Orphaned

[Savas Oakley]

Ugh...

A high pitched ringing sound echoed in his head. Savas reached up and touched the side of his head. Human form. When had he shifted? Blinking bleary eyes, he let out a grunt as he sat up. He didn't spend a lot of time in this form but he must have shifted to try and escape some of the pain. Didn't work--wounds didn't disappear just because he shifted. They just moved around. Made things worse, really, on the inside.

Blood covered his throat and his chest. He felt it when he ran a hand over himself. Dried up now but when he looked down, it covered a lot of his body. He'd been bitten and chewed up like a toy. Taking in a deep breath, he let out another grunt and held a hand to his chest. Ow. Motherfucker. Was there any part of him that hadn't been savaged by that... that...

Wolf.

All he could remember in his delirium before passing out was that damned white wolf. All white. Snow white, like nothing he ever saw before. White wolves didn't normally come around here. There were wolves but they were mostly grey or black. White? All white? He grinned at the thought. At least it'll make him easier to find.

Slowly, he got to his feet, using a tree for support. Bile rose up in the back of his throat when he saw what lay around him. A pair of familiar coyotes. The grin was gone. Stumbling over to them, he fell to his knees next to them. He tried to say something, anything, but Savas never was one for words. Instead, he let out a small sound in the back of his throat, running his hands over their bodies. They were cold. They'd been dead for a while now.

Around him, he could smell the others. Their blood had attracted other creatures. Bugs. Scavengers. Savas immediately got to his feet and let out a shout, scaring off a skinny, ugly little wolf that probably had no pack. Too late. It took off with the remains of a rabbit in its jaws. Savas sank back down next to his parents. Where did he even start? Wolves. He looked up, then turned his head sharply when he heard the sound of footsteps cracking twigs.

[Ashley Yeo]

Ash knew something was wrong when he picked up the call from dispatch, citing an incident in the woods near the high school. Since his patrol car was closest, he called in to let them know that he was on it. Some young kids fooling around had heard sounds. Noises like wolves howling, then an altercation, what sounded like a fight. They called it in and something they said must've triggered alarm bells, enough for the incident to be documented.

Carefully stepping past protruding roots and ducking under low-hanging branches, he made his way into the thickest part of the woods. It wasn't hard to find the rabbit family--the scent of wolf was strong in the air, alongside the scent of blood. Ash got that tingle in the back of his neck that always signaled danger; he put a hand on his gun, just in case.

When he found the rabbit shifters, he stopped cold in his tracks. "Shit!" Looked like they'd been attacked by the wolves he smelled. Attacked and eaten... but when did wolves eat other shifters on any night other than the full moon? Ash didn't know if this family had run afoul of a pack, though, or if some wolves had gone renegade.

Ferals, they called them--uncontrollable, savage wolves stronger, faster, hungrier than all the rest.

He felt a sad pang in his chest when he found the baby, but he had to keep moving because the carnage didn't stop there. Ash followed the trail of crushed plants and blood and gore until he broke on through to a second crime scene, but this time there was one lone survivor there. Ash stopped short, hand on his gun.

"H-hey. It's okay. I'm here to help." He slowly lifted his hands--both of them--into the air, noting the man's horrific injuries. "You-you need to go to the hospital!"

[Savas Oakley]

Death loomed close. Maybe it was still sitting on his neck, weighing him down, threatening to pull him down with it. Savas refused to let it gain a hold on him, though. He refused to let it throw him back on the ground. No, he got up, he made himself stand, despite the way it made his vision swim and his head spin in circles. A wave of nausea came and went. He stumbled a step forward, wishing he wasn't in this damnable human form. The wounds were all there, just shifted around, the way his body had shifted in the chaos and the pain.

"No," he said roughly. English wasn't his best skill but he knew that word well enough. Even infant children knew that word. No. No, he wasn't going to some human hospital. He wasn't going anywhere without knowing.

He pointed to the bodies of the coyotes.

"My family," he said, his voice still sounding rough to his ears. "Find them." He looked down at his hand, counting the number that weren't there. Mother and father, gone. But there was still Ben, his brother. Scarlett and Shiloh, his sisters. He lifted three fingers. "Find. Them."

[Ashley Yeo]

This wasn't the first time somebody refused sensible help and it sure as hell wouldn't be the last. Ash was more or less used to being told no--especially as a police officer, which half the folks in Hazleton regarded with suspicion. He eyed the two coyotes laying near the man, understanding that those were his kin. His parents.

Ash's gaze dropped for a moment. So wolves killed his parents. But he was looking for 3 more? Sisters and brothers, most likely. Ash knew how it was; he had siblings, too, who hatched at the same time that he did. If something like this happened to them, he would stop at nothing to find the killers.

"Wolves," he said softly. "I can smell them. Wolves did this, right?"

Ash dropped his hands. "But you can't find anybody if you die, too. At least let me give you first aid, if you won't go to the hospital. I'm--like you. A shifter. You can trust me."

[Savas Oakley]

"Yes, wolves," he said, as if the man in front of him were an idiot. Wolves did this! He sure as hell didn't do this! Did he think he did? He wasn't a fucking wolf and he'd die before he ever became one, especially after this. Wolves were too proud for their own fucking good and now look at them. The feral ones were the worst, too. They ran the forests during full moons and everybody else just had to run and hide to escape them. Forget trying to fucking fight them! Savas tried once, when he was younger and even more of a hothead than he was now. He still bore the scar on his right leg for it. Nearly took it off, too. He didn't walk right for months thanks to feral wolves.

Savas let out a burst of a sigh, annoyed that the guy was right. He turned his head away. If he died now, there wouldn't be anybody left to find his siblings and bring them back together. Nobody else left to protect them. He was the only one left and he couldn't trust any of them alone right now. Two little sisters and a little brother--all out there with little knowledge of the world. Arguably, he didn't have a lot, either, but he was bigger, stronger, older. Wiser, he liked to think. Smarter. Definitely cooler.

Not that that had anything to do with anything.

"Fine," he said, stepping forward, breathing him in--or trying to in his current form. The man was dressed in one of the town uniforms for law enforcement. Not the ones that prowled around this area usually, but this was considered... what did they call it? A crime scene. Shifter, though. He eyed the man from head to toe. In human form, he only smelled like a human. Maybe he was a wolf. In this human form, it was also hard to tell for sure. All he could really smell was the blood and gore. But why go to the trouble of talking him into first aid if he just wanted to kill him, too? Didn't make much sense.

"Fine," he said again, stepping closer.

[Ashley Yeo]

Ash nodded, reaching--slowly--up to silence his radio so that the chatter from dispatch wouldn't alarm the man. Clipped to the belt around his waist was a small first-aid kit, which he unhooked and opened as the man approached him. Everything about his body language screamed wary, but Ash smiled encouragingly at him anyway. "I'm Ash. What's your name?"

Discreetly he checked out the man's injuries. Lots of bite marks all over him. Some gashes and scratches and one large abdominal injury that looked pretty nasty. Those wolves chewed him up all right, Ash thought as he unrolled some bandages, setting the rest of the small kit onto a rock nearby.

"Have a seat here." He gestured to the rock. "How's your head? Do you feel dizzy? Nauseous?"

[Savas Oakley]

"Savas."

He still eyed the man. Ash. What a name. It sounded familiar, though, like he'd heard it before. Savas cocked his head at the man, at the gesture towards the rock. A rock didn't sound terribly comfortable at the moment so he settled beside the rock instead, using it as a backrest. Satisfied that he both listened and rebelled at the same time, he looked up at Ash. How was his head? Why? Frowning, he reached up and touched the side of his head, up into his hair and around the back towards his neck. He couldn't see his head area but it felt tender and aching. Not to mention when he pulled his hand away, it came away with half dried, sticky blood.

"Little dizzy," he said after a moment. Nauseous, he thought, went without saying. Even if he didn't get his head bitten up by a damned wolf, he would have been feeling it from the blood all around them--and the limp bodies of his parents.

[Ashley Yeo]

Ash swore he said to sit on the rock but Savas had other plans, apparently. He chalked it up to the language barrier; Savas didn't seem to have been brought up around humans the way Ash had been. In fact, it was a wonder that he understood Ash at all! Putting aside his bemusement, Ash sank down to kneel beside him and peered at him closely, looking into his eyes for signs of a concussion. Savas' gaze was a little glassy but it didn't seem like he'd gotten too hard of a bonk on the head. The blood wasn't indicative of serious injury, though—even superficial head wounds tended to bleed profusely at first.

Carefully, he shifted aside some of the hair at the back of Savas' head. The blood was clotting, which was a good sign. Looked like a surface abrasion. Ash slipped on the gloves that he always carried with him—though more to handle drugs and other dangerous substances, but useful for first aid in a pinch! "Okay, hold your head still. I'm going to try and wrap this wound first, before I get to the one on your stomach."

He cleaned the area as best as he could with some alcohol wipes, then began wrapping thin gauze around Savas' head to protect the area from infection. "You said there were 3 more missing?" Ash spoke softly as he worked, trying to glean more information. "What happened? Do you know why the wolf attacked? What kind of wolf was it? Brown? Gray? "

[Savas Oakley]

"Hn."

Savas' response was little more than a soft growl as Ash went about doing his best with the wound on his head. Savas couldn't see it but it stung a few times. Nothing he couldn't handle, though. He relaxed slightly. If this guy was going to kill him, he was taking his time about it. His eyes half closed, exhausted by what had transpired not so long ago. His eyes felt heavy and indeed, a little dizzy. His eyes shot open when the colors of the wolves were brought up, though.

"No," he said, sitting up despite the way it ripped at the wounds on his side and stomach. "White. White wolf."

[Ashley Yeo]

Ash's hand suddenly stilled as he stared at Savas, stunned into inaction. First he mouthed the word, and then whispered it in disbelief. "White... wolf?"

In Ash's lifetime, he could remember only one white wolf. He saw it briefly on the night of the full moon, out in the woods, as he perched safely up on the high branches of a tree. The white wolf was majestic and beautiful—and deadly. It was a mad creature, a beast without sense or reason; it killed anything it came across in a frenzy of bloodlust.

And it was the twin brother of the man that Ash—er—was involved with.

He swallowed, though his mouth had gone suddenly dry. "Are you sure? A white wolf? Not a gray wolf?"

[Savas Oakley]

"No, no, no. WHITE," Savas reiterated. "White like snow."

It was white and it looked like something from up north or something not of this part of the country. He tried to recall whether it had a bloody muzzle but it was hard to bring up the memory. His head felt so muzzy. But he knew what he saw! The wolf was white. It was white. It had jumped into the air when Savas saw it, attacking another animal. Savas didn't see what it was. His heart pumped so hard that he passed out. Embarrassing to admit--not that he would--but he had already been bleeding pretty badly and he didn't need a show like that to get his ticker going faster.

"White," he said, voicing his thoughts because he sensed that Ash didn't believe him. But he had been there. He saw it. No way it could have been grey. He'd seen loads of grey ones in the area--they were most common, after all. There were even some darker ones, almost all black ones. But an all white one in this territory? It was him. Reading the look on Ash's face, he tried to piece it together, then sat up and grabbed onto Ash's arm.

"Where?"

[Ashley Yeo]

White. White wolf. Aldon. Aldon Huang. It just couldn't be! It couldn't. Aldon wouldn't—at least, the derpy attention-seeking Aldon Huang that Ash used to know would never have done something like this! Ash shook his head as though he could shake off his doubts that way too, frowning at Savas. Maybe... there were other white wolves in the area. It wasn't like they were mythical, just... so rare. But if there could be one, there could be others!

"Hey, hey take it easy! Your injuries!" He hastened to press Savas back, since he was getting agitated. Ash went back to work patching him up. He had to hurry up and get Savas away from the area before backup came. This was an official crime scene now and Ash had to call it in—later. Maybe it was breaking protocol, but if he didn't get Savas away, he'd be hauled in for questioning and judging by the way he acted earlier, he wasn't going to like being cooped up in a holding cell.

"I know some wolves. Maybe they can help you find this white wolf." Who was probably NOT Aldon Huang! "I can ask one of them after I finish bandaging you up. Do you—can you come stay with me tonight? You shouldn't be wandering around like this."

[Savas Oakley]

Pah, the injuries. They were nothing compared to what happened to his family and he looked away, staring with a burning gaze where they'd been left. Bodies. No longer his parents. They were just bodies now. Just coyotes to people like this guy. No. No, he said he was a shifter, too. Savas gave him a long, measured look while he allowed him to finish patching him up.

So he knew some wolves. But he wasn't one? He was a shifter on friendly terms with the wolves. What did that mean? How had he lasted this long then? He must have been one of the stronger types. Maybe a tiger. An elephant. Buffalo. Something that could easily take care of a wolf, or something that a wolf wouldn't care about attacking. Savas sniffed but the stupid human body didn't help. He couldn't tell anything with this nose.

Stay with him for the night. Savas let out a laugh that sounded more like a bark. Then he raised a brow. Wait, he was serious? He wanted him to hide in his human house with him? Savas gave him another long, measured look. If he was close, he could keep an eye on him and make sure he wasn't part of those who murdered his family. After a moment, he said, "Fine."

[Ashley Yeo]

Ash was indignant, though he strove hard not to show it--he was completely serious about protecting Savas here! The laugh wasn't much amused, though. There wasn't anything amusing about the situation, if he had to be honest. Frowning, he finished bandaging up Savas' side as he prepared several valid points for why Savas should remain under his care.

Except before he could deliver them, Savas agreed. Ash blinked. "O-oh! Yeah! Well. Good." He concluded lamely, giving Savas a light pat on the shoulder. "That's the spirit! Come on, we should get going now." There were plenty of animal corpses around the place, but also one or two very human ones--and they didn't want to be here when backup arrived.

"I'm... sorry. About your family," he said again, softly, as he helped guide Savas onto his feet. Ash tried not to look at the slain coyotes, heart aching as he thought of his own parents. Nobody should have to see their family members die like this. He gave Savas' arm a squeeze. "We'll find out who did this. I promise." And they would bring them to justice.