Chapter 4 The Before

• Crescent
• Crescent woke up with a searing pain in her neck and found herself tied up on a stake, and Iscariot holding a torch with angry blazing red flames that could swallow whatever it touched instantly.
• Was he going to kill her? Maybe the other divine would swop in and save her, and she could go back to a place that could not harm her… but that would mean giving up on her fated mate. Was it even worth it anymore? The bloodshed, pain, and diseases that riddled this realm. Tears rolled down her face at the thought of being thrown away by the other gods. Not once had they seemed to care for her as the humans did… emotions were fighting.
• “Crescent I’ve decided to burn the evidence of what I’ve done to you, so I guess we’ll see each other in another life I suppose.” He said with a blank expression, and with that, he walked over to her and poured a smelly substance on her hands, and touched the blazing flame to them. She screamed in deafening pain, begging for it to stop, but Iscariot was simply running away like the coward he was.
• She suddenly felt an anger that consumed her and she lost herself in it, as she forced herself to shift into her full form, under the full moon, whispering silent curses on Iscariot’s family. Her hands were burnt beyond recognition, but the pain she felt was dull as the emotional turmoil she felt was so much greater.
• Iscariot would pay.
• Iscariot
• As he ran off back to the village, he could hear Crescent's deafening pleas for help and begging for mercy. It was music to his ears, but he didn’t want to risk being caught potentially. The thought of being able to win in the end brought him joy beyond the divine realm itself. He would return the next day to see what was left of Crescent and make sure it disappeared for good.
• The next morning, he woke up feeling refreshed but with a sense of impending doom… He was most likely nervous to see the work of art that he had made. He laughed to himself as he got ready to start the day and get all the attention from the village folk, and when the sun went down, he would go see what remained of Crescent. It was a good day indeed.
• The sense of impending doom worsened as he approached the sight where he had burned Crescent, only to see a pile of black ash remaining and the grass around it burnt and charred as well. He smiled with joy and cackled loudly as he ran his fingers through the black ash not realizing it wouldn’t come off of him. He tried to brush it off more and rougher, but it refused to come off. He shifted into his wolf form and where the ash had touched him his fur was blacker than that ash, but the black fur was spreading on his pristine white fur. He started ripping off chunks of the fur but to no avail did the black stop spreading, until it covered his entire wolf.
• He suddenly heard a howl of true pain, and it almost made his wolf Hurel until he saw a towering white wolf not too far from him. it looked identical to Crescent's wolf form but just bigger and had an aura of power. He stared at it until it spoke with resentment and agony, “You with a heart blacker than ash shall have your kin, and their kin for eternity cursed with fur blacker than Ash, for that ash represents the innocents I have lost from greed. Only those weaker than weak shall receive the blessing of white, and they shall be the holders of my blessing… This curse shall only break if a descendent of your direct line fixes what has been wronged.,” And with that, the wolf disappeared once the last word had been spoken.
• That voice was most definitely Crescents… was she the divine wolf all along? No… no… that wasn’t possible. She was simply a stupid woman. No... he would take this with a grain of salt. There was no way he had been cursed.
• The After
• Iscariot, not believing the wolf did not tell anyone of the curse until Lycan pups were born with fur blacker than Ash. He confessed to what he had done to the goddess, and the Lycans were outraged. Determined to not taint their image the Lycans burned any books depicting their fur as white, and the Lycans with white fur dyed it ash black to match their children’s fur until all the white-furred Lycans were dead. The only white-furred wolves left were the omegas, and the Lycans branded the omegas as the cursed ones, and that they had angered the Goddess. Most believed the Lycans since they were seen as pure beings.
• To explain the Goddess’s disappearance, they said that she had returned to the moon, and they would be able to feel her presence every full moon.
• To this day she is yet to be found and many claim to have seen her