We were a people deluded and now we are a people transformed. Too many of us ascribed to insane ideals, to the notions that the sexual, spiritual and evolutionary future lay in casting aside the human; melding it with the pure animal heart of nature. Pure...How we would rue that assertion. Blindly we took into our own hands the technologies that would remake us as graceful heirs to natural divinity; to reshape ourselves into the truest of our homeworld's sons. Like us, they had come from a long forgotten and distant Terra; a noble and massive breed of lupine. Enviable and wondrous creatures, they were.
Too eager they were, our fellows; too eager to grasp at perfection, they distributed it without care; tainted water supplies, readied the viral variants to seize a new dawn; we would be as the beast-headed gods of antiquity, as the foxes who crossed the stars. I do not remember apotheosis, no...I remember pain; the transformation was agony distilled into the meagre receptacle of my body. I changed; my every muscle contracted and spasmed, organs pulsed and altered...I screamed, we all screamed, till the air was fat with it; we suffered in droves, till madness took us...Or death.
The madness was glorious. We embraced the savage heart of the beast and did not shirk from it. What were those perfect supposedly-better-than-mortal-men pretenders next to the rending fury of the great wolf? We stalked through the forests and tore asunder all before us, till we were locked in mortal combat with our brother-kin. Those untouched wilted before our thunderous advanced and withered beneath the infective savagery of our bites. When the civil war finally abated, we glared at each other across gouged tables in uneasy peace, bickering amongst the barely unified kingdoms of our homeland. We took to the stars on steel wings, subjugating what had once been our colonies and outposts; forcing the faces of our lessers into their own blood, making them see the error of their ways and the sublime nature of transcendence. When we came upon those bestial man-things who had once been our inspiration, we butchered them as befit their station; lesser preymeats all.
Now, we arrive at the crucial moment and the killing blow; the moment of truth, with our arduous toil over with, a new future looming. We announce ourselves to this universe, we ready our manifestos, put forth our gifts, strengthen the barricades and tend to our well-honed crafts of war.
This is our hour; come, friends, watch as history is made.
—
Matthias Van Pelt glowered from the balcony of what had once been the Royal Palatial Manor of Vermunz, now the Temporary Planetary Capital of Wulfengrad. He was naked, his lustrous fur gleaming with the rain water of the storm that even now battered at the heavy stone walls. He snarled lightly, eyes gleaming in the moonlight, momentarily alight with the flicker of distant lightning. He raised one clawed hand to scratch across his chest, snorting momentarily as he turned away from the weather. It mirrored his mood; dark, miserable, crackling with underlying rage.
Peace. Acceptance. What were these things to the the Wulfen? Inheritors, conquerors! He snarled, baring his fangs as he skulked towards a waiting table, clawed fingers closing around the cooked meat, a full leg of- he sniffed tentatively- something quadraped, preymeat...Barely sentient leavings, barely worthy! Snarling, he tore into it with his teeth, shaking with the effort as his fangs rent seared flesh. This was what he yearned for; not the cold toil of diplomacy, but the thrill of feasting, the roar of combat building in his throat! How dare those bureaucrats deny him his triumph!
“Matthias!”
The voice cut through the howl of the storm, a snarled challenge almost like an accusation, causing Matthias to spin on his heels, claws skittering on the cold wet stone. His eyes, cruel and yellow, drilled into the figure that stood before him, it's own hulking hairy form clad in loose robes.
“Alexei.” A flicker of a grin crossed Matthias' bestial features. “I didn't expect you...So soon. What news?” He growled lowly, tilting his head back towards the meat and other appetizers. “Can I fetch you something? I'm in the mood for a blood hunt, myself; to get out in the storm and wrestle down some prey. We could go together, perhaps.” That grin again, drifting across his face, almost mocking in it's audacious animalism. Alexei grunted distastefully.
“You know I don't hunt, Matthias. I am of the Atoners, it is not our place to yield to the Beast; it is our place to reflect on what it means to be human.”
“And do you think our forbears meditated upon what it must be like to be food beneath their claws or morsels between their teeth, Atoner? Hm?”
“Only the truly savage would consider the beast to be our inheritance, Wolf Lord.”
“Oh but it is! You may mock us for our savagery, but it is we Savages who keep the enemies from the doors; we play at being loyal hounds and stave off all who would oppose us! We bring the meat of the fields and of the black sea beyond, and lay it out that all might feast! We are Wolf Guard, Wolf Lords, Alpha's without peer!” He snarled, beating one gnarled fist against his breast “Who are the Atoners, your pitiful band of scriveners and diplomats, to tell us what to do!?”
“We are the voice of the Council in this matter, Matthias. I won't attempt to justify our position to one such as you; the signal will be broadcast, that's all I came here to tell you. I expect you to have your men mobilised for the duration.”
“Aye; orbital defences are primed, our men are ready to defend this hallowed soil. We'll set the beast on any who would dare attack us, and give them the gift with our own bloodied teeth!”
“Reassuring.”
—
People of our immediate stellar group; we are the Wulfengrad Emergence. We have recently suffered a terrible civil catastrophe and emerged newly invigorated to stand amidst our peers. We are opening our doors for diplomatic relations with those who wish it. We should warn you however, that some of our ways and our appearances are...Unnatural. We have not yet adjusted into a stable civilisational state, but we are drawing near.
We hope that this will be the first in many of our triumphs.
