[Childhood]

Satin was born a pale golden, pelt matching his eyes and rimmed in paler cream; he was an attractive enough pup, but far too small, and under the conditions of his birth all his beauty did nothing for him.
He would never know it, of course; he would never realize why he had been orphaned. But the night of his birth was a cold one, and his parents, being relentlessly pursued by a dark enemy, had little time. His mother, collapsing prematurely, had given birth in the midst of a blizzard; 3 small pups, the smallest of which was the silken-furred golden. He was immobile at his birth, and his parents did not have the time to waste; his mother's scented blood was steaming and alerting the enemy, and the weather was worsening. The pup was buried in a snowdrift and his parents left with his siblings, fading away into the snow. The enemy passed by, not noticing the dune at all, not noticing the shallow grave, and all fell silent as the snow stopped in the night.

Had Satin's parents realized he was alive, they would never have abandoned them. They, a dull but noble stone and starry, were fine parents, and the other two pups grew up far away to live relatively dull and ineffectual lives. Satin would never know this, of course, but he had been loved for a time--and his shallow grave had been dug of best wishes.

No matter. The morning after, the mewls of a miraculously-survived runt broke through their icy barrier and reached the ears of a wandering bachelor. The lupe, a lanky black and white creature with odd markings and mismatched eyes, halted and dug out the pup, now considerably paler and whitened from frostbite. On that day, Ulryk brought home the pup to his odd mismatched family, and began raising him as his own--but always making sure everyone made the distinction that it was not his son. Somehow, for some reason, the oddly wise lupe realized that it was important; somehow, perhaps, Ulryk sensed that Satin's parents had loved him for a time, and did not want to spoil that for whatever knowledge of it the pup's subconscious held.

Satin retained his oddly silken fur, a mark of his prematurity, and gained his name from this. Starwords, crafty with names, dubbed him a "Satin Knight" due to his quietly chivalrous nature, and the name stuck. Satin was always small and wiry in build, far too thin, and paler than many other white lupes. There was a collar which he discovered early in his life, a resizable black velvet studded collar, and he claimed it as his own, hoping it would somehow improve his otherwise plain appearance. His eyes were pale golden and always seemed a little misted and faraway, and he was a subdued puppy, never given to playfights, but there was nothing fundamentally wrong with his body or his nature. He grew in a quiet environment, and could ask for nothing more in a childhood. In his early teens, he began exploring the world and attempting to socialize--and it was there that he met the beginning of what would become hell for him.

Her name was Growler, and when Satin met her she was unconscious at the base of a hill, injured and weak. Due, perhaps, to his own history, he felt the immediate tug to help her, and by the time she came around she was comfortably ensconced in Ulryk's den. Satin, barely grasping adolesence, hovered curiously over her and helped her to heal, getting to know her; and it was quite obvious to all who watched--he was quite smitten.

Fairy-tale illusionment was quickly shattered, however. He was walking with her in the garden when she turned to him, rage overcoming her features, contorting them and making her appear beastly. She screamed at him, lashing out and insulting him in vocabulary he had not yet learned; then she turned away and fled.

Satin was crushed. Not only had he lost his first "puppy love", he felt true rejection--and realized it was not his first. He began to wonder what it was that had pushed away both Growler and his parents so violently. He began to wonder if his parents had left him that way, cursing at him; he began to wonder if staying with his adoptive family would earn him the same abandonment eventually. Satin left home not too long after and began the long journey of self-loathing and morbidness that marked his days forever after. He was a sensitive lupe, both naive and jaded, and the blows of the world hit him particularly hard.

He was pondering death when an Angel approached him; he looked up and felt immediately as though salvation had finally come. Her name was Angel, of course, and she was beautiful and sensitive and sweet and caring; the cloud lupess lay beside him, overlooking the cliff with soft eyes, and suddenly Satin didn't feel quite so much like dying. He pulled away with her, and slowly began to feel the healing process of love. This was nothing like what he had felt for Growler; this was a burning, consuming flame which made him want to do big things, important things, and be proud of himself. Her mere touch was electricity, and for the second time in his life Satin was utterly and completely immersed in emotion.

But time should tell him that circumstances never played in his favor. In the night, Angel was ripped away from him--stolen from her den by nameless captors, drug away into the dark and tortured. Satin could only assume she was dead after months with no word; again, he was tossed into lament. He formed a partial friendship with Angel's mourning brother Forest, but found no solace in it. After time, edging upon the end of his teens now, he was forced to move on. He couldn't forget Angel--he never would be able to, really--but if he didn't learn to live without her now he never would.

It was luck and fate which made him his first real friend. While wandering--forever brooding over his faults and all the many sins he must have committed unwittingly--he ran across a burly skunk lupe fighting with a pale grey enemy. Between them was a small, unconscious skunk lupess, obviously related to the same-colored male. The knight in Satin flared, and he launched himself at the stone lupine, whose name he later learned to be Goast. He helped drive Goast back, though he himself was not much of a fighter. With the enemy fleeing, he turned to the lupe he had helped, and became instant friends. The burly, warrior lupe was named Wolverine, and the lupess was his younger sister Rogue. Over time, Satin would get to know much of Wolverine's massive family, and would insert himself in it as best he could--though he always felt uncertain and forever terribly afraid of rejection.

He was somewhat older and potentially a little wiser when he ran into Growler once more. She had matured significantly; she was a wholesome, earthy lupess, and as miserable alone as he was. He quietly gave himself to her, remembering what he had felt--or remembered feeling--for her and wondering if it could fill in the gaping holes in his heart. She did not. He tried as hard as he could to convince himself that he loved her, and most times he believed the lie; she believed it from the beginning, and he felt all the worse for it. She became pregnant soon after their coming together, and gave birth to twins. His fate was sealed. Satin would never leave his pups, not the way his parents had left him.

But, as he could grow to expect, his life was to grow more complicated still. Angel was not dead. After so long of an absence, she had struggled her way back to him, and discovered him wed and with children. And, what's worse, she was dying.
Forest, an impatient lupe given to bouts of rage, rounded on Satin for not taking her back--blamed him for her condition. Angel asked, ever so innocently, why he would not come back to her--for surely, she reasoned to him, he did not love Growler. And, just as certainly, he still loved Angel--still loved her greatly, evident in the gleam in his deep golden eyes. Forest and a few of his comrades began to shadow Satin's steps, and everywhere he went it was with taunts, threats, jeers.

His pups were with him one night, when Forest and two others came and surrounded him. He managed to get his pups hidden before turning to face his assailants; this would be it. Things were getting out of control...Nakran, his son, was sleeping blissfully. Snowy, his daughter, was wide awake--and watching, listening, to everything that followed. He wide toddler eyes missed no movement as Satin was pinned by two strangers and Forest circled him, snarling and lashing out. Satin was too weak to defend himself; he and his daughter could only watch as Forest bore down on him, clamping powerful jaws on his leg and crushing it, then worrying it like a bone. Soon both of his forelegs were reduced to nothing more than splinters held together by skin, and he was left there to die.
After a time, Growler came across him and brought him home with his pups. Nakran had awakened by now and was hungry; Snowy was listless and, from that point on, never made a sound, never spoke a word. Satin blamed himself, of course, though there was nothing he could do--surely it was not his fault that he had been assaulted? Oh, but it was. It surely was; if only he had returned to Angel...

Snowy and Nakran returned one night with a small, unconscious pup they had discovered at the foot of a short cliff. The situation was all too familiar to Satin, and he brought her in. Her name was Zebriaca--she wore this inscribed into an emerald and silver medallion about her throat. She knew nothing more of herself, and the others could make only quiet guesses. She never grew comfortable around them, however, and seemed forever cold and distant; Satin, unable to help it now, seeing the worst in all lights, found only more rejection. Rejection now from one he had loved like a daughter...

It was too much for him to handle. The monotony, the loneliness even when he was surrounded. Satin was going slowly insane. Even Growler no longer showered him in affection; Zebriaca was all but ignoring him; Snowy had moved away from home to live with her mate; and Nakran, sweet Nakran, was clueless and in his own circles of activity. There was nothing for Satin now but his thoughts and a mate who, it seemed, loathed even the touch of him. They had not been together in so long...not since Angel's return--and could he blame her? No. Of course not, he could blame no one but himself for all his problems.

He took to wandering, most days; sometimes to visit Wolverine's pack, sometimes to follow the old paths he had walked as a blissful teen with Angel. He returned to wondering where his fundamental fault lie, wondering what he had ever done to deserve the life he now lead. It was on one of these wanderings that he learned, through Angel's quiet and removed sister, that Angel had finally died.

So it was over, then. But was it really? No--no, it would never be over. He had made the wrong decision. He should have never gone to Growler in the first place, no matter what the cost of loneliness; he should have never stayed by her uncaring side, even if for the sake of his pups. His unhappiness had obviously translated to theirs, and he was doing nothing more than ruining lives. Angel was dead, was she? He was not needed in his family anymore. Why should he not be dead as well?
He killed a deer that day--his largest kill by far. It took a lot of effort; it took a lot out of him, and he was exhausted by the time he drug it home and laid it in his den for Growler to find. It would keep them fed for a long time--keep them comfortable. Then he quietly walked to the river; he could not swim, not since Forest had mutilated his legs. They were bumpy and crooked now, and he walked with a peculiar shuffling gait; they would not hold his too-skinny weight in the water. He walked into the current and allowed it to wash away his life.

He was drug out sometime later by his daughter. Snowy stared in open horror at him for a long while, before firm resolution lead her to make her own decision--one which she regretted for a long, long while, though she knew it was the right thing to do. Things seemed to work in a blur: he was carried to Angel's spacious tomb; Ulryk, the powerful earthe elemental, was called; Snowy, a powerful telepath, reached out to find any shred of Satin's mind.
No one knows exactly what happened. Perhaps it was Ulryk's strong and immortal magic. Perhaps neither Angel nor Satin were really entirely dead--perhaps, like at the time of his birth, they were only defying detection through their weakness.

Satin was with Angel, wherever he was. It was purgatory, surely, or hell. He went to her, enveloped her, held her close; he pulled her away from approaching menace, trekking back the long distance to the light. He could hear Snowy calling to him in her lilting, musical mindspeech; and with Angel, all was fair and beautiful and happy, even in hell. He was almost free, had almost made it out with him--when he saw them. Empty-eyed lupes who, though he had never met them, were certainly his parents. They clung to him, wrapped themselves around him, and to his horror--passed through into reality with him.

He was alive, once more, and Angel was with him. Growler was unhappy--how could she not be, after all that?--and somehow the guilt never left Satin, through all the years. His parents's ghosts followed him everywhere; much to his dismay, he was the only one who could see them. They would come at lonely times, whispering menacingly around him, and try to make him do things he did not want to do--but still, things were happier. Angel was with him, after all, and caring for her was enough to keep him happy.

He was invited to Wolverine's pack upon his return; the Fire Eagles were glad to see him alive, and he fell comfortably in stride with them, loving them like the sort of family he had never truly had--not with Ulryk, not with Growler. He was made Delta Male, and for a time things looked up. For a time, the ghosts came to him less often, and for a time he and Angel were utter bliss. But--as things always were in Satin's life--this bliss could not last.

She had been weak since the return. The fact was, she was too sweet and angelic for the world she had been tossed into, and she was withering. She died, finally, only a year after her return; her last breath was breathed in Satin's arms. He was alone, now; completely, utterly, and entirely alone, and there was no one left to turn to.

All he had now was his pack. His children grown and with families of their own, Growler bitter and fading through stages of evilness, and the ghosts ever circling him now, Satin was miserable. He would have turned to death again if not for his duty to his pack; as it was, he slipped into his state of unease and hauntedness more and more often. Whenever these times were the worst, whenever the ghosts came to him, those around him would notice him pale, all the color draining from his fur and eyes; still, no one could see the ghosts or hear their whispers.

Things were quiet for awhile. If not wonderful, they weren't as bad as they would have been if Satin were alone. He met Gambit about this time, the meek sister of an Eagles warrior. They had much in common: both had been terribly hurt by love, both were naive yet jaded, both felt horribly alone in the company of others. Gambit was nothing like the other two femmes, who had marked the majority of Satin's life; there were no instant sparks, no immersion in emotion. No...but when he was with Gambit, he didn't feel so alone anymore at all. He made it his duty to show her around the territory, to re-acclimate her to socialization; she had not spoken in many years, and her speech was faltering, but it never bothered him. No...Gambit was like the cure to problems he had suffered all his life.

One night Steel, the brother of the long-departed Goast, came to wreak vengeance upon the pack who had killed his only family. He brutally attacked Bold, Wolverine's cousin; Wolverine chased after Steel, along with Satin, and the pair tracked the enemy mercilessly. They were closing in for the kill, when Satin was distracted--there was another with Steel, one who he had not seen in years.
Zebriaca.
This was the worst insult, the worst pain...it had been one thing, when Zeb had turned away from him. To have her attacking...consorting with a murderer...Satin launched herself after her, leaving Wolverine and Steel.
He regretted that for the rest of his life.
He lost Zebriaca; she, un-touched by his crippled forelegs, was quicker and knew the paths better. He turned back, finally, exhausted, and came upon bloodied earth, signs of struggle. And in the midst of it--Wolverine's dogtags, which he had worn all his life.

Satin was crushed. He had been--however indirectly--responsible for his oldest and best friend's death. He brought the dogtags back to Wolverine's mate and drew away from his pack for a time to mourn. There was no solace to be found anywhere he turned; it was all shattering, numbing pain. Like Angel, like everything--Wolverine was lost, and it was all Satin's fault.
He did find some comfort in Gambit. Enough comfort to eventually draw him out of his shell and bring him away from the shadowy lands tainted with the ghosts of his taunting parents--parents who whispered jeers so very like those Growler had spoken when she had first left. Gambit pulled him out of the grave he was digging himself, and he slowly began to realize the utter simplicity of the truth--that he loved her in a way he had loved no one before.