Polyamory Fantasy, Scene 1

Dakota ran the woods alone. The leaf litter cushioned her paws, muffling their sound. The trees loomed around her, blocking out the starlight high above. She leapt downed trees and gullies awash with the day’s rain, heedless of the risk.

She crossed the track of countless deer, and startled an owl from its meal. These mountains came alive at night, in ways that she never would have imagined a decade ago. And yet even the very first time she had walked through them, she felt that she belonged.

Ten years ago she awoke in Central Park and started a new life. A great deal had changed since than; but the woods at night were still the closest thing to home she had. Especially since the pack died.

Usually she pushed the memories away. Told herself Get a grip and get on with life. Tonight, for some reason she wallowed in it.

She spat hair and blood out of her mouth, and fought down nausea. She refused to look at the body slowly turning human at her feet. The battle raged around her, but in the dark neither side noticed her.

In the two years she'd run with the Central Park pack, she'd never seen anything like this. Their attackers had managed to ambush them on home ground. Another pack, trying to take territory. In the moon light, it looked like the stories that Elias had once told her of elves fighting a war in the Park.

Bile choked her as she remembered seeing Elias' throat torn out a minute earlier.
Ma Parker was fighting off three, a man and two wolves, but her heaving flank was blood stained and her movements slowing. Throughout the woods she could hear other battles, and she knew the pack was losing. They were dying.

She wanted to rush in, to save Ma Parker, avenge Elias, but it had only been dumb luck and black fur which disappeared in the dark that allowed her kill her own attacker. Half trained as she was, she'd only get herself killed too.

And than she knew what she could do. Knew what she would do. Knew the pack would never forgive her, and didn't care.

She turned and raced through the night, with fear and desperation giving her feet wings. As she ran she changed, shifting from four legs to two.

Breaking every rule of the pack, she ran to the last phone booth in Central Park and grabbed the handset. Her hands fumbled, but she managed to dial: 9-1-1.

She counted her breathing, waiting for an operator to answer. Friday night in New York, 9-1-1 was always busy, but every moment was that much less time, that much less chance, the pack had.

Finally someone answered, "Hello, please state your name, and the nature of your emergency."
"Oh my God! Thank you! There's a gang fight in the park, by the 52nd street entrance. You have to get someone out here, right now!"

The conversation became a blur after that - the operator wanted more information, but Dakota couldn't risk giving her name, or the names of the pack. Finally, after far too long, she heard sirens coming.

But it had been too late. The pack was dead.

She had to get out of the city than, the new pack would count bodies and know that they had missed someone. They would hunt her down.

The pack had an emergency cache of money and prepaid credit cards. She emptied it. Picked up some sturdy shoes and a good backpack, and left the city before the invading pack came looking for her. . .

A rock slipped under her paw. She fell heavily. Snapped out of memories, she stood, and shook herself off. Luckily, she wasn't hurt.

The run wasn't helping tonight; time to head back to the den.