All werewolf packs have a few common characteristics, one of which is that they are a diarchic society. While the men rule over where the pack goes, who and when they fight as well as most foreign relations with absolute authority the women have the same level of authority in their domain. The specifics of each gender's role are ultimately up to the strongest member of the pack and that person’s mate, or the two alphas. Together they have absolute authority over their pack.

Analais Bloodclaw

Just past dusk on the night of the new moon like all such nights I am stalking a deer in the woodlands the pack calls home. I had just lost my query's trail and finished a prayer to the Black Wolf father of Lycanthropes as I always do when I am in need, when I catch the scent of a member of the pack that I don’t recognize.

It smells like the pack but this female's scent is not one I know. I abandon the deer for another night, there is food enough for tomorrow and this is more important. I stealthy and slowly move downwind through the oak trees on this warm summer night trying to figure out who it is that I am smelling.

I follow my nose to the woods directly behind our shrine and once the object of my diversion is found I can’t but stare confused for several minutes. A young boy lies in the grass at the base of one of the larger trees, he cannot be the source of the scent yet he is. It is times like this I yearn for my mother’s skill in magic so I can send word.

I sling my bow over my shoulder as I creep closer making sure not to step on any of the fallen sticks that scatter the forest floor until I am right next to the boy. I try to rouse him, even if he is not the source of the scent that covers him he should know who she is.

He does not wake even as I go through his nice yet tattered clothing far to large for his young albeit tall body. I frown as he has no tools, weapons or anything else to give me a clue who he is. I step back for a moment, what should I do?

An unarmed boy cannot be a threat so I decide to let the alphas handle it. I pick the boy up and while he feels heavier than I thought he would it is no real issue.

My walk back is a slow and uneventful one, the female whose scent this boy caries is strong and the few animals that are a danger to me on a moonless night leave us be. Whoever she is, she smells more powerful than our current alpha, so why isn’t she known to the pack?

I enter our small village of just over a dozen huts built out of wood and stone and I am glad most have already gone to sleep. The alpha's hut is in the center of the village and takes me a few more minutes to reach their door. I set the boy down next to the blood oak tree in view from their window before clapping my hands to alert and call for them.

Ragnor will be grumpy but his mate is the more sensible one and this is her decision to make. The boy is a child and unless he picks a fight with Ragnor he has no say in this matter.

“Analais you better have a good reason for this” Ragnor bellows as he exits through the cloth that covers the door of his hut. He has leather trousers on though little else can be seen in the current lighting aside from his over seven-foot height.

As much as I know this is going to be something I later regret I don’t answer and just point to the still sleeping boy.

“And what’s so wrong with my tree that you’re waking me up over it!”

“No yelling at night!” his mate Kylana shouts from within the hut as she exits in her leather robes, right into Ragnor's ears as punishment for breaking the domestic rules.

She then turns to me and smiles, “Alanias, did you need anything.”

“Yes, while hunting I found a young boy. He looks human but his smell is odd and he is covered in the scent of a member of the pack I do not recognize” I answer.

“Is that him under the tree?”

I nod and she walks over to him. After a few short moment’s she stands back up and turns to talk to both Ragnor and me.

“I don’t know the boy or the scent that covers him. . .”

“Then get rid of him” Ragnor interrupts only for Kylana to ignore his protest and continue.

“. . . but he is covered by the scent of a greater wolf than mine and she is of this pack.”

“What is your decision for what to do with him then?” I ask as Ragnor harrumphs before walking back into his hut.

“There are only two explanations I can think of two reasons for someone to be this covered in someone else’s scent and one of those isn’t possible by the look of him, so he is to be considered an adopted member of the pack.

Take him to you hut for the night and I will discuss with the other females where he can stay in the morning.”

I nod before picking the boy up once more and going to my own hut near the edge of the village. My mate Alana is already asleep when I pass through the threshold. Since she lies in the only bed of our house while great with one of my pups I set the boy down on the blanket she laid out for me.

I’m going to get an ear full in the morning but I will happily take it. I pull out some of yesterday’s hunt that I kept hidden from her in case tonight went poorly and set it on the small wooden table so she will have food in the morning.

Having saved at least ten minutes from the anger of a pregnant female, I can’t think of anything else I can do get out of all of it so I lean up against the eastern wall of our hut before drifting off to sleep myself.

???

I open my eyes as the light of the sun shines right on me and grumble for an instant before I release this is not where I fell asleep. This isn’t the woods, I’m in a small wooden building with a dirt floor.

Is it safe here? Do they know where I am? Can I trust whoever moved me to this location? These questions run through my head even though I can’t remember who ‘they' are supposed to be.

I glance around the small room of this two-room building. A tall woman with brown hair is cooking something over the small fire that she must have recently kindled. Her loose leather clothing and bulging belly let me know she is in the late stages of pregnancy so I can probably run out of here if anything comes up.

Unless she is a mage, then this could be dangerous. Can I trust her? There are a few knives on the table but I’m not sure how sharp they are, I can see rust on them from here.

“Child, my mate Analias is out hunting. He found you in the woods last night and brought you here. Do you know my language?”

I don’t answer even though I understand her without issue. This isn’t English nor either of the Latin-based tongues I know so why do I understand it? Why does it make me feel slightly safer? Why was I in the woods to begin with?

I can’t come up with an answer for any of these questions. Amnesia? Maybe, I’ll have to assume that someone has messed with my mind. Everything looks bigger than I assume is normal too so that might not be the only thing. I should be worried over this but I’m not. This is not something I can do anything about anyways though.

“Child, my mate Analias is out hunting. He found you in the woods last night and brought you here. Do you know my language?”

I feel slightly upset over this language but I know it serves as a common tongue, again not English but there are some similarities to Latin based languages. I’ll have to answer to it to avoid suspicion. I should try to get information out of here too.

I nod, she called me a child so I should probably act as one. If they trust me I might not get betrayed.

“Where am I?” I ask in the first language she spoke in since I prefer it.

“You’re in the village of pack Bloodclaw. My mate found you in the woods last night. The alpha thought you had been brought by a member of the pack and you just proved her right. Do you remember who brought you to these woods?”

Prove? I didn’t prove anything, unless this language is a secret one.

“No, I don’t remember much of anything.”

She frowns at that and I place at the door. I might be able to get out of here but what comes after this room? She said village, I won’t be able to escape if they have guards out there.

“You’re not in trouble, don’t worry. Here come sit at the table and eat” she says while filling and then setting a bowl of what seems to be soup on the table.

I move slowly to sit and wait until she has served herself. Only after she swallows some of her soup that came from the same pot do I eat.

It is a mix of potatoes, carrots and a meat I haven’t had before. There isn’t enough salt or pepper in my opinion but a quick scan of the room does not show me any. The closest thing was a few leaves of basil hung in the window to dry. Little to no spices then.

We eat in silence for a few short minutes, the woman serves me another bowl while eating two more herself before the pot hanging over the small fire is empty.

“I hope Analias finds a good deer while he is out today” she mutters to herself while looking at the bottom of the pot and absent mindedly rubbing her belly at the mention of her 'mate's' name. Is that the equivalent to husband for the village?

She drops our two bowls into a bucket of water on the floor next to the fire before turning to me as I am still sitting in the poor excuse of a chair at the table.

“My name is Alana. Do you remember your's?”

Name, I search my mind for a bit but find two, Asomething and Lyke; no Lykou. The second one I don’t feel as much attachment to so the first must be my name but I don’t remember it. I’ll have to give the second one, I must have gone by it also.

“Lykou.”

She smiles, “well Lykou, I’m going to show you around the village on our way to the shrines. The alpha said you’re a member of the pack so it wouldn’t do to have you not know where everything is.”

I nod, and stand up to follow Alana outside. There I see twelve other huts, all slightly larger than this one save for two; one at the center of the village and the other at the northern edge. Aside from the one hut in the middle the buildings make a circle around a field that has most of its grass cleared.

Within the clearing are a lot of children, at least four dozen between the ages of five and twelve. A few of women are looking over them as they teach them archery and how to fight. I don’t see any men over the age of twelve though there are probably thirty women talking as they clean their homes and tan animal skins. Most of them seem to be pregnant like Alana is.

“After today until the men bring you to hunt you’ll be spending your time with the other boys learning the basics as you see. The hut in the field is the alphas'. . .”

She continues to introduce the adult women of the camp as we pass by the houses and who their mates are. I don’t pay much attention to the names other than the two alphas, Ragnor and Kylana but am surprised that aside from Analais and Ragnor all of the men have multiple ‘mates’ among the women.

There isn’t a shortage of males among the children so I’m confused why this is the case. Are there a lot of deaths among the men from hunting or a war? On another note, everyone seems rather tall even after ignoring my now child sized stature. Unless plants are smaller wherever I am none of the adults are shy of six feet tall. My scale could still be off but this village is full of tall physically fit people.

I follow Alana to the other larger hut that is apparently the shrines she said I was being brought to. At the doorway, I can see trailing smoke from the scented woods that are burning within. Unlike the other buildings where the floor is dirt this one is covered in rocks that leave a relatively flat surface to walk on. There is still dirt in the gaps between the stones but this is clearly an important place to these people.

There are two mounds of stone on opposite sides of the hut, they seem to serve the function of a pedestal for the figurines of carved stone that sit atop them. There are lines wrapping around the stone piles but aside from that the pattern continues from stone to stone the lighting is too dim for me to see much else. On the western pedestal, there is a carved statue of a cloaked man made in some sort of white stone, there are words carved into the base but the lighting is too dim to read. The eastern pedestal has a black stone carving of a wolf.

There is an older couple, a man with a grey beard and a woman of similar age tending a small fire at the northern wall of this house of shrines.

“Is this the boy?” the older woman says as she turns to Alana.

“Yes, I’ll pay my respects to the Back Wolf while you present him to the Architect.”