Vala

Chapter Two

For nearly a century, ninety-nine years to be exact, Vala and her kind – a civilization of were-people, ranging from the were-wolf to the were-bear and many things in between – had lived without the constant terror of vampire hanging over their head. The humans, believing as many nonsensical tales as could be concocted from the idea that Vala's people feasted on humans to the notion that she would steal their children from the cradles, had waged a war of extermination on the were-creatures, forcing them into hiding – they were few in number, though strong. And through the use of strong magical spells brought back from ancient times, cast with deep sacrifice and blood, the were-creatures had hidden their civilization in safety – until now.
         Vala was there when the spells were cast, their priests and priestesses praying to the gods and sacrificing animal and beast along with their ability to ever leave the piece of land they would protect from the rest of the the world. She could vividly recall the flash of a primitive stone knife as it was dragged across the palm of each of member of the clan and into the neck of a raven, the blood pooling crimson on an alter, dripping down the stone sides in little rivulets and staining the ground before it seeped into the dirt and disappeared. The same knife played through her head as she remembered her  long tresses braided into a rope and cut off at her shoulders, same as every female in the clan. Males had their hair cropped as close to their skulls as was possible.
          She was a small girl then, and she could remember the violent wind and their terrible storm that ripped through their home, destroying tree and nature and man-made building alike. Her mind wandered of recollections of learning the boundaries, watching the storms subside and the land regrow into a paradise for her and her now-immortal brethren, but most importantly, she recalled how the only pair of were-felines wed on the same day and disappeared, leaving them with a prophesy – a prophesy of despair and  death, proclaiming that the clan had done terrible, evil things by spilling their own blood and the blood of a sacred raven, terrible evil things by invoking such black magic, and that when the were-cats returned to the clan, their protective boundaries would be destroyed, leaving them at the mercy of the humans.
         And now the were-cats had returned. She had seen in the eyes of those twin girls, in their movements, in their feline grace. They had returned – and the end of her kind was soon to be at hand.
         “Where did they come from?” she whispered as she held her mug in both hands and stared into the depths of the black liquid.
         “I found them, trembling in the rain together, three days ago. They said they had no memory and knew nothing but their names and that they were sisters. They couldn't tell me where they had come from or how they had gotten here. I knew at once that they were were-cats, outsiders, and didn't belong to anyone in the clan,” Rylan explained in the same hushed tone.
         She nodded. “I knew that at once as well... What are we to do, Rylan?”
         He swallowed noisily. “You know the options,” he stated heavily.
         Her eyes widened and her cup slipped from her hand, shattering into several large, jagged pieces on the table. “No,” she gasped.
         The dark liquid pooled on the table and dripped down the sides, and Vala pushed her chair violently away from the table, standing up as it clattered to the floor, her eyes locked on this image that so vividly reminded her of the blood-stained alter on the top of the hill with her clan gathered around to spill their blood.
         “Rylan,” she choked out, her throat tight and her vocal chords restrained, “we can't. We can't do that.”
         His face softened, his eyes mournful and his mouth turned down in a frown. “We must, Vala. We must, or else the entire clan will perish, and we will be at fault.”
         She twisted her fingers through her auburn hair, tangling the until-now straight locks, and shook her head back and forth, her breathing heavy and her eyes on the floor where her spilled drink was spreading toward her black boots. “I can't. I can't, Rylan.”
         He stood up, his chair making a loud scraping noise, and his hands gripping the edge of the table so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. “Now you listen to me, Vala. We must. There is no alternative.”
         She sank to the floor, her chest heaving as she tried to prevent herself from hysterical sobbing as vivid memories tormented her mind, and her head rested on her knees, eyes closed and hands still tangled in her hair.