Annalisa Story/Introduction

PROLOGUE: A First Time for Everything

The breeze was gentle and just right to make the golden sunlight feel warm rather than hot, a rare treat in a humid Arkansas summer. The sky was a deep blue with only a few early summer clouds wispily floating high above. The scent of wild flowers sweetly mixed with pine and spruce, and there was birdsong on the wing that chirruped in response to the whirring of grasshoppers. It was a beautiful day the day Annalisa's twin sister had died, and she could not help but feel like the world... that Gaia did not care.

"It was a glorious battle," the young Ahroun said. He spoke in that way so many Garou often did which was supposed to somehow comfort their human kin for the loss of a loved one that had already grown distant from a shadow war they were only barely allowed to understand. And yet the kin were expected to participate in that same shadowy conflict at the Garou Nation's whims.

Annalisa numbly put down the longbow she had been practicing with and set aside her quiver of arrows. Her last arrow still vibrated in the woven hay target fifty yards away. "Anastasia could fight like no Ragabash I have ever known! It is hard to believe she was a Child of Gaia... " enthused the Get of Fenris Ahroun, Henry, who was the pack's newest member.

Annalisa, her long blond hair flowing around her, simply stood stoically and placed her hands on her blind mother's shoulders. Her mother felt too-thin, like she would break. Jessica, the pack alpha and Anastasia's best friend finally elbowed Henry out of the way and stared him into submission before taking over. "She died to save us," said Jessica apologetically, "Gaia preserve, but you look so exactly like her Anna, that same set of jaw, that same determination and will in the face of... "

"But I'm NOT her!" spouted Annalisa, "I didn't breed true! I'm nearly nineteen so you can forget it happening, I'm not Garou! I 'm just one of the ones who waits to hear that my twin, my other half, died fighting when the Warrior," she jerked her chin to Henry, "Lives to see another day! Glorious battle... don't make me laugh! My sister was your SCOUT, yet the FULL MOON walks away unscathed?! Did he run away with his tail between his legs while she took out something he was too wet behind the ears to know he shouldn't mess with?"

"Annalisa!" warned Annalisa's mother fearfully.

So many things happened in the next moment that Annalisa nearly lost track of them all. Jessica opened her mouth in surprise but turned to Henry immediately upon hearing a snarling growl from him. Annalisa's words had been barbed just the right way, not that it was hard to do with Henry. She had known it, and she had not cared. She WANTED to join her sister, and the better to dishonor Henry with her death by having his hot head kill a kin like her while she was at it.

In the mean time, she made sure that her mother got clear by pushing her roughly into Jessica's arms. Annalisa was so overwhelmed by grief and absolute rage that she tried to taunt Henry again, but it frustratingly came out as an inarticulate string of guttural animal-like sounds. She had never felt such a fury. Her whole body felt like it was expanding, her bones felt as though they were breaking under the strain, her muscles bulging and elongating as her world became engulfed in crimson.