Chapter 4: Blood of The Winter Wolf
Looking up once again at the owl, Mara cleared her throat once more before proceeding to ask her question.
Her deep green gaze looked tired and she hoped to find some answers to her questions by seeking the advice of an owl.
Owls were known to be one of the two original roots of wisdom.
The first being the Unicorn, and the second, the owl.
"There is a story I was once told as a little girl in the place I grew up. The story goes as follows."
After moving her head too peer from one side to the other,she began to recite the story she once heard.
"Once upon a time, many centuries ago, there were animals with great mystical powers that were in charge of the coming and going of the seasons.
A different animal controlled each month. Those animals were almost always comprised of one of each, of what we refer to as the 'Oringal 12'. Each one was responsible for a single month. No two shared the same month at one time..."
Skor the owl moved his large head towards the sky, he had an inkling of what story this might be.
"Ah such a sad story!~" He hooted while putting one wing over his face as if he was upset already, before even hearing the story.
The cursed one simply looked at him as if he was unamusing and continued her story. She began to recall it to the best of her ability, once more.
"Long ago the Kingdom of Trainoar was the strongest observable human civilization on this great contenient. Having even managed to wield the natural magic of the other creatures that they killed."
Skor's rounded face scrunched up upon hearing this.
'It is indeed related to those hairless whelps stealing of magic, well... we owl know how this ended...' The bird thought to himself.
"A few decades after the 'mastery' of magic by the humans, the Trainoar Kingdom gave birth to a princess with a heart of proverbial gold. So nice was she, that when the animals attacked her Kingdom over and over again she tried to save the wounded ones with magic."
"The humans put animals lives on a lower level than their own. Afterall, they couldn't communicate with them affectively. So the humans of the Kingdoms upper echelons were displeased with that princess and punished her accordingly, by banishing her to a small hut in woods said to be teeming with bloodthirsty and ferocious beasts without a single guard."
"After being thrown out of the palace, naturally saddened, the royal exile felt utterly and truly alone in the world. Her eldest brother, a great "Magician" of their kingdom, went into said forest to go on a bloody rampqnage of beast extermination."
Skor the owl just looked at her and shook his head side to side slightly as a sign of his disproval.
The big wide eyes of the owl remained unflinching even as the story being told got sadder and darker.
"Anyway, one day a great battle took place between the beasts of the forest and the Magician prince."
Mara's green eyes looked down and became unfocused for a brief second before returning to normal.
"The Wolf of Winter, fur as black as a starless and cloudy night, happened upon the princess's hut while fleeing with a injury from battle with the magical royal heir. Exiled Princess Eldair then met the Wolf of Winter and upon seeing his pitiful state, decided she was going to help him recover from his injuries."
Listening to the wolf-human up to this point, Skor winced when he heard this part.
"Anyway, I have heard many differing versions since my time as a human child, but the one from when I was a child is the one that troubles me the most...." Mara closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing her story.
The wind had started to pick up and had begun to lift the topmost layer of snowflakes up off the forest floor and proceed to blow them in all directions about the cold, quiet forest.
"The wolf somehow seduced the princess, is the story the humans tell. In particular the kingdom I was born and raised in was a remnant of that once glorious Trainor Empire.
They say the princess and Wolf lay together eventually during the war, betraying each their own sides. It is exactly because of this that the royal family I was born into now carries the "Curse of The Winter Wolf."
Mara grits her large canines momentarily. Although the owl can mostly only see her true appearence of a human woman.
"At least one child every generation of our royal family will turn into a Wolf by their 16th birthday. It simply does not matter if they are in the direct royal family either, but usually it's a branch family that the curse affects. Which usually makes there shadowy acts easier to carry out.
The true upsetting part is what my past oh so 'noble' royal family usually does with the ones that turn into wolves."
Eyes now squinted and mouth set into a grimace, Mara tried getting her breath back before continuing.
"The kinds of things that usually happened were...dissection. Cutting them apart and trying to extract magic from their still technically alive but usually drugged and comatose bodies.
Or weaponize them, turning them into magical ferocious attack beasts to use in war against surrounding nations or against 'restless or unruly upper- class families' that arent swayying to the royal families whims or agenda.
Sometimes even exterminating them if that was the easiest and most logical course of action at that time."
Anger can be felt coming off Mara until she takes a big deep breath and seemingly exhales all of her remembered anger.
"However the stories the wolves tell, is much more skewed to their own thought processes."
Whoosh~
A large gust of wind blew into her face making her temporarily avert her face from Skor.
"Anyway, the wolves say the two became close friends and in time the Wolf thought the human more important than his pack and seasonal duties. Some of the wolves even say that the two ultimately became taboo mates. Older wolves even say he wasn't a wolf all along but a large dog that had somehow tricked the natural world into giving him part of the power and responsibility for the season winter."
At this revelation about certian 'taboo' practices Skor began to hack up a part of the juicy prey he had just eaten.
"Kagh! Kathy! Kackkkghh! Ahem. Well that is indeed very vile."
The owl remained quiet, his eyes squinted slightly as if contemplating something. That or perhaps he just didn't want all those pesky snowflakes getting on his big bright eyeballs.
Gotta protect one's eyes afterall.
The wind was starting to become more forceful in its singing and was interrupting Maras speech quite a bit by now with its eerie howling noise.
"Perhaps the forest does not want to hear anymore on this subject today."
At mention of this, Skor put up one of his leathery taloned feet, causing Mara to pause her train of thought and cock her head to the side quizzically.
"You seem to be getting lost in your thoughts furred one. What was the reason of you coming to see me, sorwly it wasn't to give me interesting lore related to your weird life."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Scynthea
Scynthea hi, author here, this isn't discontinued, I'm just trying to plot out everything a little bit more.
hopefully the quality didn't suffer too bad, feedback is heavily appreciated
as that motivates me to actually post what I write instead of just sitting by a window and daydreaming the stories in my head like a goober
feel free to point out typos or unsensical mistakes in the writing
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