| ❝ | We cry, for what we do, we are. Our enemies are our equals. There is no good or evil to the snow, no right or wrong in the ice. There are no primal forces, as chaos and order are one when the world grows cold and dark with the calls of the winter wind. There is only survival, and death. Some live; many die. It is how the cycle comes to pass like the moons. You fight for the right to live, or you give up and grow cold like the unmelting snow. This is our life, and under the Moon, we cry... | ❞ |
Long ago, the North was a place of war. This creed was what the Cry followed as a rule of law, as it had served them well when it came time to face the other wanderers for their claim. Unfortunately, some had to fight more than others...
In the white and bitter stays of the north, there were once many packs. But all of them wanted this place for themselves. Some were forces to be reckoned with, and their ice-hardened teeth and claws made quick work of other would-be adversaries in the region.
When it came down to the last two clans, the Dred knew that the Dire were the fiercer enemy, and they were no match. So instead of running, they faced them with the calm collection of those who followed the Northern creed... The Dire overtook them, and made them the workforce of their clan.
They came to be called the Cry, as their strange and shrieking songs echoed and moaned down the mountains on the southerly winds. The Cry lived divided in two different castes that lasted many, many years. The privileged and powerful Dires, and the downtrodden, enslaved Dred.
As time went on, the Dred began to grow restless, wishing to break from the traditions, start fresh. But the stranglehold of the Dire was hardly something to be overcome. The frustrated Dred grew hostile to each other, with a festering wound eating away at the fabric of their caste. With time, they were broken, falling in line with the new ways, always aware of an untimly demise, be it from the Dire's laws, by starvation or by sickness.
But things were soon to change. On the day of the Firstborn's Blood Rite, when he would take up his rightful claim as Alpha, a rebellion began. A Dred fae wished to destroy the castes. She wanted them to mix and be one. She and the Firstborn had known one another for many years, and she brought it to him amongst both their kind. But he would not destroy the castes. However, his promise to them was that they would stand as equals.
The Firstborn understood, as his father had, that the two lines were to be separate. For decades the wolves had lived as one pack, but with two sides. If they were to start intermingling as his father had, it would create new problems for the pack. He believed they should all be equal, as he had learned from his youth, but they should be divided, so as not to have both attributes, their gifts, bred out of the pack.
The Fae, however, thought that the continued division the two clans would once more bring something like the Old Laws back into existence. She wanted both to be together, and to separate them for such trivial things as the gifts was madness to her. She believed that separating the two would destroy unity, and once more enslave her line.
And so the rift began. Under their single name, they fueded. In the whispers, they chose their sides. The wolves pitted order against chaos, and grew bitter. Not since the old times had there been two forces that ruled in the Northern lands. But now they were eating at the fabric of their pack. It was then that there was a right and a wrong. It was then that there was a sort of light being followed by the Dire, and a kind darkness being pursued by the Dred.
They were at odds, but would one ever give in, or surrender?
