The Moon, My Mother

Help is here

*Calypso*

I walked behind a tree, ready to shift. But I didn't strip. Moon had been carved from my mother's soul and as a consequence I had inherited some of the Moon Goddess' magic. I would shift with my clothes on and shift right back into them, a neat trick when I didn't want to be naked as the day I was born. 

I closed my eyes and let Moon come forward, feeling the familiar cracking of bones, the shift in my body, the hairs erupting along my skin and the claws and canines emerging. In a matter of seconds I opened my eyes to a different view point. I was in my wolf form. 

"Moon, are you okay to take the lead?" 

I didn't get an answer, instead allowing myself to be pushed back from the drivers seat. I could see Moon take off on a slow run through our forest, our home land. Her brown fur blended in with the shadows of casted by the trees and soft moonlight. 

I knew this wasn't how we were meant to be. If we were in Moon's true form we would shine. We would stand out so brightly from all those around us. The simple fact was we were born to be unique and I knew one day we would have to stand out, alone. 

And that terrified me. I was scared. So much was about to change and for the first time I didn't have my dad with me. 

I realised Moon was slowing down as we reached the top of a small hill. The hill was situated close to our border and from here I could see the pack house behind me as well as the direction from which other packs were supposedly coming. I let the others know where I was through the pack link and waited.

It was peaceful. But the kind of peaceful that felt like the calm before the storm. Or even more accurately, the eye of a hurricane, the brief serenity between pain and the next phase of hurt. 

"Cal, there is movement coming towards the border."

I heard Moon clearly. Her taking control had offered me my little time of peace. I shifted back into control, Moon allowing me to once again to be in charge of our physical form. I saw wolves travelling with humans and knew straight away it was a pack. 

I sent a message through the pack link and before long I heard a group come from behind me in their wold forms. Together we ran towards the incoming pack, converging on our border. The other wolves carried shirts and pants tied around their back legs and went quickly behind trees to change. 

To keep up appearances I too went behind a tree. I shifted back into my human form, clothes in tact, and counted to 10 before emerging. 

We did not speak as we stood together on our border line, waiting. Before long people and wolves stepped into the clearing. Straight away I could tell there were two packs here, they had travelled together to help us but they stayed seperate. I could sense two alphas and each pack gravitated around their own alpha. I looked around me and noticed my pack surrounding me and a small smile graced my lips. 

I didn't know what would happen from here. My pack could not survive by itself anymore. We would not survive if we tried and it broke me to know we were getting split up, we would no longer be together. But my pack had always been so good to me. A family. Although my father died, I should never have dismissed those who still stood beside me. They were my family as much as he was.