What stories have I to tell? I suppose I can only tell the story that I lived, of the people I met, knew, and loved, and the people who changed my life, and the events that made me who I am now. Life is more now then I ever thought it could be, complicated beyond compare, yet the sweetest gift ever given to me by Gaia... and I am truely thankful for all the times my life has been spared and the time I have had the blessing to call mine. Most of all, I am thankful just to have the chance to be alive, for that is the greatest gift I have ever received.

Airiana Dark Star, Wendigo Galliard

I was born to a woman by the name of Angelique, and a father by the name of Henry. Even before I was born, Angel and Henry had their problems. My birth merely brought it to the surface. Angel thought I would be the thing to set the marriage- and her world- right once agian. In the end, I was merely the thing that drove my father over the edge, and cost her more then her life. But that is later... this is years before that. Long before I even knew what I was.

My father was a drunk, no one ever disputed that fact. Henry would drink at least a bottle on a good day, five or more on a bad one. I think he’d drank so much it should have poisioned him, but it never did. It just made him worse... sometimes it made him a little better. Angelique wasn’t a saint either. She was faithful to my father, although he didn’t belive it. Because of what had happened to her in her lifetime, she wasn’t the wife my father wanted- a totally obedient and dutiful wife- and she could never bring herself to trust him fully. She also always had an urge to wander, she loved seeing the world. Since she was also a woman, that was three strikes agianst her in my father’s eyes. She was a good woman, yes, but she was wild, and the only way to tame her was to break her- break her spirit and her soul. To this day the thing I remeber most about her was the look in her eyes when she looked out across the open land at my grandparent’s farm. In her eyes I saw a need to see what was beyond the next hill- what lay just beyond the farthest trees. I saw how much she needed to be free. Something my father never understood.

My father was the Kinfolk of the two, and my mother the Garou. Henry had a temper, from what I heard, as long as anyone could rember. He hated the fact that my mother had more "power" then he did. He hated that I inherited that as well. For all that, it is a wonder my mother never left him... I think she would have, but she realized too late what it all ment.

My first real memory comes when I was young, less then six years old. I remeber getting up in the dark of the night, like young children sometimes do, and walking. I was prone to doing this, I had my mother’s need to see the world around me. This was bad, because we lived on the bad side of the wrong side of town. I wasn’t lost- always in my mind I knew where I was going, even though other people didn’t. I was headed for a small sandlot a few blocks away. It used to be an old feild which had been converted into a crude baseball field in the hopes the kids would stay there, which of course never happened. I could hear the same thing I heard every month there- wolves howling. It drew me like a magnet. I was always told it was the neighborhood dogs making the noise... but I knew better. I was so close to seeing exactly what it was that was going on, but my father found me. Sometimes I belive I would have been better off if I had been killed that night, as a trespasser or by the Bone Gnawers that I had almost seen. Or by the anger my father directed at my mother, whom he blamed for my wandering tendencies.

I remeber bits and pieces of places and people... my uncles, aunts, and grandparents who all treated me so nicely- as if I were a lost abused little kitten. They were all related to my mother though... and when I was six, her life was ended abruptly, and they dissapeared from my life. After Angelique’s death, my father was the only person left in my world- and my world became nothing but harsh shades of grey and black. I remeber little about the time between my mother’s death and the time I was eight, save being cold, in pain, and lost. When I was eight, my world, still a solid, although cracked and flawed thing, was shattered beyond recognition...

Chapter One - Earth Shattering Changes

Airiana stood, brushing her short, irregularly cut black hair, staring into the mirror on the bathroom wall but not really seeing her reflection. Harsh winter light, reflected off the clouds, shone in the small window, illuminating everything and making it all seem colder and... harder.

She freezes as she hears footsteps in the hallway that stop outside the bathroom door, fear causing her to swallow her mouthful of toothpaste. In what seems like hundreds of seconds to her, the world is still and silent, and she can’t even breathe. She knows who it is, and what exactly they want, after all his actions have been leading up to this for a long while now.

Frantically her mind searches for some escape- but there is none. Nightmarish images from the night of her mother’s death flash across her mind too fast to be considered, but enough to stir a small bit of anger agianst the growing fear in her chest.

Henry Dark Star walks in, and smiles at his daughter. The smell of some cheap alcoholic beverage assails Airi’s nose and causes her to gag as she backs away in the small space allowed, hardly able to suck in a breath due to the overpowering smell. "What’s wrong Father? Do you need something?" She asks, but the look in his eyes and the way he stands tells her plainly what he wants. Quietly he shuts the door with his boot heel and a freakish and cruel leer spreads across his face as one hand closes around Airi’s upper arm, and he yanks her towards him. "What do you want?! I’m sorry I forgot to make brea.." Her sentence is cut off as she pulls away, and her father’s grip becomes bruising. She turns horrified eyes to his face as she hears the ripping noise as her shirt is torn, she sees his laughing face, and feels that tiny ember of anger burst into a bon fire. "You’ve laughed at my pain and fear for so long... you laughed at Momma’s too. You killed her."

The words, falling like stones into the silence, make the laugh on Henry’s face freeze and turn into an angry cold scowl. He lets go of her ripped shirt and slaps her so hard she almost falls, his grip on her arm the only thing keeping her upright, her nose bleeding. "I know you did it." Airi growls, staring at his shiny clean boots- the same ones he made her stay up so late the night before to clean. "I saw you do it. I saw you kill Momma." He gives an inarticulate noise of rage and lifts his hand to strike her agian, punching her as hard as he can, over and over. As he blindly strikes her, she quietly starts growling, the sound gaining volume- a true animal growl. He falls silent as the small eight year old before him suddenly starts to change, turning into a huge half wolf half human form. He tries to back up, letting loose of her arm, his anger turning to terror.

The huge werewolf form growls louder, the sound rumbling through this now terrfied abuser, and one large clawed paw reaches out blindly and claws at him, knocking him down with one swipe, tearing his right knee to shreds. His head makes a sickening THUNK! as it hits the dirty tiled floor, and he lays silent, blood pooling around his head and knee. Airi stares at the bloody body, her own shock waking her up and slapping her around. She shifts back to the eight year old child she is, and feels sick. She leaps past her father’s unconcious body and hurries down the hall to her room. She grabs her duffel bag and shoves some clothes into it, and then races out of the house as fast as she can, wishing she was faster- wishing she were a wolf, like the ones her Grandmother had had around her land.

She feels her body change- four feet and four legs instead of two legs and two feet. No arms. Ears, nose, and eyes equipped better for hunting, and fur to cover and keep warm. She stops in mid stride, and looks around. She grabs the dropped duffel bag in her now sharply toothed jaws and runs as fast as possible, fear, anger, and confusion making her mind go blank as she tries to outrun whatever it is that just happened.

Chapter Two - The Bad Side of The Good Side

Pale blue eyes watch as the people walk by. Watch them hurry by when they see her.

Airi wonders where she’ll get lunch. Or if she even will get to eat today. A cold wind blows across her face, blowing the shoulder length black hair around, into her eyes. She blinks and looks down, pulling her hair out of her face, and muttering something her Grandmother used to say. She rolls her eyes as a man swaggers over and, almost falling over, mumbles one obscene thing after another. She shakes her head and walks away without hearing a word of what he’s saying. She doesn’t look like she belongs on the streets, she stands out in some weird way. She frowns as a couple other people laugh at her. Good side of town. They think that I am the only one like myself here. Homeless, hungry, and looking for half a chance. But if they were to look... and look close... even the good side of town has a bad side. Were here, waiting for someone to realize we are people.

She rubs her arms and pulls her sweater tighter and keeps walking, not paying any attention. As she walks she ponders, her mind lost in thought, her eyes not really seeing the place she is in. A small child screeches and runs into her legs, and Airi nearly falls down. She quickly grabs the child to keep her from falling, and smiles at the dirty, blonde haired girl. "Hello little one. What’s your name?" The girl stares with round, grey eyes, her icy cold fingers digging into Airi’s sweater, seeking warmth for as long as possible. "Tessa... what your name?" Airi smiles softly. "Call me Airi. Your hands are cold,Tessa." Tessa nods, then squirms to get down. "Hands always cold. Tessa always cold." Airi puts Tessa back on her feet and crouches down next to the little girl. "Do you like this sweater, Tessa?" Tessa nods slightly, and covers her mouth as she starts coughing, a weezing hacking noise. Airi shakes her head, and quickly slips the almost too small sweater off her own shoulders, and sets it on Tessa, smiling faintly at the way it swallows the thing little child. "There you go Tessa. Now you have a sweater of your own." Tessa stares at Airi. "What ‘bout you? You be cold..." Airi smiles and pats Tessa’s head, combing the tangled blonde curls for a moment. "I’ll be fine, Tessa, I promise. I think maybe your moter or father is looking for you though, maybe you should go home." Tessa’s eyes grow wider and she nods, then turns and runs as fast as her skinny legs will carry her, in the direction of whatever place she calls home.

Airi crosses her arms and keeps walking, taking more note of the dark, cold, dampness of the back streets and alleys. She hears someone singing "Oh Holy Night" and rembers the only happy Christmas she ever had, staying at her grandmothers and waking up to snow, pure white, icy cold snow. She walks down a brick paved alley and onto a brightly lit street, with holly and other Christmas things decorating the street lamps. The people look surprized to see this tall teenage girl walking the streets, her tee-shirt dirty and her jeans ripped and full of holes, with no shoes on her feet. She smiles at one man, flashing a row of stright white teeth, and she gets a kindly smile in return.