There were only two rules, back when her world was small.
Obey the Alpha Wolf. Never Let them see you.
The dark cave where men lived was like a cold mouth. They lived in places made of burnt wood and beaten stone. They lived in empty places where wind came and shadows stretched out black and dangerous from the fire.
Never let them see you.
She had no name then, when the world was small. She was the pack. Mother wolf and brother wolf protected her and kept her safe. The den was warm and comforting like a womb; a good darkness that gave no space to fear. And when they would hunt, distance became only the distance of heartbeats. Running and panting wearing down the soles of her feet on the rocks. That was when all black faded, when they caught the prey and she ate. Eating was good and filled up the hurt in her belly.
But she broke the rule. Never let them see you.
Someone in the territory; past the guarded borders of trees that stood, silent and immobile sentinels. She could smell the men, it was a smell that made her nostrils quiver. She realized she was alone now. She had been studying her fingers and had wandered off. She was the only wolf with fingers that could touch and grasp and pull. She did not know why, and so she studied them, hoping that her fingers would give her answers. But her fingers were silent, as the amulet with the strange symbol cold to the touch was silent. As the tattered man robes were silent.
She could smell them closer. Dangerously close so that her hairs stood on end as if disturbed, and she could feel warmth on the back of her neck.
She bit her tongue to keep from crying out, and tasted blood. The smell of it was in her throat. She stepped back, silent, pressed herself against a tree. She would make herself thin, like a hair. She would be invisible and unable to be touched.
They were on the other side of the tree. So close. Their breath was heavy.
Never let them see you.
Her pack howled in the distance. The sky above the forest was crimson. And she was curious, even as her heart hammered. She had never seen a man before. Just one look.
She edged herself closer to the trunk, pressing her fingernails into the soft and moldy wood. Could he hear her breathing?
He was facing the opposite direction, on the other side of the tree. He was unbearably close. Close enough for her to touch. His skin was dark, like her hands. Something glistened, shined, inviting on his hip. It was a rigid snake made of metal. He didn't seem to notice her take a step forward.
She held her breath, felt it catch and tangle in her throat. Her pack howled again. They were getting closer. Almost involuntarily, she saw her hand reach out, stretching, to touch the shiny metal.
He grabbed her hand and wrenched it down. She cried out in pain. He turned fast. His eyes were hard and brittle like stone. He pushed her up against the tree. She tried hard not to cry out, but her eyes were wet with fear.
"What have we here?" The man said. She did not understand his words. They fell on her ears like the hollow thud of rain.
More dark men came out of the shadow, holding shiny metal snakes. They began to talk in whispers. The sound frightened her.
"You shouldn't be out here alone," The man said. She gasped as he ran a finger down her dirty face. He did not relinquish his grip on her arm. She couldn't move. She was too terrified to move.
The pack was near.
"Kill those **** wolves!"
They moved like liquid, drawing out their metal. They were angry shades. Mother Wolf, Sister Wolf, and Brother Wolf met the steel with teeth.
She screamed. She saw them cut down even as her pack ran to save her from men. The smell of blood was unbearable. Red splattered gray fur. Sliced open. Forgotten. Dead.
She was pack.
She stared at the dark men standing over the corpses of the wolves so easily killed. Her pack, now corpses. Meat. They wiped their blades cleaned.
There was no pack.
She was alone.
The dark man ripped the neckline of her tattered robes, exposing the skin beneath. He smiled. The smile was full of glass. She shrank in terror as he pressed himself against her.
She bit his nose off.
She had to be fast and hard. She didn't stop until she tasted blood and flesh ripping from flesh in her sharpened teeth. The man fell back, releasing her, and began to scream.
Terror kept her running. Afraid that they would find her kept her running. She couldn't stop. The panting in her mouth caught in her ears. Her heart was squeezing against her chest and making the spaces wider between breathing.
She didn't know how long she ran. Fear made her feet go longer and the spaces far and uncomfortable. She swam, gasping across a river. There the silence hurt even more, rushing underneath the water, time quickened and slowed, quickened and slowed. Between breaths she was immobile. Time was only normal when she fell against the bank, gasping, her lips touching sand.
She crawled. Found a dark cave like the man cave near the huge gated towers in the forest. But it seemed empty and didn't smell like men. She found the few steps left in her to go into the cave and find a place in the cave where she could rest. It was dark here, but not a comfortable darkness. An empty darkness. She heard a trickle like the trickle of rain along the moss-covered stones. She licked the wetness - it tasted like mud but at least it was cold and washed the blood out of her mouth.
She was about to close her eyes when she saw something that made her breath quicken. Images of her pack flashed before her. At first she thought it was the same man who had tried to hurt her, who had ordered her pack dead. But it was a different man. He was in the cave, maybe he was resting here bfore going out on a journey.
She pushed herself against the cave. Her eyes flashed red, luminescent in the dark. There was no way he could see her. It was too dark for men to see.
But he was staring right at her.
"Come out," he said. She pushed her hand to her beating chest, so that it did not explode with the pulsating, throbbing, uncontrollable beating of her heart.
He was walking toward her. She started to growl, flinching backwards, pressing herself against the wall. He had a shiny in his hand. She could feel the blood splattering her face when Mother wolf and Brother wolf had died. The image was fresh and real.
He spoke soft words to her, soothing words. She turned her head. He was closer now. How had he gotten so close? How did he know she was staring at him?
He put his hand to her head and spoke more words. Frozen again by fear. She uttered a noise from deep within her throat. There was a sensation like falling, like flooding. Something pressing into her mind.
A voice speaking in her head.
"What are you?" He asked. She did not understand the words. Understood nothing. She could see nothing, hear nothing but the words echoing in her head. Her body was gone. She couldn't find her arms. She began to panick, to drown in this darkness not dark.
"Who are you?" He repeated.
Confusion. Blinding fear. He was inside her mind and that was worse than inside her body. Violating. Questioning. Seeking.
Go away.
She pushed out, but he wouldn't leave. Couldn't hear her heartbeat. Couldn't hear her breathing. He was speaking in names. Only men spoke in names.
"Dalamar," He said. "What is your name?" And he projected images toward her. Images of calm, a river, safety, but it didn't help her to relax.
She had no name. She could say nothing.
"Draika now," He said. And somehow she knew. Knew that she with no name, who had gone from a small world into a big one with the space between everything, was Draika.
"Draika," she said outloud, somewhere distant where her lips still moved. Only men had names. She didn't quite understand.
"Draika," he confirmed.
"What else are you hiding?" He asked. "Where did you come from?"
But she didn't understand. She understood nothing of names.
The one now called Draika felt the memories flow out of her, into the one called Dalamar. Images of her pack being ripped apart by the shiny metal, and the pounding, quaking, shaking fear that made her run. She felt the blood spatter over her face again. She began to scream.
He projected images of safety to her, to try to calm her. He explained to her in pictures that he was an alpha wolf, and he would protect her. He would stay with her. There would be a new pack to take care of the one now called Draika.
He showed her where he lived; he touched upon the fragmented parts of her animal mind, and connected them to show a hall made of marble and stone; rows of doors going off into the faded dark. The spaces in this hall were too big, too frightening.
Draika began to squirm. This was a human place! This is where men that killed her pack lived. This is what was beneath the cave that lurked like a monster with glittering fangs waiting to plunge death into bursting hearts!
Somewhere in the distance where she could not see he touched her hands, the dark hands that had betrayed her when they reached out to touch the shiny metal.
“You look like human, you will be safe,” He said. The words rang and rang, and it was like a cave inside her ears where the words cried out, so deep they were stretched thin into non-existence. He tried to explain this through images – it was the only thing she understood.
“Draika,” he said, trying to calm her, trying to tell her she was safe. Then she understood. It was like something had connected inside of her, like a memory long ago. She felt one hand reaching for the cold amulet around her neck, that had been a silent reminder of the memories pushed back to the side.
Names meant things. Names explained things. Names were powerful and she would have to learn them to survive, because they were the only way she would be able to walk among the human places without fear.
Names meant things.
A feeling of warmth and pride flowed through her. “Draika learns fast,” Dalamar said to her. She didn’t understand the words but she knew that Dalamar was happy because of her thinking. He showed her an image of taking her into the deep cave, toward a huge building with a dark roof and brass gilded floors, and rows upon rows of books crowding the walls, edged in between the cobwebs. There was another image, of Dalamar leading Draika in safety to this place, to learn.
The link between them broke. The mental images disintegrated and between the bursting of light in Draika’s eyes she felt her way back into the cave. Dalamar was looking at her. He stood up, and offered her a hand. Draika just stared at it.
“Come with me,” he said. He then pointed to the mouth of the cave. “Come,” and then grabbed her hand and pulled her up.
It was that clenching fear that always ate at her. Panic was an animal inside an animal.
Run. Get away. Go back to that safe place in the dark, in the warmth. The human thing called Dalamar would surely take her to an alien place that would bring no comfort.
He led her gently, with soft words that rushed past Draika's ears and slipped away. They reached a huge, black, gated building. It was terribly beautiful. To Draika, it smelled like death. A sudden fear began to shake her.
She began to shiver as Dalamar led her to the building. It was sacred, dark, a temple of the gods and something had happened here a very long time aog.
Dalamar touched the amulet that Draika kept around her neck. "Shillen," he said as he touched it, his brow furrowed in perplexity.
"Shillen," Draika said. Such a powerful word, it made her shiver even more. Something terrible had happened here.
Somthing Terrible.
Something. Lost. Something that had slipped away into the dark corners of Draika's brain and was now irretrievable.
The feeling of fear did not stop as he led her closer to the temple. The building was like a mouth and the dark shadows would swallow her. There would be too many shadowy spaces in which they could find her, consume her. She was a wolf. They would not consume her.
She broke from Dalamar's grasp and ran. She would not go into that temple, to be eaten. To be prey for those that lived in that cold mouth.
Something terrible had happened in that temple. Something terrible and lost from her memory, that nearly echoed and softly vibrated in her mind, like the distant murmurs of pain.
She would not be prey. Dalamar shouted at her to stop, to slow down. Draika ran faster into the forest. Her heart was beating, trapped in the rhythm of her legs.
Draika would NOT be prey to what laid in that temple.
"Where are you going? What's wrong - who are you?" Questions invaded her - none she could understand. The pale one sat her down on the wet ground underneath the canopy of dark trees. Draika's heart was pounding - pounding deep and uncertain, lodged like a black thing in her throat.
The pale one reached out to touch her mind - but it was much less gentle than Dalamar's touch. Draika panicked, edging back from the pale one. Draika could feel the girl's fingers in her brain - touching, unforgiveable violating.
Draika scratched and bit, but the girl would not let go of her awkward embrace. Didn't she understand? This place was BAD. These people running in and out of her thoughts, deep stuck thoughts were BAD and should not be here.
She fell against the girl's arms, exhausted.
"Kaelir," the girl said. Her fingers scratched and digged into Draika's slowly flaking brain. Draika understood that the girl had a name - a name attached to the hair, the eyes, the skin, the fingers. The girl was identified not by smell but by the gentle words - the powerful words that came from human mouths.
"Kaelir, Kaelir," the girl whispered - petting Draika's ragged, unkempt hair, whispering the names like a prayer. She held Draika's head still and stroked her head. Her fingers were still deep within Draika's mind - and she laid rigid on the ground.
Kaelir examined the girl's tattered dress, the amulet of Shillen. Draika could feel the girl's breath going cold as she touched it - and she knew the girl was afraid.
"Safe," Kaelir whispered, holding out a hand. There was no threat in her words. "Safe, Draika."
(How did she know my)
"Safe"
(name?)
Draika took the girl's hand in her own - her dirty, broken fingernails closing around Kaelir's soft, clean palm. An electric shiver broke out all over her. Kaelir's mental fingers were digging into her brain - and they did not relent. Kaelir pulled Draika up. And they were running again, but the fear did not sieze her. Through the forest and the multicolored places of brilliant, bursting light. The sun was blinding. The air was sharp and clean.
But she knew - the world of humans was a dangerous place. The spaces begin to widen between breaths. She became dizzy and her vision contracted with darkness.