Tithe

The young wolf felt at peace with his decision. It was a feeling he could not remember having. For too long he had been pulled by the struggle to be something he was not sure he wanted to be. All of his youth he had been pressured and pushed by his mother to reach for something that some part of him had not wanted. I will only give birth to kings. The words had been whispered, spoken, hissed, screamed, and snarled. They had become his mantra as well as his lullaby. It was everything that had driven him. To prove himself as more than a mistake, more than the bastard he was, he had taken hold of these words from before he could even see the world around him. He and his mother had used them to create who he was. That was until everything had gone wrong.

His life had shattered in the night and all he had fought for had been bleeding and dead at his paws. Revenge was not possible, but growth still was. Deep in his heart he knew he had been wrong but ‘I will only give birth to kings’ had been so deeply ingrained in his mind he could not escape it, even as he had fled his own home. Here, he had been so close to living the mantra, selling his soul and his loyalty to wolves he could not read and could not trust. A crown he would have to fight for, to kill for, and his honor to die for. His life had been moments away from being one of deceit and dishonor.

But the knight had been saved, and now the summer sunrise shined in his eyes as he quietly gazed over the fields. Fate had taken hold and had given him more to live for. He had found his soul, he had been given his honor. There was no crown in his sight, but as the sun rose it warmed the steel fur that covered his black undercoat, he could feel as though his armor shined once again. This time his visor was up, and he could see through the clouds of uncertainty that had been created by others.

He felt the tug to return to his home in Spirane, to search out what he had been asked to complete. The tug pulled him also toward her. Pandora had captured a part of him and filled a piece of him he had not even known he was missing. His heart pounded with his need to fulfill his duties to those he was sworn to. However, at this moment he enjoyed the sunrise and the feeling of having found a life to live for lives outside of his own.