If there was one thing that her mother had taught her, it was to stick to the shadows. Ceres was young, but as she approached her first birthday she had begun to hone her natural skills. Stealth and subterfuge came easy to her, and she was well adapted to hiding in plain sight. She had a mind to become an even better assassin than her mother, and she was well on her way already. There was a healthy sort of competition between the two, and despite her age, Morrigan gave the girl little in the way of breaks. Ceres was expected to perform as well as a wolf many years older than she was, and she did not resent this; in fact, she accepted and even embraced the challenge to be the best that she possibly could.

And so while her sister slept her days away in the den, Ceres was out at the crack of dawn each morning, running and hunting and swimming and sneaking. She hardly ever gave herself time to relax. She did not feel as though she had been robbed of a childhood, she could never see herself playing with the grass and watching the clouds for longer than a few minutes. The young girl had already become hardened, she was smart but not yet wise.

She maneuvered through the forest, her paws deftly avoiding any leaves or branches that would make her whereabouts known. It seemed as though not everyone was as skilled as she, though, when the crunch of leaves underpaw caused her to halt suddenly. Her ears swiveled and her white eyes flickered back and forth, trying to catch sight of whoever it was who had made that noise. Ceres flattened herself against a tree, head raised and nostrils flared. "Who's there?" She called out, her voice not exactly cordial, but not quite accusatory either.