A Drizzle of Home

31.1 | A Drizzle of Mist

Trigger Warning: This chapter got a little more intense than I originally planned, and depicts the recollection of former trials with what is along the same lines as domestic abuse. Nothing is too graphic, too outside the realm of children's literature, but still there and may cause some discomfort.

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We stepped outside under the cool, afternoon sky. The smell of the fleeting rain lingered in the air, strong and earthy, while a layer of soft dampness covered the ground. Our paws tread lightly over the pale soil, then it crumbled into hard stone as we approached the center of the clearing.

Behind Mist's rock, her footsteps ceased and so did ours––as well as the two wolves behind us. She invited her pups along too, claiming this was a story that they needed to hear. My heart fluttered a little. What about Cloud and I becoming mates triggered something so serious within our alpha?

She jumped on top of it, taking a seat where she addressed us so often from a place of height and respect. Something about her expression now, with sagging ears and the edges of her lips curled in disdain, made her look like she thought she didn't deserve to be up there.

Nodding to Cloud and I, then to her pups, she invited us to join her on the heightened surface, finding it just wide enough for the four of us to sit in a circle around the edge, while Mist stayed in the middle. She stared down at the stone, and I followed her gaze. I'd never been up here, never seen the colored stains that I now traced with my eyes. Each had a tri-pointed spot in the middle, with four narrow circles forming a dotted crescent over the top. Paw prints.

They were colored with something like flowers or berries, responsible for the vivid shades anywhere from red to blue, but they were faded and old, nearly washed away from years of weathering and living paws standing atop them. Though two were still brighter than the rest. Mist placed her paw on one half of the pair, her toes fitting perfectly into the print. Then I noticed that the other half wasn't the same size. It wasn't the same paw.

That went for all of them. Every pair belonged to two different wolves.

Mist's eyes glazed over, and the bubbling question in my chest came out before I could think about the answer. "Whose is it?"

She drew her paw from the stone. The strength and purpose that always lit up her eyes had faded, replaced with remorse. "My mate's," she muttered. "It's a long story, and one long overdue."

Cloud stepped up beside her, placing a comforting muzzle upon her shoulder, as if she knew already. The pups held the same clueless gaze that I did, glancing at the other in question.

Mist nudged Cloud away gently, urging her to take her seat at my side. "This was a tradition started many years ago," Mist explained, finally facing us with her head high. "The leaders of this pack—since the beginning, and many, many before me—would stamp this stone with their paw print along with their mate. It was a show of commitment to one another and the pack. Every alpha pair... including me."

She breathed a sigh. "Not even my own pups know the full story." She paused to regard them with a look of shame. "I try not to look down and not to look back. I pretended none of it existed, even asked Cloud never to mention him—and the truth."

The littermates shifted on their paws. Already, Pine's eyes glowed with worry and her legs shook in tiny trembles at what the "truth" held. Spruce's face grew solemn, tight-lipped. Not a single emotion sparked behind his yellow irises.

"I'll start from the beginning," Mist said, "how I left my parents in search of a new home, somewhere I could live a life of my own. I traveled for a while, unhappy with a life lived alone... until I met him, a young, handsome male. The infatuation grew quickly.

"After we met up a few times, I learned that he was a part of a pack. He brought me home and introduced me to his parents, the alpha pair. We both thought they'd be more accepting. There wasn't really anything going on between us besides a blossoming friendship. But instead, they were outraged. They couldn't believe he'd been keeping secrets, sneaking around with a lowly outsider that had no right to be there." Her voice never growled with resentment or anger, only a low-pitched, nearly-emotionless drone.

"If I was smart, I would've left. Instead, I was young, stubborn, and determined. I fought them on it myself until they agreed to let me join the pack––but only as the omega, the lowest of the low. I grew to be the scapegoat, the brunt of any joke, underfed and mistreated. Hemlock..." She shuddered, like the name left a bad taste in her mouth. "He felt bad for me, sneaking me food and defending me from the others, but only while his parents weren't around. They still disapproved of their son associating with me.

"They had no right to treat me that way, no wolf should ever be treated that way. More than that, I was one of the strongest, most capable wolves they had, put on the dirty work and eating scraps, all the while I could've been feeding the pack. And one day, I couldn't take it anymore. I demanded to fight my way up the ranks, and soon, my spirit alone had won me more fights than they'd imagined. By the time the next spring rolled around, I had just as much respect from the pack as their son.

"I didn't know it then––only came to see it later––that being on top had changed me. Their pack was full of nasty wolves who resented me for everything I did, and I had to be just as mean to keep myself safe. It was like that because the alpha led them to be that way. And even me, being on top, I didn't change their minds. And even Hemlock was afraid to stand up to them." Lips curled in disgust, she shook the thought from her mind. Mist took a deep breath and continued.

"The two of us grew deeper in love in secret, and I begged Hemlock to just leave it all behind," she said. Her voice was edged with pleading, like she could feel herself in that moment, asking him again. "We could've run away, started a new life anywhere. But Hemlock felt a sense of duty to his pack, to one day take over his parents' pack, and to never lose the respect he'd been fighting for so long to keep. I should've known then that I'd never be happy with a life at his side, but I couldn't let him go either.

"The fateful day they died and left the pack to Hemlock, was the day we made our love... official." She added extra emphasis to the word, like the meaning was there, but it didn't mean anything at all. "We both pressed our paws against this stone, promising to each other a better life, a better way to lead the pack, and we began again as alphas."

"The first few months were filled with playful puppy love and joy. The pack was thriving, Wolves that respected us because we respected them, but then, our biggest challenge ever came a couple seasons later in the form of pups growing in my belly. A litter of our own." Her gaze drifted past us. She wouldn't meet eyes with her pups. "My first litter."

"I became really sick, really fast. It was a lot of stress on Hemlock, leading, taking care of the pack and me on his own. He was too stubborn to accept more help from the pack, determined that he would be a strong alpha and father on his own. I was sick all through the late winter months, just as the cold peaked and times got especially tough." Mist hesitated for a moment, her tongue pressing against the roof of her mouth. "And then, when I delivered early, he finally snapped."

A/N

This, of course, is not the most ideal place to end a chapter, but this one became longer than I planned and ultimately exceeded the 3k word limit I've put on chapters. So I apologize for this awkward break in story time! But also not really, because I'm still going to wait until next week to post the second half. >:D