Tuesday Midnight September 17th, 546 ALW. Fennur's Maw, Center-South Glacial Regions. ….
Konan woke up to darker skies smelling of smoke, blood and fire. His vision blurred. The half-moon barely glimmered behind the acrid smoke clouds swallowing the sky and its stars.
It's rays never reached him.
Liquid bubbled in his throat as he exhaled.
His wounds festered. He felt like puking but he couldn't move—
The movement took place elsewhere.
From above.
Sending bits of ice and snow falling down the frozen gorge they hid in.
Nuwetara was on her feet with a snarl just as a collection of faces looked down at them, reaching and craning their necks around the rocks to see.
He couldn't make out anything beyond glimmering blue eyes.
The vision echoed.
"Return, Golden-Child…"
"I think we're interrupting the cats meal." One of them said.
"Do you know what kind of cat that is, fool?! They're supposed to be extinct." Another grumbled.
"Vampire propoganda is for vampires. We know the ice holds secrets. Let this be one revealed." Another— kinder voice said that seemed to quiet everyone.
Nuwetara roared up at them.
"What do you think, Mother?"
"I think our next secret to be revealed lies beneath the ancient beast." An old woman croaked.
"Is this related to your dreams and the Blood-Moon, mother?" The kinder voice questioned.
"Haurik, this relates to everything…." The elder woman hummed something afterward, "All of you, follow your alpha as you always have. We enter both new and old territory."
"And he'll follow you, right?" A grumpier voice asked.
"Berkaal, is the alpha immune to guidance where you're from? If so, it explains how you came to us in such a state." The old woman known as Mother replied.
"Low blow, Mother Re—"
"OhhhhAHAHAHA! That one's gotta sting, grumpy." A child replied, interrupting the previous.
"Do not speak to me, child. You or the one that also wears your face."
"Enough." Mother replied, "We step in the paw prints of destiny."
In Konan's delirious waves of pain, he watched the blue eyes descend.
They flipped, slid and clawed their way between the jagged frozen edges and jutting stones until they landed before them.
Crouched and cramped.
Over a dozen glowing blue eyes hard on him. He couldn't make out any more details.
Too tired.
Too much blood lost.
Nuwetara made out the details for him and didn't seem to approve, resulting in a defensive roar that shook the whole canyon.
"Easy, Guardian of Stone and Bone Within. We are not your enemy…. And you do not not your end…. but they do." The old woman known as Mother tossed something in their direction.
It rolled to a stop in front of them. The head of a red-eyed man.
Nuwetara continued to snarl.
"Haha…. It's stubborn like you, Berkaal." One of the younger blue eyed people said in a whisper.
Someone smacked him on the neck and he quieted with an, "Ouch!"
Mother stepped forward.
Konan could just barely make out her massive sillouette. Her blue eyes were bright in the dark gorge— youthful, despite the age of her voice and hunchbacked frame.
Nuwetara snarled and swatted at the air in her direction.
Mother crouched low and bowed her head. Slowly, she held a hand out.
The sabertoothed cat continued her feral guardian duty valiantly.
Then the blue eyed elder spoke to her.
"Sestra Nuwetara, ni'mekhet kael'nua. Mii sa'thaya wolven'mara e su'naari."
Winds howled, shaping her words, making her voice that came in a whisper echo like a primal roar. The sharp edges of the surrounding gorge went smooth— as if the energies and elemental phenomena of earth were lulled by her word. The ice glowed, showing that the old woman was blind folded and grey haired. In that same vein, her marked skin began to glow as well. Faintly. Ever so faintly.
Nuwetara quieted. Her slitted eyes went round. Her ears rose up as she scented her fingers.
Soon after, the feline purred and backed away.
Konan lay still on the frozen grounds. The world spun.
Mother crouched down beside him with the help of her cane made of braided woods feathers and tipped by a three-headed wolf-skull.
Konan muttered silently.
Mother scented him with a flare of her nostrils and shivered.
"What is it, Mother?" Haurik asked.
Mother kept her eyes on Konan as she replied.
"…..this pup walks and breathes among the memories of ten thousand wolves and still does not join them in their howls."
"He's an Omega?" Haurik asked.
Mother shook her head, "He's THE Omega. This boy is….. a Lycan."
They all gasped.
Mother leaned forward and placed a hand against Konan's face. Her faint-glow tattoos and sigils were warm.
It felt nice.
If she started to hum, he'd worry it was all the same dream again.
Instead, she spoke again.
Not to Nuwetara, but to him.
"Dromari." Another word from the another language.
But Konan knew it. He knew the word for what it meant.
"Sleep."
The energies and elements of the cold word shaped her whispered word again.
And before Konan knew it, he was sleeping.
But not until he heard his own words in the familiar language echoing from his deeper mind.
"Heknaari."
The word echoed as he faded.
But what came from his lips was different.
He learned a new word.
"Kin."