Chapter 3 Please, tell me it's a joke

"Whether we look like them or not, will not affect how the pack sees us," Adira calmly replies. "They don't see us as pack anyway." Most of the wolves of White Moon are varying shades of white or grey. My father, being a direct descendant of the original Arctic wolves, is pure white, while my mother is more of a very light grey. I hope we end up somewhere in the middle, even a dirty white would be great. There have been rumors that my father is not pure Artic wolf. My mother is a pure mutt. Even she doesn't know her bloodline, since her father died almost as soon as she was conceived. so my chances of extreme mutt-ness are pretty high. We get closer to the lake and take another look around. "This is it. The beginning of a new life or a neverending nightmare." I say to Adira. "Don't be afraid. I'm here no matter what," Adira says. We creep closer to the edge and finally stick our head over the water. Gold. All I see is gold. Golden eyes in a golden face on golden chest and legs. I shake our head and blink our eyes. I look at the moon to see if it's sending gold instead of silver beams. It's the same as it always is. Maybe even brighter than before, like it wants to make sure I can see what I'm looking at clearly. "Adira, what the hell is going on? There aren't any species of wolf that are pure golden color. Blonde maybe, but this is so obviously not blonde. What, just what, is happening?" I'm so freaked out that I can't avoid becoming more hysterical. "Calm down Renata, and I will explain," Adira, still calm, even though I think our world is crashing. "How can we be gold? Our entire bloodline is white. It may not be pure white anymore. Grey would be acceptable. Not fucking gold!" I say still freaking out. "If you calm down, I will tell you a story," Adira says. "It will explain everything, but I need you to focus on our surroundings while I'm telling it." Adira waits patiently for me to get under control. "Ok, I'm better now. You know I love stories about our history," I can finally speak in my normal tone of voice. "At the beginning, the Moon Goddess decided she wanted her creations to be as different from each other as they were from other species. Originally, each subspecies of her wolves, actually all her creations, had a specific gift," Adira begins. "Each of the Moon Goddess's creations correlated to an actual animal to help with blending in and possibly mating if a mate wasn't found. Each set of wolves also a specific gift gift as well. Grey wolves were the biggest and strongest with the keenest senses. Great for protecting their territory," Adira tells me. "Then there are the Timber wolves; smaller, faster, smarter than the grey's. These are the ones who eventually develop all the technology for the packs. Black wolves are the one of the rarest because they were nearly wiped out early on. They were the ones who dream walked but tended to get lost in these worlds, making it easy to kill them," Adira sadly tells me. "The Arctic wolves had the gift of empathy. Since they lived mostly in a frozen world, sight and sound were nearly useless. They could sense the emotions around them to determine if it was animals or people around them. This is why the pack hates you. Their gift has gotten weak over time but the Alpha's and Luna's are still strong and the connection to the whole pack leaks this disappointment," Adira says. So now I understand why I've been treated like this all my life. But it doesn't tell me why I'm still different.

"But, why are they not able to block their emotions like the wolves of the past?" I ask Adira. "I mean, I've never heard that an entire pack was affected by the leaders. Then again I didn't know empathy was a real gift only Arctic wolves could do," I admit. "Time and mating between packs have watered down the original gift. When a pup is born to parents from different breeds, the gift is often a mutated version of both parents gifts," Adira says. "It's why it's unknown what color or gift you get until it happens. You just can't predict which gene will be stronger until the pup gets its own wolf later." "Take your parents, for example. Your dad is the alpha, the strongest of the pack. Pure white. It's not because he's direct descendants as much as it is the White Moon alpha's selection of the whitest female for mating. It's to ensure the strongest genes get passed to the future Alpha. Keep it pure and all that royal bullshit," she says with a smirk. "They didn't follow the Goddess plan to find the one meant just for them. They usually would reject their true fated mate, if she was less white than other females. Mind you, this is only because the first pup of an Alpha is almost always a male. It doesn't matter too much for lower ranked wolves."

"This is why they can't control or understand their gifts. Since the female may have had a strong Arctic parent, they may be whiter. But the genes of the parent is still there. Since they don't know what the other's gifts were, the knowledge of how to train it is gone.," Adira adds in a sad voice. "Okay. I'm with the history lesson so far. Random mating, random wolves, random gifts. But it doesn't explain why I'm a wolf that didn't exist in the beginning," I whine. "I'm getting there. Just hold your impatient tail still," Adira snaps. "Now where was I? Oh yes random breeding," she giggles. Every once in a while, a mated set will give birth to a pup that carries all the traits of all the breeds. Meaning that both sets of parents are carrying at least 2 of the breeds themselves. This pup is gold and carries all the traits and gifts of every original wolf," she says with excitement.