Chương 160: THE WAY BACK HOME

Back to the Lycan Study Group: Dean finally showed up, and Mrs Beta brought us to the library to read. Today's lesson was about the way back home. We were supposed to read up about our individual bloodlines, research the different mountains, and look up the scripts about the journey back to the Colored Mountains... not that any of us were ever going back. My bloodline was from the bad guys in the origin story, by the way.

Dad and I carried the proud lineage of the original black wolf bloodline, which made us violent and aggressive, authoritative, short-tempered, and territorial. When I was little, this upset me, but when I confronted Dad about it, he told me, "There are two sides to every coin. Just as we are those things, we are also strong fighters, decisive leaders. We respond quickly and powerfully to protect those we love and what is ours. It depends on our decisions—what we choose to use ourselves for."

Of course, I didn't understand, but now that I'm writing it down, I think he meant that we have a choice not to be the bad guys. Back in the Colored Mountains, there were still magic wolves, but they ran in deference to the wolf people, who were now all werewolves. I don't know where the non-werewolf population went... maybe they left the mountains and became the warlocks we had around today. Black wolves, although the minority, were still the reigning elite.

They ruled in Black Mountain and were the foundation of tradition and the political center. The wolf king's throne was on this mountain. Grey Mountain hosted the grey wolves, loyal to Black Wolves, whom they regarded as their origin. Grey Mountain seated the financial and trading center. Otherwise, it was a quiet and traditional mountain where any disturbance was frowned upon. Red Mountain hosted another breed of wolves with red or brown fur. They were smaller in size but far more numerous.

They were also more excitable and ran the fashion and entertainment districts. Green Mountain was for the first rogue wolves, but now there were packs of wolves of mixed descent. It was said that Green Mountain, despite its emerald treeline, was hollow inside. The Green Mountain underground was a city of technological wonder. Orange Mountain was shared by grey, white, and black wolves who specialized in agriculture and arts. White Mountain was uninhabitable by wolves because it was Tiger territory.

I have no idea what that meant. And that was the Colored Mountains, where all wolves originated. It was said that we should not have left the Mountains. At the back of several of our ancient books, there would be this epilogue urging us to return to the Mountains, but if we did decide to return, we would have to be prepared never to see the plains again. There were even rules that we must never stop a wolf who wanted to take the journey home. In fact, we should offer our assistance to them.

There were century-old books with instructions on finding the Mountain Gate City, and then crossing between the White and Green Mountains, and the perils and enchantments to beware of. It was the stuff made for adventurers! I loved reading these books as a child, and I would lead the other pups on grand adventures in our own backyard. I loved it now. Even as I read them again in the library, I found myself thinking, "Maybe one day—one day—I will go up and take a look.

Maybe one day, when my children are grown, I will return to the Colored Mountains for a grand adventure." But I didn't know anyone who had actually tried to return to the Colored Mountains. Actually, if anyone did want to return to the Colored Mountains, they would have to pass by our Green Packland. We were probably the most direct route to the Mountain Gate City. It was why our train station was named Gate City—a clue for the wolves searching. But no one had come searching before.

It's not that we didn't want to go back; it's just that we didn't want to go back badly enough. At any rate, I think there was a reason why our ancestors left in the first place. Still, I loved the stories of the Colored Mountains. Hearing them made my heart feel like bursting. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

"Hmmm..." Dean had fallen asleep over his book. I leaned over to look. I think he was still looking for his ancestry, but he was looking at the wrong book. His book was about Green Mountain. I suspected Dean would be of Red Mountain descent, like Jessica... whom I noted was looking in the right book... sort of.

"Looks like the fashion trend in Red Mountain was a lot like it is in the plains." Jessica was looking at the hand-painted pictures in her book. She showed me one of young men wearing what looked like leather jackets and dark jeans. They looked a lot like Harvey, whom I now realized was a Red Wolf. Harvey wasn't small, though. Red wolves were supposed to be small and brown, like the size of a very large dog. Harvey was the same size as me. The only red wolves that size were from very pure Alpha or Beta bloodlines.

To find a red wolf Harvey's size was probably nothing short of a miracle; it was probably even rarer than a large white wolf. I wanted to ask about it, but Jessica had a more pressing issue.

"I thought the Lorents were preserving the culture from the Colored Mountains, but the Red Mountain fashion was just like our everyday clothes." Mrs Beta smiled and took out a few books.

"The Lorents are preserving fashion from the Black Mountains. It's different on every mountain, just like how it's very different on every packland for us." Jessica and I peered into these new books. Yup, you could see where the Lorents were coming from. Some of the pages from these century-old books looked like hand-painted pictures from the NEW LORENT magazine Jessica showed me.

"But Lorents are white wolves, not black," I argued.

"Yes, but the white wolves had no mountain. Many of them lived in the Black or Green Mountains, where the magic was the strongest," Mrs Beta said.

"What's the Tiger in White Mountain?" I wanted to know.

"Did it chase away the white wolves?"

"I'm not sure, but no, White Mountain had always been uninhabited. I believe the Tiger was a prophecy of some sort," Mrs Beta said.

"Do you think it had happened by now, whatever was prophesied?" I asked. Mrs Beta frowned, as if such a possibility had only just occurred to her, and then she smiled at me.

"Who knows? Perhaps the only way to find out is to go back and see." I hated that type of answer.

"I had no idea fashion in the Colored Mountains was so sophisticated." Jessica was blown away by the illustrations Mrs Beta had produced. Mrs Beta could find anything in our pack house library. She said it was a different story in her own kitchen, though, so her family often ate at the pack house dining hall. Since Killion had done his magic in their home during our last overnighter, Mum said that Mrs Beta had offered to help us house Killion.

"Of course I said no!" Mum had told me.

"Ki is part of our family now... besides, I'm getting too used to not cooking or doing the laundry anymore." Killion's popularity was growing by the day. It also seemed that my previous assumption—that the confounding fashion trends I faced today were the product of human influence—was in error. It turned out that if wolves were isolated to mountain life, fashion trends would be the same, if not worse. I realized now that a black wolf like me would have been forced into a life wrapped tightly in silk and jewelry.

At the end of the lesson, we shared what we learned at the end of study group. I drew out diagrams about the different Colored Mountain wolves and their pack running patterns, which I found fascinating when Mrs Beta showed me a book detailing the different formations the various packs used when they ran. Black Mountain wolves ran without their females. The strongest ran in front, leaving the weakest tailing off at the back. They could move their entire army in a pack run like this.

They often hunted in two or three groups of six or more wolves per group. The strongest wolves always stuck together. They were the first to initiate and stabilize an attack, and also the first to enjoy the spoils. If female wolves hunted, they usually formed all-female groups and always played the secondary hunting group to the stronger male group. Grey Mountain wolves ran together—males and females—in larger groups. Their females and weaker wolves ran in the middle of the formation.

The strongest were up front; their beta ran last. Nobody got left behind. Not everyone hunted, either. Weaker wolves were tasked with support teams. It paid less but kept them alive longer. Green Mountain wolves had different formations: one for hunting, one for running away, and even one for moving an entire pack from one place to another. Their formation was made of units of twos or threes and spread out in highly accurate patterns to corral and capture their objective.

Red Mountain wolves ran in very small groups of three to four wolves they called a party. Parties could run together, sometimes up to seven parties. The formations were loosely based on Green Mountain formations, but often, due to infighting, the parties might not cooperate as planned. Also, because hunting was considered a hobby on Red Mountain, most of the groups were formed by amateurs instead of fully trained warriors. In a large group, though, the Red Wolves were "like rats rushing out of a flooding sewer."

They simply overran their prey by sheer numbers. Jessica had compared their different dress codes. Lorent style was for Black Mountain alone. This surprised me; apparently, it was only this one mountain that dressed like this—and anyone who wanted to step foot on it was expected to dress accordingly. The other mountains wore clothing similar to ours, except that on Green Mountain, carrying weapons was the norm, as were camouflaged fatigues. Jessica gave awards to every mountain. Black was the most fancy.

Red was the most fashion-forward. Grey was the most conservative. Green was the most military, and Orange was the most artistic. Mrs Beta had woken Dean up earlier and introduced him to a book about the music and art from the different Mountains. Dean shared that most of the top musicians in the Colored Mountains were from Black, Green, or Red Mountain. He was still unsure if he was a Green or Red Wolf, but he felt that his music style might be closer to Green Mountain's underground club scene.

Mrs Beta made a strange face at that, but she managed to thank him for sharing and suggested he ask his Mum and Dad about their roots when he got home.

"Real roots are only the ones you have uncovered on your own," Mrs Beta liked to say. And then we were done. We went downstairs together and sat at our usual table for lunch.