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Arora

Book One: The Hungry Wolves

Chapter One

One thousand years before the creation of the world and the universe, there was darkness. In the darkness existed two beings; wolf brothers named Fenrir and Odin. It is unknown how these two came to be in the empty void and for how long they had existed before. The concept of time was a useless idea in the void. It is also unknown how the two had gotten a hold of armor and swords. Were they able to create these objects out of nothing? Were they "born" with their armor already adorn and their weapon in hand? What is known is that the two had spent their entire existence in isolation of one another and had never once met face to face. And when they did become aware of each other, they became filled with a burning desire to wage war on each other.

Fenrir, the silver furred wolf clad in midnight black armor and armed with a black two-handed sword and Odin, the black furred wolf clad in brilliant silver armor and armed with a silver two-handed sword. It was like looking into an inverted mirror. The two brothers snarled at each other and charged at full bore. The both of them swung their swords over head and, when the two blades clashed, sparks flew up into the empty void. They separated and clashed again...and again...and again. Each time, the sparks from their blades would fly and fill the empty darkness. Each strike, the two foes would glare into each others' eyes projecting their hate to each other. Every parry and block elicited a growl of frustration, which was followed by a roar and another swing of the sword.

_The two combatants were matching each other in every movement. It was as if they had fought several times before, as they knew what move the other was going to make before it was made and they seemed to be tireless as each heavy blow was as swift and as vicious as the very first. However, the weapons weren't made to endure such abuse and the blades were cracked and chipped. Eventually the blades snapped and flew back at their masters, striking and injuring them. Odin and Fenrir were both struck in the left eye and they both roared in a painful rage. They stumbled back away from each other, both desperate to pull the metal from their orifice. Fenrir was the first to succeed to free the blade point from his socket, and without thought he took what was left of his broken sword and charged into Odin. Fenrir plunged his sword under the breastplate and into his brother's stomach. Odin's roar was quickly smothered out by the gagging and gurgling noises caused by the blood that had flowed up into his throat. What was once Fenrir's equal had become a soulless shell that had fallen at the wolf's feet. _

_Fenrir's eyes had calmed over and he no longer had an enraged appearance. Instead he now had a look of satisfaction and relief. The silver wolf looked down at his deceased rival and was able to really study him for the first time. Other than the fur color, Odin had looked exactly like him. Every marking of fur, the color of his eyes, the physical features, the scars...they were all the same. The armor was exactly the same in design and pattern. The more he looked upon Odin, the more similarities appeared. Fenrir's heart began to despair as he realized that he had killed someone who was so much like him, someone who he knew was his brother. The thought caused Fenrir to form questions in his mind, questions that now he would never be able to get answers for. _

"How did I know who he was?"

"How did I know he was my brother?"

_"Could he have solve my mysteries, and I his?" _

"Could we have coexisted?"

"Could we have lived...happily?"

_Fenrir fell to his knees and began to howl and weep over the body of Odin. The feeling of triumph and pride was replaced by sadness and shame. The silver wolf howled until he was out of breath, at which point he was able to see what had become of the void that had surrounded him and Odin. The sparks of metal that had flown from their swords had filled the darkness with twinkling light. This was what we now call "stars." The sight inspired something in Fenrir to take his fallen brother's armor off of him. He took the pieces of armor and began to crush and mold them in his powerful paws. He created small metal orbs out of the armor pieces and flung them out into the sea of stars. These orbs became "planets" and they began to travel back towards Odin's body, stopping at a point before adapting an orbit around the dead warrior and the brother who killed him. Fenrir stared in awe at the sight for a few moments, before settling down next to his brother. _

Fenrir was pondering on what to do for Odin's body, when he heard the breathing of another being heading their direction. Fenrir grabbed his sword and stood up in preparation for battle, however when the being appeared Fenrir relaxed his stance and lowered his sword slightly. It was another wolf, Fenrir judged her to be a female. She wasn't clad in heavy armor like he and his brother were. Instead she was dressed in a white robe and in her right paw was a metal staff that was equal to her in height. She stopped a few feet away from Fenrir and gave him a slight bow of her head. Fenrir returned the bow and spoke in a deep and booming voice, "You are Tella..."

_"Yes," she replied, her own voice was just as loud but yet still had softness to it, "and you are Fenrir." _

_Fenrir studied Tella's appearance and found her to be different from himself and his brother, obvious differences aside. While his brother (and he assumed himself) had blue eyes, Tella's was completely white. While the two brothers were of one solid color (black and white) Tella's fur consisted of two, brown and grey. Her hair was longer and she wasn't as muscular as the males. _

"Why are you here?" he asked in a demanding manner.

_"I felt the need to come here," she replied with the same amount of calmness in her voice. She turned her head slightly, as if she were looking at the dead Odin at Fenrir's feet. "Just as the two of you felt the need to kill each another." Fenrir glared at her with anger in his eyes, yet his shame kept him from making any type of response to her. "I offer a service to you," she continued, "a solution to your problem of your brother's body. If the act pleases you, I would like to ask of something in return." _

Fenrir thought for a moment and wondered what Tella wanted. Her body had been motionless since arriving, saves for the bow, and as such revealed nothing about her intent. He couldn't even read her eyes, as there was nothing to read. Her pure white eyes only showed a reflection of Fenrir looking at her. "What is it that you want?" he finally asked her.

Tella walked past Fenrir and over to one of the orbs that was drifting around Odin and answered, "This orb...I want to create 'life' on it."

"What is 'life?" Fenrir asked with a bit of curiosity in his voice. Tella slowly turned her body back towards him and extended her free paw to him.

"It is my purpose for being here. However, I need the two of you to do it. What I intend do to your brother will be a proper tribute to what you want done to his body, and it will help me to create life on this orb of metal. I need to draw from your power as well, as mine alone will not be sufficient. No negative effect will occur, and I can assure you that you will be the same as you are now. I can't give you a better answer than this, but if you accept, more answers will be revealed and all of our questions may be answered."

Fenrir nodded his agreement to her proposal and grabbed her extended paw. Tella turned her attention to Odin and pointed her staff at him. Instantly, his body ignited into flame and began to rise. The brightness and heat radiating from him was enough to cause the other two wolves to cringe. Odin soon became a brilliant ball of flame, as bright as his armor once was. The two wolves released their grip on each other, and Fenrir stepped back in awe while Tella continued to perform her duty. She walked over to each orb and blew on them softly. The orbs, still circling around what once was Odin, began to react and change in form. Some changed size, others changed colors, a couple did both, while one did neither. When she was finished, Tella went back to the fourth orb out from Odin and beckoned Fenrir to come as well. The orb was blue, and had swirls of white all over it. Upon looking further, under the white swirls were masses of brown and green.

"This, I shall name Arora," she said. A slight smile had appeared on her face, breaking the emotionless façade she had put up until now. "It is the orb I want to create life on."

_ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _

"NAHETA RAVENBLOOD!"

The name echoed off of the wooden walls of the church school room and into the ears of the sleeping white furred fox girl that owned the name. She groaned from under her veil of raven hair and lifted her muzzle up from her forearm pillow. She shook her head, causing her hair to fall to the side away from her face, and she looked at the scowling teacher with half open brown eyes. Her head still fogged by her dreams and unable to function properly, a "Muwah?" was the best response her brain could muster. A response, that only seemed to further irritate the grey adult wolfess at the front of the class.

"Is my lecture, on the genesis of Arora, too boring for you?" she asked her annoyance clearly evident in her tone. The teacher unfolded her arms and pointed towards the fox before she continued. "Or did you just felt that the need to polish the desk with your drool and fur was too urgent to put off?" This elicited a few silent chuckles from the thirteen other students in the cobble stone classroom.

"I do not drool," Naheta groggily replied, as she absent mindedly wiped some saliva from the side of her maw, "and it is not as if none of us here have heard that story before..."

"Show the proper respect, Miss Ravenblood!" the teacher snapped. "The creation of our world is one that we, the Varg, take great pride in. Our Lord, Fenrir, along with the goddess, Fenris, created this world then created us wolves in their image and you..."

"I thought her name was Tella?" Naheta interrupted, her weariness being replaced with pure boredom. She now had her cheek resting in one of her paws and was looking at her teacher with disinterest and a little bit of disgust.

"Do not bring that Seer nonsense into this classroom, Miss Ravenblood," the way the teacher emphasized the "miss" was as if she was spitting out a freshly forged nail from her maw. "Her name is Fenris, and you shall refer to her as such." Naheta opened her mouth to respond, but the sound of a horn interrupted her from outside the classroom's window. The teacher sighed and allowed her body to relax a bit. "That is the fourteenth hour horn. You are all dismissed. I will not see you for two days, as you all know it is the two day festival of New Heroes." Small cheers and some laughter came from the students as the teacher mentioned the festival that would celebrate the graduation of those who had volunteered to train and become the next in line of "heroes" serving the god Fenrir in His army. Naheta was about to leave the classroom, with a tall and lanky white wolf girl at her side, when the teacher called out to her.

"Miss Ravenblood," it sounded more and more like she was calling out the name of a plague than a student, "out of respect for your sister's completion of her training and her becoming a soldier, I won't bring today's incident to her attention. However, I would recommend you start showing more respect to Varg religion and tradition before you disgrace yourself and shame your family."

Naheta let out a low growl and was about to turn around and confront her teacher, when the wolf girl that was with her put her paw on the fox's shoulder and held her in place. "It isn't worth it, Nahe," she whispered, as she guided her out of the classroom. The two canine school girls walked down the hall and out of the school in silence. It wasn't until they had walked a few yards out away from the school that Naheta couldn't contain herself any longer.

"Who does she think she is?" she asked her friend while keeping her eyes focused on the road they were walking on, "Insulting me and embarrassing me like that? Treating me like some...some...grrrr!" Naheta couldn't put her anger into words, properly, but her friend had heard these tirades before and was able to finish the little vixen's sentence.

"Like some kit," the wolf girl stated with a calm and quiet voice.

"YES!" Naheta roared, causing a few passer byes to stare in their direction. Something the wolf seemed uncomfortable with. Naheta ignored the uneasiness her friend felt as she turned to glare at her. "And you! Why didn't you wake me up this time, Aingelina?" Aingelina just sighed and looked down at her friend with a sorry expression.

"I tried. I poked your arm several times with my quill," she answered as she made a gesture with her paw to Naheta's left arm. Sure enough, there were several ink spots on the sleeve of the fox girl's plain white school gown. "I even felt it begin to tear a bit. If I had kept poking you I might have drawn blood." The last few words caused her to flatten her ears in discomfort.

Naheta gave her friend a snort before continuing on with her rant. "I'll disgrace myself," she said, her voice was now quieter but still maintained its tone of anger and frustration, "I am a fox. As far as everyone else is concerned, I already am a disgrace."