Whitestone Monadnock I see it in your eyes

The small white wolf panted slightly as she made her way up the base of the monadnock, her breath expelling brief puffs of fog on the chilly air as a small hare swung from her jaws. Saradathia had been out most of the day in her routine hunting trips. Ranging further and further from the massive plateau in order to find adequate meat for the pack. A small and somewhat twisted sense of familiarity filled the girl. Prey was becoming scarce and hard to find, something she was familiar with and well versed it. It may have been bad that she felt a little happy with the small comfort from her old home, albit one of the only sure things from the frigid north. SHe managed quietly up the trail planning to visit the biggest ghost of her old home, the only other arctic wolf she had met so far, Anaia.

A small sigh escaped the yearling as the familiar bend toward the coyote den that had been assigned to the injured wolf came into view. Saradathia had some mixed feelings about Anaia, while it was nice to have another wolf around that had been in similar areas to her, it also proved a link to the past that she was trying to escape. The scar on her muzzle throbbed, her torn left ear flinching in memory of the harsh and vicious pack she had grown up in.

There, the female wolf laid outside of the den, maybe getting some fresh air Saradathia wondered as she came closer, she laid the scrawny hare down with a gentle smile, overall She had become what she had considered close to the other yearling, spending as much time as she could allow so the newest and possibly temporary packmate would have some company in this cold season. “Hey there, hows your leg?” She asked quietly as she settled down on her haunches, her pelt brushing against Anaia’s.

Anaia inched out of the den, fluffing up her fur against the chill.  She had to admit it was warmer than what she was used to, and she hoped it didn’t get much colder than this.  She’d been looking for some place with a mild winter, and while she knew she couldn’t expect something with no snow this far north, she could hope it might be a dry year.

 
With a sigh, the small white wolf flopped onto the ground.  At least the snow reminded her of home a bit… she missed her family a lot, and wondered how they were faring with the much harsher storms they’d been getting while she had been with them.
 
The sound of pawsteps drew Anaia’s attention, and she looked up to see Sara approaching with food.  Anaia’s stomach rumbled as the scent of the hare hit her nose; she had no idea she’d been that hungry.  “You don’t have to bring me food every day.” She said, even as she inched forward to nose the food.  “It’s feeling better than it was, but I hate being so useless.”  She glanced up at the wolf she considered a friend.  Anaia was more comfortable with Sara than with most of the other wolves, though Lorcan and Odin were nice enough. There was something about her…
 
“You caught it; please have some.” Anaia glanced down at the offered meal.  She already felt guilty because Sara had been hunting extra to make sure Anaia got to eat, and she would feel even worse if she just ate it in front of her without offering the other arctic wolf some.  Besides, she liked sharing.

Shallow water has trapped several fish in a small pond. Hunt Opportunity

Saradathia squints her silver gaze at the other wolf as she spoke. Mentioning how useless she felt, tto that, the small wolf could relate to, being unable to contribute, even for a few days would have been a death sentence back home. It made her wonder..did Anaia come from a similar pack? Were there other kinds of packs back in the arctic circle where only survival wasn't the sole stressing and binding point of a bond among wolves? She looked carefully over the slightly larger female before smiling a little. They couldn’t have been products of the same life style if she had been so willing to forgo a full stomach just to share.

“If your sure, I guess I can, though catching something else wouldn’t be too hard.” The yearling said with a blatant lie, she was tired, exhausted and still panting slightly. To try and hunt again would have done nothing but hurt her, though she just wasn’t willing to admit it, she wasn’t wanting to look weak. A small yawn escaped, revealing just how tired she was indeed as she glanced down at the hare “You get the first bite though.”

Pausing for a few moments, Saradathia eventually gave voice to something that had been bothering her for a few days now, she still knew little about Anaia’s pack, or how she had ended up in an avalanche. “I was wondering...what was your pack like?”

Anaia nodded and started eating the hare, grateful for the food no matter how much she wished she could have caught it herself.  Her ears flicked up at Sara’s next question.

 
She wants to know about my pack?  Anaia chewed thoughtfully for a moment before swallowing, wondering where to begin.
 
“Well… My pack was pretty small; just my parents, me, my brother Kobal, and my sisters Jizara and Serena.  Honestly it was a miracle we all survived that first winter with only the two of them to look after us, but somehow we made it.  We were all very close.” 
 
Anaia paused to take another bite of food.  She tried to squash the homesickness that still clenched in her gut whenever she thought too long about her family.  “We all helped out as much as we could because survival was hard.  There was a pack sort of nearby that we tried to avoid; they were much larger than we were, and we’d had trouble with them when I was still a pup.”  The memory of her lost sister rose like bile in her throat.  It was one of her first real recollections; the fear she felt as the strange wolves slipped into the den to scoop them up and drag them out, squealing. Her parents had returned then.  They’d managed to fight off two of them, but the third had escaped with their youngest pup.
 
Anaia ate again, sitting in silence for a moment and trying to banish the nightmare that had plagued her every time her parents left them that first year.  “I guess the loss of our sister helped us grow closer to one another. I also suspect that’s part of the reason my parents didn’t produce a little this last spring.  I don’t know that they even tried.  Even so, we all loved each other very much.  They’re probably either looking for me or mourning my death.  I just hope they’re all okay.”
 
She glanced at her companion as she returned once again to the meal.  “What about you? How did you end up down here?”

Saradathia listened quietly, her torn ear twitching subtly as Anaia spoke the recollection of her past. She felt the sadness that her companion seemed to radiate and pressed her shoulder into Anaia’s side before nodding. Her head tilting slightly when it was her turn to speak. “Yea..survival was harsh for my pack too...we were on the larger side in a bid snowy tundra, blizzards on a regular basis and scare prey, even more scarce with some competition from a nearby pack.” A sigh escaped the yearling as she laid took a quick bite from the hare before going on. “To us...survival was all that had mattered, I don’t remember much from my early days as a pup but...well my father always used me as the chew toy for my older brothers..we’d always have to fight in order to eat, to prove we were strong enough to make it.”

The arctic wolf tensed a little, some of this she hadn’t told nor planned to tell anyone ever but it seems to just spill out around Anaia. “There was this field of ice, sorta like a like with a massive glacier in the center of it..we’d always have to train there, biting, fighting and hurting each other….if we were too slow, dad would always punish us...I got this for being too slow once…” she mumbled quietly, her torn ear flicking as she gestured toward it. Feelings swelling up inside of her that she had been trying to hide for so long threatened to break free and spill over.

She paused for a few moments, pressing into Anaia’s fur before going on “I ended up down here though after being forced from my pack, one of the wolves..Jake had gotten killed by a polar bear...that’s how I got this scar..” she said quietly, her voice falling in volume as a reel of memories played through her head, a wolf’s pained howl, something heavy slamming into her and landing hard on the ice. She gave a violent shake to dislodge them all. “With him dead, the alpha decided to shrink the ranks...I was the youngest female so out I went…”

Anaia listened, leaning slightly into her friend as she told her story.  Horror welled up inside her at the thought of a pack like that.  She even halted eating to stare at her in sympathy.  “I can’t imagine anything so horrible.” She pressed her nose into the side of Sara’s neck in an attempt to comfort her. 

 
At the mention of the glacier, however, Anaia started.  She let Sara finish her thought before interrupting, but she barely heard the rest of it, her mind reeling.  “Hang on, I know that spot.”  She remembered playing with her brother and falling into its boundaries.  Their mother had scolded them and told them never to go there because the other pack had claimed it.  They would sometimes sneak over there to try to catch a glimpse of the other wolves after that, until they’d finally seen a few of them fighting.  They’d fled, afraid of being caught, and had never gone back.  “We couldn’t have… we couldn’t have been neighbors, could we?” The coincidence was just too much.  There was no way she’d somehow ended up in a pack with someone who she used to share borders with.
 

The smaller female’s closed eyes slowly opened as Anaia spoke, her silver gaze looking the female over is disbelief. It couldn’t be possible, she had traveled miles and miles through unknown territory. Through blizzards and mountain passes. The fact that someone else could have been from the same region was too much of a coincidence, but from her very border? Impossible. It couldn't be, Though Saradathia was a very logical kind of wolf. Things couldn’t have been so close so similar without some kind of similarity, there were plenty of glaciers out there after all.

She took a deep breath, looking into the golden amber eyes of her companion, one who may have once been considered an enemy or even rival in the harsh climate of the arctic. “I don’t know...I try not to think about my old pack...they were too much.” She swallowed slightly, uncomfortable while adding absently “Besides, the Monadnock is my home now, and a better family than I ever had back then, it was like we weren't even related.” Saradathia’s thoughts drifted back toward her childhood with her pack, the fights as puppies, the loose training, the very little affection she had ever seen shown had always been shown toward her two elder brothers.

Word Count: 292  

Anaia could see the disbelief in Sara’s eyes, and she couldn’t blame her.  “I can understand why you would want to forget a place like that.” She said quietly. “The worst thing I’ve ever seen was… well I don’t know how to describe it.” She shuddered at the memory.  “My brother and I were skulking around the glacier – partially because mother told us not to go there, and partially because we wanted to see the other pack.  We’d never really seen them before...” She hardly counted the instance as a pup.

“Anyway, we were hanging out around there playing, when we heard voices coming.  We hid, thinking ourselves very clever.  Three wolves went out onto the ice.  They weren’t very far away from us, but fortunately the wind that day was blowing towards us.” She swallowed, hardly daring to think what might have happened if they had been caught that day.  “The oldest, and the biggest, made the other two fight.  They were all covered in scars, but… this was terrible.  The two younger ones were tearing into each other. One of them slipped, and the fight stopped… We left when the older one said the loser was going to be punished.  We ran as fast as we could, but we still heard his cry.” Anaia closed her eyes and took a deep breath.  “It was awful.”

She peeked at Sara.  “But the Monadnock seems like a good pack.  I’m glad I was able to come here.”  Anaia nibbled at the hare a little more, trying to get the memory from her mind.  It had given them nightmares for weeks, and even their mother couldn’t comfort them, for they hadn’t told her the issue for fear of her anger at their disobedience.

"Speech"  Thought

The small white female went absolutely rigid as the stones that served as the pack’s den as Anaia spoke. Muscles tensed as if prepared to leap up and run, Saradathia shook her head quietly whispering “N-no.” as a dreadful memory played over and over within her head. Screams echoing out over the snowy icefields of her old home, teeth tearing deeply into flesh. Blood spreading over the slick ice and freezing from freshly opened wounds. A quiet whine escaped as the yearling pressed into Anaia whispering “Punishment.”

She sat there, quite as moments stretched into minutes, scenes playing soundlessly within her mind before eventually dispelling like mist in the morning light. “No.” she whispered quietly. “It just can’t be, the distance, the lengths of time she had trekked over icy fields and through deep forests to reach the regions of Relic Lore, somehow a wolf from the very same region had made it this far south too, and was now counted as a packmate. {b} “I thought I escaped all connections to my past.” she murmured quietly. “Anaia, I want to believe it’s impossible, i really du...but you’re right…” A small sigh escaped the silver eyed wolf as she gazed upwards slightly at the larger arctic female.