In the beginning, he was alone.
The great white disc hovered above him when darkness fell, and in the light, the scorching yellow and orange fire took its place. Green things grew in the ground; beasts both small and large roamed the dark earthy spaces and the wide fields of grasses; spirits and gods descended from their eyries to speak with him. Food abounded and pleasure was to be seen in every crevice of this new home he had been given, this new and strange thing that made his heart beat in his chest and the red life fluid run gurgling like a wildly joyous brook through his veins. He could breathe; he could bathe; he could sing and shout and sleep.
He was not content.
Winter came, and he watched the beasts press against each other for warmth, and though the gods wrapped him in heat and the spirits breathed their warm breath upon his skin, he was not content. It was not warmth he longed for when he watched.
So he begged of the gods a companion, and they sent to him a wolf, a young male with a coat of soft, shaggy grey and great black eyes that reflected moonlight like the shifting waters of the lakes when darkness fell. And when the wolf first set his dark gaze on him he said "Cae," (for in that time all beasts could speak in voices as we do, before their fall into dumbness) which in our tongue means 'my own' , though then it had no meaning, save as a sound made with breath and mouth. But he was amazed, for he could understand in his heart what the grey wolf had meant, though the sound had no meaning. Then he loved his companion with all his heart, and they spoke together in their new tongue, that tongue which is now lost to all but those of us who are Kindred; and together they were content.
Spring came, and the beasts made their packs, their herds, their pairs. Male and female with new offspring frolicking about their hooves or paws. Then Cae longed after offspring of his own, and he pined and was no longer content in the company of his wolf. Seeing his longing, the gods granted him a Mate, a Woman of his own kind, to bear him offspring and to be his companion as the wolf could not.
But the wolf could not bear to linger in the Woman's wake, and so he fled to the forests, where he hid and wept because he was not able to bear the offspring that Cae desired.
And the god of wishes and desires, whom his brethren call only Moon Pale because of his white skin, heard the grey wolf's cry, and because of the wolf's broken heart he granted it. And the grey wolf's belly was swollen a year with cubs and at the end of the four seasons he bore three sons, and he called them Pirit, meaning 'beloved', Alsé, meaning 'black', and Lasara, meaning 'rejoicing'. Their forms were that of Cae, and their eyes were as dark as their bearer's. Yet when the wolf returned to Cae, to present his cubs, Cae had become content with his mate, and the grey wolf and his three cubs were shunned.
Then the grey wolf sent up another cry to Moon Pale, praying that his cubs' young be vengeance on the honor of their forefather, and Moon Pale heard him once more and sent a thing into the wolf's cubs that caused them to thirst for the blood of the Woman's children.
And it happened that as Moon Pale watched the wolf's young, he began to love them as mates love, and he filled them full with his own offspring and they gave birth to more of their own, and as they drank the blood of Cae's offspring, they began to call one another 'Kindred', to separate themselves from the humans.
So it was that the Kindred were born, and their thirst for blood.
Years passed and the grey wolf went to his rest, and Moon Pale's many children flourished and spread as their litters were born to them, one by one. Hair they had in every colour known to both wolf and man, and eyes sharp in the dark, and noses as a wild wolf's, keen to the scent and hard to confuse. But as Moon Pale's family grew more, so the children of Cae grew less in the face of their vengeance. Then Quintes, the goddess of peace, innocence, and new life, came to Moon Pale and said to him, "Brother, your children do wrong to their home. Look upon the earth, and what they have made of it."
Moon Pale looked. And he saw how the beasts and birds startled with fear at a sight of one of his cubs, and the starving wolves, their brethren; he saw how his cubs fought amongst themselves for territory, and how the children of Cae suffered. And when he had seen he turned to his sister and he wept for his blinded love, and then he descended to the earth and he called forth three of his most beloved cubs: one born of Pirit, one of Alsé, and one of Lasara. Kissing them each, he opened their eyes to the suffering, the pain they and their siblings had inflicted on the world, and he held them until their weeping was done.
When they had calmed, Moon Pale called his offspring together, and he set upon them both a curse and a blessing as one touch: to a half he left their power to concieve, and to the other he gave the power to sire that before only he among them had possessed. Then he set upon the newly made cub-bearers a fate, to prevent the grey wolf's misfortune from manifesting itself among his own. In love they would find life; but where their own kind failed, Death would be their lover and their guardian until the end of time. Also, as a protection for both, he set upon them a dislike of light, that their paths might not cross with Cae's children more than a time and again.
Then he withdrew from them, and no living Kindred has seen him since that night. But his spirit still guides his cubs, and many make prayers to him: the Faithful serve by word and deed, and his love remains with them always.
