Dark Stones #1: The Rising Darkness

Chapter 1 - The Pack of Fading Shadows

"Mooooom! She's doing it again!" Alex's whimper woke up the gray-white she-wolf that lay in the den. The she-wolf, their mother, blinked in confusion after her ears perked up, and then shook her head to try to clear her mind.

"Alex, dear, what is it?" she then said softly, but the question answered itself. The she-wolf's second-born pup, Libby, was pulling her brother's tail roughly.

"Stop it!" Alex demanded.

"You're no fun!" Libby growled between his tail fur. She shook her head roughly, and Alex let out a yelp of pain.

The she-wolf quickly got up and frowned. "Libby, stop that. Stop that right now. You're hurting your brother," she said sternly.

Libby narrowed her eyes and laid her ears flat against her neck, but didn't release the gray wolf pups' tail. At a snarl of her mother, however, she finally did as she was told.

"Finally!" Alex whined. "You might as well have pulled it off!"

"I was just having fun..." Libby said apologetically. "I didn't mean to hurt you but..." her voice grew steadier again as she furrowed her brow in annoyance, "but you're no fun to play with! You don't like tail-chasing, you don't like Prey and Hunter and you don't like racing! What else am I supposed to do? Sit here and be quiet all day while Alex just watches the Hunters, Sentries and Patrollers at the rendezvous?"

"You're supposed to be a properly behaved pup!" her mother said with a severe look in her eyes. "Elder Willow will start complaining if I don't raise you well enough before it's time for your first lessons."

"Elder Willow has a stick up her rear and is never satisfied, might as well have some fun," Libby responded, her ears perked up and her tail held high in defiance.

"LIBBY," the she-wolf snapped. "Who told you such heinous things?"

"Alice did."

"Alice is rude and has no boundaries, you shouldn't follow her example." The she-wolf sounded grumpy. "Make an example of your brother. Alex is patient, calm, and ready to listen to authority at any given moment." The gray wolf pup proudly raised his head and wagged his tail at his mother's praise.

Libby blew a raspberry. "Alex is boring! I want to get out of the den already and explore the plains and forest!"

Alex spoke up. "Even when we're allowed outside the den, we'll only be on the rendezvous site! You can't just go walking into the plains! You'd get taken by an eagle or coyote as soon as you'd set a paw outside of the safety of this place!"

"Very true, Alex," the gray-white she-wolf agreed. "And we are wolves of the Fading Shadows Pack. We are Plain-dwellers. We do not go inside the woods. It is a dark, dangerous place, not one for any of our Pack to visit. Let the forest Packs keep their ominous and murky place, we have the Brightened Plains to live in."

"Bluh." Libby stuck out her tongue and rolled her eyes, but didn't engage in any further discussion. Instead, she moved closer to the entrance of the den, from where she could watch the wolves on the Fading Shadows rendezvous. There were quite a few wolves in her Pack, including her own mother, Shebina, and her father, North.

The rendezvous site itself was a sandy open space located within the Brightened Plains. Their den was located between the roots of a single lone tree that stood there. The other wolves simply slept under the sky. Libby thought that sleeping under the stars must be the one of the greatest things there is.

But, alas, she and her brother were only three weeks old. It'd be only one more week until they'd be allowed outside the den, and then, another week later, they'd be going to their first lessons in how a wolf behaves, which was traditionally taught by the Pack's elders.