Contains Attack scenes... Song is Darkside by Alan Walker FOUR Outside the Phixed Border NightPack Crescent galloped over to his mentor, Blur. Blur was a blue-gray wolf with a brown spot over one eye. Blur gave him a sideways look. “What are you up to now, Crescent?” asked Blur in a bored tone. “I was wondering… well, um, I was wondering if you… you… would let me go on a border patrol?” Crescent’s voice cracked with hope. Blur sighed. “Oh, all right. Mallard, Harespot and I will come.” Crescent gave him a glare of frustration. Harespot was the youngest apprentice and Mallard was half blind! I really, REALLY, REALLY deserve better than this. Crescent thought. Soon a little white wolf with black ears joined the small duo. “Hi Crescent! I caught a minnow today! He flapped and flapped and I almost lost him but then Alpha Blackrose came in and he was very nice to me and showed me how to…” Crescent sighed and turned to Mallard. Her pelt was cocoa brown and she had one red eye and one green eye. “Hello, child!” she croaked. Crescent forced a smile. “We’re going to the Phixed border.” “Indeed we are,” growled Blur. “Now scoot.” *** The dense array of pinecones crackled under Crescent’s paws. A bright sun shone rebelliously over the troupe. Blur turned to him. “We still have a long way to go, slowpoke.” Crescent scowled. He wasn’t trudging his feet. He was just helping Mallard so she didn’t BUMP! From the left, Mallard crashed into a large elm. “Mallard!” cried Harespot, bounding through the thick trees. Soon she was out of sight. Blur glared at Crescent. Soon Harespot was in view again. Her eyes were streaming tears. “Blur!” Blur pulled her close. “What happened?” He barely got the sentence out before Mallard galloped in. “We’re under attack!” she cried desperately. Crescent’s heart sped up. A deep red coyote stepped from behind a thorned bush. “You’re in our territory.” Blur snarled and coughed, as if the idea was sickening. “This is our territory, Redwell.” “Queen Tigress has claimed this land as her own.” Harespot ducked behind a tree. Mallard growled at the nearest tree. Blur stepped forward. “Go.” Blur whispered softly. “ATTACK!” growled the coyote. A dozen coyotes sprang out from otherwise average flora. Crescent looked at them helplessly. I can’t fight, but I can surprise attack them. Without looking back, Crescent sprinted outside the Phixed Border. *** *continues*
Crescent was taken aback by the endless landscaping before him. A large wall of gray mountains were cut out before him. Trees were tossed seemingly at random; a handful here, a grouping here. Perhaps the strangest was a large gray den formed from gray stone. “Hello?” his voice quivered slightly as it echoed throughout the grass. A handful of coyotes fled out of the den. “Fable, Elmband, Darkjaw, Ivy, Lionstalk,” said the largest, a black wolf with a burnt paw. “Are you ready to…” “ENEMY!” crowed the smallest, a silvery white wolf that Crescent assumed was Fable. Crescent was rooted to the spot. “Don’t hurt me,” he shivered. Elmband, a brown male coyote with even darker brown eyes, glared and lunged at him. Fable, the white coyote with black ears, was shouting at the top of her lungs. Darkjaw, the black coyote with a crooked jaw, bared his teeth. Lionstalk, a fiery red coyote, roared and thrashed like a dog on a leash. Crescent ran, the whites of his eyes pointed straight at the den. You’re dead meat. You can’t fight, you can’t protect, you can’t hide. Eventually he was covered in a curtain of trees. “Wait!” said a small coyote. Her fur was gold; she had a mark in the shape of a vine of ivy on her left paw. “I’m not going to hurt you.” “I-I-I-I-’m Crescent.” he was still shaking all over. His fur was matted with sweat and two of his claws were broken. “I come from NightPack.” “You live in packs?” the golden coyote asked. “We all live under the One Pack. And we have Queens, not Alphas. It’s much better that way. Females are much more responsible than males.” Crescent thought of his anonymous mother, abandoning him at birth. Was that considered responsible? “What’s your name?” “Ivy.” answered the coyote plainly. “Just Ivy. Lionstalk, Darkjaw, and Elmband are higher coyotes.” “You change your name?” “Yeah,” said Ivy. “We have wailes, or babies. They’re nameless. At six months old they become trainlings. They get a base name, like ‘Ivy’ or ‘Lion.’ “To advance to fighter, they have to make a major kill. Usually it’s a deer, but sometimes,” Ivy shuddered, “they take a wolf. No one has done that in ten years, though. “Then we have a feast. A large feast. The trainling is crowned with the heart of the beast, and the Queen solidifies it into a literal crown. Then they get their name.” Ivy exhaled. Crescent had a brief image of the coyote Queen tearing out his heart and crowning Ivy with it. He shook off that image quickly. Ivy’s stomach growled. “I’m hungry.” she moaned. “The last meal I had was a sparrow. Prey’s running slow.” “Oh,” said Crescent. “I could regurgitate-” “Ew! NO.” insisted Ivy, wincing. “Okay,” said Crescent. “Calm down. I wasn’t actually considering that.” Ivy shot him a relieved look. “Um… maybe you could hunt in our forests? I mean, no one will mind.” Crescent said, unsurely. Ivy grinned. “Wow- I’ve heard there are hundreds of deer in there!” Her stomach growled in reply. “C’mon!” Crescent took a deep breath. She’s not my enemy. He quivered a little. Yet.
