Porcupine Ridge birthday in noir

Diane was comforted. She closed her eyes briefly, lost in the haze of physical contact, having been deprived for what felt like a millennia. She missed her sister, and having her to curl up next to every night. Recalling this memory alone would have elicited a sorrowful response, but she had Vuk at her side, her dark saddle a blur against petite whiteness as she circled Diane. The golden agouti leaned into her, a sigh leaving her, expelling her inner troubles.

Being touched by Vuk was an entirely different experience than it had been with Farstep. As she thought about it then, besides being surprised, she realized that she had never been touched so heedlessly by another male before. The wolves of the Cove had been segregated slightly by gender, so closely monitored by the upper tiers to prevent unsanctioned mating, that it was simply easier to avoid one another where possible. She suspected that the Beta's gender had influenced her flashback. A flashback to the last wolf that had touched her before Taggarik decorating her with his pack's scent.

Her Uncle Hiram, dragging her by the side of her neck, out of the water. The Cove inhabitants had thought the high trenches were safe from the coming storm (as they always had been for generations)—they had not expected God's Wave, a mythical destroyer, to flood them out even there. And the last thing she remembered of that place was all the water, high in a place it had never before reached, and then watching the dark body of her father's brother diving back into their demolished home for others.

She came back to the present, opening her eyes and peering at her companion shyly. "You remind me of home," she said, not a trace of resentment there. Because Vuk reminded her of all the good things—of all the things before. "Will you sing with me?" she asked, unsure if the peppered she-wolf would understand the invitation. But she was simply too self-conscious to start a howl alone without an accompanying chorus.