The Secret of the Celestial Wolf

This is a story of how a sweet little werewolf girl goes from innocent, kind, loving, and just a bundle of happiness to a badass killing machine who would gladly kill humans on sight. It starts here, at a prison. Well, actually, it starts with this guy- Marek, who is being taken to a prison cell by a couple of human guards. yes, human, you heard me, you're probably wondering why I said human, weird right? Well, here's why, I'm a werewolf, what, werewolves exist!? You like my sarcasm? yes, we do exist, at least in this world, we do. Anyway, this Marek was led into the human prison, thrown into a cell, and locked up. Coincidentally, his cell was right across from mine. I was still naive and ignorant during a good half of this story, so I hid at the back of my cell, in the shadows, terrified of everyone and everything. Marek, in his own cell, got up and dusted himself off, he grumbled a little, "they could've at least been a little gentle-" a giggle comes from the shadows of the cell in front of him. yup, that was me, I giggled, yuck- Marek tried to get a good look at me, but really all he could see were two glowing eyes, each a different color. It wasn't bad enough to be a werewolf in a human city, nope, I had to be different as well. One eye red, the other yellow, I also had tiny black nubs, like baby sheep horns. I was very different than normal werewolves, which made humans even more scared of me than usual. He walked up to the bars of his cell and tried to look closer, he called over, "And what's so funny little girl?" I ofcourse whimpered like the ninny I was, he smiles at me, like he enjoyed me being scared of him. I whispered, "n-nothing sir, i-i'm sorry" he chuckled, "there's no need to call me sir, little girl" I shuffled forward a little, and Marek takes a couple of steps back as I came into his view. "You're ... you're a werewolf!" I nodded and looked down at the floor, "I know- I'm a monster, a freak." he went back up to the bars of his cell. "hey, you're not a freak, you're just ... I didn't expect to ever see a werewolf-" I look at him confused. "what do you mean?" he gets this downcast look on his face. "I thought all werewolves were hunted to extinction-" I was startled, to say the least, what did he mean, "hunted to extinction?" He notices my confusion and worried expression, and ofcourse, like the nice guy he is, he tries to cheer me up. "well, uh, I'm Marek, what's your name, little girl?" It takes me a second to realize that he's talking to me. "uh, it's- Nirala, Nirala Gateway." He again looks startled, like, how many times will this guy jump at such random things? We sit and chat for a few hours, then he asks me a question. "what did you do to get thrown in prison?" He looks at me like he's thinking that I don't seem to be able to do anything more wrong than throwing a piece of trash on the ground. I shake my head, "I didn't do anything, they threw me in here ... because I'm different-" I sigh and lean against the wall, we're both sitting on the floor now, it gets tiring just standing for hours. "I thought I could try living here, after what happened to my parents, I had to live on my own. when I turned nineteen, I decided to try to make a life in the city" I scoff, "you see how well that went, ten minutes within the city and I end up in here-" He nods as if he understood what I was going through. "what uh- may I ask, what happened to your parents?" His voice was soft now, gentle, which I guess was nice. "they died- I think, I don't actually know what happened, I was ten, I just came back from berry picking and ... they were just dead-" Marek looks at me sympathetically, "I lost my parents at an early age as well, I was 6 when they died, they were poisoned by a scorpion fish." He looks kinda sad about it, even after all those years. At least three more hours passed, and the sun started to set. Our conversation melted into silence as we ran out of things to say, it was quite boring in here, nothing to do, nothing to at least listen to. I nearly fell asleep when there was a clanking sound, then footsteps and keys jingling. Marek smirks, "And here my friend and I thought it was gonna be a boring night." Two guards walk up to the cells, one stands in front of my cell, and the other glares at Marek. I wish I had slashed their ugly faces then and there, but I was too worried about what was happening at the current moment. Marek stands up, curious about what's happening. The guard that's in front of my cell unlocks and opens it, he then proceeds to grab my arm and start yanking me towards the exit. Marek stands a little straighter, "hey, what are you going to do with her?" the second guard smirks at him, his voice starts to raise a little, "hey, why are you taking her!? hey, HEY!" I started to panic, "Marek! where am I going? MAREK!" He starts banging on the bars, I could still hear his yells as I get dragged away and thrown onto a platform. Dozens of people were standing on the other side, watching. I stood up and they all glared at me, a guard shoved me toward a tall wooden pole sticking out of the platform. He pulls my arms painfully around the pole so that my back is pressed against it. A rope was tied around my arms and legs, and wood started to get piled around my feet. People cheered as the wood got piled higher, I still didn't know what was going on, until they brought over a torch. The people cheered louder, and the torch was lowered, flames flickered and leaped onto the wood. The entire wood pile lit up, and flames jumped at me, searing the fur on my feet. It didn't hurt at first, but the pain quickly became unbearable. My screams filled the air, and the filthy humans cheered louder and chanted, "down with beast!" over and over. The fire traveled up my legs to my knees, and my screams turned to shrieks of pure terror and pain, my fur turning black. My voice went to notes I didn't even know I could hit. My vision started to get fuzzy, and my head throbbed. Then something incredible happened. First, the ground started rumbling, and a deep menacing growl ripped through the air. The humans went still, I screamed until I blacked out, the fire still burning. Everything went silent, everything was still, the people stared at me, not knowing what to do, a guard came up to me and poked me with a stick, they must have thought I was the one who made the loud growl. Hah, idiots- The prison exploded, and large stones and debris flew everywhere. Some humans were hit by flying rocks and fell to the ground, I was unconscious the whole time this was happening. The guards ran around frantically, trying to figure out what was going on, at least ten guards had shown up by the time the debris and dust cleared. Women screamed, and men grabbed their families and ran to their homes, children cried at the sight that was before them. Sun shone off its scales, its wings created mini tornados, and smoke streamed from its nostrils. A dragon had exploded from the prison and was now hovering above me, the flames quickly went out, blown away by the gusts of wind made by the dragon. It opened its talons and snatched up the pole and my unconscious body, and flew towards the mountains. The humans watched as the dragon faded into the sky.

* * *

A little while later I felt myself get lowered onto cold hard rock, a soft puff of wind brushed over my body and I heard steps retreating quickly. It was silent, I still couldn't move, couldn't open my eyes, I couldn't feel anything, I was completely numb. I think another hour had passed, but I'm not sure, time is funny when you can't do anything but lay there and listen, I started to think I wouldn't ever get up again when suddenly, a cold and wet object touched my skin. My eyes flew open as the deadly burns I had received from the fire raged with new, renewed pain, my screams echoed off the stone walls around me. I wanted to move away, but there was so much pain that I was immobilized. My voice quickly turns hoarse and raspy, and that's when I faintly heard a voice, I couldn't tell who it was coming from, or where, all I knew was that it was soft and comforting. My silent screams had finally stopped, and I had settled down enough that my vision had cleared, and to say I was in a huge cave was an understatement. It was like a massive meteor had smashed into the side of a mountain, and then exploded, widening the hole. I was laying on a raised bed of stone, well, it was more like a kitchen counter than a bed actually. The sun was just starting to set, and clouds drifted right by the entrance of the cave, telling me just how high up we were. I decided to test my movement ability, I gently pulled myself, cried out, and fell back down. I would have hit my head on the stone, but someone caught me just before I fell completely. I looked up as my vision cleared again, I gasped as I looked into the face of my rescuer, it was the young man from the prison!