- IC Information
- Forum Stats
Sex:
Male
Male
Species:
Grey Wolf
Grey Wolf
Date of Birth:
27th November 2019
27th November 2019
Appearance:
The most obvious features about Quilo are his brilliant golden eyes and his thick white fur. Quilo came from a land where it got very cold, though his fur thinned out in the summer as canines often do.
Quilo's right around a large size woof. 40 inches to shoulder and around 110 pounds.
Due to spending several months with a group, and with the help of an excellent chef, Quilo's become more of an average looking wolf now. His body has filled out some and the chores he does every day has made sure he's not become a plump. He's not an olympic triathawolf, but he can certainly pull a heavy sled across the tundra by himself, Balto eat your heart out.
Due to being non luperci, Quilo only has the lupus form, but he gets by however he can without opposable thumbs, having been a non luperci all his life.
He has scars from an event in his early life, but they are covered by his fur and are difficult to see except at the right angle or if you were actively looking for them.
He wears a small leather satchel tied with a cord around his neck, filled with little trinkets for protection and luck, made for and given to him by Whisper Mayflower.
The most obvious features about Quilo are his brilliant golden eyes and his thick white fur. Quilo came from a land where it got very cold, though his fur thinned out in the summer as canines often do.
Quilo's right around a large size woof. 40 inches to shoulder and around 110 pounds.
Due to spending several months with a group, and with the help of an excellent chef, Quilo's become more of an average looking wolf now. His body has filled out some and the chores he does every day has made sure he's not become a plump. He's not an olympic triathawolf, but he can certainly pull a heavy sled across the tundra by himself, Balto eat your heart out.
Due to being non luperci, Quilo only has the lupus form, but he gets by however he can without opposable thumbs, having been a non luperci all his life.
He has scars from an event in his early life, but they are covered by his fur and are difficult to see except at the right angle or if you were actively looking for them.
He wears a small leather satchel tied with a cord around his neck, filled with little trinkets for protection and luck, made for and given to him by Whisper Mayflower.
Personality:
Quilo has a warm personality and is very polite most of the time. He tends to have more of a puppy side when he's not trying to reel himself in behind his polite nature.
Quilo has a warm personality and is very polite most of the time. He tends to have more of a puppy side when he's not trying to reel himself in behind his polite nature.
Relations:
As of currently, Quilo has friendships with the members of Béte Noire. There is the possibility of a romantic relationship in the future, but for now, he's just living his best life.
As of currently, Quilo has friendships with the members of Béte Noire. There is the possibility of a romantic relationship in the future, but for now, he's just living his best life.
History:
The ivory wolf’s story began before he was born, with two wolves who had decided to pair up and have pups of their own as part of a group of families traveling together and looking for a permanent place to settle.
The male’s name was Bastien, the female’s name was Léa. They both shared a coat of charcoal black, one with gold eyes, one with orange. The pair loved each other dearly, and they were liked among the families of the pack group.
One day, while they were migrating through the central Canadian territories, the group started enjoying the scenery they were experiencing and began looking for places to settle.
Through their short travels, they managed to locate and bump into a traveling caravan.
At first they were happy to see new people, but that was short-lived when the lupus formed luperci led them back to the rest of the caravan, only to shift before their eyes and walk among the rest of the upright bipeds there.
Most of the pack were afraid, some of them didn’t understand what they were seeing, others didn’t trust the luperci kind. They nodded and thanked them for their offers of hospitality but made their way forward, trying to put distance between them. Once the group felt they were comfortable, they managed to stumble upon the perfect place to settle. They started hunting, made dens in a nearby cave system, mapped out the territory, and all was well.
One day, some older pups were playing in a stream near the packlands, having a grand old time, when some of the younger caravan members appeared. The young ones played together, but at some point, accidentally, one of the pack members got scratched by one of the caravan members.
The parents of the pack member rushed to the pup and drove off the caravan members. One of the bolder members of the pack came forward, this male being Bastien with some of the other members, and made his way to the caravan, demanding that they leave and take their disgusting disease with them. A fight happened, leading to an accident involving a lit torch which caught a wagon on fire.
As a result of this, one of the luperci, an older white furred woman who practiced witchcraft, shouted at the bold wolf who had caused them so much strife over an accident. She declared that she was placing a deep curse on him, muttered a bunch of gibberish words, threw some herbs and trinkets at him, and then helped pack up the remaining wagons. The caravan left by the next morning, leaving the smoldering wreckage of the remaining caravan.
Whether or not the witch had actually cast a curse upon Bastien would remain a mystery to the end of time for him, but Bastien was a paranoid wolf and worried night and day that the curse that had been cast on him was indeed real.
A short time after the incident with the caravan, Bastien and Léa conceived a litter, and the worry that he would have been cursed to be infertile was at least abated. The longer time that passed from the incident, the less Bastien worried about it, and the more happy he was that he had been one of the integral members of the pack to protect them against the luperci caravan.
Time passed while his progeny baked in Léa’s oven, until finally it was time to bring them into
the world.
One by one, the little cries signaled their first breaths, and Bastien was proud to finally be a dad, up until the final pup was born. Bastien could barely contain his shock as this pup was so startlingly different from the others, sporting a coat of pure white, starkly contrasted in the sea of black. His thoughts raced as he stared.
The curse, this must be the beginning of the blasted curse. The witch is going to get me in the end.
Of course genetics wasn’t the work of magic, but Bastien didn’t know that. His paranoid mind obsessed over the fact that this pup was so different from the others, he couldn’t help but be susceptible to the possibility of the pup being a manifestation of the curse. He couldn’t help but believe that when the pup was old enough, he would carry out the revenge the old gypsy woman so patiently waited for.
“This one’s going to be interesting, but we shouldn’t be worried Bastien, he will fit in just fine with the other pups.” Léa wasn’t unaware of the anxiety in her mate, but she wasn’t aware of the real reason he was so upset. Bastien could only nod as he watched the outlier male suckle life giving milk from his mother.
Léa licked her pups happily, stopping to give each of them a name. Amélie for the first female, Eléanore for the second female, Phillipe for the first male, but she had to take a few extra seconds for the ivory male. “His name will be Frost, as he is the same color as the new frost now forming on the territory.”
Bastien’s tail wagged as he too licked each of the pups, having to force himself to reluctantly lick Frost as well in case his mate noticed. From then on, he planned to let nothing appear to be out of the ordinary, but he had to think of something fast to deal with this issue. No curse was going to get him, not on his watch. He inwardly distanced himself from Frost from the beginning, knowing one day what was to come.
As Frost grew up, life in the packlands seemed peaceful. His mother adored him, along with his brother and sisters. Overall he had a great childhood growing up, with some very peculiar exceptions.
More than once, Bastien took Frost out into the surrounding territories. Sometimes he brought his brother and sisters, sometimes only other pups, but most of the time, it was just Frost and Bastien, father and son, charcoal black big paws and ivory white small paws. These forays were innocent, Bastien made sure of it. He wanted to establish nothing out of the ordinary to prepare for his nefarious plans.
From a young age, Frost developed close connections with his family, but there was another outside of his family with whom he also developed attachment to, and she was just as close to him.
She had tried to teach Frost how to say her name so many times, but finally gave up when he just couldn’t say the full thing, and ended up growing attached to the nickname he had given her, Mara.
Mara had taken to Frost when he was still a little guy, and often offered to babysit him, which Bastien fully accepted in an effort to not have to look at or be near Frost as much as possible.
When Frost was old enough to move around on his own, Mara often took him with her when she went out playing, sometimes with the other pups but often alone, and over the months they spent a lot of time together.
As time passed, Léa began to worry about Frost. He always seemed to get caught up in unlucky situations.
One day, when Frost and his father were walking along a log that had been long secured over a fast moving stream, Frost had, somehow, ended up in the water. Crying and bobbing up and down in the fast moving water, it had been the lucky chance that another of the pack members had been further down the stream that had saved the boy. Bastien had insisted that he was rushing to save the boy himself, but the one who had pulled him out insisted that Bastien, dry as a bone, was nowhere to be seen until after Frost had been safely recovered.
That was just one of several accidents in Frost’s life, and many in the pack wondered if the boy was actually cursed. The pack members who had been at the caravan the day the gypsy woman had placed her curse upon Bastien were shifty-eyed, but kept their thoughts to themselves.
But none of these accidents ever seemed to happen when Frost was alone with Mara, and she was often trusted to watch over him when the pack members were too busy with adult things to watch over him.
In addition to having a watchful eye on him as much as possible, Léa took it upon herself to teach Frost about the world. She often took him out, sometimes alone, sometimes with his siblings, to teach him and them the various types of plants that were edible and could be used for wounds and other ailments. She taught them how to apply the herbs and plants. She taught them how to swim, how to avoid dangerous creatures like snakes and bears. She exhausted all the knowledge she possibly could to impart to them, and especially to Frost, who she was worried about the most.
Months passed as Frost and his siblings grew into their oversized paws and ears. Mara and Frost only grew closer, and it was then that Bastien began to realize that their closeness was going to become an issue.
For so long had Bastien been ruminating and obsessing over this curse, over the absurd notion that his own son was going to kill him one day, that he actually began to believe that if Frost were to have pups of his own, he would have more mouths full of sharp teeth to kill him with.
For the months that Frost had been growing, Bastien had tried setting up several ‘accidents’ in an effort to kill Frost, but they always failed. Bastien cursed his own luck, yet another thing to blame on the curse, yet another rationalization he could add to the fact that Frost was part of the curse.
It was one spring morning that had been the final push that Bastien needed. He finally came to the conclusion that he was the only one who was going to be able to stop the curse. He could trust no one and nothing but his own weapons to get the job done. Come hell or high water, he was going to do it. Frost was almost fully grown, but he was still a pup, and Bastien felt he was more than a match for a simple oblivious pup.
Bastien got to his paws, his eyes never leaving the young white wolf. He waited until he thought no one saw them and walked up to Frost.
“Come on boy, you’re almost an adult now, it’s time for you to have the talk.”
Frost looked confused. “The talk? What do you mean?”
But Bastien remained silent and walked on, not bothering to give Frost a beckoning signal. Frost didn’t need one, but he couldn’t help but feel something being off about the events that were about to unfold. The poor wolf had no idea how drastically his life was about to change.
Once they arrived at the place where the wagon had been burned all those months ago, a place where he thought it was far enough away that they wouldn’t be overheard, Bastien turned to the boy following behind him, stood tall, and stared into the younger wolf’s eyes.
“It’s time.”
Frost stared back, confusedly. “Time for what?”
Bastien growled lightly in a sigh. “You know what. It’s time to finally settle this. I know you’ve been going off to meet with her, biding your time. I know it’s coming.”
Frost’s ears lowered back. “Dad, what are you talking about?”
Bastien snarled. “Drop the act.”
Frost stared at him, confusion firing his golden eyes alight. “What act? Are you not feeling well? Is this some type of game? I don’t understand.”
Bastien remained silent for several awkward seconds. “When were you planning on doing it? Were you going to wait until I was an old man and couldn’t fight back? Were you going to wait until I was asleep once you didn’t need your parents anymore?”
Frost stepped back. This wasn’t right, he knew it wasn’t right. It just seemed so odd, something he never imagined he’d experience. “Dad, you’re not making sen-”
Bastien snarled and snapped his teeth. “Don’t ever call me that again. You’re not my son, you’re an abomination. You’re a cursed being, sent after me by that damnable woman from the caravan.”
Frost remained silent, shock rooting him to the spot. His tail curled under him, his ears pinned back behind him.
Bastien sneered. “And yet look at you. Pathetic. Why should I be afraid of you? Why should I have lost so much sleep because of you?”
Frost began to back up, but was stopped as Bastien snapped at him. “No. No more. You’re not going back. You’re going to leave. You’re going to leave and never think of this place again. You’re going to leave my family alone, and you’re going to leave me alone. Go back to that gypsy woman, she’s your real mother anyway, she stole my son from me.”
Frost remained still, up until Bastien grabbed him by the scruff with his teeth and flung him around so that Bastien’s rear faced the packlands and Frost landed in a heap near where the charred remains of the wagon lay.
Frost laid there for a few moments, trying to process just what the hell was happening, before getting back to his paws and shaking the dirt from his fur.
“Dad, I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re clearly tired, sick, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. But if you let me take you to Mom, maybe we can help you..”
Bastien stared in silence, deathly rage smoldering in his eyes. A small chuckle resonated in his chest.
“This is where it happened, you know. The gypsy woman was standing right there where you are now. She cursed me. She made you appear. Is this where you’ve been meeting her? Is this where she talks to you?”
Frost stamped his forepaw. “Dad! Listen to yourself.. I’ve never tried to hurt you, I’ve never desired to hurt you. Why would I? I love you. I love all of my family.”
Bastien shook his head. “I’m not going to keep giving you the offer to leave with your life and limbs intact. It was set in stone long ago. I tried Frost, I tried to put it aside. I tried to fight it. I tried to look past it, tried to see you as my son, but I couldn’t do it. I can’t risk the chance of you taking away my mate, my pups, my pack. I won’t let you.”
Frost eyes welled with tears. “What are you saying! I don’t get you! What do you want!? I’m your son, Dad! I’m your flesh and blood SON.”
Bastien shook his head. His vision began to burn, his heart began to blacken. “I have two daughters and one son. I don’t know who you are, but I know what you will become, and I know what I must do to prevent that. If you won’t leave, then I’ll make you leave.”
Bastien shot forward, throwing his weight into Frost. Frost hadn’t been prepared and took the full brunt of the impact, sending his lighter body sailing into the wreckage of the charred carriage, breaking some of the pieces. He shook his head, trying to recover both from the impact as well as the fact that his father had seemingly lost his mind. Bastien stood, growling with teeth bared.
Frost got to his paws. “I don’t care what you do to me Dad, you’re not you right now. We can still go to Mom if you’d just-”
Bastien lunged at him again, tossing him back. Frost tucked this time, allowing him to roll to a much less heapful position. He got to his paws quicker this time. Bastien snarled and lunged again but this time Frost leapt out of the way. Bastien used the momentum to redirect his attack off a nearby tree and launch himself again at Frost, who wasn’t prepared and was again sent flying into a heap.
“I’ve hated you your whole life Frost. From the moment you emerged from your mother and I saw that your coat was white, white like that gypsy’s. When your eyes opened and I looked into them, Léa’s golden eyes, I hated myself, but I hated you even more.”
Bastien grabbed him again and spun him to toss him back into the wreckage again. This time Frost wasn’t as lucky. The impact hurt.
“You were beautiful, your eyes were beautiful. You could have been my favorite son, but I couldn’t trust you. I couldn’t let the gypsy woman win, to make me let my guard down. Embody your destiny Frost. Fight back, try to kill me, so that I can justify your death and make this all worth something.”
When Bastien threw himself at Frost again, this time, Frost moved out of the way at the last minute, making Bastien launch himself into the wreckage. The impact hurt Bastien, causing the crazed male to realize this was going to have to end in blood.
He stood and turned, but Frost was crouched in defensive. He’d never been in an actual fight before, but he remembered what his mother had taught him about predators and how to try to fight them off long enough to scare them away, or get an opportunity to escape. He didn’t always have the luxury of running.
“For the sake of your health Dad, I don’t want to hurt you. Please..stop this.”
Frost’s pleas fell on deaf ears that pinned back. Bastien stepped, stepped, and stepped forward, then lunged at Frost with open jaws. Frost jumped to the side and snapped at the older male’s side, coming back only with chunks of fur. Bastien snapped at him and flesh met with teeth, tearing a yelp from the younger male and causing him to leap back.
“That’s it now Frost. Blood is drawn. You’re done for now boy. You’re not immortal at least are you.”
Frost snarled. “You’ve lost your mind old man. You’ve actually lost it. I’m not going to let you kill me, but I will still forgive you if you just stop this.”
Bastien lunged at him again but Frost snapped and bit into the older male’s shoulder, this time drawing blood himself. The older male yelped, but savagely bit into the younger male’s side repeatedly before they both leapt back.
Dancing on light toes, the older male limping slightly, they circled each other again. Spots of Frost’s fur were bloody now, but the older male was more injured at that point.
After several rounds of circling, lunging, snapping, spinning, and little actual wounds being inflicted, the two males leapt back, panting.
“What kind of crazy wolf attacks and tries to kill their own pup?” Frost panted, keeping his guard up. He didn’t know how long he was going to keep this up. Surely someone must have heard the commotion by now? Were they really that far from the pack?
“The same kind of crazy wolf that keeps me alive. The same kind of wolf who’s going to go home tonight with a heartfelt story about how he was attacked by his own son, having no idea why he could possibly do such a thing. It’s going to be hard to have to tell your little girlfriend how you turned on me and I had to put you down, but she’ll get over it. She’ll find a male more-.” Bastien snarled and lunged in the middle of his sentence, catching Frost off guard. Frost was sent off his paws and collided into the wreckage again, releasing a loud yelp.
Bastien wasted no time closing the distance. Before Frost could get up, a large paw was pushed down onto his chest, while another large paw was placed on his muzzle, turning his head to the side to expose his neck.
“For months, Frost, I lived in fear of you. I barely slept while you were near. I couldn’t relax, knowing the future was coming fast. The bigger you grew, the more afraid I got. But then I realized, I shouldn’t be afraid. I should be angry. How dare you make me suffer your whole life. I should make you pay, I should make you leave. It was MY life before you came, MY family, MY mate.”
His voice grew low to a whisper.
“I tried to kill you many times throughout your life. I pushed you into the river that day. I pushed that rotted tree over to hopefully make it crush you. I let you walk across that thin ice knowing you’d fall in. I sent that rock rolling down the hill at you. Every single thing you thought was an accident, that was me. And now, I’m finally going to kill you.”
Bastien moved to close his jaws over Frost’s throat, but Frost struggled until a large chunk of the ruined caravan broke loose and collided with the older wolf’s head, stunning him. Frost took the opportunity to push him off and without wasting any time, the younger wolf closed his jaws around and tore open his father’s throat.
Adrenaline pumped through the younger wolf’s body. The freely bleeding wounds his father had inflicted went unnoticed, but they would heal and the scars would be hidden under his thick fur. They’d eventually be unnoticeable to anyone who didn’t actively look for them and know they were there.
“F..Frost…”
Frost’s head snapped in the direction of the voice, one he instantly recognized, and his heart sank.
Standing there in the treeline, unable to say anything as they registered what they had just seen, were his family. Léa, Eléanore, Amélie, and Phillipe, all standing there, rooted to the spot, staring in shocked silence. His heart ached as he began to realize what was happening, but the worst part, the thing that absolutely killed him; Mara, his closest friend, was standing there beside them, looking at Frost tinged red with the blood of his father.
How much had she seen? What was even happening? He blinked his eyes, he still tasted copper, he looked down at the dying man he had loved his entire life. His eyes locked with the spectators again. He could hear others coming.
Without a word, before anyone else showed, he ran.
Frost ran as far as he could. He didn’t care how much his limbs protested. He didn’t care how much his lungs burned. He didn’t care that he realized his father got what he wanted in the end. He swallowed the pain of believing he’d never see his family again, ignoring the coppery taste of Bastien’s blood.
It was only when he ran headlong into and collapsed at the feet of the very same caravan from all those months ago, who’d set up shop in this area again but far away from that meddling pack, that he was able to stop. He didn’t know how far he was from the pack, but he knew he couldn’t face them again. He hadn’t thought as far as what he was going to do. He never planned on his father attacking him. He didn’t know this would happen. How could anyone have known? As the gypsies cleaned him up, all he could do was sit in shock, tears flowing freely.
He didn’t talk for weeks, but the gypsies took care of him without needing to offer it. They packed up and left with him without worry.
As he healed, he noticed one of the caravan members spending a lot of time with him shortly after he joined, tending to his wounds, feeding him, talking to him even if he didn’t acknowledge her presence. When he finally became comfortable enough to speak with her, he asked for her name, but she didn’t give it to him.
“My name isn’t important. What IS important, is that you’re alive. You’re here, and..I’d like to know your story.” The old woman sighed.
Frost looked to her, confused. “What do you mean? My story?”
She smiled, some of her teeth missing in her age. “You can’t imagine anyone wouldn’t be interested in what happened to cause a wolf to appear on their wagon steps covered in blood.”
Frost looked down, sighing. His paws were brought up to look at them as he sat. They were clean, but he’d never be able to truly unsee the blood on them.
With some reluctance, he told her the story of what happened. He left nothing out, seeing no need. He had nothing to hide, and the old woman seemed to be so easy to talk to, almost like he was confessing everything to a wise and unjudging tree in the forest.
By the time he had finished, she had lit up a pipe of something she described as smoking herbs. Frost could remember mullein, white sage, and others as she had described, but he was more interested in what she had to say than what she was smoking.
“The truth is...I knew your father, Frost. Well...I didn’t know him, but I met him, and he did a terrible thing to our people.”
She recalled to him the story of the altercation that led to the burned down wagon.
Frost couldn’t help but shiver at the thought of the wagon, but the old woman didn’t seem to notice. He wasn’t sure if she could see through the plume of smoke around her.
“The last time I saw him, I placed a ‘curse’ on him. The act was honestly just meant to scare him. He hadn’t done nearly as much damage to us as he could have. Wagons and goods were replaceable mind you, but he cost us a lot, to pay us back for so little.” She took a puff from her pipe, and failed to notice Frost’s sudden change in posture.
The white male stood in the caravan. “You! It was YOU!? You placed a curse on him? He almost killed me because of you! He drove me from my family because of you! I lost everything because of YOU!”
The old woman remained silent for a moment, but didn’t move. “Frost...listen to me. You can’t blame me for the actions of a fool. Yes, I did plant the seed in his mind, but he allowed it to grow, he watered it himself. All I did was chant some words and throw some herbs at him. It wasn’t real, just something meant to scare him. How was I to know the collateral damage this would cause? Your father’s actions were his own. I had no part in that. But I am sorry for what happened to you.”
Her features were saddened. “I didn’t know him, but I don’t think your father was a bad wolf, or at least it didn’t seem so. There was fear in his eyes when I saw him. Fear causes even the best of us to do terrible things. Fear drives us to survive at all costs. He told you, didn’t he? He was afraid. For your entire life he was afraid. Imagine.”
Frost looked down, anger burning, but he couldn’t place it anywhere. All his life, Bastien treated him like his own. Now that he knew the truth, he saw the distance he was shown compared to his siblings, but he still felt loved in his family. Was it all a lie? He was never going to see his family again. His best friend was gone. He could never see their faces again. He was already beginning to forget what they looked like. The face of his dying father kept swimming to his mind’s eye to replace whatever he thought about.
The old woman sighed again. It wasn’t fair for this young wolf. “You can travel with my caravan east, there is a place you may be able to find a new start.”
Frost traveled with the gypsy caravan for months. Despite knowing nothing about the luperci world, and being a non luperci within it, he took to it well, and even admired the luperci lifestyle the gypsies lived. He wasn’t religious himself, but he was interested in hearing everything the old woman knew about the world of rituals, pagan beliefs, and the spiritual world. This helped him develop a more open minded view of the world.
Frost wasn’t clear on whether he was truly over what had happened with his father, but he vowed he wouldn’t let it destroy him. He owed it to his family to live a life of helping people, to make up for the loss Bastien brought to them.
But he had to say goodbye to his old life, and he started with adopting a new name. A fond memory he still holds was laying his eyes on a willow tree, and he nodded.
Quilo became his name. Like her name. He had long forgotten what her full name was, but he remembered she was named after a type of tree.
I’m so sorry Mara.
At some point, he became separated from the caravan and traveled on his own, surviving off the land, until he arrived in the souls territory and bumped into Nyx Greyfire, kicking off his inevitable joining of Boot Noor.
The ivory wolf’s story began before he was born, with two wolves who had decided to pair up and have pups of their own as part of a group of families traveling together and looking for a permanent place to settle.
The male’s name was Bastien, the female’s name was Léa. They both shared a coat of charcoal black, one with gold eyes, one with orange. The pair loved each other dearly, and they were liked among the families of the pack group.
One day, while they were migrating through the central Canadian territories, the group started enjoying the scenery they were experiencing and began looking for places to settle.
Through their short travels, they managed to locate and bump into a traveling caravan.
At first they were happy to see new people, but that was short-lived when the lupus formed luperci led them back to the rest of the caravan, only to shift before their eyes and walk among the rest of the upright bipeds there.
Most of the pack were afraid, some of them didn’t understand what they were seeing, others didn’t trust the luperci kind. They nodded and thanked them for their offers of hospitality but made their way forward, trying to put distance between them. Once the group felt they were comfortable, they managed to stumble upon the perfect place to settle. They started hunting, made dens in a nearby cave system, mapped out the territory, and all was well.
One day, some older pups were playing in a stream near the packlands, having a grand old time, when some of the younger caravan members appeared. The young ones played together, but at some point, accidentally, one of the pack members got scratched by one of the caravan members.
The parents of the pack member rushed to the pup and drove off the caravan members. One of the bolder members of the pack came forward, this male being Bastien with some of the other members, and made his way to the caravan, demanding that they leave and take their disgusting disease with them. A fight happened, leading to an accident involving a lit torch which caught a wagon on fire.
As a result of this, one of the luperci, an older white furred woman who practiced witchcraft, shouted at the bold wolf who had caused them so much strife over an accident. She declared that she was placing a deep curse on him, muttered a bunch of gibberish words, threw some herbs and trinkets at him, and then helped pack up the remaining wagons. The caravan left by the next morning, leaving the smoldering wreckage of the remaining caravan.
Whether or not the witch had actually cast a curse upon Bastien would remain a mystery to the end of time for him, but Bastien was a paranoid wolf and worried night and day that the curse that had been cast on him was indeed real.
A short time after the incident with the caravan, Bastien and Léa conceived a litter, and the worry that he would have been cursed to be infertile was at least abated. The longer time that passed from the incident, the less Bastien worried about it, and the more happy he was that he had been one of the integral members of the pack to protect them against the luperci caravan.
Time passed while his progeny baked in Léa’s oven, until finally it was time to bring them into
the world.
One by one, the little cries signaled their first breaths, and Bastien was proud to finally be a dad, up until the final pup was born. Bastien could barely contain his shock as this pup was so startlingly different from the others, sporting a coat of pure white, starkly contrasted in the sea of black. His thoughts raced as he stared.
The curse, this must be the beginning of the blasted curse. The witch is going to get me in the end.
Of course genetics wasn’t the work of magic, but Bastien didn’t know that. His paranoid mind obsessed over the fact that this pup was so different from the others, he couldn’t help but be susceptible to the possibility of the pup being a manifestation of the curse. He couldn’t help but believe that when the pup was old enough, he would carry out the revenge the old gypsy woman so patiently waited for.
“This one’s going to be interesting, but we shouldn’t be worried Bastien, he will fit in just fine with the other pups.” Léa wasn’t unaware of the anxiety in her mate, but she wasn’t aware of the real reason he was so upset. Bastien could only nod as he watched the outlier male suckle life giving milk from his mother.
Léa licked her pups happily, stopping to give each of them a name. Amélie for the first female, Eléanore for the second female, Phillipe for the first male, but she had to take a few extra seconds for the ivory male. “His name will be Frost, as he is the same color as the new frost now forming on the territory.”
Bastien’s tail wagged as he too licked each of the pups, having to force himself to reluctantly lick Frost as well in case his mate noticed. From then on, he planned to let nothing appear to be out of the ordinary, but he had to think of something fast to deal with this issue. No curse was going to get him, not on his watch. He inwardly distanced himself from Frost from the beginning, knowing one day what was to come.
As Frost grew up, life in the packlands seemed peaceful. His mother adored him, along with his brother and sisters. Overall he had a great childhood growing up, with some very peculiar exceptions.
More than once, Bastien took Frost out into the surrounding territories. Sometimes he brought his brother and sisters, sometimes only other pups, but most of the time, it was just Frost and Bastien, father and son, charcoal black big paws and ivory white small paws. These forays were innocent, Bastien made sure of it. He wanted to establish nothing out of the ordinary to prepare for his nefarious plans.
From a young age, Frost developed close connections with his family, but there was another outside of his family with whom he also developed attachment to, and she was just as close to him.
She had tried to teach Frost how to say her name so many times, but finally gave up when he just couldn’t say the full thing, and ended up growing attached to the nickname he had given her, Mara.
Mara had taken to Frost when he was still a little guy, and often offered to babysit him, which Bastien fully accepted in an effort to not have to look at or be near Frost as much as possible.
When Frost was old enough to move around on his own, Mara often took him with her when she went out playing, sometimes with the other pups but often alone, and over the months they spent a lot of time together.
As time passed, Léa began to worry about Frost. He always seemed to get caught up in unlucky situations.
One day, when Frost and his father were walking along a log that had been long secured over a fast moving stream, Frost had, somehow, ended up in the water. Crying and bobbing up and down in the fast moving water, it had been the lucky chance that another of the pack members had been further down the stream that had saved the boy. Bastien had insisted that he was rushing to save the boy himself, but the one who had pulled him out insisted that Bastien, dry as a bone, was nowhere to be seen until after Frost had been safely recovered.
That was just one of several accidents in Frost’s life, and many in the pack wondered if the boy was actually cursed. The pack members who had been at the caravan the day the gypsy woman had placed her curse upon Bastien were shifty-eyed, but kept their thoughts to themselves.
But none of these accidents ever seemed to happen when Frost was alone with Mara, and she was often trusted to watch over him when the pack members were too busy with adult things to watch over him.
In addition to having a watchful eye on him as much as possible, Léa took it upon herself to teach Frost about the world. She often took him out, sometimes alone, sometimes with his siblings, to teach him and them the various types of plants that were edible and could be used for wounds and other ailments. She taught them how to apply the herbs and plants. She taught them how to swim, how to avoid dangerous creatures like snakes and bears. She exhausted all the knowledge she possibly could to impart to them, and especially to Frost, who she was worried about the most.
Months passed as Frost and his siblings grew into their oversized paws and ears. Mara and Frost only grew closer, and it was then that Bastien began to realize that their closeness was going to become an issue.
For so long had Bastien been ruminating and obsessing over this curse, over the absurd notion that his own son was going to kill him one day, that he actually began to believe that if Frost were to have pups of his own, he would have more mouths full of sharp teeth to kill him with.
For the months that Frost had been growing, Bastien had tried setting up several ‘accidents’ in an effort to kill Frost, but they always failed. Bastien cursed his own luck, yet another thing to blame on the curse, yet another rationalization he could add to the fact that Frost was part of the curse.
It was one spring morning that had been the final push that Bastien needed. He finally came to the conclusion that he was the only one who was going to be able to stop the curse. He could trust no one and nothing but his own weapons to get the job done. Come hell or high water, he was going to do it. Frost was almost fully grown, but he was still a pup, and Bastien felt he was more than a match for a simple oblivious pup.
Bastien got to his paws, his eyes never leaving the young white wolf. He waited until he thought no one saw them and walked up to Frost.
“Come on boy, you’re almost an adult now, it’s time for you to have the talk.”
Frost looked confused. “The talk? What do you mean?”
But Bastien remained silent and walked on, not bothering to give Frost a beckoning signal. Frost didn’t need one, but he couldn’t help but feel something being off about the events that were about to unfold. The poor wolf had no idea how drastically his life was about to change.
Once they arrived at the place where the wagon had been burned all those months ago, a place where he thought it was far enough away that they wouldn’t be overheard, Bastien turned to the boy following behind him, stood tall, and stared into the younger wolf’s eyes.
“It’s time.”
Frost stared back, confusedly. “Time for what?”
Bastien growled lightly in a sigh. “You know what. It’s time to finally settle this. I know you’ve been going off to meet with her, biding your time. I know it’s coming.”
Frost’s ears lowered back. “Dad, what are you talking about?”
Bastien snarled. “Drop the act.”
Frost stared at him, confusion firing his golden eyes alight. “What act? Are you not feeling well? Is this some type of game? I don’t understand.”
Bastien remained silent for several awkward seconds. “When were you planning on doing it? Were you going to wait until I was an old man and couldn’t fight back? Were you going to wait until I was asleep once you didn’t need your parents anymore?”
Frost stepped back. This wasn’t right, he knew it wasn’t right. It just seemed so odd, something he never imagined he’d experience. “Dad, you’re not making sen-”
Bastien snarled and snapped his teeth. “Don’t ever call me that again. You’re not my son, you’re an abomination. You’re a cursed being, sent after me by that damnable woman from the caravan.”
Frost remained silent, shock rooting him to the spot. His tail curled under him, his ears pinned back behind him.
Bastien sneered. “And yet look at you. Pathetic. Why should I be afraid of you? Why should I have lost so much sleep because of you?”
Frost began to back up, but was stopped as Bastien snapped at him. “No. No more. You’re not going back. You’re going to leave. You’re going to leave and never think of this place again. You’re going to leave my family alone, and you’re going to leave me alone. Go back to that gypsy woman, she’s your real mother anyway, she stole my son from me.”
Frost remained still, up until Bastien grabbed him by the scruff with his teeth and flung him around so that Bastien’s rear faced the packlands and Frost landed in a heap near where the charred remains of the wagon lay.
Frost laid there for a few moments, trying to process just what the hell was happening, before getting back to his paws and shaking the dirt from his fur.
“Dad, I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re clearly tired, sick, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. But if you let me take you to Mom, maybe we can help you..”
Bastien stared in silence, deathly rage smoldering in his eyes. A small chuckle resonated in his chest.
“This is where it happened, you know. The gypsy woman was standing right there where you are now. She cursed me. She made you appear. Is this where you’ve been meeting her? Is this where she talks to you?”
Frost stamped his forepaw. “Dad! Listen to yourself.. I’ve never tried to hurt you, I’ve never desired to hurt you. Why would I? I love you. I love all of my family.”
Bastien shook his head. “I’m not going to keep giving you the offer to leave with your life and limbs intact. It was set in stone long ago. I tried Frost, I tried to put it aside. I tried to fight it. I tried to look past it, tried to see you as my son, but I couldn’t do it. I can’t risk the chance of you taking away my mate, my pups, my pack. I won’t let you.”
Frost eyes welled with tears. “What are you saying! I don’t get you! What do you want!? I’m your son, Dad! I’m your flesh and blood SON.”
Bastien shook his head. His vision began to burn, his heart began to blacken. “I have two daughters and one son. I don’t know who you are, but I know what you will become, and I know what I must do to prevent that. If you won’t leave, then I’ll make you leave.”
Bastien shot forward, throwing his weight into Frost. Frost hadn’t been prepared and took the full brunt of the impact, sending his lighter body sailing into the wreckage of the charred carriage, breaking some of the pieces. He shook his head, trying to recover both from the impact as well as the fact that his father had seemingly lost his mind. Bastien stood, growling with teeth bared.
Frost got to his paws. “I don’t care what you do to me Dad, you’re not you right now. We can still go to Mom if you’d just-”
Bastien lunged at him again, tossing him back. Frost tucked this time, allowing him to roll to a much less heapful position. He got to his paws quicker this time. Bastien snarled and lunged again but this time Frost leapt out of the way. Bastien used the momentum to redirect his attack off a nearby tree and launch himself again at Frost, who wasn’t prepared and was again sent flying into a heap.
“I’ve hated you your whole life Frost. From the moment you emerged from your mother and I saw that your coat was white, white like that gypsy’s. When your eyes opened and I looked into them, Léa’s golden eyes, I hated myself, but I hated you even more.”
Bastien grabbed him again and spun him to toss him back into the wreckage again. This time Frost wasn’t as lucky. The impact hurt.
“You were beautiful, your eyes were beautiful. You could have been my favorite son, but I couldn’t trust you. I couldn’t let the gypsy woman win, to make me let my guard down. Embody your destiny Frost. Fight back, try to kill me, so that I can justify your death and make this all worth something.”
When Bastien threw himself at Frost again, this time, Frost moved out of the way at the last minute, making Bastien launch himself into the wreckage. The impact hurt Bastien, causing the crazed male to realize this was going to have to end in blood.
He stood and turned, but Frost was crouched in defensive. He’d never been in an actual fight before, but he remembered what his mother had taught him about predators and how to try to fight them off long enough to scare them away, or get an opportunity to escape. He didn’t always have the luxury of running.
“For the sake of your health Dad, I don’t want to hurt you. Please..stop this.”
Frost’s pleas fell on deaf ears that pinned back. Bastien stepped, stepped, and stepped forward, then lunged at Frost with open jaws. Frost jumped to the side and snapped at the older male’s side, coming back only with chunks of fur. Bastien snapped at him and flesh met with teeth, tearing a yelp from the younger male and causing him to leap back.
“That’s it now Frost. Blood is drawn. You’re done for now boy. You’re not immortal at least are you.”
Frost snarled. “You’ve lost your mind old man. You’ve actually lost it. I’m not going to let you kill me, but I will still forgive you if you just stop this.”
Bastien lunged at him again but Frost snapped and bit into the older male’s shoulder, this time drawing blood himself. The older male yelped, but savagely bit into the younger male’s side repeatedly before they both leapt back.
Dancing on light toes, the older male limping slightly, they circled each other again. Spots of Frost’s fur were bloody now, but the older male was more injured at that point.
After several rounds of circling, lunging, snapping, spinning, and little actual wounds being inflicted, the two males leapt back, panting.
“What kind of crazy wolf attacks and tries to kill their own pup?” Frost panted, keeping his guard up. He didn’t know how long he was going to keep this up. Surely someone must have heard the commotion by now? Were they really that far from the pack?
“The same kind of crazy wolf that keeps me alive. The same kind of wolf who’s going to go home tonight with a heartfelt story about how he was attacked by his own son, having no idea why he could possibly do such a thing. It’s going to be hard to have to tell your little girlfriend how you turned on me and I had to put you down, but she’ll get over it. She’ll find a male more-.” Bastien snarled and lunged in the middle of his sentence, catching Frost off guard. Frost was sent off his paws and collided into the wreckage again, releasing a loud yelp.
Bastien wasted no time closing the distance. Before Frost could get up, a large paw was pushed down onto his chest, while another large paw was placed on his muzzle, turning his head to the side to expose his neck.
“For months, Frost, I lived in fear of you. I barely slept while you were near. I couldn’t relax, knowing the future was coming fast. The bigger you grew, the more afraid I got. But then I realized, I shouldn’t be afraid. I should be angry. How dare you make me suffer your whole life. I should make you pay, I should make you leave. It was MY life before you came, MY family, MY mate.”
His voice grew low to a whisper.
“I tried to kill you many times throughout your life. I pushed you into the river that day. I pushed that rotted tree over to hopefully make it crush you. I let you walk across that thin ice knowing you’d fall in. I sent that rock rolling down the hill at you. Every single thing you thought was an accident, that was me. And now, I’m finally going to kill you.”
Bastien moved to close his jaws over Frost’s throat, but Frost struggled until a large chunk of the ruined caravan broke loose and collided with the older wolf’s head, stunning him. Frost took the opportunity to push him off and without wasting any time, the younger wolf closed his jaws around and tore open his father’s throat.
Adrenaline pumped through the younger wolf’s body. The freely bleeding wounds his father had inflicted went unnoticed, but they would heal and the scars would be hidden under his thick fur. They’d eventually be unnoticeable to anyone who didn’t actively look for them and know they were there.
“F..Frost…”
Frost’s head snapped in the direction of the voice, one he instantly recognized, and his heart sank.
Standing there in the treeline, unable to say anything as they registered what they had just seen, were his family. Léa, Eléanore, Amélie, and Phillipe, all standing there, rooted to the spot, staring in shocked silence. His heart ached as he began to realize what was happening, but the worst part, the thing that absolutely killed him; Mara, his closest friend, was standing there beside them, looking at Frost tinged red with the blood of his father.
How much had she seen? What was even happening? He blinked his eyes, he still tasted copper, he looked down at the dying man he had loved his entire life. His eyes locked with the spectators again. He could hear others coming.
Without a word, before anyone else showed, he ran.
Frost ran as far as he could. He didn’t care how much his limbs protested. He didn’t care how much his lungs burned. He didn’t care that he realized his father got what he wanted in the end. He swallowed the pain of believing he’d never see his family again, ignoring the coppery taste of Bastien’s blood.
It was only when he ran headlong into and collapsed at the feet of the very same caravan from all those months ago, who’d set up shop in this area again but far away from that meddling pack, that he was able to stop. He didn’t know how far he was from the pack, but he knew he couldn’t face them again. He hadn’t thought as far as what he was going to do. He never planned on his father attacking him. He didn’t know this would happen. How could anyone have known? As the gypsies cleaned him up, all he could do was sit in shock, tears flowing freely.
He didn’t talk for weeks, but the gypsies took care of him without needing to offer it. They packed up and left with him without worry.
As he healed, he noticed one of the caravan members spending a lot of time with him shortly after he joined, tending to his wounds, feeding him, talking to him even if he didn’t acknowledge her presence. When he finally became comfortable enough to speak with her, he asked for her name, but she didn’t give it to him.
“My name isn’t important. What IS important, is that you’re alive. You’re here, and..I’d like to know your story.” The old woman sighed.
Frost looked to her, confused. “What do you mean? My story?”
She smiled, some of her teeth missing in her age. “You can’t imagine anyone wouldn’t be interested in what happened to cause a wolf to appear on their wagon steps covered in blood.”
Frost looked down, sighing. His paws were brought up to look at them as he sat. They were clean, but he’d never be able to truly unsee the blood on them.
With some reluctance, he told her the story of what happened. He left nothing out, seeing no need. He had nothing to hide, and the old woman seemed to be so easy to talk to, almost like he was confessing everything to a wise and unjudging tree in the forest.
By the time he had finished, she had lit up a pipe of something she described as smoking herbs. Frost could remember mullein, white sage, and others as she had described, but he was more interested in what she had to say than what she was smoking.
“The truth is...I knew your father, Frost. Well...I didn’t know him, but I met him, and he did a terrible thing to our people.”
She recalled to him the story of the altercation that led to the burned down wagon.
Frost couldn’t help but shiver at the thought of the wagon, but the old woman didn’t seem to notice. He wasn’t sure if she could see through the plume of smoke around her.
“The last time I saw him, I placed a ‘curse’ on him. The act was honestly just meant to scare him. He hadn’t done nearly as much damage to us as he could have. Wagons and goods were replaceable mind you, but he cost us a lot, to pay us back for so little.” She took a puff from her pipe, and failed to notice Frost’s sudden change in posture.
The white male stood in the caravan. “You! It was YOU!? You placed a curse on him? He almost killed me because of you! He drove me from my family because of you! I lost everything because of YOU!”
The old woman remained silent for a moment, but didn’t move. “Frost...listen to me. You can’t blame me for the actions of a fool. Yes, I did plant the seed in his mind, but he allowed it to grow, he watered it himself. All I did was chant some words and throw some herbs at him. It wasn’t real, just something meant to scare him. How was I to know the collateral damage this would cause? Your father’s actions were his own. I had no part in that. But I am sorry for what happened to you.”
Her features were saddened. “I didn’t know him, but I don’t think your father was a bad wolf, or at least it didn’t seem so. There was fear in his eyes when I saw him. Fear causes even the best of us to do terrible things. Fear drives us to survive at all costs. He told you, didn’t he? He was afraid. For your entire life he was afraid. Imagine.”
Frost looked down, anger burning, but he couldn’t place it anywhere. All his life, Bastien treated him like his own. Now that he knew the truth, he saw the distance he was shown compared to his siblings, but he still felt loved in his family. Was it all a lie? He was never going to see his family again. His best friend was gone. He could never see their faces again. He was already beginning to forget what they looked like. The face of his dying father kept swimming to his mind’s eye to replace whatever he thought about.
The old woman sighed again. It wasn’t fair for this young wolf. “You can travel with my caravan east, there is a place you may be able to find a new start.”
Frost traveled with the gypsy caravan for months. Despite knowing nothing about the luperci world, and being a non luperci within it, he took to it well, and even admired the luperci lifestyle the gypsies lived. He wasn’t religious himself, but he was interested in hearing everything the old woman knew about the world of rituals, pagan beliefs, and the spiritual world. This helped him develop a more open minded view of the world.
Frost wasn’t clear on whether he was truly over what had happened with his father, but he vowed he wouldn’t let it destroy him. He owed it to his family to live a life of helping people, to make up for the loss Bastien brought to them.
But he had to say goodbye to his old life, and he started with adopting a new name. A fond memory he still holds was laying his eyes on a willow tree, and he nodded.
Quilo became his name. Like her name. He had long forgotten what her full name was, but he remembered she was named after a type of tree.
I’m so sorry Mara.
At some point, he became separated from the caravan and traveled on his own, surviving off the land, until he arrived in the souls territory and bumped into Nyx Greyfire, kicking off his inevitable joining of Boot Noor.
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