Eighteen Years ago

Tonight's moon hung low in the blackened skies, so low that it appeared it was snagged in the brambles of dead trees, twisting and grasping. Their branches were bent with ice from a recent storm that had coated the land in its glittering sheen beneath a blanket of puff-white snow. Beyond the small clearing, was a freshly ruined cabin.The door had been torn off its hinges, lay forgotten half buried in the snow a few feet away, long raking claws split the wood.

Splintered rough-wood logs, once a wall, now scattered across the floor within. Whatever furniture, whatever memories had been held in that quiet sanctuary were gone. Torn and smashed beyond repair or salvage. The hearth's stones had been ripped from their place, a pot that had held someone's dinner now clattered forgotten across the fire that had since gone down to little more than infrequent, weakly glowing coals. Tendrils of smoke drifted and wove their way up towards the gaping hole where the roof used to be.

The icy wind howls through the cabin, causing the fire to flicker and dance. Untold violence had taken place, and recently if the two bodies, little more than mangled bits of carrions the scavengers themselves would likely not dare pick from, lie a few feet from one another. That cruel, dead of winter wind ripped through the deathly quiet home, the tattered remains of what were once green curtains with some sort of gold design too ripped to make out now, gently billowing in the dead breeze as if to mourn the people who'd hung them there in the first place.

The stars above seem to be hiding themselves as three shadow-wrought figures come upon the ruined cabin. They come, not on feet but of paw and fur lupine and near invisible between snow and shadow. The sight of the home seems to freeze the male in front, and an entirely human sense of dread freezes him at the top of the small snow crested hill. From there he could smell the burning smoke, and the too-thick scent of blood, sick and cloying, froze him.

From his left another wolf presses her snow-white shoulder into his black fur, a low snarl spilling from her throat. "We need to go and check. See if there are any..." Her words trail off in the black-furred male's head as he snaps his teeth at the voice's presence. He's all agitation and black-rolling waves of fury.

The only response he gives, is the breakneck pace in which he rushes down the hill. Snow churns from his paws, larger than any wolf's should be as he finds himself too soon on the threshold. Liquid golden eyes are quick to settle on the source of the too-thick scent of blood in the air.

In life, the wolf had known them as Rowan and Tabitha Yusinne, honored them the witch and her human with places among his pack, as tradition called for the emissary. He had known many golden days by the witch's side, took her council and heeded her sage-wisdom; trusted her to call the magicks that would lead his pack through ceremony and rite and now... The wolf hadn't realized how far he'd stepped into the home until he felt the thick, cold and coagulated ocean of blood that had once been his... His friends.

It clung and slickened his proud, black pelt making his not-entirely animal stomach roll with nausea.

The two females waited outside the cabin, smart enough to avoid being too close to their king in case his rage boiled over and the wolf didn't call to them. In the darkened shadows of the cabin, he slowly cast his golden eyes. They, his enemies, had left nothing. Or the wolf thought until his large paws, clumsy with grief and shock, crunched over the glass of broken plates.

The wolf can't curse himself for further ruining, destroying what little was left of his friend's home because it's a small, thin whimpering cry that comes from beneath an overturned cradle. The wolf could blame the smoke and blood that hung so heavy in the air it made his nose burn and eyes water that made him miss the last, lingering scent of Tabitha's magic, protective and warm. At once the form of wolf melts away like oil running off water as he stands on two legs. The tiny whimpering cries had faded to mere whimpers, stopping the breath in the now-man's throat.

Carefully, as if caught between some fear of trap and deceit he shifts the cradle up only to find pink-flushed and watery babe eyes staring back at him. Tabitha's child. A newborn girl, and the wolf recalled Tabitha had so proudly told him, Auden. The babe had small thin dark brownish red hair, like her father but that held touches of her mother's curls. The babe was bleeding from a small scratch on her forehead, untouched otherwise.

"Oh, thank the mother."

The soft gasp behind him makes the man flinch as one of his companions, brave enough to risk his wrath, had poked her head through the cabin. At once the man notes how her eyes avoid the blood, the gore of their friends.

"Why? The Mother did nothing to help them. Tabi protected the babe." The words are harsh, enough so that the woman flinches as her emerald eyes darken with unspoken sorrow. There would be time for tears later. "Stay behind with Arisha." The command is spoken with the weight of a king, felt in the bonds of their pack that the woman couldn't ignore as the man wordlessly, carefully picked up the babe.

"What are you going to do with her?" The question is soft, and from the way the man scoffs the female can tell he's not entirely sure. "We could bring her back with-"

"No." The refute is quick, brutal almost and the man grits his teeth, the beginnings of a plan, a course of action that he could take, forming in his mind. "Rowan has family with the humans."

"You can't be serious." It is bold and stupid of the female to protest, but perhaps only because she knew she could get away with it. "You can't bring her to a human village. What would Tabi-" The man's cracking snarl, echoing about the dark and burned house is enough to stop the words on her lips immediately.

"Tabi would want her safe." He glances at the babe in his arms, who'd apparently been unable to fight the warmth of his arms that beckoned her to sleep. "We don't know if she has Tabitha's gift. And if she doesn't, how can I make a human girl live among wolves when she has a family just beyond the boundaries?" Though she says nothing, the man can sense his companion's displeasure through their shared bond though he ignores it. "I will take her back tonight." He hesitates a moment, his eyes falling to the band of twisted metal that had once decorated Rowan's ring hand. Picking up, cleaning it the best he could he carefully slips it into his pocket. "I'll leave this with the babe. Rowan's family will know what it means."

"So you doom her to a life in those walls. In their tiny villages?" The displeasure isn't a challenge, not exactly so the male ignores it.

"She'll be protected inside of the walls, with other humans. She'll come of age. We'll return, if she has the gift it should manifest by then. It will be the girl's choice what she does." The finality of his words is both heard in his tone and felt in the bond. Neither of his companions stop him as he finds a small wicker basket, stuffing it with enough pelts and blankets to keep the babe secure and warm; calling the shadowy beast to consume him as he becomes lupine and furred once again.

The wolf ran beneath the moon, making it to the human's walled village before even the first hints of the morning's ray began to rise, the babe's wicker basket clenched carefully in his teeth. In that twilight he'd left the babe near the gates, relegating himself to hiding within the brush until the first humans, likely a patrol, came. They debated for longer than the wolf would have liked, but in the end they took the babe with them. The wolf lingered for just a bit longer as the dawn's rosy fingers began to paint the sky above, snow beginning to fall.

One last look, one last minute with his ears strained and hearing nothing; the wolf turns and disappears into the thick of the woods leaving only his paw prints behind before the snow eventually covers that as well.