My paws were scraped raw and sore. Puss oozed out from between each toe. I left a track of blood stain and puss in a trail that marked my path to way back behind me. But still I pushed on ignoring the gawning hunger and the the thirst for something more. I was not sure what it was that drew me only that it was vital to my survival. To the survival of my kind.
"You should rest!"
The sound echoed out about me reverberating along the rocky path I padded along to bounce about within my head. It was power. The voice was power.
I lifted my head to howl and break its grip over me but the sound only intensified. I whined and whimpered as it started to pain.
"You cannot fight me. Give in and the pain will go away, " the voice said.
I rebounded with a vigour determind to break the hold the voice had on me.
"Tsk tsk." From the shadows before me emerged a glittering visage of a young girl.
Epona?
That name rang out from my mind. The moon goddess Epona?
"Yes child, it is I," said the childlike form. But just then the image of her swirled to take on that of an older woman....me?
"I can assume any appearance I choose," she said just as she warped into a dragon. An electric pink dragon with red and black tattoos across its scales. I drew back in alarm then raised to my hind legs and pawed the air in fear.
"Easy..easy does it. I mean you no harm . You have much that you have to do for me in this world I would not have you taken away from it before your time here is up," Epona assured me.
I changed back then to my human form only to fall on the dry earth in a crumbled heap. The energies of my wolf no longer sustaining me. The drive to move on no longer shielding me from my pain and injuries. I was barely alive. I realised I would have driven myself to my early grave had I gone on, had Epona not timely intervened.
"What do you want of me?" I managed to whisper out from between my caked and cracked lips. My parched throat hurting in a way that was unimaginable.
"You are my daughter. Your task is great.
You have much to do. Much to set to rights but first you must survive your foolishness," she said as she faded out.
Then I let the dark spots that rolled about my vision take over and engulf me in its cool dark depths.
I was out for hours and when I came to a pair of blue eyes was starring down at me.
