Amber drowsily blinked her eyes open. She blearily looked around the room and a thought flitted through her brain, Where was Dawn? She attempted to sit up, but hurt a bit too much to do so. 

She spotted a Nurse? No, a humanoid figure with wolf ears and a fluffy tail tending to her. She asked the figure, fidgeting slightly, “Whe… Where is Dawn?”

The healer, she assumed, fixed her brilliant blue eyes on Amber, and replied, “The Beta is in the Sorcerer and Sorceress’s cave, using Moon magic to communicate to the Great Aboves, instead of the Moonstone. She should be here to see you shortly.”

Amber nodded humbly, felling suddenly extremely self-conscious, trying to appear sophisticated in front of the healer. She drifted back into unconsciousness and after what seemed like a few short moments later, was roused by a different werewolf. The wolf hesitantly muttered under her breath, “Mistress Lupus is at the Pup celebration, there wasn’t enough time after she completed what she needed to do. I was told to dress you and lead you out of here.”

Amber blushed a little at this, and looked the young wolf up and down, saying, “You’re hardly more than nine human years aren’t you? How can you know this place so well?”

The wolf replied awkwardly, “Umm, yeah. I’m a Psi to the Nus of the pack, which means I study pack-safe things. Are we leaving or not?”

Amber drew herself up haughtily, “I don’t need a Psi to look after me! I’m practically older than Dawn anyway!”

The small Psi gasped loudly, and squeaked, “You called Beta Lupus by her first name with no title! How? Please leave our pack-hospital now!”

Amber sighed, got up and left the room. She could make out at the edge of her hearing the muttered words, “How dare she disgrace my Mistress like that?”

She strolled through the town, where everyone gave her dirty looks, she was obviously not a favourite of the town after the events of earlier that night. She hurried over into a patch of woods, where people tried to stop her, but she was sure that was the way she should go to leave the dimension. 

She followed a well-trodden path, though she was confused when it broke of into a tangle of smaller paths and alternate routes, distracting her from her goal. 

It had been a while on the seemingly-correct path, though Amber felt she was going nowhere. She would swear, if her parents would let her murmur a curse, that she saw the same crystallised oak and moonlit clearing everywhere she went. She even stopped, panting with her hands on a moonflower-bearing tree, contemplating whether or not she was simply walking in a circle.

That was when she heard it, a small, whiny howl of despair it seemed. Though she had ignored most of her parents’ lessons on Werewolves, and the more dangerous, Moon Werewolves, somethings stuck.

She could hear the mournful voice yelping something similar to, “Mother-wolf? Father-wolf? Where are you?” And the voice broke into desperation, crying, “Mummy! Daddy! We know we aren’t allowed to call you that in front of others but please find us!” 

She attempted to go towards the voice, but the pup, it sounded like, was moving around, trying to locate it’s parents. She heard a different, less-squeaky voice break into the chorus, and then heard it mutter to it’s littermates, “They’ve probably already headed back into the celebration arena,”

She finally found the pups, in a clearing in the middle of the woods. There were five of them in total, and four of them flitted out of sight, fidgeting anxiously. The only one that stayed was a small little pup in the centre of the clearing, seeming to be the runt, and couldn’t decide which siblings to follow.

The other siblings ran off, getting back to their parents safely, but the little runt couldn’t figure out how. Amber gently stretched out her hand, and to her delight, the pup licked it in return. She murmured tenderly to the pup in basic wolfish, “Don’t worry now, I’ll take care of you. What is your name?”

The little runt looked up nervously, and murmured softly in half-broken wolfish, “I Sunlight, my mother-wolf and father-wolf Eloise, Remus. A Nu a Lambda. I one human old…” her voice faltered at this point, seemingly to have never spoken this much. Suddenly, Sunlight burst into tears and ran into Amber’s arms with a sorrowful whine, “I so scared… so scared… I know Grumble up to no good!” She finished with a light growl.

Amber and her wandered the forest for a while, until they found a path out into the celebration grounds. When Sunlight caught a glimpse of her parents, she yapped happily, and bounded out of Amber’s arms and into theirs. “Mother-wolf! Father-wolf! I’m here!”

Amber chuckled lightly. She knew it was right that she took Sunlight to her parents, and that she would eventually have a closer bond with the pack. But little did she know, her bond would grow closer soon.

Amber suddenly started to fret. It had been midnight when she had crept out after Dawn and Luna, but it was at least five hours later. She suddenly felt someone watching her, and spun around, her crimson hair dancing in the wind. Dawn stepped up to her and murmured in her ear, “Thank you for finding Sunlight. I apologise for what happened earlier, I would let you stay, but there are a few wolves who would like you out of here as soon as possible.” She eyed a few wolves loitering around, slowly inching towards Amber, growling so softly most wouldn’t hear it.

Amber nodded her head and dove back into the woods, this time sure she would eventually get back to the portal house to wait for Dawn.