I'm begging everybody to STOP NAGGING ME ABOUT FLAMING! I flame, mmkay? That doesn't make me a sinner. Haven't you read the Seven Deadly Sins? I'm pretty sure "Internet Flaming" isn't one of them, and that is NOT sarcasm. If you're on Fanfiction, prepare to be flamed! And I am sorry I haven't updated. I've been...busy. With things.

A SONG OF THE STARS

Serena ducked under the rock jetty, narrowly avoiding a sharp bump to the head. Carved under the platform of stone was a tiny burbling stream, running busily down the crevices and spraying fresh foam onto the rock above, making it slippery. The ridges of the water constantly changed, morphing in silvery drops, a miniature brook pouring down the hill into a pooled delta below. She watched it for a while, feeling calmed by its lulling sound, forgetting momentarily the many thoughts that clouded her mind.

But suddenly, in a snap, they came back to her. The sound of paw pads scraping against stone...unfamiliar. The sound of many wolves, baying thick, viscous tunes to the radiant moon that was the prize of the star-sprinkled sky.

She had never seen so many wolves before, not at once. She had seen packs half that size, their fur colors all mostly blending to match their surroundings. An instinct sort of thing to nature, she thought. A survival tactic that develops over many sky-changings. But never a pack like that, twice the size of normal, two different coat hues, almost as if a twosome of groups had united themselves...

She thought it had been some gathering...like, a place where all wolves could relax. She thought they were all loners. There was no way that any pack could be that large, so she suspected they were a loner cluster.

How wrong she had been. The hostile glares of that pale brown one, with the tufty mane of fur around her scruff-Kate-must've been an alpha. And that goofy gray one next to her, with just as goofy of a name-Humphrey, with the spring blue eyes-he looked Omega-ish to her, with his soft clumsy paws and his tail swinging about under his legs...but what about the silvery white one, with the metallic violet eyes? The one who had introduced all her friends. Lilly. She had seemed meek; friendly...but she was pretty enough to have been born into an Alpha family. It was hard to say what kind of social class she fell into. The one with the chalky red pelt-Garth, was it? Strange name, all right. Too formal to describe someone as muscular and casual as him. He had struggled to ward her off, so maybe had had been recently promoted or demoted or something that might've intermixed two different personality sides of his.

It stirred something in her heart, to see all of them grouped together, a pack. Maybe it was longing. But she had been a loner for as long as she could remember. But what did her remembering matter? She couldn't even remember her parents. Or any sort of family. Brothers and sisters might be nice to have. Cubs. Littermates. But perhaps being a loner had strengthened her somehow, and given her the carefree personality she possessed now.

She hefted herself over the small stream, into the grassy meadow below. It was a blue-skied night with gentle purple clouds drifting sleepily across the horizon, so moisture had soaked the air and speckled the plants with dewdrops. Dappled with orbs, she tasted them, cold on her tongue. Honey. She sniffed further, and there, under a tree, was a fallen beehive, long abandoned. Her heart leapt at this, at such a rare finding-usually she'd have to go through a series of stinging for a delicacy like this. She split open the fuzzy brown covering and found a thick mass of honeycombs inside, shaped in an organized pattern. She stripped them off carefully and mopped the sticky-sweet treasures from each store, licking her lips after each bite.

After the quick snack she went on, trotting merrily home. Or at least it was a temporary home. It was a snug little cave, surrounded by a patch of sunbaked earth and little fronds of grass, sprouting pink flowers with petals so tiny she couldn't distinguish them. She'd decided to stay for a while. Maybe she could return to the moon-bathed rock that those wolves had been howling on. It would be sober without other songs to join in, but at least she would get to sing directly to the stars. That's what it seemed like tonight, standing forward on the rocks, just letting out everything she felt. That was the trick to howling. You just summoned your emotions, let 'em out, and there you go-a howling song.

Serena slipped into the cave, turning around so the tip of her snout was still glowing in the moon's bask, and shut her eyes, starting to think.

What is my life like?

Hmm. Where to start? There was so much to say.

Well, first of all, since she was a teeny cub, everyone had mistaken her for a boy. Was it the unkempt fur, or was it the drape of hair that always concealed one eye, or was it the shape of her snout, or just the build of her legs? Sometimes she wished she was male, so wolves didn't constantly pity her. She remembered random adult wolves from random packs saying to her when she had been traveling with them...

"Oh, how sad. A poor little cub traveling all by herself." It wasn't as if she couldn't fend for herself. It was very sexist, to scrutinize one for their gender. All of them, the ones who weren't female, weren't pitied at all. Why was it that boys always got pitied less? Were expected to be more independent? Why couldn't females be like that?

Secondly, she was troublesome. Jeez. It just always seemed like she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why was it she always had to be howling on marked territory on the day they decide to have a Moonlight Howl? Mischief was bad, but it was extremely fun. Really-what was life without it?

Third of all, her first memory was mud. Yes, mud. Specifically, mud sliding over her belly fur as she smeared slowly down a riverbank, her newborn tail-tip uncurling and being soaked with spray. Had she been left there, purposely, to die? Or had she been placed hastily at the top of the grass while her eyes and ears were still sealed, not intended to fall into the water? She was sure that day, if she hadn't been stuck in a hill of mud gathered at the bottom, she would've been tossed about in the water and had her new, short life taken away from her. She could stand bugs, water, dirt, anything...but not mud. Mud still scared her. And why mud, not water? She wondered still. The only answer she could provide for herself, looking back...was that it seemed like the mud was trying to push her into the water, edging her towards death. Water was part of nature. Mud was created-by dirt and water combined.

Fourth of all, she had only traveled dependently once in her life. With them. And they were far away now, and they'd certainly forgotten about her by now.

Fifth of all, she had no parents.

She was sure of it.

She didn't remember suckling at any belly, or tasting any sort of milk. She'd never tried milk. From the day she could see it'd been berry juice, water, and honey for sustenance, and nothing else. Hunting was an instinctual matter-she'd taught herself. She'd never been nurtured. Oh sure, she'd seen those little roly-poly cubs, cuddling closer to their mothers, yipping gleefully. Not so with Serena. She'd only watched. Sometimes she'd feel a pang of desire in her heart, but mostly she'd just smile and laugh when one cub accidentally mistook his mother's tail for a snake, or batted its brother or sister with one plump paw. It warmed her heart, and perhaps looking at the good side of things made her this way. Sulking was low-priority, and she tried to be optimistic. But trouble always found her, maybe because she'd never been disciplined.

But when she howled, all the sadness locked up in her heart spilled out. All her sorrows, her wishes. The song was enclosed with a mysterious tinge, and her sadness was concealed. So as it echoed across terrains, it didn't sound sad at all. The last wolves she'd ever told about this was them, and she had no idea where they were.

Nobody, nobody understood her.

R&R. Who is "them"? It will all be revealed...83...