The last thing I remembered before waking up was a horrible something lodged somewhere inside me. I can't remember what it was, and I don't really want to. I didn't like it. I DON'T like it. I don't know what it was and I don't want to.
But, whatever it was, it didn't take long before everything became strange.
I can't really describe it, not really - parts just don't make sense. There was dark and light, hot and cold, dry and wet, and sometimes they were happening at the same time. There was even pain, of a sort, but it wasn't anywhere I can name or even point to, and it didn't last long when it was there. I can't really say I understand what happened, but I know that whatever that thing inside of me was, it was what caused everything.
I know that time passed. No idea how much, but when parts started to fade away, I know that it was distressing. I didn't know it at the time, but thinking back to it... thinking back on it really... well, I think I was losing parts of me the whole time and just didn't realize it.
A lot of me really.
Most of me.
So much that I didn't even know what was happening when a big, yellow and red warm thing touched me, I didn't even realize it. I was just.... there.
And that's where my story really begins.
I was in a field somewhere. I know this because I ended up coming back a few times since then. It... smelled the same. Kind of grassy, a little like soil, and quite a bit like rock dust and pine needles. Even now there's a little tang of granite if you let your tongue hang out a bit. Not really all that common as I've come to find out, but anyway...
I was in a field when the thing came by and scooped me up. For the briefest of moments, there was wet and the feeling of being crushed before I was flying. It would have been a heady sensation if it hadn't ended so quickly with a sharp crack upon something hard and brown. It seemed familiar, but I couldn't place it. I wasn't given much time to think it over though before I found myself being jostled and battered between a number of the brown somethings.
Oddly, though I was being battered, it didn't occur to me that I was suffering any ill effects. Certainly I was being injured, perhaps critically in my confused and diminished state, but the feeling of pain never registered. Idly, I bore witness to the world around me: a seeming blur of light and sound, color and texture, even as I was reduced infinitesimally by each brutal impact.
Slowly, I came to notice differences between the brown things. Some were larger while others had a different feel to them. Some were darker or even sported slight splashes of color upon their bodies. Some even made different sounds when we collided.
It was much more stimulation than I had encountered for quite some time.
Despite all this, I did not find the experience to be disrupting or enjoyable. Rather, I found myself truly only able to experience it and, later, reflect back upon the event.
Before long, two other large blotches of color joined yellow and red. One was a soft white, somewhat like the fluff of cat-tails, with a smear of floral pastel purple/pink. The other, a ruddy orange (like iron-bearing river mud) with a shock of grape and a very strange noise which came and went without apparent reason.
These three things seemed to stay in constant motion, often crashing into one another or letting loose cacophonous howls of nonsensical jabbering. Though some time later I discovered this to be their form of speech, I was not yet aware enough to recall anything of their exchange. To this day, it plagues me for I might have avoided a number of difficulties had I discovered their intentions.
But, for the moment, I was a curious (though oblivious) passenger upon their little dance of madness.
For a time after my brief excursion I was allowed to rest. The world had once again become dark and the temperature had crept lower, stirring a vague desire to move. Of course, I didn't. I couldn't move. I lay there. I had lain there. I was content to lay there, and yet, somehow, I felt the desire to move. While perplexing, this afforded me the opportunity to consider my circumstances.
I could lay there. I was content to lay there. I felt a desire to move. I couldn't move. Thus, I was content to lay.
Crisis averted, I resumed my active laying, content in the knowledge that laying was something I not only wanted to do, but was fairly good at.
And that's when Yellow and Red scooped me up again.
Once more I found myself wet and crushed for a moment before soaring, only to suddenly recall my recent experience and anticipate the worst. Though it hadn't hurt, I knew that I had been injured by my earlier travels. Something concerned me about that: I should know why I should be worried, and yet, despite my best efforts, the only reason I could come up with was that being struck repeatedly interfered with my laying... which was important work.
Filled with such woeful knowledge, I braced for the inevitable bludgeoning again, only to be startled by the most wondrous of sensations. No sooner had I come in contact with my assailant than I noted the difference from my previous treatment. Instead of a hard brown thing striking me, I found myself sinking into something cool and dark, damp with a rich earthy smell.
It felt wonderful.
It actually felt wonderful.
I wasn't sure what was happening, but suddenly the notion of just laying seemed trivial in comparison to the glorious act of sinking into the damp stuff.
And then the strange smells and lights started to happen, each followed by the raucous howls of the big things and tremblings through the damp stuff.
Time and again it repeated. Colors and light, noise and vibrations. Each time getting brighter, louder and stronger. I wasn't sure what was happening, but I did not want to be there. I missed my field. I missed my bright dark and my hot cold. I even missed my wet dry, though not as much.
I was just reevaluating the positive aspects of the cool damp when the colors suddenly came all around me and the strangest of sensations raced through me.
I felt stretched, sore, crushed inside myself as if trapped and needing to escape. There was a horrible moment of agony before I suddenly felt myself surging free, stretching in the best possible way as the cool damp seemed to comfort and protect me. The world was there, actually there, and in so many more ways than it had been.
It wasn't merely color and light, heat and cold, sound and scent. It wasn't even limited to taste or depth, something had fundamentally changed and I couldn't, for a moment, determine what until I chanced to realize that the cool damp seemed to have diminished while comforting me.
In a moment of thoughtlessness, I tried to comfort the cool damp, causing (what I later found to be called a 'flowerpot') it to be overturned.
Dismayed, I reflexively shifted back and promptly discovered why my precious cool damp had become less - I had grown.
For a few precious moments, I struggled to understand what was occurring before being interrupted in my thoughts by the howling and baying of the three, now not quite so, giant things. I flinched back, instinctively trying to hide from the larger things as they hooted and howled to one another.
It was a strange sight, the three of them, they looked somehow familiar and yet so very strange. Each stalked upon four limbs, though they were so obvious that it would be impossible to hunt. Each searched the world with a set of leaves upon their heads, though they hardly looked to have stems at all. Each clearly had a maw, and yet their thorns were so small they would be lucky if they could pierce a blade of grass. Even stranger, their thorns seemed to have all broken evenly, leaving them clearly unable to catch their own prey. Worse, even their roots and barbs seemed to be missing, leaving them clearly defenseless.
They must also be suffering from their state, for their bodies bore the most unhealthy swaths of color... they clearly were diseased and likely to die soon. And yet, they moved so fluidly.
It must be a wasting disease or a fungus...perhaps a burrowing beetle or larval infestation that only sapped their strength. I wasn't sure, but I pitied these wolves... they would be lucky to see their first budding.
Presently though, their howling stopped and the yellow red came close, looking me over from all sides as I stayed perfectly still.
The others seemed to notice as well, and before long I found myself the object of their fascinations.
It had been days, a term I slowly recognized, as yellow red continued to check on me every few hours. I had been given my own small den, a burrow of the cool damp, and a bud of some sort for company. The bud, as healthy as it seemed, was silent, preferring instead to gloat at me silently with its enormously bloated, bright red bloom while I explored my granted territory.
It was small. Of course, I was small as well, but with how ailing the others had seemed, I felt a small gift had likely cost them greatly. It was... rewarding to feel accepted into their pack, even if only as a small role. I could make myself useful. I could prove that I could help the pack.
The bud, lazy as it was, seemed content to gloat silently the entire time.
I was mistaken.
The bud hadn't been gloating or lording his lot over my own.
He had been passing on.
I awoke that morning to find his sides soft and the delicate scent of passing to be upon him. Yellow Red, when she came to check on me, discovered this as well and, like a true alpha, handled her loss with the utmost efficiency. She carefully pulled Bud from my territory, firmly but gently enough not to damage his peel, and disposed of him. She even went so far as to discard him where his seeds might take root.
I have a good alpha, a strong alpha. I doubt that I could have done as she.
The rest of the pack returned later that day. Though they did not bring food, they brought the proof of their vicious combat out in the wilds. Whiteflower, whom I noticed has the only intact thorn amongst them, is apparently the alpha while in conflict with outsiders. She seemed the most energetic when she displayed a pile of white things from an odd pouch on her side.
Curious, I had approached and, after they had jabbered at me, sniffed the white pile.
If I had been concerned for our packs future, the crushed and pressed remains of the Unmoving Tribe dispelled such concerns. That such a pack-mate could fell such beings and be able to reduce them from their towering forms into such easily carried snacks... well, I had no concerns of our pack's ability to hunt anymore.
Dirtysap, as much as she seemed to be physically impressive with her delayed leaps, does not seem to be a capable hunter at all. She cannot seem to use her greatest advantage, her leaping skill (which defies all understanding as she can hang in the sky for moments without moving), without alerting prey to her position by way of the infuriating, high, whine of a growl that she constantly makes. Even worse, I fear for Dirtysap as she seems to growl from both her maw and her young branches.
Yellow Red, however, has proven to be the undisputed alpha. Even when Whiteflower and Dirtysap go out to hunt or mark territory, Yellow Red keeps me nearby. I believe she may be seeding, despite her size, with how protective she is of me.
It has been a number of days and I have finally been given permission to explore Yellow Red's den.
It is enormous.
The ground is made of more Unmoving Tribe corpses, the sky is held back by an unreachable something, and the den itself seems to be able to be cut off from the rest of the world, securing us inside.
Despite the ingenious methods of Yellow Red, I have come to realize that our pack is not the only pack in the area.
Just this morning, a towering wolf (also diseased it would appear) broke into the den and howled at Yellow Red. It was the color of dying leaves and setting suns except its eyes which shown with the light of freshly budded leaves in the spring. Though Yellow Red managed to route the larger wolf, it was not without strain for she then proceeded to roam around the den for a few minutes, collecting offerings before setting me back to my den and departing for most of the day.
When she finally returned, she seemed weary and covered in a foul smelling rain.
I do not particularly like Ambercrown. That wolf will be trouble.
If I had been concerned about Ambercrown, I admit terror when I witnessed a true monster stalk by Yellow Red's den opening. The wolf was easily four times the size of Yellow Red, dwarfing even Ambercrown.
When he stalked, he moved slowly and with purpose, his body also discolored, though by his size, I have started to wonder if he may be a different breed of wolf. Where Yellow Red is larger than I, Ambercrown is easily three times her size. The Predator is enormous, the color of a dieing conifer or a sugar maple in fall, and (unlike the others) made almost no sound as he moved.
When he entered Yellow Red's den, he didn't even howl at her, he simply stalked over, picked her up in his maw, and put her on the ground where she promptly woke up. That he would do such to an alpha.... I suddenly fear for our pack once more.