Howl stared at her reflection in a pond. It was located near the barn that her siblings often slept in, so it was a place that she had visited often. She had never looked at it quite like this before. That was because she wasn't studying the water itself, but her own reflection. It was a bit blurry, but she could make out the shape of her frizzy fur and the point of her ears. She could tell that she didn't look like her siblings. Not enough anyway. But then, she didn't look much like a wolf either. She had finally seen one last night, just a few tail-lengths away from her. Hiding behind a bush, she had caught it standing in the middle of a meadow, sniffing the air. Likely on the hunt. She may have wondered where it's other pack members were, but she was too busy trying to point out similarities between them to think much about it. The color of their fur was a similar rusty brown color. It's ears had a similar point to hers. She couldn't see too well, it being night and her being hidden behind a bush, but she thought their eyes looked like a close color too. But that was where the similarities seemed to end. First of all, it was so much bigger than she had been expecting. She thought she was pretty tall, but this wolf was at least twice her size. Second was its fur. It was a similar color to hers, sure, but it had so much more of it than she had ever had. Howl's fur had always been wiry and thin. In some places it barely covered her skin at all. But this wolf was completely covered in well-groomed, thick fur. Third, it didn't have the same patterns as her, the ones that only showed up on the full moon. She had always believed that she got them from being a wolf, that it was just something that all wolves had. But it was a full moon that night, and this wolf had no such markings. After what felt like an eternity but must have only been a few moments, the wolf lifted its head and howled. Moments later, other howls echoed it, and the wolf bounded off towards them. Wolf howls, her namesake. She took a moment to listen to them before heading back to the farm. She thought a lot on that walk back, just as she did now. Was... Was she wrong? Could she be wrong? Was she not a wolf after all? An uncomfortable feeling settled in her gut when she actually considered it. It was something she had believed for... For forever. It was a key part of who she was. A wolf pup living among cats and farm-folk. But she didn't feel much like a pup anymore. She was still getting older, but she knew she wasn't growing as fast as she had in the moons prior. She was still a bit taller than her siblings. Taller than most of them at least... Even as doubt seeped in, she tried to come up with more explanations. Maybe... Maybe wolves grew differently than cats. That would make sense. She would keep growing after this, only more slowly. A-and the other things might just be unique to her. Maybe they were the things she was actually trying to explain, but they didn't matter, did they? They just made her extra special, yeah! /I didn't want to be special./ Howl stared into the water, gulping in breaths of air, despite the fact that she had been sitting perfectly still this entire time. /I want to know what I am./ She curled into a ball, half hoping one of her siblings would find her and comfort her, and half hoping she could turn herself invisible and never have them see her again. A few seconds later, a duck came waddling back to the pond, followed by a whole troop of them. Howl looked up at the sound of their quacks, glowering at them. "Hey," she said, blinking away the tears that had begun to form at the edges of her eyes. "I was here first." Of course, the ducks didn't understand her, and eventually she got to her feet and passed away. "I just want to fit in. I just want to be a part of something," she whispered to herself, glancing back at the party of ducks now sitting in the pond until she could see them no longer.
