The Black Wolf

chapter 1

 In a small town in Ohio called Titantsburg lives a tribe of Native Americans who were a part of the Iroquois tribe. We are a part  of the alliance between six tribes, the Shawnee, the Miami, the Kickapoo, the Erie, the Minge, and the Ottawa. All of the tribes have some version of the same story, a story about shapeshifters that made some kind of deal with a shaman / medicine man to have the ability to turn into wolves or other creatures to benefit their families. The old story went as follows: one day a long time ago a family of practitioners made a deal with an entity that granted them the ability to hunt like wolves so that they could feed their family. The entity told them that there was a catch to this deal. The catch to the deal was that every week they would have to change back into human form for a minimum of one day; if not they would be stuck in the body of a wolf for the rest of their lives slowly losing their humanity. The shapeshifter was what most of the common non practitioners what color werewolf because of their ability to change forms into animals of their choosing. My family is a whole family of practitioners in which the stories / Legends were passed down. It was said that many many generations ago that my great, great, great, great grandfather was the shapeshifter who first made the deal with the poor common non practitioner families so that their families wouldn't die.

         The man who made the deal with the shaman / medicine man at the time did not realize that this would be a gene that they would pass down to their kids. Something that the shaman didn't tell the men is that this was extremely rare for the daughters of these men and they would have it the hardest. The daughters would not only reach maturity faster and their window to have kids would be smaller than the normal person. It made it easier for all of us even though not medicine men or shamans practice some form of magic. As the years went on we learned more and more magic, to the point that everyone in the tribe could use healing magic and some slight divination magic to talk to her ancestors. My tribe is one of the few tribes that have started to get more up to date with the world around us. The other tribes are still very traditional which means they don't really use phones or technology like computers etc. Oh by the way the year is 2027, technology has come a long way since our forefathers back in the 1760s. While the time passed our tribe tried to keep the shapeshifting ability under wraps so no commoners would find out and try to hunt us down. The commoners as we call them were people who did not practice magic or then aren't in the tribe. Once they find out about us and they would either want to kill us or they'd want us to be their “pets.” Where we are mostly treated badly and abused. Most of us that are kept this way don't live very long, like maybe a year or two at the most. Shapeshifters are highly sought after because of our long life span and our ability to heal ourselves when we have access to the right supplies.

     But the commoners don't understand though that it is a gene that is passed down through the generations and sometimes if they find female wolves they will try and sell them into fighting rings to make money. Kind of like dog fighting rings but way worse. The tribes tried to keep the secret of who can change so that they are somewhat safer from the bad commoners, the good ones don't care that we can shift. The good ones can actually become friends and can help protect us from the bad ones. It is rare to find commoners who want to protect us and not just use us. That's why they are kept as close friends and sometimes family. They've become honorary tribe members, they also have the ability to become, for lack of a better term, people who order medical kids and herbs. These people are also taught how and where to collect herbs. Now I should probably introduce myself, I am Alexandria Rose Montgomery. My family calls me Blood Rose but my friends call me Rose. 

        My mother's name is Nikici and my father's name is Shawātis( which means John in our native language). Unfortunately my father passed away when I was like six or seven years old. He was supposed to take over for my grandfather Wīshe ( which means Micheal in Iroquois) on the council but passed away about 6 months before he could. Some of my family are still given Iroquois names but the rest of us either have normal names or names that have to do with their personalities. They gave me the name of Blood Rose because they seem to flourish even though I have been through a lot, The Blood part I'm not sure why or where it came from. I got my native name at the age of 13, I'm currently at the age of 17. I'm a senior in high school at titansburg high school. Titansburg is a small town in Tuscarawas county near Dover, Ohio. My hometown is so tiny that if you haven't passed through it then you would never know it existed. We only have one red light in the entire town and most of the big name stores are roughly half an hour away from my home.