation, although I guess in some simple way, it was.

Elena stared at Aria with a pained expression before saying,

“Your presence here is no accident.” “You weren’t born into this ecosystem, but your bloodline has connections to this ecosystem that you kind of don’t understand.”

Cunning was warred with something between skepticism and understanding, but as her thinking went forward it became, increasingly, understanding.

The evidence was mounting. The photographic records. The genetic documentation. Ecological patterns which suggested something more complex than just simple mythology.

Itself was alive; the compound. Deer were closer to human structures, predators kept a little more distance.

This was an ecosystem in perfect harmony, well managed balance.

The more Aria saw, the more she came to realize what exactly she was witnessing was less supernatural and more something in a so far unknown and complex biological system that human science just didn’t understand yet.

During a walk through the vast grounds of the compound, Kai explained that we aren’t fighting against human civilization. “We are still respecting those boundaries.” To prevent ecological collapse. They manage predator prey relationships.

That delicate balance of natural systems is intact.

However, that was more than protection. They were regulators.

The managers of a much more complicated system that is as much mythological transformation as it is real.

There were generations of good genetic management. Strategic marriages. When we get our genetic line carefully bred such that we can transform it, but nothing can degrade it genetically. And before sunset, it cast long shadows, across the compound, and Aria knew something was coming into change.

Her rational observation world was growing. Beautifully, terrifyingly the edges between scientific understanding and supernatural experience were being blurred.