air, making the wolves realize that this was their last moment to say their farewells to everything that they had left behind.

“Good-bye, Father,” Scarlet murmured into the light night breeze, whispering his final farewell to his elderly patriarch that he had to leave behind, due to his old age and in order to fully pass the torch of Alpha to the new one, Aleu. He closed his eyes, silently muttering a prayer for his father’s well-being for a matter of fifteen seconds before opening his eyes once more.  

“Papa, Mom, I’m okay,” Aleu closed her eyes for a quick moment, lightly whispering her last goodbyes to the life she once wished to live. “Take care of everyone else and don’t worry about me so much.” She smiled as a thin stream of salty tears drenched her cheeks and eyelashes for a few seconds; the quarter-wolf used one of her beige front paws to wipe her tears and quickly returned to normal.

“Niju, my love . . .” Riza muttered under her breath with a face that showed no emotion. “You’d better come back to me somehow. Find a way, damn it. Just come home to me, darling.” After she was finished, her expression remained the same, for she refused to let anyone see that even a rebellious she-wolf like herself could fall in love at all. 

“Nava, bless Mom from wherever you are,” Lorna prayed a whispered wish into the horizon where her birthplace still remained. “Protect her and her pups with your fatherly spirit. Give Aleu the strength to be a good leader, and protect her from my sister. I’m starting to fear that she may do her harm. May Aniu bless us all.”

“Please lead us to food! Please lead us to food!” The weird trio of wolves up front chanted together with nothing more filling their heads than thoughts of the fresh-killed caribou that they planned on feasting on whenever they found them. 

After about ten minutes of reflection, the time came for the Clan to begin their exodus to their new home. The front of the pack steadily led the way, keeping track of their scent markers that they had left on their previous trek. Scarlet and the larger middle section of the pack easily kept up with the leaders, but every few minutes, Scarlet would turn back to check on the young Kawa Alpha and the back of the pack.

Aleu, Lorna, and the pregnant she-wolf moved slowly but surely behind the rest of the Clan. The quarter-wolf had never seen a pregnant canine before – she was only over a year old and her purebred mother hadn’t any time to mention anything to her about pup-rearing before since she had pretty much lived with her father ever since she was six months old – but somehow, she was entranced by the sudden beauty of the dark she-wolf. She could sense the she-wolf’s aura just by looking at her stunning figure – motherly, serenely at peace, elegantly formed, and absolutely beaming with joy of the sensational pride of having little lives within her womb that were soon to join their dam outside.  

She learned that her name was Dahlia, an elder she-wolf that was loved and adored by all of the Kawa, especially her youngest daughter, Lorna. Her dark-brown coat was silky and radiantly groomed with many strokes of her own tongue; her white legs were limber and strong, for they had to be in order to withstand the weight of whelping pups for many years; and her elegant head make her seem gentle and almost royal.

“Aleu,” she turned to the light-brown leader beside her once they entered the forest. “I appreciate your assistance with me and my daughter. I am deeply in your debt.” 

“It’s nothing, Dahlia,” the Alpha replied. “I thought it was best for the Clan.”

Dahlia let out a sigh as she smiled. “Ah, you remind me so much of my last mate. No wonder he taught you so much when he thought your father was the chosen one.” 

“Your . . . last mate?” Aleu thought out loud. Her eyes grew large when she realized what she meant. “You mean, Nava . . . was your . . .?”

She nodded. “As Alpha, it was Nava’s job to repopulate the Clan with his bloodline. He has mated with almost all of the older females that remain, but I was the last female he ever got close to almost several weeks ago,” She looked at her belly, noticing a slight movement from within her womb. “Unfortunately, my new pups will never know how much their father would have loved them.” A tear of remorse fell down her cheek, but she quickly sniffed it away. 

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, Dahlia,” Aleu nudged her softly in comfort. “but I’m sure that when they are old enough, they will learn about how great of a wolf their father was.” Aleu grinned softly. “I promise to tell them one day.” Dahlia returned the gesture with a warm smile, one that made Aleu glad to be in such good company with a new ally.

After some moments of nothing but silent traveling behind the rest of the Clan, Aleu spoke up with something that had been bothering her for the past few moments. “So, I’ve been wondering about something dealing with the Kawa Clan, if I may ask you about it.” 

“Go ahead, Aleu,” The brown she-wolf elegantly approved with a small lowering of her head. “You are our Alpha after all, and I’m sure that Lorna and I will do our best to answer whatever questions trouble you.”

Knowing that she was granted permission to query them, she took a deep breath, calmly beginning to question her two new companions. “Why isn’t the Clan filled with wolves then?” she asked, her curiosity growing. “If Nava was such a great leader, shouldn’t I have counted more than just the twenty other wolves other than myself here?” 

Lorna answered quickly, allowing her mother a chance to focus more on her steps. “Let me get this one, Mother. I’m a child of Nava too, you know.” The expecting female nodded as her daughter began. “Nava was indeed a great leader, but Mother told me a story of how our Clan was when she was about my age. Many years before I was born, the Kawa Clan was filled with almost fifty wolves. Nava was only about five years older than Mother was when he took over the title of Alpha from his ailing father, Nonji, but he was wise, fair, and just with his leadership. It might have been his rare magical abilities and quite intimate connection with nature that made our Clan so great, but things went well for many years ever since his reign began as we thrived and grew stronger than ever before, doubling in number after only a couple of years.”

“Wow! That’s amazing!” Aleu’s voice was overjoyed for the moment but soon returned to a quieter tone once others around the three of them glared at her for her sudden outburst. “Please tell me what happened next, Lorna.”  

“However, two years before the year that my sister and I were born,” The light gray continued her tale, “nearby wolf Clans got jealous of our good fortune, thinking that the Great Aniu herself had blessed us with such a power-filled Alpha and very fertile she-wolves. Over a number of moons during the mating season, the Bear, Wolverine, and Fox Clans began a series of spontaneous invasions, constantly stealing young pups and virgin females from the Kawa, attempting to make them theirs by raising the pups as their own and breeding with the females before Nava had a chance to do it himself.” She heard her mother sniff back tears, so she paused for a moment before continuing. “My mother, the much-older and barren females, and a few mid-aged females were thankfully spared from the invasions, but after the hard battles that were fought and losses that we had suffered, our population was almost depleted to nearly nothing.”

The Alpha’s dark ears lowered. “Gosh, I . . . I never knew that. I never would have guessed that it was like that had happened. Nava never mentioned anything about that to me or my father when we had met him at the gathering,” Aleu commented, shocked by the story of the hardships that her new Clan had faced long before her own birth. She was more curious than ever to learn more about the Kawa Clan’s past, and the number of questions that she had grew and grew. “And none of the others showed any sign that such events ever happened. Why is that? Why won’t someone tell me?” 

A sudden bark from the front ended the conversation. “Maybe we will discuss that later, Aleu,” Dahlia concluded. “It seems that there may be some trouble up front that needs your assistance.” All three of the females looked to the front, seeing the entire Clan had halted at something.

“I’ll be back shortly,” Aleu promised as she gently nudged the two and ran towards the Trio at the front of the migration formation. “What’s wrong, Yak? Nuk? Sumac?” She asked them as she caught her breath. “Why have we stopped? We should keep going if we wish to reach the safe haven quickly.” 

“Aleu, we are tired,” Yak yawned. “We’ve been on the move for almost an hour!”

“Yeah, it’s the middle of the night, and we are all exhausted,” the smaller Sumac spoke up, also yawning. “Maybe we should stop for the remainder of the night and continue at sunrise.” 

“And my stomach’s growling like crazy!” the large Nuk groaned. “Ohh! I’ve never felt so hungry before in my whole life!”

Other wolves agreed with their pack-mates’ pleas of hunger and rest as they joined in. Aleu looked at them all with concern as Scarlet emerged from the middle of the pack, walking closer to the new leader. 

“They are right, Aleu,” he pointed out. “We are all out of energy and should sleep. Even Riza is tired, can’t you see that?” He turned Aleu’s attention to the gray and black she-wolf near the Trio. She had sat down with the complaining Trio with her head lying on her forelegs. “She is as tired as everyone else. Aren’t you the least bit tired yourself?”

Her light-brown and beige head shook. “No way, Scarlet! I’m full of energy and ready to lead the rest of the way there!” 

The red wolf hated to do what he did