The night was cool and calm. Crickets chirped happily from their beds of soft grass, and birds shifted sleepily in their nests. Cepheus had been wandering for so long, it seemed strange to him that he should finally have found the land for which he had been searching. Stillness was now the unexpected thing -- and though his legs ached from the many miles he'd traveled, they longed to keep going, to keep moving as they always did, until morning light broke over the horizon.

But Cepheus was quickly running out of land over which to walk, and he sensed this. Though some remarkable instinct, he knew very well that he had found his destination.

The white wolf stretched his legs, leaning this way and that to pull at all of his tender muscles. The miles had been kind to him in all the right ways -- his body had become lean and muscular over the last few months, giving his compact frame a sturdy, stocky appearance.

Cepheus shook his white fur, feeling the tension in his muscles melt away. He turned his black eyes up to the starry heavens, a little smile curling his lips. Cepheus breathed deeply, enchanted by the sweet smells of the summer night, and closed the eyes which so perfectly reflected the star-scape above.

A yearning built in his chest and blossomed up through his throat -- a need, primal and urgent, that would not let him be. His lips parted, teeth shining in the pale starlight, and his head tilted back and back until it was nearly perpendicular to the earth below.

A slow, steady stream of sound exited Cepheus' mouth, rising loud and heavy from his chest. A howl, a calling, a statement. His fluid voice rose and then fell, mimicking the sharp crest of the hills which surrounding him; and as he slowly lowered his head and quieted his voice, he could hear the last traces of his call echoing softly away..