where are we going:
They all look at you the same.Worthless, dark, a monster, just trying to survive. Even a shadow survives. living on the edge of light.
You survived before but you always had help. not this time pal.
you know what darkness can do to a person. darken there heart. It will make you fight for your chance to shine. this life is all just a dream inst it. A sick twisted dream.
we both know the answer to that.
Do not act like were different people.
the light is just a lie. giving people a distinguishable difference between the well and the ill.
those who bare themselves as light without helping those in the dark are the real monsters.
you live on the edge of a shadow because you pull people out of its dark grasp.
does that make you dark? maybe.
but a monster no.
some might consider you a hero.

Star Wolves - Chapter 1 - Lonely Curiosity - J.I.Snow

“Uncle, where are you going today?” A brown-haired boy asked through a broken window.

“I’m exploring the forest, since yesterday I saw these odd wolf tracks in the dirt,” The uncle replied, shouldering a brown leather knapsack.

“Can I come with you?” The boy asked, leaning out of the window a bit.

“Not today David, you are going to stay here,” The uncle replied once more, gesturing for the boy to stay put.

“Fine, but what did the tracks look like that made them odd?” David questioned, putting his chin in his left hand.

“You ask a lot of questions,” The uncle sighed with a smile, running a calloused hand through peppered black hair, and turned to David. “They looked like normal tracks, but with them are what appeared to be very tiny stars. They twinkled on their own while they eventually faded. They’re why I’m going; I want to see what they belong to”

“Cool, now can I come?” David asked eagerly, his green eyes widening.

“Still no,” The uncle told him sternly with a small laugh. “Not until you are fifteen.”

“But I’ll be fifteen in one month,” David complained. “And I don’t want to stay in this old house while you’re away. They’ll come back.”

“One month is not fifteen,” His uncle reminded him, wagging his index finger. Then sympathy came into his forest green eyes. “And you’ll be fine,” He came up to David and lifted his only nephew’s chin. “As long as I’m alive, I won’t allow you to be harmed. I promised that a long time ago,” Silence hung in the air as he held David’s gaze. “Now off I go,” He said, taking his hand away and readjusting his bag filled with all the things he needed, and disappeared into the forest.

"I know, but when will you come back?" David stared in the direction his uncle left in, knowing that this could be another long trip his uncle was taking, before he forced himself away from the window.

David replayed the memory again in his head. Many months had passed since he had seen his uncle go into the forest and never return. David had kept watching from the window, hoping that his adventurous uncle would come through the forest. But that never happened, and now David was alone in the place that his mom and dad had found and lived in. The place even still smelled of medicine that had been used by a man that had died here supposedly centuries ago. David grabbed some stale bread and some dirty water for his breakfast before settling at a window to watch the other kids play outside. They all ignored him, or would throw rocks at the abandoned house. I don't understand, I never did anything to them. David lost himself to his thoughts as he watched, pondering all the things of what he could have done.

Clink.

David’s survival instincts kicked in at the sudden sound. In one motion he whipped around and dove under a table. He peeked out and saw a large white wolf with what looked like starlight on her fur looking around and getting into the cupboards, the starlight falling from her and puddling on the floor. After a moment she took herself away from her searching and walked past him to look out the window he was previously looking through. As she turned and walked back, she stopped at where he was hiding. Her massive head came down and with blue eyes looked at him before she exited the house, leaving him dazzled. By the time he got out of his place under the table the wolf was gone, but had left a light trail of tiny stars. He slowly followed the starry trail into the forest as it wove around various trees and bushes. When he looked up from the starry trail, he could see the white wolf in the distance. Eager, he quickened his pace until he was at least twenty feet away from the wolf. The land began to slope down, and soon he saw the white wolf go down a steep slope. He hid himself behind a tree before he looked into a clearing full of wolves, large and small, with a variety of colors. As he observed, he started noticing that some of these wolves were transparent as they mingled with the living ones.

One of the transparent wolves came up to join the white one he had followed. It seemed to talk to the white wolf, then looked up at him with white eyes that were like miniature suns. They burned with intensity, looking into his soul. As the white wolf began to turn her head David turned around and fled along the starry trail that was now fading back to the abandoned house. He ran in and hid under the worn green covers of his small bed. Slowing his breathing, he calmed down and began to carefully construct a plan to observe the wolves without being seen.

“They’re so close,” he thought aloud to himself. “So why didn’t Uncle Paul return?” He fell out of the bed as soon as he heard the pelting of rocks against the house, and cursed. That’s it. He thought, and he snatched up a soft-feeling rock that had come inside and threw it out a broken window at the kids. It hit a boy a little older than himself in the head and the boy went down with a thud, wailing in pain. David smiled triumphantly at his success against his attackers.

“Samson!” A girl about his age with blonde curls and wearing a frilly light blue dress screeched, running over to the boy. She looked back at David with hatred then back at the boy named Samson. “Come on! We need to get him to his mom!” She started dragging him by his arms and the others joined in by grabbing the rest of him, shouting insults at David along the way. David got down from the window and gave a slight grin. That should keep them at bay for a while. He thought proudly, and got back on the bed to begin to think once more, the question of why his uncle hadn’t returned now on his mind as well.

I must find him, and I know those wolves have the answer.

* * *

The next morning, he was eating breakfast that consisted of water and stale bread as he once again was at the window, pondering why those kids picked on him in the first place, ever since he was little. Hearing a clank behind him, he rushed under the table just as before but thinking it may be the white wolf, spilling his water and dropping the bread as he went. He looked out and saw the girl with blonde curls looking at one his dad’s old watches with curious blue eyes. She had delicate features, and her pale fingers reflected off the surface of the watch. Zooming out from under the table, he grabbed his brown leather bag and snatched the watch from the girl. Rushing through the open, gradually breaking, wooden door, he thought to himself, I really should fix that.

“Hey! Wait! I need to talk to you!” She shouted after him. He slipped behind a tree and waited quietly, hardly breathing as his heart pumped so rapidly from the scare that he thought it would burst. He stuffed the watch into the bag and after a few moments he looked out from behind the tree from where he was hiding. The girl was no longer at his house. Closing his eyes, he breathed a sigh of relief and ran a hand through his medium-length, brown hair.

“Do you really think that will work?” A feminine voice asked him. David snapped his eyes open. There in front of him was the girl, her arms crossed.

“Ach!” He yelped, and ran past her, diving into bushes. Pain shot through him and he realized that he had dived into blackberry; he cursed and tried to free himself. The girl found him again, her arms still crossed. She had an amused but disappointed look on her face. “What do you want!” He yelled at her. “I’m sorry for hitting your boyfriend but he deserved it, now go away!” He pushed her to the side with his free leg and got up, carefully picking the tendrils of blackberry from his clothes. After he brushed himself off he grabbed his bag that was tangled in the blackberry.

“He is not my boyfriend!” She shouted, hands clenching into fists. The girl quickly regained herself and patted the skirts of a similar blue dress compared to yesterday’s. “He’s my cousin. He wouldn’t say that he was sorry for hitting your house, so I came instead to say it.”

“It’s not lady-like to shout,” David told her as he observed his bag for tears. “But sorry doesn’t fix my house now does it? And they do it all the time without an apology, so yours isn’t necessary.” David slung the bag over his shoulder and turned to her with a questioning look. “What is your name anyway?”

“I won’t say mine till you say yours,” She retorted, her face twisting with annoyance.

“Fine, I’m David, David Blackbird,” He told her, mockingly bowing. “Now what is your name?”

“Mine is Thomasina, Thomasina Jasmine,” She replied, putting out her hand.

“Well Miss Jasmine, I best be on my way,” He said as he ignored the hand and turned to leave. Thomasina snagged his shoulder and turned him back around.

“Can I come with you?” She asked. “Please?” David glared at her before snorting with disbelief.

“No,” He said, and took off without another word.

What a stubborn boy, Thomasina thought, and looking at his fading form thought about how she was going to gain his trust.

David tried to remember the way he had previously gone as he strolled through the forest, writing the directions down on a small piece of crumpled paper. When he finally came to the wolves' camp entrance that was bordered by flowered bushes, he backed off by twenty feet. “There,” He said and made a makeshift bed with some blankets he had brought, proceeding to watch the entrance behind fallen tree branches.

Minutes went by, sitting and waiting for any movement. Eventually there was movement in the bushes to his left. Bringing the branches closer together, he sat still expecting one of the starlit wolves. But he felt his blood go cold as something else stepped out from the bushes. A pure black wolf with dark red eyes like pools of blood, huge paws, and a black mist trailed behind instead of the twinkling little stars. The wolf turned its eyes to David, the blood red color solidifying him to where he was. His hair stood on end, raising goose-bumps. The black mist flowing from the shadow wolf puddled around its paws, curling around the nearby plants.

A twig off to David’s left snapped, and to his amazement the wolf instantly jumped into the air, turning into a bat. It quickly flew away, keeping to the shadows of the trees.

David’s attention on the bat was averted when another twig snapped, his gaze now landed on a red wolf with a black ruffle around the neck. David stayed as still as possible and watched, wanting to follow them. But he stayed where he was as he saw a large transparent wolf following close behind that made him uneasy. He quietly sighed and minutes after they left he covered his things with the branches and headed home, glancing back once for a glimpse of any of the wolves.

When he got home he washed his dark brown hair in the broken sink with a bucket of puddle water. He looked up and into the stained mirror in front of him. Into his green eyes. Something seemed…different about them. He leaned in closer for a better look, but he didn’t know what the difference was in his own eyes. He shook his head and left the mirror, going straight for his weathering bed. Too tired to eat, too tired to take his dirty clothes off. From the bed he stared out the window at the starry sky outside before closing his eyes and falling into a deep sleep.

Star Wolves - Prologue - J.I.Snow

She ran through the forest, dodging trees, branches, and bushes. They all clawed at her, ripping at her simple brown dress and long white-blonde hair, and cutting her delicate skin. The townspeople were after her, thinking that she was a witch and had brought a drought to kill everyone. As the doctor’s daughter, she knew of all the cures better than her father. This made them wary of her in the first place, because she was female, and was not supposed to know these things. But in reality, her father’s mind had kept wandering, and so she had to remember them.

Suddenly she tripped on a root that had come out of the ground and fell. She tried to get up, but searing pain shot through her. Looking down to find the cause, she found that her ankle was broken. With the townspeople coming closer she dragged herself under a bush and tried to hide herself by pulling in fallen tree branches with her. Just moments later a young boy passed the bush she was hiding in, kicking a rock the size of a small baseball unknowingly toward her. The bushes slowed the rock down just enough to leave unconscious.

After the townspeople left, a gray and white wolf with starlight on his fur and eyes like tiny moons trotted through the forest. The scent of blood came to his nose, the foul smell wrinkling it. It faintly smelled familiar, which he found odd, and with curiosity pricking his mind, followed it. Under a nearby bush he found the girl and dragged her out. He knew this girl, that’s why the blood smelled familiar, he had seen her and her father before when they came to collect medicine, which they made themselves by using the plants they picked. Her name was Sarah, and she had been coming into the woods by herself to pick the medicinal plants, and now here she lay unconscious and hurt at his paws. He briefly looked around before dragging her farther into the woods by the back of her dress. Soon he came to a valley clearing with a perfectly round pool in the center.

A light gray she-wolf came out of a branch-woven den, and when she saw the gray and white wolf she ran up to him, horrified. “Moon! What do you think you’re doing!” She growled at him.

“Helping,” He responded through the clothing in his mouth.

“We can’t have humans in the camp, you know this,” The she-wolf sternly told him as he continued towards the pool.

 “But Cloud, it is her. The girl I told you about.”

She gasped, then ordered, “Well let me take a look at her then,” He set her down and she examined Sarah. “Well, I don’t think I can properly treat this,” She informed Moon as she pointed at the girl’s ankle. “But when she wakes up I‘ll give her something for her head.”

“Reason why I’m putting her in the pool, so you can properly do something about it,” Moon explained, and started dragging Sarah again, only to set her back down as the she-wolf talked again.

“We can’t do that; she’ll become one of us!” Cloud retorted. “You know that well enough as well!”

“I know that, Cloud. However this must be done. It is time. From here on she is one of us, this is her fate,” He said, giving the female wolf a look to keep her mouth shut. Moon started dragging Sarah again and placed her onto a little woven raft. He pushed her to the center of the large pool and swam back out, his fur glistening in the moonlight.

“May our destinies for ever entwine, and save us all,” He mused as the full moon centered itself above the pool. The raft holding Sarah sank, and a few heartbeats passed until the raft resurfaced with a white wolf in the place of Sarah. Moon swam back to the center and pushed the raft out. He dragged the white wolf onto the shore of the pool and prodded her with a paw. “Sarah,” He whispered. The white wolf opened her blue eyes and slowly sat up; she looked around and at herself. When she realized what she was seeing, she seemed to jumped strait out of her new form.

“A-a-am I dead?” She asked shakily. The pure white fur of her new fur form ruffled with anxiety.

“No, you are not, Sarah,” He told her kindly, in order to ease her nerves and not worry her further.

“Where in the world am I?” Sarah asked herself and Moon, while feeling her fur-covered head with a paw.

“You are in the Star Wolf camp, this is your new home now,” Moon explained. Sarah then looked around her for a minute, taking in the new sights and smells of her surroundings, and eventually her gaze ended at her paws below her.

“Are you okay?” Moon asked her, “Is there anything I can do?”

She hesitated before answering. “If I am not dead, not dreaming. If all of this is real, may I change my name?”

“Why is that, Sarah?” Moon asked curiously.

“I just don’t want to be called that anymore!” She barked with sadness. “It holds too many awful memories! That name will forever tie me to the past! Please let me change it!”

Moon moved back and thought of a name for the young she-wolf. He stayed calm, knowing that she was going to face challenges only she and a few others could fix based on the prophecy, and he thought it out carefully. “How about Zyntara?” Moon suggested.

She looked away, thinking it out, and then met his eyes. “That will do,” Zyntara said, sounding a little reassured and relieved. “However, I must ask because I appreciate this, how did you know my old name?”

“I have known you for a long time, Zyntara. Longer than you can imagine,” He turned to Cloud and bowed his head to her. The medicine wolf guided Zyntara to her den, and Moon walked away to his, saying now to himself, “And I have been aware for a long time that you would soon appear, for the beginning of a new dawn. One that could only foreseen as long and challenging.”