Snowmelt

V

A paw hits the pup's flank, sending her sprawling. "Get up, Aika! Keep practicing so we can beat the other pups! It doesn't matter if they're a bit older!" The voice was odd, both young and familiar. Halka!

"Halka! Why are you playing with her? Come and play with us and leave Aika alone so that she can train properly to be what she was born to be! Isn't that right, Omega?" Contempt dripped from the older, coal-colored pup's voice like the rainwater dripping through the cracks in the ceiling of the den. Thunder boomed outside, causing Aika to jump.

"Scared of a little thunder, Omega? Good thing you'll never lead the pack, no matter whose blood runs through your veins. You aren't like us! It's... it's unnatural! You don't belong here! I don't even believe that we're related, you powerless coward! You don't even stand up for yourself! No wonder you're powerless! You don't have a will of your own, so of course, you can't will yourself to shift! You'll never be able to do this, will you?!" At the end of his sentence, the inky pup was replaced by a midnight black bird, then fox, then a rat, before returning to his original form of a wolf pup.

"Nightshift! Quit showing off to that... weakling..." A she-wolf called, sticking her head out of a nearby den. "Just because she can't shift doesn't mean you should do that! Go play somewhere else, with someone else!" Nightshift tossed one last venomous look at Aika before turning and leaving. As she curled up on the cool floor of the den, Aika thought about her secret. She had often thought about telling her pack, but if they did actually change their attitude towards her, it would only be out of fear, and she would've been lucky to actually be allowed to stay in the pack. More likely than not, she'd be exiled, possibly even killed. Her powers would stop any other wolves, in or out of the pack, who knew about them from trusting her. They didn't even know of her level of power as possible, so she only used it in the dark, and even then it was just so that she didn't explode into a ball of wiggling, morphing, matter from the force of her power trying to escape. There were so many reasons to tell someone about her power. So many more reasons not to.

She curled even further in on herself, as though physically holding in both her urges to share her power and her power itself. She started to shake slightly, fear flooding her veins. Why? Why me? Why not someone else? Why did I have to be born with this power? This thing that may be my ultimate demise... Why am I forced to hide something that I didn't choose to have? It makes no sense! I can't control it, and it isn't like I can ask for help like the other pups can... I guess I'll be growing up alone, no matter how large this pack gets, or how many 'friends' I make... I'll always be alone... As this thought seeped into her mind, sleepiness did the same, and she soon fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.

(Yup! Two really different, really short chapters in a day! Hope you liked them!

~Khali)