Cows aren't so bad, Kiyiya whispered in his head, approaching a mother cow with her dying calf. They're not scary. They're just animals. Clueless animals.

Slowly, he inched forward toward the calf. The mother cow was staring at him calmly, unknowingly, trusting him. Her black eyes pierced into his mind, and his heart rate picked up. He was afraid. He felt so small next to her. He was short and thin and meek, and she stood tall and protective over her baby. As he grabbed the calf's hind legs, it let out a pained squeal, reminding Kiyiya of a frightened pig. The mother cow was reactionless as he slowly pulled her baby away from her. Then, calmly, she averted her gaze away from him and began to chew on the grass below her.

"Good work, Kiyiya," said a voice from beyond the fence, causing Kiyiya to jump nearly out of his skin. The man behind him laughed deeply. "You're so skittish. You don't act much like a man your age should."

"I'm sorry, Migisi," Kiyiya muttered, having heard that remark plenty of times since he turned thirteen last year.

"Why are you so afraid of animals?"

"They're senseless," he said, turning to Migisi. "They don't feel for humans, nor do they care about them." He narrowed his eyes at the man standing tall before him with crossed arms. "Don't you think that's intimidating?"

"Certainly not," Migisi assured him. "Animals feel fear of humans. They are to be intimidated by us, not the other way around. Do you understand?"

Unlike many of the older men in the village, Migisi tried to offer his wisdom to Kiyiya. Most of them simply let him be. Kiyiya wish this was the case with Migisi, because he grew tired of hearing the same lecture over and over again. This wasn't the first time he'd been patronized for his fear of larger animals, and he knew it wasn't going to be the last.

Irritably, Kiyiya dragged the calf to Migisi's feet, looked at him briefly, and started jogging back toward the village. He promised to play with Maheegan today.

Maheegan had seen the entire thing unfold, as well as heard the conversation, as she crouched in a stand of bushes, apparently afraid of being noticed eavesdropping. She wasn't fond of Migisi and didn't quite know why, but he wasn't the reason she'd come. The truth was that she'd run out of chores and slipped away; as of yet no one had noticed her disappearance. She felt for Kiyiya. No one really bothered speaking to Maheegan, likely because she rarely bothered speaking to them, and part of her liked it that way. She kept her head down, got things done, listened, and often left.

She didn't very much like the sight of the calf being dragged, but it was quickly shrugged off when she saw Kiyiyi jog back toward the village. He probably thought she was there, she realized when she remembered yesterday that he'd promised to play with her. Her dark eyes followed the running figure. Time to surprise him.

Maheegan sprinted up behind him and waited for Kiyiyi to notice that he was being followed. Her small, wiry figure made it easy to catch up.

As Kiyiya jogged toward the village, his mind wandered and his eyes drifted around him to admire the forest that he lived in. The trees protected them from most enemies, human or otherwise. Every so often, during the night, Kiyiya could sit on the edge of the village's borders and listen to the wolves howl back and forth at each other, and at the moon. It made him long to join them.

There was a rustling in the grass behind him, and at first Kiyiya was too frozen with fear to stop running and see what was following him. He felt a shiver down his spine and the fear forming a knot in his throat. He swallowed past it and slowly turned his head to the side, then yelled in surprise and tumbled forward, rolling twice before coming to a stop. He sprawled out in the grass and looked at the face above him.

"Maheegan!" he whined, staring at her with furrowed eyebrows. "You were supposed to be waiting for me in the village!"

He brought himself to his feet and didn't expect much of a reply from her. She was quiet and she spoke rarely. However, he had been worthy enough to have held a conversation with her once in a while.

Maheegan covered her mouth and giggled at the same time she skidded to a halt in front of Kiyiya. It was immensely satisfying to her that she'd manage to scare him, and when she took her hand away from her face there was one of the smuggest smirks ever to exist on her lips. Most people would be, at the very most, surprised or angry with her if she did the same thing to them. But Kiyiya? It was far too easy with him.

She took his hand and pulled him to his feet, then broke into a grin, unable to help herself.

"Race?" she suggested, but instead of waiting for his response, she sped off for the village, happy to show off her running ability.

Maheegan was far ahead of him before he could have ever agreed to her race, which he would have, and he was after her like a bolt of lightning. While the two of them were much faster runners than the average villager, Maheegan had always been just a few seconds faster than he. It frustrated him to no ends, especially now as he struggled to catch up with her. As they ran, Maheegan expertly darted in and out of peoples' paths, but Kiyiya nearly ran over more than one villager.

It was when they were nearly to the center of the village that Kiyiya ran right into one of the women, causing both of them to topple backward. He scurried to his feet and attempted to help the woman up.

"I'm so sorry," he said to her. "I didn't see you."

"That's quite alright Kiyiya," the woman said. She was one of the herbalists, Onaiwah. "You do need to learn to watch where you're going. You're not a baby anymore."

"Yes, ma'am," Kiyiya said, shooting a glare at Maheegan.

Maheegan, who had practically bounced out of everyone's way before they even knew what was happening, stood proudly in the center of the village and puffed her chest out. She loved winning races and there was nothing she was better at. So, with a smile, she silently watched Kiyiya bump into a woman and fall backward. Again she stifled a laugh. She was dominating today.

She offered a friendly smile to Onaiwah, who she respected but, like most people, did not often talk to, and then approached Kiyiya. "You do need to learn to watch where you're going. You're not a baby anymore," she repeated with the sharpest of teasing tones and a wide toothy grin.

She would have taken the opportunity to inform him that she'd won the race, but she felt that it didn't need to be said. Her smugness said it all.

Kiyiya, still sitting in the grass, crossed his arms and darkened his glare at Maheegan. He stuck his tongue out at her. "But you are still a baby!" he retorted, for Maheegan was not yet considered a woman until she was sixteen. Even less so since she was so submissive, many of the villagers thought her to be socially incompetent.

Kiyiya knew that wasn't true, though.

Maheegan immediately stuck out her tongue at Kiyiya in response, huffing. She hated being called a baby, and she put her hands on her hips to help her efforts to prove her friend wrong. "I am not!" she retorted. "I can run farther and faster than you, so..."

"Doesn't make you any less of a baby," he argued. "You're only thirteen, so..."

Kiyiya came to his feet and mocked Maheegan, putting his hands on his hips and trying to stand tall. He hated the fact that she was taller than he was, but it didn't make him any less stubborn. "So ha," he finished, sticking his tongue out again.

"Plus," he continued, "I'm stronger and smarter than you."

Now this was making Maheegan mad. "Oh yeah? You're scared of a cow!" she returned, doing her best to barb her words. She rose to her tip-toes to aid herself on the height front, very pleased with herself that she was taller than him...at least for now. That was bound to change in coming years, but now was what really mattered. Predictably she went straight to that point to argue:

"You're shorter than me, so who's the baby now, huh? Ha!" She stuck her tongue out and then moved on to her next point, which was admittedly her weakest. "And I wouldn't say you're smarter than me. Since you're scared of a cow." She pushed a lock of dark hair out of her face and glared.

"At least I'm not scared of people," Kiyiya's voice rose. Maheegan was the only person who could make him so angry. "At least I can actually talk to people. You- everyone thinks you're some kind of mute freak."

He didn't want to hear anymore. Frankly, he didn't want to argue anymore. Not with her. She was admittedly his best friend. He ran past Maheegan and into one of the huts, which happened to be his home. He plopped down on his mat face-first and yelled into it.

Maheegan bared her teeth in a wolfish manner, enraged, her neck hairs standing on end. She spun around to argue, but Kiyiya had already run off into a hut and she knew better than to follow. She stood there and fumed for a while. What a nerve. What a nerve! Ugh! She wanted to yell that she wasn't finished with him, to come back and not be a coward, but the words stuck in her throat.

Finding that her legs worked again, she trotted irritably to the edge of the village and then scrambled through the forest and sat on a rotting log. Alone here, she put her head in her hands. She was not afraid of people! She just... didn't talk much, that was all. But Kiyiya's words echoed in her head. Everyone thinks you're some kind of mute freak. That coming from Maheegan's only friend stung bad.

She cried softly after making sure that no one was around.

Kiyiya lay on his mat, staring up at the ceiling of the hut, or rather, glaring at it as if it were Maheegan. He lifted his foot and kicked the air repeatedly, finding himself in a steady rhythm. After minutes of steaming and allowing himself to cool down, Kiyiya jumped to his feet and ran out of the hut. He expected to find Maheegan somewhere close by. When they argued, she would simply go off and busy herself with chores that someone around the village entrusted in her. However, when he began having trouble finding her, and no one had seemed to have seen her, he started to panic.

Maybe she's in the forest.

He knew that Maheegan adored engulfing herself in nature when she was upset or troubled with anything. He jogged to the edge of the woods and yelled out, "Maheegan?" and listened to his voice echo. "Maheegan," he called again, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it!"

Her right hand wiped the tears off her wet cheeks and a finger paused a moment on the raised, dark scar under one eye. She had almost finished crying, and luckily had quietened considerably since she'd sat and started to cry. When Maheegan heard Kiyiya call her name, she felt one of her teeth bite down into her lower lip almost of its own accord. To answer him or not? Her face was still flushed with the insults he'd thrown, but it wasn't as if she was innocent.

Besides, they were friends and friends fight sometimes. She got to her feet and brushed herself off, scanning the woods for Kiyiya and glimpsing him at the edge. Half-frustrated, yet feeling ready to go make up, Maheegan wiped off the remainder of the tears--she did not want to leave evidence that she'd been crying--and approached him, not bothering to be quick as she usually was, or to be quiet, as again, she usually was.

"I'm sorry," she called hesitantly. Nothing hurt Maheegan's pride like a good apology, but she knew she had to say it.

"Maheegan," Kiyiya called again, looking at her with a frown. As he opened his mouth to tell her not to apologize, all he could muster in his shock and fear was, "Duck!"

He tried to run forward to pull her down on the ground but found himself crouching as a large pack of wolves ran toward them, leaping over them at unreal heights. They sped past him and Maheegan toward the village, some of their feet painfully trampling over Kiyiya as they went. When every one of them had passed almost like a group of elk running from a predator, Kiyiya lay for a moment before dragging himself to his knees and looking to Maheegan.

"Are you alright?!" he called frantically, running toward her and sinking to his knees beside her. "Maheegan?"

Maheegan had crouched and then was knocked to her side by the impact of a wolf's foot right on her stomach as the pack thundered past. The force of it rolled her violently and sent her straight into a tree, where the shock of it changed her right there. Right in front of Kiyiya. All those years of stealth and care taken, all for nothing...

Dazed, she pricked her ears and raised her head at the sound of her name. Her wolf form was small, gangly. Clearly a juvenile, as her human form was. She had large floppy paws and big ears, and her round yellow eyes shone with fear as they stared at Kiyiya. He could kill her now, or worse, he could run in fear, and that would hurt more than any knife could. Her friend. Afraid of her. Afraid of what she really was.

Her gaze then followed the large group of wolves. That was unusual behavior.

"M-Maheegan?" Kiyiya said her name in awe, completely taken aback by her transformation. On his hands and knees, he backed up and felt himself shrinking. He had known Maheegan all of his life, but he had never known this about her. It had neither come up in conversation nor made itself present. There was a slight sting of betrayal, because Kiyiya felt that he and Maheegan had always had a special bond and that they could tell each other everything. Yet, she kept this a secret from him. Then, he understood, realizing he had also kept a secret from her.

A whimper came from his throat unintentionally, and that was when he realized he was resting on four paws instead of knees and hands. His white fur glimmered in the sunlight, showing off its black and gray speckles. He looked to Maheegan with shining eyes, one green and one blue. He was about to voice his surprise, relief, and excitement when he heard screaming and shouting coming from the village behind them. His ears perked up in alarm and he turned, taking off in that direction.

The pair of yellow eyes blinked in surprise. It was quickly replaced by relief, however, when the realization hit her that she was not alone. She shared this scary, exciting, exhilarating ability with someone, and it wasn't just any random villager. It was her best friend. The boy she'd grown up alongside. Before she could respond to the fact that a beautiful speckled wolf stood before her, Kiyiya had gone and knocked her back into the present.

The village was in danger.

Maheegan, being even faster on four legs than two, darted from the woods and careened toward the village. Her tongue lolled from her mouth with the exertion.

Jealousy and anger welled up in Kiyiya's chest when Maheegan darted past him. Even though he had transformed, and was very obviously larger and stronger than she, he still couldn't match her swiftness. He skidded to a halt behind her, nearly running into her due to his lack of attention. Following her gaze, he stared in horrified awe as a large, black wolf wreaked havoc upon their village. Their home that they'd known all of their lives.

Many smaller wolves of varying colors and sizes aided the black one in destroying the village. Kiyiya and Maheegan watched helplessly as villagers were thrown about, gaping wounds being torn into their skin. He stared as a large, brown wolf dug into the throat of Onaiwah, the herbalist's screams piercing through his ears like a blade. They flattened against his head, and he whimpered.

Maheegan lowered herself so that her belly was flat on the ground. She wanted to cover her eyes with her large paws, but it was impossible to stop drinking in the horrific scene ahead. Like Kiyiya's, her ears fell flat along her neck while her hackles prickled and rose. The signals were mixed, but she noticed nothing of herself. All that existed right now was the villagers she'd grown up around, being slaughtered before her.

And then there was Onaiwah. She'd spoken to Kiyiya just minutes ago. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be. No. She wouldn't let it happen!

Snarling, Maheegan lunged and sunk puppyish teeth into the brown wolf's hind leg. It was already too late; if Onaiwah wasn't dead now she would be very soon. Plus, the wolf she'd attacked practically loomed above Maheegan. Common sense set in.

Tail between her legs, Maheegan bounded back toward Kiyiya, so scared the whites of her eyes showed.