A Wolf's Tale- The Death and Reincarnation of Harminas the Wolf King.

Here's another story I posted on that soc-net site I mentioned before. This was meant to be the back story for a D&D character I made but never played. It turns out I only got as far as her animal companion. Well, if anyone wants to see more of this let me know and I'll try to do a bit of literary necromancy. as always, comments are welcome and requested.

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He awoke after what seemed an eternity of darkness, his limbs slow to respond at first due to fatigue. As he sat up and looked around, he saw that the battle that once raged around him was over. Around him the crows feasted on the bodies of the fallen the battle had claimed. He stood up with a grunt and looked down at himself. As he examined himself, he wondered why he felt no pain from the wounds he knew to have taken during the fighting. Then he saw what lay not far from him, and things began to make sense. He shook his head and chuckled in a grim manner as he looked upon his own lifeless body.

"Well, there's at least one comfort in all this. You died fighting." he said to himself, taking note of all the bodies that lay heaped around him.

It was with a mixture of pride and sadness that he noted some of the bodies he saw were men under his rule, tribesmen and brothers in arms that had fought and died in arms and under his banner along with him. He never gave thought to why he couldn't remember the details of how he died. It mattered not to him, nor did it bother him. He started walking the battlefield, taking small pleasure that his enemies saw more dead than his own men.

"Where are they anyway?" he asked of no one in particular as he noticed that none of the surviving soldiers were removing the bodies of their fallen comrades. None had come to bear him back to their village. "What's going on here?" he asked, the incongruity of his situation coming to him.

"You are between the living world, and the spirit world." a voice said, seemingly from nowhere. He whirled around and saw no one about.
"Show yourself!" he shouts, scanning his surroundings. He then notices the large Grey Wolf that stands before him, eyes the same intense color of green that he has.

"No need to shout now. I'm perfectly capable of hearing you." the wolf says in a patient tone one would use with a child. "Are you coming or not?" the wolf asks the man.

The man watches the wolf with some reverence, and a hint of fear. Here was the Guardian Spirit of his people. "How I wished the shaman was here now." he began to think, the realized what that thought implied.

"He's the one that sent me to you in the first place." the wolf said in answer to his thought. "Now are you coming or not? The ones waiting for you won't stay waiting forever." with that the wolf started down a pass that had been fought over in the days battle. They walked for hours across the battlefield. The sun set, and they were still walking. He asked several questions at first, but the wolf didn't answer except to eventually tell him that all would be revealed when they got there.

The moon rose just as they came to a small temple. The wolf stopped and turned to the man. "This is where we part ways, for now. Your fate awaits inside." with that the wolf loped off further down the trail, leaving the man looking on the small temple to the Tribunal, the gods that were worshiped by all but the most primitive of his people. He steadied himself a moment, and finally crossed the threshold and walked into the temple.

As he stepped into what looked like a small round shrine more than a temple, the man was surprised to see that the inside was as large as his throne room inside. He walked slowly to a circular section on the floor and looked up at the three statues of the Tribunal Gods. Each of them seemed to be crafted in such detail that they appeared as actual flesh.

"Impossible..." he thought to himself as he reached the center of the room. It was at that moment that the temple chamber went completely dark. Then the section of the floor he stood upon started to levitate, a white light shining underneath of it.

Then the voices began to echo, not only through the chamber, but in His mind. The man clutched at his ears and dropped to his knees as the whispers grew ever louder, until he was at the brink of breaking. Then just the single, crystal note, that sounded as though it were a pebble making ripples on a pond, and in the wake of those ripples was absolute silence.

"King Harminas...." said a voice that issued from the center statue, it's deep bass rumble breaking the silence after a moment. "...You stand in judgement before the Tribunal. We have seen the record of your life and deeds, and we will now judge you to see where you will go in your next life."

The eyes on the statue to the left begin to glow as it begins to speak. "You were a great warrior in your life, and led many other great warriors. The Pride of the Wolf Clans." the statue pauses a moment. "You died not only to protect clan and country, but to save kinsmen as well."

The eyes on the left statue dim as the eyes of the right statue come alight. "Your's was a rule that also brought prosperity in it's time, and will do so long after the battle that saw you fall."

After the right statues eyes dim, the center statues eyes re light. "It is the judgement of this Tribunal, based upon the deeds in your life, that you be reborn after the Time of Rest as your Clan's Totem."

After this, the lights around all three statues blink out, then the section of floor begins to lower back down to, then under the floor and into the white light. After what seemed an eternity, Harminas finally began to see an idyllic landscape of forest and prairie and mountains. He stepped off the circle and began to walk, and then the world became a blur.

"This seems a good place to rest." was his last thought that he had before the world went white.

* * *

When he next opened his eyes, it was dark and there were strong smells of blood and birth. He accepted this for some reason that he was only vaguely aware of as he looked up toward a dim source of light. As he was looking in, he saw a shape that was somehow familiar to him block the meager light, and then come in. He instinctively knew this to be his mother, and nuzzled to her as she lay on her side, he and two others taking a teet and drinking the nourishing milk they had come to associate with her.

Days passed and stretched into weeks, then months and he and his siblings grew larger and stronger, especially when their mother and father began to start bringing them meat to eat. As the cubs grew even older they were taught how to hunt their own food. It was soon after this that he came to know himself by the name of Okami.

Somehow he came to understand that he was different from his siblings, while they concerned themselves with the happenings of wolves, he came to know more of a sense of purpose. Okami just knew that his future was different.

He wasn't clear on when they started, but he began to dream of running through the forests and craggy hills. It was as if something called to him, and he always stopped in the same clearing. At he would awaken just after he reached the clearing, but soon he began to catch a glimpse of a human that was in the clearing. A human who was waiting for something, and there was a sense that involved him.

The dreams continued for a full moon cycle, and it was just the beginning of spring when the dreams call came to him as he was awake, and came to him as an irresistable siren's call.

"I will find out who this human is, and what their connection is to me" Okami thought to himself as he bounded through the pre-dawn forest. He kept his pace, crossing several miles before he came to a small cool stream just as the sun was starting to peak above the hills. As he looked up after taking a drink he saw the clearing from his dream, and sitting in it was a young human female.

He slowly padded forward into the clearing, curious about this human. He'd been taught to fear humans by his parents, but for some reason this human held no fear for him. Something told him that she, in fact, needed guidance, as well as protection. It was then that something awakened within him, a power that felt oddly natural to him. It was as though it had been there all along, but had only just now awoken.

The human seemed to come out of her reverie and looked right at the wolf. He returned her gaze, and their eyes locked for a second that seemed like an eternity. For that one, eternal moment of time a bond was formed as her thoughts and his became one, he learned that her name was Juuri and that she was a shamaness. Then, just as suddenly as their thoughts became one, they were once again of seperate conciousness.

He could feel the girls excitement, and her sense of accomplishment. "Hmph! Don't get too excited. You have a long road to travel." he thought to what he thought was himself. Juuri started.

"You talked!" she said surprised. Okami looked at her as though she'd grown a second head...then realized that he understood her words completely.

"Yes, I suppose I did...you can hear me?" he asked, to which Juuri nodded in response, her excitement growing a little with the realization of her situation.

Okami crossed the rest of the way to her and sat down, then looked at her. "Might I ask what you are doing in this forest child?" he asked to her mind, though he was sure he already knew.

"Well, I'm an apprentice shaman for my village..." she began as she thought of a village that was just up the mountain a few hours hike from here. "...and I came here to commune with the spirits and find my Spirit Guide." she said as though she were talking to another person from her village. "Might you be my guide?" she asked the wolf.

"I believe so..." Okami thought as much to her as to himself. "...and if that's the case, I think we should start to teach you right now." he thought to his new pupil.

"OK" Juuri said aloud and got up, ready to begin the next step of her training.