January 18

270 HE

This morning I awoke to the sound of high-pitched howling outside my door. I sighed, got out of bed, pulled on my outfit, and fixed my hair into the usual braid with the spike-trap woven in to give people a nasty surprise if the decide to grab me by the hair.

This took about ten minutes, and there was consistent scratching on my door the entire time, coupled with occasional barks or whines. I growled and was just crossing the room to open the door when another howl sounded, this time from downstairs, where the Scanrans' rooms were. I heard a blast and several loud Scanran curses, and guessed that Kora had woken up.

Aniki had warned me the night before not to surprise Kora, especially in the morning. Kora was a very powerful mage, and particularly skilled with fire spells.

I just hoped she hadn't hit my door. Doors were expensive and I didn't want to steal a new one. Do you have any idea how hard it is to steal a door whilst trying to look inconspicuous? It's like trying to stay hidden but having a huge arrow that says. "Lookit! I'm over here!" You can't just nick it off a person like you can a purse!

Coming out of my thought, I pulled open my door to reveal a black wolf pup sitting in my hallway wagging its tail. The second I stepped out of my room, it stood up, wobbled over to me and began to butt its head against my leg, seeking affection. I took this opportunity to better examine it. It was large, for all it was obviously a young pup. It was about three feet long, plus an extra foot-and-a-half if you added its tail, and was about two-and-a-half feet at the shoulder. Its teeth were white as snow and as sharp as knives.

Those were not its strangest features, however. As I crouched down to scratch the wolf's ears, I noticed its eyes and reeled back in shock. They were a bright shade of gold. When I reeled back, the pup's eyes changed to a dull shade of gray, looking confused. Then its eyes shifted to a green-gray color and the wolf was the perfect picture of remorse.

I recovered from my surprise and reached over to scratch its ears again. Its gaze slowly returned to gold and it let out a sound that could only be described as a blissful sigh. It rolled over onto its back, asking me to scratch its belly, and I quickly checked its gender. The pup was a male.

As I petted the wolf, I tried to think of a name for him. I was debating several different names when I noticed just noticed just how pitch black the pup's coat was. I decided on Nightfall, or just Night for short.

There was another howl, another blast, and more swearing from downstairs, and I decided I'd better go see what it was. Nightfall followed at my heels.

A few minutes later, Kora, Aniki, Cooper, Rosto and I were all seated on the grass behind my house, eating breakfast while my pup and the one who had shown up at Rosto's door tumbled around, a bundle of black and white fur. The two were nothing alike. Nightfall was of the deepest, darkest black whilst Rosto's pup was whiter than Rosto's hair. I'm just kidding about Rosto's hair, but the pup really is white.

Also, Night's a male and the other pup is a female. They were "as different as the day from the night," as Kora put it. Rosto agreed, and so his pup became Daybreak, or just Day. So now there is Night and Day.

The only things the two wolves had in common was their size and their eyes, always changing color with their mood. They were like me in that way, except their eyes changed to different colors than mine did, thankfully. I didn't want people to know how I was feeling just by comparing my eyes to the wolves'.

I asked Rosto how he came to be known as "The Piper," and Aniki ordered him to play for us.

He really is very good and he soon had all of us dancing to tune of his flute.

It wasn't until the wolves began to dance as well that we stopped and looked at Rosto in awe. He shrugged. This hadn't happened to him before.

The wolves looked up innocently and suddenly I heard a voice and barking. "More music, more music!" the voice practically begged, "Nightfall like dancing!"

"Daybreak like too!" chimed in another, more feminine voice.

"Was that-"

"Did they-"

All of us were at loss for words. Star Strike flew out of the trees and landed on my shoulder. You are very lucky, Silvereyes, she said, the Pack doesn't get sent down to just anyone.

So Nightfall and Daybreak are constellations too. Great.

A/N- What do you think of "the Pack"? Like? Hate? Review and tell me! Critique always welcome, compliments even more welcome, believe it or not!

Oh, here's a fun little game; one word to describe Rosto the Piper. When I get… let's say 20 reviews, I will announce a winner! Doesn't that sound fun?