Something gently brushed against Lili's ear, and she flinched away from it drowsily. "Mmm, not yet. Five more minutes please." Then something sniffed loudly right next to her face. Vash was relentless this morning. "Okay, brother, I'm getting up now," she mumbled.

With a yawn, she gave her body a good stretch. She was sore all over and wasn't sure why. It was like she had done a lot of running recently. Her heart stopped. She didn't dare open her eyes. The memories were starting to come back. Whoever was making so much noise was not her brother, and she really didn't want to find out whom it really was. Slowly, she pulled her arms back in and curled into a ball. Her breathing was starting to speed up, and she didn't know what to do.

Something touched her shoulder. She rolled away from it and covered her eyes. It was all a bad dream. It had to be. Lili couldn't take it if this were real. She gathered all the bravery she could muster and very carefully peeked between her fingers. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. She was lying on her side staring at a wall. A solid stone wall. How had she gotten here? The sound of something scraping against stone echoed behind her, and Lili went stiff. She had almost forgotten she wasn't alone.

Oh so very slowly, she began to turn to face the person who had woken her. Or at least she hoped it was a person. Little by little, bit by bit, more of her surroundings became known to her. She was in some sort of cave, but it wasn't very deep. Sunlight still reached the back wall, although there was a rather large shadow cast over Lili. Her breaths came in nervous gasps. What was that shadow? What in the world could be so big? She hoped it was a bear. At least bears weren't the worst things in the forest.

It wasn't a bear. A large brown head suddenly appeared in her field of vision. It had a long snout and pointed ears. Definitely not a bear. Lili froze in fear as the beast seemed to smile at her. Yes, smiled. It was so similar to a human smile that Lili was caught off guard.

"You're awake!" the beast said.

"I-it talks..." Lili's eyes grew wide in horror. "I-i-it's talking...I-I must still b-be dreaming. This isn't real. It can't be..."

The beast, which looked an awful lot like a wolf, didn't seem to hear a word she had said. Maybe it didn't understand her. That didn't seem likely since it was talking. "Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?"

All the color drained from Lili's face. In her terror, all she had heard was 'hungry' and 'eat'. "P-please don't eat me, Mr. Wolf! I-I'm not t-tasty at all! I p-promise!"

The wolf cocked his head in confusion. "What?"

"I don't taste good! I'm horrible for eating! I promise I'd give you indigestion! I...I...I...!" Lili couldn't think of anything else to say. She was reduced to hiccupping uncontrollably as tears began to run down her face.

"Oh no! Don't cry! Please don't cry!" The brown wolf paced back and forth nervously.

"What's going on in here?" Another large brown wolf joined the first, but this one had a hint of red in its fur. "What did you do now, idiot?"

"Nothing! I swear, Lovi! She woke up and then started crying!"

"You probably scared her, dummy! What's she supposed to think if a big wolf is staring her in the face when she wakes up?"

"But I'm not that big..."

"That's not the point, moron." The reddish brown wolf took a few steps closer to Lili, and she cowered away. "Hey, you, girl. Quit crying. We're not that scary. See?"

Lili watched petrified as the wolf shrank in size. It shuddered once before becoming a handsome young man with brooding eyes. His hair was the same shade as his fur had been, and a long curl poked out from the left side of his head. He wore no shoes, but did have brown knee length trousers and a white shirt. It would have been normal, if he hadn't been a horse sized wolf a few moments ago.

"Look. See? Not that scary," he said.

"It's just a bad dream," Lili murmured under her breath. She had her eyes closed and was rocking back and forth, but the occasional tear still slipped out of her eyes. "It'll all be okay...if...if I open my eyes. Everything will be fine i-if I just open my eyes." She opened her tearful green eyes. "T-they're still there."

"It didn't work, Lovi," the first wolf said.

"I got that!"

"What's going on in here? We heard shouting." A pretty wolf with light brown fur came running toward the three with a white wolf on its heels. A third wolf with fur that curled this way and that followed not far behind.

Lili couldn't take much more. She had woken up in some mysterious cave surrounded by large wolves that could talk and turn into humans. She had no memory as to how she had gotten there, and no obvious means of escape. She didn't know what to do, so she did nothing. A state of complete motionlessness settled over her like a blanket. Being catatonic was better than letting her fear tear her apart. Maybe if she stopped, then time would stop, and everything would stop, and she wouldn't be in this mess anymore.

"Guys, she stopped moving," the curly furred wolf said.

"Crap! You guys scared her even more!" the wolf boy snapped.

"Us? She shouldn't be here in the first place!" the light brown wolf retorted. The venom in its voice was unmistakable.

"Please be okay." The first brown wolf gently nudged Lili with its nose.

"What are you all doing in here?"

The deep voice echoed around the cave, and all the talking stopped at once. A wolf with fur the color of honey pushed its way through the others toward Lili. She met its blue eyes with a blank stare. Even though it was the largest wolf of the group, she was beyond feeling scared. She was beyond feeling much at all.

"Does anyone care to explain?" the large wolf asked.

"She, um...woke up, and then got really scared. So Lovi and I tried to make her feel better, but it didn't work, and then everyone else came and made it worse, and then she stopped moving at all and we all got scared, but then you showed up so-"

"Yes, I think I understand," the gold wolf said before the smaller brown one could continue rambling. "May I have some time alone with her please? Feliciano is probably right in saying you are all scaring her."

The others turned to leave without complaint. A small portion of the crushing weight on Lili's chest lifted. She was still terrified, but not as much as before. Something about this one wolf seemed familiar to her. She caught the scent of something she had smelled before. Pine and musk. With the smell came flashes of memory. Running through the forest. A warm breath on her neck. Something growling behind her. Blood dripping from open jaws. A muffled squeak caught in her throat.

The golden wolf sat on its haunches and lowered its head to her level. "What is your name?"

She couldn't speak.

"Why were you out alone last night?"

The words wouldn't come out.

"Are you scared of me?"

"No."

What had possessed her to say that? Of course she was scared. But something was not right. Lili found her tense muscles relaxing as she stared into the wolf's eyes. They were the same color as the sky on a summer afternoon with the promise of storms later in the evening.

"Will you tell me your name?"

It wasn't a demand. She was being asked for her name. Very politely too. "Lili Zwingli," she whispered.

"Can you tell me what you were doing last night?"

"I was..." What had she been doing? She looked around for her basket.

"Is this what you're looking for?" The wolf curled its tail toward her with the basket hung on it.

"My basket!" Lili reached for it urgently. "Oh no." Dried, withered flowers lay in the basket as if they had been there for days instead of overnight. She tried to pick one up, but it crumbled as soon as she touched it. "The moonlilies..."

"Moonlilies?"

"They only bloom when the moon is full," she explained. "I found some in the forest but...these aren't good anymore."

"What were you going to do with them?"

"I wanted to plant some in my garden so my brother could see. I knew he would never go with me to the field so..." The thought of her brother brought Lili back to reality. He was probably worried sick. "M-may I go home now?"

If the wolf had eyebrows, Lili imagined they would have furrowed. Its eyes darkened as it looked away. "I'm afraid we can't let you leave."

"Why? What have I done?"

"It's nothing you've done." If Lili didn't know better, she would think the wolf was trying to reassure her. "You know too much, seen too much. We can't have you telling the humans how to find us."

"I won't tell anyone. I promise I won't." Even as Lili said the words, she knew they were a lie. Vash wouldn't stop until he extracted the truth from her. "May I...ask you a question?"

"Yes."

"What are you?"

The wolf stood and shook its fur. "Don't be scared." It shrunk the same way the other wolf had until a very tall man, with slicked back blonde hair just a few shades lighter than the wolf's fur had been, stood before Lili. He was built very thickly, and it showed. His dark shirt was pulled tight across his broad shoulders, which accentuated the muscles in his back. He wore long pants, and like the other, had no shoes. A silver and black cross-shaped pendant hung from a chain around his neck. "We're what you call werewolves."

"Oh."

That was all Lili could say. She was having a tough time swallowing all of this, but it wasn't so bad now that she had seen it twice. Without thinking, she reached out and touched the man's hand. It was warm and felt just like a hand should. He looked just like a normal person.

"Oh!"

The man seemed just as surprised as she was. His eyes, which were the same blue eyes as the wolf's, widened. But he understood what she was doing and offered her his hand, palm side up. Hesitantly, Lili slipped her much smaller hand onto his, and he pulled her to her feet. She was pleasantly surprised to find that she liked the way her hand felt in his. It was almost comforting. She held onto him a little longer than was necessary, but he didn't seem to mind.

"Would you like to meet the others?" he asked in the same rumbling voice as in his wolf form.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Lili knew she shouldn't trust him. He was the one who had cornered her at the gate. He was the one with blood soaked jaws that had chased her through the forest. He was dangerous, but she couldn't find it in her to care. The very faint upward curve of his lips made her want to trust him.

"Yes, I would," she said.

He didn't say anything back, but the corners of his lips curved up a little bit more. She imagined he would look more charming with an actual smile on his face, but something told her that it didn't happen often. Maybe she would make it her goal to get him to smile more since she wouldn't be going anywhere soon. Something about his meticulous hairstyle told her that he had a rather serious personality.

"May I ask what your name is?" she asked as they began to walk toward the mouth of the cave.

"Ludwig," he said simply. That was it. No surname. Just Ludwig.

"Ludwig," Lili repeated softly to herself. She liked the way it sounded. Ludwig. It was like a promise. Something to hold in her heart. Maybe her situation wasn't as bad as she thought. A small bud of hope began to blossom in her chest as she stepped out into the sunlight.