A/N: My actual “first” chapter for my story. The other one was just a prologue. Sorry it has taken me months to write a new chapter. I have been busy, and haven’t really plotted much for this story.

Please R & R. Thanks! ^^

All characters are © to me.

: Fallen Feathers: t w I l I g h t ‘ s | b e c k o n I n g :
‘where every feather has a story stained in blood’

+ CHAPTER I +
‘If Snow Was My Salvation’

“…It’s so cold…” strained, cracked lips said, pale blue were their hue, the wind’s frosted air biting at the skin.

Blood was everywhere; a battle of great devastation was evident. The lips strained to breath air inside to coat its lungs with nourishment. Gasping, always gasping.

In and out, in and out the chest did heave, trying to regain long lost strength.

“I feel pain. My body…my body is heavy…”

The knees buckled and the woman collapsed to the ground. Using one hand to support herself while the other clutched a broken sword; as if life itself would come from said object and if let go, death would surly come.

All she saw was blood, so much blood…

Her blue lips parted, her eyes dilating, and her screams were lost in the chill of the winter she bleeds over.

xXx

Black wolf ears twitched and fluttered at an unknown sound. Silent was its plea but desperate was its call. The owner of said ears was not a wolf at all, but rather, a man, who was known solely as an “Anthropomorphic” or “Anthro” for short. All anthro’s had human blood, human bodies, but what set them apart was their animalistic features.

For Arknine, being part wolf was normal, something he was born with. So, naturally, when he was a child and kids would tease him for having such features, he was confused.

Now at the grand age of 22, Arknine was nowhere near that confused, naïve child. “No” he humored to himself, “I am nowhere near that fortunate.”

His tail twitched at the annoying sounds that passed through his ears. He grimaced and set his fairly large book down, marking his place for another time.

What could possibly make such racket, and to disturb me so thoroughly; a surly sound to be sure.

Arising from his comfortable leather-back chair, Arknine let his wolf blood take over, turning him into what he really was; a large black wolf with cunning ice eyes that had a hint of lavender flower. Piercing was his gaze as he let his wolf instincts take over.

xXx

She had long since fell to the ground, twitching and cowering at all the carnage. She could feel the cold stare of death watching her with an enticing gaze.

She just wanted to let the snow absorb her pain, sorrow, and misgivings. To take away her doubts and fill those with loving memories of days long since passed, of days when pain and hunger were not allowed to flourish. She wished the snow to be her salvation, because she knew she could not save herself…for once. As she closed her eyes tightly, a large feather appendage, which melded from her back, quivered and danced pitifully in the chill of the night.

Suddenly, she felt water drip down on her face as if she was under a fountain. She opened strained eyes, blinking as if she had just learned to open them, as if the dim light the moon brought was new to her.

“…Rain?” She could not stop her thin, beaten body from shivering under the rain.

She stared sadly at her left arm that had her once proud sword, in her hand’s grasp. She, tenderly, let it go and began trying to pull herself up. She was tired of lying on the cold earth, feeling sorry for herself. This was not like her. No, if she was going to die here, then so be it, but she was going to give him a fight to remember.

Her first few tries were pitiful. Her right arm was all but useless. The arm was red, a huge gash marring her once beautiful, pale skin. She cried in anguish as she placed weight upon it. She dug her fingers into the snow, ground, and earth below, clinging to the hope she would stay alive. This gesture had gotten her up enough to pull her knees up, though the pain almost caused her to fall back down onto the snowy ground. Looking as if to bow profusely to an invisible master; she looked down at the soiled snow. Blood dripped from cuts on her face to the ground below. It was fascinating to watch the blood drip…

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Suddenly the wind howled and her pale violet eyes widened as she felt something. A presence. She lifted her heavy laden head to see a huge black wolf stare at her, the only movement she saw was his black, silky fur, dance proudly in the wind. She felt his pride, his power, and possibly his pity from the icy blue eyes that stared at her as if he could see her soul, his eyelids creased for a moment in observation, and his mouth pulled back for a second as a low short growl escaped his lips. But soon, peace enveloped the wolf’s aura; gentleness came as a soft blanket on her dried skin. This wolf stood proudly before her, his stance showing his strength, but there was trust in those pale eyes. She blinked and before her now was no wolf, but an extremely tall man, with a penetrating stare.

“Who are you” her raspy, broken voice said. It was strange hearing herself talk in such a manner.

“That question is pointless at this moment in time; the question is who are you? Why are you here?”

She pulled her hands towards her knees, straining to sit up. Her eyes no longer held fear in them but anger and cold intentions, “None of your business.”

The anthro walked towards her, his eyes showing mild anger to be treated with such hostility, when he was certainly not the enemy. As he knelt in front of her, he sighed and let his eyes soften as he looked around.

“What carnage. To survive such a mess is truly inspiring.”

He suddenly stood, making her blink at the rapidness of his movements. She watched him cautiously as he stood by a discarded appendage that looked strikingly familiar. She knew that wing.

It was hers.

She sucked air in as she remembered one of her opponents tear flesh from bone. He had ripped one of her wings clean off, causing her the most damage.

“My wing.” He looked at her, a disgusted look on his face. He felt sick as if just realizing the true devastation of the battle before him. She coughed and wheezed as she swayed back and forth, her eyes blurring; the stress finally taking its toll. The last thing she saw was the haunting eyes of a black wolf running to her side.

xXx

Rapidly her eyes blinked as the sun broke through her slumber. She turned only to feel aches shoot through her back and side. Hissing, she laid back down, hoping not to jostle her already sore back.

“For being a woman of noble lineage, it seems you are not learned in the art of hiding one’s emotions. Isn’t that the first lesson of your schooling? ‘Lead not one to the ways of you queries but let them guess at your thoughts; let their mind fester with worry at your steadfast determination.’ Not only that but you have yet to grace me with a name.”

“It is Valcaren. How did you know of my nobility?” she looked at this tall man with hostility. Was he an enemy? But as she thought about it, the more she began to believe he was not an enemy, only a man of wolf lineage living alone in this house, so she surmised.

“Yes, my name is Arknine, thank you for asking,” Valcaren glared at the man sitting on a wooden chair. He simply rested his head on his fisted hand that was supported by the chair’s armrests, a sigh escaping his pale lips in the process, “To answer your question, I am curious by nature, so it comes as no surprise that I know of your birth. For you see, I read a new book daily, and I have a photographic memory. I read, once, about the Snow Leopard lineage and how it is a noble birthright unlike my kind; the Wolf, which is known as a common, or ‘lesser’ race.

It comes as no surprise, also, I would know about your heritage, considering, you have the ears, and tail of their kind, and in no way choose to hide that fact. The wings are also the trademark of your particular sub-species within the Snow Leopard descent. But in your case I should say, ‘wing’.”

Valcaren looked up at the wood ceiling, “You talk too much.”

“Sorry for trying to answer your question. If you did not want such a long winded answer you should have said so, oh snooty one.”

“I am not snooty, and besides even if I was, I have the right to be. I was attacked by seven werewolves and torn to shreds. Snootiness is the least of my worries.”

Arknine sat up straight and frowned at her words, “You have no right to treat someone, especially your savior, as an inferior. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion and to dismiss it in such a manner is not honorable. I am appalled to think that you have not learned of this by now. You may have the justifications to be hurt but taking it out on someone else does one no good. It only causes more strife.”

Guilt sunk into Valcaren’s core as she listened to this man’s words. To affect her so much was unusual. Where was her reserve? Where was her shell that kept her from feeling these emotions? She looked away from him towards the window on the left side of her bed.

“I see you are ignoring me now. That is fine, I take no offense to it,” he said casually, as he stood up he muttered to himself, “After all, I should be use to it by now.”

“Why did you help me?”

He blinked at the question thrown at him, “To be honest, I did not do it out of pity originally. It was out of annoyance at disrupting and ruining my streak at reading a book a day. So don’t think it was because some god from who knows where called to me because that’s just not how it works. Well not around here, in this God forsaken town.”

Valcaren sighed but stopped mid-sigh when pain shot up through her side again. She winced and relaxed the muscles that tensed every time she felt aches and pains. Arknine rolled up his sleeves and placed his index and middle finger on Valcaren’s neck. She shivered at how cold they were on her skin, but allowed him time to check her pulse, though she was uncertain how that helped her in this moment in time.

“What are you doing?”

He removed his fingers and pulled his mid-waist length ebony hair into a low ponytail, “I was checking your pulse to make sure you weren’t breathing irregular. Sometimes people get too anxious and forget to breathe properly.”

Valcaren felt insulted; considering she had survived far worse than to worry about breathing irregularly. She swatted his hand away and forced herself to feel her just under her right shoulder blade.

“My other wing will soon wither.”

Arknine nodded a scholar nod, knowing and proud, “Yes, your lineage is quite strict in its perfection standards. If one wing is pulled away the other will not survive and will wither and completely disappear in a matter of days. It depends on the person. You will be of the same family by blood but none of your kin will recognize your exact lineage because of your wing loss.”

Valcaren gritted her teeth, and her eyes filled with anger that was bottled for years inside herself, “They stole everything from us; no one cares about our lineage! We are outcaste by society! We are treated like dogs! We are the blood line that has kept this world at peace, and they treat us like this.

By sending their worthless wretches to kill us; to murder us; to maim us of dignity…” she lifted her head, shaken from her outburst; she whispered with chill and with distinction, her eyes all the while focusing on her broken blade at the foot of the bed, “of honor.”

Arknine was chilled at her words. He knew. He knew this feeling. Nostalgia. His world faded in and out, his breathe was heavy and his eyes frantically looked back and forth; he soon passed into a deep, dark sleep that brought him back into the darkest places of his mind.

“Arknine, Arknine?! Why do you stand around like a lump? You must work your share in this household.” His mother seethed. But Arknine was not afraid, for he saw the look in her eyes. She was afraid. Afraid she would lose her son to him.

He was not as daft as they thought he was. He knew why she bolted the door at night, why they closed every window and locked it as if someone was going to take them away in the chill of night. And that wasn’t far from the truth.

Ravis; the King that ruled all anthro’s, and humans. His raven blood made him full of trickery; that was his nature. But he had proven and led the people out of many hardships, which won him devotion…and obsession. People began to become drunk in his words, and he himself became corrupt in his own beauty, and power. Soon he stole all from his people, yet they swore he could do no evil.

He cast out the anthro’s; his own blood from his lands…leaving them with a meager existence. They became wild. Dogs no longer were dogs…but more cunning and stealthier. They had become…wolves. The Snow Leopards; the chosen race was soon pillaged; desolated. Their villages were burned, their people destroyed. All because the King did not want anyone to take his throne from him. Unlike humans, anthro’s would only die by battle, or grief. So the King would live so long as he was not killed during the night. Another trait of the raven anthros; unmasked fear. What they did not understand, they killed. What they did understand, they killed anyway.

Ravens knew no allegiance. They were their own allegiance. But soon, the King lost trust in his own people. His own flesh and blood. And soon, they were whipped off the map. No longer did the ravens thrive, but survived. They were sent into the pits of hell because of their relation to one bad King. They were mocked and gutted, tortured and beaten. Broken and killed. None were spared. None were left alive, so many said.

But Arknine knew some still hide in the shadows, waiting for the day to be at peace again. But that was the past, and now he was here in the future. King Ravis still sits in his throne, still watching, and still gritting his teeth at the people he “loved”. A new rule was set in place. Any anthro that did not work was killed. The children were not killed but beaten and taken from house and home. The lucky ones became slaves; the not so lucky ones…were longer seen or heard from again.

The wolf anthro’s were especially hunted down, because of their thriving species. Wolves had become the commoners; the anthro version of the normal, average, everyday human. No longer were the wolves regarded as sacred, and lovely. Fair and untamed. They were regarded as meager and un-trusting. Un-loyal and still untamed, but in an evil, corrupt way; so the King again weaved his lies to his people.

This little boy never suspected he would have to work all day everyday of his life to just make it through one day. He never thought he’d be pulled from the place that was his sanctuary; and stripped of his wolfen pride….

“Arknine!”

He shook from his dreaded dream and looked wide-eyed at Valcaren as she winced at the pain that surged through her body. “You just blacked out all of the sudden and have been sleeping all day, and I thought I was the one with all the problems.”

“I am sorry. I normally don’t do that; but it happens on occasion.”

“You’re kidding?” But as she stared at his straight, un-motioning face, she knew he was not joking.

“It is a curse in the wolfen blood line. If we become to nostalgic we can black out for periods of time. Quite a nescience really.”

Valcaren could tell he was trying to lighten the mood. He seemed to be the person who didn’t like to be depressed but still she could feel the pain that echoed deep in his bones; embedded in his marrow, and coated his skin.

They both had lost something or someone, and both were in a boat, that was full of holes, and sinking fast. And the worst part was…

A storm was coming. Night was approaching and the dawn would be far from reach.