Silvery Thoughts
Who: Echo Bishop What: Stream of Consciousness (sort of) When: Right after the last full moon Rating: Low
The full moon is an itch, the kind that's right in the middle of my back and I can't get to it and scratch. Sometimes it reaches the full phase before dark, and I can hear its voice whispering on the breeze.
Born wolves have it easier. Once I was old enough to understand, Momma told me that the first of our kind was born with the moon in his blood, that the silvery streams of light made him stronger and that was why he was able to survive for so long by himself. It was mostly a bedtime story, something you tell a kid to prepare them for what happens when they're older, but Unca still swears there's truth in it. It's why the bite is nothing to mess around with, give to just anyone.If somebody had a wrong head, or worse, a wrong heart, the last thing you want is to make them stronger. Whatever I think of Rudolph, half of his genes made me what I am. The good stuff is hard to separate from the bad, since depending on who you ask I'm either a gift or an abomination.
I fully shifted for the first time when I was ten years old. It was guided by Laddie, since he's still Alpha. It was like being born all over again; bones changing shape, the sprouting of fur, teeth getting sharper. Call it a ritual, call it a rite of passage, call it just another thing to learn so that you can get by on your own when the time comes. For those first minutes when I let the Wolf out, Laddie's big hand falling away from my shoulder as I got smaller and no longer able to stand on just two legs, it really did feel like I had the moon in my blood. A burning silver light that winnowed straight to my soul and released what places me between steps on the evolutionary ladder.
It's a lot easier now, though I always have to be careful. Growing up, I heard the stories of the purges from the older weres, how humans are afraid of us because of the old tales about stolen children and slaughtered livestock. A Frankenstein's monster that runs on four feet, and I'm pretty sure it's on purpose that the moon is the same color as the thing that can kill us. That the searing-cold, scorching-hot light that shines down from a bed of even colder stars is silver as a reminder. That it, like us, like me, is not just one thing.