Snippets

by The Wind King

Forgotten Father

He stood there on the edge of the mountaintop; his bone white fur blending invisibly with the moonlight on the alpine snow, amber eyes sweeping across the peaks before and below him, a single motion of his head taking in the vast untrammelled wilderness that was his domain with a mixture of contempt and resignation before great muscles bunched and tensed.

Almost soundlessly the ancient wolf turned from the cliff edge and padded softly to the first slope that he would walk tonight, for all his size and weight he left no marks in the snow, only the motion of one amber eye in the gloom was any sign of his passing, as it had the night before, and the night before that stretching all the way back for a time far greater than he could count in the changing of the sun and moon.

Another night of the duty he had taken upon himself when the Twisting One had gone truly mad, when nightmares, abominations, unreal things in real flesh had been unleashed upon the world, when the Light Bringer and the Dreamer had faced the Twisting One for the sake of their mortals. Another night under the watching eyes of moon and stars to prowl the darkness and find the things that should not be, should never have been, and could not be allowed to continue being. Another night where his duty took him away from his pack-children, should any of them still hunt the monsters that stalked in the moonlight shadows as he had taught them in the first breaths of the world.

Fenrir wondered to himself as he reached the base of the slope, arctic winds covering the padding of his paws on snow and rock, amber eyes searching the pooling shadows that did not move, did not cower, did not hide from the great wolf as he loped past, what had become of his children?

Years had passed since he had last heard the hunting howls on the night winds, years had passed since he had last seen a bold pup out for its first inexpert hunt, years had passed since the Twisting One had taken the few of his children who had listened to its lies and turned them into cold unfeeling ice, a mockery in their ceaseless hunger for the warmth of life; warped them and bound them into unthinking plants that could never grow or change, a thoughtless pastiche of the cunning he had left his pack-children that allowed them to work together as one, or twisted them into cowerous, timorous, mutts who hid themselves within the deep parts of the world, hiding in their dens as prey, flinching at every passing shadow and breath of wind.

Fenrir idly noted the rocks of the great northern moraines shifting under his paws, a layer of rime spreading in his wake while silent winds dragged at fallen flakes of snow with his passing. Idle thoughts and passing fancies flickering into life in his mind before dying just as quickly while he continued onwards.

The hours passed silently like all the years behind him had, while he continued his hunt, the only trace of the great wolf's passing the hoarfrost glittering under moon and stars, before he had circled the all the great peaks. The moon setting below the broken horizon as he found himself where he had began the night's prowl under the soft blanket of starlight.

Not sure why, Fenrir found himself looking at the heavenly orb sinking further behind the jagged peaks of his domain. He wondered what had happened to the Dreamer after she had disappeared from her charges visage, the presence within Selene vanishing several months ago, a thousand years after it first appeared.

Maybe soon he would wander south and sate his curiosity.

Author's Note:

So I read all of Ardashir's Wolf in Pony's Clothing series in a weekend, gotta say great stories, but what leapt out at me was what happened to Father Fenrir? Immortals quite literally pop out of the woodwork every other week in Equestria.

Headcanon, after Discord ran free the first time, he left his monstrosities wandering in the wild parts of the world, and Fenrir took it upon himself to hunt through the great northern wastes until there were none left. He doesn't actually realise just how well he's done his job, and he is now stalking through an empty domain searching for something that is not there.

Comments

[Ardashir]

Wow, thanks again for doing this. I hope you don't mind my posting a link to this in a journal so others of my readers can see the wonderful work you did here.

I'll also say that I consider this canon to the Ardiverse stories.