Any Way the Wind Blows

Prologue

Prologue:

~Lixue's prolouge~
Fire. That was all Lixue could see, hear, and smell as she ran through the forest in her pack's territory. It was the middle of the summer and the season had brought little rain to the land. That night a storm had hit and lightning had struck one of the many dry trees, causing fire to spread.
She raced as fast as her legs could carry her toward the large, hollowed out tree that her pack had turned into a den. Fear began to set in as she grew closer to the den site and fire was still blazing brightly.
Please, please, please, was all she could think as she spotted the tree and saw it was bursting with flames. She was a wolf of little fear and when she grew close enough, she launched herself through the flames into the heart of the tree. Listening for any sounds of life, she heard nothing. No screams of pain or whimpers of fear. She would've given anything to hear any sort of sound.
Lixue coughed harshly through the smoke, her lungs had quickly grown raw. She reached the back of the tree to find a huddle of bodies. Many of the lumps of fur were still and she knew they had already passed on. She recognized the motionless bodies of her three brothers and mother. A sharp pain ripped through her chest and she cried out in agony. Lixue immediately pressed her muzzle into the fur of her mother and nudged the female's head, willing her to wake up.  After a few moments, she moved from her mother to her brothers, bidding each one farewell.
With one last lick of her mother's muzzle, Lixue moved on to scanning the other bodies. One large lump of dark rust colored fur with black brindle stripes was still moving. She dug her teeth into the male's scruff and although he was much bigger than her, adrenaline drove her as she dragged his body from the tree. She drug him all the way to the edge of a nearby lake before dropping him. His lungs raked with rough coughs and Lixue winced at the sound. The alpha male's copper eyes opened and bore into her aqua blue ones.
"Lixue-" his voice broke off into a series of coughs.
"Kaplan, I'm here," Lixue's voice held a warm and gentle tone. She pressed her muzzle into the thick fur around his neck in an attempt to comfort him.
"My pup, I am so sorry..." Kaplan's voice trailed off again into coughs.
"There was nothing you could have done, I am the one who should be sorry. I should have stayed here instead of running away like a foolish, hot-headed pup when I didn't get my way," her tone grew angrier and sharper with each word Lixue spoke against herself.
"You can't change what happened, you can only learn and grow from it. Lixue, someone has a plan for you up there," his eyes shifted to the stars as he spoke, "you are meant for something great. Don't worry my child, your mother, brothers, and I will always be with you. Be brave and as you carry on through life, don't let anyone push you around. You are even stronger than you think you are."
"Kaplan, what are you saying? You're acting as though I'm never going to see you again."
"It is my time to go, Lixue. I can't stay, I can't survive this," another series of coughs raked through the large male as if to further prove his point. His eyes had begun to grow dull and his breaths shallower.
"Dad, please, don't go," Lixue's voice was soft and weak, something it never was.
"Goodbye Lixue, I will greet you again someday."
Kaplan's breaths were next to nonexistent and grew fainter with each rise and fall of his chest. Soon enough they ceased altogether and Lixue released another cry of agony as the wolf she idolled, her father, left her alone next to the moonlit lake. She pressed her silver body against his and waited for a long while until all of the warmth left him.
She stood to her paws and took Kaplan's scruff again in her jaws. With the last of her energy, she drug his body to where the flames would consume it, leaving nothing behind for the scavengers. Once that was done she turned away and walked back to the lake where she released a howl of painful sorrow. She cut off the sound abruptly and dropped down onto the cold earth where flames hadn't touched. When rain began to fall, Lixue walked away from the only place she had ever known. She didn't know where she was going, she only knew she couldn't stay.

~Akillin's Prolouge~
    The sweet smell of green grass was like that of a forest of flowers, releasing pheromones and perfumes of spring. The dew had dried in the late noon sun, leaving the green fronds soft, to be squished by the romping pups who played in them.
    A small black pup leapt forward with a battle cry, his little teeth sinking into his fluffy sisters fur, she growled, and backed away from him only to round and pounce. A smaller pup yet sat in the grass, his two tone pelt washed by the breeze and dried in the sun.
    Though his siblings had momentarily forgotten the lost members, their death still stuck to the young pups mind. His mother, a beautiful wolf with electrifying gold eyes sat beside him and curled her tail over his body, only his head poking above it.
    "What troubles you, love?" She asked in her honey voice. The young pup considered his siblings before looking up.
    "They forget, so easily how Trace died, how Raza, and Shade were torn away... how father never came home- how can they so easily drop what I wish I could forget?" She licked his ear, glanced at her other two pups. Three survived a winter her mate did not, and not all six pups born returned home.
    "It has not left them, love. They will mourn as they will smile, and cry as they will play. They can not comprehend what has happened, so they let it float past them..." she sighed, wishing she too could drop such fates, but she had noted changes in each of her pups, as their family dwindled.
    Moriarty became more bossy, and aggressive. Adira stopped being affectionate, and became cold. And her youngest, had grown accustom to standing and watching the world from afar, refusing to step into it. The mother sighed and released her littlest pup.
   "My love, there are many tragedies in the world, and I ask you to do your best to not add to them." He glanced up at his mother, a childish confusion flickering in his warm eyes.
"The world will have long fangs, and fear will have fast paws, but you know the trick to outrunning fear?" His mother leaned down close, and Akillin remembered the saying as soon as his mother started to say it.
"You never try to race her." They said together, and his mother giggles softly, Akillin feels a lightness grow in his chest, his mother hasn't laughed in a long time, and despite this lightness, she knew a little too well, that her son would face horror again and again before he found peace.
She could only hope the light in his golden eyes would never be extinguished by the gruesome shadows of reality.

Still, as time dragged on, days bleeding into nights as Akillin began to understand the world around him, when they were just barely yearlings, the three pups lost their mother.
Adira, sick of the smell of death ran away and never returned, leaving family behind her, Akillin had caught her sneaking away that night.

"You're leaving..." he said softly, her ears had flattened to her head and she turned around.
"I cannot stay any longer. It will only hurt more."
"But we're family..." he tried to persuade her, stepping closer.
"That's why it hurts, runt! We open up our hearts, did we expect something good of it?" She snaps her teeth around his ear, catching a part and causing a tear. Akillin yelped, pulling back and Adira, seeing what she did took off.
Moriarty was livid the next morning, howling and snarling he had attacked Akillin in a fit of rage. "Will you leave me too! Am I not enough," he snaps, closing his fangs over Akillin's shoulder. He cries out, pawing at Moriarty.
"Mori.... no..." the dark wolf let him go, and glance at his younger brother. Akillin was covered in bleeding bites and cuts, but his eyes were fearless. "You are the only family I have left. I will not leave you."

Yet, not all promises can be kept. For barely old enough to be called grown, on a hunt Akillin was resting from, he was tranquilized and stolen. He didn't remember much of those weary days, but the memories somehow reeked of oil and rust, just the thought would bring the sour smells to Akillin's nose.
He had been rescued somehow, the heavy collar being changed for the much lighter black one, and the world once again being big and open, he made his way back home with a wolf who had been stuck in the same situation, but he didn't return home with this wolf.
He had spent long enough in the captivity of the cruel and the wicked, and promised himself if he lived he would make it out, back to freedom and a world that was good. Desperate to find it, he joined a pack near his home pack as an omega, at ease with what he had become and what he would do for the rest of his life.