Two days later Luna was back on the prowl.

Overcome by guilt and remorse, Snow White had ordered Luna's cage unlocked. Consternation reigned when the freshly stripped leg of a deer was discovered after the wolf had gone. Someone had ignored a direct order from the sovereign of the Fourth Kingdom and fed the wolf. Before she could be asked about it, Luna had disappeared.

Enjoying the drizzly, warm, summer breeze that ruffled her hair, Luna closed her eyes and threw back her head in a howl of triumph. Would these human fools never learn that no matter how bad the situation, the wolf would always end up the winner?

Cut off in mid-howl, Luna clutched at her belly and wondered at the odd sensation she had felt there. Not pain exactly, it was, well, odd.

She took a few steps forward before it happened again. The third time it happened there was no mistaking it - her cubs were coming. Her eyes lit up as she performed a strange shuffling run through the substantial grounds to the one place she felt she could go in safety - Arc's dwelling.

Bursting through his unlatched wooden door, she caught Arc lounging on his pile of rags and straw. He had been absorbed in a parchment written entirely in ancient dragon script when Luna fell through his door.

The cosiness of the place had an immediate calming effect on the wolf, who had got herself more worked up with every step she had taken. The dragon himself didn't look quite so white and threatening, bathed as he was in the warm, orange glow of the candles lit all around the room.

'They're coming, Arc, I need your help.'

Placing a comforting claw around her shoulders, he led her into a small side room, 'I thought it might be sometime today. I've prepared something for you.' Arc pushed open the rough-jointed door to reveal a comfortable little room lit by a small fire and a myriad of candles lighting up the skin bed and something else, the one thing Luna wanted most, 'Mother.'

The red wolf was stretched out comfortably on the fire-warmed flagstones in front of the hearth. She smiled benignly at her daughter, 'Come and lay down, Luna.'

Luna started to make her way over to her mother, but she doubled up with pain before she got there. Ara and Arc's eyes met across the room, 'Looks like we've got one who doesn't want to wait around for pleasantries.'

Gently between them the red wolf and the white dragon laid the black wolf down on the deerskin bed. The strange feel of leather and brass around Luna's neck repelled Ara's touch, 'Here what's this?' She unbuckled the collar and threw it scornfully to the side of the room. 'Can't have your babies thinking that their mother isn't a free wolf.' Ara bathed her daughter's sweat-beaded brow with a damp cloth, 'Breathe steady now. The little one won't come out any faster than he needs to. Hush now. Shepherdess makes quite mess, but little lambs are lovely, when the moon is full, you'll hear the call, but be careful and so wary.' Ara recited the rhyme she had told her cubs when they were tiny as she calmed her daughter through the final stages of birth. 'Come on now, Lu. Just a little bit more. Last bit, now push.'

Luna gave a mighty heave as her first cub took in its first breaths. The dragon and the grandmother dealt with the necessaries, cleaned the cub up and Arc handed him to his mother. 'You've got a fine male there, Luna. He's strong, believe me.'

'There's at least one more in there, but it's not in such a hurry to enter the cold world. We've got a little while yet. Here, let me see my grandson.' Her outstretched arms received the babe tenderly, 'Oh, he's the image of his grandfather. He's going to be a charmer, this one. A real handsome lad. Do you have a name for him yet?'

'I've known his name ever since I first felt him kicking. Arc-Luath shall be his title.'

'Why?'

'It could be for my dear friend Arc without whom I would not be here today, or for what the name means. I have not decided yet.'

'What does it mean?'

It was Arc that answered this time; 'The name Luath is the same in whichever tongue it is spoken, it is the main part of his name, and it means Swift. Arc is a different matter. In the ancient language of dragons it means a strong blizzard, for which I am named. However, in the feral speak it has a significantly stronger meaning. Arc means simply the Great. Which way would you have it spoken, Luna? Swift as a strong blizzard or Swift the Great?

'I will not say it now, although I harbour strong suspicions, for it is better that he carves his own path than feels bound to the one we have laid for him.'

'You have wisdom beyond your years.'

A question nagged at he back of Luna's brain, and she could think of no better time to light her theory, 'Mama, for a clever wolf you know little of our lore. Even the basics.'

'It was your father who was in for all the old tales and teachings.'

'You don't have to pretend to me any more. I know who you are. Or rather, who you were.'

Ara's eyes were downcast and shifty, 'I don't know what you mean.'

'I met Vermeil.'

'Oh.'

Luna held her mother's paw and looked with smiling eyes on her until their gaze met and the corners of Ara's mouth twitched, fighting a smile, 'What gave it away?'

'Blood is thicker than water. Even though she is a spoiled, selfish woman, so many of her mannerisms are yours, and Mira's, and no doubt my own. I am not angry at you not telling me, Mama, I just wanted to hear it from you own mouth.'

'For you, my daughter, I will tell the tale even if it is merely to pass the time. Your first-born son can listen too for it is as much his heritage as it is yours.

'Once upon a time, in a previous existence, my name was Queen Redeva Riding Hood I, or simply Red. This was not a term of endearment, but a monument to my murdering ways. I was the bane of every wolfs' life due to one incident with a wolf I came to love like my own father. Here is my story and this is the way I want it to be told.'

'I will not tell the story of how I first met your Grandfather, I will only say this: The tale has been much exaggerated and not solely by me, although that is how the rumours started.

'I was not a young woman any more, I had a ten year old daughter and I found little pleasure in being the ruler of a Kingdom. When people say it is lonely at the top they have little idea what it is to be a Queen. The only respite I found from my life was going hunting in the Royal Forests. Not deer or boar did I seek with my hounds. No, I hunted the creature I most hated. Many wolves fell to the jaws of my swift hounds and I had many trophies of successful kills.

'It was upon one of these many excursions that I met a stranger in the woods. Upon riding into a clearing I noticed a bent old woman dressed in a ragged cloak picking berries and herbs. Needless to say I was not a patient woman, nor one who appreciated trespassers. In no uncertain terms I told her to remove herself immediately or face a good spell in the dungeons. It was illegal for commoners to kill any game in my forests.

'"Greetings, Your Majesty," said she, "I am but a poor old lady searching for berries and fruits with which to feed my family."

'There was an odd glint in her eyes that I had not noticed before she turned to look at me fully and it was then that I realised what she was, "Get off of my land, wolf, before I call my hounds."

'"You would be a fool to do so, Your Majesty, for I am the bearer of a gift and a choice."

'"I'm warning you."

'"Just hear me out. We of wolf blood have suffered greatly, yet we have suffered quietly and peacefully for far too long in the hope of something better, remorse and redemption. You have failed us and we still forgive. Here, your gift.'

'The wolf-woman took a glass ball the size of a small fist from underneath her cloak. It glowed with a light of its own, neither white nor blue or green. She passed it to me and I took it with much trepidation. It was warm and smooth and passed to my hand a pleasant tingling sensation. She asked me to look into it and what I saw shocked me. I saw wolves being burned alive, cubs ripped unborn from their mothers' wombs and others nailed to trees, alive, to hang there until they died. Their screams lived long in my ears after I had torn my gaze away from the sphere, sometimes I can still hear them.

'"Hatred is a terrible thing from which we cannot escape without your help," the old woman's hand rested upon mine with a pity and understanding that was painful to me, "We can forgive all if you will end this plague of death and destruction that has fallen upon us. If you end your persecution then your people will end theirs."

'I will not say that the prospect was not inviting to me, but I had become too set in my ways and had even begun to believe my own embellished story. I shook off her grip and threw the orb against a tree, shattering it into a thousand flying shards.

'I pursed a wolfbone whistle to my lips to call my hounds, but an imperious look in the woman's eyes stopped me, "Be not so quick to call the jaws of death to ye," Her voice had changed to the older language and her tone was menacing, "The treasure thou hast destroyed carried with it a malison. By thine own narrow-mindedness art thou condemned, thy curse to see how at first thou should have seen and since not by choice, by force must thee be shown. Thy bane shall hang over you for all years, and my you not find peace in the hell of thine own creation. Be gone, vermin!"

'I fell from my saddle consumed by pain. My horse, as confused as I, stood still for a moment too long I killed it and ate it. The woman laughed at me, but ran as quickly as I when the hounds bayed. My clothes were ripped from me as I charged blindly through the thorny undergrowth. Months I spent wandering and alone, not understanding, or perhaps denying, what had happened. I tried explaining to people that I met who I really was but was driven away from all human habitation. It wasn't until I looked at my reflection in a lake one dark day that I saw and finally comprehended what I was. Well, you know, but it stunned so much I almost gave up.

'To be honest I was useless as a wolf. Apart from that first kill, which was more luck than anything else, I could not feed myself but for that which I stole, and I wasn't even very good at that. In my first winter I starved and it was here, in the pit of my despair, that I found my salvation.

'Weeks had passed and I hadn't had anything to eat. My bones ridged my skin and I finally had no energy left. I collapsed in freshly fallen snow, unable to rise. Rabbits played around my useless body as I lay dying. I drifted in and out of sleep for days on end, but I always awoke no matter how much I wished to die.

'I awoke again and night had fallen. A voice spoke to me and I thought that I had finally died because his voice was so soft and concerned, and he didn't try to hurt me, "Are you still alive, my dear?"

'All I could do was blink my frozen eyes to let him know that I was listening, I could do nothing else, "Come on, then. I'll take you somewhere warm."

'That was your grandfather who found me, healed me and cared for me throughout that long winter, along with your father. I could not keep the truth from them. They listened and accepted me for who I was, not what I had been. It was only now that I understood the creature in particular I had persecuted, and through him all wolves. But especially one. With Polaris I found true happiness for the first time in all my life and we made a natural pair. Altair spent more time alone to allow us to discover each other completely.

'Come Spring I had recovered fully and it was time to move on. It was now that I realised how far I had travelled. From the eastern borders of my lands I had journeyed south, it must have been hundreds of miles, and even the stars were different. It was also now that I came to see how much happier I was now, and that I'd never want to go back to my old life.

'One time when I was unusually alone, Altair wanted to talk to me. "My dear," he said, he never used my name, "I greatly fear that my son had fallen in love with you." My blood froze, I thought he was going to ask me to leave, and I wouldn't have blamed him if he held some grudge against me and feared for his son, "If that is indeed so there needs to be some changes. Firstly, do you love him?" I replied that I did, with all my heart, "Good, good. I want no living in sin, and we can't have a marriage if my daughter-to-be doesn't even have a name. Do you want this? It would mean that you would be an irrevocable wolf." I said that nothing would make me happier.

'I'll never forget that night when Altair called me into his pack, his family, as his sons' mate. The stars were brighter than I'd ever seen them before. Altair's voice was clear as ice as he sang out the meanings and vows to the small pack. You were too young to remember when he did the same for you four and it's a shame he's not still around for your little ones. He gave me my name from a bright constellation of stars, the altar of the gods, in honour of the sacrifice I had made of my previous life.

'The next spring I gave birth to all of you.'

A primal scream interrupted the narrative, one that has been cried out since the dawn of time, 'Mama!' Luna shouted as her second cub came into the world, the second lupine grandchild of a former queen.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Dawn came in with great splendour, honouring the life that had come newly into the world. The white dragon slipped stealthily out from his humble quarters, now a maternal chamber, silent but for the delicate whimpers of mother and children at rest.

He shut the door with hardly a creak so as not to disturb his budding adoptive family and paced out across the dew bejewelled grass. He breathed deeply at the fresh summer morning air and reflected at all that had happened during the night, what had been said and discussed.

He leaned against his favourite tree, tilting back his head until his dagger-like horns rested flush with the trunk and his pale eyes stared up into the emerald canopy, 'What am I going to do, brother?'

As usual the tree did not answer. They very rarely did unless it was something worth saying and you knew how to listen. But its silent presence was comforting nonetheless and gave Arc the peace he needed to think things over. There had been many revelations for one night. Redeva Riding Hood had not died, she was now a wolf called Ara, Luna's mother, the mate of the son of the wolf she had ruthlessly persecuted and was living quite happily in woodlands a few miles outside of the Little Lamb Village. Luna was also the latest of the illustrious line of Shadows, wolves that were revered as descendants of the Lady of the Moon herself. His situation was beginning to look precarious as he heard of Luna's pact, and now he must decide where his loyalties lay strongest - to the friend of over twenty years and the ruler of the Fourth Kingdom or to a wolf he had only known for a year, but who now proved to be a descendant of the Gods and could either prove to be the Kingdom's downfall or its salvation.

What had disturbed the dragon most were Luna's words before she fell asleep, "If I fail in this, and I admit it's likely, I would rather walk upon the starlit pathway knowing I had done what I knew I had to and what was right rather than being forever in doubt." He wondered if her statement was quite as straightforward as it appeared to be.

He was so deep in thought he did not notice Beck, the head menagerie keeper, walk across the gardens towards him.

'Arc! Dragon!'

The great lizard shook himself out of his reverie of hours and disrupting a column of ants that had found his scaly skin just as easy as bark to travel upon, 'Beck! Man!'

Beck outwardly ignored the rebuke, but there was no love lost between the two, 'Have you seen the wolf?'

'Luna? Yes, quite regularly actually. She's been in your care for the past year, I'm surprised you haven't noticed her.'

'I don't have time for any of your stupid games, dragon. She hasn't been seen for over a day, it didn't return to the menagerie last night or this morning for feeding.'

'Oh dear, do you think she could have run away?' Contempt and sarcasm oozed from between Arc's white teeth.

'I know you're hiding her, dragon, and you won't get away with it for long. A wolf with a limp like hers couldn't hunt, you know that as well as both I and she does. You can play the fool all you like, but Her Majesty's going to get suspicious about your apparent lack of loyalty, then I'll have you. I've got half a mind to search your hut right now.'

The relationship between Arc and Beck was usually thinly veiled animosity, but this display of vindictiveness made Arc do something very unusual - he lost his temper.

As quick as lightning the dragon shot out a claw and grasped Beck around his throat and lifted him effortlessly off the ground to leave his feet dangling feebly in the air. For once his eyes were level with the dragon's but he wished with all his life that they weren't for they were angular and threatening, his breath hissing out between his bared teeth, 'You hear me, little man, and you listen well. You ever go near my place and I'll break your filthy neck like a twig. As for the wolf, you leave her to me. No harm'll come to her whilst I look after her. If the Queen wants her she'll come to me. You keep your poisonous tongue still or you'll find I have friends in high places too. Understand?'

Beck nodded weakly, his face turning an unhealthy shade of purple. Arc cast him aside as easily as if her were throwing down a ragdoll.

'Think on what I've said, gaoler, or you'll find you've made a mighty enemy.'

Beck watched breathlessly as Arc marched back to his residence with baleful eyes, 'Oh yes, powerful enemies indeed, dragon. More devoted to a common wolf than your mistress, eh? We'll see about that.'

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The day had not grown much older when Jasmine came down to the humble abode of the dragon. Most annoyed at having to resolve petty squabbles between the staff, she was not in the best of moods. Thumping loudly on the door, she did not wait for an answer before pushing it open.

Arc confronted her immediately, his look of outrage softening only slightly when he saw who it was, 'What do you need here, Your Highness.'

'I'm not here for my pleasure, that's for certain,' she look repelled by the state of the two-roomed hut, 'I don't like having to be arbitrator between my own workforce.'

'The vipers' forked tongue couldn't stay behind his teeth.'

'I expected better from you than this, threatening and assaulting a fellow member of staff. And Beck also brought some important facts to light. Is Luna here?'

'She is.'

'Why?'

'She is ill and needs peace and quiet away from the lamentations of others. She came to me for help, I could not turn her away. She is a friend and holds me in her trust.'

'Can I see her?'

'I would rather you didn't. As I said, she needs absolute peace. I will send her back when she is recovered, I promise.'

'Yesterday a stripped leg of venison was found in her cage. Not only had this been stolen or poached, but it disobeyed a direct order from my mother. There are strong suspicions that it was you.'

'I knew of no such order, but it was not me.'

'Arc, you cause much distress. Since that wolfs' coming here you have become unruly and disruptive. Unless this behaviour changes one of you will have to go.'

'Go?'

With a final withering look at the unopened door behind which Luna hid Jasmine left, leaving Arc in little doubt what would happen to Luna if it was indeed she who had to 'go', as it probably would be.

Opening the door to the second room, Arc peered in protectively at his adoptive family. Luna slept still, curled in a tight ball with one of her two cubs, the female, nestled amongst the tangled legs and bushy tail. Ara, however, was awake and had heard every word. Cradled in her arms was the dark male, Luath.

'I thought he was going to cry and give the game away,' she whispered, fearful of waking mother and daughter, 'But he didn't, he was as quiet as a mouse. Weren't you, Lu?' Intelligent baby eyes watched the dragon as he crept across the floor to sit next to Ara. Luath reached out a chubby, baby hand to Arc.

'Half a day old and already wanting to explore without fear when you should be sleeping like your Mum and sister. Your mother named you well,' Arc chuckled and he took hold of the little wolf and sat him on his lap.

'She did indeed. Oh, and speaking of mice, we have a visitor. He said that he's a friend of Luna's.' Ara pointed to a small furry ball curled above the hearth. The ball unfurled, stretched and groomed until he saw that it was indeed a mouse. A mouse with slate blue fur, an ivory belly and small, milky-white blind eyes - Souris.

'You'll pardon my intrusion, I'm sure, but I have travelled rather a long way to speak with you. Upon learning that my lupine companion was also in the vicinity I travelled doubly fast. I have something to discuss with you, sir, a scheme I believe you might be very interested in.'

As Souris' plan unfolded Arc began to see not only the brilliance of it, but the thorough research which the little rodent had unstintingly put into it.

It was not only corn that had ears, it seemed.

* * * * *

Perdita Bly - in relation to your question about what Luna looks like, it is almost all the time as I described her in the prologue. She is a slender woman with long, black hair streaked with silver, golden yellow eyes and a long tail the same colours as her hair. Only during a full moon does she tend to take on a full lupine shape, although this is not compulsory and often she does not do so. It is a purely voluntary transformation, except in such cases as the last one, when it is forced by the wolf goddess, the Lady of the Moon. As to the reference to paws, even when they are what we would describe as hands and feet, she often refers to them as paws being a wolf raised by wolves. Hope this answers your questions! Thanks for your review, it made thoroughly delightful reading.

Chopsticks of Doom - I think you will be able to tell that I love wolves too! I find them so much easier to write about than human characters. As to your question about how I first saw the tenth kingdom, I first saw is as a show, although I missed parts of it. I was so fascinated that I bought the video and have watched it countless times.