Light of the Moon

Chapter I: The Beginning

"Wispe! Hey Wispe! Wake up!"

"What?" I mumbled, annoyed to be woken up from my dream, especially in the middle of the night. I wearily opened one eye to see Skye looking down at me, a worried look in her eyes.

"It's Hawke, he's going to check on the watch, and you should have been on watch duty over an hour ago."

"Oh crap!" I exclaimed, suddenly awake. "Where is he now?"

"Over by the whelping den." Skye said as I raced out of the den we shared toward the entrance of the circle.

"Wispe!" I heard a gruff voice yell over the noise of the circle.

I froze, knowing that I was caught. "Yes, sir?" I said turning around with my tail between my legs. Gaule was standing behind me.

"Sir?" he asked.

"Oh, good," I said, relieved, "it's just you. I thought you were Hawke."

"Well, that's an interesting thought" Gaule chuckled.

"Speaking of Hawke, have you seen him lately?" I asked.

"Oh yea, he's over by your den talking to Skye."

"You wanna come with me and pretend to be on watch?"

"Sure, why?" Gaule asked. We started walking into the trees.

"I was supposed to over an hour ago and Hawke doesn't know" I explained.

"I do see how that could be a problem." Gaule said, jumping over a fallen tree.

"Yep."

"Want to race?" he asked.

"To where?"

"The clearing."

"The round one?" I asked.

"That's it."

"Sure."

"Ok, just promise not to cry when I beat you."

"Yea right, as if that could happen," I said jokingly as I started running.

"Hey! No fair, you got a head start!"

Silently I ran through the forest, the moon giving the trees a silver glow, with Gaule close behind me, his paws matching my steps. I was running as fast as I could my legs looking like streaks of lightning. Suddenly I see the clearing up ahead, swiftly approaching. I leap and land in the middle of the clearing, beating Gaule by half a step.

"Beat ya!"Gaule panted.

"No, you didn't," I said, equally tired, "I won."

"Ok," he huffed, "you won. But, shouldn't we get going? We are supposed to be on watch, remember?"

"Fine," I sighed.

As we trotted along through the half-light of the early morning we came across a huge tree, at least five feet wide and so tall that the top could barely be seen.

"OK, that is a really big tree" said Gaule.

"Yea, it sure is" I agreed.

"It doesn't really smell right, though."

"What do ya mean?" I asked

"Just smell it. I can't quite get it, but it definitely doesn't smell like a normal tree."

I smelled it. "Hey, you're right. It smells like...well I don't really know what it is."

Gaule was walking around the base of the tree when he said, "Hey Wispe, you gotta come see this."