Noctisardor Bypass jusdreinen

Gideon was the second to come earth-side, dark as the clouds that weeped over the bypass in the early stages of Heda's labour. His birth was as mundane and ordinary as they came: he followed on his brother's heels, Ezra having opened the way for him, and tumbled gently to the earth. He was cleaned, warmed, placed alongside his mother's flank; all regular, ordinary things, and anything strange or untoward happening beyond his tiny warm bubble was beyond his capacity to comprehend.

But Gideon's arrival was not so ordinary after all. The soul that came to roost in his body was full of potential, already called toward a purpose that would shape his every moment from here on out. He was surrounded by more parents than any puppy could wish for, more playmates than he would later know what to do with. He was, as wolf pups went, born under very fortunate and favorable circumstances.

It was neither the glimmer of potential nor the glut of doting family that made his birth remarkable.

What made Gideon so remarkable was that when his little tail began to wriggle, there was a second one wriggling right alongside it.