We left nothing, but our paw prints in the snow

Chapter 27

 Sunlight streamed through the opening of the den. I stretched my cramped muscles and roused the cubs.

 “Are we meating them today?” asked Two-Eyes as soon as she was awake.

 “Yes!” Nacht yawned.

 “What?” Shadow blinked at me.

 I felt myself smile at the joys of my life. Come to think of it, one joy of my life is Mate, and I haven't seen him in a while. We've howled to each other often, and I have occasionly gone to see him, but...

 Two-Eyes jumped up, suddenly full of energy, “What are we waiting for?!” She tried nudging her brothers to their paws and barked into their ears. But when that didn't work, she went for a slightly more brutal method of stomping on their tails and nipping them in various places. Eventually, they gave in and got to their paws with audible groans.

 “Can we get going now?” Two-Eyes whined.

 I laughed, “Yes, we're going now. Why so eager to meet the rest of the grumpy pack. They're not even strictly speaking mine.”

 “Oh, but they are, Mama. They are,” Two-Eyes said to me while pawing at my front leg.

 “How so, dear?” I looked at Shadow and Nacht and noticed – not without a laugh – that they'd taken the liberty of lying back down again.

 “Even if they didn't come from inside you, doesn't mean they are not yours.” I was proud of Two-Eyes, for she spoke with wisdom beyond her years. No, moons even.

 “Who told you that?” I asked.

 “Why you, Mama!” Shadow grumbled at me.

 “Oh, silly me,” I answered.

 Nacht then growls in the grumpiest of manners, “Look who's in a good mood.”

 Two-Eyes glared at both her brothers, then shrieked, “Help! Help! Oh strong brothers of mine! Help!”

 Shadow answered to the invitation of play half-heatedly by getting slowly up and saying, “Oh the strong future alpha male arises from his sleeping state to help the fair white she-wolf in distress!” The sarcasm in his manner was shocking. I don't know where he could have learnt that from. He hadn't met anyone yet who was even in the slightest sarcastic.

 “Now, now. Lets get out of this cramped den and not make too much of a fuss. We don't want to attract any unwanted attention.”

 Nacht now got up for the second time too and slouched, “Just let the sun wander further down the sky. Then I'll come.”

 “Oh, no you don't,” I answered a little too sharply. “Everyone else wants to get going. I haven't seen you father in ages. Not properly, anyhow. Just get up and behave presentably.”

 “Okay, okay. But only if those other two promise not to annoy me.”

 “Only if you come now, Son.”

 “Mama.”

 “Nacht.”

 “Okay. I'm coming. Jeez.”

 I too climbed out of the den, all the while sniffing the air for any unwanted company. I was in luck. Before I was even fully out of the den Two-Eyes runs out from between my paws barking, “Nothing's here! Come out to play!”

 “Two-Eyes, the plan's to meet the pack, not play like we've done before,” Shadow reminded his hyper sister.

 And we set off. Occassionally Nacht or Shadow would get it into their little heads that they wanted to hunt a butterfly, or some other insect. Two-Eyes, for all her exessive energy, decided that insects were pointless. She went after tiny mamals, such as mice. After she'd caught one and presented it to me, Nacht and Shadow realised this was a much better way of learning how to hunt and started copying her. I could tell that Two-Eyes was pleased to show her brothers something.

 Every few meters I would stop and take a moment to sniff the air and listen to the forst. The cubs watched me closely and copied what they could, all the while eager to learn how to survive the world better. The next time I stopped, I could hear the pack. They were being particularly quiet, as if trying to schock me. I haven't seen them in a long time.

 Something inside me was sad. I wasn't sure what though.

 "Mama, Mama!”

 “What, Two-Eyes?”

 “I smell something Mama.”

 “That's the pack dear.”

 “How do you know?” Shadow challenged me.

 “I know, Shadow, because that's the only smell in the air that you have yet to learn.”

 “But Mama, what if Sister smells something that you don't?” Nacht asked me.

 “Unlikely. My nose is more developed than yours, remember?”

 “Yes, like that one time when you showed us how to find a mouse, and you could smell it and we couldn't. Is that what you mean Mama?”

 “Yes, Two-Eyes. That's exactly what I mean.”

 “Mama! Mama! MAMA!” Nacht barked loudly and urgently.

 “What?”

 “What's that shadow in the bushes?”

 I looked, and sniffed the air. The shadow was unmistakably that of a wolf. And not just any wolf.

 The shadow was Mate.