Visitor

It was full moon again, Mom said I was born on a full moon night, so I am two months old now? My coat also started changing colors, becoming lighter like my older siblings.

Mom was the only one staying at the densite with us. The rest of the family, Dad too, were on hunt again since that morning.

We were playing with Mom. She was teaching us how to easily move around in the night. The stars and the moon were giving us a lot of light on the clearing, not so much under the trees.

"Watch out for the hole there Janym." Mom warned, but too late as he had already faceplanted into the ground.

"You're bad! Leave this to the better hunters," the other two boys howled, teasing him as they jumped over the hole and chased after Mom.

I jumped over it too without issues and Janym quickly got up as well grumbling that he outran them easily.

Mom was holding back on us but we still couldn't keep up with her. I understood then that all the adults did that with us. Even if it looked like we could keep up it was only because they were holding themselves back a lot.

***

All of our games were to help us train and get stronger. Chase was not any different, the hunters were not allowed to use any magic expect to protect themselves, the same the adults did on hunts. The designated prey could use whatever they wanted to escape, but that carried its risks, using magic was tiring.

When we tried to play alone, the adult siblings had way too much of a size advantage, I couldn't last even a quarter of a day with my magic. And even if it allowed me to escape the boys easily, they caught me even easier when I tired out. Mom said that's only because I'm still young, that no adult struggles with that because unlike other animals we get stronger as we age. "In few months you'll see that if you use the necessary amounts, you will never get spent like that." She said.

I guessed that was why Dad said it was early for us to learn to use it.

***

Mom stopped the game of chase and sniffed the air. We weren't as fast and piled up under her, as we all ran into Cyante who did manage to stop.

"Who allowed you to come here, Yalo?" Mom growled, looking past the river that marked the boundary of the densite in that direction.

"Come on, can't I visit my dear little sister once in a while?" Amused grunt came together with an adult male appearing among the bushes. With a single leap he jumped over the river and after one more jump stopped in front of Mom.

"You could have given at least a howl..." Mom grunted. "One of these days someone will really give you the teeth. What are you here for?"

"Just to say hi." Yalo grunted and lowered his head to greet the four of us. "Where's Asher?"

"On a hunt." Mom said and lay down next to us, clearly, this adult was safe to be around. She warned us before to run if we saw an adult we didn't know.

"Mom and Dad?" Yalo continued asking and sat down.

"Mom caught blood lung last spring. How come you didn't annoy anyone last year? I thought someone finally lost it with you."

"We had a full litter, you know how that is. And no, you are the only who has issues with my visits."

"How many?"

"All ten."

"Lucky. Are you spending the night?"

"Can't if I want to keep my tail. Say hi to Asher for me." Yalo said and as quickly as he came he was gone again.

"Have a safe trip." Mom howled after him.

As Yalo's tail disappeared between the foliage I asked Mom. "Who was he?"

"My older brother, he has a habit of visiting his younger siblings and pups that are still living in this forest. He's the oldest from our family around here now." She said with a sad tone.

"Do you dislike him?"

"No, I love him, but he does annoy me with his lack of manners." She said with an amused grunt and licked my face. "It would be lonely without him."

"Mom, I'm hungry." I licked at her mouth.

"Yeah, yeah." She said and regurgitated meat for me.

***

"We're back!" The chorus of howls woke us up, shaking the den and the valley it was in.

With Mom in lead we all ran to greet them. All of them were standing together around a pile of weird rats, they were huge but had short wide tails instead of the long lean ones.

"How did it go?" Mom asked while we investigated the carcasses.

"We quickly found a boar but I messed up so it got away. Then we found a moose but it spotted us quickly. I just gave up and we went to get some beavers instead."

"You got lucky there." She said tearing one open while the rest of our siblings regurgitated meat for us.

"I caught them straight from water." Trumpet said.

"Yeah, only two of them." Asher said, the rest caught at least four each."

"Will the wolves have anything left there?" Mom asked, already finished with her first beaver.

"We spread out, don't worry Mom." Iala said and pawed at Sweryx to go play in the river.

"How do you hunt beavers?" I asked Dad.

"Lot of patience, you have to know where they will get out of the water, or at least close to the shore so you can cover the distance with one jump. Then once they get close you jump and crush their head before they can dive again. Their neck is really hard to get so you are better going for the head. If you miss, get away, they can really mess you up with their teeth if they are desperate." He finished and bit one of the last two remaining beaver's mouths to show me their large sharp teeth.

"We usually leave them alone," Mom added between mouthfuls, "We only go for them when we have nothing else or we just got lucky in passing. being able to catch so many in one night is extremely lucky even with six people there. Crafty little..."

"Yes, it was only because I was in bad mood that we made a stop there. I expected us to get a snack there at most and go track down that moose in the morning." Dad grunted and stretched.

"Dad, you're the prey." I yipped and charged him, the rest of my siblings with the exception of Iala and Sweryx quickly followed and Dad with a powerful jump broke into sprint.