Daisuke Niwa looked out of the wrought iron window of the Niwa Estate and swallowed thickly, trying to ignore that ticklish stirring in the back of his mind.

He still wasn't used to this flatness; the tundra that was the country of Russia. Even though the clan had moved here five years ago after an agreement that Japan was simply too crowded, filled with too much temptation, he'd never gotten used to how…lonely the landscape seemed.

No trees, barely any shrubs, just miles of half-dead grasses and patches of snow and marsh. It was a little better in the summers but… His wolf stirred again. Heat spread to his limbs, and then receded, leaving the redhead a little shaken. Tonight was his wolf's night,his first transformation into one or their kind.

It was his fourteenth birthday to be exact, and although his whole family had thrown a party for him that morning and even invited some friends over from school, he didn't feel particularly happy. He knew he should be – it meant he'd finally be able to run side by side with his older brother Dark, and their adopted sister Riku, but…

He drew the curtains and sat back down on his bed, picking up the gift his brother had given him. Dark had been born on a night with no moon, just like the male heir of the Hikari clan, Krad.

There was an old story that werewolf cubs born on the new moon would 'leave their paw prints on both land and sky' but nobody had known what to expect until Dark came out of Emiko with a pair of tiny, delicate black wings folded against his back. They were uselessly small for most of his life, so he had kept them folded in two grooves between his shoulder blades, making them virtually undetectable under a shirt. But when he hit puberty they began to grow rapidly, and after fifteen were large enough to lift him into the air. The only drawback was they simply disappeared when he was in wolf form. Daisuke picked up the necklace – a simple chain of Dark's entwined purplish-black feathers – and smiled despite himself. At least he had tried this year. He slipped it over his head, enjoying the silky feel of them, and looked around his room; same red comforter, dresser weighed down with school books and knickknacks…And of course, an assortment of exotic herbs stolen from the Hikaris.

They had been trying for as long as anyone in the clan could remember to cure the werewolf 'disease', and the Niwas had been trying equally hard to keep them from creating one. They considered themselves the last bond that humans – odd creatures that they were – had to the natural world. He checked his watch.

Nine-thirty. Two and a half hours until he would walk alone into the tundra and embrace his wolf, as was custom. ~At least I wasn't born at six in the morning.~ Scratching his arms, he closed the door to his bedroom and went down the hall to their office, knocking softly on the knotted oak. Even wearing two pairs of socks his feet still ached from the cold stone floors.

"Yello?" The purple-haired alpha answered, and Daisuke breathed a sigh of relief before going in. Dark was sitting where their father Kosuke usually sat, flanked by piles of papers and a mountain of books. Kosuke was sitting by the fire, holding a worn leather-bound book while stretching his feet towards the flames. Daisuke's increasingly sensitive nose caught onto his brother's scent – the scent of his wolf, that is, an alpha being the most dominant of all wolf ranks, and he automatically bent into a half-bow. "Uh…"

He stood frozen until Dark came up and rubbed the side of his face across Daisuke's to reassure his inner wolf, ~You're okay. You're a part of my pack.~ The redhead relaxed. Jokingly Dark leaned down and sniffed at his fiery hair. "Nope, definitely not an alpha."

Daisuke colored before glancing at the stack of papers his brother had been sifting through. "Could I talk to you for a moment, or are you busy?"

Dark leaned back to address their father. "Kosuke, could you take over for a minute? Technically you're still C-Alpha here."

Their father snorted, sighed and ran a hand through his thick black hair. "Alright, but hurry up. You have more... direct boundary authority than I."

Kosuke Niwa was referring to the fact that he was almost past transformation age – it became difficult for people over forty to transform, as it was too much strain on their bodies. Daisuke was pretty sure he would make Dark the Clan Alpha very soon. Dark nodded in return, then stood to lead Daisuke back to his room.

"Something with the Hikari clan?" Daisuke asked, while looking up at his taller sibling as they walked.

Dark ran a hand through his purple locks. "Yeah, territory dispute over the river, and about the caribou. It's all a thinly veiled excuse to start attacking our patrols again, no doubt." He waved his hand in an angry gesture as he sat down on Daisuke's bed. "The way things are going I might have to settle this with that alpha heir-"

"Krad?" Daisuke interrupted to ask. Dark nodded before continuing, "Which actually suits me just fine." His voice ended with a muted growl. Daisuke moved to sit down next to him.

"I...actually wanted to talk about tonight." Fingering his new necklace he began, "Um, I heard that the Hikari alpha's little brother is transforming tonight too… I think his name is Satoshi?"

Dark raised one thick eyebrow. "Oh? Did Towa tell you?" He shook his head. "Yeah, it's true," he confirmed. "But he's tamer than his older brother, so you should be fine. He'll probably be a beta like you, or even an omega."

Daisuke sighed, and his brother put an arm around his shoulders. "Oh, good. And, um, I know…" Daisuke paused, looking down in shame, "I should be excited about tonight, and I am! It's just- ...Mostly, I'm just scared." He gazed up into large amethyst eyes hopefully and asked, "I mean, how did you…?"

Dark resisted his wolf's urge to simply wrap himself around his younger sibling, and instead got up to pull the curtains open. Daisuke flinched, but it was cloudy. The moon was hidden for now.

"What can I say, Dai? I knew my wolf was gonna be an alpha. My personality is so strong," his brother admitted quietly as his breath fogged the window's glass. "They're the hardest to control. …By the time the day came, I was so scared that I had puked up everything I ate for two days."

Daisuke remembered then that he'd asked him why he had looked so pale, but at the time Dark had brushed off all his questions. He heard the older Niwa give a little snort.

"When I finally walked out there – there is nowhere to hide from the moonlight here, and the actual transformation… I'm not gonna lie, it scares you; feeling everything pop and twist and realign. After that though..." He grinned widely, turning to face Daisuke, leaving a large hand print on the window. "When you're running faster than you've ever run on human legs, barely even leaving prints on the ground...it's a lot like flying." Seemingly invigorated by just talking about it, he went back to Daisuke and put a hand on his thin shoulders. "You won't want to come back to your human form when the night is over." It sounded ludicrous, but Dark had never lied to him before (about important things) and besides that, he could hear personal experience within Dark's words.

"Okay." Daisuke felt a bit better. Dark could obviously tell he was still nervous because he whispered, "How about this…I'll sneak out around dawn and meet you near the marshes, okay?"

The boy's face lit up. "Yeah? Okay! Oh, and one more thing… Why hasn't Riku come out of her room?" Dark laughed as he opened the door.

"You didn't know? She went into heat about four days ago. She should be fine in about a month."

"Oh…" Daisuke said in surprise, having then remembered that when he passed by her door, he had noticed an odd smell. He waved goodbye to Dark, then settled down in his bed with all his clothes still on and attempted to go to sleep. He thought a little about his sister – Emiko had wanted to adopt because she needed a little female companionship, but as the year went by it was obvious that there was another reason.

Werewolf cubs were a little different from humans in that after they stop nursing they have an all-meat diet until they're nearly two years old. When she went to adopt, Riku had been sickly and no one could figure out what was wrong with her, until Emiko had slipped her a bit of ham. Riku quickly recovered, and Emiko realized she had a little female werewolf on her hands. In the present day, nothing would make her happier than if Riku fell in love and married Dark. Of course there was just one problem with this. She. Loathed. Him. Daisuke had to admit Dark had brought it on himself.

His personality was a big impediment in general, but he also had a tendency to walk through the halls butt-naked on the nights of the full moon. ~It's not our fault we can't cart around clothing in wolf form but…~ He managed to catch a few hours of sleep before he woke up, writhing and sweating. It was a lot worse now, like little bugs were crawling under his skin, and the heat! He untangled himself immediately from the sheets and opened his window, gasping in cold air. "…haaahh…ugh."

His body felt like it was burning; especially his hands and face, every joint weirdly loose and aching. A small knock alerted him to someone outside, and before they even spoke he could smell wolf. His own shuddered excitedly. "Daisuke?"

"Yeah, Dark?" his voice rasped, sounding completely foreign to his own ears.

"C'mon, we gotta get you ready. It's almost time."

Daisuke straightened from his window, and his legs cracked, disgustingly loud. "Eh?" He rubbed his knees and ankles, but they seemed fine, just…tingly. His clock said 11:35. His heart jumped in his chest. It was so late…

He began walking down the hallway with Dark, noticing that even though he tried to stay level with him, he kept dropping back just behind him. As he walked passed Riku's door, he was assaulted with a scent – something strong and feminine, but not at all unpleasant. He took a step towards her door without thinking, and Dark caught him by the shoulder, saying firmly, "I wouldn't. She's liable to bite your head off just for going in."

Daisuke immediately fell back into step behind him as Dark added, "After she's finished with you, that is." He blushed severely.

Finally they came into the living room where the whole family was waiting; his mom and dad, grandpa, Towa, and Dark… Everyone except Riku. But before he could react to that, Emiko grabbed him up and squeezed him. "Oh, Daisuke, you look so grown up and resolved! Doesn't he, Papa?" His grandpa nodded solemnly and Dark slipped in, "If by 'resolved' you mean 'scared shitless'…then yeah."

Emiko smacked him on the shoulder. "Ouch! Well it's true!" he chimed up before she herded Daisuke into the bathroom, handing him a pair of black shorts with an elastic waistband. "They're the easiest to kick off once your legs start bending," she explained. He held them close to his chest, not wanting to think about that at all.

"Wait…this is it? No socks or shoes?" he asked incredulously. She laughed and flicked her hair.

"Whoever heard of a werewolf wearing shoes, Daisuke? Now hurry up, I have to go check on Riku- ...Oh, and I'll take these." She slipped the feather necklace from over his head and took off his watch, and then walked out, shutting the door behind her. As he changed clothes he thought, ~But…how am I supposed to walk barefoot through the snow? What if I get hypothermia?~ Once he finished he stood and examined himself in the mirror. He usually was pretty scrawny, but as today had come closer he noticed he'd bulked up, arms and chest becoming a little thicker, and shoulders a little wider. He wasn't at all comparable to Dark, but for him, he looked pretty, well…

He blinked as he noticed his eyes. They weren't red anymore, but instead had taken on the grayish-blue color of a juvenile werewolf. "Weird…" He opened the door. "Okay, um…" he managed to say before getting whisked away by his family to the back door and outside. It was absolutely freezing. His whole body immediately broke out in goose bumps. Dead grass stuck to his once-warm feet, coating them in dew. His mother hugged him again.

"Alright, Daisuke, we'll all be inside if you need us, okay dear?" She then pointed to a barely-there trail between the grass. "You just keep on this path, okay? And don't cross the river."

The rest of his family promptly said their goodbyes and went back into the feeble warmth of the doorway as he took a few tentative steps down the path. He turned around, and tried to say bravely, "B-bye." Dark gave him a subtle nod and he remembered his brother's promise as he turned back around. "Bye, Daisuke."

They shut the door, and he was left alone. His feet were absolutely screaming at him to stop, but he kept walking, trying not to notice how absolutely pitch-black it was. And so…quiet, except for the wind. He forced himself to stagger on, flinching every time his foot landed in a chunk of snow, and wondered if he was simply going to curl up into a ball and die out here. Maybe his parents were wrong and he wasn't one of them after all – it had happened before. Once with Emiko. After a few minutes of this brooding, however, his feet didn't hurt quite so bad and he wasn't really very cold at all anymore.

In fact, he was kinda…sweaty. He looked down at his hands – which looked gray in this light – in utter disbelief. It was probably negative five degrees Celsius outside, but he could feel little rivulets of hot sweat running down his back and belly. ~This is just…~

As he tuned in to himself further, he realized what he thought was shivering was in fact a kind of excited, happy trembling. He tensed up his muscles, but it didn't help – in fact it made it worse, because his wolf reared up in his consciousness and wriggled, sending flames down through to his toes, eager to be set free.

All of a sudden the swimming darkness seemed to brighten a bit, and he was able to make out a good area around him. Up ahead where the path forked to the left were patches of snow and chunks of frozen grass. Daisuke thought feverishly ~I-I don't want this! I don't want to be this! I just want to go home and curl up in bed and pretend that this was all a dream-~

The ground around him brightened as if lit by a huge spotlight, and he could see for miles, every bit as clear as daylight… He felt he needed to look up, his body was begging him, and yet he stared at the ground with determination as he felt that familiar gray light wash over him. ~ I won't look; I won't…~ But finally, his head lifted against his will and the clouds cleared to reveal the moon.

It was so beautiful, so round and bright. As he stared, his body stopped sweating, and for a moment he was stuck in between two desires. His form was still human, but…~You won't want to return to your human form when the night is over.~…

Deep in his soul, he realized with a kind of peacefulness that suddenly, he had changed his mind – he didn't want to be human anymore. It was too much work, with too many conflicting thoughts. There wasn't enough simple enjoyment of being a living creature roaming on the earth.

~ I just…I want to be free.~

Alrighty I need some support for this please!Otherwise I might discontinue this story.