"What do you need to talk about Aurora?" I asked my wolf as Grace, Detsy and I made our way into the pack house and waited for the elevator to take us to the top floor.
"In our family it is traditional for the parents to impart certain knowledge to the child after they have their first shift. As your parents are no longer on earth I have to have that conversation with you instead." Aurora replied.
"Hang on a second." I said to my wolf. "If you are me and I am you, then how do you have all this knowledge that I don't? How can you possibly know about our family and its traditions when I don't even know who our family are?"
"In our family the parents pass their knowledge along with the knowledge of the ones that came before them, to their children through the passing of their genetic code. There is a name for this process call Iroferntint, but for simplicity's sake let's call them blood memories. Humans are incompatible with blood memories, hence why you didn't even know they were there. I on the other hand, am not. These memories of our ancestor's that I can access are the source of all the information that I know but you don't." Aurora finished explain as I felt dizzy from trying to understand all that.
Luckily and without me realizing it, we'd made it back to our room so I could sit down on our nice comfy bed for support.
"Are you sure you want the both of us to be listening to this?" Grace asked Aurora through the mind link as I realized that it was dead quiet because both of my mates were also part of the conversation.
"I'm sure." Aurora replied. "It is never ever a good idea to leave your mate's in the dark about important matters. No matter who you are. The three of us may as well get comfy, this might be a long conversation."
So Grace, Detsy and I followed Aurora's suggestion and quickly slipped into our pajamas before sitting against the headboard in bed. We were sitting so close that the three of us were practically on top of each other, but we honestly preferred it that way.
"So tell me more about these blood memories." Detsy said to Aurora after we were comfortable.
"We will get to them I promise, but to make you truly understand what I'm about to tell you we need to start at the beginning. Which in this case is a few years before the first werewolf was ever created." Aurora started her story before I interrupted her.
"Wait, you said before that you knew who my family is. Before we go into this any further, I would like to know who I am." I asked of Aurora.
"This won't come as a shock to Grace and Detsy as I have a suspicion that they already know, as well as Tom and Cynthia." Aurora said
"We have a guess." Grace confirmed. "But considering what that guess is we were hoping for solid proof before we said anything to anyone. Could you imagine what it would do to Eva if we told her something like that, then six months later it turned out to be false.
I looked at both of my mates in astonishment before addressing them with anger lacing my voice. "You two know who my parents are and you haven't told me." My voice rose through that one sentence to the point where I was basically yelling at the end.
"No, we don't know who they are for certain." Detsy replied in a calm and soothing voice. "What we're doing is trying to find out for sure instead of opening our big mouths and spreading what could be no more than rumors, that would continue to follow you for years to come. Please believe me when I say that had we known for sure, then we would never keep anything from you."
I was still angry, but Detsy did have a point. I'd only been here for two and a half months and I'd already seen rumors that had seriously hurt their victim.
"Ok, I forgive you both then." I said after I'd managed to calm down. "So who are my parents?"
Aurora was the one who answered. "We are the daughter of King Adrian, King Arthur and Queen Elizabeth and yes, we can use the royal abilities."
Neither Grace or Detsy seemed surprised at this news. In fact Detsy wore a half grin that screamed 'I knew it.'
"So are we the unborn child that was never found after my parents were murdered?" I asked Aurora
"Yes we are." Came the simple reply before Aurora anticipated my next question. "I can only tell you so much of how we managed to survive as my blood memories of our parents end at the moment of our conception. But what I can tell you is that long before our mother ever became pregnant Adrian, Arthur and Elizabeth had devised a plan to hide the queen in the later stages of her pregnancy to keep her safe. So basically the woman who was killed was a body double. Although I have no idea how we ended up alone at the Shallow Rivers territory border or where our mother is, if she's even still alive."
That was a lot to take in as the three of us processed this information. Queen Elizabeth may still be alive and wandering around.
"That was just the tip of the iceberg my dears." Aurora chuckled at us. "I know it's a lot to take in but please try to keep an open mind as we still have a lot of ground to cover."
We sat there thinking for another minute or two before all three of us seemed ready to continue.
"Let's keep going." I told Aurora. As I am the daughter of the previous Kings and Queen, I can use the unique Royal abilities. However, as there is information that must be passed down once a child has shifted then it must be important.
"As I was saying before." Aurora continued. "To understand this we need to go back to before the creation of the first werewolves. While the common creation story that Grace and Detsy grew up with and Alpha Leyton told you when you first met him is mostly accurate. There is some very important information that has been deliberately left out."
Grace raised an eyebrow as she learnt that something had deliberately been left out of the history books, but didn't say anything as Aurora continued.
"Now what do the three of you know about dimensional planes? They can also be called planes of existence." Aurora asked the question that seemed to take Detsy and Grace from left field and I had no clue as to what she was talking about.
"Not a whole lot." Detsy admitted through the link. "At this point it's just a theory that scientists are testing as far as I know."
"Ok, well first, dimensional planes are places that exist in the same place, but are separated by an invisible wall so they don't even know that there are other existence's living right alongside them." Aurora sighed as I still had no idea what she was on about.
"Imagine that you were in front of a TV that was playing two show at the exact same time. Each show would progress as it normally would despite the fact that there is another show playing at the same time because the characters have no idea that another show is being played as well. Does that make more sense?" Aurora explained.
I looked around the room as I'm pretty sure I understood what Aurora was saying.
"You mean that there are other creatures and buildings where we are right now but we can't touch or interact with them because they're on another plane of existence?" I asked to clarify
"That is exactly what I mean Eva." Aurora said proudly before continuing. "Different planes of existence have different sized walls that separate them. They kind of act like building blocks for each other to ensure that the dimensions remain separated. There would be no telling what would happen if these walls suddenly vanished or collapsed."
"The downside of the walls forming like this is occasionally one of the walls between dimensions is thin. In the case of our dimension there is one wall that is so thin that cracks very occasionally appear and anything alive can cross through to our plane of existence. The opposite is also true as creatures and humans have made it to the other dimension before." Aurora stopped to let that sink in.
"Now you need to understand that this dimension is nothing like our own. Humans don't exist and on the top of the food chain are the highly intelligent dragons." Aurora said before she was suddenly cut off.
"Wait, you mean to tell me that the dragons of our legends are living, breathing animals from another dimension?" Detsy asked with a look of horror on her face.
"That's right. Where do you think all those stories of dragons and other mythological creatures came from Detsy?" Aurora confirmed.
"Now we begin this story with a girl from that dimension. Her name was Cybella, she was part wolf and part dragon. Although she favored her wolf genetics and therefore had the appearance of a wolf." Aurora continued.
"Cybella accidentally went through a dimension crack in the wall separating the two dimensions and proceeded to get lost in the unfamiliar environment. By the time she found her way back to the crack two days later it had closed and she was now stuck in our dimension. So Cybella vowed to find a way back home and set off to learn how to survive in this strange new world."
"Several years passed and Cybella hadn't managed to find a single sign of the wall that separates her from her home. So while she still upheld her vow to find a way home, she also settled down in a nice cave that had fresh water and plenty of game to hunt. She also discovered that even though she couldn't get home, she could still communicate with her pact via their mind link. So she was never lonely."
"That's a really sad tale." Grace commented when Aurora paused for a second. I couldn't help but agree with her as Aurora continued her tale.
"No one knows how long it was until she had a visitor because Cybella herself had no way to track the time, but after a while a lone wolf of our dimension passed too close to Cybella's den and she went out to confront the intruder, only to find that is was roughly half her size and was nowhere near as strong as her. The wolf cowered at the sight of Cybella so she deemed that he wasn't a threat and let him go."
"Unfortunately for Cybella, the same wolf came back to her den each day. He bought gifts of meat to show he wasn't a threat and meant no harm. He kept trying to talk with Cybella, while she had no trouble understanding and responding to him she found it weird that he couldn't use the mind link to communicate."
"This went on for months as trust was slowly built between the two. One day the wolf asked Cybella about her pack and why he can never smell or catch glimpses of them. His heart broke as Cybella explained to him why she would never be able to see them again but could still talk to them."
"Right there and then the wolf offered to lead Cybella to his pack so she may be around other wolves again and eventually be accepted into the pack, so she wouldn't be alone anymore. It took several days and much convincing, but eventually Cybella followed the wolf for the hour long walk to his pack."
"She was surprised upon arriving to find that humans and wolves were living together and helping each other in an almost symbiotic manner. Cybella had encountered many humans in the past as she attempted to find weak points in the wall between her and her home. She had discovered that they were greedy and self serving. They destroyed nature wherever they went and wanted to control everything."
"In the end Cybella decided that humans were far too similar to parasites to risk approaching them. Yet here they were, living peacefully with a pack of wolves and working with nature instead of against it. So she thought, maybe not all humans are so bad after all. Although there seems to be very few of the good ones."
"Despite her size, Cybella was accepted into the pack quickly and without incident. Although she didn't reveal that she was half dragon or that she didn't come from earth to anyone besides the original wolf, who happily kept her secret. After all that time of being alone she finally had a family again. She even grew to consider the humans that lived with the pack family as well. She lived a happy life with this pack for a full five years before disaster struck."
"An army came through the encampment where both the humans and the wolves lived. The cries of the approaching soldiers said that they were claiming land for their king, but in reality most of the members of the army had joined to simply be able to freely kill. So when they saw the encampment they swarmed it and proceeded to kill every living thing in it. Even though Cybella was twice as large as a normal wolf and could fight, she couldn't defeat the sheer number of spears and arrows that eventually bought her down."
"If Cybella were a creature of earth she would have most certainly perished that day. However she was not of this plane and had healing abilities that had never been observed on earth before. By the time she woke up the army had moved on and simply left the dead to rot where they fell. Needless to say there are no words to describe her heartache and fury. It was so intense that she decided to break the one rule that all dragons had imposed upon themselves."
"You see, dragons have the unique ability to manipulate another person's soul. They can bond two souls permanently or rip the soul out of a living creature. Apparently it is the worst possible pain that can be imagined and you don't even died afterwards. You just exist as a husk of yourself as your soul perishes from the lack of a container."
"So Cybella contacted her pack from her dimension and told them her plan, hoping that they would agree to it. Which they did after a little bit of persuasion. With their permission Cybella bonded a soul of her slain family here with a member of her pack back home. This meant that the two could communicate through mind link and gained the traits of the other who's soul they were bonded to."
"The people on earth gained the speed, strength, healing ability and senses of the wolves they were bonded with as well as the ability to shift into the form of their bond partner. The wolves back in Cybella's original dimension gained the intelligence, wit and inverted thumbs of their bond partner as well as the ability to shift into their form, which was human."
"By the time Cybella was done bonding her pack on earth to her pack back home she realized that all the wolves had become human in the process. With the healing abilities of their bond partners the entire encampment managed to rise from the dead as half wolf and half human. This was how the first werewolves came to be." Aurora's story came to a close and I honestly wasn't sure what to make of it.
Grace looked like her world had just been ripped out from under her, turned upside down and shaken for good measure. Although Detsy just looked thoughtful before she started asking questions.
"I have several questions Aurora. First, did Cybella and her pack go after the army and defeat it like they did in the story I grew up with? If werewolves were created by bonding our souls to wolves from another dimension by a dragon then how are we born as werewolves? There hasn't been a dragon since Cybella unless she's somehow lived for five centuries." Detsy asked all at once.
"Well to answer your questions in order, yes they did managed to track down and eliminate most of the members of the army that attacked them, but it took over a year for everyone to learn how to control themselves and live with the changes that happened. After that they spent years tracking down the members of the army and extracting their revenge. As for how you are werewolves. When someone is bonded it changes many things inside of them, one of those things is passing on the ability to bond to their offspring. However in order for that to work there needs to be a suitable soul that also has the ability to bond relatively close to the parents bond mate. So when you are born you automatically start looking for a suitable soul to bond with. Once two souls have found each other they grab onto the other and hold that weak connection until both the souls feel that both individuals are ready. They then proceed to make the connection permanent and unbreakable. This is what triggers a werewolf's first shift and why the timing can be unpredictable." Aurora explained before pausing to order her thoughts.
"Even though many worshiped Cybella as a god and she is were the idea of the moon goddess came from, she was still moral and passed away 50 years after creating the werewolves. She did however had pups, who would later become known as the royals." Aurora stopped to let that information sink in.
"You mean that we are partly from another world?" I finally asked after trying to think of a different way to phrase the question.
"This is correct." Aurora confirmed. "What most call the Royal abilities are actually given to the royals by the dragons blood that flows through them. I should say before you freak out that yes we are part dragon, but it's very diluted now."
"What makes us so different from all the other werewolves is that everyone else has two souls bonded together, while we are a single soul that has origins in two different dimensions. Therefore we have two different consciousness present as one can't have the ability to think in a way that is necessary, but unique to each plane of existence. Or to put it in simpler terms, beings from different dimensions simply aren't compatible for breeding purposes. However the Royal family has managed to overcome this by splitting their consciousness into two. Which actually isn't much of a problem because it makes the Royals look like every other werewolf. The blood memories are also something given to us by our dragon DNA as well as the dual mates." Aurora had to stop there as Grace passed out from information overload and Detsy and I immediately started to fuss over her unconscious form.
While we may be busy with an unconscious Grace at the moment, come morning there will be a lot of discussion and questions that completely threw our concept of everything about werewolves out the window.