I am a Garou

After I had escaped from the humans, I wandered for many days, stopping only to rest and to hunt. Somehow I remembered how to hunt, even though I had never done it before in this life. But since the encounter with the bear and my first change, the world, or rather my perception of it, had changed significantly. Now I could see the reason why things happened, I could forsee the reaction of other animals or that a stone kicked loose would roll downhill. Sometimes I would hear voices without understanding them and without knowing, where they came from, and always I kept moving, following a call that I could not deny. It was fortunate that I was tough and strong, for even though I remembered how to hunt from previous lives, it still took some time and many hungry days until I had mastered the practical skills required for bringing down my prey. After many days of wandering and avoiding any trace of humans that I found, I happened upon the fresh scent of other wolves. Unlike the wolves in the human cages I had met so far, these smelled only of the wilderness and of the forest. I followed the scent and soon found the pack. At first they tried to chase me away, but I was stronger and much bigger than the alpha male and determined to stay. The alpha male was soon dominated into submission, and the rest of the pack fell in line. I had finally found what I believed to be my family and during the following winter I learned to lead a pack, find food and shelter and protect my packmates. We always took great pains to avoid any humans who entered our territory, but one day in the next spring, I sensed a human who was obviously tracking the pack, and the other wolves seemed to know this human. They did not understand why I tried to lead them away from the two-legged intruder. Eventually the human found us in the forest. The other wolves happily greeted her while I snarled and tried to chase her away, but this human did not seem to be afraid of me. Quite contrary: When I attacked her, she suddenly grew into a huge two-legged wolf who spoke to me, words that I somehow understood. I was confused and torn between the desire to run away to fight or to listen. Then the huge wolf became a normal wolf who happily greeted me. She told me that she was very happy to have found me and that I had to follow her to meet my people. I was really much too confused to resist, and even though she was much smaller than I was, I followed her like a puppy. She led me to others like her, wolves who could turn into humans. And they told me that they were garou, and that I too was a garou: A Black Fury, descendant of the famous Black Fury heroine and giantess Lena Koulileikes. My birth was seen as a blessing from Gaia, the earth mother who's protectors the garou were, for it had been more than 200 years since a giantess had been born in my family. The wolf pack that I had found were kinfolk, part of our tribe even though they could not change shape, and that I had found them was seen as a blessing too. Now many things I had seen, felt and remembered made sense. I had much to learn, but I knew, that this truly was my destiny. During the summer I learned about the garou, our task of protecting Gaia and fighting the wyrm. I learned about the humans, but I did not want to learn very much about them. All I was interested in was, how I could avoid them. I learned that I was in a country that the humans called Kanada, and that my ancestors had come here a long time ago from another country on the other side of the ocean called Greece. That did not mean very much to me, since it was too far away to walk to. I learned about men and women, and how cruel and evil men were. Though I did remember and feel an ancient rage against men inside me, I did not really understand what the other Furies meant. All the problems they talked of seemed to be human problems. I was a wolf, and I did not think that these problems would ever be my problems. I learned to change my shape, to assume human or crinos form, and the glabro and hispo forms as well. I did not like the human form, it seemed weak, deaf and blind to me, and I rarely took it, even though thinking was easier in human form. I learned about the auspices and that I was an ahroun, a warrior. I could understand that, fighting came easy to me, and I had no trouble accepting that role. I also learned about the umbra, the spirit world, of which the garou were part and to which they could travel. Entering the umbra too was something that came easyly to me, and the spirits seemed to like me. The elders of the tribe said, that I had a special gift with spirits and that I was blessed to have it. They taught me to respect the spirits, for they were our allies in the war against the wyrm. The spirits willingly taught me to sharpen my senses and to sense the evil taint of the wyrm. The mysticism of the umbra and the spirit world appealed to me, and I was drawn to those of my tribe who were called Moon Daughters, a mystical camp more tolerant than many others of the tribe of men and other tribes. I learned about the other tribes too, and how most of them were bad or weak or traitorous in one way or another. This was something that I found hard to believe. If they were all garou and therefore chosen of Gaia, how could they all be so bad? Somehow, it seemed wrong. The Elders from the Moon Daughters sensed my confusion, and they brought me to another caern, where other tribes besides the Black Furies could be found. There I met Pearl-River an elder from the Tribe of the Children of Gaia. She told me, that the garou were always fighting each other, mostly due to prejudices and old hostilities whos roots had long been forgotten. She said, that this was one of the reasons that the wyrm had become so strong, because the garou were divided and thus weakened. pearl-River told me, that all the garou should cast aside their differences and work together, otherwise we would not be able to defeat the wyrm. This seemed very true and logical to me, even to my simple lupus mind. I could not understand, why many of the other garou could not see this. I listened to Pearl-River's teachings a lot, and there was much wisdom in them. I decided to stay in the sept-of-the-hand-of-gaia and learn more from Pearl-River and the other garou living there. My kinfolk pack had followed me and they now lived near the caern. I spent much of my time with them, hunting, playing and sleeping. I knew that soon, I would have to take up the responsibilities of being a garou, and that my time of being just a wolf was limited. I did not mind that, but I enjoyed those carefree days nevertheless.

There was one more Thing that I had to do though. There still were more wolves imprisoned in the cages from which I had escaped. I wanted to free them and I found two other Garou, both Homids, willing to come along and help me. For several days we followed my memories back through the forest. When we drew closer to the area, we encountered some other Garou. They were homids and they talked to my two comarades. We learned, that the cages with the wolves were a project of city based Garou somewhere. They wanted to breed wolves to increase their population. To them wolves in cages were as good as those in the wild, especially considering that they were safe from hunters and the various dangers of gaias true life. That any wolf papmpered an protected in a cage would never grow up to be a true wolf didn't occur to them. That they had wolves in their cages who had been born wild and caught like me, also didn't concern them. They felt they were doing a good thing, and many elders of the tribes agreed. We were supposed to leave the cages alone. They did apologize for what they had done to me but that hardly satisfied me. Seeing wolves in cages was an abomination to me, but I had learned to respect the elders. Yet... there was one wolf that I did not want to leave in the cage. The young male that had become my partner. The other two black furies joked about me having fallen in love. I did not quite understand what they meant, but when I think back now, I think they were probably right. They did not want to accompany me against the will of the elders, but they did give me some advice on how to open cages, and the ragabash "lost" a pair of clippers where I would find them. I continued on without them. Sneaking up on the cages I called out to the male wolf and he immediately recognized and greeted me. I broke through the fence, using the strength of my crinos form after fumbling with the tweezers took too long for my liking. The male wolf happily followed me into the forest. The feelings we had for each other were mutual. I called him Free, for that is what he was now and led him into the forest. For the next few weeks we wandered together and I taught him to hunt and to survive in the wilderness. I did enjoy being together with him somewhat more than with any other wolves. So maybe the "joke" about me being in love wasn't all that wrong. Eventually when he had learned enough, I took him to my kinfolk pack. They accepted him, though he had to start out at the bottom if the hierarchy and was as yet too shy to work his way up. But that would come with time, after all, he was big and strong. My family was finally complete. When I returned to the caern, I was informed that soon my "puppy days" would be over. Pearl River had conviced the other Garou, that in order to get the tribes to work together, there should be a rite of passage with garou from different tribes, especially with those from wilderness based and city based tribes. A date had alread been agreed upon and the city garou were expected at the caern in the next few days. I was to take part in the rite of passage as well, since I had already expressed my interest in getting to know different tribes. That was fine with me. I was happy and ready for anything.

The story goes on in Rite of passage.