There was a hushed but excited ruckus going on when Lydia woke up, it was not the usual sounds of her home, in fact the light was all wrong. Groaning and turning away from the light source Lydia froze in panic, this was not her bed, nor a hospital bed.

“Okay, Okay, she’s up now,” came a muffled voice.

“YAS!” came an excited reply in a very familiar voice, and Lydia began to remember where she was, but the preceding strangers voice still gave her pause.

“I’m sure it was all your excited energy that roused her from her slumber,” the voice continued. But Lydia had no time to be concerned as Darryl suddenly exploded into the room.

“Lyyydia!” he sang in his melodic voice, “Keller came to see you! Most of the Pack is curious, but the two of them are coming up with a plan.” He crawled up onto the bed, cross-legged and watched her with the largest grin on his face. He just stared and stared, and Lydia finally gave up,

“What?”

“And you thought I was weird,” his satisfied smile might have been a smirk on anyone else’s face, but he was just too elated.

“What?” Lydia asked, “I mean, yeah, but most people are weird.”

“No, I mean that I knew it. Didn’t I? I’ve been asking since we crashed into each other if you were one of us, and here we are! Siblings no less!”

“One of us?”

“A Spiritdancer, I was asking about Willow. How is she?”

Lydia groaned and rubbed her forehead, having difficulty following the quickfire conversation and foreign terms.

Darryl misunderstood, “Oh, Lydia, I’m sorry, the two of you are probably fighting, and all that chaos in your mind can’t help! Here I am being insensitive,” a familiar embarrassed blush developed on his face, and he began to shrink in on himself.

“No, no,” she interrupted, waving a hand at him. “It’s not like that, I just take a while to think straight in the mornings, you know me. Plus I took my medicine so late in the day, after so long.” It wasn’t enough, Darryl was still folded in on himself, so Lydia tried again, “Just be a bit slower this morning, please?” Lydia pleaded, feeling very overwhelmed, but her curiosity was piqued by the sudden correlation in his strange behaviors and their potential connection to his… Breed? Species? Gift?

“Hey, Darryl,” came a stern but gentle voice, “Let her get out of bed and properly dress, you can talk over breakfast,” Sara was leaning against the doorframe, smiling at them.

Darryl romped his way out of the room. “We made everything for you today! Hurry! Hurry!” He called as he bounded down the stairs. Sara closed the door and followed. Lydia quickly surveyed her supplied clothing, slipping into a fresh pair of undergarments and cut-off shorts, but kept on the loaned rose-petal shirt. Deeming herself modest enough for friendly company she followed her hosts downstairs. When Lydia arrived, her stomach let out an appreciative growl, she had smelt the food, but seeing it titillated her senses even more. Terrance was already helping himself, the one who must be Keller was quickly wiping off his face and hands while standing to greet her.

“Hello Lydia!” he grinned suddenly, the expression seemed puzzling for a moment, but Lydia was distracted by the hand he thrust forward. “My name is Cellarious, but everyone calls me Keller. I am close with your brother here so if you need anything I swear I’ll be on your side too,” Lydia found herself staring intently at his face, his expression swung from extremely pleased, to reliable and serious.

“So, are you a- “Lydia paused, trying to remember the phrase, “shadow dancer?”

The brothers let out a strangled laugh as Terrance tried not to choke and Darryl attempted to not spill. “Spiritdancer,” Keller corrected gently. Eyeing the other men disapprovingly, “Yes, I am the same as you.”

“Hello?” Lydia had followed his look and was quickly distracted by Darryl loading up two different plates of food. “What on Earth?” she started to ask before he set one down in the seat next to him and pulled out the chair dramatically.

“Oh, just come eat,” he said. “I know full well I don’t need to make two plates for me to get enough food.” He gestured at his wiry frame.

Lydia glanced back up at Keller, his face now completely devoid of his thoughts. “Pardon me,” Lydia snuck past him. After a few large mouthfuls, Darryl began his usual chatty behavior.

“Someone is going to have to fill me in on our new family situation, and how come you didn’t tell me sooner.” He looked expectantly at his brother, “Actually,” he paused, fork just outside of his cavernous mouth. “Someone is going to have to tell me why they were so rude!” his expectant look turned sharp before he dramatically leaned his head to rest fleetingly on Lydia’s shoulder. “But we also need to help you understand Sis,” he looked at Lydia as he straightened, “Whose got dibs on the first answers?” he shoved the whole sausage that had been suspended on his fork into his mouth, almost as if to stop his own chatter purposefully.

“I was abandoned at the hospital as an infant. I know nothing about my past except that my parents came out in the middle of the night to bring me home and were approved for adoption as soon as allowed,” Lydia said quietly, following suit with Darryl and putting a large bite of egg in her mouth to end her turn.

“I took you there.” Terrance took his turn next, “I took you there and left you in the hospital’s Safe Haven box.”

“I told him about the box!” Keller jumped in, suddenly animated, “We thought it was the only way to keep you safe, after-”

“After Mom died,” Terrance finished solemnly. “Our Father is a very cruel man. It is only relatively recently that we have started intermingling to some extent with the general public, all the technological advances make it hard to keep an entire group of people off the grid. However, the culture shift is not simple either.” Terrance sighed and rubbed his hand across his face, Sara rested hers on his shoulder briefly.

“It really depends on which area and group you are in on how, dramatic the culture is,” Sara said. Our area had been pretty middle ground as a general rule, but unfortunately, your Father is of the more dramatic spectrum. Due to his strength and influence as Alpha, he gets away with too much since overall, he is a misogynist.” Sara said bluntly.

“Some of our Packs see women like unto the Moon Goddess and are revered, others, well, Father spoke of plans to use you as a bargaining piece to make a treaty with the Wildcrown pack, one of the more sinister packs.”

Lydia was rapt with attention, like this was another’s story and not her own, so much of this was foreign to her, but inside her, Willow was listening and trusted every word. “Moon Goddess?” she heard herself ask.

“The original mother and creator of humans. There are so many origin stories around her, the main one being that she fell from the home of the sky people into a hole in the Earth and the animals helped her climb out. She then died while birthing her twins.” Sara elaborated. “She is the deity of marriage, fertility and protection.”

“So she is a Deity for the Spiritdancers?”

“In effect, our people are those within our origin race that made a pact with the nature spirits. Consequently, we were a select minority within our origin race. Our numbers are small, and the history is all oral so we have lost much of the lore. However, it is well understood that her roll of protection was passed down to us and in becoming Spiritdancers we became her way of protecting humans.” Darryl elaborated next, waving a refilled fork. “The lore we do have spans from the evil Skinwalkers to the white wolf who saved a kidnapped woman. Wolves were once revered for their hunting, protection, and healing capabilities. However, in the age of colonization and westward expansion many of our numbers died.”

Keller cut in, “Our Ancestors made a pact where fusing our souls with a spirit’s we lose our ability to fight against humans and maintain our ability to shift our forms. There are other spirit unions that happened around the globe when magic was more copious,” Keller thought a moment. “There are not many of them left either, though their history is more well known. They are the werewolves of Europe, lycanthropes of Russia or the rakshasa of India to name a few. Our kind here were not only wolves at first as we also had brothers among the bears, eagles, and coyotes. Our forefathers were worshipers of nature.”

“If so many have died out how have Spiritdancers managed not to?”

“For a time, many Spiritdancers were content with dying off with the rest of magic, but then, a few generations ago, the popular opinion changed. Many of the males in power started concerning themselves more with genetics than with respect, and we have developed into the split culture we have now. One hand wanting women to breed both at high quantity and the healthiest stock of our kind, the others to respect the original creator who died for our chance at life, and the select descendants who befriended the wolf spirits and focus on health and quiet happiness. We all fear discovery, and the culling’s that happened in the past from the Salem witch trials to the near extinction of American red wolves in the 1970’s.” Terrance continued. “Our father is one of those more concerned with breeding. There has been talk of a prophecy that the clans will be blessed when a white wolf Luna is born. For those that believe this, all indicators point that this will be soon. The Wildcrown is the largest and most powerful pack. Our father had arranged for some bordering land in exchange for the Alpha’s daughter, his daughter. The rumors have lead many to believe that only a woman of this strength could give birth to a child with a white spirit.”

“This is why you took me away?” Lydia asked, mind spinning. Trying to line up the stories. “Is my birth father an Alpha?” Darryl’s fork slowed again as he looked at his brother, dark shadows were spreading across his face, Sarah’s eyes began to water and Keller spoke up, his face a stoic mask, but his voice kind.

“Should we tell them the whole story?” Lydia took this as an affirmative. From what she had heard today and the stereotypes from werewolf stories, she grew increasingly alarmed.

Terrance let out a deep sigh. They were all silent for a time before Darryl kicked his brother under the table. “Don’t hold a private conversation right now and tell us!” He accused. Lydia looked at him, confused and he pointed to his head, “Terrance is the best at connecting mentally, that is why he is Pack Coordinator,”

‘It’s true,’ a staticky voice said in her mind, ‘though yours is surprisingly hard to connect with,’

“Oh!” Lydia said aloud in shock “I heard you last night talking to Sara!” She exclaimed, recognizing the voice from before. Terrance’s brow furrowed deeply.

“Her head was pressed into the crook of my neck, if she has your potential, it doesn’t surprise me she would catch that,” Sarah elaborated.

“The story?” Darryl prodded, seeing the digression and Terrance sighed, nodding.

“It was 21 years ago-” Terrance started, eyes glazing over with memory. “I knew instantly he had been drinking,” 

AUTHORS NOTE:

Chapter 7 has strong elements of abuse, abandonment, and refrences to suicide which are seen through Child-Terrance's eyes and his struggle with them. I will post a timeline of events covered in chapter 7 immediatly after for anyone who needs to skip this chapter.

Thank you for reading Willow Dancer! ~ Every 'Like' and comment gives me warm fuzzies!