To be part of the pack was all Gail ever wanted. It was all she knew—a small group of wolves living in a den isolating themselves from the rest of society. Not allowed to leave their territory, she had only heard of other Ferians from word of mouth circulating the cave. Cheetahs sprinting as fast as lightning whether as bipeds or on all fours, bats soaring in the skies with arcane bombs in hand, foxes leading a tribe, while a wolf ran an entire kingdom. There were so many kinds of Ferians Gail would love to encounter, and not only the intelligent mammalian bipeds like herself, but the lizards and birds and insects that were teeming hundreds of leagues away.

Of course, those were all stories that the Omega would tell young cubs like herself. Gail could only fantasize about what those civilizations look like. But they were not the kind of living she would want to live. Like the pack, she preferred the wild side. They didn’t have bricked buildings, nor anyone else to plant, catch, and cook food for them. They only lived in their den in the snow-blanketed forest, catching their own prey and following the pack system.

Gail knew she wanted to feel as free as the Alphas, or even the Betas or Deltas. They got to leave the cave whenever they pleased, hunt whatever they wanted to eat, and practically do anything. Gail’s heart craved for that—to be able to run around the woods and chase squirrels and mark her territory for the pack. That was not the life that she was living.

A slash stinging across her side reminded her of her reality. Crimson coated her gray fur, and blood dripped from the opposing Ferian wolf’s claws. No—they were not a Ferian, but a feral. Unlike Ferians, ferals had dung for brains. They stood on all four at all times, and they could only utter incomprehensible snarling and barks instead of words and common sense. Though Gail and the opposing feral looked similar, their skin and fur were the most that you could match. The feral was nothing more than prey for the pack.

The large feral snarled, but Gail was fiercer. Even before she had undergone her Cubbing ritual, for such a young age she was strong. At least, that’s what she wanted to believe.

She crouched low, baring her fangs. The two wolves then pounced at each other—Gail's teeth sank into the wolf's neck, while claws dug into her back. The pain caused her jaw to clench harder, drawing more blood and a whine from the gray feral wolf. She winced her eyes as the feral started scraping at her back. With a step forward, she wrestled the feral onto its back with her chomp still locked. The taste of its blood urged her to go on. She thrashed her head from side to side, instinctively growling. Eventually, the claws against her back stopped, and the feral wolf drew its last whine.

Gail waited a few seconds before cautiously releasing her jaw's grip from the wolf's neck. She wiped the blood off her maw with an arm as her astonished eyes behold her prey. The corners of her maw lifted, and moments later she was jumping for joy. "My first solo prey!" she howled as loud as she could. She couldn’t help releasing her glee, but the pang of pain across her back and side prevented her from celebrating any further.

The sound of nearby rustling also cut her victory short. Her senses remained heightened, yet she couldn’t sniff out the potential threat with her prey's blood lingering in her nostrils. She would take up an intimidating stance and snarl, but her hackles were rising in fear. She hadn't even had the chance to rest, and now another beast was about to strike.

Gail took a step back. Now she could faintly detect the scent of another wolf. Regardless, she drew her claws once more. Yet when the beast pounced from behind the trees, she fell onto her back with her arms and legs retreating. Her face twisted, and with her winced eyes, she couldn't see what exactly had attacked her. A wimpy whine left her in anticipation of a bite, but instead her assailant spoke in a disappointing tone.

“Not even trying to fight back. Hmph.”

Upon slowly opening her eyes in confusion, Gail could see a wolf like herself wearing the upper half of a feral wolf’s skull on her own head. It was one of the Alphas of her pack. She had dark fur like Gail, with stripes of white fur along her lower legs and forearms. Spots of brown were scattered sparingly all over her as well, although they weren't obvious at first as they blended with her ashy fur.

The look of disappointment in the older wolf's yellow eyes burned fiercely as she got off Gail, and especially so when she looked at the dead wolf. “What's this?”

“I wanted to see if I could take on a feral by myself.” Gail painfully sat up, wincing at the many stings surging through her body. “I got too excited about the upcoming ritual, so I went ahead and hunted one myself.” Her stomach growled, betraying her hunger. “And . . . also because of that.” A small proud smile managed to find its place on Gail's face still. Although, the sharp growl from the other wiped it off.

“That's not until next week,” the older wolf reprimanded. “You are not supposed to stray from the pack at this young of an age, especially before your Cubbing ritual.” She looked disgusted as she looked down the wolf carcass. “You aren’t supposed to hunt when unnecessary. You were fed earlier, were you not? And don’t you give the excuse of ‘Oh, all I got was a small rabbit leg.’”

“Yes, I was.” Gail's ears drooped. "I'm sorry, mo-"

“Terra!” the older wolf snapped, delivering a slap across Gail’s snout.

The young wolf whimpered, holding her snout and looking at the other with glossy eyes. It burned, and she could see the bit of dark smoke emitting from the older wolf’s hand. No scorch mark was left behind, but the sting still evoked tears to roll down her cheek. “S-sorry, Terra . . .”

The fury did not fade in Terra's eyes. She threatened to deliver another slap, causing Gail to reel back with another whine, but she lowered her hand. "Learn your place in the pack. You have no rank still, so don’t act like you can do anything as you please just because us Alphas are your parents.” She looked back at the feral carcass, her disappointment greater than ever.

“Yes, Terra. . . .” Gail’s ears slouched further, her tail limp.

What was supposed to be a special moment turned spoil because of Gail's eagerness. As a rankles cub, she couldn't do anything without anyone supervising her in their own ways. On her somber walk back to their cave, she couldn't help feeling that it wasn't just Terra's eyes that lay heavily on her.

While Terra’s fur color was naturally beautiful, streaks of white had been deliberately stained across her body. Gail did not understand, but she could tell that it was symbolic as only the Alphas and Zetas shared similar markings that complemented their natural fur.

The pack was at its less active times even when they had arrived. It was the reason Gail had decided to roam off on her own in the first place. Now she knew that even with eyes closed, people like Terra could still sense her straying off. Even up to now, most of her packmates were still fast asleep, but the ones who weren't looked surprised at their arrival.

“Where’d she gone off to?” asked Gruff, one of the Deltas of the pack.

“She went to chase off some fox or something,” Terra replied. “Got into a fight with a feral wolf and barely lived when I showed up.”

Gruff examined Gail for a moment. He then pointed at his own snout and asked, “And this is . . . ?”

Terra shrugged. "I let her eat the feral. The poor girl didn't get to eat much during the last hunt, and I didn’t feel like eating it myself."

“Fair enough,” said Gruff. “We gotta prepare her for next week, after all. It would be strange for the Alpha’s cub to be killed in the process.”

It was no surprise that everyone in the pack knew of Gail’s Cubbing ritual. Considering it was a small pack of merely 25 wolves, everyone would know every single detail about everyone, if they bothered to know about them at all. That includes every one of their mistakes. Aside from the massive screw up she’d committed, others had done way more than her. That made her feel a bit better.

As they entered further into the cave, Gail whispered, “Would you actually let me eat a feral in that situation, if you killed it and weren’t hungry?”

Terra’s eyes darted to her, furrowing her brow a little. “Think about it: do you deserve to reap the rewards of other’s success that you had no contribution to?”

“Um . . . no?”

“Then you shouldn’t get a single piece of morsel from my kill,” Terra huffed. “Go to the Zetas for your wounds. Be grateful that it was me who found you.” Her hackles were still raised as she stomped off. Gail’s ears flattened. Could she actually have died if not for Terra finding her?

As she turned around to pad toward the Zetas’ den, she was met with beaming yellow eyes under a skull headwear, making her jump back with a yelp.

“Hi!” said the brown wolf wearing the skull mask. She was lean and shorter than Gail, her forearms and feet white like her underbelly. More importantly, she was around Gail's age and her closest friend. “I’ve been wondering where you were!”

Gail rubbed the back of her neck, cooly flattening her hackles. “Were you worried about me, Iota?”

“Sierra,” the other wolf said, her eyelids lowering in annoyance. “You know I hate it when you call me by my rank.”

“Of course, sorry about that. Well, I just took a stroll out of the cave. I started to feel a little cramped in here, so I thought ‘why not?’ Of course, Terra had to catch me out in the wild.”

“Dang. She really does have an incredible nose, huh? Hey, what's that—?”

“Ouch!” Gail howled, swatting Sierra’s bandaged hand away at having her lacerations be poked. Sierra whined, her cheery smile dropping which she covered with both hands.

“Sorry, I should've assumed it would hurt . . .”

“It's fine,” Gail said, though sounding a bit agitated. “It hurt a lot more earlier. Nothing that the Zetas can't patch up.”

"They have names, you know," Sierra corrected. "And so does everyone else. It's kinda pointless having a name if you're just gonna be referred to by your rank, don't you think?"

"I know, I know." Gail waved her hands. "Potts and Juniper are nice people, even if they are pretty creepy. I just keep being scolded to call everyone by their ranks before my Cubbing. Terra keeps yapping that it'll help me remember everyone's rank. Though it's kinda hypocritical of Terra to yell at me for that. She and Frost are the only exceptions, and even they refer to wolves by their names most of the time."

"Probably because the Alphas are the most obvious," Sierra said. "But she doesn't let you call her mommy? Or Frost daddy?"

"That's . . . the only naming she won't allow. I'm not sure what Frost thinks of that, but I'm afraid he'll bite my tongue off if I did call him daddy." Gail frowned. That fact didn't usually bother her. Growing up she'd gotten used to calling her parents as her leaders, but the occasional slip up would still pop up now and then—and it wouldn't come without barking and threats of being maimed by them.

The Zetas’ den was farther down the tunnel. They had to pass by the dens of the high-ranking wolves, which were nearer to the entrance and prey stockpile.

The Alphas’ den was first. They were practically the law of the pack. Whatever they ordered, everyone was to follow subserviently. Despite that, their entrance wasn’t too imposing. It was simply marked by balls of blue flame kindling eternally on either side of the entrance; they glimmered like sapphires embedded in the wall. They were conjured up Frost, as the Alphas had done with the rest of the flames in the walls that lit up the tunnel. In addition to them was a pair of stalagmites jutting out of the ground. Fitting, Gail thought, for a pack named the Twinned Fangs that the leaders’ entrance was guarded by large stone fangs.

Several meters away from the Alphas’ den on the same side of the wall was the Beta’s den. The entrance was marked similarly to the Alphas, but instead of blue flames, they were orange, shining like amber in the wall, and there were no stalagmites to signify fangs. Same as the Alphas’ flames, these were conjured up by them; these ones being Terra’s.

There was only one Beta in the pack, and it had to be the wolf Gail despised the most. He was the second in command to the Alphas, issuing basic orders the Alphas can’t be bothered to bark themselves.

The next dens were the Gammas’ and Deltas’, the warriors and scouts of the pack respectively. Their entrances were on opposite sides of the tunnel. The Gammas’ entrance had claw markings along the den’s mouth and stalagmites and stalactites to impose a threat. Meanwhile, the Deltas’ entrance looked as peaceful as the Alphas’ entrance, minus the beautiful flames that glistened like amber.

They couldn’t reach the other dens before reaching the Zetas’ den. The others took shelter deeper in the mountain, farthest from the entrance. Gail thought it must’ve been exhausting to walk all the way to the stockpile during days when they weren’t allowed to hunt their own food.

The Zetas’ entrance was marked by paintings along the stone, as well as a feral wolf skull hung above the entrance. It was bigger than any wolf Gail could imagine; she wondered when she would be able to meet such a beast.

When they entered the den, they were greeted by the Zeta pair, Potts and Juniper. They spoke in unison, sending shivers up the feeble spines of the young wolves. “Greetings, Gail and Sierra. We scented your blood upon your arrival, and we have already prepared treatment for your wounds.”

If that was not creepy enough, they spoke dully and stood shoulder-to-shoulder, matching their austere manner and bone-furnished den. Bones of different animals were strung up the wall, and an effigy of whatever-bloodied-carcass was preserved in the corner near the Zetas’ stone table.

Potts and Junipers were siblings, and their black and white markings not only complemented their dark brown and silver fur, but also each other’s. They wore feral wolf skulls much like everyone else, but theirs had branched horns seemingly growing on the cranium. They fascinated Gail, if not for the fact that they would be the kinds of wolves to appear in her nightmares, casting hexes and bewitches on her.

Gail lay on her belly on one of the elevated slabs that acted as a bed. The layer of holly leaves scratched against her belly as she shifted a bit. The Zetas then approached her with poultice and a handful of snow, their steps in perfect synchrony—how they were able to store snow in here without it melting was one of the mysteries Gail could never answer.

The cool snow was applied over the scratches. Gail sucked her teeth as a sharp pang stabbed her to the core, the cold reaching her bones. Sierra winced her eyes along with Gail. “Feeling fine there, Gail?” she asked.

Gail turned her head, barely seeing Sierra. “It’s nothing. Absolutely not— hing!”

“Relax, Gail,” the Zeta pair said. “The pain will not last much longer. We’re applying the poultice now.”

That was one of the biggest lies Gail has ever heard, as the pain persisted way after Potts and Juniper had finished patching all her wounds. She sat on the bed, looking at the Zetas with gratitude. She was then given a handful of snow by Juniper.

“For your mouth,” she said. “You look like a savage with blood on your mouth.”

“Thank you.” Gail would then press the snow against her maw, letting it slowly melt from her heat.

The Zetas bowed their heads. “It is our pleasure, daughter of Frost and Terra. You are always free to visit our den.” They cast a glance at Sierra. “The same applies to you, sole Iota. Your blisters were not a nuisance to us, if that thought still lingers in you. We do not withhold our service from anyone.”

“Um, thank you. . . .” Sierra looked uneasily at her hands wrapped in plant fibers. “A-anyway, we should be heading off. We have matters to attend to.”

Gail’s ear twitched. They did? She wasn’t even aware of Sierra’s business this sunhigh, the Zetas weren’t stopping them?

“Care for yourselves, Gail and Sierra. Trust that you won’t fall into harm. Ventay shall protect you.”

Ventay. That’s a name Gail only heard from them both. She wasn’t even sure if it was the name of someone. For all she knew, it could’ve been what they called the effigy skulking in the corner of the den. Receiving another shudder after taking a gander at the effigy, Gail followed Sierra out of the den.

“Were you lying about having to do something?” she asked. “Because I haven’t seen you do much as an Iota. Granted that it’s only been a few weeks, but I’m curious if you have been secretly plotting schemes under everyone’s noses.”

“Oh, I have.” Sierra gave her a sly look, complemented by a grin. “I have something special that I want to show you. Come on, so we can make the most of daylight!”

Gail watched Sierra’s tail wag enthusiastically, the ribbon tied near the base of her tail flapping. Her stomach began fluttering with anticipation. The worries of disappointing Terra for leaving the cave to hunt had all but dissipated along with the snow on her back. Much like the poultice, Sierra’s presence warmed Gail. She wished that she could spend all her days with her in this cave.