The kingdom of Fura, in the year 682. Magic is prevalent in the world. Most humans learn to control it at a young age. Therefore, technological advances stagnated since there was no need for machines.
Some people practice magic their whole lives and become masters at their craft. Some become druids, others dark wizards. The druids worship Suriel, the goddess of nature. While the dark wizards conjure power from dark forces beyond the realm of human understanding.
Suriel's following is small in number. The passivity of the druid lifestyle is not a popular one. They find solace in the fact that nature does not discriminate. Everything in the end will die. From nature, everything came, and it will reclaim what everything borrowed. Life.
....
Suriel walks among the trees of the forest. Listening to the birds chirping, the rivers flowing, and the wind blowing. Her white dress and tan skin stand in contrast, but can not exist without the other. Flowers of lavender and marigold blow in the wind, and she smells the fresh air they provide.
Everything about her and nature is balanced. She is one with it after all. Life moves all around her. Squirrels running and jumping from tree to tree while the occasional hawk grabs one off the woodland floor. A balanced set of life and death. However, she yearns for something more.
She makes her way past a lake. Swans honking and trumpeting as they glide across the water, flapping their wings against the once still water mirror of liquid blue. Ducks bobbing their heads underwater looking for food. The occasional fish swimming up to the surface, making additional circular ripples that fade into a state of limbo.
Crows calling to each other up ahead, followed by humanoid voices. She investigates the sounds. Seeing several hunters dressed in fur coats standing over two dead wolves.
The hunters laugh, joking about how easy it was to hunt down these wolves. How they stood their ground, how they didn't run. All the hunters have unkempt beards, one of them leaning against his longbow, bending it to the point where it almost snaps in half.
Two of the hunters begin gutting their own wolf. Fresh blood is still trickling out of the wounds the arrows had made before they make the first incision. They cut the animal from groin to sternum. Shoving their hand into the freshly made opening, they grab the throat and pull out all of the organs into a bloody blob of jelly, the intestines looking like cephlopada tendrils dipped into a thick red oil. Tying rope around the ankles, they drag away their trophies.
Suriel leans her back against a tree, sliding down it until she is sitting. She takes a deep breath, and she stares at the spot the two wolves had been. She wonders what kind of death they would have faced if not for the hunters.
She shakes her head, wondering why she cares so much. Their just animals. They die all the time. Everything needs to kill in order to survive. Insects will feed off the nutrients left by the blood of those animals.
A single tear drips down from her eyes. Running down her cheek and falling onto the ground. Crows cawing once again.
A whimper catches her attention. She stands up to see where it came from. Past the blood marks there lays a den. Another whimper. She rushes over to the hole and finds three wolf pups. Their eyes are opened. 'It's a miracle the hunters didn't notice them.' Each one of the pups has different fur. Black, white, and brown.
She's about to pick them up and hug them. She changes her mind. She knows she's not supposed to interfere with trivial matters. She stares at them, the black and white wolf have blue eyes. The brown one having yellow.
She stands up and turns away from them, not wanting to be tempted by how cute they are. She takes another deep breath and walks away rubbing her temples.
....
Being an astral spirit comes with its benefits. For instance, Suriel can hop between this world and the astiel world whenever she wants. Most choose not to. The rules stating that they are not to interfere with the natural order of things. Leaving fate to decide when things happen.
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The room she's in is decorated with a strange yellow glow. All the artifacts and materials from this world possess magical properties that glow with residual dust. Everything in this place is strange to those who do not inhabit this world. Nothing is recognized.
A world built by a civilization not bound by time. They are not actual gods themselves, but humans worship them as if they are. Beings from an immortal plane, a pocket dimension existing separately from the natural world. An artificial reality created by an unknown entity to separate themselves from the lesser beings for their protection.
A tall man enters the room, his complexion the same as her. His clothing strange and glowing like everything else. "Back so soon?" He asks.
"Short walk today." She responds, not wanting to tell him anything more than she needs to.
"A planet full of life is about to be destroyed by an asteroid near Orion. I'm going with a few of my buddies to watch."
Suriel takes a deep breath. "What's with you and watching things die? Why can't people find joy in watching life form on planets?"
Her outrage catches him off guard. "I never knew you had a problem with it." He watches as she sits down on what can be best described as a bed. "Life comes from death. They are not opposing forces."
She doesn't look at him. Still thinking about the three wolf pups she could have saved. When he sees that she won't respond, he walks out of the room without saying another word.
After a few minutes of sulking, an idea pops into her head. Maybe she can still save them. She opens up a dimensional rift and walks through it. Entering the same wooded area she had left them.
She takes a sigh of relief when she sees them alive. Dimensional travel can be tricky with time differences. A minute might pass, but in another dimension, several days could have gone by.
She takes them out of the den and uses her magical powers to construct a building within minutes. Trees are being cut by invisible axes and turned into planks in an instant. Timber flying together to form a single structure. A house built on top of their home.
It's not perfect yet. She was never a mother, and she has no idea how to take care of wolf pups. She's going to be ostracized for interfering in these animals' lives. So it doesn't matter to her anymore how many rules she breaks.
She uses her powers to do something that no astral bring has done before. Sacrificing her godlyhood to give these creatures intelligence. Giving them an anthropomorphic form so they have a better chance interacting with humans. Becoming their mortal mother.
....
Twelve years later....
A white female werewolf runs through the woods after hearing strange voices. Running towards the sound, stopping and hiding in a bush when she gets close enough to see who they are. She holds her hunting bow in a firm grip.
Her ears twitch as she tries to figure out what they are saying. Her blue eyes glowing with curiosity. She hasn't seen a human other than her mother. Male humans are especially different. Their more well-built and have patches of hair on their face.
The humans are dressed in tattered clothes, ridding horses that could pass for donkeys. Their saddles crudely made, halfway to falling apart.
She is caught off guard by some crunching leaves behind her. A hand grabs her muzzle, preventing her from making any loud noise. She breathes a sigh of relief when she sees it's her brother. The brown wolf. "Didn't Mother say not to wander out this far?" He whispers a rhetorical question. "Don't move." He whispers in a lower voice as the humans pass by them.
He lets go of her when the horseriders are out of sight. "That hurt." She says while rubbing her muzzle. "What does Mother know? I want to explore the world. I'm tired of being cooped up."
"We have no idea how the humans will react to us." He says. "Don't you pay attention to anything she says?"
"I don't care what she says. I came out here to hunt, so that's what I'm going to do." She picks up her hunting bow and tries to run away from him.
"LUNA!" He calls after her before realizing that he should keep his voice down. He rushes after her through the thicket with blinding speed. Catching up to her in mere moments and tackling her to the ground.
"No fair." She says while pinned to the ground. "How are you so fast?"
He sits down next to Luna. Laying on the ground to take a break. Staring at the sky, memorizing the different shapes of the clouds. "It's your fault for thinking you could escape."
She snorts and furrows her brow. She lets her arms rest by her side, staring up at the clouds with him. "Why can't we be free?"
"We will someday." He responds while taking in the fresh air. "Not everything happens when we want it to."
The sound of human voices ring in the distance. They both sit up. "Fenrir. We should head back." She says.
"Yeah."
....
Suriel tends to her garden as Skoll, the black wolf, practices swordmanship with a wooden stick. His blue eyes shine brightly in the sunlight as he prepares to fight the imaginary monsters he's conjured in his mind.
Their house sits in the middle of a circular clearing in the middle of the woods. A forest that humans rarely visit. The clearing is protected by magic, making any humans going near it to stray away. Putting fear in their hearts.
"Take that, you evil gorgon. You'll never get past me." Skoll yells while skillfully swinging his makeshift sword. "I can't lose. The princess is counting on me to save her kingdom."
"SKOLL." Suriel yells to get his attention. " Have you seen your brother and sister?"
Skoll turns to her, still in character. "I have not seen your children, madam. I fear they have been taken by flesh-eating demons."
"SKOLL!" She yells. "I'm serious."
Skoll drops his sword in defeat. "Fenrir went looking for Luna."
Suriel goes back to tending her garden. Whipping the sweat off her brow. The sunlight rays shining down, burning her skin. This is why she prefers winter. She never understood how the heat never affected them as much.
Fenrir and Luna come walking out of the woods ten minutes later. Suriel isn't surprised. This isn't the first time Luna tried running away from home, and it might not be the last. She watches as Fenrir and Luna make their way into the house. She sighs. 'Those two have been a handful.'
Later that day, as the sun starts to set over the horizon, she calls Skoll inside. She makes them dinner and sends them to bed. Tucking them in at night and reading them a bedtime story.
Fenrir tries to interject. Explaining to her they are getting too old for such childish things. She tells him to go to sleep. He rolls onto his side, facing away from them, pretending to be asleep. Listening in on the story.