Under a Full Moon (Chapter 1)

Chapter 1

Saberlord strides out of the forest, his mind resting heavily on the words of Sky Lord.  It struggles to pull apart the meanings and faded words overtime.  The old prophecy faded with his many seasons already and he wonders how it could have been.  Only a few seasons ago had he heard the words spoken from Bloodpool’s very mouth.  The powerful bloodline of the Seers passed down from his mother to him.  Before his mother was Sky Walker, the very first wolf to be given the gift of Sight from Sky Lord himself.  She used it to predict the future, reveal the past, and see into the very hearts of all around her.  She, and she alone, aided Mountainlord in creating Mountain Pack, a strong group of elite wolves, their territory ranging from as far as the clothskins’ dens, to Snake Pack in the valley.  Sky Walker had chosen Mountainheart to be the first alpha, lord of the Mountain; thus he was given the title of Mountainlord in honor of Sky Lord’s mighty name.  Over the seasons of work and generations of powerful alphas ruling over the others, Mountain Pack had been the first chosen pack by Sky Lord to lead the way.  The prophecy stated that ‘The Mountain is the closest piece of our Mother that touches me, the sky.  Therefore the wolf gifted with my power, to uphold the world in his paws, will be born from that very rock to be your savoir or destroyer.’

How could Mountain Pack not be from where this Chosen One would come from?  There hardly were any rouge wolves lingering anymore.  Saberlord and his elite wolves had and would chase them out with a few scratches, reminding them not to forget the boundaries of Mountain Pack’s territories again.  As alpha, it was his duty to keep his pack safe, being as it was, the Chosen One would arise soon.  Saberlord could feel it in his bones and knew the dawn was arriving; the dawn of a new era unto Sky Lord himself will ascend.

Hawkeye creeps slowly through the bushes, his instincts screaming at him to turn around, as they always did when he was in this area of the valley.  His senses screamed at him to head back home and stay low but his mind pushed his body forwards.  I can’t turn back now.  He’s waiting for me!  With a determined face and a scrunched muzzle, Hawkeye trudges on, a distinct scent in the air before him.

On the other side of the valley, brown paws slap the pavement in a rushed frenzy, their claws scrapping against the sun-warmed concrete.  Sweat radiates off the curly fur as the body races down the home stretch, the end of human society coming into view.  A small smile slaps itself onto the mutt’s face like a mosquito hitting a U-Haul truck down the highway.  Almost ther - Three tall and mean-looking dogs break his trail of thought.  They jump in his way and he goes tumbling to the ground, careful not to hit them.  They snicker as the mutt quickly scrambles to his paws to face his attackers.

“Thought you were gonna leave town now di’ja, Roger?” smirks the dog in the front of the others, clearly the mutt with a butt and a plan.  The brown mutt looks up at Max, a.k.a Maxyeeeee from his three year old human owner and their family.  Though no one would dare call him that to his face.  The face is just too important to lose for mutts with jus that to go on; and one of them happens to be Roger.

Being a typical dog around society has always been a challenge.  Roger is not the top dog.  I don’t ever remember him getting close.  He always turns out to be the one at the bottom of the ‘dog pile’.  Today happens to be another day when he is reminded that he is nothing but ‘scum and shouldn’t be going around here with his head held higher than the floor’.  Oh how Max loved to see Roger squirm and squeal like a pup.

Today however, Roger had held his ground instead of just hightailing it as he usually did.  This only made Max even angrier, his face twisting up and his lackeys trying to imitate his hunched stance.

“You’re makin’ me pissed, Roger!” snaps Max, taking a pawstep closer to his prey.  The smaller dog doesn’t move back or even flinch.  Max takes back, confused.  His lackeys look from each other and their leader, unsure of what is going on.  Max turns to them and bark, “Get him idiots!”

At his usual signal, Roger takes off as the lackeys take chase.  He turns down the familiar corners and runs for his pelt through the city.  Finally he sees the tall oak brown fence ahead.  I make that slide; they won’t be able to get me!  Roger pushes forwards, his mind urging his paws to hit the ground faster.

In vain, his little body hits the fence hard, knocking the wind out of his lungs.  What?  Ack…  There was supposed to be a little panel in the fence, a broken piece I slip through…  What?  What now?  Roger slightly turns his head to see the lackeys turning ‘round the corner, catching sight of him lying there.  Their snickers make Roger gulp.  Forgive me friend…  I might not make it today…  Then Max turns the corner, last.

“Heh!  You’re pathetic, ya know?” snarls Max, taking his stance over Roger, still lying there.  The mutt slightly whimpers.

“Ha!  Now you don’t want me to hurt you?!  Then why did you run from me, little scumbag?  Hmm?”  snarls Max, rubbing his nose on Roger’s small head.  The lackeys behind him snicker.

“Hey boss…  Don’t ya think we should teach this mutt a lesson?”  Max turns to one of the dogs behind him that dare speak out against him.

“Hmm…  This time, ya little flea-infested skank, you are right!  Let’s show this miserable human-lover what happens when he betrays his own kind!”  Max reaches up to strike Roger with his bared fangs but a familiar scent catches his nostrils.  Frozen in position, the yellowed fear trickling down his hind leg, Max gulps for his life.  Standing in front of them on the grass, right in front of the tall fence stands a tall, lean looking wolf.  Not the kind of hybrid dog-wolves the humans owned but a purebred, dominant male wolf.  Max glances down at Roger and then back at the wolf.  The mutt squirms out from under Max and scoffs.

The wolf goes to stand at Roger’s side, his silver, earthy brown fur catching the sun’s rays.  The majestic-ness of this animal went without hating or comments, for there was truly nothing to be said about the greatness of this adolescent wolf.

“Mut- I mean..  uh…  Ro-Ra-Rol-l…  Oh right!  Roger…”  The wolf meets Max’s fumble with a subtle glare.  Max quickly tries to cover up his failure with a quick cough, a trick his little human tries, “Ahem…  Ahem…  Sorry, Roger…  Uh…  You know this… wolf?”  Roger smiles a big smile.

“Indeed I do!”  Max’s eyes practically pop out of his skull.  Behind him, frozen in terror stand the three other dogs, their eyes watering with tears of intense fright.

The lackeys look to Max for an example to take but instead they find a petrified dog, perhaps even more so than them.

“Max?” asks one of the mutts, glancing at their leader’s frozen stature.  Max does not reply.  The only thoughts going through his head were focused on the wolf standing in front of him and Roger, the mutt who he had been tormenting all his miserable life.  Roger was in the position to do anything he liked to Max, taking his seat of absolute power; boy did this make him mad.  If it weren’t for his big friend, Max would have torn Roger to shreds for challenging the authority he thought he had well practiced.

Roger’s bark tears Max from his thoughts like a pup from the womb, echoing and ringing like bells in his ears.

“What?” Max snaps fearfully back, his ears fully up, tail between his legs.  Roger smiles.

“I said, ‘leave me alone!  I don’t want you picking on me anymore!’  Is that good enough for you?  Ya hear that now?” smirks the brown mutt, ruffling his fur, making himself look larger than Max.  The rottweilers glance around in a panic.  Their leader was being forcefully pushed out of his seat and they all knew it.  In an awkward shuffle of paws and tails between legs, the lackeys move over to Roger’s side, careful to give the wolf as much room as possible between them.  The wolf glares down.  They whimper and move back a little more.  Roger smiles slightly, looking at Max, staring him down.  Max looks right back into those dark brown eyes of his opponent.

“Get out and don’t bother me again, clear?” barks Roger, making the other dogs jump.  The lackeys take off and Max just manages to bark before chasing after them, “Yes Sir!”  Roger looks back at his friend.

“Hey Hawkeye…  How’ve you been?”

The two friends’ paws crinkle on the freshly dew-ed grass in the forest.  Hawkeye stands a whole wolf-head taller than his friend but the two do not care, they couldn’t be happier.  This strange friendship began years ago when Hawkeye, just a kit, was separated from his pack and made his way to the clothskins’ lair.  He met Roger there in their home and became friends.  Though his Father bans any contact with their cousins, Hawkeye can’t seem to let his friendship down, at least until his Father finds out.

“Roger…  Who was that?”

“Oh him…  He’s Max.  His owner-”

“Clothskin…?” buts Hawkeye, looking at his friend puzzlingly.  Roger sighs, forgetting that he had to change his terminology slightly for his wolf-y friend.

“-clothskinned master, is a three seasoned old kit!  He has to obey and come on command to her!  It is the funniest sight of them all!  Boy does he hate it when you bring it up to his ugly muzzle.”  Roger reminisces in the good times of usual beating and scratches he would get for being smart.  Hawkeye keeps walking and finally stops, looking at his friend with a certain look in his eyes.

“Wanna play?”

“Just what I was about to say, Hawkeye!” smiles Roger, crouching down into his attack stance.  Hawkeye mimics his friend and raises his tail up high, his lips pulled back in a friendly way, gnashing his teeth together to intimidate his opponent.  Roger does the same and ruffles the collar around his neck.  He moves in and tries to lift up his friend by hitting him lower down on the shoulder.  Being about three times bigger than Roger, Hawkeye takes the blow and stands his ground, knocking Roger down instead.  Hawkeye sits down on his friend and they wrestle on the ground instead.  Hawkeye flips over and tosses Roger over his body, landing behind his head.  Roger reaches out to snag his friend’s ear with his hind paw but Hawkeye ducks on the ground.  The two scramble to their paws and look at each other, a dog-to-wolf stare-down.  Then Hawkeye breaks the silence with a smile, “Hey, Roger…  Lets play hide-and-seek.”  Roger nods and Hawkeye bounds off into the thickets.

Hawkeye’s silent paws caress the moist leaves of the forest earth.  He smiles with glee as Roger paces back and forth, trying to catch his friend’s scent.  With Hawkeye standing down-wind, any-wolf would know that anything with a nose would not be able to sniff them out.  Apparently dogs seemed to miss out on that important fact in their evolutionary chain sprouting away from wolves.  Roger takes to looking in the bushes and thick brambles for his friend instead of the air.  After a few minutes, Roger still has nothing.  The mid-say sun rises high above their heads, revealing long shadows.  Roger notices his small shadow in front of him.  Doesn’t Hawkeye have to head back home around this time?  He lifts his head to resume looking for his friend, a little more urgency this time.

“Hawkeye…  Hide and seek was fun but I doubt you’ll want your father joining our game…”  Hawkeye hears his friend from the bush behind him and looks up at the sun, hanging right above him.  Thanks to the bushes, his shadow would not betray his location behind them but still, the mid-day sun made something in his brain switch on.  That little switch is called responsibility.

“…And then, to top that, I’m a dog!  A dog that actually has an owner!” complains Roger, shuffling his paws nervously, images of his friend’s father’s tearing into his neck with the large choppers sitting comfortably in his closed moth.  Roger shakes his head and the image disappears.  He sighs, looking back into the bushes, slightly able to pick up on Hawkeye’s scent but not able to pinpoint it’s location.  Damn-it Hawkeye!  Hawkeye’s mind searches through the dark depths to find out what he was missing.

            “Urgh!  I’ll be right there…” mumbles Hawkeye, still shuffling around in the bushes trying to interrogate his memory.  Roger rolls his eyes and chuckles to himself, trying to hide his nervousness.  Hawkeye, always late and playing around...  It is gonna bite him in the tail one day…  Then I won’t be there to pull him out of the fires.

Hawkeye’s furry body launches out of the bushes and lands right on top of Roger. The mutt crumples to the forest floor like a wilting flower.  He then wiggles out from under the mighty brownish wolf as his oppressor falls to the side of him with a playful smile.

            “Goodness, you’re so heavy!  You should lay off the fatty rabbits and start eating mice!  They have a high source of grains and grass!” snaps Roger, playfully imitating Hawkeye’s father.  Then Hawkeye’s teenage memory kicks back into high gear.

            “Got ya!  Come on, I just remembered what I have to get back early for…”  Hawkeye sheepishly looks at his friend, uttering a nervous laugh.  Roger’s face slightly twists with nerves.

“…And I hope whatever you have to get back for didn’t start at mid-day ‘cause we are way beyond that…  I also hope it wasn’t very important…” Roger mumbles, studying his friend’s expression to try and read how important this event was.  Hawkeye shakes his brown and gold fur to eliminate the twigs and leaves from the tangles in his long fur from the tackle.  Roger does the same to his slightly curly short fur, finding it a little harder.

            “You’d better get rid of your scent and then scatter.  The last thing we need is a lousy patrol coming along and finding our scents,” adds Hawkeye, nervously glancing around.  Roger nods and pats the ground with his paw.

            “Sure thing buddy.  Have a good day and I hope for your sake that you get back in time.”  Hawkeye scoffs, “I bet it’s not that important…  I’ll be fine!”