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Should this be 'adult', or merely 'mature'?", "writing": "01 - Awakening\n\n The first thing I remember was the pain. There was nothing else; no sense other than the burning hurt everywhere. If I could define my sense of self, it was only by everything that hurt. I suppose I must have slept a lot. I’m sure there were times that I was crying, crying out for someone, or perhaps simply crying out for the hurt to stop. I was only a cub then.\n\n     When the pain started to recede I found other feelings. There was a curious fullness that was very uncomfortable. I felt stuffed, full too low, aching inside and out, pushed by pressure in places I didn’t know till then that I had. There was more to this pressure than a need to toilet. At that point such was very beyond my worries. I don’t remember being awake when they changed me. It would have made a terrible time even worse.\n\n     I had none of the other senses for a while. No sight or smell; these were scary, shocking to do without though I hadn’t the words for them then. I think taste was missing, but if I were fed it surely would have been little more than suckling water or broth. To eat was obviously beyond me. To have a full belly would have been torture. Touch too was a mystery, though I had impressions of things touching me, I was unaware of what they were or could be. How was I to know my hands had been secured so I couldn’t scratch myself?\n\n     But touch and sound together were the first two things to come back to me. Surely I had heard things, doctors and nurses around me, and she who sat at my bedside. Yet those things refused to bridge the gap between input and awareness until the moment I first felt something beyond the awful throbbing headache I had lived with since my arrival at the hospital in which I awoke.\n\n     It has since become a lifelong torment. The mark at my temple has never healed, and somewhere between dry bone and scarred skin feeling makes itself known as an itch that demands scratching whenever I think about the past. This was the reason my hands were lashed to the bed frame. This was what they were prepared for, and when I became so consumed by the itch I could not scratch, I cried out in my torment.\n\n     Surely I had done so before. It was nothing new to the one at my bedside. And I am as certain her response must have been oft repeated. But at the time it was as the first for me. I jerked and tugged, and to me it seemed I must have been thrashing in mysterious captivity. I cried out, pleading with whine and shriek, and then came that which surprised me.\n\n     A hand brushed my head and I heard sound. At first it meant nothing. Whether through my injury or tears the syllables were simply noises of which I could make no sense. But it was only at first. For some reason it caused me to quiet, this touch. And maybe that noise distracted me so that I listened harder. It took those sounds some time to cross the fog of my mind, so that the gibberish I heard slowly formed real words.\n\n     “Hush little one,” over and over. It was a strange female, touching my face, comforting me in the darkness. How long had she sat there, and why? I was told later of how long it had taken; of how many hours Laurel had spent in the hopes I might respond. It was the first clear sign I had given anyone at that hour of my continued existence, and I still can’t fathom how anyone could have fallen in love at a simple flick of one ear.\n\n     That was what I gave her, a long whine and the flick of my uninjured ear. For me it was the start of my life beyond dim memory. I was the only one who wondered, ‘what did I do wrong?’ And though no one told me for a long time, I figure those hours in the hospital were the only ones in my life that no one else thought such things with me.\n\n     I learned about my world from this female that visited so often. My waking hours were void of anything otherwise interesting. I had no sense of time in the darkness, or of any sensation save the occasional prod of finger or claw prick. Such events were always a scary shock without warning and they could have had no better way of testing my reflexes had they wished it. Perhaps it drove me to heal faster... my hearing sharpened quickly though that remained unknown for some time.\n\n     It was not until my leaving I learned that the staff in that place wore soft boots to keep quiet on purpose. Had anyone thought it important to tell, it might have saved me the time spent intently listening. Or it might not. Regardless, that exercise served me very well later, though again at the time there was little to hear.\n\n     That isn’t fair to Laurel, to say there was nothing for me to listen to and make it seem she was of no comfort or never there. She was at my bedside often, and for far longer than anyone should find prudent for a stranger. That she did so, coming by at every available hour, says a lot about her heart. And to think that she did all of that for me... well, she didn’t know anything about me, that was certain.\n\n     But to tell the truth, Laurel would come to sit at my bedside, and talk the whole time. I don’t pretend I understood half of what she talked about, but the comfort of that voice going on in my ears was a lifeline that I clung to desperately. And when the discomfort, and the pain, and the fear would all become too much to take hers was the hand that found mine.\n\n     She was there for the important things. I think even at that time she had volunteered to care for me. When the peace officers came to question me it was her voice I responded to. Supposedly they asked a lot of questions I don’t remember, and between my small replies and what they had heard me crying in nightmare, they pieced together a picture of what had happened to me.\n\n     I was abused... raped they stated, and though that is obvious enough to me now it was something I knew nothing about then. I had been beaten, torn apart inside and treated no better than an angry cub treats a toy. And what did I know as a cub? Daddy had hurt me badly... at least that was what they apparently decided. There was a game I hated playing. It hurt and I didn’t want them touching me ‘down there’.\n\n     Down there... of course I didn’t want them doing that! I had no input but touch; I did not know who or what these strangers were. I was already sore and swollen and hurting inside, stuffed full of cotton, weak as a newborn and scared out of my wits. My mother... my real mother, must have surely taught me that ‘down there’ is private and not to be shared with strangers, even as my father taught other lessons.\n\n     If they had only tried to teach me! I might have grown up to be a very different furr. But I suppose no one realized what lessons I might have already learned. The more aware I became in that bed the more it seemed my body was someone else’s belonging. Nurses washed me, doctors prodded me, and I could soon tell when I was covered and when I was bare.\n\n     They seemed to defer to Laurel’s sensibilities. At least I don’t remember them being so matter of fact while she was there. And while Laurel did take up the duties of ‘mother as nurse’, she always told me before she would cross that line of privacy, and asked when she could afford the opportunity whether I was okay with her attentions or not.\n\n     That was reason enough for me to learn to trust her, but it was not the only one. As I became more aware of self and world, I began to imprint upon Laurel. I had a mother before; doesn’t everyone have a mother? But I could not say who she was or where she had gone. When I cried for my Mama, it was Laurel who answered. Laurel answered my questions when no one else would. Laurel soothed my distress and rubbed away itches once I could communicate that I had them.\n\n     It was Laurel that I turned to in the darkness. It was to Laurel I first trusted my name.\n\n     They had asked me repeatedly for it. But thinking backward to anything was an invitation to terrible agony. My clearest memories of the time before are just jumbled images, confusing to me and impossible to sort through. They make no sense and I don’t want them to, for whenever I begin to remember them the scar at my temple burns. Yellow and red arrows, my face distorted in a stripe of silver, a dark form on the floor, and pain... too much pain.\n\n     Coming out of the darkness, crying as my numb senses and battered body returned to life, I still had a hard time understanding speech, which I often took for random sounds. The wolves around me, if wolves they were, gave little thought to the small female wrapped in bandages in their midst. I gather it was a session with the peace officers, and the only reason I believe it so was because even the doctors never handled me so brusquely. Those ‘all business’ individuals were seldom gentle, but at least they made it a habit not to jerk me about. But this one time, I was brought awake by the combination of that random mumbling, and someone touching me from place to place.\n\n     That was frightening enough, lying there listening to the random sounds, not knowing where the next poke of a finger would come. But when my shift was thrown up with no warning it was a greater shock, and when hands forced my knees apart there was no recourse but for me to scream. My cry had unintended consequence. They stopped, but not for me.\n\n     The first clear words I understood were, “What are you doing to her?” It was a tone I knew well, and a furr I knew as well. Laurel had come to my rescue, arguing with the peace officers, telling them that they could treat me with respect or nothing at all. They listened to her, and decided to take the word of my abuse and injuries. Laurel knew enough of my past from my earlier ravings. And then they asked for my name.\n\n     I don’t know what they called me before that moment. I presume I had a number, either my bed or by seasonal case. Laurel had always shushed me by calling me ‘honey cub’. A voice buzzed recklessly in my injured ear. I whined. Again Laurel interrupted them. She spoke slow and loud for my benefit, telling them I could not hear them on that side or understand if they spoke so.\n\n     And then came, ‘Honey, do you know your name?”\n\n     “Uh huh.” I tried to nod but it hurt.\n\n     “Can you tell me what it is?”\n\n     “I don’t know.”\n\n     There was more angry buzzing. But Laurel’s voice remained smooth and sweet. “Why don’t you know, honey?”\n\n     I had to think about it but finally told her, “I’m not supposed to tell.” My words were for her alone.\n\n     “Did your daddy tell you that?”\n\n     I could not remember who had told me such a thing and in my frustration began to cry. Laurel’s response was immediate; she did her best to hold me though she could not actually embrace or pick me up. “It’s okay, honey,” she told me. “It will all be okay. They won’t hurt you again. We won’t let them. I promise. Please tell me.”\n\n     It was such a beautiful sounding promise, and I believed her. I wanted to believe, and at that moment I needed her to say it. I needed this female to call me by my given name. I whispered it as though I was sharing a dredged secret, and at the time I suppose in fact it was.\n\n    She questioned my whisper, and since she was still holding me as best she could, it was the closest thing to being comforted that I had received since first awakening tied to that bed. “Kilara?” I gave my affirmation with that particular ‘whine in greeting’.\n\n     “Kilara. Everything will be all right now. It’s going to be okay.” \n\n     I remember the day they removed my head bandages. After so long without light I had grown accustomed to darkness so much that light was actually painful. Laurel was with me, and it was good to have a hand to hold even though mine were still tied to the bed frame. When the nurses took the gauze from my eyes I thought my face was on fire, for everything was too bright. My eyes burned and the pain was so bad it was as if I had been stabbed once again. I was told I howled with it, and they immediately put a cloth over my face. But it was too late for I had passed out.\n\n     After that I have always preferred to wake in the morning facing away from the sun. Too strong a light in my eyes gives a stabbing pain that will literally ruin the rest of my day. I suppose it was my first lesson in how I would live my new life. Everything I do must take my temple and that wound into account.\n\n     Those days it was both hard and easier, for I had to relearn everything, but I had Laurel to help me learn it. And she was determined to help me. Thus when I woke again, eyes throbbing, face cold from the ice they had used to reduce the pain, Laurel was still sitting at my side. She was very apologetic but warned me we would try again. And I wanted to try, once I understood what was wanted. I wanted to see, if only for a moment, so that I could look upon the face of the beautiful voice that had so long sounded in my ears.\n\n     Isn’t it funny how we perceive things? Until that moment I had pictured Laurel with dark hair and fur. I think something of my disappointment must have shown on my face. The wolf I was hoping for wasn’t there. Of course, I wasn’t seeing very clearly then. Most of what I could make out was only a blur. I used that as my excuse, and I think she chose to believe me, though I could see her enough to know she was blonde. I am not.\n\n     But if Laurel wasn’t what I had been hoping for on the outside, it didn’t really matter. It was her voice I had listened for, and it was enough of a thrill to be able to finally put those words to a face. I never saw her angry, even when the doctors raised her ire. For me, she always smiled. For me her hand was never raised. That part never changed at least, and for that in my heart she remains.\n\n     To that point there had not been much hope in the doctors’ prognosis of my recovery. My attacker’s blade had penetrated the side of my head almost as deep as his ‘blade’ had gone into my body, and to say it that way is about as polite as I can put it. With all of the damage I suffered it was a wonder I survived at all. With such a serious head wound their attention to my body was minimal, and with an interior wound what could they do? Thus though they watched me closely my injuries were left to heal on their own.\n\n     Once the initial pain receded I was able to comfortably feel most of myself. That sounds so awkward. I mean that I could feel my limbs, and the whole of my body. But though I could feel it if one pinched a toe, I could not at first move on command. It was a great concern to the doctors. They first assumed I would be paralyzed from some point, and were continually surprised when I would regain control over another part of myself.\n\n     It was torture for poor Laurel. The doctors continually gave her a diagnosis on my condition, and whatever they told I was not to know, yet I could see it in her eyes whenever she would come to my bedside and try not to cry. I gave her quite a bumpy ride for whenever I would work past the limits the doctors had set she would always be surprised in a joyful way. It set her up terribly for the next of the doctors’ blows. I never have cared for doctors.\n\n     At any rate, it took me time to heal enough to be allowed out of bed. In everything I did I was slow, and each movement or spoken word required my full concentration. I suppose it was exactly like being a newborn cub once again. I was made to do exercises, and at first it seemed pointless to be told to wiggle my toes, to make a fist, to wag my tail and so on. But as I regained mastery in these simple things the doctors began making changes.\n\n     I was moved to a bed where I might sit up. At the same time they began untying my hands for certain periods. The freedom this allowed me was immediate for I was at the time feeling very put upon and upset that I must be treated like an infant. To be able to sit up allowed me the dignity of ‘going potty’ on my own terms again. To have my hands free meant I could clean up after myself once more. Working with the doctors and doing their exercises gave me more strength and more time free of constraint. The benefits being so obvious, I was almost too eager to continue their regimen, to the point that Laurel had to constantly tell me to rest.\n\n     Through these things I was always watched. Even through my toileting, and in that first turning it was an embarrassment I had to go through a lot. Because I could not hold water well, there had to be someone there to be ready to catch me and clean me up. Because all of my mental ‘exercising’ made my temple itch, they had to be sure I would not do myself harm if I gave in to the urge to scratch. This treatment had some consequence. In the first, I lost whatever shame I might have had over natural functions, if indeed my father had left me any. And the second went a long way in teaching me to ignore discomfort and minor pains. It became easy over time to ignore annoyance in favor of some other thing.\n\n     I don’t know how long I had been there when they finally allowed Laurel to push me about in a wheelchair. There was a lot of nervous anticipation among the nurses as they taught Laurel how to handle me and get me from bed to seat. I suppose I smelled fear and stayed quiet. Thus that first shifting was accomplished with me as limp as a rag doll. The doctors had insisted that I wear mittens.\n\n     It was the first time I had been out doors in over a turning. Laurel constantly spoke words of assurance, asking if I was too hot, too cold, if the light was too bright and anything else she could think of. And to me, finally away from the prying eyes and the confines of the bed, none of it mattered. The warmth of the sun and the feeling of the breeze was a brand new experience for me. I could not remember ever having such a privilege.\n\n     They didn’t allow me out very long; I guess like everything else moderation was required to build my tolerance. Or perhaps the doctors were smarter than I give credit for, and such a short trip was alternately bribe and to whet my appetite for more. I say bribe, and think so because of what came later that evening.\n\n     Having been molested, torn apart and nearly killed by my father, it was reasonable for Laurel and the staff to assume that the sight of a strange male might upset me. It was a safe assumption to believe that being told one might become my new daddy could very well drive me to panic. Of course they weren’t going to give me that news and then send me to a new home that day. But to introduce me to the prospect on the same day they allowed me out the first time was a neat little trick.\n\n     In truth they were not so far from the mark. I don’t really remember my first meeting with Rush Sominest. But I’m told I stayed very quiet, very still and that I watched him the entire time he was in the room. I believe that, for it sounds exactly like something I would do. At the time no one knew what to make of it, though I suppose if anyone doubted my abuser no one did after that. For several seasons Rush could not raise a hand or move to touch me without making me flinch.\n\n     I learned that Rush and Laurel were married, and that they already had a family. Laurel still appeared every day, though as my waking hours grew longer I no longer thought that she stayed at my bed all of the time. She still talked to me, sharing everything she thought I would find interest in, increasingly pre-teaching me the things she felt I would need to know.\n\n     When I first met the Sominest twins I could not yet get out of bed by myself. Lily and Mira were as blonde as their mother, and very excited at the prospect of getting a sister. I’m afraid I did not share their enthusiasm, and despite Laurel’s urging that I would have playmates and how that was a happy thing, I stayed reserved. It was not their fault, and they tried their hardest to get me to like them right away. But they wanted to fix my hair, and with my temple I wanted no one’s hands flying around my head.\n\n     Another big problem came as they talked about the games we would play. At that time I knew only two games. There was the infantile ‘peek-a-boo’ that I suffered through in willing humiliation as an exercise. And then there was that other thing. The first time they asked if I wanted to play a game with them I scared them terribly. I growled and bared my teeth, for I too was frightened, and the sudden lurch in my stomach and lower parts scared me more than the twins themselves had.\n\n     We had started our familial relationship with the clear notion that I was different than they were. That was the first reinforcement of that idea. Laurel took the twins away to shush their cries, and she may have explained that the term ‘game’ was something quite different to me than it was to them. Whatever was said, it made an impression, because they never asked me to play a game again. Thereafter they would ask to ‘play together’ or ‘go have some fun’.\n\n     And again, if someone had only explained to me that ‘the game’ wasn’t a game at all, then I might have gone onto something much better.\n\n     One thing I remember is that I was never asked if I wanted to go live with the Sominests. To be certain there was no real need, for I had no other place to go, and no recollection of how to get there if I had. But the sudden change in things was difficult. Laurel and Rush came in one day and said, “We’re going to be your parents, honey”, and that was it. I had never thought about where I would be going or who would take care of me. I don’t know if the twins had really understood the details either, for though they were eager to say it they were less eager to deal with it.\n\n     But that fall I was given all sorts of tests. I was just relearning how to walk at the time, and could only take a few steps before I’d have to lie down. It was so frustrating, because I knew I could walk if I wanted, and run, but just trying to put one foot in front of the other was so very hard. I could not make my feet and legs do what I wanted them to do. If I was surly and snappish it wasn’t a wonder, because my body would drive me to tears.\n\n     Some of what they asked me to do that day was nothing more than my basic exercises. The doctors had me follow their instructions without taking into account how the nurses had me busy trying to walk all morning. It must have looked to everyone that I had a relapse, for there were a lot of the tests I could not do. Every time I failed at a task I had proven able to do before I got more upset. And with each failure the doctors talked to me like I was younger, until one would have thought I had the mind of the youngest cub.\n\n     I heard some of the things they told Laurel, with Rush grimly sitting beside her, holding her hand. By that time I had my nose pressed to the wall, painfully gritting my teeth. I wanted to bite them; they made me that mad. But when the doctors left, she got up without a word to Rush, and put her hand on my head. She spoke slowly; she still had to for my benefit and even that made me fuzz up in anger at myself. But maybe then she understood me, because she let me know that nothing the doctors said mattered at all.\n\n     “Kilara honey, it will be okay. You’ll come home with us soon, and we’ll help you no matter what you need. You’re our daughter now, Kilara. You’ll see.” Her voice... her conviction; it was so strong I could do nothing less than agree.\n\n     The hospital released me into the Sominests’ care in the late fall. No one knew my age or proper name. The doctors had estimated I was between five and seven turnings old at my arrival, and so I was given a new birth certificate. In the eyes of the world I had suddenly become Kilara Sominest, a seven turnings old female wolf cub.\n\n     For a while I ignored the feeling, but it was odd to me to gain that identity. In the back of my mind was always a feeling that I had forgotten something important. And at the fore of that belief was the idea that I was different from everyone around me; that I did not belong where I was.\n\n     For my first season it was something worse than the hospital, but in many ways better. Laurel put my bed in their room, to my embarrassment and eventual detriment. Lily and Mira were not envious at least, and I think we were all relieved for that. Being unable to sleep alone had as much to do with strange surroundings as anything. But there was for some time the worry of how to handle night trips to the bathroom.\n\n     So that was how I spent my time. Waking in the mornings with my new parents, I would do what I could and they would help with what I could not. I would eat breakfast with the family and then spend my time learning and exercising, first with Laurel alone, and then with Rush and the twins as our situation allowed. As I settled into a comfortable routine, life in the Sominest house settled into something similar as well.\n\n     Laurel was the first to take up her other duties by returning to her volunteer work at the hospital. She would go for the noon meal on days Rush was not at work, and once they decided I was not going to panic at being left with him she began going for longer times.\n\n     By the time spring had returned and the twins had gone back to den school I had learned their set routine. Den school was five days on and two off. I could not go yet, because of my debilitations, but I had been promised ‘maybe the next turning’. Laurel was always home when school was out because, as I was told, “three females are too much for any one male.”\n\n     Rush always had one of their out days off, and on those days we had ‘family time’ which generally meant he would keep the twins busy while Laurel took care of me. He was surprisingly affectionate with us, always listening to what we said; giving hugs and shoulder pats for good jobs... that kind of thing. He didn’t ignore me, but the twins ran about and kept him so busy at things like ‘fetch and throw’ and chase games that I began to feel the first pangs of jealousy. I wanted the attention the twins were getting, and my exercise time with Laurel began to frustrate me for other reasons.\n\n     He would hug me, give me good night kisses and sit me on his lap when he was at home evenings to read us a story. That was my ‘trump time’ over the twins, for before me they had taken turns at sitting so once they got too big to sit together. And I guess that should have been enough for me, but I wanted more. I couldn’t do the things the twins did with him. I couldn’t walk far without tiring, and because my right foot still wouldn’t move as I wanted, I couldn’t run at all.\n\n     I was always needing help, being looked after, fussed over, and stepped upon. And I wanted better. But Laurel was forever talking over me, asking if I wanted assistance and then helping me out anyway. The twins only paid attention to me when they really wanted to. It was Rush that I looked to in silence, for he never pushed for me to do things, and was never the sort to set me a schedule and force me to keep it.\n\n     I saw more of him than I was supposed to. I know Laurel did the same things with the twins that she did with me. I know she had the same talks as we grew older. But though Rush was a doting father he stayed well away from anything else with his girls. If I had been better it would have been the same for me, but things were different by force. When Laurel wasn’t home Rush would have to help me if I needed it. Thus he saw me in my private moments, in the bathroom, getting ready for bed. And I saw him at his, spent with Lauren, and dressing for the day.\n\n     That was what caught me up; that I became too comfortable with him. There was so much that I could not do, and so much that I wanted. In the end I wanted to let him know I loved him, however it seemed prudent to do so, at whatever opportunity I had. He used to lay me down for naps in the early afternoon, and because he liked to sleep those times away too, he would put me to bed with him. Surely I was too old for such cub sleep, but if I needed to rise there was no other way to be able to wake him for help.\n\n     It was always so warm and comfortable, to be cuddled so in half sleep, and no matter when I would wake I would do my best to stay still with him. To me, that seemed to be the love I wanted. And finally, I tried to give something back, something that only made sense to me, as being something that only I could do.\n\n     Rush didn’t know what was happening at first. I’ve since learned there isn’t a male that won’t react at that kind of warmth wriggling against them. But when he woke to find me holding him, attempting... Suffice to say that he was completely horrified. He nearly knocked me to the floor in his haste to leave the bed. And I was crushed, not by the weight of his body but his total rejection. He didn’t talk to me; he simply pulled his breeches about, covered himself and ran from the room.\n\n     His fear became my fear; I pulled the blankets about me and huddled quietly, wondering what I had done that was so wrong. If I had feared while he had left me, it was nothing to what struck me some hours later when Laurel stormed into the room. Disbelief, anger, disgust... I saw all of these in her face and understood them. Her accusations fell upon me as Rush’s rejection, and worst of all, was that the twins heard every word. There was nowhere else for them to go, and no one in the family that did not know of my transgression to the letter. My standing amid them fell.\n\n     I was lost, confused, and I collapsed in tears. The things I saw in their faces and heard in their voices made me outcast anew and tore me apart. I wanted in that hour to die. They never told me things were not my fault. They never explained what I was supposed to do. And I have never forgotten Laurel’s words to me.\n\n     “What were you thinking?” She asked. I tried to explain myself. I tried to tell them what he meant to me; how he treated me, and how I only wanted to do something special and show him my love in return. He took care of me like nothing I could remember. I didn’t want to lose that which I had never had before. But I didn’t have the words I needed. Laurel didn’t take the time to listen, to figure out what I was trying to tell her as she had tried so hard before.\n\n     In a hate laced voice she told me, “We don’t do that here, Kilara. That isn’t love.”\n\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "01 - Awakening

     The first thing I remember was the pain. There was nothing else; no sense other than the burning hurt everywhere. If I could define my sense of self, it was only by everything that hurt. I suppose I must have slept a lot. I’m sure there were times that I was crying, crying out for someone, or perhaps simply crying out for the hurt to stop. I was only a cub then.

     When the pain started to recede I found other feelings. There was a curious fullness that was very uncomfortable. I felt stuffed, full too low, aching inside and out, pushed by pressure in places I didn’t know till then that I had. There was more to this pressure than a need to toilet. At that point such was very beyond my worries. I don’t remember being awake when they changed me. It would have made a terrible time even worse.

     I had none of the other senses for a while. No sight or smell; these were scary, shocking to do without though I hadn’t the words for them then. I think taste was missing, but if I were fed it surely would have been little more than suckling water or broth. To eat was obviously beyond me. To have a full belly would have been torture. Touch too was a mystery, though I had impressions of things touching me, I was unaware of what they were or could be. How was I to know my hands had been secured so I couldn’t scratch myself?

     But touch and sound together were the first two things to come back to me. Surely I had heard things, doctors and nurses around me, and she who sat at my bedside. Yet those things refused to bridge the gap between input and awareness until the moment I first felt something beyond the awful throbbing headache I had lived with since my arrival at the hospital in which I awoke.

     It has since become a lifelong torment. The mark at my temple has never healed, and somewhere between dry bone and scarred skin feeling makes itself known as an itch that demands scratching whenever I think about the past. This was the reason my hands were lashed to the bed frame. This was what they were prepared for, and when I became so consumed by the itch I could not scratch, I cried out in my torment.

     Surely I had done so before. It was nothing new to the one at my bedside. And I am as certain her response must have been oft repeated. But at the time it was as the first for me. I jerked and tugged, and to me it seemed I must have been thrashing in mysterious captivity. I cried out, pleading with whine and shriek, and then came that which surprised me.

     A hand brushed my head and I heard sound. At first it meant nothing. Whether through my injury or tears the syllables were simply noises of which I could make no sense. But it was only at first. For some reason it caused me to quiet, this touch. And maybe that noise distracted me so that I listened harder. It took those sounds some time to cross the fog of my mind, so that the gibberish I heard slowly formed real words.

     “Hush little one,” over and over. It was a strange female, touching my face, comforting me in the darkness. How long had she sat there, and why? I was told later of how long it had taken; of how many hours Laurel had spent in the hopes I might respond. It was the first clear sign I had given anyone at that hour of my continued existence, and I still can’t fathom how anyone could have fallen in love at a simple flick of one ear.

     That was what I gave her, a long whine and the flick of my uninjured ear. For me it was the start of my life beyond dim memory. I was the only one who wondered, ‘what did I do wrong?’ And though no one told me for a long time, I figure those hours in the hospital were the only ones in my life that no one else thought such things with me.

     I learned about my world from this female that visited so often. My waking hours were void of anything otherwise interesting. I had no sense of time in the darkness, or of any sensation save the occasional prod of finger or claw prick. Such events were always a scary shock without warning and they could have had no better way of testing my reflexes had they wished it. Perhaps it drove me to heal faster... my hearing sharpened quickly though that remained unknown for some time.

     It was not until my leaving I learned that the staff in that place wore soft boots to keep quiet on purpose. Had anyone thought it important to tell, it might have saved me the time spent intently listening. Or it might not. Regardless, that exercise served me very well later, though again at the time there was little to hear.

     That isn’t fair to Laurel, to say there was nothing for me to listen to and make it seem she was of no comfort or never there. She was at my bedside often, and for far longer than anyone should find prudent for a stranger. That she did so, coming by at every available hour, says a lot about her heart. And to think that she did all of that for me... well, she didn’t know anything about me, that was certain.

     But to tell the truth, Laurel would come to sit at my bedside, and talk the whole time. I don’t pretend I understood half of what she talked about, but the comfort of that voice going on in my ears was a lifeline that I clung to desperately. And when the discomfort, and the pain, and the fear would all become too much to take hers was the hand that found mine.

     She was there for the important things. I think even at that time she had volunteered to care for me. When the peace officers came to question me it was her voice I responded to. Supposedly they asked a lot of questions I don’t remember, and between my small replies and what they had heard me crying in nightmare, they pieced together a picture of what had happened to me.

     I was abused... raped they stated, and though that is obvious enough to me now it was something I knew nothing about then. I had been beaten, torn apart inside and treated no better than an angry cub treats a toy. And what did I know as a cub? Daddy had hurt me badly... at least that was what they apparently decided. There was a game I hated playing. It hurt and I didn’t want them touching me ‘down there’.

     Down there... of course I didn’t want them doing that! I had no input but touch; I did not know who or what these strangers were. I was already sore and swollen and hurting inside, stuffed full of cotton, weak as a newborn and scared out of my wits. My mother... my real mother, must have surely taught me that ‘down there’ is private and not to be shared with strangers, even as my father taught other lessons.

     If they had only tried to teach me! I might have grown up to be a very different furr. But I suppose no one realized what lessons I might have already learned. The more aware I became in that bed the more it seemed my body was someone else’s belonging. Nurses washed me, doctors prodded me, and I could soon tell when I was covered and when I was bare.

     They seemed to defer to Laurel’s sensibilities. At least I don’t remember them being so matter of fact while she was there. And while Laurel did take up the duties of ‘mother as nurse’, she always told me before she would cross that line of privacy, and asked when she could afford the opportunity whether I was okay with her attentions or not.

     That was reason enough for me to learn to trust her, but it was not the only one. As I became more aware of self and world, I began to imprint upon Laurel. I had a mother before; doesn’t everyone have a mother? But I could not say who she was or where she had gone. When I cried for my Mama, it was Laurel who answered. Laurel answered my questions when no one else would. Laurel soothed my distress and rubbed away itches once I could communicate that I had them.

     It was Laurel that I turned to in the darkness. It was to Laurel I first trusted my name.

     They had asked me repeatedly for it. But thinking backward to anything was an invitation to terrible agony. My clearest memories of the time before are just jumbled images, confusing to me and impossible to sort through. They make no sense and I don’t want them to, for whenever I begin to remember them the scar at my temple burns. Yellow and red arrows, my face distorted in a stripe of silver, a dark form on the floor, and pain... too much pain.

     Coming out of the darkness, crying as my numb senses and battered body returned to life, I still had a hard time understanding speech, which I often took for random sounds. The wolves around me, if wolves they were, gave little thought to the small female wrapped in bandages in their midst. I gather it was a session with the peace officers, and the only reason I believe it so was because even the doctors never handled me so brusquely. Those ‘all business’ individuals were seldom gentle, but at least they made it a habit not to jerk me about. But this one time, I was brought awake by the combination of that random mumbling, and someone touching me from place to place.

     That was frightening enough, lying there listening to the random sounds, not knowing where the next poke of a finger would come. But when my shift was thrown up with no warning it was a greater shock, and when hands forced my knees apart there was no recourse but for me to scream. My cry had unintended consequence. They stopped, but not for me.

     The first clear words I understood were, “What are you doing to her?” It was a tone I knew well, and a furr I knew as well. Laurel had come to my rescue, arguing with the peace officers, telling them that they could treat me with respect or nothing at all. They listened to her, and decided to take the word of my abuse and injuries. Laurel knew enough of my past from my earlier ravings. And then they asked for my name.

     I don’t know what they called me before that moment. I presume I had a number, either my bed or by seasonal case. Laurel had always shushed me by calling me ‘honey cub’. A voice buzzed recklessly in my injured ear. I whined. Again Laurel interrupted them. She spoke slow and loud for my benefit, telling them I could not hear them on that side or understand if they spoke so.

     And then came, ‘Honey, do you know your name?”

     “Uh huh.” I tried to nod but it hurt.

     “Can you tell me what it is?”

     “I don’t know.”

     There was more angry buzzing. But Laurel’s voice remained smooth and sweet. “Why don’t you know, honey?”

     I had to think about it but finally told her, “I’m not supposed to tell.” My words were for her alone.

     “Did your daddy tell you that?”

     I could not remember who had told me such a thing and in my frustration began to cry. Laurel’s response was immediate; she did her best to hold me though she could not actually embrace or pick me up. “It’s okay, honey,” she told me. “It will all be okay. They won’t hurt you again. We won’t let them. I promise. Please tell me.”

     It was such a beautiful sounding promise, and I believed her. I wanted to believe, and at that moment I needed her to say it. I needed this female to call me by my given name. I whispered it as though I was sharing a dredged secret, and at the time I suppose in fact it was.

    She questioned my whisper, and since she was still holding me as best she could, it was the closest thing to being comforted that I had received since first awakening tied to that bed. “Kilara?” I gave my affirmation with that particular ‘whine in greeting’.

     “Kilara. Everything will be all right now. It’s going to be okay.”

     I remember the day they removed my head bandages. After so long without light I had grown accustomed to darkness so much that light was actually painful. Laurel was with me, and it was good to have a hand to hold even though mine were still tied to the bed frame. When the nurses took the gauze from my eyes I thought my face was on fire, for everything was too bright. My eyes burned and the pain was so bad it was as if I had been stabbed once again. I was told I howled with it, and they immediately put a cloth over my face. But it was too late for I had passed out.

     After that I have always preferred to wake in the morning facing away from the sun. Too strong a light in my eyes gives a stabbing pain that will literally ruin the rest of my day. I suppose it was my first lesson in how I would live my new life. Everything I do must take my temple and that wound into account.

     Those days it was both hard and easier, for I had to relearn everything, but I had Laurel to help me learn it. And she was determined to help me. Thus when I woke again, eyes throbbing, face cold from the ice they had used to reduce the pain, Laurel was still sitting at my side. She was very apologetic but warned me we would try again. And I wanted to try, once I understood what was wanted. I wanted to see, if only for a moment, so that I could look upon the face of the beautiful voice that had so long sounded in my ears.

     Isn’t it funny how we perceive things? Until that moment I had pictured Laurel with dark hair and fur. I think something of my disappointment must have shown on my face. The wolf I was hoping for wasn’t there. Of course, I wasn’t seeing very clearly then. Most of what I could make out was only a blur. I used that as my excuse, and I think she chose to believe me, though I could see her enough to know she was blonde. I am not.

     But if Laurel wasn’t what I had been hoping for on the outside, it didn’t really matter. It was her voice I had listened for, and it was enough of a thrill to be able to finally put those words to a face. I never saw her angry, even when the doctors raised her ire. For me, she always smiled. For me her hand was never raised. That part never changed at least, and for that in my heart she remains.

     To that point there had not been much hope in the doctors’ prognosis of my recovery. My attacker’s blade had penetrated the side of my head almost as deep as his ‘blade’ had gone into my body, and to say it that way is about as polite as I can put it. With all of the damage I suffered it was a wonder I survived at all. With such a serious head wound their attention to my body was minimal, and with an interior wound what could they do? Thus though they watched me closely my injuries were left to heal on their own.

     Once the initial pain receded I was able to comfortably feel most of myself. That sounds so awkward. I mean that I could feel my limbs, and the whole of my body. But though I could feel it if one pinched a toe, I could not at first move on command. It was a great concern to the doctors. They first assumed I would be paralyzed from some point, and were continually surprised when I would regain control over another part of myself.

     It was torture for poor Laurel. The doctors continually gave her a diagnosis on my condition, and whatever they told I was not to know, yet I could see it in her eyes whenever she would come to my bedside and try not to cry. I gave her quite a bumpy ride for whenever I would work past the limits the doctors had set she would always be surprised in a joyful way. It set her up terribly for the next of the doctors’ blows. I never have cared for doctors.

     At any rate, it took me time to heal enough to be allowed out of bed. In everything I did I was slow, and each movement or spoken word required my full concentration. I suppose it was exactly like being a newborn cub once again. I was made to do exercises, and at first it seemed pointless to be told to wiggle my toes, to make a fist, to wag my tail and so on. But as I regained mastery in these simple things the doctors began making changes.

     I was moved to a bed where I might sit up. At the same time they began untying my hands for certain periods. The freedom this allowed me was immediate for I was at the time feeling very put upon and upset that I must be treated like an infant. To be able to sit up allowed me the dignity of ‘going potty’ on my own terms again. To have my hands free meant I could clean up after myself once more. Working with the doctors and doing their exercises gave me more strength and more time free of constraint. The benefits being so obvious, I was almost too eager to continue their regimen, to the point that Laurel had to constantly tell me to rest.

     Through these things I was always watched. Even through my toileting, and in that first turning it was an embarrassment I had to go through a lot. Because I could not hold water well, there had to be someone there to be ready to catch me and clean me up. Because all of my mental ‘exercising’ made my temple itch, they had to be sure I would not do myself harm if I gave in to the urge to scratch. This treatment had some consequence. In the first, I lost whatever shame I might have had over natural functions, if indeed my father had left me any. And the second went a long way in teaching me to ignore discomfort and minor pains. It became easy over time to ignore annoyance in favor of some other thing.

     I don’t know how long I had been there when they finally allowed Laurel to push me about in a wheelchair. There was a lot of nervous anticipation among the nurses as they taught Laurel how to handle me and get me from bed to seat. I suppose I smelled fear and stayed quiet. Thus that first shifting was accomplished with me as limp as a rag doll. The doctors had insisted that I wear mittens.

     It was the first time I had been out doors in over a turning. Laurel constantly spoke words of assurance, asking if I was too hot, too cold, if the light was too bright and anything else she could think of. And to me, finally away from the prying eyes and the confines of the bed, none of it mattered. The warmth of the sun and the feeling of the breeze was a brand new experience for me. I could not remember ever having such a privilege.

     They didn’t allow me out very long; I guess like everything else moderation was required to build my tolerance. Or perhaps the doctors were smarter than I give credit for, and such a short trip was alternately bribe and to whet my appetite for more. I say bribe, and think so because of what came later that evening.

     Having been molested, torn apart and nearly killed by my father, it was reasonable for Laurel and the staff to assume that the sight of a strange male might upset me. It was a safe assumption to believe that being told one might become my new daddy could very well drive me to panic. Of course they weren’t going to give me that news and then send me to a new home that day. But to introduce me to the prospect on the same day they allowed me out the first time was a neat little trick.

     In truth they were not so far from the mark. I don’t really remember my first meeting with Rush Sominest. But I’m told I stayed very quiet, very still and that I watched him the entire time he was in the room. I believe that, for it sounds exactly like something I would do. At the time no one knew what to make of it, though I suppose if anyone doubted my abuser no one did after that. For several seasons Rush could not raise a hand or move to touch me without making me flinch.

     I learned that Rush and Laurel were married, and that they already had a family. Laurel still appeared every day, though as my waking hours grew longer I no longer thought that she stayed at my bed all of the time. She still talked to me, sharing everything she thought I would find interest in, increasingly pre-teaching me the things she felt I would need to know.

     When I first met the Sominest twins I could not yet get out of bed by myself. Lily and Mira were as blonde as their mother, and very excited at the prospect of getting a sister. I’m afraid I did not share their enthusiasm, and despite Laurel’s urging that I would have playmates and how that was a happy thing, I stayed reserved. It was not their fault, and they tried their hardest to get me to like them right away. But they wanted to fix my hair, and with my temple I wanted no one’s hands flying around my head.

     Another big problem came as they talked about the games we would play. At that time I knew only two games. There was the infantile ‘peek-a-boo’ that I suffered through in willing humiliation as an exercise. And then there was that other thing. The first time they asked if I wanted to play a game with them I scared them terribly. I growled and bared my teeth, for I too was frightened, and the sudden lurch in my stomach and lower parts scared me more than the twins themselves had.

     We had started our familial relationship with the clear notion that I was different than they were. That was the first reinforcement of that idea. Laurel took the twins away to shush their cries, and she may have explained that the term ‘game’ was something quite different to me than it was to them. Whatever was said, it made an impression, because they never asked me to play a game again. Thereafter they would ask to ‘play together’ or ‘go have some fun’.

     And again, if someone had only explained to me that ‘the game’ wasn’t a game at all, then I might have gone onto something much better.

     One thing I remember is that I was never asked if I wanted to go live with the Sominests. To be certain there was no real need, for I had no other place to go, and no recollection of how to get there if I had. But the sudden change in things was difficult. Laurel and Rush came in one day and said, “We’re going to be your parents, honey”, and that was it. I had never thought about where I would be going or who would take care of me. I don’t know if the twins had really understood the details either, for though they were eager to say it they were less eager to deal with it.

     But that fall I was given all sorts of tests. I was just relearning how to walk at the time, and could only take a few steps before I’d have to lie down. It was so frustrating, because I knew I could walk if I wanted, and run, but just trying to put one foot in front of the other was so very hard. I could not make my feet and legs do what I wanted them to do. If I was surly and snappish it wasn’t a wonder, because my body would drive me to tears.

     Some of what they asked me to do that day was nothing more than my basic exercises. The doctors had me follow their instructions without taking into account how the nurses had me busy trying to walk all morning. It must have looked to everyone that I had a relapse, for there were a lot of the tests I could not do. Every time I failed at a task I had proven able to do before I got more upset. And with each failure the doctors talked to me like I was younger, until one would have thought I had the mind of the youngest cub.

     I heard some of the things they told Laurel, with Rush grimly sitting beside her, holding her hand. By that time I had my nose pressed to the wall, painfully gritting my teeth. I wanted to bite them; they made me that mad. But when the doctors left, she got up without a word to Rush, and put her hand on my head. She spoke slowly; she still had to for my benefit and even that made me fuzz up in anger at myself. But maybe then she understood me, because she let me know that nothing the doctors said mattered at all.

     “Kilara honey, it will be okay. You’ll come home with us soon, and we’ll help you no matter what you need. You’re our daughter now, Kilara. You’ll see.” Her voice... her conviction; it was so strong I could do nothing less than agree.

     The hospital released me into the Sominests’ care in the late fall. No one knew my age or proper name. The doctors had estimated I was between five and seven turnings old at my arrival, and so I was given a new birth certificate. In the eyes of the world I had suddenly become Kilara Sominest, a seven turnings old female wolf cub.

     For a while I ignored the feeling, but it was odd to me to gain that identity. In the back of my mind was always a feeling that I had forgotten something important. And at the fore of that belief was the idea that I was different from everyone around me; that I did not belong where I was.

     For my first season it was something worse than the hospital, but in many ways better. Laurel put my bed in their room, to my embarrassment and eventual detriment. Lily and Mira were not envious at least, and I think we were all relieved for that. Being unable to sleep alone had as much to do with strange surroundings as anything. But there was for some time the worry of how to handle night trips to the bathroom.

     So that was how I spent my time. Waking in the mornings with my new parents, I would do what I could and they would help with what I could not. I would eat breakfast with the family and then spend my time learning and exercising, first with Laurel alone, and then with Rush and the twins as our situation allowed. As I settled into a comfortable routine, life in the Sominest house settled into something similar as well.

     Laurel was the first to take up her other duties by returning to her volunteer work at the hospital. She would go for the noon meal on days Rush was not at work, and once they decided I was not going to panic at being left with him she began going for longer times.

     By the time spring had returned and the twins had gone back to den school I had learned their set routine. Den school was five days on and two off. I could not go yet, because of my debilitations, but I had been promised ‘maybe the next turning’. Laurel was always home when school was out because, as I was told, “three females are too much for any one male.”

     Rush always had one of their out days off, and on those days we had ‘family time’ which generally meant he would keep the twins busy while Laurel took care of me. He was surprisingly affectionate with us, always listening to what we said; giving hugs and shoulder pats for good jobs... that kind of thing. He didn’t ignore me, but the twins ran about and kept him so busy at things like ‘fetch and throw’ and chase games that I began to feel the first pangs of jealousy. I wanted the attention the twins were getting, and my exercise time with Laurel began to frustrate me for other reasons.

     He would hug me, give me good night kisses and sit me on his lap when he was at home evenings to read us a story. That was my ‘trump time’ over the twins, for before me they had taken turns at sitting so once they got too big to sit together. And I guess that should have been enough for me, but I wanted more. I couldn’t do the things the twins did with him. I couldn’t walk far without tiring, and because my right foot still wouldn’t move as I wanted, I couldn’t run at all.

     I was always needing help, being looked after, fussed over, and stepped upon. And I wanted better. But Laurel was forever talking over me, asking if I wanted assistance and then helping me out anyway. The twins only paid attention to me when they really wanted to. It was Rush that I looked to in silence, for he never pushed for me to do things, and was never the sort to set me a schedule and force me to keep it.

     I saw more of him than I was supposed to. I know Laurel did the same things with the twins that she did with me. I know she had the same talks as we grew older. But though Rush was a doting father he stayed well away from anything else with his girls. If I had been better it would have been the same for me, but things were different by force. When Laurel wasn’t home Rush would have to help me if I needed it. Thus he saw me in my private moments, in the bathroom, getting ready for bed. And I saw him at his, spent with Lauren, and dressing for the day.

     That was what caught me up; that I became too comfortable with him. There was so much that I could not do, and so much that I wanted. In the end I wanted to let him know I loved him, however it seemed prudent to do so, at whatever opportunity I had. He used to lay me down for naps in the early afternoon, and because he liked to sleep those times away too, he would put me to bed with him. Surely I was too old for such cub sleep, but if I needed to rise there was no other way to be able to wake him for help.

     It was always so warm and comfortable, to be cuddled so in half sleep, and no matter when I would wake I would do my best to stay still with him. To me, that seemed to be the love I wanted. And finally, I tried to give something back, something that only made sense to me, as being something that only I could do.

     Rush didn’t know what was happening at first. I’ve since learned there isn’t a male that won’t react at that kind of warmth wriggling against them. But when he woke to find me holding him, attempting... Suffice to say that he was completely horrified. He nearly knocked me to the floor in his haste to leave the bed. And I was crushed, not by the weight of his body but his total rejection. He didn’t talk to me; he simply pulled his breeches about, covered himself and ran from the room.

     His fear became my fear; I pulled the blankets about me and huddled quietly, wondering what I had done that was so wrong. If I had feared while he had left me, it was nothing to what struck me some hours later when Laurel stormed into the room. Disbelief, anger, disgust... I saw all of these in her face and understood them. Her accusations fell upon me as Rush’s rejection, and worst of all, was that the twins heard every word. There was nowhere else for them to go, and no one in the family that did not know of my transgression to the letter. My standing amid them fell.

     I was lost, confused, and I collapsed in tears. The things I saw in their faces and heard in their voices made me outcast anew and tore me apart. I wanted in that hour to die. They never told me things were not my fault. They never explained what I was supposed to do. And I have never forgotten Laurel’s words to me.

     “What were you thinking?” She asked. I tried to explain myself. I tried to tell them what he meant to me; how he treated me, and how I only wanted to do something special and show him my love in return. He took care of me like nothing I could remember. I didn’t want to lose that which I had never had before. But I didn’t have the words I needed. Laurel didn’t take the time to listen, to figure out what I was trying to tell her as she had tried so hard before.

     In a hate laced voice she told me, “We don’t do that here, Kilara. That isn’t love.”

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