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Name: Smilodon-Fatalis Nickname: Gaia Wolf name: Seryph Gender: Female Rank: Beta Female Appearance: Seryph is a hybrid wolf, a rare red wolf and common coyote mix, and because of this is unable to maintain any rank higher in the pack than beta. True to her heritage, she is red-brown in color with a long, feminine looking face. From her father's coyote genes she received long, stilt like legs and relatively large ears perfectly suited for pinpointing even the smallest sound. Her superior wit and knowledge of lore made her friends with the alpha wolf, Asako, and they eventually went off and gathered stray wolves to form a pack. Although her lithe build does not allow for any great amount of strength, Seryph possesses the greatest agility of the lot. She has no powers and cannot transform into a human like other full blooded wolves can. History: So, you want to know a bit about me. Well, there really isn't too terribly much to tell. I am the offspring of the desperate mating between a red wolf b***h and a dog coyote. You may or may not know this, but red wolves have always been, lets say, lesser in numbers, and when the humans brought their business to our deserts, we dwindled to dangerously low levels. My ma, her name was Sage, managed to avoid any deadly run-ins with the intruders as much to her benefit as mine. One year, when her last litter had been long dispersed to fend for their own survivals, she could not locate another red wolf to mate with. Unlike our grey brethren, us reds are sometimes solitary creatures not wishing for the company of others. No matter how many times she howled, how many ranges she crossed, she could not find even one suitor. It was then that she gave up the hopes of ever finding another wolf such as herself again. Her wanderings had taken her across vast expanses of desert, leaving her alone and confused. One day, in the shade of a rocky cliff, she met a coyote. He entertained her with such tales of his adventures and legends that she could not help but fall for his charm. He took her from rock face to rock face, a journey I would accompany him on after my first season, showing her the many white chalk drawings on the red stone. Each set, he told her and later me, was a story between the Native humans and animals.
I recall quite vividly one set of pictographs in particular. I can just see him puff out his chest in pride as he stated, " You see that one Seryph?" pointing his long nose to a particular scribble, "that is me."
I stared at for quite some time, cocking my head in confusion.
"But Pa," I answered confusedly, "it is just another group of white lines strewn on the rock."
He chuckled at my lack of ingenuity and imagination. Lifting a well worn paw to rest on it, he guided me through the transcription.
"See there? Those are my ears. And that, that is my tail. Can you make out the clever ravens I am cheating out their lunch?"
He prided himself in his crafty nature and my ease at learning all his favorite tricks at gambling.
"The Native Humans know I am a smart creature. I can swindle anyone for whatever I can't have." The more I stared at the picture, the more it became apparent to me that it was a coyote. I took his word that it was him. I smiled my delight as a thousand different things I had never been able to see in the hieroglyphics came to light. Desert peccaries nosed through scruffy looking scrub while Harris hawks wheeled in the sky above them. The Native Humans danced in rituals with their crested gods watching from the clouds intensly. That one time of revelation opened me to a whole new way of interpreting the experiences I went through, the moving pictures I saw and lived.
He also told me stories that had no pictures to accompany them. He spoke of his father,my grandfather, and of his excitement in the northern pines. The tale he always retold with the most relish the most often was of his Pa's greatest gamble of his life: the encounter with the famous Blink Lynx. I won't go into the details, they are too lengthy and too deep, but I will give you this: One winter when the mountain blizzards came and went fast enough to drop a foot of snow in half an hour before disappearing for a slight reprieve, my grandfather had been reduced to skin hanging on a bony frame. He sought sanctuary in a sheltered grove of spruce trees to escape the biting cold when he stumbled, almost literally, onto the exhausted body of the Blink Lynx. When the cat awoke, he almost ate him for the untimely intrusion, but before the snow devil could deliver a killing blow, he called out:
"Blink Lynx, let's strike a deal!"and captured a different kind of interest in the cat.
The Lynx bet the coyote's life plus one favor if my grandpa could reach a roosting flock of ptarmigan in the boughs above without lifting one paw off the ground. If he lost, however, his life was to be in the claws of the Blink Lynx. He had no choice but to agree to the unfair bargain. He knew that the Lynx could freeze them off their perch with a flick of one tufted ear. Being a coyote, however, he had no elemental powers or even a special form as some wolves do. He found himself in a sticky situation.
"Now Blink Lynx," he said, wary of his words, "Why don't you attempt first to knock off a few of those birds, seeing if I try we may be here a while."
The Lynx acquiesced, proud of his obvious superiority, and spat a freeze charm at the flock Much to his surprise, they did not fall off the perch as he had expected. Somewhat annoyed, the snow cat shot a slightly stronger spell at the spot. Again this failed. At that time, my grandfather stepped in and asked if he could give it a go. The Blink Lynx angrily, but still unconcerned, said that it didn't matter. There was no way to get them down now and if the coyote's attempt failed, which it most certainly was, then he would eat him. Unperturbed and determined, he stepped through the snow over to the trunk of the tree. He threw his weight against it once, twice, thrice, there was a cracking sound, and down tumbled the frozen ptarmigan, snow heavy branch, and all. The Lynx had a good, if sore, laugh at this. He let my grand father go on his merry way and with a future favor from the Blink Lynx to keep tucked away in his belt for any need he may have. Ironically for all his cunning, he never had the nerve to face the frightening lynx again. I never could imagine being dangled on a thread like that.
At around three years old, the strange humans set up in our desert(they were not like the Native Humans who had disappeared long before I was born). They came with machines and boughs of metal ripping and destroying as they went. The collared peccaries started to become scarce and the smaller game few and far between. In their stead came stupid animals called sheep and cattle to pound at the sand under their feet and browse what little vegetation survived. We killed and ate them for sustenance, the flesh being vile in comparison to the wild rams and mule deer that used to caper in the evenings by the rock faces. Water holes more precious than food were fenced in with biting wire to allow exclusive access to the domestics that had invaded our home.
When our regular oasis was finally claimed by the humans, we mourned the loss of our last refuge. Sage and I left the land of my father, by this time he had been shot and made into a wall rug, for amnesty elsewhere. One night we spied a diminutive spring at the base of a scraggly tree. I did not have much of a thirst after rending and sucking at a cactus an hour earlier in want of liquid, but Sage was parched and drank more than her fill of the drink. We stayed close by the spring that night, not wanting to readily abandon a new found source of life, and sought safety in a catacomb network of sand worn caves.
I awoke the next morning, but my ma was unable to do the same. She had fallen into a deep tupor of which she was unable to awaken from. I nudged, nipped, prodded, and barked trying to get her to arise, alas, it was all to no avail. No movement except the shallow breath in her chest was discernable. Dozing next to her failing body that afternoon, my ears picked up the soft pad of paws in the stone passage way awoke me.
"Whoa, Seryph it's alright. Truce." It was a puma that my father and I had known.
"Kokopelli? Why are you here?" I demanded, taken aback by his unwillingness to fight.
"I've been following a herd of big horn... until now that is. I saw the entire family drop dead after drinking at the spring at the foot of these caverns," he said cooly with the flick of his feline tail, "According to what my cousin to the East has said, it may hve been poisioned."
I listened with disbelief at his story, then turned to look mournfully at my comatose mother. Kokopelli went on his way without any further incident, we were old friends and had no reason to compete now that all the food was gone and water undrinkable. He padded away quietly, leaving me alone in my misery. Sage died in the twilight of the next morning and I set out North that day, not wishing to have any more dealings with the desert country. The mountains of my grandfather coyote were to my niche now. There you have it. Straight from the wolf's mouth. I told you that it was not all that interesting. I have but yet another tragic past to add to our pack of woes and a few secrets to be kept as a pack of lies. If you are still thirsting for more of what I am, sorry. The rest is taboo.
Smilodon-Fatalis · Sat Aug 05, 2006 @ 05:27pm · 1 Comments |
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