Across the Plains, Mag7 Werewolf AU

[boogieshoes]

Title:   Across the Plains
Fandom: Mercy-verse/Mag7 Fusion
Pairing: No Pairing
Summary:  The hunt ends tonight.

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My Warnings Policy Post is here.

Warnings:  Violence
Kinks: 
Rating:  R
Archive Information: Feel free to archive, just drop me a note if you do so.
Additional Links:  Posts describing the assembly of this universe.  The rules for writing in this sandbox, if you're so inspired.


**** Mag7 Werewolf AU *****

 

 

Mid-1880s

 

 

The moon pulled him, called him onwards with her song, and he followed on four padded feet, bereft of sense, of knowledge of self or wisdom of experience. Chris ran. Ran, and listened to the silence of the night, silence where sounds of life should have soothed his empty heart. He ran until he could no longer stand the silence. He ran until the rage in his body erupted. He ran until finally, finally, he could give voice to anger and sorrow, and bay to the cold moon.

 

The others answered in split chorus behind him, music repeating but half a beat behind in its repetition, making the pack seem much larger than the six wolves who ran with him.

 

Buck ran off his left shoulder, larger than any other werewolf he knew of.  Huge and muscled and yellow-eyed and covered in thick black fur. How ironic that the one among them with the biggest heart and gentlest ways was so very terrifying on four feet. Vin was a steady presence on his right, gray on gray coat making it seem like a ghost, not a wolf, was making its way beside him. Nathan ran off Vin’s right shoulder and further behind still, taking the rear guard, his thick-bodied form moving easily through the night.  Nathan’s winter coat was so thick it had a tendency to fluff out, the brown fur giving him a very bear-like look, even as the night bled the color away.   Josiah, resplendent in his patched black and white, took a similar position off Buck’s left shoulder. 

 

JD and Ezra ran between them, protected and precious. 

 

JD, their youngest, and how Buck had hurt at being unable to protect his precious human ‘brother’ from the rogue attack. JD, over whom the others had sworn revenge, waiting in strained silence in Chris’s cabin to see if the youngster was strong enough to make it through the change, or would die with the morning light. JD had taken well to being a werewolf, surprising though it should not have been. JD who reminded Chris of a puppy even on four legs – eager, playful, honest, loyal. JD, submissive and perfectly happy to be the center of protective attention from his six older brothers, whose only worry was if they themselves were happy. JD, Chris thought, would be the saving of them, but not tonight. Tonight the quarry was too near, the bloodlust too high for their youngest in his Alsation coat to soothe.

 

And Ezra, the crazy submissive who had been trying to make it on his own when Chris and the others came across him. Ezra, who regularly defied the pre-ordained order of things with all his wit, courage and skill. Ezra, whom Chris and the other dominants respected because of his willingness to stay with them, even in the face of their aggression. Ezra, who so constantly scared them with his insistence on being independent that Chris had deliberately tricked him into a Pack Bonding ceremony, just so he could keep an eye on him. Ezra ran in his glorious red wolf-coat in the middle of their pack, baying as ferociously and angrily as the rest, reassuring Chris that the pack was one, united in heart and mind in their hunt, of hate in their quarry.

 

Chris ran through the snow-covered plains on padded feet, secure in his pack backing him up. Chris ran, fur glowing silver-white in the moonlight, and bayed his anger and sorrow to the cold moon. Chris ran, tracking the familiar smell that tickled his nose, the smell that spoke of prey, and took joy in the hunted one’s fear. 

 

The lone wolf they stalked had gone to ground for some time in a small town in Oklahoma, thinking to avoid a fight by shielding himself with humans. Chris and the others had harried him for months, leaving messy, personal kills on his doorstep, plundering his neighbor’s herds and leaving tracks that led straight to him, all in a campaign to turn his neighbors against him and chivy him out of his den. It had finally worked, and he had chosen tonight to make a run for it. It would be the last mistake he ever made.

 

Together, the pack burst over the final hill separating themselves from the rogue. Chris had let him gain just enough of a lead to make him think that he could take the time to Change to wolf. As a wolf, against a pack as small as theirs, he might survive, outrun or outfight them. But they caught up with him again just as he staggered to his feet, and the cause was lost. They surrounded the lone wolf in a ring, preventing his escape, and Chris immediately launched his attack, not even waiting for the usual initial posturing stages to begin. The other fell back, surprised, and then Chris was on him, bowling him over and ripping the vulnerable throat wide open on the first pass. The pack rushed him, and the rogue disappeared under the snapping fangs and growling throats.

 

Chris mounted the rise again to keep the watch. It was over in a matter of minutes, the end of long years running and hunting the rogue wolves who had burned Four Corners to the ground. The pack below him squabbled and growled, taking their anger out on the corpse. Fitting that the last rogue to fall was the first one to start their troubles, so long ago.

 

JD huffed up beside him and flopped down in the snow. Blood speckled his muzzle, and Chris licked it off gently, reassuring JD in his own way that the kid was his, and he’d never leave him. JD wagged his tail, doglike. Ezra came up next, looking tired and worn out. He sat on his red-furred haunches on the other side of JD, gazing out across the plains.   One by one, the others joined them on the ridge: Vin, Buck, Nathan, Josiah.

 

When they were all together, the bloodied corpse forgotten below them, JD cocked his head in question, and then stood on his hind legs and hopped forwards a couple times. Is it time to change back now? JD was asking. Is it time to be human again?

 

Buck beside him huffed, and Chris knew he was laughing in that silent wolf way. But Chris looked away as the silence settled again. He was angry, so angry. The rogue wolves were gone, but it just wasn’t enough. He shook his head and flattened his ears: No. He just couldn’t do it.

 

Instead, he turned west, and struck out again in an easy lope. The others followed him in silence. Perhaps across the plains, Chris could get rid of his anger. Perhaps in the arroyos and canyons of the desert, Chris could find peace. Perhaps in the mountains, they could all find hope.

 

As the seven wolves loped over the frozen landscape, it began to snow.

 

-finis-

-bs