Sleep wouldn't come. No matter how long she laid and tried to ignore the low hum of insects and soft whisper of leaves she couldn't. There was too much on her mind and the night was too beautiful to waste. Summer was coming to an end and soon they would miss these warm, humid nights. With a sigh her eyes looked skyward at the stars peeking through the thicket forest.

A familiar voice filled the night and Iopah's first reaction was concern. She pushed herself to her elbows to look in Vaeta's distant direction. The song continued and her gray-edged ears swept back in relief. Everything was fine and Iopah stilled to listen to the melody. It was beautiful, needing no words to convey its message. But it was missing something.

Eagerly she scrambled to her feet and waited. There was a time when she didn't question her place in a pack, when her only thought was where the next meal came from. There was a time she would do this with her parents, their voices falling and rising all over the mountain. At a lull in the song Iopah let her own voice rise up. Wolves will naturally vary their pitch to avoid to avoid "singing over" another pack mate at an identical pitch. Her own song started out in a burst of emotion, then scaled back to a pitch just higher than the younger woman's. She was singing out to Vaeta and the rest of their family. They were here and they were strong, she wanted the world to know.

In a black sky the moon and stars glittered down, casting a pale shimmer over the forest. The iridescent shimmer sank down into the forest, finding small gaps between the sheltering trees to slip through. It bathed thick, rough bark in a softening glow and edged bracken fronds and ivy leaves in stark silver. Everything from winding paths to slumbering wolves was illuminated in a soft glow.

Iopah shifted in the glow, turning to look up at the exposed roots of the fallen tree she sleep under. Only days after claiming it as her own she'd chewed them off to nubs. They were short and gnarled and a constant nuisance. Bathed in this light they were beautiful. Snagged on a shortened root, twisting in the soft breeze, was a tuft of gray hair. Captivated by the sight she stretched up to touch her nose to it, her song fading slightly with her distraction. It was her own hair, likely plucked from her shoulders as she'd squeezed under the roots every morning. She breathed deep, chest filling with song. She belonged to this land as surely as it belonged to the Woodland wolves.

Vaeta was still singing, her strong voice filling the starlit sky. Iopah lifted her head into the faint glow. Even with her eyes closed Iopah could see light, it flickered against her lids like miniature diamonds. Her jaws parted and the song spilled out. The stronger she sang the brighter the lights seemed to flicker. No one should sleep through such a sight. She sang back to Vaeta, strong and passionate, and the night continued to glitter brightly above. She wanted to turn night into day. She wanted to wake the entire pack to witness the night.

It was working. Iopah was sure that the night was brighter than it had been only moments ago. With each chord that passed her lips the sky seemed to spark that much brighter. She'd never seen a night so bright, filled with an incandescent moon and twinkling stars. On a whim, she imaged it was responding to something. Maybe their call was summoning the light? It was a fanciful thought, but Iopah still pressed herself into the cool night air, crying out with all she had. She wanted to test her theory. If her song was persuasive enough how many stars could she summon into existence?

She was mid-chord, pale muzzle lifting while her ears gently angled back, when a deep voice started behind her. It was one she recognized immediately and Iopah spun to greet Koda. Walking quickly to him an enthusiastic wag swayed her movements. Something had changed between them, and even if Iopah did not know where it would lead them she could not bring herself to hold back.

Even as she stepped up to him her song did not stop, though it did lose some of its cohesiveness. It fell from a controlled melody into a series of excited noises. Even from a distant the happiness in her greeting would be clear. She circled around him, gesturing up at the sky with a grin as if to say, 'See what I did?' Coming around to his other side she sat down against him with a sigh and pointed her black nose at the heavens once more. Her voice scaled up once again to dance around his song.

She lost herself in the song. There was only the sensation of the warm summer air on her tongue, a sliver of star-light sky between partly lidded eyes and the figure at her side. Even her own voice seemed to fade and shimmer in the face of Koda's deeper chords. That did not stop her enthusiasm, and each lull when he took a breath, her voice was there to fill the gap, clear and sure.

All the worries that had tormented her, kept her from sleep, were gone. Her deep-seated regret was finding less purchase in her mind these days. These wolves had accepted her in, become a family, to the wolf who had left everything. For once she had every thing she needed. She was needed, even wanted.

Koda's voice faded somewhat and Iopah took a breath to fill the space. Her lungs were full of warm night air and her lips pursed to sing out when another howl drifted to them from beyond the borders. It was unfamiliar and faltering with the distant. Iopah froze in surprise to listen, voice finally stilled. It continued for a few notes, then died away. Was a loner or a Black Thorn wolf responding to them? They had not identified themselves and a streak of bold curiosity revealed itself. She rose to her feet, using the lung-full of air to call back with a series of short howls. Her own noises faded away and she cocked her head to listen. But strange wolf had gone silent. Once more she called back, tone louder and more insistent.