Nightmist Packstory Part 1

Nightmist Packstory

Beginning Part 1

Black forest bathing in pure moonlight. Magic. Not the kind inherited from ancient spirits and Goods, but the kind created by nature itself. Beauty of the unknown living in the shadows, unraveled by light who demands answers and clear vision. The beauty of light who seeks these answers, shadowed by the trees standing steady. Protecting the blackness hiding behind them, and keeping their darkest secrets untold. A creature of shadows, but with fur as glistering white as the moonlight. Her heartbeats to laud in the silence, her light fur to visible in the night-colored forest. She can feel them see her.

She wakes up panting heavily. The sound of too fast heartbeats ringing in her ears and her whole body shaking. First she thinks it is means left from the dream, but soon she realizes it is because of the heat.
She is in the desert.
The scrawny tree gives almost no shadow at all and besides, she is laying on the wrong side of it anyway. Having the sun blinding her mismatched eyes and leaving her squinting. To thirsty; her mouth is completely dried out and her tongue feels like sandpaper. She has not drunk nor eaten in days and her stomach growls angrily at her, reminding her of this very fact. She growls back âBe silent!â just to realize she is actually talking to her own stomach. She laughs out load, the miserable laugh of one who has lost oneâs mind and feels to helpless to do anything about it. She goes silent. Scratching a rudely itching spot behind her left ear and thinking: âOh well, I truly am going insane, I never should have wandered out in the desert all by myself, what was I thinking?â Although she knows she never had a choice, but continuing down that line of thoughts will not do her any good. Only leave her sad and in a panic, feeling like she is going to explode and implode at the same time. She shakes the thoughts out and off her body, leaving the awful feelings stirring the air instead of her mind. And just like that first day she walks forward. Only seeing the next horizon and leaving the past to rest in every pawprint behind her.

Time is unimportant when you do not have a goal or specific destination to reach. The seemingly endless landscape of sand stretches out in all directions, making her struggling steps forward pointless. There is still no sign of water and the desert remains the same no matter how far she gets. She sighs, the air making a rasping noise when passing through her dried out throat. She would have been drooling of hunger if there had been any traces of water left in her. The burning sun looks down at her mockingly. It is easy for him to move over the sky, he is the day and decides when light should end and darkness begin. Just as he gives life to the vegetation as well as dries it out. And when he steals the light with him over the horizon the world is left ruled by the coolness of the moon. The wolfâs kind has been singing to her for generations. For hunting luck and many newborn pups. But the moon must have not heard her pack that night. The night she were created. Because instead of a knightâs black coat she got hers visible white. The color that stands out in the darkness. Keeping her from ever becoming a huntress of the time ruled by the moon. She was rejected by the very spirit whom she were supposed to belong to. She sighs again. She has never liked the night anyway.

Suddenly a Desert Wheatear pierces through the sky. The sand-colored feathers matches the desert perfectly, and the little creature would have been almost impossible to see if it were not for the blank black feathers, covering the cheeks and wings and catching the sunshine. Turning the light into a dancing spectrum of a million colors. A unique rainbow in the beige landscape. So free. Flying with the wind and playing in the air. Making the most difficult acrobatics, both flying down and up but never falling. And continuing coming closer, until for just a second, the eyes of the bird and the wolf locks together. Intelligence and purpose shining from within the unknown vision. And then the little creature both of colors and of without, makes a loop in the air and begins to fly away.
âNo wait!â she howls after it and starts to run, struggling not to let her tired legs give way and her whole body fall. No way is she going to be left alone again, she just cannot take it anymore. Even if it is just the company of a bird.

She has been following the little one for so long. So hard to breathe, now more than ever. The massive lack of energy makes it impossible to think. But she does know that without finding water soon she will collapse, probably to never wake up again. Every part of her body hurts. It was such a good thing the bird slowed down earlier, she could never have kept the same pace as it otherwise. Could never have kept running. Even if it meant watching the bird fly further and further away, leaving her just like another grain of sand in the endless desert. Unimportant and alone. But it did slow down. As if it knew that she was following and wanted her to.

The landscape starts to change. She sees big rocks laying on top of each other, balancing and steadying one another in a game with the gravity. Together creating small cliffs all reaching longingly for the open sky. First there is just a few of them, tail-lengths apart. But soon there are plenty standing close together, protecting each other against wind and storm. Just ahead some is forming a loose circle, with shadow in the middle. Shadow! Not looking where she is going, only caring about getting away from the sun, she stumbles in between the cliffs. At first she does not even notice that her paws get wet, but then slowly her brain registers it. It is water. It is shallow and it is not much but it is there. Without hesitation she shoots down her head and starts drinking it in deep sips. Water has never tasted so good. Satisfied she looks up and meets the intensive blue eyes of a he-wolf.

Silence.