Why is it that no matter where we go, what we do, how hard we try, pain and death are the only things we are remembered by?
Its hard to remember the beginning. We didn't live in a great place, in fact, we lived in the slums of Long Beach, just off the Pacific Coast Highway. Kinda funny if you ask me. My dad was a doctor, actually made it through med school. Everyone was proud of him. He was half Duwamish, though he was one hundred percent Garou. He choose the Children of Gaia. He could have claimed Uktena, because of his Indian Blood, but he said that he thought he could do more good with the Children. Perhaps he was right, who am I to judge the dead and departed. So where was I? Oh yea, the slums of Long Beach.
Wait...
My name is Jonathan, by the way. Sorry, my manners always seem to escape me. I'm also a Child of Gaia, like my father before me. He was a good man. His name Marcus. Marcus "Laughing Winds" Hollander. Yea, I know. Hollander doesn't sound too Indian does it? To be honest, Dad lived on a reservation outside of Seattle after he found out he was Indian. His father took up on the relocation act of 1960, and was shipped off the reservation and landed in Seattle. He wanted to forget his people's way of life. He wanted to forget the pain. We all want to forget the pain. I wish we could.
When I was born, there was great rejoicing for my father. He and my mother, a kin named Holly, had tried several times to have a child. It was frustrating to lose two, and then nothing. My father said I was Gaia's own gift to him. My father loved me. We lived in a Bone Gnawer Sept, in the heart of Long Beach Harbor. It was well protected, for being in the mouth of the weaver. I had a wonderful childhood, well, if you don't mind playing in a dump. The Gnawers were good folk, and appreciated all my dad did. He ran a free clinic, and helped all the kin in the area. That goes a long way with Gnawer. A long way. I wish I could have stayed for my first change, though, as with life, things change.
You think Children are all about the love? You think living life as a Child is the best thing that ever happened to me? Your wrong, dead wrong. My mother was taken away from my father and I. It was no one's fault. My father was a ragabash. He was also the Den Father. He was tending to some cubs when the spirals broke into the clinic. They slaughter and defiled most everyone. Even the Elders raged at what had happened. It was an atrocity of war. Many atrocities have happened in this war, many more will continue to happen. My mother was raped. Over, and over again so far as we could tell. My father was not there. He blamed himself. I've never seen my father cry, not until he buried his wife. I felt the rage boil in me, but it wasn't my time yet. Yet.
So a council was held. It was discovered that the local shadowlords knew, but did nothing to aid the kin. They were looking to follow the spirals back to where they came from. Cowards. My father raged, raged for the lost kin of the Gnawers, raged for his own wife. His pack slaughtered the Shadowlords. My father took the life of the Shadowlord alpha. Justice The local Shadowlords demanded Justice. They were given almost none. My father was given the rite of ostracism, along with his pack, and nothing more. The Shadowlords were furious, and though, it cannot be traced to them, they got their own justice. They stripped my father of his license to practice medicine. The last thing he had was me. He wasn't going to let anything happen to me. So we left. We left our friends, we left our home. For new horizons, and to forget the past.
We lived in the Sept of the Crystal Lake. It was on a Duwamish Reservation thirty miles outside of Seattle. We were among friends again. The Uktena and Children of Gaia shared the Caern, and we were made welcome. My father was able to practice medicine, as it was Native soil, they allowed him. He worked in the clinic, though, he wasn't the same. My father lost that sparkle in his eyes, that laugh that carried on the wind wasn't the same. They did it to him. The Shadowlords took his life away from him. I hated them. I still do. I changed when a roving pack of Shadowlords stopped by. They started mocking my father. He was well known in their ranks. He would do nothing, it angered me. They continued to mock him. My rage overtook me. Hate I almost killed their alpha. Though, his pack almost killed me. The Uktena banished the pack. I thought for sure I would be banished as well. The aging Duwamish medicine man, Max "Wyrm Hunter" RedWater, Master of the Rite, and Elder Theurge reassured me that my place was here, with him. He taught me much that I know. I passed my rite of passage. I was a theurge, healer, and shaman. I was a Child of Gaia. I walked with the spirits. So I became, Jonathan "Walks with Spirits". I didn't use my last name much after that. I don't use it much now.
My father died some years later. He died fighting the wyrm. I hear his laughter sometimes. It mocks me. He always mocks me. I am a doctor, like my father. He taught me all that he knew. Though I have no degree, and I have no license, I'm as good as any doctor out there. Max taught me about natural remedies. I have much of the medicine man in me as I do the doctor my father wanted me to be. A balance he called it. I left Seattle, left it to follow the wind. I've found pain on my journey. I found more pain than I thought possible. Pain is all I've known. I try to smile, and be one of Unicorns children, but I feel so much pain. One day, the pain will end, like my fathers laughter.
