Three pups sat at the edge of a clearing. Far enough out from the wide open grass to remain hidden, but close enough to see what small creatures were brave enough to remain out in the open. They looked on hungrily at the dozen or so rabbits who had just come up above ground to feed. Their bellies would be full of sweet fresh grass. It would season their muscles like herbs, and knowing that made the pups' mouths water with anticipation.

All of the three pups had spent the day searching for a kill to make, having gone without meat all day. They were all of them becoming strong enough to chase down the smaller game of the forest. And in time, and with practice, they would be strong enough to keep the numbers of greater forest grazers at bay.

Since the start of this spring season, the pups had seen their sixth winter. Between the two eldest siblings, their ages differed only by mere minutes, while the youngest of them was perhaps only a few days younger. By now, a common wolf pup would have long been fully grown and ready to hunt larger game. However, such was not the case for the three pups at the edge of the open field. They were all of them the children of the god of wolves, and would spend much of their early years growing their wit as well as their teeth to be as sharp as their mother's. Therefore, it would take them all many more years to grow.

Two of the pups had by now just out grown all their baby fur. One pup had no fur at all, but a brown and messy bunch on the top of her head. She was oddly proportioned for a wolf, her lack of pearly white fur was not the strangest of her differences. Even now, she sat oddly beside her brothers, and found it easier to sit on her knees than sit on her feet as her brothers did. They spoke little of her deformities, Mother had fiercely scolded them once for teasing their sister for her bizarrely long legs, and the way she stood upright on them.

"I bet we could catch one." The youngest of the pups said suddenly, turning her bald face towards her brothers. She kept her voice down so as not to draw unwanted attention from their lunch, but did not fully disguise her excitement either. They glanced over at her, then to each other before shaking their heads.

"they're in the middle of an open field. They'll see us for sure." the eldest whined. Their hunts had yielded only disappointment for many days. The boys were discouraged by the unsuccessfulness of their many hunts, and seemed to be more detoured by the possible embarrassment of failure, than they were drawn by the promise of meat.

"yeah, we're already as close as we can get." agreed the other.

"What's with your attitudes? Only last season you two couldn't be persuaded out of chasing down anything that moved." San muttered.

"Yeah, but mother said we should hunt our food, not scare it all away. If we go home with empty stomachs just because we made a stupid decision, she won't ever trust us to go hunting with her." the oldest of the pups reminded them.

"Ichi's right, San. We'd be better off just looking for something easier, or waiting until one of them wanders off a little ways." Ni sighed, obviously not pleased with the idea of waiting.

"So you'd both rather just not eat at all? What do you think mother would say about that?" she snapped. "Come on, we need to learn to hunt for ourselves some time, don't we?"

Ichi's stomach growled, and he looked back over at the rabbits.

"Alright. What's the plan?"

The two brothers crouched side by side on the grass, their heads resting just above the ground. Ni's legs itched to chase, but he stilled himself only by remembering that San always had the best plans, so she was worth listening to for the moment.

The rabbits hadn't noticed them yet, just as they hoped. It was late enough in the afternoon that they were just careless enough to ignore the two specs of white fur in the distance. Any closer, however, and they'd be spotted for certain.

San stood on still on the opposite end of the clearing from her brothers, and hidden by the foliage. She picked up a small rock from the ground, and tossed it a mere few inches in the air above her palm to get a sense of its weight.

She knew from experience that alarming the rabbits from far away would only send them all running to the underground. The trick would be to get them to run towards the awaiting jaws of her brothers on the other side, and not to the safety of their warren.

San and her brothers had hunted rabbits before, usually with little success. The best of their hunts were when the prey wandered far from its home, and it was a simple matter for the three of them to chase down a single rabbit. At least, it was simple for her brothers to chase down a rabbit. She'd usually be the one lingering behind in the chase, only to catch up after the prey was captured, or fled to safety.

She clutched the stone tighter in her palm. Remembering her failures in previous hunts wouldn't help her here. Right now it didn't matter that she couldn't run as fast as her brothers… or that she couldn't bite as hard… or that her claws were thin and brittle.

She shook away the thought. This wasn't the time to feel sorry for herself. Besides, this time would be different. This time, she was doing something that her brothers couldn't, something she was good at. Right now, in order to be useful, she had to be smart.

She wound up her arm, and sent the rock flying out into the distance toward the burrow. She watched anxiously as it fell. Before the stone hit the ground, one rabbit stomped its foot on the ground, thumping loudly to alert the others. When their heads rose from the ground to see what the danger was, the rock hit the ground. Unable to see the danger, but startled by the sound of the rock falling, the rabbits scrambled about.

Before many of them could retreat underground, Ichi and Ni rose from the distance and sprinted towards the chaos. Each of them went different ways, searching for the weakest and most simple kill to make. With most of the rabbits running for safety and out of reach, it wasn't long before there was only one candidate left.

It was an old one, by the look of it. black and grey fur, not too scrawny, not too much fur either. It made a tempting meal, not that there was any other option on the menu for the pups.

As usual, San carelessly sprinted from her hiding place in the shadows of the trees to join her brothers in the hunt. She knew she risked the success of their hunt by racing onto the grass without thinking, but her instinct to chase got the better of her. Even if she cost her brothers their meal, she wanted to try to catch it.

In the end, it didn't make a difference. She was not near enough to frighten the prey, and certainly not near enough to catch it by the time her brothers had worn it down.

They chased it in circles until they finally snatched it up. Ichi held the small squirming animal in his mouth, then Ni stepped in and grabbed the rabbit by its haunches. They each pulled and twisted at their respective parts of the rabbit until its neck snapped, and then continued to pull at it playfully until they were tearing it into two bleeding halves.

San had reached them just then, catching her breath from the sprint it took to get to them, but doing her best to hide the sound of her heavy breathing. Fortunately, her brothers were too busy with their celebratory tug-of-war to pay her weariness any mind.

San reached out for what was left of the fresh kill, eager to taste the fresh meat of her labors. Ni pulled back from her reach, snapping off the small membrane that had tethered the two halves of the lapin together as he did so. He lowered his head and growled, with his prize still bleeding in his mouth.

"Oh no you don't! We eat first, we did all the work!" he growled, daring her to take it from him.

San narrowed her eyes and flashed her teeth at her brother in a cold icy snarl. She had no tail to raise in defiance, and could not pull back her ears in warning, but her facial expressions spoke all too well for her.

"Without me, we'd all be hungry! Gimme my share, I earned it!"

"You weren't anywhere near us when we had to catch our food. Wait until I'm finished, then you can have the bits that are left." he taunted.

The young wolf pup tackled her brother then, crying out a little in rage before she slammed the full force of her weight into him, knocking him down with a yelp. The tail half of the rabbit that he'd had in his jaws fell to the ground when he was struck with the force of his sister's weight. She reached for it, and Ni scrambled from under her to snatch it back up.

Ichi, while startled by the fighting, was not surprised. Ni and San were the first to butt heads when things got to stressful for them. They usually fought over food when mother wasn't around to keep an eye on them. He did his best to ignore them and enjoy his half of the meal while his siblings rough-housed all over the forest floor.

Ni snapped his jaws at the morsel that lay just beyond his reach. Realizing that her brother would reach the scrap first, San hit the side of his shoulder with the side of her hand. He yelped, and San had just enough time to grab the meat laying a little ways out of reach.

Ni saw how close she was to taking the last of the food, and at the last second stretched out his neck just far enough to bite his teeth down on his sister's arm. She grunted out of pain when he bit, but did her best to ignore the force of his teeth on her limb long enough to bring the dead rabbit to her hungry mouth. As she pulled back her arm, however, her brother bit down harder, and only relaxed his hold by a fraction when she outstretched her arm again.

They remained at an impasse until Ichi finished his half of the rabbit. He would have sat back to watch how events would unfold without involving himself, but just then he caught a scent in the air that distracted him from the fight, and he rose from off the grass to meet the source.

Ichi looked up at the enormous figure lumbering toward the three of them. Despite her size, she didn't shake the ground when she stepped, her paws quiet and careful with each step. Ichi ran up to her, his tail wagging low as he tried to jump up and lick her muzzle to greet her. She lowered her face to him, accepting the affectionate gesture, and then stepped closer to the other two puppies.

The two trouble makers only looked up at her when she stood over them, casting a shadow. They exchanged glances, but refused to let go until the other did first. It was San who spoke finally.

"It's his fault. Ni was gonna eat my third of the rabbit." she blamed. Ni let go of her arm then, leaving several red puncture wounds on his sister's arm. San ran her other hand over the injury, grateful for the relief, but still glaring daggers at her brother as he denied her accusation.

"It's her fault for not being there when we killed it! If she wants to eat, she should at least be able to help more! She's not as useful as we are when we hunt, she's such a runt!"

"I am not a runt!" San shouted, dropping the meat, and tackling her brother again. They began to fight, but it didn't last long before their mother broke in.

"Oh, cut it out. I'm not in the mood to wait for you two to kill each other today." She growled. Obediently, the pups stepped a little ways apart, but continued to shoot each other nasty glares as their mother spoke.

"When I told you to learn to take care of yourselves, it wasn't just because I was sick of feeding you. I can't look after you three every minute of every day like I could before. Every day the forest becomes more and more dangerous, which means you three need to start growing up. What do you think would happen if a human showed up today and I wasn't around to protect you?"

The mention of humans brought a familiar chill to the pups. They'd only heard stories about the fabled humans that apparently cut down whole full grown trees, and rode on the backs of other animals. Of course mother had never brought her children with her to hunt down the humans that tried to travel through domain of the spirit of the forest, much to Ichi's relief, and Ni's disappointment.

Mother often told stories of her encounters with humans to the pups, stories about how they came to trap animals from their mountain, and cut down trees at the edge of the forest. And often her siblings would ask about them; what they looked like, what the smelled like, how they sounded, and such. It was only natural that the pups should be curious about this evil that apparently threatened their home. But San found curiously that Mother often ignored the questions they asked. It was almost like Mother didn't want them to know about humans, which seemed suspicious to San.

San was actually beginning to suspect that humans weren't real at all. What other explanation was there for why Mother never wanted to tell her about them? They must have been false. Were they real, then surely Mother would want her to know what they looked like, right? Not that she doubted her mother's fears were justified, she just doubted that these "humans" could be the source of her fears. No, more likely mother was worried about something much worse uprooting the trees, and eating all the food, something that she didn't want San and her brothers knowing about.

"Every day you get older, and every day you must prepare to be strong enough to survive against what will surely threaten our lives one day. If you three can't learn to cooperate for even one day, without my constant attention, and without picking fights over scraps of food, then how can any of you live up to the responsibility of protecting our home?"

Ni quietly huffed, but seemed to take his mother's words seriously. Although he could hardly see how he'd deserved this lecture just because he'd antagonized his sister a little bit.

San was quiet for a moment. Although she doubted whatever it was that truly jeopardized their lives, she could tell that her mother sincerely worried for their wellbeing. "Don't worry, Mother. I'm going to be strong enough to hunt with you someday!" San said, doing her best to reassure her mother with a smile. Perhaps once she was more grown up her mother would trust her to help defend their home from humans, if that really was what threatened their home.

The wolf god seemed to consider something before responding. "Yes, San. When you're old enough, and strong enough, I will take you with me to hunt the humans." she said. But something about the way she spoke seemed uncertain; as though she was unsure whether she would be able keep that promise.

San read her tone to suggest that her mother doubted that she could ever be strong enough to hunt with her, and her own smile faded. It stung to think that her mother felt that way, especially because San knew all too well how disadvantaged she was compared to her brothers. She hung her head slightly, and looked away. Her mother did not fail to notice her obvious dissatisfaction, but said nothing about it.

"But for now," their mother went on, "all of you need to learn to work together, like a pack of your own, before I can trust you three to fight humans."

The pups looked from one to another as they considered this. Each of them could handle the playful scraps and brawls between each other, but especially at their young age, it was difficult to picture themselves fighting a powerful enemy, especially one as powerful as Mother made the humans out to be.

"Now, with having that said," she reached her head down to the grass and picked up the half-rabbit that the pups had nearly completely forgotten. Without even bothering to crunch it into smaller pieces between her teeth, she swallowed it all whole with no difficulty. "If you two are going to act like troublemakers, then you're not going to eat."

"But that's not fair!" San whined, as Ni groaned in frustration.

"No, it's not. What is fair, is you two getting along sharing the kill like good little wolves. Remember that next time. I'm not raising a tribe that fights over meat like a bunch of fools." she growled. She turned to leave, and the pups followed her closely behind on their way home, Ni and San glaring daggers at each other the whole way.

Their den was high up on the mountain. They lived on a rocky slope overlooking miles and miles of the forest. San had once nearly fallen from the cliffside, but was much better at climbing than her brothers, and when Mother came to rescue her, she had proudly announced her triumph over the smooth stone surface.

It was evening when they reached it. San's legs had tired somewhere along the way, and Ichi had offered to carry her, but determined to prove herself as capable as her brothers before the day was out, she had declined his offer, and opted to risk blistering her frail feet instead.

She collapsed onto the floor of the cave, and rubbed the bottoms of her feet to get the soreness out. It occurred to her that she might try to wear something to protect her feet, similar to the short deerskin dress she wore. She promised herself footwear the next time she killed and ate.

The hunger pains in her belly had nearly subsided, but San knew in the morning it would only get worse. And however much she would have liked to deny it, she needed her brothers to help her hunt. Maybe it would be smart to apologize so that they would be on good terms once again when she needed them.

"I'm sorry that I hit you." she muttered. Ni winced, remembering the force of her punch to his shoulder. She had this strange way of scratching that complimented her short, delicate claws well; she would ball her hand up into a fist, and slam it against him like it was a rock. She had developed many odd ways to do things that better suited her strange shape, and her methods of attack were no exception.

"I'm sorry… that I bit you, and called you a runt." Ni replied sincerely.

The puppies curled up on the stone floor together, and after making sure that they hadn't been followed, the wolf god laid down beside her children.

To San, who had no fur of her own, it was nice to lay down with her family, surrounded by their familiar scent, and to be warm and safe. The ripped and tattered deerskin she'd made last winter was little substitute for real fur.

She'd thought for a long time that if she just waited long enough, she'd grow fur like her brothers, but it seemed that she had no such luck. Still, she was convinced somehow that when she grew up she might resemble her mother more closely.

Her dreams that night were filled with freshly killed rabbit that she'd hunted all by herself. And in her dreams her teeth were sharp, and her legs were strong, and all the animals of the forest feared and admired her.

Since there aren't any canon names for San's brothers, I named them after the Japanese numbers for 'one' and 'two', since 'san' means 'three'. I know it's silly, but it made sense at the time.