{Uᴍʙʀᴀ} . {Rᴇᴀᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ᴄʀɪᴛɪǫᴜᴇ!}

[IndianaSnow]

I like. It's already got me interested. Imma bookmark this

[spiff]

Thanks. I hope I'll meet your expectations. C:

[leaving soon]

Hello! Can't wait for the firts chapter. I like the layout and you reminded me something about my story, I haven't done a list of teh charies name's!

[spiff]

Thank you! I'm a bit obsessed with making new layouts for stories and roleplays, so I'm glad you like it. xD

[Akela~]

This looks good, can't wait for the story to come out.

[mango sherbet]

you've already got me hooked. -bookmarks-

[abbie-sama]

*bookmarks*
This looks very good! I'll try to keep up with this. <3

[spiff]

Wow, I didn't expect all this praise. Thank you guys so much <3; I really hope I don't disappoint.

[spiff]

O N E
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2,085 words.

The tears would not come, no matter how hard she tried to will them to the surface.

All around Rain, heads were bowed, eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking onto already-salty cheeks in spite of how hard their owners tried to keep them from slipping past. It’s funny, how we all seem to think our eyelids are such powerful barriers, she thought. We use them when we don’t want to see, when we’re trying not to cry… Even Bear, the chief, had his anguish clearly etched onto his face as he and Morning Star, the shaman, murmured prayers to ensure Jay had safe passage to the stars. They all wore their emotions with pride. All of them, except for her.

Everyone faced the mutilated corpse that had once been Blue Jay; Rain, in the very back of the cluster that surrounded the body, took the opportunity to sneak another glimpse at the cadaver. No one paid her any heed as she stared with morbid interest, nor as she switched her intense focus to the mourners around her before finally resuming the pose they were in.

Again, the silver she-wolf tried to picture the grief that she should be feeling. She tried for the aching in the heart, the heavy weight in her stomach. She tried for the weary mind, the resigned knowledge that the dead would never walk this earth again, the dread of the days to come, when their absence, their sheer not being there, would be felt like a blow to the stomach. She willed sorrow to the front of her consciousness, but it felt forced and shallow, a paltry attempt that fell flat in the crushing heartbreak she tried to strangle herself with.

Rain didn’t fit in. She tried, of course she tried; oh, she tried until she was convinced something was wrong with her. She sifted through her memories in search of something to reference, and there the problem lay, waiting in plain sight and bearing an answer so obvious it seemed to mock her. She would look for despair and try to apply it to Jay, only to discover… she didn’t know what despair felt like. Rain had arrived an empty slate, devoid of the colorful experiences that shape us when we are children. Her time in the Tribe of the Whispering Trees had shaped her, but for all her cunning and wit, her grasp of the things that make us us was clumsy and unsure, a result of the blankness, the empty place-holder between her birth and when her life had truly begun.

Rain’s tale had been told to her so many times she knew it word for word. Perhaps she had memorized it unconsciously, as if doing so would help her put together the pieces of the mystery shrouding her arrival. When she had reached the point where she was growing out of puphood and the simple answers that had satisfied her before were no longer enough, she would help the elders gather herbs for the shaman as they recounted the story upon her request.

Although she searched for variation each time, desperate to find new clues the old wolves might have forgotten in their age, it always went down the same way: she had been found just inside the territory of the tribe in the middle of spring, a tiny pup only a few months old with no scent of any of the other tribes that inhabited this forest. It had been a miracle she had been found by a particularly observant young warrior, they would tell her each time, and she would nod along and smile and mentally curse both them and herself for not knowing more. Once the tribe had stopped marveling at how lucky she had been to survive, wondering about her origin — loners were rare, seeing as how not many saw the point of it when you could live with a tribe amongst other wolves — and observing her with suspicious eyes to see if she was a threat to the wolves of the Whispering Trees, she had been accepted, more or less. The other pups had crowded around her at first, pressing her for details about what she remembered. It had made her the center of attention for a brief while, but after enough times of repeating to them she was just as clueless as the next wolf, they lost complete interest in her as they moved onto more fascinating things, as children are wont to do.

Christened Rain Dancer for her habit of going out during rainstorms while everyone else huddled in their dens, she simply became one of them, frolicking among the trees with a heart that sang with the wind and ignoring the nagging feeling that this was not where she belonged. It always made her feel so ungrateful to think that; the tribe had taken her in and raised her as one of their own, after all, when they could just as easily have left her to die in the woods. The question of whether or not she belonged was always cast into shadow by the certainty that this was her home.

With a start, Rain realized that the wolves around her was dispersing, many casting one last glance over their shoulder at the heap of flesh and bones that was all that remained of their beloved comrade. A few tribe wolves stayed behind to drag the body out to the edge of the territory where scavengers could pick at it without disturbing the tribe. In time, it would return to the ground, as was the natural cycle of life. Rain hesitated, watching them with curiosity and only the barest hint of disgust. The bear that had killed Jay had torn him apart until he was unrecognizable, but it didn’t add up. Jay’s loud, boisterous nature had given him his name, but bears left adults well enough alone unless there was good reason not to, and even he would not have been foolish enough to disturb one.

“He was a n-nice wolf,” someone said from by her side. “Once, he— he—”

Rain nodded for lack of knowing what else to do, setting her jaw and determinedly fixing her gaze on a point far off in the distance. The voice belonged to Songbird, and her sweet, melodious tones were choked up with tears that the silver wolf could not bear to see on her friend’s face. It only made her feel all the more ashamed that she was so dispassionate while her fellow tribe members grieved. Was she really heartless enough not to feel a single pang at the death of one who had come to become her family?

“He had this— this smile,” Song continued, pushing on doggedly, “and it would j-just light up his– his face, you know.”

Unable to take it any longer, Rain moved closer to her friend tentatively. Never the best with empathy, she was not sure if Song would accept her comfort or push her away. Rain knew she herself fell into the latter group, loath to show what she considered weakness. Sometimes wolves would jokingly tell her that her pride would be her eventual downfall, and she would laugh and make some witty retort even while she dismissed their words. Everyone was different however, and no one more so than Rain. Where she was the coolly calculating mind, the kind that was so difficult to find among these serene tribes, Song was the passionate one in their duo. The white wolf leaned into her presence with a lack of hesitation that warmed her from head to toe. They stood like that until Song’s slender figure stopped shuddering with sobs.

Rain opened her mouth to say something, but shut it after a moment’s thought as she realized, to her frustration, that she did not know what to say for once.

Song did not notice. She pulled away with a grateful smile that survived only long enough to twitch her lips upward a little, dying before it reached her tired eyes. “Thank you,” she said, and the rest of the words were passed silently between them with a single glance. This kind of understanding was something that Rain loved about having a friend with whom you shared a bond so strong it surpassed the words she found herself falling back on so often.

A howl reached their ears. Rain took a moment to identify what the fluctuations that made each unique meant, briefly flashing back to the first time someone had tried to teach her about howls. A smile touched her lips. She had been so willful, stubbornly informing the unfortunate soul that they all sounded the same and refusing to think otherwise until a month later, when karma caught up and made a fool out of her, for she did not understand the long-distance messages the howls carried.

Bear, once again the composed leader that everyone liked to look up to in times like these, strode to the center of camp. The wolves of the tribe, previously scattered around the clearing, immediately came. Deaths in the tribes were rare — even the elders were healthy and spry — but they, even some of the pups, knew what was coming next: a speech about Jay. Rain had sat through these a few times in the past. They consisted of a long-winding monologue about the deceased’s life, his accomplishments, and his good attributes, finishing on a note about the legacy he would leave behind. A touching thing to do, but Rain thought it showed just how idyllic life in the tribes was, that the wolves would have time to mourn the dead with ceremonies and prayers to the gods. The rituals were supposed to do various things, which Rain thought was more eccentric than anything else, but she didn’t dare voice her skepticism. Let these wolves believe what they wanted to believe. It was a quaint part of their culture, and she had to admit it piqued her interest.

“Blue Jay was a brave wolf indeed,” began the chief, after surveying the assembled wolves rather imperiously. “I was there, watching as he grew up, and I do believe that even though he has passed on to the realm of the gods, he will live on in our hearts.

“He was a curious pup. Incredibly bright, if not one of the loudest I have ever known,” said Bear, chuckling. A titter of laughter passed through those old enough to remember. The young ones sat up straighter, eager to hear what Jay had done to make his name. “The day he got his I’ll remember forever.”

He opened his mouth, but Rain never got to hear the tale of how Jay got his name, for at that moment, a terrible, bloodcurdling cry erupted from one of the dens. It took a moment for the wolves, lost in the story, to react.

Morning Star stumbled out, her eyes rolled far back into her head. The shaman, a young, pretty pale wolf, let loose another shrill scream into the deathly still silence. The hackle-raising sound did not suit her voice at all, and Rain flinched at the abuse on her ears. A great shudder raced through Morning’s body, and the medicine wolf collapsed.

Immediately, the spell was broken and they were all at her side, peering down at her with fear and worry. Her eyes, glazed over with something that made Rain shiver, slid, unseeing, over their faces.

“Corruption,” she hissed in a voice that was not her own. Rain recoiled sharply, chilled through to the marrow of her bones. This was not Morning. This was not gentle Morning who the pups all loved, who would find her way into the stoniest of hearts with a single smile. “Corruption rules your hearts. The gods have voiced their displeasure. You shall be punished. You shall all be punished!” The shaman’s jaw worked, but the only things that scraped out of her mouth were incomprehensible sounds that grated painfully against Rain’s eardrums.

Morning went limp, the energy draining out of her all at once. She tried to form another word, and this time it came out, a guttural, chthonic utterance that explained nothing and everything at the same time. The parting message of the gods, which Rain felt she believed in now, a final blow, a cryptic riddle for the tribe to puzzle over for the days to come, all wrapped up in something frustratingly vague, yet a better explanation than anything else.

“Umbra.”

[mango sherbet]

stunning descriptions and I'm really curious to know more. I'll definitely be stalking.