Omega Gilik was neither born nor raised in the village of Goron. His old village no longer existed, destroyed by the hands of its own inhabitants. Gilik was a young adult at the time and barely managed to escape the insanity of his packmates tearing apart everything around them and trying to kill one another.
He had journeyed out and visited a couple other villages after that. He was never really accepted but he still learned new thing at each place. It was when Gilik would try to point out the warning signs he had noticed leading towards a similar incident of his own villages destruction that the people there would call him crazy and chase him away.
Several years after the destruction of his village, and the beginning of his journey around to find a new home, he found a third village. The combined knowledge he had from the previous 2 villages plus the one that was destroyed convinced the Alpha of the time to let him stay in return for teaching the pack. A young boy soon became interested in Gilik's stories and cautionary tales from his past. As he spent time with the boy, he began to notice his isolation from the rest of his peers. The boy opened up to him and explained that he was considered a runt and so nobody really expected anything from him, mush less anything great.
Gilik immediately came up with an idea which he proposed to the boy. He would train and teach the boy, passing on all of the knowledge, wisdom, techniques, and skills that he could in order to help the boy become strong, smart, and wise, but in return the boy must strive to become Alpha and promise to use Everything that Gilik taught him for the betterment of the pack so that the tragedies of the past would be prevented. The boy agreed.
Gilik hoped that this would be enough of a deterrent. The boy learned and grew and became a man. Even after the boy had finally won the right to be called Alpha, he would still come to Gilik for words of wisdom or to listen to some of his tales. Gilik was given the rarely used title of Omega in recognition of his contributions to the pack and the wisdom he gave. Years went by, the man who had become Alpha had children, and soon he stopped visiting Omega Gilik any more.
More time passed before a boy, not even 3 years of age, was brought to him by Beta. He was told that the boy had no talents or future among the pack's hunters and fighters. This saddened Omega Gilik , because he could hardly believe that it was possible to see any kind of potential limits in someone who had barely even had a chance to grow. The boy had been through some kind of major event, for sure, as there was some definite damage to his throat. Omega Gilik decided to apply all of his combined knowledge in helping to heal the boy's throat and teach him to speak again while letting him pick up some general knowledge from the crafters and elderly who lived with him in the crafter place.
As he observed the boy, Omega Gilik soon grew very suspicious. He had not really checked on the village much in the last few years, so he wasn't fully up to date on the current state of affairs. This boy, however, likely did have limited potential, but only in his crafting skills. He seemed to understand the things he was taught, but for whatever reason his hands just couldn't match up to what he wanted. That was fine since the boy was young. Whomever had said they had seen some kind of limits in the boys physical or mental capabilities had most definitely been lying. This boy, with the right training and education, could become one of if not THE greatest hunter and fighter any village had seen.
Then, a few days after the boy had been first introduced to him, the boy showed up with tears streaming down his face. Omega Gilik realized that he wouldn't be able to understand much of what had happened until the boy had time to sort his own thoughts and calm down, so he brought the boy to his bed and let him rest. That night he stayed up until the sun rose in the morning listening to the boy's story while calmly pressing for details when necessary. There were, admittedly, a few points in the story that were a little awkward or ambiguous but not enough to say that the majority of the boy's own interpretations or observations were entirely wrong. Even if Omega Gilik tried to take every one of those points and look at them in a more optimistic way, it still pointed to a very bad scenario. Alpha had broken his promise and the village was already heading towards self destruction, and at a faster rate than even his old one had.
Omega Gilik immediately came up with a bold yet simple plan. The boy was already marked for exile and his potential future as part of the pack was stripped from his options. There might even be some other children who were in a similar position, though doubtful their situations would be quite as harsh as this poor boy's. It was time Omega Gilik started going out to check on the village again. Maybe something could still be salvaged from the situation, but it was always best to prepare for the worst. He had the belief that that there would be at least a few years until things finally came to a head, but better to prepare the most important things first. He gathered some of the retired hunters and fighters and, along with his own teachings, began to train the boy in ways to survive by himself.
He was getting old now, but he wanted to leave something behind in some way to say he had done the right thing at least once in his life. Alpha had already failed him. He had never even had a chance to save his old village. The other villages he went to never believed him. This village was already nearing the edge of collapse itself, and he may not be able to do anything about it. However, by the grace of the moon, he would make damn sure to save the children he could, and right now that was most definitely this boy.
----------------------------------------
Sira was once a hunter, but she was a Den Mother now. She went around the village and helped to watch over the children who were in training. Her heart wasn't really in her work, though. She did her duties as diligently as she should and could, but her mind constantly went back to thoughts of her child, Marik.
After his first night-hunt, the disaster it was, he had been stuck in bed for too long. Since then he had seemed to become less and less cheerful. He had lost the ability to speak as he once had from that incident. His attempts to explain things became more of a game full of gestures and wild flailing about, barely punctuated with short simple words, which made trying to understand anything beyond the general idea of whatever he wanted to convey either too difficult or too time consuming. She knew that something was wrong because she had caught him brooding in his thoughts almost every time she had seen him since he had woken up, but she had no good way to figure out what was wrong.
Her mate seemed to think that he was just being a rebellious child earlier than most and that she just needed to let the phase pass, but her instincts screamed that there was something else and that wasn't it. When she had sat down with her mate to talk to Marik about the fight he had had, it felt like father and son were both taking away a different understanding than what the other was trying to convey. When she saw her son suddenly start to tear up at the end of the conversation as he turned to leave, her instincts suddenly blared and Sira felt that she had to do something now or it would likely be too late. As she stood to go after him, her mate blocked her and explained that he just needed some time to settle down. Sira felt uneasy but she trusted her mate, so she relented.
Now it was more than a moon since she had last seen Marik, and she knew he hadn't even come back home once since then. Even her mate had started to squirm in uneasiness a bit when he thought she wasn't looking. She wasn't sure exactly what had happened or where he was, but she remembered that Beta had said something about bringing him to the crafters.
Today she decided that she would go to the crafters and see if they knew what had happened to Marik. Once morning training was over, she quickly made her way to the edge of the village where the crafters resided. The first, and only, person she saw when she walked inside was her son. He was sitting behind a long table either counting or sorting something that looked like a small pile of pebbles. As soon as he noticed someone had arrived he stood up and turned towards her. There was a slight shadow of fear and sadness in his face as he looked at her, which made her want to leap forward to comfort him with a hug and maybe some kind words. Before she could do that, though, Marik's next action made her feel like a frozen carving.
"Greetings Den Mother Sira. Is there something we can help you with today?"
Somewhere inside she felt happy that he could speak again, sad that she wasn't there to help him through it, and awkward that it wasn't the voice she knew and remembered. What had frozen her so completely that even her mind felt sluggish, however, were the words themselves that he had spoken, and what the intent and meaning behind them were. He had called her by her name and title instead of calling her mother, as if she were almost a stranger or someone unrelated. He had asked if they could help her, not if he could help her, like saying that he belonged here and this was his home.
She couldn't understand. She didn't want to understand. She had been right, something had been wrong, and now something was broken. She couldn't face him right now, not like this with her mind jumbled, and not as some stranger who came for some kind of business. She ran. She had to find Gior. She followed what he said, and now her son was gone. Now he would follow what she said and get him back.
----------------------------------------
Sara was very confused right now.
Some time ago, just a few days before her first night-hunt, she had been looking around outside their family's den and watching the many teachers getting ready to train new students. A woman was showing off some form of nearly forgotten sword skills that looked like she was flowing and fluttering around. She felt drawn to it, almost like it was calling to her. Maybe if she could learn how to do that then she would finally be able to beat her brother, Marik, in a fight.
"Amazing. I need that."
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
She hadn't really meant to say anything, but she was so mesmerized by just the possibilities that the words slipped out. Apparently Beta had been nearby without her realizing it, and had heard her.
"Oh. So you want to learn blade dancing. Is there some particular reason it caught your attention?"
"My brother wins every fight. I want to win."
"Is that how it is? Well if you think blade dancing is the answer then there's one thing you should know first. You can take it as a piece of advice. You need two swords, first."
Ever since then she had put all of her attention towards blade dancing. She felt a little guilty about taking Marik's weapon for the first night-hunt, but she needed it more than he did. Beta had said so. Soon after that she had started living with her mentor because Marik had gotten hurt somehow and needed to rest by himself. She had seen Daren on occasion with other children as they walked around the village, and her parents occasionally came to check on her, but she hadn't seen Marik since the night-hunt. Of course, it made sense to her. Marik was really strong so he was probably training like she was and getting stronger as well, which meant she should focus even more if she wanted to some day become equal to or better than him.
Then Beta had come to talk to her a few days ago.
"Hello again. It seems that blade dancing was actually your calling after all. I remember you saying that you had never beaten your brother in a fight, but recently everyone has noticed that you're progressing in your training at a faster pace than any other, putting you far ahead. Since it's been six moons since you've started learning, I thought this might be a good chance for you to show how far you've come to everyone by having a friendly little public fight against your brother. You could probably even beat him now."
Sara smiled at that. It had been a long time since she had seen Marik, and she kind of missed him. Even though she could never win, she still enjoyed their fights. Excited that she would finally be able to see him again after so long and show the results of her training, maybe even by beating him for the first time ever, she trained even harder until today.
The reason Sara was confused now, though, was because she couldn't see Marik anywhere. She saw her parents a little ways off, and her other brother, Daren, was waiting in the middle of the ring.
Before she could ask anyone what was going on or where Marik was, she was shoved into the ring and the start signal was announced. Daren rushed forward with his spear thrusting out. Sara flicked one sword lightly towards the spear while moving into a spin to add to the power of both the parrying flick as well as her counter strike. The parry made Daren's thrust fly wide, completely missing her. Her counter nearly knocked him down, and the flurry she followed up with made him call out defeat. The whole thing hadn't even taken 10 seconds.
Beta rushed up to her as she was leaving the ring.
"Congratulations. You've finally beaten your brother."
"Not Marik."
Sara was pouting. It felt like Daren was even easier to beat than he used to be. She wasn't sure if he had gotten weaker or she had gotten stronger, but she never really wanted to beat Daren. The only one she really wanted to win against was Marik, but he still hadn't even showed up.
"Hmm? You don't seem very happy about beating your brother. Maybe you think it felt too easy?"
"Yes. Not Marik."
Sara was starting to feel like she was being insulted, even if she couldn't figure out exactly who was insulting her. They tricked her into coming to a fight she didn't want, made her fight Daren, then acted like it was the most amazing thing that she had won. She looked around one more time, and saw that Marik still wasn't anywhere around. Maybe he thought she still wasn't strong enough? If that was the case then she'd become even stronger and show him. She stormed off to go train before anyone could say anything more.
----------------------------------------
Beta had spent the past week with a strange feeling that something was off in the back of her mind. She had decided to become Beta instead of even trying to become Alpha solely because she wanted to be able to go around and help her pack members with various problems instead of just being a leader to them. Recently, however, people had started to look like they feared her and whatever she might say or do next. She decided that maybe she should try and set up a little even for fun to help people ease up a little, and at the same time she might be able to grant the wish of one of the most promising young talents. Sara, however, ended the match almost as soon as it started and didn't seem to appreciate it at all. She had spent the whole time mentioning her other brother before storming off with an angry look like she had been cheated somehow.
These 2 things alone already gave Beta a terribly bad feeling that something was going on that she had failed to recognize. The fact that Gior and Sira had also been pressing her for a chance to talk about some serious issue only made that bad feeling grow. She obviously hadn't intended to make them wait for this long, but it seemed that problems just kept cropping up out of nowhere recently and she barely even had time to rest these days. She was exhausted both mentally and physically, and she had to thank her and Alpha's children for helping out these past few moons. They had been going around the places she hadn't been able to in order to help solve problems, and only letting her know when they couldn't handle it themselves.
She had plans to finally talk to Gior and Sira tonight, where she could hopefully finally clear out whatever big problem they seemed to have had the past few moons. Until it was time to meet them, though, she had a bit of time. She decided to go and check one of the places she hadn't been able to get to recently, just to make sure things were going well and help quell that gnawing feeling that said things were getting worse instead of better. As she approached a certain corner, she heard familiar voices coming from just out of sight. She stopped to listen for a bit, but soon felt her blood run cold at the contents of the conversation.
"Well, that's another one down. Hey, Alpha, who do we have to fix next?"
"Some stupid idiot who thinks that the cute girl who lives nearby will become his future mate. Obviously she's too cute for that, so she'll probably be my fourth or fifth Beta. I have just enough Exile Ink left from what father gave me to make sure he knows his place like the others."
"Speaking of that, whatever happened to that first kid you marked?"
"You mean that brat who dared to challenge my authority by telling me no? The one who punched you in the face?"
"Ya. I haven't seen that damned runt in a while. Stupid punk. Just because I was the only one who managed actually hit him a few times doesn't mean he had to attack me. You'd think with all of us attacking him at the same time that at least someone else would have hit him. I still say we should have just killed him."
"Hey now. I'm pretty sure he was holding more of a grudge than just getting a few hits on his head in the middle of a fight. You did break his leg during the night-hunt before that. Plus you wouldn't even let him join the chorus to the moon."
"I did not break his leg. Juniper did."
"It's still weird that you treat your staff like that, but whatever. As far as I know, that kid's probably hiding in the crafter place. Maybe he learned his position and standing finally. Maybe he just thinks he's safe. We're going to have to clear that place of all the garbage before long anyways, so we'll find out then. I knew that kid was actual garbage since the first time I saw him, you know. I mean, who doesn't bring a weapon to their first night-hunt. It's a good thing we told Beta about it, since she let us handle teaching him where he belongs after that."
Beta turned and ran without waiting to hear more. Those were her kids, right? Alpha's kids, too? The sweet children who had been helping her out these past few moons? She didn't want to believe it, but could that strange feeling and the looks of fear she'd been seeing been from their actions? Were they really helping? She needed to talk to Alpha. She also had a meeting planned with Gior, anyways, and it would be good to clear up some important details first. Most specifically one detail that felt like it was pretty much the start of it all. She practically burst into Gior's house and didn't even give him a chance to say anything.
"On the night-hunt about six moons ago, why didn't you give your son a weapon?"
She dreaded what the answer could be. If she had been wrong then this could end up being very bad. She already knew that she had let the children go too far, but depending on exactly what Gior said, she may have supported and forced irreversible damage to the pack. As Gior explained himself in full, she realized it might have been even worse than she realized.
"Hmm. Apparently you told my daughter she needed two swords. I didn't have time to get another one before the night-hunt and I couldn't exactly go against your decision. I felt that since he seemed to show the most talent as a fighter and hunter among my children, that in the worst case he'd still be fine for his first night-hunt, and I could just get him a weapon the next time around. I was going to talk to you about it that night, but before I could ask or say anything you confirmed that you had told my daughter to have two swords that night, and then you decided that Marik was talented enough to even go with the older group. I was a little disappointed that I couldn't go with him his first time, actually. Maybe that's why he split off from them and ended up getting hurt. Actually, it was Marik that we wanted to talk to you about. He's been acting strange..."
Beta was sure her face was absolutely devoid of color by now. She had made a terrible mistake. Several, actually. They needed to talk to Alpha, and Gior deserved to be there. If she was really lucky, Gior might not try to kill her by the end of the night, but even if he did she could no longer blame him. She definitely didn't deserve to be forgiven.
"Gior, I need you to come with me now. I need to talk to Alpha, and I think you need to be there."
----------------------------------------
"Go join your siblings in the next room, Onal. Now."
Alpha was not angry, because he knew what angry felt like. The look on the face of his mate, the female Alpha, was anger. No, what Alpha felt was fury. Beta had shown up earlier in the evening with Gior in tow and told an almost unbelievable story, the end of which had Gior almost choking in rage. After he had helped calm Gior down enough, he had called his children in one by one, questioning them carefully and listening to their stories with as much detail as possible. By the time he had sent the fourth one away they had all gotten a very clear picture of what had been going on the past 6 or 7 moons, even through some of the lies his children had dared to try.
Then he had called in his son, Onal. He now knew that he, his mate Alpha, and Beta had failed as parents somewhere. Onal had not only told everything truthfully and in exquisite detail, but had even been proud of everything he had done. Onal had even started forcing people to call him Alpha or face exile. How many children had already been deprived of their futures? He knew of at least 3 already. The part that hurt the most was that after Beta had admitted to her own wrongdoings he had start thinking he might have to exile her as well, but now that he knew it was by his own hands that his son had gained the means to cast all the children he wanted into exile, he couldn't condemn Beta without condemning himself first.
Using violent means to assert himself. Engaging in unfair fights and demanding they be called fair. Using his parents' authority without ever having the right to it. Resorting to lies and half-truths to convince his parents and Beta to take his side and fulfill his wishes. His son had become the one thing that Alpha had promised long ago to try his hardest to prevent. The only thing he could think to do right now is consult with Omega Gilik and maybe talk to that boy, Marik.