My name is Saffron, and I come from Yakuntaq. I live an easy life with my pack in the Talkeetna wilderness, or at least, that's what I would have said if I started on better circumstances.
Maybe my life isn't “easy”... as a matter of fact, it's pretty hard; always has been since I was just a pup. I never really knew my parents, my only parental figure growing up was Burnet, a black-and-white jinmenken with brown eyes, probably a husky. You may already know how hard life is for creatures like him, constantly looked down upon and judged based on your physical appearance, something you can't change. But life is harder when even they consider you to be a freak. The original pack I grew up in treated me like a pest, forcing me to perform humiliating tasks whenever my only father figure wasn't around to keep them in check, and I decided to leave them behind when they left me to die.
You see, I'm not just any jinmenken... I'm actually a wolf; considered to be majestic, social, wise, and beautiful forces of nature. However, I can only live in packs with other wolves that look like me; ordinary timber wolves aren't known to get along well with strange looking individuals like me.
For many generations, people have used both our looks to justify killing us, but in the end, they're the ones in grave danger. Many jinmenkens hate humans and oni alike, thinking they got what they deserved for their atrocious treatment against them, but they can't all be bad, right? At the end of the day, they're animals just like us; lost, scared, unsure of the future that lies ahead, try as they might to predict it accurately.
I was “gifted” with the ability to see into the future, and I say “gifted” very, very lightly, because it feels more like a curse than a blessing. I've witnessed terrible things to come in the future, from natural disasters to death, I've had horrible nightmares, and felt nothing but guilt when these nightmares came true. Recently, I had a vision that something terrible would befall my current pack, a conflict like no other that could cost many individuals their lives. I've lost sleep with paranoia, trying to figure out what that thing could be, this vision wasn't clear enough. I hate waiting to find out something terrible will happen before it actually does, but it looks like I have no choice but to prepare for disaster. It eats at me every single day that I keep thinking about it. I try to get it off my chest by talking to someone about it, but they just suggest that I stop thinking about it, though it's hard.
I suppose I have no other choice but to take matters into my own paws. Hopefully, no matter what decision I choose to make, I just hope I don't end up making the wrong one. I value the lives of my own pack more than my own, I would never forgive myself if any one of them were lost by my own fault.
It's going to be difficult, but I've been through so much worse already, I might as well prepare myself for what's to come.