Shrrg

Shrrg was born into a pack of love and kindness.

The Wildwood wolf pack prized themselves on fairness and kindness - towards everyone who wasn't the omega. Shrrg, born during the deep winter under the blackest moon, grew up quiet and withdrawn, with a coat as black as night, an unusual color that in the pack’s eyes, made her a target. The Wildwood wolves were an ancient clan, their lives built from the fabric of ritual and superstition: defects or special marks were seen as a mark of Farkas - Ayr - Rah, and wolves with such defects were to be shunned and feared.

And shun her they did. As she grew, exclusion from games gradually became beatings, and even her own mother, so twisted by superstition, refused to protect her, so she grew up crippled and weak. Weak was how the Wildwood pack liked their omegas best. 

This was the natural way of things, they told her: there must be an alpha, and there must be an omega, just as there must be a sun and moon in the sky. The omega was a vital role in the pack, they said as they kicked and bit her until she bled - a scapegoat used to relieve tensions and keep the peace. She ought to be grateful, they told her, that they allowed her to remain in the pack at all, where she was safe and protected. It was only natural that security should come with a price. A price she often payed in the dead of the night, shivering on the hard stone floor, as the young males gathered around, snickering and egging each other on, leaving her body used and discarded come morning. In many packs, omegas were often used as mating practise in this brutal manner - even the proud, noble alpha male took out his frustration on her from time to time. 

Shrrg made her first attempted escape towards the end of her first year. She had been left to sleep outside in the cold, on the slab of icy stone outside the cave, and no one would miss her until morning. But Shrrg was crippled and underfed, and she didn't even make it past the territory border before she was dragged back in  disgrace. Her tail and her ears were ripped to shreds, by her own brothers and sisters, no less, and after that she learned to do nothing but keep her head down and her mouth shut until the rest of the pack went to sleep. Only at night was she free, free to run to the deepest heart of Wildwood and howl her prayers to the moon - the moon who was always there for her, both waxing and waning.

"O Farkas-Ayr-Rah!" she would cry. "Set me free!"

Her pack would have beaten her if they'd heard her invoke the name of the River King. To do so was blasphemy of the gravest variety, but praying to the wolf-god Lykin had never done much good. She imagined Lykin to favour the kinds of wolves that tormented her: the bold, strong, beautiful wolves, the alphas of their world. She imagined Farkas - Ayr - Rah to be a little less discerning. She prayed to him when there was nothing else to pray to, and he was a worthy god as any. But that night, after her beating, the moon was nowhere to be seen, and even the gods, it seemed, had turned their back on her.

And so Shrrg learned to obey all, her fight beaten from her with teeth and claws, but by night she schemed and planned. One day, she would be the leader of a pack larger and greater than even that of Wildwood, a pack where there were no omegas, where everyone fought and lived as equals. But the longer she lived, the bitterer she grew, and as she knew her dream would never come to pass her thoughts turned to revenge: in her dreams, she saw the blood of everyone who ever hurt her, the Wildwood running red with it.

But little did she know, Farkas - Ayr - Rah had heard her plea, and had not abandoned her. He was watching and biding his time, for Farkas too shared this dream - he did not care whose blood soaked the earth, only that he would feed upon it. And so Farkas began to crawl behind Shrrg like a shadow, growling at her shoulder and guarding her as she slept, for he recognised that Shrrg's strange, twisted soul mirrored his own.

One night, he came to Shrrg in a vision. She woke in a blinding flash of pain, and when she looked down at her body, she was transformed. Her fur was no longer matted and ripped, but a deep, shining river, darker than the night. Her claws flashed like flints, ready to taste flesh, and her eyes shone with a new, cruel intelligence. She had heard the whispers, things people said about her behind her back: un-wolf. Shadow-wolf. Now, at last, the rumours had come true.

With Farkas at her side, the world was no longer a place to be feared but a place to be conquered and controlled. She saw it then - how they would fear her, how the trees of Wildwood would tremble when they beheld her. Farkas had granted her wish, given her his strength, and she would repay him in blood. Before the sun rose, the whole of Wildwood would be running red with it.

With Farkas at her back, Shrrg didn't hesitate. She murdered her pack as they slept, tearing them to pieces - only a few escaped into the woods, but never returned to Wildwood again. Among these was her own sister, Wyakin, once so bold, who fled with her tail between her legs. As she ran away Shrrg cursed Wyakin, to suffer as she had suffered, and to never set foot in these cursed trees again. 

For moons after that, Shrrg wandered. The murder of her tormentors had only given her fleeting satisfaction - she wanted more. She roamed the hills and forests, gathering followers, for indeed there were many wolves who felt lost in the world, who were bitter and discontented: omegas and scapegoats, wanders and rogues, other wolves who believed in her ideas. Shrrg set up her new pack high in the Druid Mountains, overlooking the ruins of Wildwood below, so that she might look upon it from time to time, and relish in seeing it so far below her notice. As their numbers swelled, Shrrg's pack became notorious: soon, they controlled all the hunting grounds in the North, demanding free wolves pay a tithe to hunt and reside there. Resistance was not met kindly: the Great Pack had become rather military in nature, earning for themselves the name of the Vrenshrrg - the Warriors of Shrrg. They quickly took over the neighboring territories with Farkas at their back, earning a feared name for themselves, until the lands ran with blood. For all tales of Lykin and his bravery were scorned by them: Farkas was their new god, and he demanded payment in blood.