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Hunters Moon series Characters Pelnak and Cassiopeia are © Cederwyn Whitefurr used with permission written by Possum with assistance from Cederwyn Whitefurr

Heads up if you're here for the juicy stuff, sorry its not in this chapter :)

Hunters moon New moon rising Chapter two

Dawn barely crested the distant horizon, as Cassiopeia was the first to awaken, grunting as the restless fawn within her tumbled and kicked her womb mercilessly. During the night, she'd had to go urinate multiple times. Eventually, she had nudged Pelnak over against the wall, and slept cuddled up against him.

As she struggled to her hooves and crept as quietly from the cave as she could, the ache in her loins making her shudder, She walked a short distance away, then her hind legs buckled and she squatted, the stream flowing fast as she moaned and shook her head, trying to fully awaken.

"What did we do yesterday - my mind is all - foggy and..."

"Good morning - " Come the soft breath, that made Cassiopeia's heart freeze in her chest.

Caught in a compromising position, Cassiopeia tried to stand, but her bladder demanded release and she was caught in this embarrassing position.

"My apologies doe - " come that voice, as there was a scrape of a hoof.

Cassiopeia finally relieved herself, then stood and turned, watching Ely behind her. He had a foreleg stretched out, his neck laying along said leg and head bowed in a deep and formal bow.

"You...scared me half to death!" Cassiopeia grunted, as she shuddered, then snatched a mouthful of a newly sprouted shrub and chewed it, trying to mask her fear.

How did he do that? I never heard a sound...

"I apologize, that was rude of me." Ely kept his bow for a moment, before he stood back up.

With a snort, Cassiopeia stepped over to him, then to his surprise, she nuzzled and rubbed his neck, a Cervid showing of apology accepted, before she stepped back and looked up into his eyes. Feeling out of place, Ely nodded and knelt down, folding his legs beneath him. He knew he wasn't the dominant here, he had to show proper respect and civility - or risk Pelnak challenging him.

A fight Ely knew he'd win, his ego expected it. He had size over them, strength and power - but with Cassiopeia and Pelnak; two Therian's together - he suddenly wasn't so sure....

His thoughts were broken, as Cassiopeia spoke up "Ely, With everything that happened yesterday..."

"Aye?" He blinked, keeping his eyes downcast, so as not to irritate her.

"Forgive us, we - we were rude! I apologize, you have more than earned the right to know our names."

'Names have power little doe," Ely warned her softly, as he flicked his ears. "Are you so sure you wish to speak such words?"

"I..." Cassiopeia began, then swallowed. "I think...you can be trusted - can you?"

"My word is my life, may your fangs take that which I give unto you, little one."

He stretched his head out, offering her his throat.

"I...I don't understand - " Cassiopeia began.

With an exasperated sigh, Ely nodded. "Its a holdover - from my clan, ancient words spoken with truest of heart. If I break my word, to you or your mate - my life is forfeit at your fangs - and his."

Cassiopeia blinked slowly. "It seems...you still have much to teach us..."

"Aye lass, I fear I might." Ely grunted, then began cropping at the grass.

"I am Cassiopeia, my mate - is Pelnak."

Swallowing, Ely nodded twice. "It is my honor to meet you both - I forgive the intrusion onto your territory. I was - curious - and...disrespectful, I apologize most humbly!"

Cassiopeia continued "Forgive my rudeness yesterday it wa..."

Ely interrupted "I wasn't exactly polite with my tongue either if you recall" he said winking mischievously.

Cassiopeia's ears reddening a bit before she resumed "No I didn't mean that I mean for attacking you without cause it could have ended very badly for everyone,"

"I can not help but wonder - just how it would have ended - " Ely pondered thoughtfully.

Cassiopeia thought for a moment, before she knelt down and took another bite of young leaves, before a tremble rippled through her body and she winced as the fawn kicked her again.

"I..." Cassiopeia began. "You see - I've not..."

"Tell it in your own time Cassiopeia." Ely whispered softly.

"I've not had an easy life. My mother...she was killed, when I was only a barely weaned fawn. My father raised me... Of sorts. Father began hunting humans looking for the ones that killed my mother, his mate."

Ely remained quiet, smelling Cassiopeia's growing fear. This was deep, powerful and raw emotions she was divulging, it wouldn't take much to make her snap and strike out, so he remained as quiet and peaceful as he could, listening attentively.

"It...vengeance - it corrupted him, twisted and tore at him, until he was cruel, sadistic, savage and brutal... Not the gentle, kind soul my mother first mated. I was young, oh so very very young... He began to prey upon humans - taking them, doing unspeakable things to them..."

Cassiopeia's breath caught in her throat and she shuddered, a few tears trickling down her cheeks. "He...tortured and abused and often - no, I wish not to remember that. I was young, impressionable - he was old, dominant, assertive and conditioned my young mind to such things. Humans were - they were unworthy. They were merely prey, for our kind."

Listening, Ely couldn't help the shudder that ran through him.

"For twenty five years, my father would capture a human - male or female - bind them, hold them prisoner. He would - do things - horrible things...break them, body and mind. He reveled in the torture and torment, until they were pitiful, broken playthings...then he would murder them and we would feed. Humans were our cattle, he would tell me again and again. Those humans that dared to trespass our forest - none left alive...their remains, never found. One day - his sadism and lusts took a new and vicious turn..."

"Cassiopeia - " Pelnak's weak moan come from the cave entrance. "Please my love, don't - "

He turned on me - his own daughter - raped me countless times, tortured me, half-starved me and when I fell pregnant...he beat me until I miscarried! A few months later, Pelnak, was taken as our latest plaything - more, my fathers plaything really..."

"Cassiopeia, please!" Pelnak sobbed, as he trotted over and nuzzled his mate, licking away her tears with his soft tongue. "No, please do not bring these memories up again, I beg of you!"

"I must..." Cassiopeia whimpered. "Ely needs to know... Pelnak was...raped, brutalized, tortured... By my father - and I did the same..."

"It wasn't your fault, you didn't know any different and - " Pelnak shuddered, as he nuzzled her again. "Cassie, please..."

Ely shuddered, unable to imagine how this former human - he knew by scent, that Pelnak wasn't a pure-blood. Had remained sane...

"I...Pelnak's right, I was brought up, to see him - humans - as mere playthings, for us to abuse, break and feast upon when we grew hungry. Pelnak touched something inside of me... "

Cassie shuddered, then nuzzled her lover in return.

"Some glimmer of goodness, that still glowed with the barest spark deep inside me. We...didn't exactly bond, but after my father caught me making love with Pelnak...his rage was incalculable. I dared mate with a human? He...he tortured me, raped me repeatedly - the worst he'd ever done, left me there to suffer in agony, until at last - he returned, intending to murder me and Pelnak. Pelnak found something we had overlooked in the refuse of our victims. A silver chain, which he ground up into a dust..."

Ely shuddered in horror, then glanced at Pelnak.

"You knew...what it would do?"

"I...only knew - because I'd seem them - change - into their human form..." Pelnak whispered. "I remember a movie once..."

"Movies!" Ely snorted, then nodded to Cassiopeia.

"He...Pelnak, he murdered...no, he saved me - he killed the beast my sire had become...it - it wasn't quick..."

"I imagine not!" Ely shuddered again, then nodded. "Please, continue little one!"

"After we - escaped - I'd turned Pelnak...I still hate myself for what I done to him..."

Ely's ears folded flat "I... I'm sorry to hear that. I never imagined that -"

Pelnak took up the story. "We are the guardians of this wood. Those who come filled with hate and desire to harm the children of the wood - they never leave again. We kill when we must, it is quick, clean and they do not suffer...unduly - "

Ely's ear flicked, hearing the pause in Pelnak's voice.

"What happened - "

"A...human - a hunter - out of season, shot my beloved in the shoulder. He could see she in fawn! He...shot her, shattering her leg and...he...he..."

Pelnak shook, his anger threatening to smother him.

"She was laying there, unable to fight, to defend herself and that bastard...he - "

Ely's eyes widened, then he fought the urge inside him, as he closed his eyes and whispered something, before Pelnak shuddered, the ripple from ears to hooves, then suddenly, his rage melted away as if it'd never existed.

"What..." Cassiopeia began, eyes widening.

"Nothing..." Ely whispered, turning his gaze on her.

Cassiopeia blinked, her thoughts vanishing, before she shook her head and resumed listening, as if nothing had happened.

"I...I murdered him...it...wasn't quick, he suffered - terribly. I...I done to him, what he done to my beloved..."

Ely frowned, then concentrated, feeling his magicks swirl and gather, as he sent calming thoughts into Pelnak's mind.

"If they're just - hikers, or nature lovers or some such? We don't harm them, we're not the - beasts - that my beloved Cassiopeia and her father were... Cassiopeia has changed, she is beautiful, kind, loving and gentle - "

Blushing, her inner ears reddening, Cassiopeia nuzzled Pelnak, reaffirming their love and their bond with the simplest of touches.

"He forgave me, and we bonded, truly bonded, as mates beneath the moon. We fled my fathers home - burning it to the ground. We've lived here, in this forest - for over six years. We are the guardians of these woods we protect the animals from humans if they come to do harm, they never leave..." Cassiopeia finished for Pelnak, who snorted and shook his head, as if something was irritating him.

"Understandable - " Ely murmured, nodding his head. "Also highly commendable. In a way, it is - a rather sad tale..."

Pelnak snorted and shook his head, before he stamped a hoof in growing anger. He rudely cut Ely off, then interjected "Don't be it is what it is and needed to be done, He had become corrupted by revenge and there was no reasoning with him anymore. Cassiopeia's father...no longer existed."

There was silence for an awkward period of time before Cassiopeia broke it "So Ely what's your story?"

Ely looked down at his hand, flexing it and closing it again. It was a long time, before he replied. "Are you aware of the hunters? I don't mean the usual humans like the one across the mountains I mean the hunters of the ascended?"

"I can't say I'm aware of them no, Pelnak?"

Pelnak shook his head slowly.

Ely sighed. "Be thankful...maybe they haven't found your kind yet! Hollywood version is the vampire or werewolf hunters, you understand?

Pelnak nodded, Cassiopeia seemed lost and confused.

"Reality is much worse. They are descended from humans that in ancient times worked alongside our ancestors. We lived in peace and harmony - once - Powerful Magi - lost to the ages now, made incredible weapons of war. We were a Triad - Humans, Therian's - like yourselves, my kind alongside, they called all of us Therian's then, then the Magi. Powerful were they, and together, we defended the realms of man and our kind against all comers. We fought alongside, tooth, claw Magick and steel..."

Ely sighed softly, then blinked away a tear.

"Somewhere - lost in the distant past - Somewhere along the line they were corrupted... Maybe they viewed us, our kind, as a threat? A challenge to their supposed superiority? We WERE stronger, more resilient, healed quicker and..."

He slowly unclenched his paw and splayed it flat on the ground, before concentrating and driving his rage and hate deep into the earth, where it couldn't harm a living soul.

"Forgive me, this tale is...difficult...and painful. Humans become corrupted. They turned on us - but then - the Magi were no more. It is believed they somehow lost their connection to the Mystical - somehow - they were delegated as charlatans and at best - court Jesters. Those who fought alongside us? They turned their magickal weapons on our kind. At first hundreds died - then thousands, hundreds of thousands - over the centuries, our kind were slaughtered like beasts! Oh, we fought them - sometimes we won - but often...with their powerful magickal weapons, they nearly purged out kind from Europe. They now, number in the tens of thousands - us? Our kind in the Old World? We number less than a thousand - scattered, hiding, frightened... Their task and honor were turned, twisted warped and shattered. Where once, we fought side by side as brothers and sisters - now? Now they hunt and murder our kind! They turned against us the ascended they exist solely to wipe us out as abominations in their world."

Cassiopeia snorted in disbelief. "Humans? Pah, pathetic mewling babes would would fall before our hooves and fangs and - "

"FOOLISH DOE, SPEAK NOT OF WHAT YOU DO NOT COMPREHEND" Ely's voice boomed like thunder, and both Cassiopeia and Pelnak visibly wilted beneath its power and dominance.

His eyes narrow showing a brief red flash that was almost missed by Cassiopeia - Pelnak was still shaking and didn't see it.

Ely continued "They have powerful magick still! Weapons are of silver and intertwined with the Magicks of old. In the past few years their truest weapon has been an breakthrough. An accident in a lab, purely unintentional! Yet it has hasted our demise across Europe! A human invented something, whose purpose was never to harm our kind - he had no idea we even existed! This thing is Namonin silver! Used in their amour and clothing! It was intended as anti-bacterial, for medicinal use in everyday clothing and such - but the Brotherhood - discovered its properties..."

Pausing for a breath, Ely panted, his anger barely held in check.

"You've obviously never heard of it... No, do not answer, I can see your muzzles. They're like an open book to me little ones - no offense - but I'm older than I appear, way older... You know what it does? It virtually renders them untouchable to us! We all know what silver does to one of our kind...right?"

Pelnak and Cassiopeia, lying on the ground, both nodded and shuddered.

"Imagine - something a thousand times faster than silver's effects! It reacts to our bodies physiology quicker - and more violently - than anything your minds can imagine. If, for example, a Lupid strikes a hunter wearing it with his clawed hand? In second, the Lupid's paw would melt away. First the fur, the flesh would blacken and shrivel. Agony unlike anything you have ever experienced would ensnare you. Where ever a part of him touched their armor - it is destroyed! Fur, flesh, even bones!"

Cassiopeia and Pelnak swallowed, their muzzles hanging open and their eyes wide in horror, barely able to encompass such agony.

At last, Pelnak moaned, his voice a faint whisper. "How is it you know of them of this?"

Ely's resolve shattered, he began sobbing heart-brokenly.

"They captured my parents - the Brotherhood - they tortured my father for weeks. He was a Lupid. My mother was of the Fèidh. I was a fawn at the time old by feral standard but only 8 or 9 years old by human years. We were at our home in the woods a cabin isolated from everyone! We had intermittent contact with others, we kept to ourselves, mostly. Trust was hard won, you understand? One night we heard the drone of helicopters coming. As they flew over us, then circled and searched the forest, we were so self-assured, so naive to think we were safe... At first we assumed a lost camper. We had found them from time to time - sometimes alive - sometimes dead. We always guided them back to safety, if alive, or returned their bodies as close as we dared to civilization, so they'd be recovered."

'We were so....stupid! We never thought, never suspected - that one of those we trusted had been captured - tortured, presumably, until they divulged what they knew about us. They come quickly - out of the night - flash bang grenades through the windows, our door blown to splinters by what I assume was a shaped charge. My parents tried to fight...tried being the operative word... I'd never seen Namonin silver - none of our people had! Until it was too late... My father lost his paw that night... We were tranquilized, chained with silver that burned and nearly drove us mad in agony. They took us, as easily as we would take a doe...No offense Cassiopeia."

"None...taken - " Cassiopeia shuddered.

"They tortured my father demanding to know the names and locations of all the other Ascended's he knew of he was strong he refused to tell them anything they... they...."

His body quivered at the memory and pain it dragged to the surface

"They strung him upside down, hung him like meat. Then, they placed a silver penny on his groin...I can still smell the stink of the burning fur and flesh, hear his screams... Those bastards...let it burn its way through. They said if he told them what they wanted to know he would be ended quickly. He still refused, it took over a day, for that coin...to burn through his body, and finally, drop to the floor - he was dead before that, but they didn't care. They knew they'd make my mother talk..."

Cassiopeia began crying, and Pelnak fought his own tears, as he nuzzled his mate.

"Next they came for me... They strung me up the same and turned to my mother and asked her. Where to find the others? Same deal. She refused. They pressed the coin to my shoulder searing my flesh producing the scar I wear today."

Pelnak began crying, the raw, emotion in Ely's voice, too much for him.

"When mother heard my agonized screams, something inside her broke. In that moment she shattered the silver chains, like they were nothing to her. Her eyes and paws - like mine - started glowing with a brilliant emerald light. At some word, in a language I've never heard - she sent - well, it looked to my tear streaked eyes, like a wave of pure energy."

Pausing, Ely shuddered and un-clenched his paws again, before he hung his head and shivered.

"Those closest to her? They were - well - pulverized. Their lifeless corpses collapsed, every bone in their bodies just - annihilated. The wave struck me but felt warm shattering the restraints suspending me and i seamed to float to the ground in slow motion. Those against the walls - armed with crossbows with silver infused bolts - I could smell the silver - the stink of it haunts me to this day!. They snapped up their Crossbows, and in a withering fusillade they unleashed their full arsenal at my mother. Her magicks shielded her for a time - a brief time - before her wards collapsed...and I'll never forget her screams, as dozens of silver bolts tore unto and through, her body..." "Her body bucked and writhed, as she staggered towards me - how? I do not know, dozens of the bolts must have been lodged in her. Yet, somehow, she staggered towards me, her paws beginning to glow again... Her last effort in this realm, was to shield me from the bolts, before she dropped to her knees. One stepped up behind her, placing the crossbow against her head as she cried and gasped her last breaths... I can still smell the scent of burning fur and flesh - before she looked at me and her paws grasped my ankles. Her magick gripped me and enfolded me. Agony was all I could feel, such, terrible pain! It swirled and tore at me - and the last thing I remember - was the cruel, savage look on the humans face...as he squeezed the trigger and shot her in the head..."

"No!" Cassiopeia wailed in horror, her ears flattening.

"Her magick died with her...but not how they envisioned... As her lifeless corpse fell to the ground, a single tear trickling down her cheek - as it touched the ground, the magick she'd surrounded me with detonated... A split second later in a blinding white flash - it felt like I was torn to my very essence - scattered across the infinite cosmos! It was less time than one beat of my terrified heart and the next..."

"What...happened?" Pelnak whimpered, rubbing his eyes against his foreleg, trying to dry his tears that flowed copiously.

"I awoke to pain - soul crushing pain - when I recovered, I found myself in a forest, that was not my own. Birds I'd never heard, trees I vaguely knew of - everything, even the ground itself! Felt - wrong to me. Different...yet similar. I was in a unknown forest, it was daylight nothing fit the smells the lay of the land it was all foreign to me a young spiker lost and alone... I collapsed under the stress of losing everything I had ever known..."

"By chance I was found by a Lupid Clan. On seeing this poor defenceless fawn knowing it stood no chance of survival, The Alpha closed his jaws around my neck to finish me quickly. But when my blood touched his tongue it was bitter yet somehow familiar to him at that point he recognised my father's linage and ordered i be taken back and healed, I learned later my father was banished from their clan for loving my mother. Their Seer identified the trace of the spell my mother had used and was surprised for none in the Ascended had been able to command such power in millennia! He reasoned that she must have put her very soul as payment to pull off such a transportation. That is how I wound up here."

"You've been...alone, all that time?

"No...I... I've never told anyone what happened that night before now, not even the clan"

Pelnak nuzzled Ely's neck gently, trying to bestow some strength to this frightened, crying stag. "So you were raised by wolves? What did you eat?"

Ely leaned into him and answered "I'm half Lupid. A...freak. With the clan I learned to hunt and ate what they ate. Fish, meat - I didn't question what it was, I just ate it... Until I was mature enough to leave, After that I found I much preferred the vegetarian diet. I never really had a lust for killing like others in the clan."

Cassiopeia by now had come alongside Pelnak taking in all this information, but still crying her heart out, as she grieved for the stag and what he had lost.

"Cry not for me little one..." Ely snuffled, before he looked at Pelnak and nodded. "Yes, the Lupid's are gone - dead - wiped from the annals of history in this land... I fear, I may soon follow - I am..."

He shuddered and hung his head. "I fear I am the last of my proud, noble species..."

To be Continued...