Animal.
Creature.
Where do I start?
I was not any of these things.
Half-breed.
Freak.
Not these either.

Hell, I did not even know these words before the war. My clan, my family, they did not know these either. The humans were the first to name us as such. We learnt that these words meant something that could not be controlled, something to fear and hate. They meant something unnatural. As time passed we adopted these words into our language, as descriptions of those who named us. Most do not remember who attacked who first and started the war. Each side tells it differently. To the Clans of the Wilderness it was the humans; they killed without provocation simply because they saw us as a threat. The humans believed we were the first; that we were jealous of their ugly stone cities and dirty streets. Both are wrong.
I know, because I was there.

Beast.
Murderer.
Monster.
Maybe I am those. But only because they made me.

The year I was born, my Clan had the harshest winter ever talked about.
The caribou herds that normally kept the Clan plump and healthy through the long cold weeks, had fled south to warmer territories. And the storages ran low quickly.