Those dark blue eyes slowly turned around to her. His gray pelt, dappled with leopard spots and lighter gray patches, nearly blended perfectly into the embracing shadows of the night.

She shuddered as her gaze went from the dark footprints in the snow, to the distant fleeing fox who had come across the two wolves, and the back to her father's blue eyes.

"You failed," he said quietly, his voice a stark contrast to the powerful, invincible strength that his visage radiated.

She shivered in the cold. Her granite pelt stood out sharply against the night.

Her father turned away. You know what happens to those who fail. And then he left.

She didn't dare follow him. She knew.

She knew she was being abandoned, and she did nothing.

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Those dark blue eyes slowly turned around to her. Her granite pelt, a swirl of silver and white and brown and gray, was utterly regal under the dappled moonlight rising through the silhouettes of the trees.

She shuddered as her gaze went from the dark footprints in the snow, to the distant fleeing badger who was so far away chasing it would heed no success, and back to the mysterious female wolf's dark blue eyes.

"You failed?" she said quietly, mirroring the stillness of the night.

She shivered and nodded, silently eyeing the badger that she was had failed to kill. Then she turned back to the granite-colored wolf, expecting her to be abandoned and left to die again.

But then the female wolf did something unexpected. She leaned down, and, in a soft voice whispered, "I failed the test too, you know?"

She jolted. Her cider pelt stood out starkly against the spring grass. "How are you alive?"

The wolf sighed and turned away, but instead of leaving like the wolves in her former pack had, she said, "Follow me."

She stood up, cider fur glowing under the moonlight, and followed the granite wolf. She wasn't being left behind again.

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Nothing is eternal. That is what keeps us wandering.

There is always a longer way to go.

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Greetings! I'm an (aspiring) creative writer and artist. You can call me whatever you want (I like interesting nicknames) though the main one I go by is Quarters. My pronouns are she/they. I might accidentally call you by the wrong "bronouns" because I didn't know that some people care when they're called "bro" and by the time I found out I got used to it.... lol sorry.

I am relatively active in roleplaying, PM me if you're interested!

Side note: I like to name my wolves based on the generation (in the pack) they're born in. For example, a one-word name would indicate the 2nd generation (the first one is mostly dead), a three-to-four-word name would indicate the 3rd generation, a name that mentions a time of day would indicate the 4th generation, and a name that includes a color would indicate the 5th generation.

Also, just saying, I drew my own avatar.

Liked my little short story above? lol
It gets changed or updated every so often.