We were always here, there are others, however we are the ones who stand
immovably dominant here. The Elders tell stories from millions of years,
eons upon eons ago. They tell of monstrous creatures, so soft so weak,
like furless rabbits and yet these monsters used all means of magic and
evil to destroy their world. They say we came from them, that we used to
walk on two legs and spout sound like those of angry pigeons and pigs
weaving chaos from nothing only to give feeling to our lives. However
the elders also talk of these creatures having hearts, and how some
knew, before the rest, that a time like this would come and were like us
even as furless, soft, ugly monsters. Even with the thought like that,
and the slight pity I felt for the monsters who didn't believe in
destruction, I shivered at the thought of those things. What would it
have been like to be the first of our kind? In a world like that, those
creatures would have  slaughtered....

I shook myself off, each hair raising and falling back in place.
Sighing, I let my large paws carry me to the cliffs up on the nearby
hill. It was early summer and the vast field stretched out for miles
before me. I lay down, the dew-covered grass feeling nice against my
thinly-furred belly. The sun is just rising and the clouds are painted
pink and orange, and all shades in between. The clouds themselves like
brush strokes on the canvas of the sky. The scent of the rain from the
night before matched with the scent of early morning created an aroma
each morning that filled me with a certain energy as vibrant as the
leaves in the trees.

A lazy breeze caressed my fur and I closed my eyes briefly, hiding the
liquid gold from the crisp air.

"Inuya!"

Flomp!

A mass of warm fur and soft belly landed on my side, sending me rolling
beneath it with a loud yip.

"Fen!" I snarled out of surprise, pushing at his body with all four
legs.

He made a snorting noise that would be a laugh, his mouth cracking open
in a grin as he looked down at me, tongue lolling, canines shining.

"What?" he grinned. I kicked him off, but he pounced back and tumbled
down the hill. I couldn't help but grin and laugh as he did.

"Fen!" I giggled, "Fen, get off!" He finally hopped back, rearing on all
fours easily standing at 12 feet tall before dropping down to the usual
six. I raised to my height of about five feet and shook off again. He
was panting, I could see the clear saliva dripping from the pink tongue
hanging from his mouth. He had a rather large tongue, I noticed and even
when his mouth was shut, the tip still stuck out from his jowls, thus
adding a comical twist to the rest of his appearance. He was light gray
apart from his back, which was dark gray and black in places and his
white belly. He was bulky too, his muscles were especially bold around
his neck and shoulders making him look hunched over. However when he
lifted his head, he only looked regal, strong.

I remembered the time the pack had brought down a stag, the thing was
nearly his size, a full eight pointed rack of antlers that could shred
our hides. He had it cornered, the snow flying like dust in the air. One
scar ran like a racing stripe across his left flank from where the beast
had caught him with one of those deadly points. He still limped only the
slightly from the wound but one wouldn't notice without knowing it was
there from the start.

"You're never up this early." He said, his yellow gaze looking me up and
down. I would have blushed, but simply looked away. It was true, I would
lounge in the morning sun for hours until it rose high into the
blue-violet sky. I didn't want to tell him it was nightmares of the two
legs that had jarred me from slumber; he'd laugh at me for sure.

"You're never this spunky." I retorted instead, thinking of his way of
sluggishly walking around at dawn. He yipped and bounded in a circle, an
odd gesture coming from one of his stature, he still was quite the pup.

"Kajva's been giving me lessons." He said, straightening up as if our
esteemed alpha were watching.

"Uh huh..." I said, eyeing him now.

"Yep," He said, proudly, "I'll be flanking him from now on at the hunt."

"Whaaat?!" I asked, astounded.

"And maybe, I'll take his place someday." He seemed to get serious then,
his eyes sparkling as he lifted his nose to the heavens.

"Yeah right," I said, "You're too silly to lead us!" I grinned again,
but he seemed hurt.

"You call this silly?" he said, turning to stick his scarred leg in my
face, "I may as well have been alpha that day." It was true, I had never
seen him look so worthy of the title, but he had been too young then.
Even now he fell just under the correct age to prove himself, and I was
sure once he could, Kajva would graciously step down.

A chorus of howls rose up from over the next hill, the pack was looking
for us. Instinctively we both raised our voices in return and started
trotting toward the direction of the others, which quickly turned into
an all out race as Fen nipped at my flanks playfully. I used his
antagonism to plant a back paw right between his eyes and launch myself
off his face and further ahead laughing all the way. I looked over my
shoulder, he was looking at me with a sort of dark playfulness. It made
me giddy and I sped up, racing across the field. I felt so strong when I
ran, like bird, I barely felt my feet hitting the earth, my claws
sending dirt flying up behind me. The faithful pattern of my paws
pounding over and over was like a drum beat. My heart and mind fell into
the rhythm and I lost myself in it, forgetting the race..and my speed.

I came upon the others all too quickly, lost in myself until the
startled yips of my pack mates leaping out of my path brought my back. I
dropped my back end, paws flailing for traction, front paws locking
together in front as I skidded through the others meeting  with a mass
of black-blue fur at full speed, knocking him on his side and me
tumbling over his head and rolling for several yard to land in a
graceless heap. My neck hurt as I stood, shaking my fur off again
dizzily and trying to focus on the off-white color of my paws. Blinking
and wobbly from the impact I looked to see the poor wolf whom I had
unintentionally pummeled. At the sight I was suddenly very stiff. My
ears stood straight up, tail flat against my flanks, legs tense, head
high, eyes wide.

Kajva got to his feet slowly shaking his head, a blue sheen covering the
black guard hairs of his midnight coat. I knew he wouldn't hurt me, but
the look in his eyes was enough to send a pup yelping back to its
mother. My jaw was tight, and my stare was glued to him as he turned to
look at me. He was not quite as big or bulky as Fen, but what he lacked
he made up for in cunning and leadership, however he was still bigger
than me. I lowered my head a little, ear slanting back apologetically as
my tail crept its way under my belly, legs crumbling into a crouched
position and I swallowed under his piercing blue gaze. His eyes were
such a starling color, like the winter sky or the frigid sea. The color
of heavens must be above the rim of the world. But he didn't look at me
disapprovingly. Instead, he simply looked at me, then away as he walked
into furred mass around him. Several faces turned to me questioningly
and I felt myself relax, eyes still wide and blinking. Kajva was usually
quiet, but normally he had more expression than that. My head fell to
the side a bit.

"Haaaa! Ha! Ha! You should have seen your face!" cackled Fen as he
trotted up to me, barking out a laugh to follow. He pawed at my shoulder
as he rolled over onto the ground squirming in endless bouts of
laughter.

"Shut up!" I barked in return, but he laughed harder at my
embarrassment. "Ugh..' I growled and walked away, leaving Fen howling on
the ground.

Sighing I joined the others, careful to avoid Kajva. A brown faced
female joined me,

"Geez Inuya, watch where you're going!" she said smiling.

"It wasn't my fault, Fen was nipping at me!" I paused and she only
snorted lightly, the equivalent of a chuckle. "So what's wrong with
Kajva today?"

"Didn't you notice he wasn't at the story telling last night?" I thought
a moment. Usually in the balmy night air under the endless stars in the
deep calm of moonlight he would sit near the elders as they told their
chilling tales of the two legs and the way their world...our
world...used to be. I wondered if he too was disturbed by the stories.
"The others are saying no one saw him at all, no one knows where he
went."

I let out a small sympathetic whine. Did he feel he could not trust us?
Within the pack there was such a deep love between everyone, for
everyone. There was never violence or aggression, a deep bonded trust.
Simply love. The pack was love, eternal and definite. It was now I
looked for him over the yawning and stretching companions. The sun was
rising higher now, the colors of dusk yielding to the brightness of day.
Today was starting off with bit of mystery. It was exciting and
freighting all at once, especially as the stories still haunted me in
the depths of my mind.

"Speaking of that," I looked away, feeling silly, "did those stories
bother you at all?"

"Of course they did, but not too badly, that was eons ago. They're all
dead and gone."

"Yeah, you're right." I said. Our words weren't words, more like a
series of mental images and physical whines and body language.

"What are you two whispering about?" blurted Fen suddenly. The brown
one, Eki, jumped.

"Don't sneak up on us!"

He chortled at that, tongue lolling out again.

"You done laughing at me?" I said, eyes narrowed.

"I guess," he smirked, "Where'd he go anyway?"

"I don't know," I replied, glancing around the pack, "I was talking to
Eki."

Eki was smaller than I, coming to about four feet when not standing on
her hind legs, but she was a ball of fire and energy most of the time.
My eyes, still looking for Kajva scanned over the elders, their matted
and thinning fur, their ribs could be seen though the loosening skin on
their bodies. They looked pitiful and remained with the pack and family
ready to die at any moment and return to the earth. Then the pups
bounding around their feet asking endless wide-eyed questions.

Three loud commanding barks suddenly directed our attention to the black
wolf.

"Last night there was a new scent in this land," began Kajva appearing
from nowhere, his eyes looked cloudy, worried, "it is very much like our
own, faint, but I followed it and found a loner."

The others looked around in astonishment. Loners were only spoken of in
the elders tales of the first few of our kind who made themselves aliens
from the old society in which we were not the majority, long ago when
the two legs still existed.

"Are you sure?" asked an elder, "we've been all around this world and
nothing like this has come to us before."

The alpha closed his eyes, "I spoke with him...He wishes to join us."

"But surely he must be a ghost." Returned the elder again, fur so thin
it showed her speckled hide.

"He is not, I assure you. Though how he has survived this long is beyond
my imagination he exists. And he is here." A silence fell over us as
Kajva turned to the brush at the distant end of the clearing. There,
emerged a smaller wolf. One that would match the size of our pups, but
he was clearly no pup. His fur was a glistening metallic silver, paws
and nose black. He did not look ancient, however dwarfed by the rest of
us.

"My name is Skylark." Said the strange one. It was an ancient name, and
the group became unnerved as the sun shown off his fur like diamonds.
What was this? Images of the elder's stories flashed through my mind.

"I don't like him," I whispered to EKi and Fen. Eki, however seemed
enthralled by him, while Fen was already gone to stand nose to nose with
the stranger. Everyone held their breath as he inched closer, as if a
breath would shatter our world and bring the entirety of the past
reaching up from the ground to devour us. It seemed now I wasn't the
only one weary of the elder's stories after all.

End/ Part 1



haven't thought of a title, yet, whatcha think though?