…..And finds himself tackled by a good dozen Packmembers!
He's about to start screaming about traitors when….he finds one of the
"traitors" is his sire: Carradene!
"Fa…Father?" Rafael whispers in shock. Then euphoric joy fills the young
manwolf heart!
"FAHTER!!" he yells, crying and shouting in joy. He breaks free from
his restrainers, and hugs the startled magi. "I thought that they'd killed
you after we made landfall! I was sure I'd seen your body….." The young
one then finds he can't go one, for grief and pent up sorrow overflows
and the manwolf weeps openly and without shame.
Carradene hesitantly reaches out and hugs his "son." He had sired many
children while under the sway of the Moon, back before Fred came along.
One had even been named Rafael, and would have been this boys age…..if
he hadn't gone Forsaken at a young age……
Suddenly, the young wolf cries out again….this time in pain! He clutches
at the ruin of his left eye….and also at his skull! Both feel like they
are afire. A concerned Carradene and Manbear Synizn rush over to try to
help the young wolf, only to find that…..when they force the young manwolf's
hand away from his face…..a newly healed eye is staring back at them.
Rafael rises, and looks around in a mixture of fear, awe, and sudden
comprehension.
"What….what's happened to me?" he whispers as he looks at Carradene.
"You're my father….yet not my…..father. And this is the Pack….but NOT….."
"Hush little one," Carradene says soothingly as he leads the still wobbily
young one over to a chair. "You….have heard about the Triangles…..from
me….your father?"
"You….he…..told me how they led to other worlds," Rafael says, looking
up at the elder wolf. "I've….fallen through one of those gates?"
"Something much like it, young one." Carradene sighs, placing a fatherly
hand on the young manwolf's shoulder. "And if I don't miss my guess……your
Fred never brough anything new to the moon curse the Pack lived under….no
increase in empathy or such…..no control over our forms….freeing us from
the cycle of the Moon."
"Father?" the young one asks, looking lost. "What's this about empathy?
We never had empath …. no….my Pack never had empathy at all."
"No….empathy?" Carradene asks slowly, suddenly getting a bad feeling
about this. "How was it possible for me…..for my analog to keep order with
such a diverse group such as the Pack."
"Through force, of course," Ralfael sighs. "It brought you little joy,
you said. But it was necessary, else the dragon Minestus Moreau would have
killed us all." The young lad then tells a tale of what had happened recently
on the Isle of Dragon Moreau. It seemed to mirror what Fred had experienced,
yet it broke down after the battle with the Forsaken wolf and the rescue
of Loam. In Rafael's story, the other young Lord Fred had been a worse
time of things as he found out that newcomers….didn't have much political
sayso……and the same was much the same for Alicia. Things had become weird
after the same boat that burried treasure in both realities…. For the sake
of brevity what we see is through that Alicia's accounts and WAGs in: 1257,
1269, 1270, 1275, 1345, 1364, 1265, 1378, and 1382. The last part about
the conspirators is delivered in a package of venom, as the wolfman speaks.
The conspirators had lynched his father soon after landing, you see……
Carradene looks shaken, for he gets a sick feeling…..that his murdered
twin had indeed been a willing puppet for Minestus. It was just a feeling,
but…..his instincts nowaday were uncannily accurate……
Probe looks shaken at the idea of yet OTHER cyborgs going about mining
the same resources the Alliance was after. With the luck he's had on this
planet…..
"Minestus Moreau?" Frederigo D'Honaire asks aloud. "How?….."
"Must have been Eye met Eye," Malachi guesses, shaken herself about
what she'd heard. "When a dragon falls in love, it's instantaneous, young
manfox. It's also custom for the dragons to exhange last names to symbolize
the occasion….."
"As for what happened to our new friend here," Manbear Synizn rumbles.
"It's rather simple, once you think about it.
"Through our Fred," the magi lectures and paces about. "He introduced
an 'add on' that changed the very nature of our lycanthropy into what changed
us totallly into Manimals. This other Minestus not only never did that
to his….pets….but the SOB never developed the empathic side of the Pack
there. But when one of that Pack meets….or is in the proximity of hundreds
of Manimals who have vestige 'add ons' still floating about….around them."
"He was almost instantly transformed," Alicia says, nodding and stroking
her tail absentmindedly as she looks over the still stunned manwolf
"Welcome to the Pack, son," murmurs the sudden father of Rafael. "Be
glad and rejoice. And….let's get some clothing on you." The young manwolf
had shown up in nothing but his fur.
"You….don't believe that my father did what he did for the good of his
Pack?" Rafael asks, suddenly sensing the emotional turmoil inside his…..other
father.
"Not….that," the old wolf says carefully. "I believe he BELIEVED that
he was doing the right thing, but…..I think that if your Malachi and Fred
is anything like OUR versions……."
The young manwolf looks…..heartbroken as Carradene leads him off. The
young one wants to scream and deny it, but……his heart is telling him it's
true.
"Sometimes being of one heart but many minds can be painful," Loam whispers,
pitying the young wolf who's illusions had been shattered.
"We'll give the other Carradene a decent burial," Malachi whispers huskily.
"That won't be much, but I think that the young one can draw some comfort
in that. He appears to have ran away from his Pack to do just that……"
-
 After a pregnant pause,
the meeting continues……
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