Well I haven't posted anything in while since work has been hectic the last week or so, but here's my contribution for this Christmas.

Have a good one!



Chapter 8: Teachings

“Whisper… Whisper?!” Raven howled in the corridors as he frantically ran through the elaborate stone building with a dazed mind. A group of four wolves chased after him, trying to calm him down.
“Raven stop!” Hazel cried out from the back of the small crowd. He didn’t hear her and continued growling at nothing as he desperately searched his unfamiliar surroundings.
“He isn’t in a conscious state Successor, his body is acting by pure feral instinct. You should keep your distance and let us handle him” said one of the wolves.
Hazel signed and dropped her ears. “No” she suddenly proclaimed and her ears shot up “I will get him to settle down”
“But…”
“Stand back” she interrupted.
Hazel ran ahead to Raven that was trying to dig through the stone floor at a dead-end corner, she walked closer to him and his muzzle swung around exposing his sad eyes to Hazel, she looked deep into his eyes and could see he wasn’t conscious.
“Raven, calm down” Hazel Whispered.
He dropped his head and his fur rose in its hackles, showing an aggressive stance, but at the same time he was in total submission.
“The light, the voice told me…” he mumbled and then covered his eyes with his paws. Hazel was shocked at the strange state he was in and felt a deep sadness for him. She softly licked Raven’s ear and then pushed his paws of his face with her own, exposing his emotionless pale blue eyes staring into oblivion. His lips were quivering as he mumbled under his breath. Hazel knelt down “Raven please wake up” she whispered in his ear. He gave a faint bark under his breath that sounded like a cough and Hazel receded away. Suddenly he jumped from his haunches and tried to run away but Hazel quickly grabbed him around his neck with her tail and pinned him high against the wall. She looked away as he squirmed and struggled to get free as he kicked around; Hazel dropped her ears and looked away. She held him up against the wall until his movements started to slowly ceased and he passed out due to the lack of oxygen to his brain.
‘I’m so sorry Raven” she said sadly as she gently laid him down on the ground.
“Take him to Whisper’s recovery room, now” She ordered the guards.



Raven woke with a loud yawn and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he noticed something weird on his paws and opened his eyes fully, he saw red stained bandages on them. He gave a confused yip and got on all fours to stretch out his tired body until he finally noticed all of his paws were covered in bandages. He kept kicking his back leg out trying to get the bandage off but it was no good. Suddenly he felt an impact on his hind paw and a sharp pain shot through his spine, he quivered and at that moment his whole battle with Nayate came back to him.
“The bandages…” he whispered softly as he stared down at his front paws deep in thought.
“Raven, you’re finally awake” said a voice behind him. He looked around and saw Hazel awkwardly sitting behind him with one of her eyes closed.
“Are you okay Hazel?”
“You just… kicked me in the face. But other than that I’m just peachy” She said with a sarcastic tone and sat in a proper position. Raven gave an awkward smile exposing his white canines as it became clear to him that the impact to his paw was her face, he didn’t put much thought into it when it happened.
“What happened, Hazel? Last thing I remember I was standing above Nayate, on the verge of winning the duel, did I win?” Raven asked suddenly serious.
He doesn’t remember what happened the other night. He really was unconscious. Hazel thought.
“You reached your limit from overexerting your element, your body recoiled and you lost consciousness. You’ve been asleep for two days” she said and there was a short silence between them as Raven tried to put it together in his mind.
“I don’t think that has ever happened before, usually my water abilities just cease to work when I reach my limit, but losing consciousness…”
“Did you notice anything different from your battle?”
“Well, I used my element a lot more than I could before, and at one stage in the battle I was surrounded by a watery oblivion and all my wounds healed”
“How can you say that so freely Raven” Hazel snapped “These things don’t happen in real life Raven, how can you accept whatever happened so calmly?” she continued.
“I guess I’m used to these weird things that happen to me, but I don’t accept it calmly, it puzzles me as well. I just don’t go around shouting it out to the world” Raven said and Hazel looked away in shame, she could hear the faint confusion and pain in his words.
“Where’s Whisper?” he suddenly asked. The question felt like an unsuspecting blow to Hazel’s gut and she looked up with a broad smile on her face.
“She’s behind that screen. She’s still pretty beat up and has a small fever, she just sleeps most of the time”
“So she woke up before? I guess she didn’t reach her limit like I did” Raven said and thought back at her battle and how intensely she used her lightning abilities, he felt a pang of jealousy at the amazing amount of energy she could use and not reach her limit.
“Yes she woke up quite a few times, but she wasn’t fully conscious. She just kept on muttering things and tried to get up”
“What did she say?” Raven asked as he was heading towards the screen.
“I couldn’t make out what she was saying” Hazel lied, she didn’t want to tell Raven that she kept calling out to him.
Raven saw Whisper lying on her side on a bed of pillows; he silently made his way to her side, careful not to wake her. She had a peaceful expression on her face with her whiskers twitching as she was dreaming and her pink tongue laid spread on the pillow, or as peaceful as she could look at the strange way she always slept, Raven thought to himself and smiled. He stared her down and saw her whole belly was covered in bandages with patched of blood stains on them.
“It’s going to be a hard couple of months before she would be fully healed again” Hazel said standing by the screen door.
“This is all my fault, I’m so sorry Whisper” Raven said sadly.
“No Raven, she wanted to fight on her own accord”
“She wanted to fight so she could become stronger and stay with me. I won’t let this happen again” he growled. Hazel hesitated but couldn’t bear to see Raven carry the guilt.
‘So are you going to let the battle that got her in this position just go to vain? Not your decision to make, Raven. It’s only hers”
Raven looked up at Hazel and she saw his sad glossy eyes, she knew he would carry the burden of Whisper’s pain no matter what she says. Hazel walked to Raven and rubbed her head on his chest and neck to cheer him up.
“Stop beating yourself up Raven. I don’t know if I should say this just yet, but my grandfather might have a way to speed up her recovery. He found an old book about lightning wolves in his private library, there might be something that could help us”
“Really? That’s good news!” He barked excitedly.
“Let’s hope. Oh by the way my grandfather is on his way up”
“Why?”
“He is done with his analysis, and he wants to get you to training as soon as possible”
“Oh that’s fun” Raven said sarcastically.
Whisper started moaning in her sleep and shifted her position; she gave a painful yip as she was trying to turn around and woke up as she was lying on her back with her paws in the air.
“Raven you’re awake!” Whisper barked happily when she saw him.
“Hey there Whi…”
“Gosh this is uncomfortable” she said abruptly “Help me get up, you’re making me feel awkward”
“I’m not doing anything” Raven snapped.
“Don’t pretend you’re not staring” she said with a mischievous smile.
“Glad to have you back” Raven said dryly. Whisper smiled softly at him, she knew he was really worried about her.
“That’s nice, but seriously, help me get up”
“Fine” Raven said as he tried to figure out how without hurting her, Hazel noticed their confusion and stepped forward.
“I could always just lift her up by the neck with my tail?” She said and they looked at her dryly.
“Please don’t” Raven said.
“I’m just saying” Hazel rolled her eyes.
“I think I have an idea. Whisper keep your spine straight; try not to apply pressure to your wounded belly. I will try to lift you up by your head downwards until you eventually tip forward” Raven said, still working on the plan in his head while talking.
“That sound… fun” Whisper said, not trusting Raven’s plan fully. He walked to the back of her head and stood over her; she looked up at him and smiled gleefully, then noticed his bloodied bandaged paws on each side of her head.
“Okay, spine straight now” he said and Whisper did as such.
He stuck his muzzle under Whisper’s neck and dug most of his face under her, then he started to lift her up and worked his way downwards, Whisper didn’t know if she should laugh or cry out in pain, she managed to do both.
“Oh gosh you’re heavy” Raven said as he was beginning to lose his footing and strength.
Hazel, who was still standing by the screen with her muzzle almost fully hung open, couldn’t bear watching them anymore. She had a feeling Raven would fall flat with Whisper on top him and she couldn’t bear seeing that. Hazel suddenly walked to them and grabbed Whisper around her throat with her tail and gave the final pull that made Whisper land on her paws and collapsed with a painful moan.
“Did I do it?” Raven asked surprised but saw Whisper laying on her haunches cringing in agony.
“I’m so sorry Whisper! I didn’t mean to…” He yipped.
“It’s okay Raven, it was unavoidable” She panted as she looked up darkly at hazel through her fringe.

“Am I disturbing something?”
Everybody’s focus shot to the Elder standing by the screen door.
“Not at all, grandfather” Hazel said “We had word that you were on your way”
“Ah good. So you know what’s going to happen now, right Raven?”
“Oh uhm… You are going to give me some sort of analyses to determine whether I’m strong or weak?”
“Well yes, and I want to start your training right away”
“We aren’t in any state to start training right away, just look at Whisper. And I haven’t fully recovered yet myself”
“You shouldn’t just assume training means physical training, young wolf. I will train you physically and mentally, to become strong you need to have a decent balance between them. Only then, you will have the power to unlock your true potential”
“I understand, I am sorry” Raven said and bowed down his head in respect, feeling like a naive pup.
“Its fine Raven, I can see you have never had training before. And I have to say you are really strong even though you fight with your own raw ego and instincts”
Raven didn’t know if that was a compliment or an insult, so he just nodded.
“Can we please sit outside of this screen room; it’s too stuffy in here” the Elder said and walked out of view. Hazel followed behind him and Raven helped Whisper up and led her out of the room with her leaning against him.
“He said you have a large ego” Whisper laughed and Raven rolled his eyes. Raven dropped Whisper onto another pile of pillows and sat next to her, in front of them Hazel and the Elder sat. The Elder saw Whisper struggled to sit up straight.
“I found an interesting book about lightning wolves in my study, from hundreds of years ago when they roamed the land in great numbers. It taught me many things about your kind, and I will teach you your heritage, because I fear you don’t know much about it since you are the only lightning wolf in existence”
Whisper looked away sadly as it hit her again that she was alone.
“I found a way to speed up your recovery” the Elder continued. Whispers ears cocked forward on alert and her eyes lightened up.
“How?” Raven barked before Whisper could reply.
“Through a kind of electric therapy. I already set up a group to make preparations for a session after we’re done here”
“Hear that Whisper? You’re going to be just fine” Raven said and licked her muzzle, he was too glad that he couldn’t restrain himself and he soon felt very awkward. Whisper didn’t know whether to be glad or shocked at the great news or Raven’s sudden affection. She just smiled softly and kept quiet.
“So what is your final analysis about me?” Raven quickly said trying to change the subject and to get Hazel’s dark stare off him.
“Where to begin…” the Elder said looking at a large fern in the corner of the room in thought. Hazel got up and sat next to Raven; he looked at her and smiled nervously.
“I bet you did great, Raven” She said and rubbed her head against his scruff. Whisper saw Hazel’s intentions and snorted.
Why does this keep happening to me? Maybe I should just walk away… Just start talking already. Raven thought to himself while staring intently at the Elder.
“Well…”
“Yes??” Raven asked abruptly, interrupting the Elder.

“Like I said Raven, you are strong even though you never had a teacher. But your abilities are dull and weak; you prefer fighting with force attacks. You hold yourself back because you are afraid of hurting your opponent, or at least that’s what I think”
Raven knew that was the truth, he was afraid of taking someone else’s life.
“You’re elemental limit is okay, you can use your abilities an average amount before you reach your limit. But then something puzzles me, you reached your limit long before your battle with Nayate ended, at the stage where you created a wave but Nayate lashed at you with his vines. You should have been done for, but you disappeared into the water, healed and had more stamina for elemental manipulation, I have never seen anything like that. What happened?”
“I don’t know” Raven whispered “This has been happening since I was young, but never this strong before. What happened in the battle confuses me just as much as it does you”
“This is very interesting; I will look more into it. Did something occur before this started happening to you?”
Raven looked away, avoiding eye contact “After I saw my mother die in front of my eyes, it started happening every time I’m in a life threatening situation”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to open an old wound” The elder said. Whisper looked at Raven in great dismay; she felt a deep sadness for him.
“Due to this ‘talent’ you have, it’s hard for me to pinpoint your level, since it is really unstable”
“My level?”
“The older generations of elemental wolves and masters used to label their students with a level, but this system died out long ago. Only a few know of this system in this age. Every wolf is labeled in levels between zero and four”
“Oh ok. If my level is unstable, then what is Whispers’?”
“She is a level one” he answered.
“Level one? I’m that weak?” Whisper asked dryly.
“The levels don’t determine your strengths as a whole, it determines your elemental ability and how you master it. But Whisper, you have one of the strongest elements in existence. Even though you are still immature in your element, you overflow with raw power and you are naturally strong. I read in the book that lightning elementalists’ body overflows with energy and needs to be relieved on a regular basis or it will kill the user. The raw power within your body lets you make lethal attacks, and you have an amazingly high limit if you learn to conserve your lighting and ration it into attacks. But having this much power will obviously have negative consequence on your body as well, for example, you always have a lot of energy, you don’t sleep as much as others, you sometimes don’t have enough willpower or strength to hold back your lightning and end up hurting others or yourself, and of course the part where you can die. I’m sure there are many things you know that I don’t and I will be honored if you could teach me some time”
“Awesome! I’m strong” She laughed “And sure, I will tell you whatever you want to know” she continued.
How do you tell who is what level?” Raven asked curiously, his tail wagged slightly behind him as he was amused with the new things he was learning.
“A level zero is a wolf that doesn’t use his elemental abilities; they live without using it because they believe it will only bring trouble into their lives. All wolves are born with the potential to manipulate a single element but it’s their choice to do so or not. Most wolves choose not to so that they can live a normal life”
“I don’t know what I would have done without my abilities” Raven said.
“I wish I was one of those lucky ones who had a choice” Whisper said.
“Whisper?” Raven asked looking at her.
“A lightning wolf doesn’t have a choice, if they don’t relieve their lightning from the day they are born, they will die. When a lightning pup is born, there’s an 80% chance that the mother will die while giving birth due to the pups electricity. This is one of the reasons why the lightning wolf race died out. Also, the pups die at a young age if they cannot control their lightning within themselves, which was really common” The Elder explained.
“My kind lived with a harsh fate. Deep inside I am glad I am the last lightning wolf, I can’t bear to know how they suffer if they were still here today. This legacy will end with me”
“Whisper I’m sorry to hear this, but don’t say things like that” Raven whispered as he pressed against her giving her comfort as her eyes tear up.
“Should I give you two time?” The Elder asked thoughtfully.
“No, please continue” Raven said.
“Alright… A level one wolf is a wolf that can only manipulate his element on his own body. For example, Raven, when you were a level one you could only heal yourself or make a water barrier around your body, you couldn’t manipulate water off your body like you can now”
“Good times” Raven hissed sarcastically.
“Whisper is a level one; she can only manipulate her lightning on her body. That’s why she attacks forcefully and not at a distance. A level two elementalist can control his elements outside of his body in a certain radius, depends on his strength. If you didn’t have that unique ‘gift’ you would have been labeled as a level two water elementalist. And also, most elemental wolves are level two, only a few has the potential to go further. Whisper, if we manage to get you to level two, you can strike enemies with your lightning”
“Do you think we have the potential?” Raven asked.
“If I didn’t think you have the potential, I wouldn’t even have bothered training you. But even if I just manage to remove your fear of hurting others, you would be a strong level two water wolf, that’s what I am aiming for” The Elder said and Raven nodded.
“A level three elementalist is a wolf that can manipulate his element in a more greater way than level two, but it’s different with every element. It unlocks more potential and abilities. A nature wolf can make plants grow at a greater speed on almost any surface, and can do it even further away from himself. According to the book a lightning wolf can make lightning strike out of the sky. And a water wolf can make water appear from thin air by gathering the moisture in the air, I saw your grandfather do that with my very own eyes, Raven”
“Wow that’s so cool” Whisper said in awe.
“My grandfather was a level three?” Raven asked surprised.
“No, Raven. You’re grandfather achieved the greatest form of a waterwolf, he was a level four” The Elder said proudly.
“I always knew he was a great wolf” Raven said admirably.
“He truly was. A level four is a wolf that can fully transform into his element, unlocking any limitation he had before. A level four wolf can transform into his element at will, in this state his powers are amplified by hundredfold and he has an ultimate defense. But there are only a few elementalists that has ever unlocked this power, I’ve only ever known of three that has achieved this power”
“My grandfather, and who else?” Raven asked excitedly.
“Yours truly… Me” The Elder said proudly. Raven and the others stared at him in shock.
“You have never told me this” Hazel barked out.
“Not many know this, Hazel. I wish to keep it a secret. For I am the village’s trump card”
“That’s amazing! Will you ever show us your ultimate form?” Whisper asked excitedly.
“One day, yes. But for now, neither of you are ready” He replied.
Raven was burning inside with excitement, he wanted to gain this form more than anything, then his destiny will be easy to complete.
“Somehow you already have this form Raven”
“Say what now?” Raven asked confused.
“You disappeared into a pool of water; you turned into your element. But you couldn’t hold a solid form and I don’t think you planned for it to happen. I don’t quite understand this at all, maybe it’s a whole different thing. But we will try to harness that strange power, I’m burning with curiosity” The Elder said excitedly.
“You make me sound unstable” Raven said dryly.
“You are going to be one of my toughest students yet, and you are very unstable yes. You’re hiding behind walls you put in front of yourself, hidden from your true potential. You think you are weak and you hold yourself back. And then you still have the potential to become stronger when we remove those walls, and of course you have this mysterious power. You are just a bundle of possibilities” The Elder said delighted at the challenge.
“It’s hard to figure out when you’re complimenting or insulting me” Raven said, still processing what the Elder had said.
“I guess I have said what I needed to say, you will learn more throughout your training. Whisper if you would please follow me, I will get you to the therapy I talked about earlier”
“I will come with” Raven said.
“No. you need to go heal yourself” The elder said and indicated to Raven’s paws.
“Oh right, I forgot about this. But can’t I just walk with?”
“Are you two that inseparable?” Hazel mocked.
“What? No... I mean I just want to see her off safely” Raven said embarrassed.
“I will take good care of her Raven, don’t worry. Hazel will stay with you. Whisper, come on” The Elder said and headed for the door. Whisper got up and stiffly followed behind him; she looked around and smiled at Raven then disappeared into the corridor”
“And now it’s just you and me again” Hazel said softly.
“I guess”
“Let’s get you to the bath house for a healing session; you probably have infection on your paws by now”
“Can’t I just get a pail of water? I’m not in the mood for a bath now”
“No. Come on” She said and pushed him forward.
“It’s sad how little free will I have” Raven said dryly.