Zack places his hand against the door beginning to push it open and enter the room. “Look, when it comes to wilds you can do anything you want to them and nothing about it is going to be morally wrong.” He looks over to the white wolf who is giving him a cold glare having overheard his comment. “Bet you missed me didn’t you cutie.”

The white wolf lets out an angered snarl as she pulls against the guards that have her restrained. “Only because I didn’t get the chance to rip your head off.”

Zack laughs at her response turning back to Teddy. “See what I mean? Nothing more than a wild animal, Domestic rights are not wasted on things like that.”

The wild wolf yanks herself free from the guards that held her in place, she rushes towards the two in front of her and attacks, quickly darting to Teddy’s right and baring her fangs to strike, Teddy catches onto her attack, turning to and catching her, twisting her arm behind her back and holding her in place.

Zack lets out an impressed whistle. “Nice, good to see that my partner is capable.”

Teddy holds the struggling wolf in place, again she had tried to attack him from his right.

Zack walks over to the wolf, lifting his finger and flicking her in the nose while Teddy had her restrained. “What did you go and attack him for anyway? I’m the one that was harassing you.”

Teddy gives Zack a warning stare. “Knock it off or I’ll let her go.”

Zack looks back to Teddy with a frown. “Come on Conner, no reason to get so defensive. Our job is to keep her under control right? At this point she obviously doesn’t grasp the idea of who’s boss, it’s our job to educate her with this information.” He steps back when the expression on Teddy’s face does not change. “Fine then, be that way.”

He turns around with a sigh. “Let’s take her to her quarters than.”

Teddy begins to follow Zack while keeping the white wolf locked in place. For the longest time he had been upset that he had been unable to work out on the field, but hearing that the military was kidnapping people and then justifying their actions made him glad that the papers he was constantly sending in to get out on the field never went through.

Teddy and Zack are now sitting outside a bared cell that the white wolf isnow locked away in, her constraints being much more drastic than Yula’s ever were because she was always trying to escape.

Zack lets out a bored sigh as he slouches over in his chair. “This is so boring!” He looks over to Teddy aware that he’s used to doing stuff like this all day. “How can you stand sitting in one place all day? This guard duty business sucks.”

Teddy nods his head in agreement. “Why do you think I worked so hard to get back out on the field?”

Zack gets up from his chair unable to stand it for much longer. “Look I’m going to go take a walk before I go crazy alright. You know what you’re doing so I’m sure you’ll have no problems with her while I’m gone.”

Teddy watches him leave shaking his head and leaning back in his chair. “It’s going to take a while for me to get used to that guy…”

He sighs as he looks back at the test subject he was supposed to be watching, the white wolf sits on the bed in the cell and staring at him. “You know your accommodations would be a lot nicer if you would just act a little bit less… I don’t know… violent I guess.”

The white wolf doesn’t seem the least bit interested in that idea. “You attacked my father and his people and then kidnapped me! Any violence I show towards you is well deserved.”

Teddy shrugs his shoulders, he couldn’t help but see her point. “I guess you’re right.” He looks back at her curiously. “Hey, this may be an odd question, but you don’t happen to have the mark of a black bird on your chest do you? I can’t really see myself because of the clothes they’ve put you in.”

The glare does not leave the white wolf’s face. “Why would something like that concern you?”

Teddy gives her his explanation. “No real reason I guess… It’s just that if you did then you were in a dream that a friend of mine had.”

The white wolf turns away from him not amused in the least. “I don’t want to hear about any types of dreams you people would have about me.”

Teddy looks back to her quickly trying to explain. “It wasn’t a bad dream honest! Or no… I guess it may have been bad… I think Yula may have seen your kidnapping through his dream.” The white wolf looks back to him, she now interested in this information as Teddy continues to speak. “I mean… from what he told me, and then from what Zack told me, I think that’s what it was. I know it’s pretty unbelievable that he could have actually seen something like this in a dream, but he did.”

He looks back to her, the white wolf no longer staring at him with a look that could kill as she had been doing all day. “So, what’s your name? Mine’s Teddy Conner if you would care to know.”

The white wolf seems unsure as to if she should answer him at first, she getting up and walking over to the bars of her cage stopping near him. “You’re a wild wolf right? You look more like me and my people than you do anyone else here.”

Teddy shakes his head no, though he without a doubt looked the part he definitely was not a wild. “I was born and raised here in the city, my parents were both wild’s though, so if I look like one that would be why.”

“What tribe were your parents from?”

Teddy looks back to her. “Whistling Wind.”

The white wolf smiles at the information. “The Whistling Wind tribe was known for producing passive males and wild females.”

Teddy nods his head. “Yeah that sounds about right.”

“That pack has been gone for decades though…”

Teddy looks back to her not finding that hard to believe. “I guess that would somewhat explain how my parents ended up in this city.”

The white wolf looks away from him remaining silent for a moment, eventually looking back to him and answering Teddy’s question. “My name is Iuana. My pack is known as Raven Wolf.”

Teddy looks back to her. “Iuana? I like it.” He turns his chair around so that he would now be facing her. “So Iuana, why did everyone go through so much trouble to catch you and keep you here? This building is a facility of science, and you’re being referred to as a test subject, so what kind of tests are they planning on doing?”

A perplexed look fills Iuana’s face. “I don’t know what they want with me… all I know is that they lied to my father and tried to trap him. They had told my father that they wanted to stop the fighting, that they wanted to exchange talks for peace, the exchange of the leaders children into the other’s pack and culture was supposed to be a symbol peace in the highest form. But all of it was a trap… when the exchange was made one of the men on their side fired a gun and killed the boy that was meant to enter our pack, they blamed us for the murder and no one was around to prove otherwise. My father was accused of making a declaration of war and that is when the fighting broke out.”

She lowers her head, the whole incident unfavourable to think back to. “I was already on the other side of the battlefield, surrounded by the enemy… I fought against them as best as I could but I did not stand a chance, and was captured and brought here.” Her ears lower sadly. “I can still hear my father calling out my name…”

Teddy looks to the side, the whole situation was depressing, and it felt wrong to keep her locked away like this.

Teddy’s shift for the day ends and he is sent home, not returning home just yet, instead arriving at his parent’s house, intending to question them about the white wolf that he had met that day, perhaps they would know something of interest.

Teddy sits uncomfortably on the floor in a room filled with strange tribal decorations, beads and text tiles. He never did like being surrounded in stuff like this, growing up it was embarrassing, not only did he have to deal with having a silly name but he was also mocked for being a descendent of wilds, his parents not helping matters with how obvious they displayed their culture and how obviously native they acted.

Teddy’s father looked just a stereotypical as he acted, though his clothes are different from what was normally worn by members of a tribe he still dons the colourful wooden beaded and feathered jewellery and other trinkets common to their heritage, his build too is huge and built, just like any male wild was, Teddy’s father istwice Teddy’s size in height and who knows how much bigger in muscle.

Teddy’s father sits in front of him with his legs crossed, his voice deep, the tone of his voice profound. “She’s from Raven Wolf you say?” He shakes his head letting out a long sigh. “That’s no good.”

Teddy doesn’t seem to understand. “Why? What’s so bad about that tribe?”

His father starts speaking in a very matter of fact tone of voice, this obvious information that everyone should know. “They’re cursed, each and every one of them. It’s best to stay as far away as you can less you want to be cursed too.”

“What do you mean cursed? How?”

Teddy’s father begins to explain. “Long ago, before the domestics came to this land, the Raven Wolf pack was known as Laughing Meadow. Despite their unassuming name they were a prosperous and powerful pack, their ways were fair and very little did they wage war against the other tribes. Those of Laughing Meadow were highly respected by the other packs because of both their kindness and great strength, unfortunately the strength they had is what got them cursed.”

“When the domestics came to this land much conflict arose, the spirits that governed our lands did not approve of this conflict or the newcomers. The owl spirit was offended by the way the domestics would carelessly destroy places of history and wisdom. The buffalo spirit was insulted by how they conquered the land instead of living as one with it as you should, the ant spirit-”

Teddy clears his throat interrupting his father. “Can we please not go through all the spirits… there’s a lot of them so it’ll take forever.”

Teddy’s father lets out a tired sigh, though he believed the opinion of each of the three hundred animal spirits was important he moved forward in his story as Teddy had requested. “All the spirits were angered by their presence, but none more so than the raven and wolf spirits. You see, the domestics feared the black feathers the raven carried, the raven spirit was seen as a bad omen, a messenger of death and bringer of curses. While the wolf spirit was seen as an evil entity, that would spirit away the souls of children in the night and consume anyone it saw. The monuments and areas of worship that had been dedicated to those two spirits were desecrated and destroyed, in hopes that with these gone the spirits would no longer show themselves, even the tribes that carried lineage of the wolf or raven were hunted down and slaughtered in the name of keeping the domestic children safe.”

“One day the raven spirit approached the wolf spirit to speak to her, because it was the wolf spirit whom governed these particular lands, her permission was needed to act against the domestics that attacked them. The two spirits were in agreement and decided that the domestics must leave their land. The wolf spirit called forth all of her tribes upon her land, allowing the Raven to choose the pack which would follow out his orders. The Raven Spirit’s eyes falling on whom he saw as the most powerful, he choosing the Laughing Meadow tribe to do his deed.”

“The raven spirit cried out in his anger. ‘As long as the domestics live upon this land I am seen as a bringer of curses, while the wolf is seen as a thief of souls, until you drive these people from our lands that is what we will be! You walk these lands no longer as its children, you will not prosper and your lives will no longer be a part of the sacred cycle of life, than when you die your spirits will not be reborn and instead will be stolen and kept by the wolf. Once the intruders are driven away or ended the curse will be lifted off of your pack and your souls will be free.’ It was then that each of the members within the tribe was marked with the image of a black raven with the head of a wolf, and the name of the Raven Wolf was given to them.”

Teddy’s father closes his eyes. “Just as the Raven had said that tribe was removed from the sacred circle of life, there time would no longer rise and fall like all others, instead they would wander the land unable to die naturally, never to complete their circle, when they were killed or died not from a force of nature, their body would not decay and return to the earth as they should, and their spirit would not be reborn into new life, and would instead be taken by the wolf spirit.”

Teddy thinks over what his father had said, it all sounded like a bunch of made up stories meant to scare small children, but he wasn’t about to tell his dad that after he had gone through all the trouble of telling him all this. “So… they’ll wander the lands with this curse until they get rid of all the domestics?”

Teddy’s father nods his head, that’s exactly it. “At this point it’s impossible to get rid of the domestics, so they will carry this curse until this world’s time ends, or until each one of their lives are taken by the domestics whom hunt them down.”

Teddy sighs to himself, none of this information explaining at all why the military would want Iuana as a test subject. “Well… thanks for the story dad, I guess I’ll be heading home now.”

His father looks back toward him, not finished speaking. “Shiya. That was the name of Raven Wolf’s leader when I was still considered a wild. He is probably the same one leading them now. Of the family of four children he originally had only one remains, his daughter Iuana. The other three as well as his mate were killed by the domestics.”

Teddy stares at his father, without a doubt recognizing her name. “Iuana…”