Where was Mommy? Where was my pack? I had been asleep and when I woke up, everyone was just gone. They didn't leave a good trail for me to follow - they would have in the past, but not this time - and I was not the best tracker in the world. So, here I am in a strange place, full of strangers and all alone. I am frightened, hungry, and lost. Where am I anyway? I don't remember Mommy saying what the wolves called this place, and I think they didn't care. They didn't plan on staying here long, this much I know, but that still doesn't explain why they left me here. Maybe they didn't want me, maybe I am ugly or too weak, maybe I didn't belong. My mommy must have really disliked me, I mean, she wasn't the nicest mommy, actually she was really distant and wouldn't look at me very often. I think she secretly hated me, and ever since I didn't need her milk she treated me worse and worse, only interacting with me when I needed to learn something. I love her though, and I know she doesn't mean to hate me, she doesn't mean the nasty things she said. I know that somewhere she loved me, but...maybe I was wrong. Her leaving me here must mean that I was wrong, because she had never left me before. Not like this anyway. Sadness wells in my heart, overwhelming and painful, and tears spring into my eyes at the sting of abandonment. Wasn't I trying my hardest to be good for her, to be enough.

It isn't my fault I came out to look like him, not my fault that he wasn't what you thought! I don't care what he did, you didn't have to leave me! I whine because there isn't much else I can do, I am lost, scared, I don't know anyone here, I don't know what place this is or what their laws are here. How could she just leave me like this, didn't she care? Didn't she love me enough to keep me alive this long, didn't she want me anymore? How...just...How? I cry, curling back up to close my dark eyes against the morning sun under the brush I had found last night. My white body is hard to hide in such conditions, the foliage around me brown and dry, I think they call this season fall. I understand now. Somehow I had fallen from my mother's caring, somehow she had found it within her to leave me laying here. Now I am a meal fit for a bear. I am leggy, awkward, skinny, and weak from emotional strain. I sigh, a shaky whimper on the end of the exhalation. Why did she have to leave when I had gathered so much hope already? I thought she was starting to warm up to me, to really love me, even though she didn't show the signs of it. I just don't understand how she could leave me like that, how she could spend a year raising me and just not even look back when she got up this morning. Maybe she did look back, maybe what was left of my pack had not let her turn back. I wish I didn't look so much like him, like my father, the bane of the pack. Maybe then my mother would love me, maybe then I would have been the princess I was supposed to be. My dark eyes open once more as rustling catches my ears, searching through the shallow hiding place I had found.

I peek around the grasses that hide me, my head poking above the tops to see. I don't see any other wolves, but the rustling continues, and I search out the source. Turns out to be a mouse and I gather up my bony haunches, rising to flick one ear back and wiggle my hind end around. I pounce up and over the grasses, my long legs aiding to increase my leap into the air. My leap archs and I adjust my aim to where I hear the mouse coming from, my paws landing on the small creature and killing it instantly as I bring my mouth down, crunching my teeth over the skull to ensure it didn't suffer. I don't like killing things, I actually wish that I could just eat grass like I watched deer do. But, the last time I tried to do that, my stomach hurt and I threw up a little, I also got really skinny. My mommy had yelled at me, telling me that I was no wolf and no daughter of hers for eating grass. She called me all kinds of nasty names, and threw a deer leg at me, yelling at me to eat like a real wolf and stop being such a pansy. I obeyed, watery eyes staying on her filled with the hope that I could make her proud of me, make her love me by doing what she said. It didn't work though, instead she had scoffed at me and walked off. My dark purple eyes had clouded up with tears as I had eaten that deer meat, just as it did with the mouse right now. I am not the best hunter, for good reasons, obvious reasons. I think the only thing I could do is chase, but that is when I get older, I don't want to chase more than I have to right now. My paws are too big and I am too small and rather clumsy at the moment.

I look around, watching as I strip the meat from the mouse, crying as I did. I wonder if the wolves here are nicer than my old pack were. If lost, it is best to stay in one spot, in case there is someone out there who wants to find you. I know now my mother doesn't, I know my pack doesn't. But...maybe...just maybe..I matter to someone out there.

"Speech"