2 The turned pebble

Five years have fled by.

My body is warm with a wool fleeced coat, a few rotten holed here and there. I wonder how many owners it had before being handed down to me.

That day... I couldn't save my father. I couldn't save my comrades, my family. The moment father was taken down, all the dragons retreated with a silent whistle. As a hybrid of some sort, only I could hear the whistle.

Without an alpha to rule over, our pack thrives and looks up towards me. I was only seventeen now, I hadn't much to offer to my people. Yet. They look up to me with hope glimmering in their eyes.

Children of all ages proclaim me to be their hero. Their salvation.

What was true salvation to me, right now, was death.

I wanted to lift this huge burden off my shoulders but it seemed almost impossible to be following my wishes. The wishes of my people out-weighed mine. With a sigh, I look up to the sky and turn myself into a ball of wool with the coat securing me. It was critical times of the winter. My lips were chapped, throat dry and no tears left in my body.

"Don't droop too much, alpha." It was Eugene. He's grown quite old already. He was close to my dad's age.

"Tell me, Eugene. Why didn't mom and dad give me any siblings?" I ask Eugene.

"I do not know, alpha."

I wanted to punch him in the face. I wasn't to be called an alpha. Ever.

"Did they plan to leave me all alone in this world? Nobody by my side?" My throat was screaming ironically at me to stop talking. It hurt pretty bad.

"My lord, you haven't eaten anything since three days. I've heard reports about you from the maids. What are you planning again?" Oh yes. I've done this before. Several months priorly.

I've tried all ways to end my life, but the miracle force around me runs down every attempt of mine.

Why won't the world let me die in peace?

To be imagining I've fancied dying since I was a kid... it was high time I relieve myself from this hell.

"You were thinking about starving yourself again, aren't you?" Eugene asks with a soft voice, unlike last time. He freaked out the last time he got to know I was using such a cruel way to end my life. He went ballistic and conditioned me for weeks.

I will never forget those days, Eugene.

The cheerful boy, brimming with light and sunshine was long gone.

No.

Precisely, that boy died along with my father when I failed to protect them both.

I wasn't to blame that dragon rider for the death of my father and myself. I wasn't to blame the dragon who shot at us either. It was me all along.

Huh. Am I finding ways to convince myself to die again? How broken was I really?

"Dear alpha," The man approaches me, opening the woolen ball I've curled myself like into, "You're still a lad. I promised I will teach you to be a warrior."

"What's the use of becoming a warrior when all I can do is run my people into the mouths of those beasts?" I ask Eugene. He shakes his head, half out of disappointment.

"The six other alphas of the nations are waiting on you patiently. Your delays are resulting in more dragon assaults, all around the world." He reports in the same thing to me. Despite knowing I'd never be fazed by an inch.

"So be it. It's our fate." I say coldly. His shocked expression says, "How did he change from such a sunny boy to the darkest-soul bearing creature."

Well, I've been questioning the same, Eugene.

"You're wrong. If we're being killed one day, I'm blaming you." He says in anger. Ah. There is his superficial anger. He only acts as though he's angry, but he is only disappointed in a useless teenager like myself.

Eugene gets up with a thunderous stomp and begins walking away from me. Stopping mid distance from the door and I, he looks over his shoulder and says,

"If you wish to know your true identity, then you shall become a warrior and go out to seel the truth. Alpha."

His words ring loudly in my ears.

What did he just say?

What's gotten into him?

"Wait!" What does he know that I don't? What is my... true identity?

He doesn't wait.

"Eugene! What the hell do you mean-"

"Have you ever wondered?" He plants the seed of curiosity in me. One so deep and roots sprouting already. The way he turns and glares at me with his eyes tells me he is angry now. Not just disappointed.

"Why only yours, and only yours," he pushes me back by my shoulder, his fingers hurting me, "has a red furred coat while we have normal wolf colors?"

I... wonder about that.

I wonder... why I haven't ever thought about the gift I had.

No.

Strike that.

It wasn't my gift. It is my curse.

Without this, I wouldn't have been attacked all the time and wouldn't get my father killed. All because of me.

His words make me realise, that I might be one such special case not by accident... but by a divine plan.

"When you've got few things under that thick skull of yours," he shoves my forehead this time, "Come to the court grounds and begin your training. From today, you're an avenger. Not a warrior." He says. As his words sink into me, my eyes begin to widen.

He's right. I will train myself to be an avenger.

I won't be driven by the force of a warrior anymore. I shall be that cold blooded avenger.

From today... my goal is to avenge my father's death.

And my aim... is to kill the dragon rider and the dragon that turned my father into ashes.