Orion

Before Dusklight, before he was Orion, there was nothing but welcoming dark and the scent of his mother's milk. There are nights where his dreams take him back to the feeling of her tongue gently cleaning him, and his siblings cuddling close for warmth. He would never admit it, but there are times where he feels all he has is not worth the sacrifices of all he once knew.

The dark pup had been born to a pack with no great history, nor even a name. There were no great singers or storytellers, nor warriors or herbalists. They had their lovely cave, secure and placed deep in their forest. Easy to defend, one entrance... It was a dream, and even more so when the recent leaders welcomed their first litter of pups. Orion was among them.

The elders of the pack would say that the litter had been born at an auspicious time... The stars that they worshiped had foretold as much. There was a bright future ahead of these little ones.

In accordance with their traditions, the pups would not be named until they had found their place in their pack. As such, the yet-unnamed Orion knew his siblings by their coats and their scent. He had been born between several grey-and-brown wolves that resembled their mother and a few paler that were closer to their father. At the time, he was just as dusty as the rest, having not yet grown into his adult coat. He would never earn himself a name in the pack beyond "Pup" or "Son."

As seasons pressed on, so did the young Orion and his agemates. They grew rapidly, as wolves are wont to do, and began exploring the world around them. Although not adventurous by nature, the darkening pup was easily brought into schemes and games by his siblings. It was one of these games that would save his life.

"Go hide," he had been told. "If you can stay hidden for the longest, you win the game!"

Deep inside, he had known that the older sibling who had proposed the "game" was doing so to make him seem like a fool. The intent had to be to get the yet-unnamed Orion's share of supper.

...And yet, he hid. Out of spite, out of obedience, or out of routine he could not say. He chose a small depression, not really a hole or a cave, under a large bounder and dug himself under. In his puppish thoughts, he believed that missing supper would cause the whole pack to worry for him and that his sibling would be in terrible trouble. Oh, how their mother would scold the offending party! It was with these thoughts that he fell asleep.

He did not know that an unattended fire had been left somewhere in his family's forest. He did not know that his bright future would start so soon. 

Orion's entire world was engulfed. He refuses to recall the terrible sights, smells, and sounds of that night during his waking hours. Only in his dreams do the terrible screams of prey animals and piercing cries of family members come back to him. His hiding place protected him from the worst of the flames, and when he awoke in a panic, he fled to the nearest body of water with the panicked prey of the forest. 

No other wolves lived in the forest. No other wolves escaped. 

He would return to the den that he called home, his paws leaving prints in the layers of ash as though it was snow. It was a horrible sight and a worse scent; burning trees and detritus had fallen and blocked the one entrance to his family's cave. He made no attempt to dig for survivors, knowing already from the heavy scent of death in the air that there were none. For an achingly long moment, he could do nothing at all.

Orion could not say if it was hunger or fear that moved him first, only that it was grief that held him in place. For days he stayed in the place that smelled of charred fur and terrible rot, letting his fur become caked in ash. In time, although weaker and hungrier than before, he began to walk.

A lone wolf has its work cut out for it, and Orion was no exception. He wandered, hunting small game when he could and resting where he felt safe. He left the remains of his birthplace and spent seasons traversing across plains, mountains, and other wooded areas. Never really living, only surviving... if that. 

It had been seasons since he had last used his voice when the black wolf Tala came across him. She spoke, although he almost didn't understand her. She was kind. She guided him, showed him a forest that he could call his home... One with the view of the stars. 

It had been so long since he gazed upon the stars as the soothsayers and herbalists of his home once did. Over the forest, he saw their most holy constellation, and he felt himself fill with hope for the first time in so very, very long. 

"What is your name?" He heard the black wolf ask.

He paused, still looking at the stars.

"Orion." He spoke, his voice raspy and sore from disuse. "My... My name is Orion."