After Death

The world was quiet, as though the world itself was holding its breath and waiting. ‘Waiting for what?’ he wondered quietly. The green pelted alphas eyes opening blurrily and confused. After a few seconds, he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, blinking in confusion as he looked around the damp, dark forest around him.

Where was he? More to the point, WHO was he? He tried to think of something, anything. Who he was, where he'd come from? He hadn't the slightest idea of who or where he'd come from. He had memories, but it was like they were shrouded in fog that just got fogger the more he tried to think. Reaching and grasping for them until they got further and further away and began to totally fade away.

What was he to do now? He wondered, pushing himself up and wiping the leaves and twigs from his pelt before looking around, rubbing his head and stroking along his horns… alpha. He knew that was something important, at least. It was good to be an alpha.  

He started suddenly as he saw something in the corner of his eye, turning his head to look towards it and frowning. That wasn't normal, was it? A glowing light seemed to floating towards him, like it was searching for something, wandering alone. It seemed to pause on its trip before it started moving towards him. He frowned some, stepping back and away from it in uncertainty as it came closer, his wings mantling. Wait… wings?

He frowned even deeper as he turned his head to stare at the protrusions that were sticking out of his back, rotating and flapping them experimentally, the white glow forgotten for the moment in favour of focusing on the wings behind him. These weren't normal… were they? Whatever he was, he knew that wings were something new. Something strange.

He gave them an experimental flap, though they seemed perhaps a little too small to carry him properly… and then suddenly they weren't. Becoming large and glorious and so very beautiful… how did they suddenly get like that now? There were a lot of things he didn't know, his gaze turning to the white glow once more. But something told him he shouldn't fear it, and so he didn't.

He then gave another flap, and this time he gave a startled gasp as they took him up off the ground a few inches before his panic had them snapping against his back and making fall back to the ground with a small grunt, all the while getting a feeling that the glowing light before him was laughing at him.

After a few more moments, he unfurled them once more and he flapped once more. This time keeping out and not panicking, flapping once more to carry him higher and higher. He grunted some as tree branches slapped at him before his wings carried him even past that. The glowing white light following after him. And as he rose, he saw a shattering of other white lights, slowly floating up to come join him.

Still, they didn't scare him.. they weren't here to scare him, or him… no. They were here because they needed him for… something. He needed to help them. To lead them to someone who could help them more… he needed to guide them. And so he would.

He wasn't sure what it was that pulled him, but surrounded there around the souls of the lost and departed,  he angled his wings and began to fly with them across the sky, invisible to the eyes of others, not tiring at all.

It was near morning when something told him he was close. More souls having gathered around him as he went. The billow of something black and the shine of a weapon catching his eye. There. That's what he was looking for. That was what the souls needed from him, he knew, and he angled down.

His landing was hardly what anyone could call graceful, falling into a messy heap, tangled in wings and limbs, making him laugh a little as he untangled himself and wiped himself clean.

He then looked up to meet the gaze of another toskal, bone markings with a black pelt, and an even blacker cloak, a wickedly dangerous scythe in his grip. The reaper g lowering at him in confused suspicion of this newcomer. But he just smiled towards the reaper and indicated to the souls that were coming down to join and surround him, surprising the reaper all the more.

“Hello. I believe these are for you.” he told the skeletal marked creature. “I am here to give them to you.” he assured, smiling brightly towards him and patting the reapers shoulder without of any hint of fear, which just seemed to make the reaper puff up a little indignantly at this strange creature. A strange creature he had certainly never experienced before. Was he another reaper? If so, where was his scythe? And why didn't HE have wings? Since when we're wings even a thing?! “And just WHO are you?” he demanded, making the winged alpha shrug. “Just someone helping out.” he assured him. With that, he spread his wings once more and took off, the tops of his wings getting the other on the head making him laugh at the reaper as a result. “Sorry!” he called after him. Whatever it was that happened to him, something told him that it was going to be fun…