Chapter 2
Primal
This body was fantastic. My paws hardly whispered as I ran back and forth in the clearing. I had not yet mustered the courage to venture further; to go beyond the tree-line and explore this place Yiang called Equestria. It just didn't seem right to do so yet. My place was in this garden; taking in the smells and sights. It was a botanical paradise. Every plant that I could have imagined to be in existence was here before me. Roses, daffodils, honeydew, violets, daisies, nightshade, poison oak; the list went on.
Yiang hadn't lied though. The lack of colour vision was really starting to take its toll. Being able to tell the difference between pigments may not sound like a massive advantage but it turns out that after spending five minutes stumbling about in a noir realm you start to miss the world of the spectrum. Moreover the varied shades of gray, black and white were just too boring to be tolerated. I was just about ready to die from boredom when that little voice in my head burst back into life.
"So you like the new bod boyo?" Yiang asked sweetly. "You ready to do what I ask now?"
I nibbled at a small flower that looked like a rose. "I need to know more about why I am here."
"All in due time Lycan; all in due time. First of all I would bet money on saying that you would like the power of colour vision right?"
"Damn right there." I said. "This world is frickin' dull without it!"
"Well as I said before, I have and offer for you." Yiang said. "All you have to do is say yes."
I hesitated. "What do you wish of me?"
"The task is simple boyo. Somewhere nearby a pony is mortally wounded; you are to find it and put it out of its misery."
My heart stopped, what did she just ask? "P-pardon?" I asked.
"I want you to kill a wounded pony. In return I will grant you the power to see in colour. Interested?"
Its not like I had a choice in the matter was it? Yiang had backed me into a corner. I was the only shamrock in this garden of Eden, a shamrock that wanted to see how green it was.
"I'll take that as a yes boyo." Yiang said sharply. "Follow your nose to fulfil this simple task. Even a high-school drop-out like you can manage that right?"
With that Yiang vanished once again. Follow my nose? What the heck does that mean? Its not like my nose is gonna grow legs and lead me to this thing I just promised to mercy kill. Because that's what all Irish boys do. We kill things that are injured after being turned into a wolf and teleported to a forest clearing. I took in a lungful of air, my nostrils flaring at the mixed sensations that stormed my sense of smell.
My sense of smell.
I smelt blood.
God I'm stupid.......
It was a metaphor; or whatever my English teacher called it. I wasn't literally going to follow my nose. I needed to smell the goal I had been set, following my sense of smell to find the creature. The crash must have given me brain damage for me not to be able to realise that immediately. Trying to save what remained of my personal dignity I took another long inhalation of air. Normally I would have loved the large number of new aromas that caressed my sinuses; but I was trying to find that specific smell. The smell of blood. Not a gargantuan slab of pollen.
I tried to focus my mind, thinking only of blood. I breathed in. My efforts were wasted. Standing still was clearly doing nothing so I began a leisurely trot around the clearing, taking regular tests of the air. Still my efforts were in vain; as I couldn't even distinguish between the scents of two different flowers with my so called 'heightened wolf senses.' Was there a trick to this then? Did I have to have an epiphany of some sorts to locate something that was dying? Was my whining even helping?
Probably not, so I packed it in and kept trying to smell the blood. I had smelt it when I had woken up so I returned to the spot I had come to on. A wolf-shaped patch of flattened grass was all I had to go by. The blood was still as elusive as ever. I leaned in closer to the grass and sniffed; looking for signs of....... BLOOD!
I could smell it again! My head snapped up and I began searching the air, the scent was gone. I moved my snout back to the grass, the scent returned. It was a sickly irony kind of smell that clung to the inside of my nostrils uncomfortably; but was a beacon of hope as far as I was concerned. Continuing to probe the grass with my muzzle I followed the trail. It was easier than I thought once I had picked it up. The stench became noticeably stronger as my search leaned closer to a large gathering of roses not too far from the pond. I had been standing right next to this bush not too long ago, why hadn't I picked up the scent?
Nosing my way past the flowers - carefully avoiding trampling them - my ears began to pick up a slow paced badump, badump sounding rhythm. As I moved towards that sound, another began to clearly enter my ears. It sounded like laboured breathing.
My goal was nearby.
The new meaning of nearby is just a rose away as when I poked my nose past one last flower it came into contact with warm flesh. I raised my head slowly, constantly aware of what I was doing. The creature was..... I THINK it was the same sort of horse I had seen in the town.
But it was different to the horses back in Ireland.
Its fur was a strange white colour and its mane looked like it had been styled expertly. Like it had actually gone to some sort of equine barbershop. But that's ridiculous! Horses don't get their manes styled! That's just not normal. But in the grand scheme of things Irish boys turning into wolves isn't normal either, so I have little ground to complain on. I was unable to determine (nor wanted to) if it was male or female; either way it looked like it was in pain. Its eyes were tightly shut and its breathing was become increasingly painful to listen to, like sandpaper being rubbed on my eardrums. Whatever this creature was; it was in a seriously bad way. Judging by the pool of blood it was laying in however I gave it a nine out of ten chance that it was bleeding to death via a hole in the side of its body.
Then there was me. Standing tall above this wounded animal. Without a clue as to what I do.
"Kill it boyo." Yiang whispered evilly. "Do it slowly and savour its death cries."
"No! Don't listen to her." Yiang muttered softly. "One strike to the throat and the poor thing dies without any pain."
"Keep your nose out of this bitch!"
"Bite me cow!"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I said confusedly. "What the heck are you doing Yiang, what's with the split personality all of a sudden?"
"Whatever do you mean?" Yiang asked.
"One moment you tell me to kill this thing slowly, the next you tell me to end it fast. I can't make up my mind!"
"It doesn't matter boyo, just kill it however you wish and see this world in all its glory."
I shook my head in uncertainty, what the hell was Yiang playing at? My Godly guide was not the most helpful it seemed. I began looking for a means to dispatch the thing on the floor. I found a few rocks that would crush its skull as well as a multitude of fallen branches I could use as clubs to beat it into the next life. The only problem was that in terms of dexterity; paws left a lot to be desired. My jaws couldn't pick up a rock and swinging a stick was more difficult than I first thought it would be. What did that leave me with? I was just an animal.
A wolf to be precise, the dog of the wilds.
Dogs had teeth and claws.
Oh fuck that......
It raised my paw once again and gave my claws a good seeing too. Razor-sharp by the looks of things. My teeth were no doubt the same level of deadly. But this wasn't right...... I couldn't do something like this......
Could I?
That was the dilemma, the creature was clearly in pain and I was the only other sentient thing in this place. I had been told by Yiang to kill it in exchange for colour vision. But in the end it all boiled down to one simple question.
Did I have that killer instinct in me?
The correct answer was yes, yes I do. We all do. Human or not, we are all beasts at heart. I vaguely recalled a book about this kind of thing. Boys trapped on an island with no adults. It wasn't long before they descended into savagery, turning to violence to assert dominance over one another. One of them even became obsessed with killing pigs. The average age of the boys was about eleven. I was older than that, but I was still a teenage boy. Now I'm a wolf. A creature that by its very nature hunts and kills its prey without a thought for the life it removes. That was my life now. All I needed was a pack to run with. No matter how hard I tried to block it out; that same primal flame kept on gliding into my mind. That one repeated mantra from that book I read.
KILL THE PIG! CUT ITS THROAT! BASH IT IN!
If they could turn so quickly to such feral behaviour as humans, what could I do as a wolf? All I had to do was raise my paw and strike the creature down. I tottered over to near motionless creature, it was most certainly a horse despite its strange coat. This was it, the moment of truth. The biggest decision I would ever make in this world.
Can I complete this primal pact, and make my first kill?
My paw moved steadily upwards as the horse's breathing became faster. I twisted slightly to get my paw higher into the air. The horse's breathing began to rasp and blood dripped steadily from its nostrils. My paw was as high as I could get it with falling over.
The horse's eye opened. My mind juddered to a halt.
There it was in front of me. Pale eyes drained of life gazing into my own freshly resurrected ones. I had cheated death while this poor creature was practically crying for release from its mortal being.
This thing was my quarry.
I was the reaper.
Moving on the same primal instinct that had guided me here, my paw rushed towards its neck. My claws outstretched and prepared to spill blood.
Blood.
So much blood.
Its nothing like what you see it the films when somebody gets their throat slit. This was messy. A hunk of flesh caught on my claw and the entire front of the horse's neck was torn away. Blood erupted from it like a demented geyser and it drenched me in sticky bodily fluids. The stench was unbearable; my sense of smell screeched in fright as it was bombarded by the sickly juices of the now dead horse. Not knowing what to do, how to continue, I bolted back the way I came. In my head I pictured the pond; or a bath as I saw it now. My paws crushed the roses as I continued to flee from what I had just done. From what I had just killed. Primal instinct was doing nothing for me now. I was terrified for no reason.
The pond came into view, a shining puddle of cleansing in the clearing. I jumped in without a second thought. The pleasantly warm water went halfway up my thigh and lapped away the blood that stained my fur. The crystal clear pond swiftly became a mass of red as more and more blood inked the crystal clear pigment.
Wait, why was the water red?
"I promised you colour boyo." Yiang said after her long absence. "I have granted you colour eyesight, enjoy it," Sure enough; the rest of the world started to gain colour like it were being painted by an invisible artist. The rich flavour of life burst back into view as the world became a mash of greens, reds, blues, pinks, browns and yellows instead of the inky grey it was before. The water was hideously red now. Hideously, beautifully red. I rolled around in the pond while giggling like a schoolchild in my head. I don't care if I was rolling in blood, it was coloured blood!
After several minutes of absorbing the wonderful new world I was in I exited the pond. My fur with totally clean. Save for one paw. My right forepaw was still a strange red colour. I dipped it into the pond and swirled it around. When I removed it is was still a bloody red. I attempted to do what a wolf does to clean itself normally, I licked my paw. It didn't even taste of blood. I nibbled at my fur and pulled some of it away. Red flecks of fur fell to the ground.
It wasn't blood on my paw.
All of my fur was dyed a bloody red.