Just us

Chapter one: Camp

  
     Marina's pov:

     I opened my eyes, everything was dark and warm. As my eyes adjusted, I saw the dim den I was laying in, a silhouette of another coyote looming over me. I tilted my head up to look at the coyote laying in front of me. She looked down at me, glaring. "You are a disappointing looking pup" was the first thing I ever heard.

      I didn't understand much of anything for a while. After a few days, I was up and running outside of my den. I noticed that my legs were much longer than other coyotes my age. I frequently tripped on my long legs, my mother would sit at the den entrance glaring at me. I never understood why she doesn't like me.

    A few weeks later, I started training, it's an essential that my big coyote pack had for all the pups. I learned a lot really quickly, like how others are quick to make fun of you for being "weird" or "different". Many times a day, I'd get mean comments on my legs. I've heard every joke about how tall I am, it's gotten annoying. Then one day... I looked through a group of coyotes and I saw her.

   Daisy's pov:

    It'd been a while since my parents took me to this pack. The last coyote pack we were in was not safe. This pack was very welcoming of me and my parents. Being a small pup, I was pretty oblivious to what was happening. One day, I was taking some hunting and fighting lessons. After my lesson, I was sitting in a dusty patch on the forest floor, when I looked over and saw some young coyotes bullying a beautiful tall coyote.

    I noticed that she saw me, we locked eyes for a bit. I could tell she didn't enjoy her situation, so I walked over to the group of coyotes. I was pretty short for coyotes my age, so when the other coyotes saw me, they started snickering to each other. They eventually got bored and walked away, I walked up to the tall coyote they were picking on. "Hi, those guys are jerks". I said while sitting in front of her. "Yeah, they bully me a lot. I've gotten used to it though". She responded. Her voice was deeper than I expected. "Do you do anything about it?" I questioned. "No, I just ignore them now" she replied dryly. We shared information about each other, I found out her name is Marina, she's my age, and she was born into this pack.

   Marina's pov:

     I'd met Daisy unexpectedly one day, she was the first coyote I met that didn't comment on my long legs at all, it felt really nice. We quickly became friends over the next few days, taking hunting lessons together through the woods.

    I was hunting alone on a hot and sunny day, the sunlight streaming through the trees and dappling the forest floor. I walked silently through the woods, I didn't usually like hunting by myself, but it was part of one of my lessons. I sniffed the air and caught the distinct slightly musty scent of a rabbit. I lowered myself to the forest floor, crouching and searching for the rabbit, then I saw it, a pretty good sized brown cottontail bunny hopping around In a small clearing. I stalked up to the rabbit, silently averting all attention to it. I was about to go in for the kill when I smelled a different scent, something like a coyote, but bigger and a little different. The rabbits head shot up as it focused on something in the trees on the other side of the clearing. I saw something large and dark in the trees, the rabbit launched off, sprinting away. The dark creature stepped into the clearing, it was like nothing I've ever seen before. It was like a coyote, but much bigger. From the scent I could tell it was female. She had jet black fur and icy blue eyes. There was a pretty small spot on her upper jaw behind her nose, where the flesh was completely gone, exposing the white bone underneath. Some of her teeth shone from this gap in her face, there was no blood or anything, just bone.

   As I stared unmoving at the strange animal. She turned and looked around, I was thankfully downwind, so she couldn't smell me. Then it happened, I felt my fur ruffle from a breeze, the direction of the wind changed. She could now smell exactly where I was, she turned her icy gaze to where I was crouched. She started padding across the clearing, her blue eyes set unblinking on the spot I was hiding. I froze from complete fear, I didn't know what to do, this giant coyote like creature was approaching quickly. I suddenly found the courage to turn and sprint away, running towards the direction of my packs camp. As I launched through my packs territory, I heard the huge creature closing in on me quickly, I chanced a look over my shoulder, she was getting closer and closer with each stride. I looked back ahead and spotted a large rocky outcrop. I sped up and hid behind the rocks, I could hear her race past the large boulders, thinking I was still running. I sat behind the rocks and regained my breath, not daring to move too much.