Fenrir
Legacy Name: Fenrir

Artwork

[x] by Nauro_Chan
[x] by Nauro-Chan
[x] by Nauro_Chan
[x] by ryu-kitsune
Full Overlay by Nauro_Chan

The wind was relentless. The cold winter air pushed forcefully against the forest's many barriers, howling as it snagged itself on branches and squeezed between the boulders at the mountain's edge.

Two young adolescent wolves, orphaned just weeks prior by the bitter, merciless anger of winter, huddled close to one another underneath a shallow overhang. The smaller of the two, a ruddy-brown male, shivered uncontrollably into the dense black fur of his larger brother. With bright cyan eyes he looked upwards, trying to catch a glimpse of what his brother might be feeling through that stoic appearance.

"Darol..." the younger wolf chattered, leaning into his kin, "Darol, what do we do now?"

The emotive forest green eyes of the great black wolf softened at his brother's voice, breaking their vigil of the terrain before them to look down at him. He knew he had to be strong. After his parents passed, frozen in their inadequate den, Darol knew he was all that was left for his brother to depend on. The only thing he had left to love.

"We survive, Kendal." The eldest replied, giving the brown wolf a reassuring lick behind his ear. "That's all we have to do."

"It was the cold that killed them, wasn't it?"

Darol nodded, his ears flattening slightly at the bluntness of his brother's question. He looked down at his large paws, at the white bands of fur around his ankles and hind legs. He bore a striking resemblance to his father, although his father had been brown with black markings. Exactly like Kendal. The dark canine swallowed, choking back his emotion. It wouldn't do to show weakness, not now.

Kendal rested his head on his older brother's shoulder, fatigued by the cold. Without a sound he closed his eyes and slipped into sleep. Darol returned his gaze to the world outside, cursing every sharp, bare branch, every breeze, every snowflake. The pain and confusion in his eyes was evident, but it was the only place these feelings could be found. He shifted his weight slightly to keep his circulation going, taking care not to move so much he would wake his brother.Before long, the snowfall had slowed and the wind had ceased. The great black wolf knew he and his kin would need to take this opportunity to move and find shelter away from the mountain.

"Kendal..." he said gently, nudging his shoulder against the cinnamon-coloured head of his brother. "It's time. We have to move."

"Alright..." Kendal replied sleepily, blinking his startling cyan eyes against the blinding white of the snow before them. "Alright, brother..."

Three weeks passed without incident. The snow began to melt, and the pair made good progress away from the mountain and away from the cold and their past. A new start was necessary, some new land needed to be found, and perhaps a pack established. Darol had all of these thoughts rushing through his mind at any given moment, and it only encouraged him to press on through the hunger and the cold and the fatigue.

Soon...soon everything will be alright. We are destined for greatness.

Destiny, however, had other plans.

It was a warm and pleasant spring morning, and the two wolves were enjoying a lazy day. They had found some relatively unoccupied land three days before, and were deciding how to go about claiming it as territory for the pack they knew they were destined to begin. Kendal had settled in almost instantaneously, but Darol was less-than-happy with the situation. The territory gave him a very uneasy feeling...he could smell no trace of wolf, new or old. In these lands, such a thing was unheard of. Darol tried to convince his brother to keep moving...that there was something wrong with the place. It stank of fear.
Kendal was having none of this useless paranoia...he had spent far too long walking through thorns, snow, ice and mud. The tawny wolf knew his brother cared too much for him to disobey, and Kendal cared too much for his brother to allow him to walk himself to death. Darol was strong...much stronger than he was, and he would walk to the ends of the earth trying to find a safe place for them.

"Honestly, it's fine...we've got all the food, water and land we could possibly need here. You're worrying over nothing."

"I don't like the way it feels, Kendal...no wolf has been here in many, many moons."

Just as the younger of the two was about to retort, the great black beast snapped his neck westward, ears perked and eyes wide. Screams. Many, many screams...and foreign voices. The yelps of pups, the whines of females, the growls of males...and a sound he couldn't quite recognise.

Something was very, very wrong, and it was heading directly for them.

Horrified, and just as Darol could smell the smoke of the burning forest ahead of them, he turned to his brother. There was no way Kendal could keep up if they had to flee, not as tired as he was. Whatever was happening, Darol would have to find some way of keeping Kendal away from it, and safe. Perhaps they could hide.

Panicking, ignoring his younger sibling's confused whelps, Darol started shoving the brown wolf towards a thicket.

"There are more over here!"
"Grab them then, you idiot!"

"I'll need a hand, one of them's huge!"

Darol looked around, stunned at what he was seeing. Strange animals on two legs...howling unfamiliar sounds and grunting obscenely. He'd heard of these two-legged monsters...these were humans. Wolf-hunters.
Kendal...

The black wolf looked at his brother, who cowered behind him, petrified with fear. The largest of the humans approached them, and Darol bared his teeth threateningly, standing tall in front of his brother. The human hesitated and moved forward, his arm outstretched. Without a second thought, the great black wolf clamped his strong jaws around the beast's arm, digging his long white fangs into its putrid pink flesh. Yowling in pain, the human struck the wolf on the head, dazing him enough to loosen his bite. The two-legged monster staggered backwards, cradling his injured arm as his face twisted hideously in pain and anger.

Seeing the attack, two more humans approached, but stopped as Darol snarled viciously and snapped his bloody jaws, daring any number of them to approach. Kendal trembled in terror against his brother's hind legs, praying each second that they would just go...just leave them alone...just let them live as their parents had always said they would.

"Come on then!!" Darol shouted, adrenaline pumping like battery acid through his lean black body. To the humans, this was just another snarl, and one of them retreated to their strange, wheeled cart only to return with what looked like a stick in his hand. This human didn't hesitate, and approached the wolves with alarming speed and confidence. Darol lunged for his throat just as the human had lifted the stick above his head.

Hours later, the great wolf awoke, immediately feeling a searing pain between his eyes, and white-hot agony coursing along the left side of his body. His fur smelled unbearably of cooked flesh and blood, and was soaked through on his left side. Blood trickled into his eyes from the wound on his head, and he let out an anguished howl, unable to move due to the mutilation of his left side. The humans must have burnt this barbaric pattern into him whilst he was unconscious...every breath was agony, every time he exhaled he whined.
Suddenly, he was able to summon enough conscious thought beyond his pain to survey his surroundings. He was in some sort of enclosure...and there were wolves. Many, many wolves. They stood in a great circle around him, each one of them fixing their gaze on him intently. They had each been branded, the same way he had...except for one.

"Kendal..." he growled in anguish, closing his eyes as his brother rushed forward with a whine and began to lick his wounds.

"You injured one of them..."
"Where have you come from?"

"You must have been an alpha, what pack are you from? Do you know of Feralia?"

"We cannot fight, you must help us..."

Myriad voices and questions flooded the black wolf's ears, until finally his brother's warning growl silenced them all. Merciful, wonderful Kendal...

"Where am I?" He croaked, wincing as he moved himself slowly to a sitting position. The pain...oh God the pain from the burn...it was unlike any pain he could have imagined...

"The humans captured us, brother...they hit you and burnt you but did nothing to me, as if they wanted me to suffer at the sight of their treatment of you." Kendal's cyan eyes were dull with anguish and emotional agony...the great black wolf could see he had been slowly dying inside. "The other wolves have told me of this place...they starve us to the point of death, until we are so hungry and angry that we almost consider eating our own kind...and right when we reach that point, they release us. None have ever survived. Those who have seen it say that they release us into a rival human pack...like they're using us as tools...weapons of destruction for their own twisted means."

Kendal's words swam in the elder wolf's head. He looked around him, through the veil of blood from his head, and asked the question that would change his life.

"Why do they all look to me, Kendal?"

"You injured one! Their leader!"
"You must show us how, you must show us the way!"

"They fear you, they fought each other on who would burn you, none dared to!"

"You were sent here! Sent to kill their leader! I know it!"

The large onyx wolf was about to speak, to silence them, when suddenly a young female spoke out, silencing the rest.

"You are our Fenrir..."

The large gathering of wolves turned to the one they had crowned their leader, their eyes pleading with him to make sense of the predicament they were in. To save them from their cruel and unjust fate.
Filled with a sense of purpose and a crippling rage, the wolf now known as Fenrir stood tall, ignoring the blinding pain that coursed through his body. He had sworn to protect his brother, and his brother was now part of this pack. This pack would be protected, and he would not let the humans practice their sick, twisted ways on these innocent souls. Kendal stood beside him and looked up at his brother with an overwhelming sense of pride. He knew Fenrir would get them through this.

The great black wolf focused his fierce green eyes on an elder wolf that approached him, nodding respectfully at the greying creature and cursing the humans for condemning one so old. The elderly wolf bowed his head as low as he could manage.

"I am with you, my leader...my Captain."

The rest of the gathering copied this gesture and these words, placing their faith and their lives in Fenrir's grasp.

A week passed in this enclosure, and none of the wolves had eaten. Some of the elders had died from their wounds, fatigue, or of hunger...and Fenrir made sure that each of them was given the respect they deserved before the humans took the bodies. This was what angered the large black wolf the most...this ridiculous notion that the wolves might eat their dead. Fen didn't care how hungry he got, he would never sink his teeth into wolf flesh. Never.
He had gathered all the captives together and told them of his plan...he knew they would be released in another week. They would all have to fight their urges, fight against the desire to leap into the first human they see. Fenrir promised that their discipline would be greatly rewarded.

"We are to turn our hunger and our anger on our human captors, friends. Without them, we are free, we shall eat, and the rival pack of humans should be grateful enough for our services that they allow us to leave."

"With you always, our Captain..."

It was flawless, and each of the hunger, bitter wolves agreed to staunch their hunger for as long as it took them to turn and attack their captors. Kendal spent every waking moment at Fenrir's side, and as always the pair were inseparable.

"Kendal...you musn't follow the pack into this battle," the great wolf said, frowning at his younger brother's instant protestations.

"That isn't fair! I want to fight! I hate these humans for what they've done to you!"

"I know, Kendal, but I can't lose you. You are my only flesh and blood and I love you more dearly than I could ever value my own life. It is important to me that you are safe, no matter what the circumstances."

Frowning, the young brown wolf stayed silent, conveying to his brother how angry he was at this proposition and yet how fervently he would obey him. Satisfied, Fenrir laid himself down in the mud of the enclosure and closed his eyes, willing the hunger in his belly to subside long enough for him to sleep.

Another five days passed, and with each painful, demoralising moment Fenrir struggled to keep the pack's mentality positive. Their bellies were empty, roaring constantly as they tried to devour fat deposits that weren't there. Kendal hadn't said a word in almost 24 hours, and Fenrir was wondering if his plan could ever be carried out. Another two days and these wolves would be far too hungry to coordinate their movements enough to be selective about which humans they attack...but despite these facts each and every one of them continued to address the great black wolf as "Captain", hanging on his every word with eyes filled with hope, trust and admiration.
He couldn't let them down. He wouldn't. He would lead them until the very end, until the throat of their human captors lay bleeding between his jaws. Some would be lost, perhaps most...but the battle would be won with him as leader. He knew it.

He was a soldier. A Captain. This was his pack; this was his battle.

The humans would pay for their atrocities.

As he lay there seething in his hatred and pain, the small female who had given him his rightful name approached him cautiously. He looked up, his deep green eyes softening and communicating to her that he was willing to speak. She bowed her head, her beautiful white fur sullied and darkened by mud and blood.

"You worry for your brother." She said simply, her voice small. She sat near Fenrir, who looked into the mud that engulfed his legs before raising himself to a sitting position. He glanced at her briefly and nodded, unable to summon any words to confirm her statement properly. She smiled, dipping her head slightly and shifting her paws. They sat like that for a while, in silence, watching the starving pack move around the enclosure as its sense of purpose drained by the second.

"Most of us do not expect to survive, Fenrir."

The onyx wolf turned his head to the female, his eyes full of surprise and anguish. She was still smiling sadly; it was obvious that she had come to peace with her mortality. "It is not important that we survive. It's important that we die knowing our purpose has been fulfilled. It's important that we die knowing you did what you have been brought here to do."

"I do not know that I can."

"It is certain. These wolves, this pack...they will willingly embrace their deaths beyond those gates for you. They will follow you to the end, because they will know their deaths will be avenged by you, their Captain. Their Fenrir."

"You mean for me to kill the human leader. The one I injured."

The small female nodded serenely, never once breaking eye contact with the large male. He found her slightly unnerving; her tranquil conduct was so unfitting of the situation at hand...and yet her presence calmed him. She didn't refer to him as "Captain", and as such she gave him a small respite from his duties, as it were. He smiled, knowing he would do everything in his power to end the life of the cruel human male who had done this. His blood would flow, Fenrir knew that much.

And yet...he couldn't bring himself to place anything above the needs of his younger brother. Foolish though he sometimes could be, Kendal was everything to the onyx wolf. He wouldn't know what to do if something happened to him...he was already worried enough that the tawny brown male spent most of his time asleep, and hadn't said a word to him in a day. Fenrir's brow furrowed and he looked down, unable to avoid glancing at the monstrosity of a brand that branched on to his chest.

"It's a scythe."

The young female spoke again, her voice soft and reassuring. She could see the pain and indecision in his handsome face, and was attempting to divert him from the thoughts she could see he was having. He blinked, and turned to her.

"What?"

"A scythe. The humans believe their harbinger of death wields a scythe, a long sharp weapon. They have branded you with this image."

Fenrir looked at his left side, and could see the image as it was meant to be construed. The handle ended on his hind flank, and the blade was on his chest. He frowned

"Why? The others have such small marks...why mutilate me this way?"

The female smiled, her blue eyes flashing as her clever mind ticked. "I would have thought it was obvious, Fenrir." She said, moving her gaze from the large black wolf to the rest of the pack. "They fear you. You are their harbinger of death. The scythe-wielder."

To be continued...

Profile by Corgi
Overlay by User not found: nauro_chan

Story/original character design by Beowulf