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Posted 13 November 2009 - 08:24 PM
I am not, obviously, CS Lewis. Any characters you recognize are his. If you don't recognize them, that means I made them up, so please don't copy them. (This includes Canisp, Meya, Thor, and the term "Vereor". Hands off!)
Concrit is always appreciated, as I want this to be as good as possible. So, without further ado..
Canisp
Chapter 1-Changeling
"Canisp! Wait up!"
Canisp paused at the crest of the snow-covered hill and looked back over her shoulder. "Well, come on, Meya!" she called, laughing. A light brown wolf with a chocolate stripe down her back loped up to her, panting for breath.
"By the Lion, Canisp, you're getting faster every day, I swear it!"
Canisp grinned, exposing her sharp canines, and teased the smaller wolf, "Maybe you're just getting slower. C'mon, keep up, we're going to be late and all the good pieces will be gone!"
Meya answered reasonably, "They'll be gone anyway by the time the dominants are done. They always are-for me, anyway." They both knew this to be true; as subordinate wolves, they rarely had the chance to get choice pieces of meat from kills. Canisp, being slightly larger and exuding an air of confidence few subordinates had, occasionally managed to snag a good piece. Whenever she was this lucky, she always shared her prize with Meya. The two were inseparable, closer than sisters.
"Ah, but you forget something," said Canisp mischievously. "It's nearly mating season now, all the males will be trying to impress us with their chivalry."
"Especially Maugrim," said Meya slyly. "I've seen the way he looks at you."
"That's not funny, Meya! He's a dominant now, who knows what might happen?" There was fear in Canisp's voice now.
"It's okay," Meya said soothingly. "I know you hate the idea, so do I when it comes down to it, but Maugrim isn't so bad; not as bad as the others, anyway." In her heart, however, she hated the thought of Canisp being claimed as a mate by any dominant. They both knew, however, that if Maugrim claimed her, she would have no choice but to submit. Actually, there was a choice: you could submit quietly, or you could resist and get beaten to a pulp. Besides, resistance only made the dominant males angry, and that only made things worse for you in the long run. That was simply the way things were, and there was no escaping it; you couldn't leave the pack. Any wolf who tried was killed as a traitor.
Then, of course, there was the looming threat, every she-wolf's worst fear; the Vereor. These were the elite, the fiercest, most ruthless wolves in all of Narnia, and they served the White Witch; they were her guard and her police. Every so often, they would run a sweep through the woods, searching out traitors and anyone else who so much as looked at them funny. During these sweeps, they would invariably swing through the pack territory and bring a she-wolf back with them to the White Witch's palace. No she-wolf they took ever returned, and everyone knew what awaited them there;truthfully, it didn't take much imagination. No wolf could fight them, not even the whole pack would be a match for them. And so they ran. Whenever the Vereor began a sweep, the dryads would send a warning, swift as the wind, and the pack would scatter into Lantern Waste, where the cover was thickest and most trees were friendly; although, as you will see later, not all. It was never enough; the Vereor would simply not give up until they cought someone. But it at least gave them a fighting chance. There had been close calls for both Meya and Canisp, and the latter was concerned that one day Maye's slower pace might be her undoing. Meya had her intelligence on her side, though, and her ability to keep her head in a crisis had gotten her out of many tight places.
Still, Canisp worried.
But right now, the trees were silent. No warning was forthcoming, and the two she-wolves who thought of themselves as sisters were loping easily through the woods, side-by-side; Meya, light-brown with that queer chocolate stripe down her back, slower than most wolves but surer-footed, gentle and kind and wise; and Canisp, pure-white and with flashing, clever eyes and the two-toned feather of a Narnian eagle tied into her fur so that it hung beside her face; swift and bold, brave and true and fiercely loyal. But there was something different about Canisp. The most obvious thing was that she had wings--two beautiful, snow-white wings that folded neatly along her spine.
The other difference was that she was not, in fact, a Narnian wolf. She was not even a wolf at all. She was a changeling, a human who could turn into a winged wolf at will; or, as she preferred to think of it, a winged wolf that could turn into a human, if she had ever wanted to, not that she ever really did. Humans, compared to wolves, were hopelessly slow and devoid of natural weapons. (She was, however, an excellent shot with a bow and arrow, and she could play the Narnian pipes better than anyone save the fauns.) Every member of the pack knew that Canisp was not a full wolf, but after a few weeks of suspicion, they had accepted her as one of their own. Meya was the only wolf who had accepted her from the beginning.
But those early days of distrust didn't matter now; this pack was her family, and so far she had even avoided the attentions of dominants, her changeling status and wings turning them off of her; she was simply too different. As Meya had mentioned, however, Maugrim didn't seem to be falling into this crowd, and while he might be less coarse than the other dominants, he was no less pushy or demanding, and she couldn't stand him. That's hardly the point, is it? They know we hate them, but what does that matter when we can't fight them? Canisp wished bitterly that she could have known Narnia before the White Witch, before the rigid new laws that controlled the wolves, back when they had seasons and warmth and Christmas, and the beautiful Narnian dances were played at the proper times, instead of playing the Spring Dance in winter, and she-wolves chose their own mates.
"I wish I could have known it, too," said Meya quietly; somehow she knew what Canisp was thinking without her having to say a word.
"I just..."Canisp wasn't sure what she was going to say, but she didn't need to finish the thought.
"Me too." The familiar sounds of the feeding pack following a kill sounded from the clearing ahead, and Meya hurried to take her place with the other subordinate she-wolves. She turned to wait for Canisp, but the white wolf shook her head sadly and said, "You go ahead. I'm...I lost my appetite." Meya's amber eyes softened sympathetically, and she nodded. Canisp whipped around, spread her wings, and leaped into the air, not bothering with a running start. She climbed, higher and higher into the sky that was ablaze with the setting sun, and she wheeled and soared over the darkening forest, trying to leave her problems behind in the trees below her, but not altogether succeeding.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, that's chapter 1. I'll start working on the next one tomorrow; it's kind of 10:00 at night right now, and I woke up at 5:15 this morning, so I need some sleep! Anyway, in the next chapter, we should be meeting the infamous Maugrim (recognise the name? You should.) and possibly get a glimpse of the Vereor as well. Looking forward to getting some readers here! First reviewer gets a big virtual hug.
This post has been edited by WingedWolf: 06 February 2010 - 01:22 PM
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