Part 1: The Beginning : 1. Vairi

                                    

                                          
June 2273

                          


                          
Bran was running through the forest, as a wolf, chasing a white tailed rabbit that was proving ever elusive. He felt as though he had been running for days and yet it had only been a few minutes. He was barely ever a human any more. It always seemed that just when he thought he was going to change back to his human form, to be Bran again, the feeling faded away and he remained a wolf. He had been in his lycan form for over three months. It was sapping all his energy, trying to fight to be a human. Trying to fight off the feeling that came with a wolf transformation. Trying to live his life in the shadows so that no-one could find him and hunt him for what he truly was.
                          
There was no trace of the vampire in him any more. That had long gone. He felt that his body was trying to keep him a lycan by continually giving in to the wolf transformation and never becoming human again. It was as if the moment his body resembled a human, the risk of vampire infection returned. His body was fighting so hard against it that he had little energy for anything else.
                          
But he had to keep going...keep surviving. He didn't have anything left other than that. His last letter from Vairi had been a year ago. It wasn't her fault. He had been on the move so much that he couldn't tell her where he was staying or how long he would remain there. He wrote to her every week though, not risking any more than that. He was afraid that someone might find out where the letter had been posted from and follow his trail. If that happened he was dead.
                          
Ever since his love affair with Vairi had been exposed to the council members in Avelina, he had been tracked, hunted and attacked every other day by vampires, lycans and humans alike. All trying to kill him. No-one wanted him alive because no-one wanted to admit that a lycan and a vampire had fallen in love with one another. No-one wanted to admit to the terrible thought of uniting the various tribes under one banner because it would mean that all those in power would lose everything they held dear.
                          
Bran was starving, but the more he chased the rabbit the further it seemed to get from him. In anger, he used the little energy he had left to quicken his pace, running faster than he had ever ran before. He could feel his leg muscles burning and his paws crunching down on stones now and then. He could feel the heat of blood seeping from a wound in his side from a previous attack, now bursting open again with the strain of his run. The faint trickle of blood dripping from his paws from rough ground. Why did he keep fighting? Why didn't he just give up?
                          
Vairi.
                          
That was the answer to everything nowadays. He had fought to be with her and now there was war between the lycans, humans and vampires. Everyone was at war because of their love; he wasn't going to give up on her now. He had to get back to her somehow. But how?
                          
His pace slowed and he could feel his heart pounding a mile a minute, as if any moment it was going to stop from over exhaustion. Finally, Bran came to a stop, panting and feeling so weak that his legs could only hold him up for a minute more. He needed to rest. Letting his legs buckle beneath him, he fell to the ground in a mass of black fur and curled up into a ball, hoping to get some sleep before reigniting the chase in a few hours. He so desperately needed to sleep.
                          
And as he lay his head down on the grass beneath him and allowed his mind to drift off to sleep, Bran died. His heart gave way under the pressure and he was no more.
                          
Vairi woke with a start, shaking and sweating in the heat of the summer night. She couldn't help but thank God that it had only been a dream. Yet another one. Ever since Bran had departed on his journey to find a cure for either his vampirism or his lycan blood, Vairi had suffered the most terrible dreams about what was happening to him and how he might return.