A Letter to the Institute

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Pencil draft of a letter left out on the writing table, in painfully careful childlike writing, the final piece in smudged pen
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G'day all,
I figure I better add a little something here about me, too. You've all been good enough to allow me to share your fireside for a while now, your thoughts and even if you didn't realise it, a sense of Family. Now, it's formal.

I guess I'll go backwards and ease you into things. I've been in Tox now for a good number of seasons and up until this Spring, I ran with The Pack. My reasons are my own, but I'll say just that their path and mine split and I won't run with them where they are going. My Path is the Shaman's path. I was one of their Scout Leaders, a Hunter Leader before that, and had been with them through thick and thin for many seasons until now. It's been a hard month, I'm not a loner, I need Family. I've lost three now, but I think this time it will work, I know it will.

Before I came to Tox, I was in a special branch of the Australian Armed Forces, the 7RAR-L, 7th Royal Australian Regiment - Lycanthropy Corps. They sent us to do bad things to bad people. Eventually, worse things to any people. They trained me and schooled me, in everything they though I needed. What they didn't expect was under the fur and claws and fangs, I had a caring heart. That and they had trained me too well to be able to keep me. Or find me. They've come close, but, I?m a sneaky critter. I listen, I watch, I wait in the dark places.

They found me in Melbourne Zoo in 1995, where I was born, in 1992. The dark of the New Moon sends me into my average-Joe Fleshy body, in case you ask. It's embarrassing, and with the shrapnel I carry about, painful. That's right, I'm a wolf-were, so they say. Born and raised with all the social skills of feral canine, with military barracks for a finishing school.

Yes, I am house-trained
No, I will not fetch
Yes, I will put my very only body in harms way for Family
No, I will never betray a trust given me

Kin, Pack, Blood
You are my pack.

Grr