The first thing I can remember, if I’m being completely honest with myself, is not my father. Not the one that sired me, nor the one who raised me. But I don’t feel like that’s particularly unusual–I simply feel a bit bad about it, that is all. Guilt. A son’s guilt. How often in a century does that come around, and only after everything has gone to shit! But that is how it always is.
No–the first thing I can remember, before it all went to shit, before anything, before everything, is the mud. I remember rolling in it, twisting my spine over and digging my shoulders into it so that I would dissolve into nothing but that holy earth. I would trot home, fur covered in the muck of the woods, and I remember someone shaking their head at me, laughing, telling me I was to grow so big and strong one day! The earth loved me so. The earth loved me, as the earth loved all its children, even my mother, even my fathers. The second thing I remember is when I was given my name.
Fenrir, I remember my father–the sire, that is–calling, Fenrir. Marsh-dweller. Come up out of the muck, would you? One would think you were a frog, not a wolf!
I AM a frog! I would call back. Ribbit! Ribbit! I can’t come out of it, this is my home! This is my name! It is a part of me!
…Well. I’m probably more dramatic reminiscing on it than I was as a small boy, but whatever. It’s true, isn’t it? You can’t deny it. It is a part of me, for better or for worse. And oh, how it often seemed worse, later on. How it seems worse now. But that’s irrelevant at this point, if I’m going to tell this properly, and I feel that you deserve to hear this properly. You, out of anyone. So I must take my time about it.
