Friday, October 18th Pt. 19

“While there’s no evidence to indicate that she knows she’s a witch or has embraced the craft, the most powerful witches and warlocks tend to be born to alpha parents. With her fraternal twin doing a trial run as alpha for the Purple Mountain pack it would be fair to assume that their parents were natural born alpha’s. For a long time an alpha born wolfless used to be looked at as an abomination but recently it has been revealed that those werewolves are very powerful without the ability to transform into a wolf. Now, I apologize for taking this out of order but I wanted to start with facts before introducing the myth. It is a known fact that most if not all werewolves originated from the union of some of the most powerful witches and warlocks that have existed for centuries. Compared to them, werewolves are the new guys trying to make a name for themselves.”
“If it’s known that werewolves originate from witches and warlocks then where does the myth come in?”
Cole has finally opened his eyes. It’s obvious that he’s already a lot more comfortable since receiving the toradol.
“The myth or legend, I’m not certain which, is when it happened and why.” Cassius starts again.
“It is said that when the earth and moon were first created Terra, the goddess of earth, created man and animal as two separate beings. Over time man became rulers over the animals and Diana struggled to accept the divide between them.
While it took some time, Diana eventually found clans of witches and warlocks who were forced to practice their beliefs in nature in secret. They practiced their beliefs in the dark of night most often depending upon only the light provided by the full moon. Diana enjoyed the discovery of this new found attention and upon seeing their attempts at transfiguration decided to reward their loyalty to nature.
Unfortunately, it was too dangerous to allow random witches and warlocks the ability to change into anything they wanted. Diana had to think long and hard before bestowing such a gift as she needed to ensure that it wouldn’t be abused.
First, she needed to narrow down what her people would be gifted with. She didn’t like the idea of endless possibilities so she decided upon three main animals; the wolf, the bear and the mountain lion.
Second was deciding who would be blessed with the ability to shift. There were several clans that had started the process of domesticating the wolf so that’s where she started. She watched the clan intensely without the clan ever knowing that each member was enduring a series of tests. The top five couples that passed the tests and were trying to conceive a child were blessed with a werewolf.
Initially, it wasn’t until the child’s eighteenth birthday that they were able to shift for the first time and all werewolves born into the clan were of a singular rank making it easier for their human parents to keep them out of trouble. It was as these werewolves discovered who they were that many of them started wandering away from home looking for others like them. Just like witches and warlocks, werewolves have fated mates. One soul separated before birth placed into two separate bodies, often years and miles apart from each other. It was Diana’s way to ensure that the bloodline didn’t become inbred. It forced clan members to seek out and work with other clans. While it forced werewolves to follow the natural order of the wolf. Wolves, naturally, don’t want to be alone. They want to band together as hunting and raising a family is easier in multiples. What started as the seeking of their mates soon turned into the formation of packs. Once a pack is formed the ranking system naturally follows. While the first werewolves were all of the lowest rank, the strongest ones fought their way to the top. Back then the ranks were not genetic, making it so any wolf could fight for the alpha position.
Diana allowed this progression of nature to go on for a century before realizing she had to come up with a new plan to keep the balance. While the pack mentality of wolves was critical for working together to create a society she didn’t anticipate the thirst for power that humans have. It was the thirst for power that resulted in some of the worst leaders a pack could have, ones that abused their pack into submission, that caused Diana to act.
After watching the progression towards a civilized society stagnate she took the opportunity to use those who were already pregnant to bless their unborn children with a birth rank. Every unborn child, no matter when they were due to be born was blessed with the rank their father had achieved when they were conceived within certain limits. Diana understood that if the mother was of a submissive nature blessing her child the beta rank would make it difficult for the mother to understand and properly raise the pup so if the mother was a gamma and father was a beta then the child would be a delta. This worked to her liking as alpha pups started being born to women that were being abused.
As hard as it was to watch the young endure so many hardships she instinctively knew that the experience would turn the pack toward where it needed to go. It has taken several centuries but as human technology has progressed to make their lives easier so has werewolves. The alphas that made the investments needed to advance their packs have been rewarded while those who have refused have lost everything. While it hasn’t been a perfect system and bad alphas still exist seventy percent of the packs registered with the council have changed their abusive ways with thirty percent of all packs being part of Operation Underground or a registered sanctuary.”
“I know thirty percent seems like a low number but that number is growing.”
I add to the ending Cassius gave as Cole’s stare switches between each of us. Deven slips his hand into Sheila’s, giving Luna Charlotte a smile when she takes a seat next to them.
“Which brings us to the next level of evolution for the werewolf.” He starts once everyone is seated.
“As Cassius said, the packs that were the most willing to change were rewarded for that change. While today we know that there is a genetic component to a werewolf being born an intuitive or an empath the first ones discovered were random.
The families that were blessed with such a child were often poor and socially distant from the rest of the pack. It is believed that this was done purposely due to all empaths being born without a rank. Initially it wasn’t that big of a deal to be born without as the advent of a genetic test for birth rank hadn’t happened yet but the common symptoms were still present. Jessa can tell you first hand that she was a difficult child.
Empaths are born with the ability to feel what others are feeling, emotionally and physically. This makes us very irritable as infants and young children as we have no understanding of what’s going on let alone how to control it. With time comes age and an instinctual understanding that we are inherently different from the others. Our wisdom flows deep as if it comes from Diana herself. Unfortunately, Diana could not have anticipated the turn of events that happened when empaths became adults and started emerging from their isolation.
Despite werewolves, witches and warlocks all having a common ancestry, the emergence of empaths came at a time where they had forgotten where they came from. The empath’s ability to feel another’s pain and identify injuries that no doctor had yet to discover a means of diagnosing made the pack doctors jealous. Their young age compared to their inherent wisdom of how to care for the sick and injured seemed to seal their fate in the polar opposite of what Diana intended. Diana felt that she was rewarding the pack with the ultimate doctor. Someone who could diagnose accurately during a time without blood tests, X-rays and sophisticated surgery should be invaluable as they would easily increase the lifespan of every member of the pack. Instead the established doctors shunned them and did everything they could to prove that they were wrong. That they wanted to harm and destroy the pack. They often falsely claimed that these doctors were really feral wolves out to kill pack members and because empaths are not naturally submissive it was easy for the alpha to declare them as feral.”