Worgazhul

[*Azulfae]

[Some old Biography and Dream posts from Elements of Aesyr. A lot of the dream stuff will never make sense to many without knowing what was going on at the time.]

[There may be content of an adult nature in these stories. Read with Caution. Anything relating to guulra's is not for children.]



Eyes of the Worg.

Gelda sat with her back pressed against the cave wall, her head turned listening as best she could to the males talking in the cavern area behind her.

Gorgazhul, her mate, denied her as his mate to the shaman and the chief as they probed him for his loyalties.

She knew he had other mates and she had only produced one child for him so far. Things were not good for her right now.

Her father and mother were Worglash and they had left days before, after the incident that had had their tribe exiled.

Gelda was smart for an orc, though she kept it to herself. Her mane of long red hair had many believe she was a witch and would produce shaman children. Her only son was smart too but not in the way that shamans were. He was practical and methodical, like his mother.

She slid up onto her feet and slipped silently away.

She found her boy sleeping with his half brothers and sisters on the hide of a bear. As she picked him sleeping from the crib, the eldest mother woke and looked at her sternly, intuitively knowing what Gelda was about to do.

She watched eyes wide making not a sound as the red haired orc female carried her sleeping son away and towards the passage to the surface.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The two had been running half a day and the sun was getting low.

Gelda finally reached the small Worglash camp she had last seen her fatherÂ’s people in.

The snow had fallen many times over what was left. Fur trees around the north and western edges of the camp made this an oasis of shelter from the elements.

She put her boy to rest in a half collapsed tent, batting out the side so the snow would not weigh it down so much.

He sat inside shuddering and weak from so much running across empty wilderness and deep snow. His feet were numb with cold and his fingers too. The pain in his limbs was unbearable.

Gelda stomped hurriedly around the camp, looking for left over food or supplies. She dug through snow where she saw the edge of some barrels, only to find the frozen corpses of some Worglash children.

Gelda rummaged more and found more bodies under the snow, everywhere she dug, bodies.

The people here had not left, there had been a fight, or maybe a massacre.

She shook the snow from a large rack, revealing an arsenal of weapons, mostly axes and some basic armour, of the standard expected from orcs.

A howl came from the mountain to the north and the sound of Orcs could be heard on the wind. She stared at the trees for a moment crouching and watching, then, she saw them, Kaashig rangers, one huge orc carried two great falchions across his back, he lead the charge.

Another stopped and fired an arrow from a massive bow. Gelda watched the arrow come in from a great distance. She stepped aside and watched it pound through a small tree trunk, splitting it down the middle.

She grabbed the first blade she could lay her hands on and grabbed her son.

The two of them began to wind through the trees again, moving away, hoping the cover would protect them from arrow fire.

As they came around a dense group of furs, Gelda stopped dead. The Worg pens were right in front of them. Inside lay a dozen or more worgs. All were chained and collared within. Some looked dead but others appeared sleeping. One stood up and stared at them both, one more and then another stirred and awoke.

The first Worg stared at Gelda with deep red eyes. It then looked at her son and cranked its head to one side.

“Running from something?”

The Worg said in a dark and menacing voice so unnatural for a beast of its appearance.

The boy stared at the beast hypnotised with fascination. His eyes locked with that of the Worg.

Gelda looked for somewhere to hide. The Kaashig rangers were drawing close and they could not outrun them any longer.

“Let us out my dear, we will fight them for you.”

Gelda knew better than to trust the craftiness of worgs. The beasts would likely maul her and run the second the cage door was opened, second to that, she had no way to open the cage in time.

In a panic, she pushed her son under the bottom of a fur tree directly beside the pens and booted loose snow over the gap to make it look less disturbed. The effort was pitiful but time was run out.

The fist hit her like a battering ram. He body flew and pounded against the metal bars of the worg pens. She slid down and hit the floor.

“Worglash, womanz, now youz must die!”

Gelda grabbed up her blade and swung out at the legs of the great orc. He drew both falchions at once and cut down with opposing swipes hitting her blade centrally and smashing it clean in half.

She stared up in disbelief. The orc grabbed her hair and lifted her up, right up so her feet no longer touched the ground.

Behind him the other orcs laughed.

A small, nasty looking orc with bluish skin and a worg hide jerkin on, ran his blade beneath the tree by the worg pens. Under the tree the boy flinched and tried to avoid the blade. The orcs began to laugh and the orc dragged the boy out by his ankle and prodded him with his knife several times, drawing small amounts of blood.

“Leave him, fight me! I will fight you and he will go, his father is Kaashig, he is not Worglash.”

The orcs listened to the woman for a moment and then decided to give her sport.

The big orc dropped her to her knees and took a step back.

The worgs in the pens were all stood up now watching, minus a few that had fallen dead without food since their masters had been killed.

One worg sat, eyes still on the boy, his gaze was uninterested in the fight, only the red worg like eyes of the child.

“Throw her body to us, when she is finished.”

Said another worg in a low and husky tone.

An orc stabbed through the bars with a spear nearly hitting the worg as it jumped back.

“If she dies, we throw dems da boy.”

Said another orc.

“No! is not fair!” Gelda cried as she stepped between her son and the orcs.

The leader of the orcs just laughed and closed in on the red haired female.

The boy looked on as the smallest orc held the back of his neck and jumped about cheering on the fight.

Gelda lunged at the orc and lost an arm for her efforts. Bilious looking, she rose holding the stump and staggered towards him defiantly only to loose her head to the skies.

The boy stood silent staring at the orcs. The worgs howled and ran about their cages, all except one, one that stood staring at the boy.

“Throw us the boy, you said, you would throw us the boy.”

The orc wiped his falchions on the snow and sheathed them once again across his back.

“Kill da worgz except one and throw da boy to da last one for eating.”

Cheers went up all around. And weapons thrust through the bars of the cage pens.

Worgs jumped up and snapped at the orcs against the bars but were stabbed back by spears and swords. One sat motionless staring out at the boy and for his inactivity seemed to remain unscathed.

The cage door opened and the child was thrown in at the worgÂ’s feet. For the first time the worg broke eye contact with the boy and looked up at the orcs as they re-locked the pens.

“Eat da boy worg!”

The worg stared back at the orcs blankly.

“Worgazhul”

The worg said in the orc tongue, “eyes of a worg.”

The orcs laughed and walked away.

“Himz will get hungry soon.”



The child lay on his back looking up at the worg. The crisp sound of orc boots on snow faded away into the near distance, twilight became early night and LunaÂ’s light was cold and green on the horizon, her face large and close.

The worg sat unmoving as the chill wind made his dark mane sway.

The boy shuffled away towards the cage door staring at the beast with his crimson eyes. Gaze fixed and fear on his face he reached out between the bars picking up some shards of metal from the broken sword. The hilt and lower half of the sword still usable as a basic weapon he took as well and kept by his side ready for if the worg were to want to eat him.

The worg watched with a look of calm expectancy as the child selected two thin shards of metal and went to work on the lock.

“Where did you learn this, orc child?” Said the worg.

Worgazhul looked back and forwards between the lock and the worg.

“In a dream.” Said the child.

The worg bowed his head slightly. “My kind were first seen in dreams did you know that?”

“No..”
The lock clicked slightly and the boy changed the angle of one of the metal shards.

“It is true. Wolves were feared by humans and some other races and we, were a nightmare beast manifested from a primal fear.

The line between dreams and the mortal world can become thin sometimes and things that are seen in dreams are found to be real.”

The boy threw the lock aside and opened the cage door. He stepped outside clutching the broken blade hilt in his hand. He stepped towards his motherÂ’s corpse, his face sad and quivering. He did not cry, for orc children cannot, such disorders hinder the survival of a child into adulthood.

Across the snow lay thousands of severed red hairs, cut and scattered by the decapitating blow.

All was silent but for the subtle wind and the gentle pad of the worg's feet behind the boy.

He thought to spin around, on guard, but he could not muster the motivation required.

“I did not know worgs could talk.” Said the boy

The worg stood beside him looking at Gelda’s body. “We don’t often. Not unless something is worth talking to.”

Worgazhul reached down and gathered a small cluster of his motherÂ’s hair. He tied it around the middle with a small piece of leather chord from her tunic and then put it into his belt.

The worg began to walk away.

“Come, I will show you a place to shelter”

Worgazhul began to walk another way.

“Do not be foolish boy.”

The worgÂ’s voice was firm and intimidating but Worgazhul did not stop.


As Worgazhul disappeared into the trees another badly injured worg rose up from the back of the pens and came out sniffing along the ground. It limped badly, a spear wound to itÂ’s shoulder. The beast watched that Worgazhul had fully departed and then began to chew on the corpse of his mother.



Around the rocky mountainside the orcs climbed, the path was barely existent but the weather was calm for now and their night vision gave them the ability to climb this route better now than during the day.

The smallest of the orcs, the one wearing the worg skin and carrying a knife in his belt was farthest in the lead, finding the path across the mountain. The largest of the orcs was somewhere in the middle. His footing was bad and his sheer size strained the rocks he put his weight upon.

From above them small rocks trickled and fell down bumping a few on the head.

“Whut is dat?”

Said the large orc.

His eyes scanned above to see what was disturbing the stones. All the other orcs stopped and looked up.

Suddenly there was a yelp and a scream and they all looked ahead to see the body of the smallest one falling to its death on the glacier far below.

Something clung to the mountainside where the orc had been. A dark silhouette against LunaÂ’s orb, something smaller than a full grown orc yet humanoid in shape.

A wolf like howl came from behind the orc party. They turned to look back for a second and then the shape ahead of them was gone.

“Come over dis here place!” One orc shouted.

Slightly down from them was a flatter area where the orcs could stand and get a good footing if they needed to fight.

The orcs began to move in trying to get to the right spot.

Some orcs were still spread about on the mountainside when the leader of the band took his position on the flattened area and drew his falchions. He looked up scanning for the figure that had slain their pathfinder.

Behind him he heard the clank of a blade on stone, he turned and looked. There he was, the child of the Worglash woman he had just fought to the death hours before.

Worgazhul pointed at the orc, nearly twice his height and drew the blade, once belonging to the orc he had just killed, across his chest showing his blood.

“Now youz die!” Said the boy.

The orc stood, looking for a moment and then rolled his head back laughing hysterically. He was the hairiest, ugly bastard of an orc Worgazhul had ever known. His skin was pitted and tattooed all over and the hides he wore looked ancient, stitched crudely back together in all the places he had ever taken a blow from a weapon during all his years of fighting and battle.

Worgazhul knew the beast would kill him, but this was not about living this was about honour and revenge.

“YOUZ! Is want to fight me!”

The only other orc, already on the mountain shelf, stepped slowly around behind the boy.

The big orc turned serious and held his hand up to his ally. “No. Dis is, fair fight. Da child worglash bluud is weak, Kaashig bluud is strong. Himz is have respect.

I is fight you boy.”

Worgazhul stepped closer to the orc with his blade ready.

The orc took a swipe and the boy jumped back and then in again behind the blade. As the orc swung back Worgazhul leapt in, dropping his knife and grabbing the orcs arm. He took the momentum and flew attached to the orcs wrist as it looked on in disbelief trying to swing the boy off at the mountainÂ’s face.

Worgazhul hit the rocky wall feet first and kicked out still clutching the orcs sleeve. He grabbed out at the dreadlocked beard of the orc and got his hand around a tusk instead.

The darkness of night stretched out behind Worgazhul and the glacier far below. The orc stood on tip toes leaning over the cliff edge staring into the piercing angry worg like eyes of the young boy. He slashed hopelessly at the ground behind himself with the falchion in his free arm but it was futile, his balance was already lost and the two of them disappeared over the edge.

The rest of the orcs just stared in amazement.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Worgazhul awoke, SolaÂ’s light far and low brought little warmth to this land but the white radiance of the snow would wake any from a slumber.

The sound of water dripping from icicles came from nearby. Worgazhul remembered the night before and then, moments later when he tried to move, he felt the night before. He rolled off of the body of the orc and looked at his face. The monster was well and truly dead, a frozen puddle of dark blood haloed the orcÂ’s broken head and one of his falchions protruded from the side of his chest where he had fallen upon the blade.

The orcs mouth was wide open and his eyes stared endlessly into the sky. Worgazhul reached forwards and forced the semi frozen eyelids closed with his fingers.

“How noble.” The husky and malevolent tone of the worg came from the shadows near the mountain edge.

Worgazhul sat on the glacier looking over at the shadowed overhang of smooth rock that the worg sat under.

“Youz came for me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Said the worg. “I need you as much as you need me.”

Worgazhul looked out over the barren wastes. Then began to take what he needed from the orcÂ’s body.

“We must find a cave.” The worg shook his head gesturing towards his own back.

Worgazhul cut the arms off the massive bear hide jerkin of the orc and pulled it on over himself forming a near body length coat. Across his back he slung a sheathed falchion and then from the opposing shoulder, a medium sized belt pack of supplies also.

“On second thoughts, you can walk.” Said the Worg, matter of factly as it began the walk along the glacier edge.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Several years passed and the orc boy grew to maturity. The Worg guided him and taught him of the languages of humans and the snake people. He taught him of how he would not be accepted in their societies but how there were things that one could gain by moving amongst them.

Every summer the two would pack up and move south, nomadically finding new hunting grounds and places to survive another harsh winter in Kaashig.

Times were hard but so were the Orc and his Worg.

Eventually, one year they came to the sea and a strip of land at the warmest tip of Kaashig where the frosts ended and the ground was green.

A seaside cave made the best home the two had ever had and food was plentiful, though fish took a little getting used to for both of them.

One clear day, Worgazhul stood staring out to sea, the sun was setting and the waters were lapping at his feet.

Behind him the worg walked up. The worg never came out of the cave during the day. He was not fond of SolaÂ’s rays.

Worgazhul looked back for a second and then rubbed his hand over this large bald grey-green head.

“Der is other land out der.”

The worg nodded. “There is. It is where your mother’s people fled.”

Worgazhul stared hard.

“We must go der.” He nodded in approval of his own idea.

“That is what I brought you here for.” Said the worg, “If you can build a raft, you might reach there in a couple of days rowing.

Worgazhul looked down at the worg. “Youz mean we.”

“No, I mean you.”

Worgazhul looked out to sea a little longer squinting to see this other land. The rising darkness was making it hard to make out now and eventually he gave up.

The Orc turned back to the worg, but the beast was gone.

Worgazhul panicked. Something was not right. “Where is youz?”

His face went emotionless and he began to walk hurriedly back to the rocky cave at the top of the beach.

The worg was not in the cave, the worg was gone. He felt a strange absence like a cold hole inside. For the first time he felt fear. He was alone. The worg had no longer needed him, or maybe it was the other way around.

No goodbye, no farewells.

Worgazhul felt confused and a little shaken but he knew what he had to do and the choices were his own from here on.

He was ready.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Time is a funny thing. Time passes and people change, some people more than others. Change can be the appearance of a person, a gain in weight or an increase in physical fitness, it can be a disabling wound or the development of an ability that can change ones life forever.

In some people, change is their state of mind, the trying experiences that have made them who they are, the person they once were now so different that the memory of who they were and the life they once had, seem like a memory of another, somewhere else, somewhere long and far ago.

A change can simply be a change in life style, new friends, new habits, a new purpose in life.

Some things never change, what a lie. There is nothing that never changes. Worgazhul had become aware of this very early on in life. Change drove the mind, drove a person to think and assess their environment, to find new questions about their world and their path, change was the pivotal influential factor required to make the mind dream.

If a person had the answers to everything in their simple unchanging little comfortable way of life, what would they have to prepare for, what would they have to deal with that would drive their mind to dream and create emotional situations of deep and immersive imagination to fill their night.

Worgazhul did not seek answers, answers were a lie. Worgazhul sought questions. Every day the beast would wake and ask something about his surroundings, find something that did not make sense. Everyday he would take himself out of his comfort zone and do something that made him feel new, made him have to deal with and adjust his mindset.

Then, when he slept, his mind would have questions, and questions meant dreams.

The orc sat on the balcony of the great castle staring into the night sky. Above him a crescent moon shone surrounded by twinkling stars, the air crisp, cold and scented by conifers, hawthorn and oak trees below.

Luna was never the same, one night to the next, always changing always moving. She oversaw all changes in the world now, not in control of them but watching, ever watching and somewhere someone would be dreaming and perceiving a change before itÂ’s time to effect them.

TayaÂ’s death had brought this side of Luna. Why? The death of the sister had been a shock, so horrid and unpleasant the great lady of the moon had been changed forever. Dreams were her way of protecting her children, preparing them for the unexpected.

Worgazhul understood this feeling, he had seen his mother killed.

Nightmares were a gift for this very reason. Though to the unknowing these nightmares are a curse.

These are the people that have been chosen by Luna, deemed worthy, worthy of preparation for the most horrible things life could throw their way.

Worgazhul knew now that the ones who sought answers to their nightmares were the cursed, always trying to find an end to their fears, always trying to escape and for that reason they never would.

It was his task to educate them, to find them and bring them in.

He would teach them to listen to the feelings of a dream, the emotional aftermath and to ignore the visual and audible goings on of a dream in its detail.

He would educate them to embrace the emotions of a dream and fall deeper into itÂ’s course and see it through, to embrace fear and fall into the delirium of panic that nightmares brought, to feel and experience to the point their heart might burst and then to awake absorbed and traumatised as fully as possible, so that when one day the horror is a reality. They would stand and stare their nightmare in the eye.

The first lesson was always, “Youz cannot die in dream.”

Those very words were the keystone of power for the devout in LunaÂ’s realm.

WorgazhulÂ’s mother had told him this when he was only three years old, when he had had his first nightmare.

He sat on the balcony with a smile on his face and a tear in his eye. Upon his lap lay his mothers lock of blood red hair. He wondered if she could have been like he was now.

He thought of his friends, the other dreamers and how they passed on to each other the gift when initiated. He thought of the apple too.

Worgazhul had had no apple, Worgazhul had never been bitten.

His father had been no dreamer.

He looked upon the lock of red hair and then back up to Luna. Maybe she had not known.

Worgazhul longed for the night that he would fall asleep and dream of his mother. Many years had passed. Luna had never gifted him this dream yet. He knew not why and he sought no answer. When it came it would be the most wonderful dream.



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The orc watched the sun rise as Luna faded from sight. It was morning and he should sleep a little before the day passed him by. He had not wanted to sleep this night, anxiety was in his heart and thoughts of his mother had been present on his mind in the way that memories of a loved one lost, can sometimes come to the fore stronger than usual.

Only a week before he had died from the howl of the Worg den mother. His experience of death had been unusual and not unlike a dream. It had made him realise the fine but definite line between the realms of Nycti and Luna.

It was different than a dream for it was not his own minds setting and that in the dream he was important, pivotal but in death he was insignificant, one of infinite numbers passing.

A rude awakening had come when his soul was ripped back into his body. A shocking few moments he was unable to breath whilst he lay on the grass in the ferine woods staring up at his friends and a ciderbrook law man who had weeks before tried to eject him from the town. He had played the man for a fool and given him the slip. How guilty he felt now that the priest had brought him back from death.

His word as a Kaashig was true and he promised to pay the man in kind for his resurrection. He would not enter the town of apples for two passings of the moon. In his heart this had been hard. Now more than ever he owed something to that town. To simply stay outside its borders seemed not enough.

Worgazhul took an apple from ciderbrook out of his belt pouch. It was his last. It would be a while before he could collect any more.

He smiled and threw the apple as far out into the ferine wood as he could. Maybe somewhere a tree would grow. Maybe a woodsman might pick it up and eat it. Maybe slugs and wasps would have it. Who cared, the apple was not his responsibility, thousands of years of change had made it what it was now and it was designed to take care of itself in just the circumstances it was now in.
The orc used his head to knock the door open back into the castle. He turned right and right again walking through the corridors in a daze and eventually into a large room full of many beds.

He saw sleeping figures in some beds. His eyes were sore and his head spun. He had been awake too long this time.
He felt himself fall and hitting the mattress of his pulled together beds. Nothing more was after that. Slumber tore his throat out and buried him deep into another place.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


It felt like much time had passed and memory of the day before was gone, falling asleep was gone and perhaps hours of dreams had already occurred with no reason to be aware. Worgazhul found himself somewhere familiar. A dream that was a memory of a dream.

He walked in the woods outside the rise. Orcs were coming and he was a child again. He began to run, his heart pounding within his chest so hard it hurt. The Orcs were not those of his homelands but the Worglash orcs from the mountains at the far end of the woods. They began to gain on him and they came fast.

An old friend stood ahead of him, dark and ferocious, the red eyes of the worg looked past him at his pursuers.
A sense of déjà vu pulled Worgazhul back for a second drawing the moment out. He looked at his old friend. He had missed him so much. Their bond was strong from a time when he had no-one else.

He knew now that they would never be apart and that the worg was always himself, a part of himself that had waited until he was ready to embrace it.

He leapt through the air as the Worg leaped towards him, everything slowed down. The orcs tore in hacking but their blows never made contact. Worgazhul found himself in the form of the Worg, they were one now, he was one, the two of them forever.

This part of the dream he embraced now, a dark and sinister sense of power came through him as he knew what he would do to the orcs but then something happened that was not in the dream last time.

His sense of awareness had intervened or perhaps someone elseÂ’s.

Another wolf tore into the orcs and ripped them apart, murdered and destroyed them utterly. The worg looked on almost afraid. What was this being, who was it?

The wolf turned and rose up on it's hind legs, eyes yellow and crazy looking, arms long and thin but humanoid with long black talons dripping with orc blood. It came towards him a hybrid of wolf and human form, seemingly huge but when close he looked down upon it as it snatched out.


He was himself again, an orc, adult and standing in his armour. She had snatched his motherÂ’s lock of hair from his belt and ran off into the woods.

“NOOOO!” Worgazhul bellowed. He followed, pursued, he ran with all his strength, hardly able to breath. She was getting away. When he finally caught up he was in a clearing in the trees.

It was her, he felt her violating presence within him, the prophet child the others spoke of. She stood laughing in her child form and dropped the lock of hair into a deep hole in the ground, not unlike a dug out grave.

She grinned at him with a childlike menace. Her eyes full of play and evil intent. Worgazhul disliked this child, he did not know why but his feelings towards her ate at his gut and made him want to scream out to the others.

But they were not here, it was just him.

Vivian was behind him now, she stood and pointed at the grave.

Worgazhul grimaced and took a step towards the hole embracing the terror of it. Fear was delicious to him in his dreams. He delighted in such moments though his mind did not enjoy the experience.

As he looked down, he saw a box, like a coffin, a little big to hold a human but about the right size to hold him.

Vivian hit him from behind with force, so hard for such a child, he lurched down into the hole and fell for what seemed like forever.

He landed with a thud on the lid of the box. It was closed and sealed. He looked up and did not understand.

Vivian looked down at him from above, her silhouette dark and unthreatening with the light of Luna behind her.

WorgazhulÂ’s hands and knees felt thuds from within the box. Someone was inside.

A muffled scream. He knew that voice.

It was his mothers.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The orc listened to his friends leave the temple and head out to the balcony. Dark feelings of a shared dream weighed heavy on his mind and theirs too, but to Worgazhul there was a sense of guilt, for the dark emotions were his own and he has burdened them upon his brethren.

There was a part of him that knew it was right though and that is why the promise had been made. He needed it for his own sake and for theirs. When he needed to be saved they would be the only ones who could challenge him now.

His hands slid back across the altar and he looked up at the statue of Luna. She stared down upon him with cold stone eyes, apathetic.

She observed, he knew this, she could not give him the warm sense of belonging she gave the others because he needed to dream on the edge.

History might repeat itself if he was not careful but he had to achieve something specific and it gave him a purpose.

The orc stormed away and down to the basement, he walked up and down, the crazed ones smashed at the bars as he passed them. The lost reached through their bars at him.

He stopped and looked them in the eyes one by one. His red worg like eyes piercing theirs.

In orc he spoke, “Dreamers youz is lost in da nightmare on da dark side, and I is like dems who walkin in da light… But I will come for youz, youz is not forgotten.”

Worgazhul threw open a cell and fell inside. He grabbed heavy at the door and threw it shut. The veins on his head bulged and heaved under his dark green/grey skin.

He used a key to lock the door and then threw it away through the bars, out and across the corridor.

The orc fell and tore at his face revealing the monster beneath the monster.
He howled, strong as he could, hard as he could, then threw his whole body forwards into the cell wall, repeatedly he smashed his head into the wall and then dropped unconscious.

The other werewolves circled around their cells. Some howling, some growling deep, then slowly one by one as morning came they all lay down and slowly fell to sleep.

Into the world of dreams they fell, into their nightmare they returned, a new wolf was there to meet them, lost from the pack.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Worgazhul found himself stood in ciderbrook, it was a dream he had had many times before. Many times it ended short and the times it went on it became horrifying and terrible.

The town was dark and empty, a cold blue moonless sky made the detail of the town perfect, his orc vision knew no different of the night.

The houses were empty and within was soulless nothing. No one lived here, no one loved this place. It was not the ciderbrook he knew.

He scanned the perimeters of the town, the sea, a dry, grey expanse and the hills cold and empty. Nothing was to be seen, nothing could be heard. Even the windmill stood motionless.

Something was here though, here in a different way. A dark presence like the presence of death, a death none knew anymore. Shamabala had been serene and tranquil compared to this.

This place was hopeless and lost. No one knew it was here, no one was coming to find this place. He was alone, alone and forsaken.

Worgazhul reached down and touched the grass, it was grey and lifeless. As his hand swept over it, it seemed to melt away into dust, grey lifeless dust. The place was merely a vision of the ciderbrook he had known, made of dead nothing.

Seconds seemed like moments and moments seemed like hours, he cried out but there was no sound. Something heard his cries though. He looked around again and in the dark, in the shadows of this place he saw eyes, wolf like eyes staring back. If they had chased him it would have been something but they stared endlessly.

He knew them, they were the lost.

Worgazhul felt their pain and pitied it. Pity became hate and hate became terrifying rage. He threw himself back and howled, delirium taking a hold of him, he threw out a feeling of horror so immense it terrified the lost and even himself.

This was their nightmare, he had joined it but it was his nightmare now.

He was their nightmare.

He strode, enormous and bestial across the town throwing aside buildings, exploding them into dust with a single swipe of his talons. The lost ran as wolves from him howling and terrified. His emotions were their emotions and his fear of himself was their fear of him. It went on for hours, hours that seemed eternity, an eternity that was moments in the passing.

They learned, something beneath, something that came from his soul. A sense of malevolence. His pleasure in creating fear and terror in them. He was powerful from it as they became more terrified, he became stronger. He became stronger and so did they. Soon he found they were circling him, some limping from the blows he put upon them and the crushing rock like grip his talons had wrought upon their bodies.

Soon he found himself circled by great beasts, horrible beasts, dark and vicious, nightmares in their own right. Terror filled him and he embraced it. Now he was the victim and they the hunters, as it should be.

Worgazhul ran, as a boy, the hunted boy from Kaashig. He ran across the dark sands of LunaÂ’s black face. The wolves ran as a pack behind him. He could see nothing but blackness on the horizon, no light no stars. Only the grey dust of the floor was there.

There was nowhere to hide and no-where to run and they were coming, all of them. They wanted him because the chase made them something again, made them powerful again. In tracking him they had a point of origin, a focus to centre on in this place they had become lost.

Worgazhul had no such thing, only an expanse in which to run.

He was lost, truly lost, on the darkest side of Luna in a nightmare so terrifying he could not wake.

He ran and ran, the wolves on his heels. He was not so sure anymore, that in a dream he could not die, for this was no longer a dream to him.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


An eternity passed, Worgazhul ran and hid gaining distance sometimes, a matter of perspective in the infiniteness of this place. He would stare back and watch the many pairs of eyes coming through the dark.

Running was destroying him, he had almost forgotten why he ran, it just seemed a behaviour now, a purposeless role in this place. As he began to give in, he slowed down. A sensation of acceptance came over him. He had been wrong, this was his end, the product of his mistake.

His feet plodded their final steps as he knew in moments the wolves would be on him and tear him apart.

He felt the coming of death, the cold inner darkness it bore, an unsentimental belittling knowing that in moments there would be no more.

Worgazhul held his chest. He felt sick.

A voice came. He knew the voice well, it was mothersÂ… it was his mothers, she was using her voice. He looked on and saw her standing a small distance ahead of him, shrouded in the dark. Her eyes looked red like his in the dark. He had never noticed that before.

By her side stood a worg. Was it his worg? He could not tell. Maybe it was her worg, if she had one. The worg bounded towards him and as it neared it leaped over him and continued towards the pursuing wolves.

“You are my worg.” She said in response to his thought. “How can you forget this?”

“I remember.” Said Worgazhul.

He looked up as he felt the rain begin to drip upon his face. The night sky was beautiful, endless stars above him shining.

Worgazhul remembered himself and turned to look at the wolves. He saw them coming and he felt himself running.

He was the worg again pounding the dirt with his paws, rain came down into his face and his eyes shone like windows of a nightmarish hell upon the others.

LunaÂ’s light came as an aurora over the horizon behind the wolves. It tore over the planescape as the light side came, a wall of cleansing towards them.

He ground to a halt the pain of the light so intense, ripping through them and over him. The wolves came in, biting upon him. He rose up on his hind legs frozen in pain in the immenseness of the light. The lost bit down and clung to him dragging him down but he was rigid standing tall from the strength the pain gave him.

It was deafening, like the return of silence in the real world from the silence of the dream where all noise was just an imagination.

Worgazhul opened his eyes. The cell was dark and empty.

He lay there alone unmoving for a moment, exhausted but relieved. He was an orc again. HeÂ’d never been so happy to be an orc.

A smile almost crossed his face but remembering how close he had come, stopped it. He had been a fool. The others were right to not embrace this side so readily.

It would be a long time before he would try something like that again.

Â…How the hell was he going to get out of this cell?

[*Azulfae]

The Worgazhul stood alone in a cold dark room deep beneath an ancient temple in the outlands.

It was a featureless room and pretty much unused as far as history could remember. He had swept the debris and junk outside and barracaded the door.

Why had he picked this place. He didn't know, maybe it was not the place but more importantly the time. He had had trouble entering the dream up in Sigil. Perhaps it was a matter of astral projection. He knew that etherealness and magics built around such did not work there. Perhaps the Lady of Pain herself did not permit such powerful activities by one so skilled as himself within a dream whilst in her reach of influence. It would make sense for he would have the ability to manipulate Sigil's factions and leaders with ease if he could do so.

For now the outlands was as good as any. It was rich with dreams old and new, broken and forgotten things and lore untold. Such a rich place to feed the imagination. He did like it here.

The room itself was a forgotten place as was he. He had learned much since leaving Aesyr. He had even begun to believe perhaps the gods were not as godly as once believed. If Luna's children were to be again he held the seed and none of the others appeared to have escaped with it. They were all carriers anyhow, he had been born of pure blood, his mother a Lunatic before him. Arrogance perhaps or just the mindset needed to keep going.

There had been no full moon in the outlands this night, Worgazhul didn't care. This wasn't about the moon anymore, not yet, he was the blue moon, the second moon in a month. It was they who could revive a new generation, it was always mean't to be. If there was anything left of the gods it was in those of their followers who had survived and right now he held Luna's gift. Chaos, the last of the Lunatics. The first of what was to come.

He stripped down his armour and tossed it to the floor.

"RRRROOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!" He screamed with all his heart. A baleful cry for all his dead brothers and sisters.

The orc's body fixed into a solid stance and his hands flicked out before him. His hands trembled and quivered from the strain in his arms. He arked and moved them in rotations and circles occasionally shifting his footwork. He had watched Rosh do such things when he was to join the Lunatics in the dream. He was not a wolf like them but he had been a dancer of the shadows. All these pieces came together now, In Worgazhul.

His eyes were closed and in his mind he saw himself stood in the darkness. This was his concious imagination. His hands hacked and flicked in the dark around him and he saw ethereal whisps cut and furl like illuminated mist in the darkness.

He did the dance, the 'form', catching the energies and gathering them into a ball of glowing blue light. This was the stuff dreams were made from. Pure ethereal Chaos. it was everywhere in every plane connecting all to the ethereal. It seeped in concentration through concious beings more than any other and from himself and the old stones of the room around him he drew it now.

It gathered and hardened between his hands as he rocked and rotated his hands around it moving his feet and repositioning to gather more with his postures and movements.

Finally he took a solid and final stance. He crushed the dreamstuff into a more solid orb infront of himself, smoothing over it with his hands. His stood focussing into it, His eyes still closed he could see everything in his mind.

Slowly Chaos pushed the orb inward into his chest. As he did so the energies within it burned with a dark red fury. A high pitched squeel erupted in the darkness like glass being cut and the howls of a demon.

Light consumed Worgazhul's mind eye and then from the blindness, an image came into focus.

It was the Ferine Woods, perfect, beautiful and haunting as they ever were. Worgazhul turned looking around himself at the trees and then saw it. The hilltop and the castle.

"AAAARRRROOOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOOO!" He yelled in celebration as he bounded through the woods at ferocious speed. Up the mountain side he paced and to the gates of the castle.

Clunk.

They would not open.

Clunk.

The orc pulled at the doors again.

CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK!

Something was wrong.

A dread filled Worg as he turned and looked around over Aesyr from this high vantage point. Dark and menacing it looked. The river was empty of traffic, Brightwater was dark in the twilight and Rine far away stood like a dark shadow in the distance.

The sensates were right. He had sensed this world and knew it's borders. He had been to most places in it and so though his perception he could experience it again but one horrid thing was true. No one else was here. Only him.

Aesyr was now his nightmare.

He howled in terror and beat upon the great wooden doors of the battlements. Something clicked within and slowly they opened. His Lucidity tried to call to him. he knew it was because his fear had opened them. What was inside could not be happy. Pain filled his soul as he walked up the steps across the courtyard.

As he found the door into the castle within he readied himself. The door opened and inside in the darkness he saw eyes turn to meet his. Hundred of horrid red eyes turned and looked at him.

What had he done!

'The lost' bounded out knocking him over. He flew down the steps and onto his back. He watched as werewolf forms launched over him trailed by wraith like whisps of shadow.

They had always been here, trapped in the nightmare. Their bodies were gone but their minds were imprisoned still.

Crazed and insane they hurtled away into the woods below and as Worgazhul watched one by one they vanished in little elipses of light cutting out of his nightmare into the dream realm, into the dreams of others to haunt and feed upon their terror, as nightmares.

Worgazhul paused for thought.

It was fair. Perhaps only because he had come so close to becoming like them was he the one who had survived the end. His mind had taken him far far deeper into the dream where nightmares are born and when he world had ended from there he was able to escape into a new realm. he had always been the shadow behind the door. The dread of the unexpected. He was a nightmare too like them. Forbidden for so long. No wonder Creed had hated him so. Now that all had died, the nightmares were the fittest, the most perfect of dreams. Fear translated to all worlds and all minds. If it didn't fear, it wasn't alive.

Maybe this was the source of change he could not find. To taste a creatures fear and terror in their dreams. Maybe if he fed like them, in a nightmare, on the terror he would have his power for change that he so longed for.

Worgazhul walked slowly down the path from the castle. Something had changed in him. He looked to the sky and saw Luna turning and falling, burning in flames on one side. They were the lost and in a time that all paths were gone there was one certaintly. He would have to find his own way.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Worgazhul's eyes popped open, red and backlit in the darkness, staring around the room. His hands were still braced infront of him cupping where the orb of dreamstuff had been. His legs were fixed in a stance to support him.

It was cold.

He felt the cold more than a Kaashig should these days.

How long had this been? Minutes? Hours? Days?

He collapsed to the floor and lay there exhausted and aching.

Perhaps he was getting old. Time was something that had escaped him back when he had been a werewolf but now he seemed to feel weaker by the day. Aging and becoming more and more hopeless and empty.

He was a creature of dreams, he always had been, he just wasn't being fed by mother anymore and was malnourished. Time to grow up and start feeding ones self.