Let me tell you the story of a young wolf pup experiencing their first look at the world. The play of light against the grey-gold ceiling of the den, smudgy and indistinct within a squinted gaze, was like a whole world of discovery by itself. Every shadow was a vast canyon, every blip of light a new planet. The turn of a head brought other things into the picture: brilliant daylight brushed in wide strokes along the den's floor, streaming in from a mountainside sunrise; the lift and fall of a sibling's ribcage as they sucked in their breath, at once excited and unsure; the chirrup of sound from their lips as they gazed around, drinking in everything they could now see, and forming their first memorable connection with those who would share their lives.

That was not Wisp's story. Wisp, unlike her siblings, did not open her eyes that morning. While Remi and Breccan and Deshyr stirred around her, awed by their new and expanded world, and while Rannoch whispered unheard words of praise and acknowledgement to them and bent to peer into their tiny eyes, Wisp remained ignorant to it all. She shuffled away from the bustling bodies, seeking the solitude she preferred, and buried her pugged nose into Liffey's ankle. There was nary the flutter of an eyelid to suggest she would soon follow her siblings in their development; no sir, little Wisteria was content to keep her eyes glued shut for quite a while yet.