I have to get away from here. I don't know why, but I just do. The stars... they whisper to me, tell me that I must leave. These past four years have gone by so fast.

Thirteen years is much too much time to have spent there, in that cave with my family. To have stolen-- it's a long time. I thought I'd crave my parents more, now that they're gone, but I find it hard to. They aren't missing much, anyway. Just the whispering.

-

"Don't father, you're not well. I beg of you, let me go in your stead. You can hardly walk." The clan wars had left him weak, scarred and cut all over. Ktri could smell the blood, knew she was helpless, for mingled with that soft odor was a scent of regret.
"I'll find mother, I know where she is."

-

Why did they leave me? I wasn't ready!

-
"Mom will come back, I know she will..." but the pup's words were little comfort for the dying wolf, his golden eyes dull and glossed over with approaching doom.
I won't cry. I can't. He needs me to be strong.

-

"She just went to the lake, she's bathing now. And the moon- oh the light, it's bouncing off of her pelt like rainbows, father."

-

I can't remember the color of her eyes. Were they brown? And warm, like the sun- Or- or were they blue, and untamable, like the moon? Their faces blur over now, some years past.

Sometimes I wonder if it wasn't all a lie- some horrid nightmare that I concocted to keep my fragile mind from fleeing. Maybe I was running from a memory.

-

The light was so bright it burned her eyes worse than even the noonday sun. Afire was the field, rippling with the wind and spreading like a hungry plague, swallowing up the land eagerly. Ktri stood at the mouth of the cave, ash and soot from the tip of her tail to her paws.

Mother is gone. The fires ate her.

-
"Is she... is she on the path home now?" asked the old wolf. He felt so cold, and his bones ached.
"Yes, father. I see her now, she's smiling..." but he was gone, the slightest twitch to his muzzle showing signs of contentment.
"Think of the moonbeams, my father, think of the sky- and fly to meet them."

-

They were always so clean. My fur is matted, and probably home to a few insectoids. I don't mind. It's company, of sorts, though all I really need are the stars. They've been silent for almost a year. I think I can stop running.

-

I smell hope on the breeze, crisp and cold like winter's morning. I have never been patient enough to wait for spring. But maybe...

-

Sobbing could be heard, quiet crying like that of someone who was trying hide their tears. Ktri ShadowMoon, as she had once been called, sat huddled against the breeze, slunk over the side of a cliff and staring down below, to the burned valley, to the ashen dreams and scarred remains of her kin. The fire had gotten them- every last one.

-

Maybe this spring will come early.

-

She was alone now, the sky an opposite of the spots of flame below, blue where they were red, cool where the flames were warm. She had been born tomorrow, twelve years ago. How easily that day had been changed from joyous to sorrowful- like the flicker of a candle on a windy evening.

-

Fenaii
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Cerukoo
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Telnavozi
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