One cold, stormy night, only four beings are awake inside a dark lab hidden deep in the forest away from curious eyes. All of these creatures are wolves. Their cages are adjoining to one another. The eldest is as tired-looking silver she-wolf with black and white flecks in her pelt, her ice-blue eyes gazing sadly at the weak, miserable young wolves before her.

“My precious pups,” she began, “it shall not always be like this. One day you will be free to roam the forest as your ancestors once did.” Adazi- for that was her name- hoped she sounded confident to her pups.

A particularly skinny, weak, pre-teen she-wolf raised her head. “How mother?” the brown she-wolf asked, blinking her blue-gray eyes. Her brothers- a dark brown wolf with brown eyes and a brown wolf with a tan chest, underbelly, & legs and amber eyes- repeated her question.

“Well Robin, I do have a plan,” Adazi told her daughter. How she hoped Robin would live and not receive the same young death as her sister Anasazi had. “But first I want you to know of your family.”

Sparrow blinked his amber eyes. “Well there’s Dad and Uncle Buck. What more family do we have?”

Mosca twitched a brown ear. “Does Draco count as family?”

Adazi chuckled. “Sparrow, there is indeed more family than your father Sundar- may be have escaped that dreadful attack and remain safely in the wild- and his brother Buck. And Mosca,  Draco is merely a good friend of your fathers and a revered medicine wolf who no doubt now walks the starts with our ancestors.”

“So what’s our pack history?” Robin piped up, barely holding back a yawn. She wanted to rest and save her strength so the next days testing wouldn’t be too much, but Robin was too curious.

“Since its later and you’re all tired I’ll just go over the founding and the split.” Adazi waited until she had their complete attention. “Long ago- many, many generations ago that is- two twin sisters were born.  The eldest was Kirai, with eyes of a dark clouded night, and the younger was Suki, with the eyes of a bright summer’s day. They were slender and jet-black in color. But everyone favored Suki and it filled Kirai with hate. The two grew older and Kirai raised an army so she could rule the forest and bathe it in blood. After much fighting, it all came down to one final battle.

“Kirai claimed she would not die and if she did, she would return one day  and continue her quest of dominance. Finally, the two sisters gave the death blow to the other and died in each other’s fangs. Even to this day, their graves have never been found. Now just a few weeks before, Suki gave birth to five pups. After her death, a German Shepherd took the pups to his mate, who also had pups around the same time as Suki and lost all but one soon after birth. The five wolf pups were raised by the German Shepherds. The eldest and only male- a black wolf named Oni- convinced his siblings to start a pack and they went out in search of a territory. I happen to be a direct descendant from Oni, our pack’s founder and first Alpha Male, and so are all of you.” Adazi paused to let the information sink in, then went on.

“It is because those two German Shepherds adopted Suki’s pups that our pack has always tried to be kind to German Shepherds, even if they were pets of humans. There is also of course the superstition that it is unlucky to have a black female for a daughter. If a small, thin black female was born she was watched closely until her eyes settled on a color for fear that she would be a reincarnated Kirai. Now-”

Sparrow interrupted, “Is Dad descended from Suki, too?”

Adazi shook her head. “No. When Oni started his pack, a Gray Wolf and his mate joined. They are Sundar’s starting line. Now as I was saying, the Blood Order still lurks in the forests, waiting for their leader, Kirai, to return. They still practice their dark arts of torture and death. A few generations ago, in my great-grandfather’s time, the pack split in two because the Alpha Female and the Alpha male parted ways. A larger branch headed by the former Alpha Male went to a secluded valley and made their home there. They are now called Starlight Pack. Unlike our own pack, they were not attacked by the humans as humans don’t know that valley exists.”

Adazi looked softly at her pups. These pups, they and their father were the only survivors- along with herself- of the terrible attack and betrayal from their own alpha and humans killed all the wolves except Adazi and her pups. Sundar had managed to escape- Adazi could only hope her mate was safe and that he had found the place all wolves dreamed of. “Go to sleep, little ones. I will tell you more another time. And when you escape this dreadful place, look for your father. Look, for Paradise.”

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A much older, healthier Robin was lying down in a warm, cozy den in a bright forest. As she looked down at her five suckling pups, she recalled the night Adazi told her of Suki and Kirai. Robin and Mosca escaped the next morning, but Sparrow was left behind as he had become ill and Adazi lost her life. Mosca died on the journey, but Robin found her father, joined his pack, rescued her brother, then lost her family all over again. But now she was a member of the pack in Paradise- living in her father’s old pack was too painful for her- but now she had these pups to care for, to fill the longing for someone to call kin in her heart. The suckling pups were Robin’s first litter. She had been so worried her mate wouldn’t be there for their birth but it all turned out all right, despite the hunters showing up.

A hulking figure cast a shadow into the den. A large, muscular tan and black he-wolf padded in, dropping a rabbit in front of Robin’s paws. His dark blue eyes looked at her and the pups warmly, their ice-blue flecks sparkling with pride, as he nuzzled his mate, Robin.

“Thanks, John,” Robin said as he lied down beside her and rested his head across her shoulder, then she started to eat the rabbit. She finished eating when John suddenly lifted his head.

“Robin, look! They’re opening their eyes!”

Robin swiveled her head away from the finished rabbit and watched proudly and excitedly alongside her mate as their offspring took their first look at the world.

The eldest, Kagome, a tan she-wolf with black streaks opened her beautiful amber eyes, just like Sundar’s had been. Her brother Koga, a dark brown wolf, opened his blue-gray eyes at the same time his younger twin Amaya, a silver she-wolf, opened her pretty ice-blue eyes. Little Junko, the black wolf with a tan chest, underbelly and legs, opened his stunning dark blue eyes. The fourth pup, a skinny black she-wolf, seemed reluctant to open her eyes.

Robin nudged her youngest daughter and licks her cheek. “Kikyo, open you eyes and see the world,” she said softly. Finally Kikyo’s eyes opened. Her eyes were the darkest of all her siblings and no doubt maybe the most mesmerizing. They were a dark indigo- like the night sky- and Robin could have sworn she saw stars reflecting in Kikyo’s dark eyes.

“They’re beautiful,” John whispered. Robin smiled softy.

For a fleeting moment, the legend of Kirai entered Robin’s thoughts as she looked at Kikyo, but then pushed the legend out of her mind. The whole idea of Kirai is nothing but a legend, Robin thought,  a tale to make Suki seem more interesting. Even if Kirai did exist I doubt those events are true. My Kikyo is a wolf all her own. It would be many, many moons before Robin ever thought of Kirai again and saw just how wrong she had been.