----- Flashback 1 -----
---Orphen and Fluke---
----------------------


(This RP contains an explanation of Fluke and Orphen's disappearance)



Orphen did not think she would ever see her son again, but there he was, scrounging around just outside of the den he was being held ‘prisoner’ at. Prisoner because of that blue wolf he had seemingly befriended. Unnatural. The pack did not approve and it was likely that even if Orphen loved her son, that she would still have treated them in the same fashion to uphold the ways of the pack.

But the truth was that Orphen did not love her son.

He was nothing but a bane on her life. A walking, breathing reminder of the days when she had recklessly flirted with anything that moved on four legs. A child born of wolf and dog. Her shame. And here he was, in her pack, telling her that she could be in danger. That a mad wolf hunted them. She shook her head, feeling suddenly weighted down by the past she had been running from all her life. The scars on her muzzle were a stark reminder of that encounter with her mother so long ago.

She remembered the time clearly and with much pain and anger. Their little pack. The loyal beta wolves. Her siblings, all three of them, so young and so innocent. Their father going off on a hunt, tracking an injured deer that he had spotted the evening before. The gun shot echoing around the forest. The scream of the birds as they took flight. Her mother’s frantic cries in the dark. The whimpering of her siblings as they clambered over her. The scent of distant blood on the air.

Her mother was driven insane by the loss of her mate. She became enraged and violent. She returned to the den, pacing, refusing to feed her children, snapping at the betas if they moved to comfort her. She would have no comfort. And, one night the alpha turned on them. She attacked the beta and, surprisingly, the beta pair – one male and one female – drove their alpha out of the den. A horrendous fight ensued. Fur flew. One beta was badly wounded and, in the fray, Orphen’s one and only sister was killed.

Orphen, in agony at seeing such a horror, leapt to aid her dead sibling only to have her mother’s jaws closing on her snout, biting down hard in an attempt to suffocate her. She had thought she was to die then but the betas came to rescue her and there was nothing more than darkness.

She had been taken away by the betas and when she woke it was quiet. Very quiet. There was no sister. No brothers. Her brothers Gizmo and Sable had run off into the forest, afraid and alone. It was unlikely that they would survive.

Sable didn’t. He was killed whilst trespassing on pack territory.

Gizmo, however, had – against all odds – survived. And he was now living with one of his sons in a pack not too far away. The runt of the litter. Who would have thought it!

And she had been raised by her betas until she had grown independent enough to take her leave.

She snapped back from her reverie as her son – who had been snuffling through the grass just outside of the den – snapped up a slug hidden there amongst the damp foliage. They had brought them food, but perhaps it hadn’t been enough. They’d probably travelled a long way and he was wounded, too. But she wasn’t about to go hunt for him. Let him eat slugs. She hadn’t come here to observe. She’d come here to talk to him and that was why she had asked the guards to take their leave for a while.

She didn’t want pack members overhearing about her past.

Orphen, ever dominant, growled threateningly as she advanced on her son. He was scraggly and pathetic looking with a great tuft of fur out of his tail and the smell of wounded flesh about him. It was a wonder he had survived an attack at all and it was probably down to the aid of the blue she-wolf that he had survived.

Fluke jumped, startled at her sudden appearance and instantly cowered back, his head low and his tail tucked.

“What’re yeh ‘ere fer, eh?”

She gritted her teeth at his foul mannered way of speaking – definitely not something she had taught him! “I want you to tell me what happened.”

“Eh?”

Orphen growled and bounded forward a step, bristling and snarling.

Fluke instantly flattened himself to the ground, ears pressed against his head, almond-shaped eyes directed at the grass. His mother was a scary wolfess indeed.

“Don’t waste my time, Fluke.” She liked his name because it suited him. He was an oddity, a fluke, something that would only happen once and never again. “I’m talking about what happened to you. I need to hear the story from the beginning.”

“Nah much tah say.” He replied, backing off a little and then moving into a hunched, sitting position, still whining softly. “Ah were mindin’ mah own business and then all of a sudden she’s there. Yer mother. She was blathering about all types of stuff, ah dunno half of it. Too much tah remember. Yah know.” He shrugged, seeming unaware his mother was getting tense and annoyed just by listening to him. “She said she were gonna get rid of us. Alla us. Yoo, me…” He trailed. “She said yoo turned on her.”

“And you believe her?”

Fluke’s head lowered and he turned his eyes away. “Yoo turned on meh...”

Now it was Orphen’s turn to startle. But the shock was soon lost under a growl. “Mother was evil. Don’t think otherwise. I did not seek to kill you, did I?” She snapped her jaws shut and then continued. “So, how did you survive?”

“Weh fought. She attacked meh and ah tried tah defend mahself.” Fluke replied, shuddering. “Her teeths sank into meh. There were lotsa blood. Ah got free but not fer long. She came at meh again and I fell. Passed out. She was tired too. Injured too. Probably didn’t think tah make sure ah really was dead.”

Orphen sat. “So what now?”

“That’s why ah came here…” Fluke replied. “Ah was looking fer yoo. Tah…tah warn yah about her.”

“She doesn’t know where I live, though.”

“The forest ain’t that big, Mother. Ah found yer easily enough, eh?”

Orphen tensed. “She’s old. No match for me.”

“Unless she catches you unawares.”

“Now…thanks to you…that won’t happen.”

Fluke seemed to cheer up a little at that. “Soooo…can weh go on our way now?”

“No. You’re coming with me.”

“Whaaa?” He gaped. “Where?”

“I’m worried about my brother.”

Gizmo. The wolf in the Outriders. Her little brother. Sweet. Timid. Gentle. If he was confronted by the demon of his past, would he try and talk her out of it? Would he cower and try to flee? She couldn’t let her only surviving sibling do this alone. He would die and she would be left all alone with those horrible, hateful memories.

“Brother?”

“Yes.”

“But why do yoo want meh tah come?”

“We’re family, aren’t we?” Orphen replied. But the truth of the matter was that she wanted Fluke along so he could see that perhaps his mother wasn’t so bad after all. The guilt of what she had done to Fluke was starting to dawn on her and she hated it.

Was she any better than her mother?

She abandoned her children and she, it seemed, had abandoned her son. What had she become? A younger image of her insane mother?

She growled softly to herself and, with a grunt, stood and grabbed him by the scruff, dragging him a few steps forward. He yelped but obeyed, following after her. There was another reason for taking him with her, of course. Without her there, the others might mistreat or kill him, or run him out of the pack where he might die. She couldn’t have that happen, even if he was an irritating, shameful little fleabag.

“But what about the others? We’re not gonna say goodbye. I oughta tell Iphis that…”

“No. There’s no time. My brother could be in danger. He needs to be warned.”

And, shoving him ahead and nipping at his hindquarters, they set off at a hurried lope. And, at the borders of the packlands, Orphen paused, raised her head and howled. This was a harder decision than Fluke might have thought for her to make. Leaving one’s pack for any length of time was dangerous business. They would be angry at her for taking her leave and, in most likelihood; they would call for a new alpha. She might return to find herself dethroned…Yasuo mated to another.

But, she told herself, they wouldn’t be gone long and…selfish though it was; she needed to see her brother was safe. She owed him that much at least.

It was time to do what was right.

/fin.