whose fur shined with a white brilliance he had not seen before. Her eyes were fixed upon the burnt fur across Fang's back, "What happened to you?" she asked bewildered trying to caress him lovingly with her nose.
Fang stepped back from her, "Nothing that I can't handle Shi now go on back home this does not concern you," Fang scolded sharply.
"But father?," she began to protest.
"No buts, this is only for the council, now go home." Shi obediently turned and left the circle of wolves, dragging her feet the whole way. It reminded him of Caima doing the exact same thing not long ago. When she was no longer visible Fang continued, "Tomorrow morning we go hunt the mountains and take it back as our hunting grounds forever, the dwarves will no longer be able to drive us away!" the council of wolves broke out into a chorus of howls. Several minutes passed before they departed one by one, each of them going to Azin and giving him personal recognition of approval and thanks. Once the last wolf had made his leave Fang turned to Azin, "You will be doing us a great favor by helping us reclaim our lands, we'll all be indebted to you forever."
"What exactly are we going to be doing tomorrow?" Azin asked cautiously adding in, "I do not like killing with no purpose." The vision of Pikam's father came back clearly to his mind. The memory made him shiver uncontrollably.
"Our hunts always have purpose Azin, we are not savages as you may think. We must prey upon other animals that we may survive. That is the way the wilderness works, you must fight for survival. Tomorrow we will go and hunt for food upon the mountain side and if a dwarf tries to drive us away we will kill him," Fang explained to him persuasively
"Why do you want to kill the Dwarves though?" Azin persisted wanting to know. Killing another humanoid was not something he wanted to repeat
"Because they have injured and killed many of our brethren already, we will not stand it any longer." Fang growled in anger. Pain and hate reflected in his eyes where normally only blank emotion could be found.
"Why not just leave to another place?" Azin proffered up a different solution in hopes of avoiding conflict with the Dwarves.
"This has been our homes forever, and our father's home, and their father's home, and so on for hundreds of years, we are not going to give it up now. We'd rather die, but don't worry about these things now Azin. For now come and we'll meet the others." Azin nodded and followed him down several hidden paths he probably could never have found by himself. He was starting to feel lost when they arrived at the entrance of a large cavern. The sight almost took his breath away as he rounded the last corner and came into view of it. The cavern was relatively flat, except there were many parts where the rock rose up higher than other parts, creating many different resting areas within. Azin thought there must have been hundreds of mountain wolves within the cavern. All of them either laying down or conversing with others.
"Welcome to our home," Fang said proudly and motioned for him to follow. Silence suddenly fell over the cavern, everyone's attention was on them. As one all of the wolves bowed their heads. Azin stared at Fang, he must be some kind of royalty for them all to show such respect. Fang saw him staring and chuckled, "Azin they are not doing that for me, wolves don't normally bow. It is a sign of respect for you as our centurion." He looked back out among the wolves amazed by their faith in him. He was not sure how he was ever going to live up to their expectations. He was not as powerful as they all seemed to think.
Fang stepped forward and said, "This great warrior, Azin, is our means of securing our home for the future. With his aid the dwarves can not possibly hope to drive us away." A chorus of howls went up before he continued, "He is very tired from the long journey here so he can not talk to all of you today, but rather needs to get some rest."
Fang strode forwards without looking to see if Azin was following. Azin shook his head and hurried to catch up with him. Each wolf they passed made the same bow as before. Up close Azin could see it was slightly awkward for them. While in a sitting position they would try to get their head as close to ground as they could without laying their front legs down so it wouldn't look like they were simply lying down. Their goal was to mimic a man doing a kneeling bow before his king. Several of them whispered their thanks as he passed, but none of them dared to speak openly to him and risk Fang's anger. Azin felt as though he was a famous royal person visiting his subjects. He'd never been so important before.
Fang stopped on the far end of the cavern inside a small alcove. "This is where you will sleep for as long as you stay here," Fang told him, "It has been adjusted so that you will be comfortable." Azin saw a makeshift bed made of feathers and leaves and flowers in the middle of the floor. Azin went to inspect the bed further with Fang's eyes upon him the whole time. A few seconds after looking he heard Fang say, as if to explain its unusualness, "We weren't really sure how your kind made resting places so we did our best."
"No, it's fine, I'm sure I'll sleep well here," Azin found himself saying in an actual joyful manner to his own surprise.
"Very well, I'll leave you to rest then, I'm sure you need it. Tomorrow we hunt," Fang grinned broadly. Azin nodded, plopping himself down upon his bed.
Not long after Fang took his leave another wolf entered into his room. He immediately recognized her as Shi and sat up. "Yes, what can I do for you?" he asked.
"I want to know who you are, why you came, and what you're expecting to gain from being here!" Shi did not so much as ask, as she demanded.
"Well I don't know why any of that concerns you, but if you tell me why your name is Shi when your father told me wolf names need to be related to the person somehow, then I will tell you who I am," Azin replied casually a little put off by the disrespect she showed him after everyone else was so grateful for his presence.
Azin could see she was not used to people responding to her in such a way. Her voice rose higher as she asked, "Don't you know who I am?"
"No, sorry, I don't," Azin said shrugging his shoulders.
"I am Fang's daughter, the pack leader of the great white mountain wolves!"
"Yea so, I'm a beast Defra and you're a wolf, which means you have neither sway nor authority over me. So if you want to find out more about me, I suggest you go about it in a nicer way and answer my question as well."
Moments passed as Shi contemplated the situation and what he had said, finally she responded, "My name is Shine because the fur of my coat reflects the light more than most others, but my father calls me Shi for short."
Azin smiled, "Well that actually makes sense. As for me my name is Azin and as your father already pointed out to me, my name has nothing to do with who I am. I come from a land about three days from here. As I said earlier I am a beast Defra, which means I have powers to communicate with animals, transform into animals, and other such things to do with them. I think that summarizes who I am for you."
"Why don't you turn into a wolf then, since you are among wolves?" Shine asked him.
"In the past I haven't ever been able to because I was not powerful enough, but I haven't tried for a while." Azin answered and then asked curiously, "How long have you had problems with the dwarves?"
"For several years," Shine answered, "My father went to search for help after they killed my mother and since then women are forbidden to come on the hunts." She dropped her eyes to the ground and bared her teeth a moment before she continued with another question, "Why don't you try being a wolf now?"
"Because I'm tired and drained, I probably couldn't even turn into something simple right now. But if you'll excuse me I must get some rest to go hunt with your father in the morning," Azin told her laying himself down upon the ground before she could answer.
"Very well then," Shine declared turning around, but just before she was out of ear shot she called back, "I'll be watching you." Azin grinned broadly to himself; he was beginning to like it here already. He closed his eyes. Almost instantly the image of Pikam's father right after his son's death came to him. "But he deserved it," Azin murmured to hims
elf. He pushed the thought away and his mind turned to his sister Caima. He missed her already, but he was never going to be able to see her again. Tears began rolling down his cheeks. He only cried for a short time before the reality of his exhaustion swept over him and sleep came.
Azin awoke to a nose prodding against his chest insistently, "Azin it's time to go," Fang's soft voice whispered into his ear. Azin rose up taking note of how dark everything still seemed to be, an eerie quiet still looming over the cavern.
"Why are we leaving so early?" Azin questioned trying to be as quiet as he could manage while still half asleep.
"Because this is how we will be able to catch our prey." Fang answered simply. Azin wanted to ask him why, but decided to just follow Fang out of the cavern instead. Once outside a few other wolves, including the scarred one, met them. "Alright let's go," Fang told them as he took the lead. Azin could see why Fang was the leader of the wolves; everything he did was with confidence and power. Fang did not let others have any room to disagree. He always took charge of the situation before they could. He felt that perhaps he would enjoy being in Fang's position commanding the kind of respect he did. Azin looked up from his thoughts to discover he was being left behind. He focused all his energy on scaling the