threadness!!

The life of a pup in a pack was easy really, you just ran around and played all day and ate when you wanted to and didn't have to worry much about things, well at least Analise thought so. She was playing with her Padre again, hide and seek was such a fun game in the forest because Analise was very much smaller than her daddy it was easier for her to hide although he did have the advantage of being able to climb into the trees and hide from her up there. Dimly she could hear her father still counting a short ways away and the brown and chocolate child giggled to herself before racing into the bushes trying to be as silent as she could while she ran through low vegetation and dodged trees.

León counted backwards from thirty in Spanish as the sounds of his daughter faded away into the forest, the chocolate and earth man did not peek at the direction his daughter had taken for he could hear it clearly and there would be tell tale signs in the undergrowth, the forest would tell of her passing and inform him of where she was. He almost always won these games of hide and seek she insisted on playing and she was determined to beat him for once in a win that he hadn't deliberately decided to lose, she always knew when he had as well. When he reached uno the man whirled around and slipped silently into the tall shadowy trees.

It took him almost no time at all to find his daughter as she was still in motion, he caught up to the young pup and grabbed her around her middle, lifting her up from the floor and tickling her belly. Analise squealed and wriggled in his arms trying to lick his face with her tongue. He laughed and she laughed and the Austral man put his daughter down upon the ground and they walked together towards the village. The child was still confined to her lupus form but it would not be long before she would gain the use of her two other forms. As though she was listening in on his thoughts the almost identical to himself pup turned her head to him and spoke.

"I'll be shifting soon won't I daddy?" He knew Analise's greatest fear would be that somehow she was not luperci and would never join her father in the world of oposable thumbs.

"Of course dear, both your mother than me are luperci so there is no possible way that you won't be a shifter." Both of them winced at the mention of Analise's mother and the conversation came to an abrupt end with the two of them walking in silence through the AniWaya village. Not knowing anyone really the pair kept to themselves as they approached the huge fire that sat at end end of the village. Father and daughter both stared at the Great fire with reverent respect, having lived on their own for all of Analise's life the girl had developed a respect of fire, her father teaching her to go about it with caution. Fire had kept them alive through the snowstorms in the earlier months of the year, it had provided the warmth necessary for them to cook the frozen meat they had found of dead animals to eat.

"Daddy, why is this fire so big? What does it mean?" She looked up at him and he saw the orange and red flames reflecting in her violet eyes.

"I don't know princess, maybe it helps keep the village free of snow when there is snowfall. Or when they are having parties and festivals they can cook all their food at once. There could be a huge list of reasons" The younger Austral man did not know the reasoning behind this huge fire, he had not thought to ask his brother when he had last seen him. León shifted his feet and stared deeply into the fire looking past the flickering red, orange and yellow as though trying to see the spark of life deep within it. Moving with a fluid grace the man moved to sit on the ground next to his daughter, wrapping an arm around her back.

with flails!

So entrenched in his thoughts that the man did no even notice the footsteps of the woman nor her first greeting until his daughter produced noise from next to him startling him out of his musings.

!Hola Ma'am." The little pup waved a lupus bound paw at the woman and León also greeted her "Hola Miss Ralla." Now his mind had returned to the living León looked over the female who had joined himself and his daughter. The woman was white, purely so with a strange marking that adorned her forehead. Green eyes that spoke the hues of the forest looked back at his own white ones and most noticeably she was heavy with young, so heavy that it looked as though she might collapse any moment into childbirth, her time was very near then, León thought to himself. The last time he had seen his mate alive was when she had been heavy with pup and giving birth to the daughter that now sat next to him, she died with Analise's brother, Neerona still cradled inside her womb never to see the light of day or suckle with his seconds old sister.

Even as he answered her question León was looking around for a male who would be the father, for no male would leave his mate alone when she was so far along with his children. León himself had never left Kailypso's side for most of her pregnancy, a fact that drove the Italian wolfess to the edge of crazy. But he could see no male near and wondered if he was from a different pack, or he was gone, dead, or even if the pups had been produced by force, León now looked at Ralla with softer caring eyes, if this female was alone then he would assist her in any way possible, even if she were not alone and her mate simply careless he would still assist this female.

"Si Ralla, although we don't come here a lot, we are still new to the pack. He could not help the chuckle that left him, it seemed his brother knew quite a lot of people, most of whom wanted to know why they shared their eye color.

"Si Señorita, he is my older hermano, my brother. Born of the same parents with in the first litter." THe man watched with steady eyes as the white female named Ralla sat herself down upon the logs that were placed around this great fire. He listened with great interest as she told them the name of the fire that sat before them and he repeated her words quietly, branding them into his mind,

"Atsila Galvkawetiyu" Before he could ask any questinos of his onw his daughter was there already speaking for both their minds as she often did. Her eyes were wide and filled with excitement, traditions and legends were one of Analise's favorite things to learn about.

"How does it protect Miss Ralla? What are the legends behind it?" He let his daughter speak for them and watched Ralla with interested eyes.