I've been meaning to do this one for the longest time. Good ol edits to the third chapter of that collaboration I did with Timidtabby some months back. I thought the writing style I'd used for the original Mates for Life worked well for that one but not so much this one. Either way, I like this version a whole lot more as it adds a lot more flesh to it, it's more comprehensible and it ends in a cliffhanger! OH MY GOSH!

Anyway, enjoy it everyone! ^^

Chapters:
1)http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3129108
2)http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3129144/
3)http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3912603/

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

My name is Kiran. Everything I had ever known, everything I've ever accepted as real, isn't. I know and am nothing. Sylvia, Acton, the Triplets, Nasha and Warrigal have made me come to understand. As I write this down with my claws, trying hard not to rip the soft delicate paper, I say to you now. I have seen the error of my ways. Serving mankind and the pack are now what I was made to do, always have been always will be.

Yes, werewolves are real. They are as real as fairies, demons, trolls and wizards. If you know where to find them and if your heart is wild, then you will find them, too. Ever since I had been human, I’d searched my whole life trying to look for them. Escapism had always been a popular subject with me. My childhood was relatively unhappy, despite how much my parents had done for me. Possessions could never satisfy how alone I really was in the world. Eventually, though, I found my place amongst humans and could lead a decent, happier life with friends who cared for me. In time, I forgot what I was searching for in werewolves that made me want more out of myself. Amazing what a camping trip out in the woods can make you realize what you’d lost.

Of course, as a human, that wasn’t what went through my mind at the time. I had woken up from an amazing dream, and when I found that Warrigal(Once Alan), was nowhere to be found. I searched for him from the edge of camp to the local latrines, and he couldn’t be found anywhere. I became worried as I started searching deeper into the woods. But the further I went out, the more dangerous and sinister the woods became around me. I didn’t have the eyes to spot predators or the nose to pick up scents or the ears to pick up any sudden movements as I do now. As this frail, weak human, I decided to turn back and perform things the legal way: contacting the local authorities.

No one, however, could help me find him. The rangers searched for him for days, the police for weeks, and the locals even longer. I cancelled my flights home just to work on finding him. To some, they would’ve given up by the second week. Not me, though. It was my fault, I told myself. I was the one who called his story nothing but absolute poppycock. That must’ve have been what drove him out into the woods all alone. Finally they found something out in the woods. Shreds of clothing and blood and an abandoned collection of items that Alan had been carrying on him. Then my heart had turned to stone, for I knew then that Alan had been killed out in the wilderness by a pack of wolves.

I was given a reservation into a hotel the following night and the police paid for my plane tickets home. I guess they wanted me out of here just as much as I did. The local news channels were playing the story about how Alan went missing when he decided to get lost in the woods from sleepwalking. I threw the remote at the tv, changing the channel to a horror film called “The Company of Wolves”. Poetic and metaphorical, the story themed around puberty and menstruation twisting werewolves with little red riding hood didn’t help me any less. I didn’t bother to change the channel at that point, I was too sick to my stomach from everything that happened.

Why did he go out there all alone? Well, I can only answer as a wolf now, but I have a theory. When people are born, they’re raised with a distinct sense of identity. They have good, caring family and friends that help them understand how they perceive themselves. As such, they don’t question who or what they are. Sometimes, though, the person grows up feeling something is wrong with the world. They’re seen in an askewed mirror that twists their appearance to everyone and themselves. Maybe they’re really not like everyone else; in fact, they are like something more, something better, like a tree, an alien, an abstract cartoon characters, or in some cases, animals. Somewhere in a spiritual experience before they were born, they were given the wrong body for a vessel. Perceived as awkward and oftentimes weird, they spend their entire lives looking for a means to identify themselves more closely with what their “true self”, whether by subtle means or radical, extreme measures.

I lied in the soft cushions of my bed for hours and hours. My pizza had arrived but I never answered the door. The bed almost seemed to swallow me up, nagging me to rest. For the past few weeks, I fought sleep for days at a time, because whenever I dreamt, I beheld a recurring dream. Dreams of me fleeing in the woods and something chasing me not so far behind. Wolves! Wolves everywhere. All of them ready to pounce on me and tear me apart. And the one who was always the first to attack was Alan. My chest was so sore, the imagery of him cutting my chest open haunted me.

Still however, the words of the local phstican rang in my head to take the pills he gave me. As I reached for the pills, however, something happened. Maybe it was the exhaustion finally catching up to me or the humming of the air conditioner or the droning voice of Ben Stein, but for the first time in many days, I finally slept.

Strangely, however, my dream seemed to make some strange sense. I beheld what I’m assuming was a vision, a memory of my pack leader, Sylvia. She was holding up a book with the texture and face of what looked like a demon from the deepest pits of Hell. I believe she called it the Lemegaton at one point. As she’d journeyed into the Appalachians, going into a deep, unexplored cavern, she hurled the book into a churning river of mud, where the book would disappear for all eternity.

The flash of a terrible eye snapped me awake. The echo of its snarl rang in my mind, my whole body shaking. It was all nothing, I told myself. Everything in the hotel room was as it had remained when I got here. The same television, the same white walls. The same blinds clapping against the air conditioner. The artificial air was crisp against my skin. I was back at the motel in burlington, and the fatigue was setting back in again. Heaving a pained sigh, I fell back asleep only realize that the crisp air was coming outside. Rubbing my forehead, I cursed quietly when I looked at the clock. Three in the morning! Something told me to close the window, but I curled up into my sheets, closing my eyes once more.

"Having trouble sleeping, Wrath?"

My eyes opened up, slowly, my heart sinking to my stomach. Was I dreaming again. I told myself, nervously turned my head back up to my bed. Please don't let it be who I think it is. Please say it's a dream. I look up to see a pair of eyes staring at me up close, practically touching my own.

"Oh, my god! GAAAAAH!" I shuffled towards the headrest of my bed at the sight of Alan, alive and naked. He smiled amusedly. What’s so funny?

"Sorry there, friend. Didn't mean to scare."

I caught my breath, letting reality sink in. "Alan? You're alive?" At that point, the revelation withered away any fatigue I had left."You bastard! I thought you were dead! Why'd you have to give me a scare like that this morning?"

He winced at the sharpness of my voice, but he still had that stupid smile on his face. "I guess I wasn't thinking. But I'm ok, Wrath. You see that now right?"

I shook my head in disbelief. "What happened to you back there, man? Where are you clothes?"

"My clothes?" He said, inspecting himself. "Why would I need them?"

"I don't think he would understand, Warrigal," another voice sounded. A feminine figure stepped out of the shadows and stands next to Alan, brushing up against his shoulders and holding hands. "At least not yet," she said with a grin.

I gaped at the stranger standing next to my friend. She was just as naked as Alan, her naked chest provoking strange. As a wolf, this is rather modest, but to humans, for some reason, it’s rather offensively lecherous. In my state of agitation, however, I looked past her nudity and pointed a shaking finger at her. "Who the hell are you?"

"My name is Nasha," she answered curtly. "Warrigal mentioned me to you. I think."

"Warrigal, Warri--? Why do you keep calling him that? Is that some internet ali..oh..." Suddenly it occurred to me. "Are you that girl he was talking about?"

"That's right," Alan said. "And that's my name now, at least in the pack."

"Pack?" Too many things were going on at once for me to take in everything. Why couldn’t they have waited in the morning for this? "You went out into the woods, taking off all your clothes, just to indulge yourself in that fantasy of yours? Get off my bed and let me go to sleep."

"This isn't fantasy, Wrath. This is real. We all are." A familiar voice rang from a corner in the room where I couldn't see her. I assumed it was a woman because of her voice. When the moonlight put dimension to her form, I saw something I never thought I'd ever see outside my sketches. It was like a timberwolf with brownish markings on her nose, mane and ears. Her body was fairly humanoid, sleeky and tail, her chest and bits more modestly covered in an even pattern of paler underfur. Her eyes gleamed a fair yellow. As I sat there looking at this being, I realized that I’d seen her before in my dreams, both commanding the pack and throwing away that demonic book. "I am Sylvia, the leader of this pack."

I gaped at her tail. "You're...you're a..."

"Werewolf? Isn't that what you call us?" Sylvia smirked bemusedly. "Yes, that's the name we use." From behind her, a large burly werewolf with a coat of white lumbered forward, silently staring down at me with icy blue eyes. "Don't be afraid. Acton is actually quite benevolent when he wants to be. It's safe, everyone. Show yourselves to the newcomer."

Three appeared from behind a curtain, walking in perfect unison and poking their heads just above the bedrest, yipping like newborn pups. Another two emerged from the nearby restroom, one of them crawling over my bed and coming beside Sylvia. And then another four emerged from behind the window. In a moment, I was surrounded by a pack of werewolves, all of them looking at me observantly. They're so many of them, and all in different shapes and sizes. I turned back to the only humans left beside me…or were they. I stuttered quietly. "But...then you're..."

Nasha and Alan grinned at each other, giggling, and then turned back to me, their bodies changing shape as fur sprouted over their body, their limbs becoming more limber and animal like, and their faces pushing out our lupine muzzles, closely resembling the other barking, snarling, and drooling animals around me. Where was the manager? I was overwhelmed by the predators around me, as if I were a lone caribou, mortally wounded and ready to accept death. "I...can't believe it..."

"Don't fret, Wrath," Alan spoke. I was surprised at how well he could talk with that mouth. His voice was deeper and more guttural, though. "Like Sylvia said, we won't hurt you. I asked them to come...so you could 'see'."

"See? See that this is actually real?" I was having a hard time taking everything in. "And what else? What're you trying to prove by showing this to me? How dare you show this to me now!”

Sylvia pressed her footpaw on my leg, the claws firmly digging into my skin. "Wrath, Alan has brought to our attention that you share his longing."

"’His longing?’" I turned back to Alan, who was panting much like a large dog. "What's she talking about?"

"Remember that night around the campfire, how we talked about our reasons for being out here? You mentioned how you were once fascinated about werewolves; researching them; searching for them, but you never found any proof to believe in them anymore. I know you said you've moved on since, but I don't believe you truly have."

"What're you saying?"

“I’m saying there’s been a wolf inside you this whole time, waiting for the right time to finally show itself. You think you were over such a silly childish fantasy, but deep down you always could sense it prowling inside, your views of what the world is like to you now only keeping it caged up. But cages can been bent. Have you never felt the urge to escape into the wild, feel the need to run; to hunt; to howl? Have you never desired any of those needs?”

My heart was pounding like a war drum. What was this feeling? "When did you ever start talking like that? You were never so passionate before..."

Nasha leaned closer against Alan—or now Warrigal—chuckling. “Maybe because we weren’t as ‘confident’. If Warrigal hadn’t run into us; if I had never run into the pack, we would probably continue to doubt our wolven nature. It would be even harder to explain how we really felt to others like you. But being around our brothers and sisters, and once accepted into the pack, we finally let go of our worry and doubt and could embrace what we are.”

"Just let yourself go? How can you ask me to do that?"

“You sure this human is ready?” One of the triplets barked, growing anxious.

“I smell more fear than wolf on him,” another said, grunting in frustration.

“He’s scared,” the third said, laughing.

My eyes looked down on the floor. "I'm not scared..."

“It’s alright to be scared,” Nasha said. “I was.”

“I was too,” Warrigal added, yellow eyes glaring deep into mine.

“But,” Nasha continued. “In the end, if there truly is a wolf inside of you then you shouldn’t have to feel afraid or ashamed around us. Search within, sincerely now, and honestly tell us what you find.”

Those eyes--those piercing, yellow eyes!—They were so inviting, so enticing. They wanted me to come with them, and it gnawed at me, little by little. Yet the human part of me, backed in a corner and wasting away, was continuing to fight for his right to exist. "But my friends, my family. There's still so much I can do." I looked at the pack pleadingly. "Please, understand. I do want it, but I’m not the same person I used to be. I only wanted to be a werewolf to escape dealing with the world’s problems. Things are different now. If I become a werewolf now, what would I have left to look forward to? Scratching for fleas? Waiting until we humans drive this planet into the ground?”

The pack looked at me, each other, and they began to make some kind of a huffing sound. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have said that they were laughing at me! Laughing at me, of all the nerve! My face flushed and my body shook with anger. How dare they make fun of me!

Sylvia silences them with a snarl, and then beamed broadly, a motherly gleam in her eye. "Can’t you see, Wrath? We are the defenders of mankind and the Earth. Yes, you can still help the humans as you are now, but as one of us, you would help everything as a whole so much more. Come with us, Wrath. The world can become anything you want it to be, however you want it to be, if you’re strong enough.

Wolves have always been servants looking out for mankind. So in a sense, Wrath, there is a wolf in you. It wants to come out and howl and hunt with us. It wants to run on all fours and feel the wind in its pelt. And I'm sure you could see it if you wanted to. I can help, even the pack can. But you must believe. You have to believe you are what we say you are." Without another word, Sylvia closed her paws together, inscribing something on her chest with a sharpened claw. The pack started murmuring together, and I could only pick out so few details of what they say. And even then, the details painted a very vivid pic in one unified voice.

The first thing I understood was from one of the Triplets. "He has such a white pelt. White forelegs and hind legs. White belly." And then another spoke up. I couldn't figure out who. All of them sounded the same


“Come, Brothers. Come, Sisters.
Join our song, that our voices be one.
Let us unite in harmony and peace.
And hunt and run in the moon’s light.
In doing so we find each other,
And learn to love one another.”

A soul comes to us, calls to us
Is he a wolf or man?
Peer with you hearts, look into his soul
And tell me, if you can find him.
What do you see? Sisters? Brothers?
What is he like? Is he wolf or man?

A wolf! A wolf! What man has these?
A swift thick tail wags behind him
With rainwater, his eyes swim
His pelt is like the oncoming storm
Dark as the the clouds, yet white as snow
His sharp fangs tear flesh and bone
As his sharp ears hear the hunting horn
Paws to take where the evergreens grow
And a dark, cold nose to find his way home.”

Though they appeared to be singing as wolves would do, I could understand every word they said. It was more elegant and more beautiful than any choir I had heard in my life. The pack sang in such a divine, trance like, harmonized melody, every word painting a vivid picture. What were they doing to me? It left a notch in my gut, but my heart was racing with excitement. I could almost see the white fur, feel my sturdy wolf paws. I could almost feel my tail poking out of my rear, my tongue wanting to come out. I felt so hot, that I wanted to pant. Just to stay cool, only once. I started writhing uncomfortably in my wretched human clothes as the room melted away, the spell slowly doing its job. Sylvia's voice echoed in the dissolving background, her form melding into the grass and bark.


What is he doing? What do we see?
A wolf moves by the grass and tree
Standing proudly on all fours
Sniffing the ground for signs of the pack
Where did they go? Where is the track?
Wagging his tail from behind his back.

A soft whimper escaped from my throat, my body aching to roll around on my hands and knees and sniff the soft dirt. It felt so right, so natural/ My mind snapped to me my thoughts were wrong. What was I doing? How did it feel good to wag my tail? Do I even have a tail? The calming chant of the wolves urged me further to embrace these new impulses, and I fell back into an animal stupor. Sniffing, nipping, barking, wagging my tail. I felt so alive and simple. Such a simple creature. Happy. I was a wolf.

"What does he want? What does he seek?
A wolf like him is content and meek
Yet the pack is lost, his heart is heavy
He wishes to find us, his body is weak.
Call out to us, brother! Run and howl!
Sing with us, play with us
Where are you now?"


Grass sprouted and trees arose. So many good smells, familiar smells. The darkening sky grew alight with a bright moon out, the air filled my nose with oak, pine, and deer. Prey. My ears heard the pack’s voices both far away and very near. As I crawled on all fours on my paws, I sniffed the earth for the tracks of other wolves, my kin. Eventually I spot a wolf track embedded deep in the mud. Fitting my paw perfectly on top of it, I throw back my head and let loose a howl.

“I am here! I am here!
Hear my cry, for I come to you.
I come, my Brothers and Sisters!”

Soon enough, the pack howled again in answer, and I could smell the den from where I was now. To get there, I needed to run further in the woods. I spring into a sprint towards the thickening woods, ready to welcome their branches. Suddenly, something invisible restrained me. "No, no, no. We can't let you go just yet, newcomer."

I whimpered and barked, biting at air. “Let me go! I want it! I want it!”

"There will be plenty of time for that, my brother."

The forest slowly swirled away, and the feeling left me cold and empty. The spell was broken, and I was back in the motel again with the pack looking around me. An illusion and nothing more. Something had changed, though. I had been reminded of something I’d never had in all the years of loneliness I suffered as a child. Everything was complicated now, but it would all work out. Shuddering with need, I groveled before Sylvia with broken eyes. She had a stern, concerned face across her muzzle, as if I’d just made a fool of myself.

"Please...don’t leave me like this now."

Sylvia stepped up closer to me, leaning on the bed, finally seeing just how tall she was as a wolf. "I would never do that to you. You are one of us, after all. I'll give you what you want now."
As I felt a sharp pain bite into my neck, I gazed longingly at the moon. My teeth sharpened as my snout pushed out from my face, fur sprouting across the bridge. My tail poked out of my briefs, bristles of thick fur sticking out. Suddenly disgusted by the feel of clothes, I stripped them off to feel the soft air on my furred body. I fell on my back, embracing the changes as I clawed against the bed matting, my sharpening nails slashing deep into the sheets. And with that, the pack sang. Though it would only sound like a wolf's howl to a human ear, to mine they were a transcendental mass, a chorus of angelic voices as elegant and beautiful as the singing of the Valar.

Reborn! Reborn!
We have again found a child,
Whose heart was free and wild
Now she joins us once more
To sing and hunt with us evermore.
Welcome, newcomer! You are Reborn!

As the changes finished, I rolled around on all fours, looking exactly as the pack imagined me, and I began sniffing them all, acknowledging them as kindred. I pad up to the two that woke me from that living death and sniffed them, understanding Warrigal's distinct scents that defined him from the others. Warrigal sniffed back, Nasha joining, taking in my lupine musk and odor, smiling joyously at my renewed behavior. "How do you feel, my friend?" he asked.

"I feel different, and yet I feel familiar." I said, my tail wagging slowly. "It's like I'm not myself anymore, and yet I've never changed."

"I understand," Alan said softly. "It was easier for me when I changed because I already wanted it; the wolf in me had always been clawing at the surface. Yours was caged for a long time, but it was always there...always a part of you."

"It shouldn't take long though," Nasha added with a wink, "to become accustomed. Not long at all."

"But you are who you are now, but you are not who you were before." Sylvia sayed, stroking my back. "Therefore, like the rest of us, you need a new name. A wolf's name, and so I will call you Kiran." In the back of my mind, the name Wrath seems to fade away. That name really has no more meaning to me now. Sylvia is right. The only name that seems to fit me iss what she gave me.

"What does it mean?” I ask.

' "It means 'A Ray of Light.' You are bent on saving mankind, so the name is fitting for you. Let's be off now. Your duties start tonight, Kiran."

The pack quickly ran out of the door and some were tempted to jump out the window, but Acton restrained them. The last ones out were Alan, Nasha, and I. "I still can't believe it." I say to myself. "I'm a wolf now."

Alan patted my shoulder, Nasha passing by me, laughing. "Life is going to be very interesting for now on."

"Welcome to the pack," Nasha says, the two of them dropping to all fours to catch up with our fellow wolves.

I was tempted to leave myself, but something held me back. I couldn’t help but feel I ought to have explained it on a good amount of paper of what’s happened. I’m sorry, mother and father. I’m sorry, my siblings. I’m sorry my friends. Everything’s gotten more complicated now, but I promise you, everything will work out.

And is was where the journey ends for me, those of you who find this in my motel room. Don't be alarmed if you find the place a mess. The wolves are quite a pack of animals, and I'm sad to say I won't be paying for any more damage. I won't need to. I'm in a better place now, you the house keeper making my bed. Or you the one who I ordered for room service and you never came. Or even the one in charge of the establishment, trying to figure out where I left the card key. This life is not good enough for me anymore.

Now that I run in the trees with open eyes, though, I will make sure the housekeepers continues to make beds. I will make sure the room service man, poorly tipped and under-appreciated, keeps on serving food an hour late. And I will make sure the manager gets his card keys back. The demons of hell are coming, make no mistake, and whether you like it or not, we will be your last line of defense.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The hooded figure looked at the last page, crushing it in between his pale hands. How disappointing that Sylvia did not reveal the whereabouts to where they had thrown the Lemegaton. No matter. He would soon find it, and make use of it like that old hag could never have dreamed. The world as those rebellious children knew it would fall into shadow soon enough.

Just as he left, the apartment room burst into flame, spiders following him as he melted into shadow, disappearing into the night and the safety of the dark.