New Beginnings

“Got your toothbrush? Underwear? Your passport?” As June rattled off the checklist for the third time, Lilac could only laugh and assure her that she’d packed absolutely everything. Her mom nudged her with a shoulder. “Hey, don’t laugh! It’s not every day your firstborn goes off to college!”

Her brother immediately butted in, "Um, excuse me! It's me, Arlo, and then Lilac!"

“Yeah, she's my firstborn today, Max. When it benefits my point.” June chuckled and nudged Max's shoulder. Arlo only smiled and rolled his eyes.

Of June’s three pups, Lilac had always looked the least like their mother. Her coat was coarse blue-gray, not soft tawny that glinted in the sun. Her eyes were an opulent gold, unlike the deep green of June and her brothers. Her teeth had always felt a bit too big for her mouth, her skin too tight. No, she didn't look like her mother or brothers. She looked a bit more like-

June rubbed Lilac's shoulder sympathetically as if she could hear her daughter's spiraling thoughts. The air was filled with light conversation between the four of them. A crass joke or two from Max, a string of cautions from her mother, and a few words from Arlo when there was space for him to chime in. Lilac let her brain quiet for just a moment.

 The spring air smelled of pine trees and wildflowers. Lilac wished her dad could be here to give her a send-off. It was all she could think about.

“You’re making us so proud.” Her mother interlaced their fingers, squeezing reassuringly. June's hands always looked so much smaller than hers. "All the more to hold," her mother would've said. But Lilac still wished they were smaller. More delicate. More appropriate for her breed.

Lilac let out a long breath she had been holding as the sound of the train whistle drew near. She leaned further into her mother's shoulder and closed her eyes. Maybe if she followed her mother's footsteps, the hand around hers wouldn't feel quite so far away. But her chest filled with warmth all the same.

"Promise you’ll stay safe? I need some grand-puppies. I'm not getting any younger, you know," June said, her voice dropping in exaggerated seriousness.

"Hey, there's still hope for Max and Arlo. Why's all the pressure on me?" Lilac scoffed in mock offense.

June gave a bemused look in response, are you serious? Written all over her expression. Neither of the boys moved to correct her.

The four of them rose from the bench. Their eyes teared up in tandem. Max scooped her up off the ground and hugged her until she tapped out with a breathless laugh. Lilac bent down slightly to embrace her mother, who held her tight, almost desperately.

"Promise you'll call me every day?" June murmured into her daughter's shoulder, her voice weak.

Lilac laughed wistfully as tears fell into her mother’s silver-streaked hair. She tried keep her grin tight; to keep her fangs to herself. But she couldn’t help it then, or the time before that, or the thousands before that. “All the more to smile with,” her mom would always say. And so she smiled, wondering if she was happy then.

“I promise, Mom.”

---

Lilac caught a glimpse of the morning sun through the ambulance window.

A sharp and grating pain dug into her limbs, like hundreds of teeth crushing and grinding the ends of her arms and legs. Suddenly, a sharp needle stabbed deep into her shoulder, filling her veins with ice. The air around her grew colder, a gust of wind ripped through her fur, and sluggish thoughts swam through darkness, fighting for purchase amid the panic.

Screams and shouts rang out all around her, muffled as though she were a thousand miles from their sources. The bed she was on was moving, and it was moving fast. Her eyes dipped in and out of focus. The soundscape was abrasive and hostile: her pounding heartbeat, metal against metal, racing footsteps echoing against hallway walls.

Scenery and faces smeared together, sterile white walls, and horrified looks. A muddled mind fought to ask itself a question as her eyes pried themselves open.

Where am I?

A monstrous growl ripped out of her throat, dying behind clenched teeth. It was followed by the sound of metal bars creaking, her arms flexed tight against their confines, acting of their own accord. She couldn't open her mouth wide enough to scream.

“40 milliliters, now!”

Her body writhed in pain without her, searing for a brief, heart-wrenching moment. A flash of numbness followed by a flash of panic. Her racing heart tripped into a sonorous pounding, like a fist slamming into a wall. Steady. Powerful. Filling her ears alongside squealing wheels against linoleum and nurses shouting words she couldn't understand. Through the agony, a half-conscious brain asks why the bed has chains.

The panic came in rolling waves. Another injection, another muffled scream she only knew as her own from the feeling of her throat clenching like she was being choked. How many shots had they stabbed her with? Her midnight-colored fur stood on end as her jaw clenched and unclenched, testing its leather bindings. Let me out. A voice growled from deep within. Let me out.

“She won’t stay under!” Her breath whistled through her razor-sharp fangs, her golden eyes shooting wide open. They flitted rapidly, unable to take in anything of value as they focused and unfocused, their pupils alternately widening into sharp slits and black voids. Her gaze darted around as she was backed into a room full of beeps and bright white lights.

The bed's metal frame creaked under her vice grip. It was cold enough to sear, as if it were branding her hands. It was grounding. A final frostbitten injection forced her back down against the bed with a snarl. The sounds of leather snapping ricocheted against her ears, and suddenly she was screaming bloody murder, stopping only to choke on air. A violent hysteria from within her cried out from every inch of her skin as every strand of fur on her body stood on end. Begging, crying, pleading: Let me out. Let me out! LET ME OUT-

"Hey." A soft voice cut through the roaring static. Lilac’s jaw hung wide open, her howling coming to an abrupt stop. Slowly, gently, cerulean-blue eyes entered her view, looking down at her softly.

"I need you to rest now," the voice said, accompanied by the feel of a hand running gently along the side of her face and through her fur, applying gentle pressure to the back of her neck. "It's going to be okay."

Inch by inch, a thousand pinpricks rippled through her body. The darkness at the edge of her sight engulfed her vision until there was nothing but the sound of her slowing heart.

---

Consciousness returned all at once. She awoke on a cold, unfamiliar surface. Her eyes snapped open, and she bolted upright, instantly aware of a burning soreness everywhere in her body. The ache became sharp when she moved, and her muscles quivered when she was still.

Where am I? This isn't my bed.

She dragged a trembling hand to her face, only to feel it weighed down by heavy leather and metal shackles, large cuffs falling against her forearms. When her hand reached her face, all the air was ripped from her lungs. It was a muzzle.

It was several sizes too big for her and fit loosely. She figured she could open her mouth all the way if she needed to scream, and oh, she just might. Her teeth began to chatter, panic washing over her. The bed she lay in was massive, stretching a foot out on either side of her.

I'm in prison. I hurt someone…?

As she took a pause to look around, an unnerving realization set in. The IV tube in her arm, the heart monitor pinching her finger: she was in a hospital. Or at least something adjacent to one — as far as she knew, hospitals didn't have barred windows, or chain restraints hanging off the beds. She squirmed, but the instant her paw pads gripped the cold railing, a strange sting shot through her forearms. She recoiled. Upon inspection, a red mark had been burned into her flesh.

Her attention was stolen by the sound of someone clearing their throat.

“You’re awake,” said a cross-armed wolf sitting near the doorway. Her amber eyes burned above her square, greying muzzle, She was older, with healed scars littering every visible inch of her body. Her body was rigid with an  imposing frame that threatened to crush the hospital chair beneath her.  Her hair was spiked with grey streaks. Had Lilac had slightly worse vision, she might have mistaken the woven woman for a man. "I’m Henna. You must be Lilac...?"

Even as Lilac lay there terrified, chained to a cot, unsure of how she got here or why, the sharp look in the wolf woman's eyes made her shrink with shame. Henna's brawny body was tense with agitation, or perhaps annoyance. Lilac couldn't decide which would be worse.

Lilac's gaze went to the barred windows, and a sardonic laugh escaped the large woman off to her right. Her laugh was deep like a pounding drum. "What? Never been in the Feral Unit before?"

Unsure if she could speak, Lilac shook her head at the question, her oversized muzzle moving awkwardly with her. Henna appraised her silent response with an air of what Lilac hoped was bemusement.

The question replayed in Lilac's mind: Feral Units were only for dangerous canines, individuals who had lost control of their bodies and were deemed a danger to themselves and others. Distemper, rabies, rage syndrome—this room was open only to the seriously afflicted. Of all the canines who entered, few left alive, and even fewer left able to live well. Her breath wheezed from underneath her muzzle.

"You're not dying," Henna stated with finality, watching Lilac's ever-growing distress. Henna's mouth quirked at the edges to reveal her bright white fangs. A knock at the door made both their ears flick toward the sound.

The door opened to reveal a slender, caramel-painted border collie. Her fur was lustrous, even under the harsh white light of the hospital room. The soft, snowy fur of her bangs kissed her brow and curved along her face before falling like a curtain of silk thread. She was wrapped in a light gray jacket and form-fitting jeans that tightly hugged her delicate frame. Her long, perfectly groomed tail nearly touched the floor with the length of her fur.

When their eyes met, Lilac felt her entire body go stiff. She'd seen those blue eyes before. Despite her slight smile, her gaze was nothing short of intense. A wave of self-consciousness made Lilac shrink into herself.

"Oh." The collie breathed quietly. Something in her tone sent a pang of dread down Lilac's spine. Looking at her body, even with her overwhelming soreness, she looked the way she always had. After what felt like decades of quiet discernment, the collie spoke again. “She is… as described.”

Piece by piece, the collie woman broke down Lilac's appearance aloud. "Short, triangular ears. Round face, double coat," She tilted her head to the side. "Curled tail." Lilac's legs pulled closer to herself at the clinical tone of the observation. "You must be a type of Inu. Fascinating."

The bewildered laugh that bubbled out of Henna felt like it shook the room.“Certainly a far cry from the version that arrived." She glanced back at Lilac, who visibly tensed. "Say the word, and we'll request some morphine or something. Your bones must ache something fierce."

The collie only hummed in agreement before striding towards the hospital bed with confidence. Her hands grazed over Lilac’s leather-bound wrists with feather-light consideration. There was a deep intensity in her composure, one that would make anyone have to fight to maintain eye contact.

The sounds of leather unbuckling echoed in the room's quiet.

“My name is Teddy. I'm told your name is Lilac?” The border collie - Teddy - asked. Her voice flowed over Lilac’s disheveled maw as the restraints fell against the floor. Snowy white hands glided further down to her feet, undoing their shackles. Lilac's voice came as a hollowed grunt from the back of her throat, still too overtaken by her full-body paranoia to form proper words, instead transfixed on the hands moving down the length of her imprisoned arm. Teddy hummed as she considered the cuff's necessity before deciding to unbuckle them, too. The touch sent a shiver up Lilac’s spine, though the motion was far from intimate. "Can you speak?"

“…I-.” Lilac's voice came out as little more than a dry moan, still garbled with terror and an ache as though she had spent the night swallowing glass. “Yes.”

Once freed, Lilac rubbed her irritated wrists as a knot of embarrassment grew where the initial hysteria had sat. She realized there were dark bruises under the shackles. Her skin itched terribly.

"Silver,” Teddy supplied. "You are likely allergic, given your condition. We can request burn cream, if you would like." Lilac shook her head and begged silently for one of them to explain why she was here.

Teddy backed up to give her space as Henna finally rose from her seat, easily dwarfing the collie by a foot. Despite the threatening height difference, Teddy seemed unbothered by Henna's imposing size and predatory appearance. Lilac shifted to sit more comfortably in the bed, attempting to mirror the unconcern.

She desperately needed any explanation for why she was strapped to a hospital bed, any explanation for why the two pairs of eyes locked onto her were looking at her as though she had grown a second head. A heart attack, a freak accident, an arrest for a crime she didn’t commit - she would sooner take any absurd explanation for why she was there than accept what they were suggesting. Despite Teddy's seeming indifference and Henna's loud attempts at joviality, it was clear there was a confusion that sat between all three of them as Teddy announced to the room.

“Ms. Kimberlite, you tested positive for the Lycanthropy mutation. You’re a werewolf.”

---

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[See Chapter Art]