I'm going to tell you a story. A story of joy and sadness, of the beginning and end of life. To begin, our story takes place a few miles to the west of Anchorage, Alaska. A wolf paces outside of a small cave, waiting in barely suppressed anticipation....

"What's taking so long?" Roan, a dark-red wolf with deep brown eyes, asked himself for what must have been the 10th time in the last hour. He felt utterly useless standing out here in the snow-covered forest while his mate, Rain, a gray wolf with white markings, lay inside, giving the occasional yelp of pain. He was constantly reminding himself that this was a good thing, that he would soon be a father, and that Hiata, Rain's sister, was there to help. Although this did little to calm his racing thoughts.

Roan continued to pace outside of the cave, and half an hour later, Hiata, a grey wolf with pale blue eyes came out and told him that he could go in. As soon as he did, a wonderful sight met his eyes. In the back of the cave lay his mate, with four sleeping, little pups snuggled aggainst her side.

She turned to the first born pup, a white female, and the second born pup, a black male. "The female is Winter and I have named the male Twilight."

He smiled at her. "They're good names.", he said. He then turned his attension toward the next pup, a small, gray female with a white mark on her forehead in the shape a "V". He stared at her for awhile and finaly came up with a name. "I think Veena is a good name for her." Roan then looked at the other pup, a gray male with brown patches around his eyes. "We'll call him Jared." Roan looked at his mate and she she nodded her head as conformation that she approved. They then settled down for the night, a sense of happiness enveloping them, allowing them to be content with the feeling that nothing else could get any closer to perfect.

"Hey Winter. Winter! Wake up!" Winter groaned and slowly lifted one eyelid to reveal one of her deep blue eyes, still glazed over with the weary effects of sleep. Her brother, Jared, was standing before her with a wide grin on his face.

"Come on, Winter. Lets go outside and have some fun!" She sat up and yawned. Then, glancing outside, she realized that the pale sun had not yet raised itself all the way above the snowy horizon.

"Well, yeah.", he said, looking down at his paws and shifting them uncomfortably. "But I'm already up and I'm sooo bored and I just want to do something. So can you come? Please?"

"No, not really.", he said after thinking for a minute. "Mom and Dad don't like being woken up early, Veena doesn't want to play all that often, and I don't think Twilight would play if I asked him, which you know I wouldn't.", he added with a shiver.

Sighing again, Winter briefly thought about pointing out to him that she didn't like to be woken up early either, but she didn't want to hurt his feelings, so she just finally relented and followed her brother outside to the small clearing in the front of their cave.

After the pups had been born, Hiata had left to go back to her pack, and after they were a few weeks old, Roan decided that it would be better if they were to move their family to another, larger cave that he had discovered a few days earlier.

When they got outside, Winter and Jared began to mock fight playfully. This continued until the sun was higher in the sky, when Roan emerged from the cave, yawning away his sleep until he was fully awake, and asked, "What are you two doing out so early?"

"Oh, we just woke up and came out to play.", Jared said. Winter, of course rolled her eyes at the less-than-accurate statement, but didn't say anything.

"Well, since your already up, would you like to join me for a morning hunt?" Then he noticed that Winter looked incredibly tired and added, "That is if you'd like to go, Jared."

"I can tell your tired. Why don't you go get some more sleep." Winter smiled, thanked him, and went back inside, thankful to finaly get some well needed rest.

As she was going back to her corner of the cave, her mother and Veena came up to her. "Winter, Veena and I were going to the stream to get some water. Would you like to come?"

"No thanks mother. Jared got me up early and I was just going to to get a few more minutes of sleep." Her mother nodded understandingly and Veena gave her a small smile of sympathy, then they left.

Winter continued and finaly laid down to rest. "Ah, finaly. Peace and quiet, with no one around but me.", she thought. Then, however, she remembered that she was not the only one there, and an uncomfortable shiver ran down her spine.

As if sensing her discomfort, a quiet voice came from the shadows at the other end of the cave. "Am I really all that frightening, sister?"

"No. Just enough to make me lose all interest in going to sleep for fear of having a nightmare.", she responded casually. A soft chuckle came as response to the statement. "What are you doing awake, Twilight? I'd have thought you'd still be asleep, as usual."

"You weren't the only one Jared woke up with that yaping of his.", he said with distaste, opening his errie,pale-yellow eyes and giving her a side-long glance.

Sighing, Winter stood up. "I think I'll go for a walk.", she said. Twilight nodded and closed his eyes again. She walked out of the cave and into the forest. Winter stared around at the familiar trees and paths of her home and felt happy to live in such a wonderful (if very cold) place, with a wonderful family, and nothing to worry about.

Winter nodded and watched as her parents went into the woods. As she did, she couldn't help but feel that something was off, a sense of foreboding, like something bad was going to happen but she didn't know what it was. Winter decided it was probably just the sight of the gloomy gray clouds that hung overhead that was doing it and shrugged the feeling off. She continued to think that as she went back inside... until she noticed the same troubled look she must of had on Twilight's face as well, and Winter knew that if Twilight was disturbed, then something had to be wrong.

Twilight glanced in her direction briefly before answering, "Something doesn't feel right. Something horrible is about to happen. I can feel it."

Roan ran swiftly and silently through the forest, his every sense on high alert, searching for any sound, any smell, any visible trace of a potential meal. They had gone four miles already and nothing had turned up, which, as he noted, was most unusual. The forest should be teaming with life in this area at this time of day. He began to feel uncomfortable as he saw an open field ahead, and began to slow down, finally coming to a complete stop. Rain noticed he was no longer with her and turned back for him.

Rain stopped to take in her surroundings and nodded. "Your right. I can't even hear a bird singing or a squirrel chattering. Something isn't right."

Roan nodded and was about to reply when he happened a glance past Rain's head, and his eyes widened as they met the most fearsome sight he had ever seen in his life... and one that he'd only ever had to look upon in his nightmares. In the end he only uttered one word, "Run!"

Winter was outside of the cave laying down and watching for Roan and Rain. It was mid afternoon now, and she was getting anxious. She was wishing that their parents would hurry up and get home so that she could be assured that everything would be alright. She just couldn't shake the horrible feeling that Twilight's words had created in the pit of her stomach. Winter got to her feet and went back into the cave. She couldn't see Twilight, but she had no doubt that he was laying down in a shadowy corner of the cave somewhere, mulling over his own thoughts. Jared was sleeping over in another corner, and Veena was sitting near the cave entrance, looking out as snow flakes began to drift softly to the ground. Winter went over and sat next to her.

"I'm waiting for mom.", she said in her small, timid voice. "I don't feel comfortable being without her while our brother is here.

Winter knew what she was talking about, but in an attempt to cheer her up, said, "That's funny I don't feel afraid at all of that sleeping rock over there." As if on cue, Jared let go a loud, rumbling snore. Winter started laughing quietly, and even Veena giggled a little.

"Oh.", Winter said as if she'd been clueless before. Veena had been uncomfortable around Twilight since they were two months old. Veena was just as adventurous as Winter and Jared were at that age until she had tried to get Twilight to stop being a gloomy sit-out and come join the fun. Twilight wouldn't have minded if she had just bothered him about it once, but Veena had been persistant enough that he finally got mad. He jumped up and snarled with such force that it took them all by surprize. It had been the only time that he had ever lost his temper, and despite being only a pup at the time, he had looked like a hound strait from the Abyss. After that Veena could hardly stand being near him at all and didn't come out to play anymore.

Winter gave Veena a sympethetic look and said,"Well, if it comforts you to know, your not the only one who wishes mom and dad would hurry up."

A second later she got her wish, but it wasn't as pleasant as she was hoping for.

Roan and Rain burst from the underbrush in a blurry flash of speed. They entered the cave, knowing that there wasn't much time, and saw Winter and Veena sitting there. Winter could instantly tell that something was up. Roan ran up to Winter and said, "Quickly, gather up your other siblings and run for the old cave. If we're not there by tomorrow, leave, but don't come back here, understand?"

"There's no time to explain, just do it!" Then he ran out of the cave with Rain.

Winter wasted no time. She woke up Jared and told him where they were going, then went to get Twilight, but she found that he was standing a few feet away nodding his head to say he was ready. Winter lead them outside and was taking them around the cave entrance when a tremendous roar erupted from the forest. Roan looked back and yelled at them once more to go. Reluctant as she was to leave her parents to deal what ever it was that was coming, she nevertheless lead her brothers and sister into the opposite end of the forest from which the roar came.

Roan turned back to deal with the next challenge.... just as a huge black bear crashed its way into the clearing, flatting bushes and snapping saplings as it went. The two considerably smaller wolves dodged as it charged by them. "This might be my last battle.", Roan thought grimly. "At least the kids are safe." Then he had no time to worry about it, for all his attention was focused on staying alive as the bear turned around to attack again.

"Keep going!", Winter yelled. "We're almost there!" They kept running through the soft white snow until they reached the small cave. Once inside, Winter found it was cramped with all of them in there, but was to worried about her parents to care. "I hope they're alright.", she thought.

Things, in fact, weren't going well at all. The battle seemed to be at a current stalemate: the wolves were too fast for the bear to get a good hit on, and the bear's wildly swinging claws kept the wolves from getting too close. Roan wasn't sure of how much longer he and Rain could keep this up. Then he got an idea. he quickly drew Rain aside and explained his plan. Then they put it into action. He ran around to the bear's other side, drawing its attention away from Rain, then began a series of feigned rushes, causing the bear to become enraged and focus even more on him. after several minutes of doing this, he nodded at Rain and she leaped to attack the bear's unprotected back.... but she miscalculated. She landed insecurely and the bear shook her off easily, and delivered her a bone-crushing strike that sent her sprawling through the snow, and she wouldn't be getting up again.

It took him a second to realize what just happened, but when it finally sank in, Roan was filled with grief and anger like he'd never known before. Without any thought as to his own safety, he jumped and latched onto the bear's throat. Bear bucked any shook, but Roan still held on. Then the bear swiped at him with its claw and sent him flying across the clearing taking a good portion of the bear's neck with him. Roan's neck had been snapped, and he was dead before he hit the ground. The bear staggered for a few seconds, then a gurgling sound escaped its throat, and it collapsed to the ground. The fight was finished... and all had died.

Winter walked cautiously through the misty forest towards their home. The siblings had indeed waited until the next day to venture out, but instead of going farther away, they had decided to go see what had happened to their parents. They didn't like what they found. Veena had nearly gone hysterical over the sight of their dead mother, Winter had bowed her head before Roan's limp form in great sadness, and when Twilight found the bears body they were able to piece together what had happened.

It was noon before anyone spoke aloud the question Winter had been asking herself. "What do we do now?", Jared asked. They all looked to Winter, as she was the oldest, for an answer, but she didn't have one. She looked to Twilight for advice.

Twilight sighed and gave his reasonings about the situation. "Well, the way I see it, we have three options: One, we could stay here and try to keep living our lives in our cave here. Two, we could wander around the countryside aimlessly, hoping to find a better place to live, in which case we'd probably all be dead within two months." He paused here for a minute, wondering if this third suggestion would be accepted, but was prompted to speak when Winter gave him a 'we're waiting' look. He cleared his throat and continued, "Then, of course there's option three. Mother mentioned once that she had a sister who lived in a pack away to the west. If we were to seek them out, I'm quite sure they'd be willing to let us stay with them."

Winter gave him a small smile. "He may be a creep, but he's a smart one.", she thought. She nodded and said, "I think that would be the best course of action. Agreed?" The others all nodded their heads, much to Twilight's surprise. He had assumed that Veena would have at least wanted to stay. Winter continued, "It's settled then. Tomorrow we leave to find aunt Hiata's pack."

So they would begin a journey across the Alaskan landscape, having many great adventures along the way, and being tested in ways they would never have imagined. However those tales are for another night, my friends, for the sun is now rising, and our story must come to an end, but we shall see each other again soon. Until then, may the moon guide your steps.