The Forgotten
By Silver Flame

It was a brisk, cool night, as the traveller reached the summit of the hill that overlooked the city of lights that sprawled below him. He stopped, surveying the lights with child like fascination, for he had never seen such things before. The air smelled of the forest around him, yet the scent of smoke also hung in the air. From the exhaust of cars that had come this very way, on the dark and gloomily lit road that he had followed.

He looked around him, wondering if there were other things to look at and found that there were cars parked up ahead. Inwardly, he wondered why they would be here, and what the humans were doing this night, in such an ill-lit place.

Slowly, he walked closer, his long strides eating up the ground as he walked towards them. When he suddenly heard the sound of yelling and a woman's scream off to his left. He ran towards the sound and found a man and young woman in a car together. He could smell the man's rage and the woman's fear, as he reached the car and pulled on the door handle to open the door up. It refused to move and he growled lowly, as his hands sprouted talons and he dug his claws into the door itself.

He pulled the door off the car and threw it to one side effortlessly, reaching inside and pulling the man out. He held him aloft as the human flailed in fear, and screamed at him to let him go. He tossed him to the ground, as his features changed into the visage of a snarling wolf head, with the mane of a lion!

The man back pedalled, as the creature before him continued to change, his arm and thigh muscles bulging as they thickened and grew in size. His skin stretched and grew red coloured fur, as his white T-shirt tore at the seams and his jeans ripped to accomodate his new body mass. His midnight blue eyes, turning almost black with rage as he glared at the trembling, quivering human below him.

"What the hell are you?!" the male screamed at him fearfully.

"I am rage, inhuman, from the dawn of time," he snarled back at him venomously.

The man ran from him and he growled lowly again, snorting once, as he turned and looked back into the car. Steam curled from his nostrils as he snorted and he felt the anger he held inside, beginning to abate slowly. As he crouched down, to check on the young woman he had sought to help.

She screamed at him and he remained still, purring softly at her. As he subconsciously sent her feelings of calm and safety, to soothe her. Eventually, the young woman looked at him tearfully and he blinked at her quizzically. He could sense that she wanted someone to console her, yet her fear of his appearance kept her from coming to him for it.

"I came only to help you," he whispered in a gravelly voice, thick with an unknown accent that reeked of ancient days.

"What are you?" she whispered softly.

"I am cyno, my people are known as the cynocephali," he answered her softly.

"Are you going to hurt me?" she whispered, with wide brown eyes, as she hugged herself with her arms and rocked back and forth gently in the black leather seat of the car.

"No," he answered her softly, purring again soothingly.

Slowly, she crawled across the seats, and got out of the car. He backed away from her and stood up silently. Watching the trees around them, for his battle instincts told him that the man would be back with friends soon. He suddenly looked down as he felt small hands in his chest fur, and blinked at her meekly, for she was holding him tightly and warmly.

He unclasped his gray furred cloak and draped it over her shoulders, hugging her gently in return. As his feral eyes continued to watch for any signs of danger around them.

"Do you have some where you can go and stay safely?" he whispered softly.

"No, I can't think right now," she cried into his fur softly, trembling as she spoke.

"I will stay with you. For as long as you have need of me," he told her gently.

"Who are you?" she asked in a threadbare whisper of a voice.

"I am called Jenabis, the rager," he answered her honestly, in a gentle tone, " I come from an army of people that have fought and died throughout the ages, in an attempt to stop those that would harm others for no reason. We are here to protect the innocent."

"Will you kill him?" she asked in a trembling voice, as she pushed back a lock of chocolate brown hair from her black eyes and rested her cheek on his fur.

" Only if I must, I do not seek battle. Yet I battle when there is no other choice," Jenabis answered her softly, as his ears pricked forward.

"Why have I never heard of the cyno before?" she asked him softly, as she trembled against him from fatigue.

"We are the forgotten ones. History has no more use for us and therefore speaks very little of us now. Yet the time will come when we are needed again and then we will act," Jenabis answered her calmly, as he turned his attention back to the area around him.