We left nothing, but our paw prints in the snow

Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

I like the alpha male of this pack. I felt safe when I slept, despite my encounter with the humans a while ago. I felt like he would watch me and take care of me. This was how I was meant to feel. I had felt it too in my old pack, but it was different. I had had a doubt constantly nagging at me, that there would be some dangers my father couldn't face, or make go away. With the alpha male here, though, I felt utterly safe. I like his pups as well. They were really friendly and plain sweet. Nonetheless, I missed my family. But I had to remember, this was my family now. These were my brothers and sisters now, and parents.

Okay, I said all the positive stuff first, to make everything seem better, to the negative, I had the feeling that the alpha female didn't like me. I think she thought I might challenge her. This isn't true, I don't want to be mother of a pack that isn't made up of my own children. Some day, I will make my own pack, but I wasn't going to steal a pack off some one else. That wasn't me. Anyway. That was my feeling.

The wolf who had accepted me the dark before was for a time being responsible for my actions. He came to me after my nap and asked me with a tilt of his head to come with him.

I obliged. I like him. He smelt good. Not like a meal might smell good after a long time of going hungry, more like... I can't quite describe it. I have never smelt something of this type of good before. Anyway, I felt drawn to him.

We walked through the woods at a leisurely pace. We had time. We weren't hungry. The afternoon sun shone through the trees and onto our backs, warming us. During winter time, although it got darker sooner, and stayed that way longer, it was actually lighter. See, there weren't any leaves in the trees to block out any sunlight.

The snow glistened, making everything seem lighter than it actually was. It glistened a lot and I found it hard to look at one spot for too long, as my eyes would start to sting.

The wolf next to me stopped.

I stopped too and looked at him. Not at his face, or anything higher than his chest.

He sniffed me, nibbled at the fur around my neck, and, last but not least, licked my nose.

I licked his back. It all felt so right. Like I had grown up with this, or something. It felt like it was a part of me, and I couldn't imagine living as long as I had, without this and yet feeling complete.

He grunted, and I raised my head a bit, so that if I had wanted to, I could have very easily looked him in the eye. I waited a second, to see if he would stop me, then very slowly, turned my head upside down, and rubbed my chin against his from underneath. He didn't stop me. In fact, he did the complete opposite. He did it back, only never letting his head sink lower than mine.

I brought my head the right way up again and rubbed the top of it on his chin. Then, without thinking, I jumped backwards, barked twice, asking to play, and bounded off.

The slow, peaceful moment of utter content, turned into a fast game of tag, until I found a very promising branch that had fallen off its tree. I picked it up, and we played tug of War.

I was very out of breath by the time we were done, which was when we both couldn't move a single muscle and had collapsed on top of each other in a pile fo snow underneath a pine tree. The snow clung to the outside of my pelt. I could barely feel the snow. I loved the wolf's pelt. So thick that snow didn't even melt, meaning that I could shake it all off once I'm done fooling around.

I looked at the wolf. I smelt him, and heard him breathing heavily, and his heart pounding from our games. He just smelt so right. The sound of his breathing was music to my ears. The sound of his heartbeat matching mine, made my stomach flutter. I looked at him again. His beautiful, dark fur that made a marking around his eyes. The lighter brown at his shoulders where I could have easily traced his muscles, and the grey fur covering his belly. I loved everything about him.

My mum had always told me that when the time was right, I would have to leave the pack to find a mate, and then with him I could build my own pack. She had told me how hard it was to find the right mate. I had asked her how I will know that it's the right mate, and she had told me that I will simply know. I will know it, the way I know when it will thunder, rain, or any other season change will come. That's how she described it to me.

When I smelt this wolf, I knew he smelt right, sounded right, and even looked right. But I didn't know what my other senses thought of him, so... I would just have to wait a while. And then I would also have to consider whether he thought the same of me. It had to be both ways. He must be the right one though, I mean, hadn't he been the first to accept me. Wasn't he the one, lying next to me, making me feel so right.

He looked me in the eye, and I immediately looked away, even without thinking. He brought his face lower down, so that I had to look him in the eye again. I felt uncomfortable. Why was he looking at me. Why did he want me to look him in the eye. Was he challenging me? But what for. I was lower ranking than him anyway. I was younger, and only just joined the pack.

So no, he wasn't challenging me. But why was he insisting I look him in the eye. All that was going through my head, as I lowered my gaze once more.

This time he put his nose under my chin. He put it UNDER my chin, and brought my head higher. He lifted his head to level with mine. We looked at each other's eyes. The strong amber colour, indicated the strength he held within him.

The colour and shade of a wolf's eye can tell you about who they are, or so I learned from my pack. I remembered my mum commenting on the fact that I had two different coloured eyes. They indicated that I had two sides in me, constantly fighting to become dominent. One eye, was blue, which meant a soft, caring personality. I was meant to be 'watery' (that's what my mother liked calling it). My emotions were meant to flow like a river. My past wasn't meant to hinder me, yet it may give me experience. That's what my mum had told me. I still don't believe that I am capable of that. My other eye, was amberish. More in the direction of pale yellow. My mum had taught me, how that meant that I had a fiery personality too. She said I would have a hard time making decisions because of my two very opposing personalities. This made me slightly unstable, thus not very desirable as a mate. I had never given my eyes much thought, but not I felt very self-conscious.

A howl broke the silence. It was sad, and broken. A howl always reflected the wolf's feelings. The wolf howling, was very sad. Broken one could say.

There was a Pause.

The She wolf howled again.

Birds took flight, making a racket as there wings flapped and they disturbed sleeping trees.

Mister Beautiful took off. He ran in the direction of the howl.

I was frozen. For some reason, I knew that this howl couldn't mean anything good for me. I had a sense, that my happy time was over, however short it was. I knew, I was probably better gone. But instead, I did the next suicidal thing in the past lights, and ran towards the howler too.