The Blood War

Chapter Thirty

Everything fell silent at once. The pain, the blood, Snowblind's crooked laughter; they all vanished in an instant. Everything was bright and shimmering, bright enough that Outlander believed it should have hurt her eyes, and yet it didn't. It was like a forest of stars, swaying in winds of a twinkling sky filled with what looked to be endless moonlight. The scene left her breathless, awestruck and lost in that one moment. She could stay forever.

Then she remembered what had just happened only a few heartbeats ago. The blood, the pain, the screaming. She had been murdered. She was dead.

The trees made of stars continued to beckon her, but she no longer wanted to go.

She backed away, startled by the feeling of her tail swiping over fur. She spun around met with the face of a stoic brown wolf. "Do you recognize me?" the stranger asked. Her voice was like a wolf's song, carrying through the forest up to the sky in a melancholy note. It was familiar, a voice that brought comforting confidence that everything would be alright. Outlander nodded, an involuntary smile filling her face. "Yes, mother."

It was difficult to recognize her without the deep battle scars and tired eyes, but the powerful she-wolf whose teachings had guided Outlander since her youth was still there, proud and commanding yet peaceful and patient. She looked her coywolf daughter up and down. While she had always seen Outlander's difference, she didn't point it out with malice or disgust, only with the intent of teaching Outlander the adjustments she would have to make to the teachings of a wolf. "You have grown strong, little robin," she remarked, using the nickname she had given Outlander for her red coat. "I'm sorry I could not see your first success in hunting. You know if I could have changed the past-"

"You would have shredded that mountian lion to peices," Outlander spat, bitterness against the cruelness of the world rising in her heart.

Her mother relaxed her eyelids and set her head up a little higher, the way she did when she was about to teach Outlander something. "Late in my life, there are few wolf traditions I believed in, but I have never stopped believing everything happens for a reason, little robin. If I had not gone, you would not be as strong as you are now."

Outlander wanted to retaliate, still believing it all to be unfair. Then sadness overcame her anger. "Have you come to welcome me to the Forever Grounds?" Her voice grew small as she looked around the starlit canopy above. Her mother gave a rare smile. "You know I have always tried to protect you, to make you stronger, but though I am your mother, I was by no means motherly. I thought you should be welcomed by a proper family member."

She turned, gliding through the trees like the silent spectre she was. Outlander passed behind her, not wanting to look at the evidence of the end of her life all around her. Her mother stopped suddenly, telling Outlander to look forward. There was a large open area before them, with a tall, sturdy tree at its center. A small figure lay curled under its shade. Even at this distance, Outlander recognized Scavenger's small frame. The real Scavenger. Tears threatened to burst from her eyes, but as she stepped forward towards the tree, her mother's tail stopped her. She looked up at her mother, crestfallen. "I can't see her?" she choked.

Her mother shook her head. "Not yet, but soon, I promise. You still have more to do."

Confusion and anger swirled through her mind. "I don't understand!" she shouted. In the distance, Scavenger's head lifted, turning towards the sound of Outlander's raised voice. "It isn't over yet," her mother said calmly. "Someday, you'll be brought back here, and she'll be waiting, but for now, you have more to do. Bone needs your help as much as you need his. He needs to be seen not as an 'it,' but a 'who.' You've given him some peice of his heart, a peice of real life, a peice he'll lose if he continues with the massacre he's about to start."

Outlander wanted to argue, but defiance had never been an option with her mother, and this time was no different. "I don't understand," she repeated quietly, her voice breaking with greif. The edges of her vision had begun to taper, flickering away like a burning flame. In the background she could hear the steadily growing sound of muffled shouting and growling, the sound of wolves in battle. "You will, my robin " her mother sighed, touching her nose to Outlander's. "I taught you to use anger as a tool. Now you must learn what I failed to teach you."

She continued to speak, but the sounds of wolves fighting drowned her out. The moonlight slipped away, and everything began to fade to black. Outlander called out for her mother, but her voice echoed into a shadowy, lonely abyss. The starry forest faded, and all was dark again untill she opened her eyes in a pool of blood and a world of pain.

Snowblind's eyes, cold and dead, stared back at her.

~CL1

The Blood War

Chapter Twenty-nine

It had been a long, long time since Bone had truly been given a reason for murder. Years, predictably, way before he had killed Scavenger.

Now was one of those times where he truly had a reason.

Snowblind was the one pinned by claws, now, sharp and twisted, buried deep into his flesh. His eyes were wide, breath strangled as Bone pressed his full weight against the alpha’s windpipe, suffocating him slowly, as he heard the occasional pop and crunch of the vertebrate in his neck breaking.

Wolves were returning now, rushing into camp at the sound of Outlander’s blood-chilling scream. They stood in the clearing, encircling the death-wolf and their alpha, with Outlander’s figure splayed close by.

Bone lifted his head and met Ashsky’s eyes. The beta was shuddering, her body trembling slightly as she stared at the skeleton beast, watching him murder her leader.

Slowly lowering his head, Bone met Snowblind’s wide, panicked eyes. He was trying to plead, struggling to choke out whimpering, begging words that he hoped would make Bone step away. But he would not step away from this death.

His paws lifted away from the alpha’s throat, and his teeth instead sank into his jugular. He lifted him, suspending him from the grass, and with one sharp whip of his head, he bent the white wolf’s head backwards too far.

Snowblind’s corpse hit the grass at Bone’s feet. The wolves stood in silent horror, staring at him with wide, fearful eyes. Fearful and angry. Angry and rageful. Rageful and relieved. Relieved and grieving, all of their emotions blurred into one and scribbled onto their faces.

“So is this going to be a fight to the death,” he said, taking a sharp breath as blood dripped from his jowls, “or do I get to leave without any more blood on my paws?”

The way that the surroundings wolves flared their teeth gave him the answer. Slowly turning his head to look at Outlander, blood tracing rivulets into her fur, he sighed. “I wanted to save them. I did, Outlander. And I’m sorry. But this is their doing.” He turned, raising a paw to step towards her, but paused.

“A fight to the death it is,” he whispered, before looking back towards Ashsky.

- President Loki

The Blood War

Chapter Twenty-Four

As the sun dug it's talons into the landscape and pulled itself from the ground to begin its long crawl across the sky, Outlander watched what she had believed to be impossible.

She watched the immortal death-wolf bleed.

Bone's breaths were shakey and laced with visible pain. Sitting there, broken and bloody, she thought back to her promise. "If I ever see you again, I will give my life to make you suffer." Well, here he was, defensless and half-beaten already. If there was ever a time to take her revenge, it was now.

She padded towards him, looming over him. His eyes flew open and he looked at her without moving his head. "I didn't think monsters bled," she murmered.

Bone let out a noisy breath, somewhere between an appauled scoff and an amused snort, but it caused obvious pain as he winced immediately and inhaled sharply. "Still convinced I'm a monster?" Then his amusment fell to something else. For a second, Outlander didn't know what to call the look; she had never seen it on Bone's face. Sadness? Despair? Confusion? Then she pegged it: fear.

He was afraid of her.

The great bringer of so much death and destruction, left vunerable and afraid of a little coywolf.

"Scavenger-" he started.

"Is in the past." The words tumbled out, leaving a bitter taste in Outlander's mouth and the feeling of deep claws in her heart. "I'm putting it behind us. No more revenge. No more of Scavenger." Outlander could picture the look of betrayal on the ghost Scavenger's face, the disbelief. The hurt. She apologized profusely in her mind and heart as she said the words, "You are forgiven."

If there was a Forever Grounds for coyotes, she would answer for her treachary someday, but today there was a bigger threat than the Bone Beast.

"Thank you," he breathed quietly, lightly, as if a great burden that had been clinging to his lungs suddenly released its hold. Bone tried to push himself to his feet, fighting the pain in defiance, but he dropped quickly as the movement became far too excruciating to withstand. "Your legs. The entire hip, it's too high, not where it's supposed to be." She walked around to his back.

"I have to get up," he panted. "The ancestors sent me to stop Snowblind."

Outlander grew queasy. His spine wasn't broken, but it cetainly was bent out of shape, the imprint of an elk hoof deeply imprinted on his skin. "You will," she murmered, subconciously offering whatever comfort her mind found fit, "but you're not going anywhere like this. Snowblind can wait." She poked her head back out to the field. "There's an old wolf I know. He healed me after my first run-in with you. He may be able to help you too."

She turned, wanting to give Bone some encouragement, something to hold on to. "Besides, I think he's a big fan of yours," she said with a grin.

Bone snorted again, and winced again. "Snowblind kicked you out. How do you plan on getting back in?"

"He didn't kick me out, he killed me. When I go back, wolves will be staring in disbelief, not trying to tear me limb from limb. Stay here."

"Where am I going to go?!" Bone snarled, his voice growing distant behind her as she made her way back to the den of vipers she once called home.

~CL1

The Blood War

Chapter Twenty-Two

Outlander stared at the field before her, her heartbeat blending in with the roar of the rain on the landscape. She looked back over her shoulder where two wolves sat, blocking the path back home. They had led her here on Snowblind's orders, and though she wasn't exactly sure what the purpose of her being here was, she had a good idea. Snowblind could read it on her face. Her fear betrayed her, and knowing what she did, he couldn't let her live, so he sent her out on an "assignment," escorted by two of his most trusted guards. There was no description, no orders, but it didn't matter. Outlander knew what this assignment was about.

Her usefulness had run out, and so had her time.

Her escorts snarled, pushing her into the field. "This is where you go alone," one of them growled. Outlander looked back at the field. It was innocent-looking, but Snowblind was clever. There could be an ambush at any second. It would only take a few wolves to put her down quickly.

As she stepped out from the cover of the trees and the heavy raindrops pelted her like fragments of ice, Outlander looked up at the sky. She couldn't see the stars through the rain, but she knew they were there. Her mother had told her that wolves saw the stars as their ancestors and loved ones, passed on to a place in the sky where they looked down on the living. Outlander didn't understand, nor did she believe it, but as she walked to her certain death, she couldn't help hoping it was true.

"Mother," she murmered, hardly able to hear herself over the slap of raindrops on mud, "If you're up there, please, send help. Send someone, something..."

"Outlander?"

It was a hiss in the night, easy to miss. Outlander looked around, her eyes catching the immistakable skeletal frame of a wolf caked in mud across the field.

"Well," she grumbled to her mother's invisible ghost, "You certainly have a sense of humor."

But as Bone approached, and it became clear that he was not the bloodthirsty beast but the tired, sad old wolf, she found she could hold no anger or resentment. She felt only relief. In a world where everyone was turning against her at every second, Bone was the only truely transparent soul she had met thus far, and right now, he was her only chance at safety.

"Wait!" She hissed across the field. He stopped suddenly, his ears pricked and alert. Outlander scanned the field. Still no sign of an ambush. "Be careful."

After a moment of strange silence, Bone spoke. "I'm here about Snowblind, not you," he said, daring to step closer. Outlander winced at every cracked branch, waiting to leapt upon by Snowblind's executioners, but the attack never came. "Phantasm appeared in the Forever Grounds," he continued. "She said Snowblind killed her."

Outlander nodded. "He lured her towards an angry bear," she said, looking around in paranoia. "He sent me here, to kill me. He knows I know."

"But why-"

Bone stopped suddenly. "What is that?"

Outlander pricked her ears. Over the constant drone of raindrops, a sound like thunder was rising slowly and steadily. She looked around, catching movement on the ridge above. "A herd of elk..." she trailed off in disbelief.

A stampede? For one measely coywolf?

Then she looked at Bone, the unkillable myth. A few wolves wouldn't get rid of him, but a thousand thundering hooves might. He had been following Outlander all this time, and Outlander had thought back to the night of Snowbank's death.

"He came to speak to you," echoed Snowblind's words.

"Snowblind," she murmered bitterly. "Ever so clever."

The alpha may not have known Bone would be there, but he had certainly counted on it.

~CL1

The Blood War

Chapter nineteen

Growing up, Bone had adored stories of heroes and wolves of the stars. Their smiles bright, eyes alight with wisdom as they padded through their eternal home, visiting descendants within dreams. His mother had always told him of their magical abilities; wolves who possessed powers, who were capable of both protecting the entire mass of wolf humanity, and killing every enemy they had in seconds. “I'll be like them!” he had said in his young years. “I'll be a hero!” And his mother had always laughed and said, “I'm sure you will, my dear. You'll be the bravest of them all.”

Now, as Bone lay collapsed within the arching roots of an oak tree with the residue of tears creasing his face, he felt far from that. Far from a hero; far from anything good. He was a murderer, a mercenary to his demand. He was a destroyer of lives and a thief of hope. He was the villain.

“I tried,” he choked out to himself, his entire body quaking. “I tried to fix things. You saw that I did. But I can’t do anything right, can I? I only make things worse. Nothing I do helps.”

The whisk of a tail sounded beside him. Small, dark paws pattered gently over the dirt as his company sat down beside him. “Do you know what I heard in that sentence?” Nightshade asked him. Bone lifted his head with a heavy sigh, half-glaring up at him without replying.

“I,” he said, ears swiveling. “You said “I” a lot. That’s the problem with you, Bone: you think so much about yourself.” He eased himself down, his dark eyes studying Bone’s face. “You’ve made mistakes. We all have. But you’re always so concerned about yourself- I’ve killed again, I’ve hurt again, I’ve done this again- that you’re blind to others. When your rage takes over, you’re blind; and perhaps when you’re blind is when you truly see.”

“I really hate you ancestors, sometimes,” he growled, narrowing his eyes. His ears folded back in frustration, and Nightshade barked a laugh. “I know,” he agreed, grinning. “We’re so amazingly wise, with our weird ways of saying things.”

Bone sat up, spine stiffening from overuse. “Is that what being dead does to you? Makes you speak in riddles?” He wrinkled his snout. “If that’s the case, I’ll pass, please.”

Nightshade rose to his feet, shaking out his dark, misty pelt. “Look. You’re seven hundred years old. You’re way past changing yourself, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have the chance to change others. You have a very unique opportunity, Bone. You have the chance to save so many lives and help so many wolves. But you have to take that step.

“I’m not telling you to take that leap,” he continued, inclining his eyebrows slightly. “That is your decision and yours alone. But nothing is going to change until you do.” Nightshade dipped his head in goodbye, and his figure shimmered before disappearing. Bone was left alone in the forest, surrounded by birdsong and the chatter of countless insects. He took a deep breath, closed his ice-colored eyes, and collapsed into the dirt to think.

- President Loki

The Blood War

Chapter Sixteen

The death-wolf sat before her, still and docile, leaving Outlander reminiscent of the time before when he seemed like an innocent statue. "I won't kill you," he repeated. "Just stay quiet." He'd been following them. He could have killed them at any time, but he waited.

He waited until she was alone.

Outlander's heart threatened to break free of her ribcage, but she caught something in his eyes that relaxed it, if only temporarily. He seemed different. Not the bloodthirsty, mindless thing that had killed two wolves before; that had killed Scavenger. No, he seemed sad, almost ... remorseful.

A thousand scenarios played out in Outlander's head. Attacking was a death wish, running might have been the same, so with few options left she held still but remained standing should the peaceful statue be laying a trap. "What ..." she stopped, choosing her words carefully, "Who are you?"

The beast took in a shakey breath, releasing his story in a sigh. "I'm called Bone. I have lived for what feels like an eternity." Sadness tinged his voice with the word "eternity." "I was tasked with aiding wolves with the Gift, and I-"

"Why?" Outlander snapped, losing her patience in a heartbeat.

Bone tilted his head slowly. "Why ... why have I lived this long? I wish I knew, but-"

"Why did you kill her?" Outlander started to tremble, but it wasn't fear that held her any longer. The anger was back, refreshed by the images of Scavenger begging for help, pleading for mercy. She waited for a response, but Bone's jaw stayed shut. It seemed as if even he couldn't think of a good excuse. Against her better judgement, she took a step forward. "She was my only family in the world. The only one who didn't treat me like some disgusting mutt, and you took her. The most innocent soul I've ever met and you took her, and you can't even tell me why?"

Bone lowered his head.

"Why did you come here then? Can you tell me that much?"

He didn't move, but Outlander caught him murmer: "Bloom..." It was barely audible, quiet enough that she nearly missed it. "Bloom?" she repeated, "what does that-"

Their heads turned in unison to the sound of pawsteps coming from behind Outlander. Bone rose from his haunches slowly, both of them remaining breathless until a white head poked out of the brush. "False alarm," Snowbank growled. "Should have followed Snowblind." He looked up and caught sight of Bone standing over Outlander. She caught the look of a wolf on the brink war in his eyes; a wolf that wanted to prove to his mother he was worthy of being the next alpha. "Snowbank. Don't," Outlander whispered, trying to keep the hotheaded wolf calm in vain. Without a word he lunged at Bone.

~CL1

The Blood War

Chapter nine

There was no fear in the eyes that Bone found himself staring into. Swirling, dark pools of rage, tainted by pain; but not a hint of fear as she stared into the face of murder.

His breathing came heavy in his chest, rattling his throat and billowing from his slavering jaws. His sides heaved, the curve of his ribcage shuddering as he panted, the fur of his chest clumped by still-fresh blood, his paws and jawline stained with scarlet liquid. The gash along her neck, fleshed-out and raw, was oozing blood, rivulets parting her previously-neat fur.

“You… you killed Scavenger,” she said in a strangled voice, lips curling upward as she spoke. “You murdered her.”

Bone blinked his weary blue eyes, vision faltering momentarily as he dipped out of his sense of the world. “Who…” he said slowly, as the wolves all around them shifted, backing away slowly, “…who is Scavenger?”

Rage burned brighter in her eyes, snout creasing as she snarled. “You don’t even remember her,” she choked out, her voice full of hate and malice. “You took her life and you don’t even remember.”

An image burned into his head, flashing visible and then gone as he made a mental connection. His mind, reaching out with groping paws, took hold of hers and intertwined into her thoughts. The picture, wavering in and out repeatedly before growing clearer, was of a young, slender coyote, her eyes round and brown, her fur light. Memory seethed into his head; yes, he had killed her. He had ripped her throat from her body… and eaten her corpse.

“I remember her,” he whispered, shoulders sinking as the temporary rage that had instilled him drained out of his muscles. “I remember the look on her face when she saw me, and the cry of fear… I remember…” Bone slowly turned his head, scanning the pack around them. So full of fear, eyes burning in terror and struggling to stay brave.

He looked back to the young coywolf in front of him, who lifted herself up in attempt to stay tall in contrast to his hulking frame, with the rage of a million suns burning in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered in a voice that shook the air. “I’m sorry.” He turned slowly, wincing on old paws, before bursting into a sprint, leaping over the corpse of Stormwind, and fleeing the wolf pack and the bloody clearing.

- President Loki

The Blood War

Chapter five

Bone woke to an overpowering scent of wolf. He glanced around, slowly lifting his head, as to avoid giving away his location. Peering through the underbrush, ears angled back and twitching, he watched as a large patrol of wolves fanned out amongst the trees, searching for something. Searching for HIM.

He turned and slipped away, careful to keep from sending the shrubbery trembling. As he straightened, rising to his full height, he circled around to watch from behind the pack, narrowing his piercing eyes and sitting back on his haunches.

“Ashsky, is this a good idea?” one of them asked; a relatively skinny-looking tan wolf. She was speaking to the dark wolf that Bone had seen the day before.

“If this… THING is a threat to us,” she replied without looking over, “we have to find it and get rid of it.”

Ah, there it was. Get rid of it. Bone sank to the forest floor, running his forepaws through the grass, looking away from the pack and down at the earth. Everyone wanted to “get rid of it”: that was the unfortunate truth. Not one single wolf, despite anything they said, wanted him around.

A choked gasp broke into his train of thought, and he swiveled his head around to look over his shoulder. A silver-gray wolf, appearing still young with the fluff of her face, was staring with wide eyes at her.

Bone barely had enough time to react, shifting to rise to his feet, before she let out a warning bark. In barely a heartbeat, every wolf on the patrol was around him, heavy paws pressing him into the ground and pinning him there, the smell of fear and tension and strange wolves choking his lungs and filling his nostrils.

- President Loki

I could not get this to work on Ark Mobile. It kept making Blue Dye. Will be trying on Console later this evening. 😎👍

The Blood War

Chapter Two

Outlander chased an elk through an open plain, free and alone. Just as it reached a ridge that cut off its escape path, the hunted turned on its hunter suddenly. The flat teeth of a plant-eater grew sharp, the eyes peircingly blue and almost dead. The elk's skin began to sag and droop from its body, tearing away in places, revealing dry bones underneath. There was a cry somewhere in the distance, the cry of a coyote, but the elk was advancing too quickly for Outlander to take her attention off of it. Just as it loomed over her, lowering its head to gore her with its antlers, she was snatched awake by the burning sensation of fur being ripped from her neck.

"Up, Omega!" snarled a gruff voice. Outlander's eyes were hazed with the delusion of half-sleep. She blinked hard, trying to clear the image of the blurred figures in front of her. "Yes, yes," chimed an enthusiastic second voice, "Up, half-breed!" The second figure, a wolf the color of dry mud, was much scrawnier and less impressive than the first.

Rat, she thought. That's what she called the former omega, since he looked unatural, like a rat trapped in a wolf's body. The only reason Outlander was forced to take the foal-like wolf's position at the end of the pack was because he was all wolf. No disgraceful coyote blood to taint him.

"I said up!" he screamed. He lunged at her, gripping a large chunk of her honey-red pelt and ripping it from her body as he snatched his head away. Outlander's skin screamed at her silently and through the searing pain she could feel the immistakable tickling sensation of blood gliding through her fur, but she bit her tongue, not willing to give the sadistic wolf the satisfaction he so desired.

The other wolf, Ashsky, the pack beta female, only stood and watched emotionlessly, her smoke gray pelt making her a shadow in the dim light of the den. Determined to prove his might to the respected wolf, Rat placed a paw on Outlander's head and shoved it into the ground mercilessly. The weakling was the same size as Outlander, and much less able-bodied, but she was an omega, and that meant she had to remain powerless, unless she wanted her throat torn out. In a coyote pack, power determined your rank; here, it was all about breeding and tradition.

Her throat was pressed against the ground hard enough that it became a struggle to breathe. Seeing the coywolf's frantic scrambling, Ashsky barked. "Enough," she said, calmly and evenly. Rat sneered and let Outlander up slowly. The coywolf gasped for air a moment and bristled, but kept her head low and her tail between her legs, as an omega was meant to.

Just try that again, she thought, when no one else is around, Rat.

"Come now," Ashsky said to Outlander. "We're going on a hunt, and I need you as a spook wolf to seperate the herd."

Outlander looked up, and whether it was exauhstion or pain, when she looked up at the beta, she saw blue, half-dead eyes staring at her from a body of bones, losely held together by skin. Her heart fluttered and she blinked hard again, seeing nothing but a confused gray wolf staring back at her.

"I'm coming," she muttered, padding out of the den in a dazed state.

~CL1

Also when is the next chapter of rampage. -lava the dilo

Sorry apex...

Swamp Guy

Lol

Okay, welcome to green dye, the kingdom of me (Swamp Guy.)

If anyone wants to know where my stories are, start in Kapro, then quetz, Araneo, Titanosaur, Megapithecus, Phoenix, And go to Liopleurodon and then Basilisk for a (for now) separate storyline.

UPDATE!!! GENESIS TALES IS COMING OUT THIS WEEKEND IN THE MEGACHELON SECTION!!! STAY TUNED!!!

To the guy who made the book post it on Amazon for kindle and get a few bucks

This is the best coloring use it now

The Blood War

Bone’s Epilogue

Bone silently followed Outlander through the forest, watching her tail swish through the undergrowth. He was dreaming, of course; he hadn’t actually seen Outlander face-to-face since they stopped dreaming on the day after Snowblind’s death. But when he dreamed, he often took visits to her, watching over her from a mental state.

“Hey, Outlander,” he murmured finally, pausing his walk. He doubted that she could hear him, but he had never tried speaking to another through a dream. So if she could hear him… she was about to hear a LOT.

“You probably can’t hear this, and I’m probably just insane to be talking to you when I’m not even really there. But I… there’s something that I’ve never told anyone. And I feel like you’d be the one fit to hear it.” Taking a deep breath, he started in.

“The past few months have been hard, I won’t lie. I’ve missed you… I’ve missed you a lot. I know that you’re doing well because I watch you often, but it’s lonely, isn’t it? Wandering alone like you are. Even if you don’t fit in somewhere, it’s depressing to be without pack-mates. I know that from experience.

“…I was really hoping that after we handled Snowblind, you and I could have started over. You’d said that I was forgiven, that day that I was crushed by an elk. But I never really believed you, not until you said that I was a ‘who’ and not an ‘it’. I was never able to forgive myself for Scavenger’s death, and I’m still unable to. But I was hoping that, had we started over, I would have learned how. Maybe we could even have been friends, actual friends, where I didn’t give you throat scars.” He gave a small smile. Outlander had sat down, resting in front of him, her ears angled somewhat back.

“I’ve stayed away from other living things,” he said, sighing. “And it’s been lonely. Really, really lonely. I wish that you were here, that you were still with me. I wish that I hadn’t had to leave. But we both know that a friendship between us wouldn’t have worked out. Besides,” he added with a soft laugh, “you wouldn’t have been able to tolerate me for more than a few days.”

Hesitantly, Bone sat back on his haunches, dragging his paws through the dirt. “I and my rage have had fewer fights,” he sighed. “Probably because I’ve seen no other wolves that I could possibly kill. But the rage is still there, and it’s still burning.

“I’ve been trying to find a new purpose, a new… well, a new reason to be alive, I guess. Hoping that a new Gifted will be born soon, so that I can do my actual job, instead of just… wandering.” He thought for a moment, studying the forest floor, which was dappled in golden rays of sunlight. “But I think that I’m going to be alright,” he added, a small smile crawling over his face as he looked up at her.

“I think that I’m going to be alright, Outlander.”

- President Loki

The Blood War

Chapter Thirty-Two

The wolves had decided on electing Ashsky alpha almost immediately. She had proven her loyalty and dedication to the pack, as well as her sound judgement and good intentions. With Bone's approval of the situation, they began dragging their dead away to be buried, leaving Snowblind's body alone for the elements and vultures to have as a final disrespect to the vile, would-be alpha.

Bone hesitantly helped them bury the fallen, a final proof that he was not the monster they feared, and as he padded back to Snowblind's body to drag it out of the camp he looked back up at Outlander. What had he said? This would be the last time she saw him? As he bent down to grab Snowblind's scruff, she stopped him. "Bone," she called, motioning for him to come to her. The bleeding from her neck had stopped, but her shattered ribs still cried out in pain, and she was hesitant to disturb them. He padded forward, hanging head low. "Sit," she said, tapping her tail on the ground next to her.

"I need to get this carcass out of here," he protested. "It will attract scavengers if-"

She rolled her eyes and groaned theatrically, "Just sit." He grumbled, but gave in with a sigh and sat next to her. "Happy?" He murmered. They watched the sun begin to retreat from its high throne, making its way to the hills in the distance where it would rest. Outlander thought back to what her mother had said. "You are not an 'it,' Bone. You are a 'who," she said with finality.

Bone made no sound, but Outlander could have sworn she had seen the slightest break of a tear in his eye. "You have a heart, a mind, and a soul just like any other wolf. You aren't a monster at all ... I think it's taken me too long to truely realize that." There was silence for a moment more as the sun met the ground. "There is," Bone said after a while, "one last thing I need to do." He placed a rough skeletal paw on her head lightly and lowered her head to the ground. "Close your eyes," he said. Outlander obeyed, noticing everything had begun to sound far away. "And dream."

Outlander found herself greeted by the astral forest once again. "Hello?" She called out.

"Outlander," a voice called from behind her. She turned to see Bone, or at least what she believed to be Bone. His skin and fur were completely intact and his voice, while still low and gravely, didn't have the rasp years of wear had put on his lungs. He looked ALIVE. "Bone?" she murmured in awe. "Welcome to the Forever Grounds," he said with a smile. He turned and padded off quickly, shouting, "Follow me!" over his shoulder. Her short legs struggled to keep pace with giant bounds of the mythical wolf. As she ran pasts she could see whisps of ghost wolves running along side her, a magnificent phantom pack howling at the moon.

Bone pulled her aside from the phantom chase, leading her to a familiar spot. She could see the large tree in the distance, and Scavenger still sat under it, speaking with a two other coyotes. "I made her a promise," Bone said, looking down at Outlander, "that I would keep you safe, and that once I had done what the ancestors had asked, I would reunite you." Tears, set on her eyelids, and the thought occuring to her to say something she should have said many times before. "Thank you." She ran into the glade, stopping before the tree. All three coyotes turned to her before the two strangers said farewell to Scavenger and padded away into the forest of stars.

Now Scavenger alone sat under the tree. Outlander couldn't bring herself to move forward as she thought how she had betrayed her sister and allied with her enemy. "Outlander," the coyote said, her voice bringing comfort like her mother's. "All has been forgiven," she said, seemingly reading Outlander's thoughts. A smile broke across her face as she greeted her sister for the first time in many years. Scavenger touched her forhead to Outlander's before looking back to Bone. "Thank you for honoring your promise," she called. He nodded from the distance, silently.

"He really is quite sweet, isn't he, when he isn't bent on killing you?" Scavenger said with a laugh. Outlander looked at her fearsome guardian. A white wolf she didn't recognize had appeared next to him. "He's hurting," she said quietly to Scavenger. "He has been for a long time."

"So have you," Scavenger remarked sincerely. "That grudge you held with him was not on my behalf, but yours. You were alone, and you blamed him."

Outlander's ears pinned as the truth shot like daggers into her heart. "Why are you telling me this?" she asked, quietly.

"Because you aren't alone," Scavenger laughed her eyes sparkeling with mirth, "You never have been, so you can finally let go of this burden you've been holding on to." She looked back to the hill where Bone and the white wolf were speaking. "He isn't the only one that needed to bloom," she said with a smile that melted Outlander's resentment. "You've both made it, you've both bloomed."

~CL1

The Blood War

Chapter Twenty-Six

(Chapter Twenty-Five was labled as Twenty-Four also)

Watching Winks try to fix Bone's contorted spine made Outlander's stomach lurch, so she turned away and watched a family of rabbits in the distance. The forest chirped and sang, beaming and growing all around them. It soaked in every beam the new sunrise shared, ignorant to the strife and pain hidden beneath its canopy.

"Amazing how things still look so beautiful, even when its all burning away slowly," she thought aloud.

"Aren't you just a ray of sunshine?" Bone growled sarcastically through gritted teeth.

"So often we focus on the death we see," Winks murmmered, "We never pay attention to the new hope, new life, that comes from those deaths." He looked up at Outlander. "If Bone hadn't killed your sister, he wouldn't be here, protecting you now, would he?"

Outlander looked back at the rabbit family, unwilling to confront that truth. That small, helpless coyote in her had forgiven Bone for the sake of survival, but the ferocious, infernal wolf the occupied the space the coyote left vacant still held onto that grudge, sinking its claws and fangs in deep, unwilling to let go.

No, it was the other way around.

The helpless wolf had lost its mother long ago and only wanted to survive in whatever way it could now. The coyote wasn't helpless, it was angry. It had been raised as a survivor in a coyote pack as a young pup. It had been taught the importance of not just a pack, but of family, and even when it was cast out, it would kill to protect one of its own.

Well now it had lost one of its own, and it would not be sated without blood.

Outlander wasn't sure she would ever be able to let go.

"And what good came of Phantasm's death?" she muttered darkly, trying to drown the thought of her unforgiving selfishness.

Winks sighed and went back to work at Bone's spine, "I still haven't figured that one out yet." There was a sickening pop and Bone yelped. Outlander turned and saw him hunched with his teeth bared, his face holding a look that said it was taking every ounce of restraint in his body not to rip the old wolf to shreds.

Then the anger faded. He was standing, without pain. He flexed his legs, his bone paws digging into the ground. "Thank you," he murmured with a sincere nod to Winks. The old wolf held his head high, proud of his work. "I think," Winks said, turning to Outlander, "Maybe Phantasm's death had a seed of hope in it after all. You'll be doing us all the favor of saving us from a bloody rule under Snowblind."

Bone didn't look particularly pleased or anxious. He looked tired. He always looked tired, and for the first time Outlander wondered if it was a sort of external, physical exauhstion, or whether he was just tired altogether, of everything, of life and death and pain. "Come on," he rasped. "Let's finish this."

~CL1

The Blood War

Chapter Twenty-one

Rain pounded down from the angry sky above, fat droplets pattering against the leaves of trees and underbrush and turning the dirt to mud. Bone padded silently, tail whisking behind him, mud riding up his legs as he unintentionally kicked it up into the hollow cavern of his stomach. He wasn’t really sure where he was going; back in the general direction of the wolf pack, but indirectly, rather unsure of why he was returning.

The previous night, as he had dreamed and visited the ancestors within the Forever Grounds, Phantasm had arrived. The gray of age and the haunted look of death over time was gone from her; only a powerful, young wolf remained, as it did with every ancestor who joined the Wolves of the Stars. And her first words to any of them had been: “Snowblind did this. He killed me. He needs to pay.”

Had Bone been sent to make Snowblind pay? Yes. The ancestors had discussed the matter before returning to him, offering- basically ordering- for him to return to the pack and set things straight. Bone was still on the fence about it; he had caused so much death for this pack already. But deep down he knew that having Snowblind as an alpha would only cause more. So even though he knew the right thing to do, he dragged his feet, walking slowly through the rain-beaten forest, trying to think of any way possible that he would be able to avoid killing the manipulative white wolf. And yet, nothing came: he knew that it was the only option.

The dark clouds had rolled away by twilight, revealing the bold night sky overhead, illuminated with the light of ancestors, and leaving the fields and forests dripping. Bone stood in the center of a wide-open field, grass laden with water droplets, freckled with brightly-colored flowers which were also drooping at the time.

He let out a sigh, a small cloud of water particles stirring away from his jaw. He really didn’t have to rest; he had been doing plenty of that recently, as he wallowed in his guilt, but he was making this excursion take as long as possible.

But why was he? The truth was, he didn’t know.

As he forced himself to the ground, laying with mud-painted limbs outstretched on his side, he heard the faintest rustle of movement. Bone sat up, poking his head just above the line of bowing, pale green blades which reflected starlight with their loads of water.

On the far side of the field, padding warily yet quickly out of the forest, he saw a honey-red figure, resembling a wolf. Silhouetted by the disc of a moon overhead, the wolf’s ears were larger than most, and she looked relatively short. Bone’s heart stopped.

“Outlander?” he breathed softly into the chilly air. But, in the clear night wind, sound carried far, because her head snapped up and stared in his direction.

- President Loki

The Blood War

Chapter thirteen

Bloom. Bloom. BLOOM?! How in all the ancestors’ tails was Bone supposed to BLOOM?! He paced furiously, scraping up the cliff that he stood on with his wicked claws. The corpse of an elk, limbs torn from its body and face shredded beyond recognition, was splayed nearby, just within the trees, blood staining the bark red.

“Bloom,” he muttered to himself, ears angling back. “Yeah, Journey, amazing advice! Now HOW THE OPPOSITE AM I SUPPOSED TO BLOOM?” His voice echoed off of the cliff, into the forest around him. Thick, white clouds whisked themselves through the air, and on the horizon, the hulking form of dark clouds, burdened with rain, were crawling in his direction. A storm was on its way.

He stomped his foot down, small pebbles skittering down the cliffside and clacking away into the woods below. “Don’t kill anymore, Bone,” he snarled to himself. “Be kind, Bone. Turn from the violence, Bone. Yeah, thank you SO MUCH! I NEVER thought of that MYSELF!” He spun around and attacked the elk corpse again, claws ripping apart the skin and exposing the flesh. He turned, grabbing one of the front legs in his jaws, and whipped it violently back and forth, spraying blood and scraps of skin in every direction.

Dropping it, he stood with his chest heaving, blood spattered all over the cliff-edge, flesh and reddened skin snagged in his claws. He sat down, bowing his head and closing his eyes to restrain tears. Whether they were frustration-sourced, or sadness, or cold amusement, he couldn’t tell. He could never tell anymore. He hadn’t been able to tell for five hundred years, if he was being honest to himself.

The wind that blew a storm his way suddenly carried voices up to his ears. “…hunting it. Nothing… kill it.” The voices grew clearer, and Bone’s heart dropped to his hollow stomach. “Find the Bone Beast.” A white wolf appeared visible in the trees, leading an entire pack of wolves. And there; standing beside the white wolf was Outlander, the coywolf he had nearly killed.

“Lead us to it, halfbreed,” the white wolf ordered. “And if any of you see it,” she continued, looking to the rest of the pack, “…kill on sight.”

Bone backed away from the cliff-edge, ears folding back. The eyes of a white wolf, slightly smaller than the alpha, drifted around and suddenly met his, and the cold, calculating expression turned venomous. A cruel smile crawled over his face, and he raised his head to bark the alert of spotting their prey.

- President Loki