The Forgotten Wolf

“No one should know about this.”

An unknown voice told the unknown woman as she made her way down the cliff of Ezra.

The voice continued.

“They will kill her, but they do not know who she is. A time will come when they will plead, but their plea will fall on deaf ears. That day, they will realize their mistakes, but it will be too late.”

“I know that. But why must you save this ill wolf that would soon die if not dead by now, why?” The lady asked. One could have thought she was speaking to herself.

“You don’t know, do you? She is the future Odin, Odin has been re-born.”

“But only the royals are born with Odin. How can Odin be re-born into a human when it is just a mark all royals in the Crescent Moon Kingdom have?” The woman said.

“A time will come when the real story will unfold. No one knows the story of ancient, of love. Odin will come.”

The woman didn’t say anything regarding that, she continued her journey down Ezra.

“It is here. Wait here,” the voice said as the woman came to a halt.

She sat down on a large stone, waiting for the child.

***

“Your Majesty, the queen has just put to bed. She gave you a girl.” One of the royal senior midwife told the waiting king. 

King Reed, who had been pacing around since his wife went into labor, stopped to a halt, turned to face the royal midwife, and smiled. The king didn’t need to be told twice before he majestically walked into the room where his wife, Queen Annabel, was. She was sitting on the bed, holding up a little bundle in her hands, her face twisted in a disgusting way.

The rest of the royal midwives bowed their heads and left the room.

When King Reed got to his wife, he wondered why his wife had that look on her face. But when he got to take a look at the child, his face also was filled with hatred. “She doesn’t have the mark of Odin like she was supposed to,” King Reed said angrily.

The queen, who had been holding her baby, suddenly flung the child out of her hands. A cracking sound echoed around them as the baby’s soft body made an impact with the wall where the queen had flung her. The child cried out in pain. Maybe the child had thought that her cry would soften her mother’s heart, who would help to smooth the pain spreading quickly around her body, but alas, she was wrong. Her mother was not affected by her cries nor was her father. They all silently watched her as her cries rose the more.

King Reed, without saying a word, left the room. As soon as he was outside the room he turned to one of the palace guards. “Go and call me the high priestess,” he said and left, going back to his throne.

Back in the room, Queen Annabel wished with all her heart that it should die from there. She hadn’t even given the child the first breast milk before she started praying to the Moon Goddess to take away the child very quickly.

The door opened to reveal a boy and a girl of 13 years old who came rushing into the room to meet their mother, who had just given birth to the most abominable. Mere looking at them, you would know that they were twins. The girl had beautiful dark blue hair, and her eyes were like crystal, sparkling. She was utterly beautiful from head to toe. In fact, she was the most beautiful girl in the kingdom. The king and queen were always proud of her. The only difference with her brother was his hair color; his hair was gold, just like his father’s.

“Mother, father has just told us about the ‘it’ that you gave birth to. Is it true that she wasn’t born with the mark of Odin?” Prince Eric asked. He was a bit taller for his age; a troublesome boy who loved disrespecting and treating the poor as cabbages. He was the crown prince, after all, and all must obey him.

“Yes, that’s it on the floor.”

Princess Erica quickly went over to where the baby stared at her for a moment and said, “She’s so ugly, mother. I wonder why the Moon Goddess let her live.”

Prince Eric went over to meet his twin sister and looked down on his younger sister, her face red from all the cries, and shook his head. “She is not only ugly, Erica, she’s disgusting.”

The baby had quieted down a bit, seeing that her mother didn’t want to attend to her or anyone else. Everyone just hated her. Was she truly ugly? She wondered.

Prince Eric immediately kicked the baby with the sole of his boot. The baby’s cries filled the room again, this time louder. Erica began laughing at the plight of the child and started making faces at her.

If it was a normal child, it would have long been dead as a normal newborn baby couldn’t take such a hit. A wolf could and could heal at a faster rate.

“You better stay away from that hideous thing before you contact her ugliness,” Queen Annabel told her two precious children.

They all watched as the baby cried out the more.

‘Why is life so unfair?’ The baby asked herself. ‘Why do I see so much hatred in my parents’ and my siblings’ eyes? Why do they hate me this much?’

With no answer to her questions, she stopped crying. What did she know?

Queen Annabel stood up immediately from the bed. “Come quickly. Let’s go and meet your father, I heard he sent for the high priestess. Let’s know the fate of this disgusting child,” the queen said, and they left the room, leaving the little baby behind.

***

[The Throne Room]

The high priestess was with the king discussing when Queen Annabel and her two beautiful children entered. They paused in their discussion to see who had interrupted them, but when they saw it was the queen they continued their discussion.

“We have to kill her. She doesn’t have the mark of Odin like my two children have, and not to talk of her ugliness and her disgusting looks, she has to die.”

“Your Highness, don’t be in a haste. You might do what you will regret in the future,” the high priestess said.

“There is no future in that ‘thing’. Every child of mine must have the mark of Odin, but she didn’t have it, so she needs to die. It is a disgrace to me if a royal blood does not have the royal mark of Odin.”

“Think, maybe the Moon Goddess is testing you.”

“The Moon Goddess cannot test us with that disgusting thing,” Queen Annabel spoke for the first time. She quickly went to the throne door, opened it, told the guards to bring the child, and walked back to meet her husband.

“Well, I have spoken. Kill the child, and I will announce that the baby died during childbirth.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” the high priestess replied.

The throne room opened, and one of the guards walked in carrying the baby.

Where had they brought her? She wondered to herself.

“Here is the baby, my queen,” the guards said as he knelt down holding out the baby, no one could go close to the baby. The high priestess took the baby and dismissed the guard.

The high priestess still protested again, “You never can tell if she will have a bright future, although her future is blocked for me to see, but I know she will be great. Please let her live, the Moon Goddess might have a plan with her we do not know of.”

Queen Annabel laughed out, her laughter held so much hatred in it and said, “My two children here are blessed by the Moon Goddess herself, you saw it that day, when I gave birth to my twins, didn’t you? They were blessed by the Moon Goddess herself. The Moon Goddess didn’t bless her with the mark of Odin, and to top it all, she didn’t possess any beauty.”

‘Moon Goddess? Who is this Moon Goddess they speak of? Why do they want to kill me because I am not like my older siblings?’ The baby asked no one in particular. ‘Let me pray to this Moon Goddess, maybe she can help me and stop them from killing me. Moon Goddess, can you hear me? If you can, please help me. I don’t really know why my parents hate me but save me, please.’

“My words are final, kill it,” King Reed said finally, leaving no room for comments.

“Very well then,” the high priestess said. Seeing that nothing could be done to change the heart of Reed, she started a chant best known to her, and a bright light shone in her hand only to fade to reveal a silver knife with a moon embedded around it.

“Can’t you think of this thoroughly? I just have this feeling....”

Queen Annabel immediately cut in, “Keep your feelings to yourself and kill it, you are delaying this.”

As soon as the priestess raised her arms to strike the baby, lightning struck inside the throne room. The high priestess made a pause midway.

“Well, kill the child. What are you waiting for?” King Reed said.

“Don’t you think that the Moon Goddess might be telling us not to kill her?”

“You yourself said you can’t see her future. She has no future for me, my king, or my children. Just be done with it. Soon she will be forgotten by all that had witnessed its birth, a forgotten wolf that has no use to us,” Queen Annabel said with no remorse in her voice.

“What my queen said here is true; this will soon be a forgotten wolf to us. With time, everyone will forget about her after we make her fake death announcement and move on. So, kill it,” King Reed said in support of what Annabel said.

The high priestess raised her arms higher than before and struck with all her might toward the heart of the child. Her cries of pain broke through the thick walls of the palace for the last time. She stopped moving, her body suddenly cold.

Her eyes finally closed in death.

“Guards!” King Reed shouted. Two guards walked in and bowed. “Take this dead, disgusting thing out of my sight. Take her and drop her at the cliff of Ezra, where no one would ever seek her. And both of you should not reveal this to anyone. If you do, I will feed you to my beast.”

They nodded their heads in unison, and one of them took hold of the dead baby, and they left the room.

“Well, we have to announce the death of it,” Queen Annabel said dramatically, tears coming out freely.

“Yes, we do,” King Reed said, comforting his wife.

Eric and Erica pretended to be sad.

The high priestess kept shaking her head sideways sadly…