Howling Dream - Chapter 1 - Who am I?

A bestial howl, it's a sound that seems to accompany all my strongest memories. Yet this howl, the first howl, symbolized a change. A shift in consciousness, where a beast of chakra and the soul of a man had unified, no… they metamorphosized.

~ Scene Break ~

The Land of lightning, a temple lay resting in a meadow lodged between two mountains and a vast forest. Underneath the glistening moonlight one can see a fleeting blue glow, a flame, twisting within the temple's depths as it flows in a rhythmic sway. A beast of blue and black fire stands tall inside, set upon its face is a captivating pair of heterochromatic eyes, one of solid yellow, and the other a pure shade of green. Yet the beauty of its eyes is marred by their cloudiness as the beast sat there staring blankly at what lay before it. A temple door that led into a forest, its home, a foreign sight that it couldn't recognize, yet felt as if it had spent hundreds of years by its side. Sitting in place unmoving, it kept staring.

~ Pov Change – The beast of fire ~

Where am I? No, that's not important, who am I? Aethan Crawford, Matatabi? My name is Aethan, I am 23 years old and had been preparing to graduate from college, yet why can I remember living in this temple as requested for the past several hundred years as Matatabi, the tailed beast. Wait, no, I am Matatabi and have been here for centuries, why can I remember having lived as a human with the name Aethan? Am I Matatabi, or Aethan? Who am I? … I don't understand, which had come first, the life as a human, or the life as a tailed beast? Who am I?

Frustration builds within me as I bounce back and forth between identities, my body starts to tremble in place as the flames dancing upon me begin to flicker faster and faster alongside my mental gymnastics, yet I pay it no mind, until I hear a roar, the roar of a panther that had been enraged, a sound that jolted me awake from my reverie. I look down and glance at my surroundings in confusion before I go to raise my hand… my paw to rub my forehead and freeze when I am halfway there, for a long while I sat unmoving as I gazed at the flame flicker across my leg. Slowly my thoughts start to churn, my body is the one from the time spent as Matatabi, therefore I should be Matatabi from this day forth, right? I am now Matatabi. I am no longer a human named Aethan. Thinking such I feel a sense of relief coupled with loss, I know who I am now, so that's all that matters. I can think about the intricacies later, for now I need to rest and clear my mind, I'll start to think about it more tomorrow.

~ Scene Change – Next evening ~

With a yawn I rouse from my slumber and stretch my body, though I have no need for such a thing. What to do, what to do. Let's go for a walk, and get a breath of fresh air, not like I need to learn about my surroundings considering I've been living here for centuries. With that decided I got moving as I slink into the canebrake forest to patrol. Let's make sure everything's where it is supposed to be based off of my memories.

I tread through the uneven ground, observing the massive trees that were reaching into the sky above. I gaze at the wrinkled bark and crisp leaves that were starting to wilt under the autumn breeze. Amongst the foliage I can spot various birds and small animals curling up on themselves or fleeing from my direction. I guess being a giant flaming panther has that effect, I ponder as I take my gaze away from the fauna and to the lazy stream that is flowing undisturbed. I stop for a while just to sit and watch as the water moves away and into the distance. Getting up I follow the flow of the stream and walk towards the lake that had formed further ahead. Arriving at the open water I take a deep breath and just bask upon the serenity pervading this natural cradle for life, yet I don't stay long and continue to move, observing anything that catches my eye. I continue making my round of the forest before turning back to head to the stream once more where I lay down a little way's away from the water's edge and settle into an idle stare as I contemplate what to do next. Redirecting my gaze from the stream and unto my body, I stare at the swirling flames dancing upon myself, and decide that I should test out my control of fire just to see if anything has changed. Getting up I turn around and start the trek back to the temple, though instead of stopping I head further beyond it until I come upon a desolate area full of stones in the nearby cliffs.

 Let's start simple and work our way up to more complex things, lowering my stance I begin to take a deep breath as a fuzzy heat rise in my throat before I sharply exhale, a large bundle of fire shoots out of my maw at the cliff side. Where it roused a small commotion kicking up dust and knocking loose a couple rocks. Not bad, I tell myself before moving on to continuing testing my ability to manipulate flames. Time flew by as I began to methodically perform every technique I knew, marring the ground with scorch marks as I progressed. When I finished the sun had long set and the moon was peeking down at me through the cloudy night sky. Exhaling lightly, I turn around and drag myself back to the temple, as I go back, I decide that I should spend my time in the up-and-coming days improving and creating new techniques, although the ones I used weren't bad, compared with some of the things in the humans… my memory, the ones I just did seem shabby. Just like that a routine had formed, one that would go unbroken for several years.