The worgs, bigger and more fearsome versions of wolves with a crude, bestial fragment of intelligence, circled and paced around Vorgcretbhak, their crimson eyes focused upon the figures standing beneath the lightning-blacked trees. They murmured and hissed amongst themselves in their animalistic tongue, eagerly awaiting for the moon to reach its peek in the sky so that the council may begin. Only then would the alphas, truly gods among the mortal rank and file of packs, begin.
The great beacon of night, Selune, waxing nearly to the point of becoming full, was nearly in position and slowly the worgs fell silent. One of the alphas stepped into the center of Vorgcretbhak, marked by a slab of flat, glossy obisidan, and raised its shaggy head high in a long, haunting howl. The other alpha worgs joined their fellow, harmonizing with the first to become a powerful clarion call, and soon the worgs dotting the hillock followed suit, joining their voices as one. The call sounded far, spanning miles to the point where it wouldn't have been impossible for the entirety of the realms to hear their howls and quake. The moon then reached its zenith, and the worgs slowly fell silent. When all was quiet, the air felt so very empty devoid of their voice.
Sryscha, the first alpha to raise her voice to the lunar goddess, blessed Worgmother, regarded the entirety of the assembled worg packs, turning where she stood upon Vorgcretbhak's zenith so that she might look into the eyes of each and every worg beneath her as equals all. She looked to each of the seven others standing with her upon their sacred earth, and each lowered their heads in turn. All was ready. The council would begin. Sryscha appeared to be about to speak--when a single howl pierced the heavy silence.
Hackles raised and a growl rumbled up from deep within the Worgmother's chest, her teeth bared. A massive wolf, its fur a ghostly white and its appearance seemingly as sudden as any spectre's, approached the outermost ring of black, shaggy furred worgs. From the challenge in its cold, steely grey eyes, it was clear that this was the mongrel who'd dared speak out. Indignation and outrage roared throughout the worg ranks like wildfire, tearing their attention away from the alpha worgs to surge towards the intruder with clearly vicious intent. Despite the overwhelming numbers, the white wolf did not hestitate. It stared into the wall of shaggy black fur, crimson eyes and razor teeth without fear, and it was that very gaze that pierced their anger and their strength and instilled fear. Even beyond its unusual size, this wolf was not natural.
It's gaze seemed to stab into one's soul just as a fang punctures flesh. It's gaze was a gaping maw, horrid and dark, and the worgs' will was devoured by it. Odder still, the ivory beast carried a human weapon in its jaws--a scythe with a blade that burned with a disturbing green light. The weapon flared with fell, emerald flames, and the worgs backed away, their resolve shattered. When the wolf drew ever closer, the worgs broke away, their whines loud and their tails low between their legs. Sryscha was impressed, yet enraged all the same.
Soon the worgs had opened a path towards the center of Vorgcretbhak, and the white wolf slowly stalked up the hillside, intent upon the eight alpha worgs assembled beneath the withered boughts above.
The alphas bristled and beared their teeth but did not move to impede the wolf from entering the stand of lightning-blacked trees, at which point the ivory intruder stopped short of circle of alpha worgs and settled back onto its haunches, watching them. Tension built as a silence stretched on, the white wolf keeping still and silent and the alpha worgs eyeing it with varying degrees of intrigue and contempt. The lesser worgs watched, entranced, seemingly in a daze, waiting for something, anything, to happen.
The Worgmother complied.
In the worg tongue, her voice like distant, rumbling thunder, Sryscha commanded simply, "Leave." The white wolf did not. She repeated herself more forcefully, and the wolf remained inert.
"Leave here!" she roared, and when still it defied her, she lunged at the wolf and snapped her vicious jaws at it. The two alphas that had stood closest to the wolf scurried away from the massive worg's hurtling form, but the wolf remained even with Sryscha's teeth clashing together just short of its snowy white muzzle. It only moved to toss its head to shake the spittle off of its fur. The other alpha worgs looked ready to spring as well, but held back, perhaps fearful of the Worgmother's ferocity. The hundreds of worgs assembled below Vorgcretbhak remained silent and still as statues, as still as the infuriating white wolf, unworthy to step foot within the sacred monument.
Glaring straight into the wolf's steady, steel gaze, her teeth still bared and a thunderous growl boiling up from her chest, she wanted nothing more than to tear into the insolent mongrel's throat. But something held her back.
Zhuldscha, an alpha worg with a half-devil heritage that bared itself through silvery fur that occasionally crackled with sparks of light and eyes that shone faintly with a bleak, white radiance cleared her throat rather audiably. "Ah, Worgmother, if you'd please indulge me this once," the alpha worg began to say, pausing for Sryscha. The massive worg bored into the white wolf's eyes for a while longer before swivling her burning gaze towards the half-fiend worg.
Zhuldscha lowered her head in a submissive gesture, cautious of the larger female's volitile anger if not outright afraid. She hesitated, unsure of whether Sryscha would allow her to speak or not. When the Worgmother made indication of such, though the half-fiend was unsettled by the fire within her eyes, she continued. "I ask of you, Worgmother, to allow the white wolf to remain. During the eve of this night the stars bestowed a fragment of their wisdom upon me, had given me a sign." Zhuldscha had spoken with a temor in her voice at first, but as she delved more into the spiritual, her voice steadied and began to regain its habitual sly and confident tone. "I beg, leave the wolf be. He might very well be of assistance in the crisis that, even now, looms over us. Fo-"
One of the other alpha worgs, this one a large, grizzly male whose grey fur grew in unruly clumps around a ragged network of scars and old wounds that covered nearly the entirety of his body--Vrosrot was his name--shouted in his haste to interject. "What crisis?" he spat, his snarling made hideous by the many scars criss-crossing across his muzzle, "If there is trouble, let us just kill it! We waste our time with this gathering, whereas we should be averting this 'crisis' as you so call it. I've heard nothing that would call for such worry, yet I know with doubt that we don't need a mongrel to run with the pack!"
Vrosrot's callous outburst ellicted little more than a flick of the wolf's ears--the white wolf had still yet to do anything more than watch--but from Zhuldscha and the Worgmother both, the grizzly male had drawn fire-filled glares upon his battle-scarred hide. The alpha worg openly flinched under the intense scrutiny, instantly regetting his outburst, then quickly scanned the other alphas for any sign of support. He found none, instead discovering impartial stares that poorly hid rising impatience. He was dumbfounded to say the least, appauled that any worg worth his pride would dare allow anything not with the pack to set upon Vorgcretbhak, let alone add it to their ranks as the devil-spawn so clearly intended. Though an angry growl rumbled deep within his chest, Vrosrot stepped down, dipping his head and his tail low, chastened. The male alpha worg swore he saw a hint of mockery in the wolf's cold grey eyes.
[Still working on it.]
