The Wolf’s Degenerates

In the forbidden village dawn ascends quickly, the sudden removal of a violet blanket over mankind. The village folk sleep quietly entertaining myriad exotic and terrifying dreams, while the insomniac few embrace the new day, throwing their small wooden doors wide, welcoming the cool mountain air into their lungs, their homes, their lives.
There is a richness here to the air and the land, the soil supporting a plethora of crops to help keep the village folk satisfied throughout the winter months. But their generous harvest isn’t shared with their neighbours, the ones who skirt the periphery of their unsavoury land, the word degenerates whispered off their tongues. All they can speak about are degenerates and the lonesome wolf, referring to the village folk as the wolf’s degenerates, whose blood is far from pure and milk white in colour.
Their story is an ancient one but like all ancient stories they are never forgotten. Instead they are passed on to children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and so on. The original version gets altered, modified, reinvented; although the basic facts remain the same. Their king, originally believed to be a wise man of sound judgement was seduced on the eve of his wedding night by a creature disguised as the perfect embodiment of womankind. A woman with liquorice hair, diamonds for eyes and a rose for a mouth.
When his intended’s mother found out what had passed between him and this ungodly creature beneath the moon’s milky beam, she placed a curse on the king, a spell that could never be lifted nor broken, something which would stay with him for the rest of his life and remind him of all he had lost.
It was true, he still had his people, but his nightly transformation terrified the youngsters of neighbouring villages, with many of its elders claiming it was the devil’s work, and had relinquished all ties it once held with them.
And so the once-seduced king continues to live a very secluded existence, ruler by day, wolf by night, and watches impassively as night dissolves into day, high above his forbidden village.