Ivory Snow

Fifty miles down the shore, six male pups sat on a pier, fishing.

The similarities between them were striking enough that there was no explanation beyond them being brothers. The main difference between them were their sizes, which depicted the difference in their ages. Each of the boys had unruly black hair, all in bad need of a haircut.

And possibly a good wash too.

Each male sat on the edges of the pier, no more than two feet separating them from one another, with a stick holding a string in the water. Their feet dangled and swung in the open air.

No one spoke, no one whistled.

They were not fishing just for fun. They were fishing to sell fish. Even the youngest of them took this job seriously.

During this time, the oldest of the fishing group was watching the ocean flow under them, somewhat hypnotized by the movement.

A way offshore, he noticed a large batch of seaweed floating closer. He studied it carefully, having nothing else to focus on at that moment. The male knew something was off, but he couldn’t put a finger on what it was. A slight movement to the right of the weeds caught his attention and he noticed the small fin.

It was too small to be a shark, which they rarely got in that area anyway. Two more fins came up and then down, like the creatures were doing half flips in the water.

“Cool! It’s a dolphin!” One of the others whisper shouted. He would have shouted out fully if it had not been ingrained in him to be silent while fishing.

Their eldest brother had told them they could only help if they were quiet. The eldest of the family was nearby in the trees, in his wolf form, keeping an eye out for trouble. He was very serious about protecting them and making sure they were all safe.

“How do you know?” Another asked, disbelief and irritation coloring his tone.

The one who wanted to shout scoffed, as though this answer should have been obvious. “I read, moron. You should try it sometime.”

The older one, who had been quietly studying the approaching procession, reached a hand up and popped the back of his head.

“No name calling. If Adam heard you, you would be cleaning the stalls by yourself tomorrow.”

No one said anything else as they all watched the odd behavior of the dolphins. Only, they didn’t know if it was odd because they had never actually seen dolphins before. Others in the nearby village had told stories about seeing them around their boats. But these brothers didn’t have money for a boat, they had to fish on the pier.

“What’s that they’re pushing?”

“It looks like a pile of seaweed.”

“Nah, there’s something inside, look closer.”

No one was bothering with keeping their volume down anymore, and no one was paying attention to their makeshift poles.

The dolphins seemed to be swimming right toward them.

“Pull your strings up! We don’t want the dolphins to get caught in the hooks!” The male who read about them hollered.

Every one of the six males scrambled to their feet and began pulling their strings in as fast as they could. They twisted the strings around their homemade poles until they could clip the hooks onto the strings.

“Holy cow! There’s somebody in there! I see a foot.”

“I see fingers!”

The biggest male said a word they were not supposed to say. One that their mother would have made them scrub floors for saying, if she was still alive anyway. He swiftly dove into the water and swam to what he could already tell was another pup. As he neared, the dolphins lifted their snouts out of the water, made an odd snickering sound, and took off.

Their job was done.

The water was shallow enough that the tall male was able to stand next to the pile of seaweed, with his head just above the water. Mixed in with the green and brown were many strands of white. So white, it looked like it had snowed on some of the seaweed.

As fast as he dared, and as softly as he could, he moved the seaweed away. He gasped as he could now clearly see a female pup with the whitest hair he had ever seen. Given, he didn’t see many females in general, but still. White hair had to be unique, right?

The male put two fingers to her neck and felt for a pulse, very faint. He took over where the dolphins had been, pushing her closer to the shore until he was able to put one arm under her shoulders, and another under knees, and lifted her up.

It was slow moving, but he managed to get them to the shore and out of the water.

“Adam! Adam!” The male yelled as loud as he could as he ran to the wagon they had brought with them earlier that morning.

“Hurry, clear out a space for her.” He instructed the others, who were following quickly behind.

They laid her out on the flap to begin with, somewhere they could access her easily.

Another male, one who was a larger version of the others, came running out of the trees, still pulling his pants up. He had obviously just shifted back from his wolf.

“What’s wrong? What happened? Is everyone alright?” Adam asked, panicked that he might have missed something and failed to protect his brothers.

“We found her in the water.”

“The dolphins brought her to us. Woah! Is her hair white? Is she an angel? Can we keep her?”

“Shut up, Fitz.” Adam told him firmly. “Brian, who is she?”

Brian, the one who had pulled the female out, moved away, giving Adam room to look her over.

“I don’t know. The dolphins were pushing a pile of seaweed toward us. When I realized there was someone in there I swam over.” He huffed, clearly needing to catch his breath from the exertion. “Will she be, okay?”

The brothers went silent once again as Adam leaned an ear down to listen for breathing.

“We need to get her some air. Who knows how long she was in the water for.” The book worm spoke up.

“Yes, Dean. I was getting to that.” Adam sighed and looked down at the girl. “But thank you. Stand back. Dad showed me how to do this once, but I’ve never actually had to do it.”

They all watched in silence. Their faces filled with curiosity and worry for the unknown female.

Adam lifted the female’s chin up, tilting her head back slightly, then opened her mouth. He softly pressed his lips against hers and prepared to blow his own air into the sleeping female.

The moment his lips touched hers, he received a small zap. Adam barely kept himself from jumping back and blew. He did finally jump away when the female started coughing. Never having done anything remotely close to this, he wasn’t sure if the small shock he got was from the lifesaving actions, or... he had no idea what it could have been. But at least she was breathing, so he figured it didn’t matter what it meant.

Acting quickly, he rolled her to her side, allowing the small bits of water coming out to fall to the ground and not choke her again. With her in this position, he became aware of another issue. The back right side of her head had a large gash on it. Right on the hair line.

The female was no more than a pup, most likely too young to shift. She would not have her wolf fully developed yet. Her healing would be slower than a full-grown wolf’s would be.

“Brian, hold her up.” He caught himself before telling Dean to pat her back. For some reason he didn’t feel right about his brother touching her bare skin.

Brian readily took over to do what Adam had instructed.

While he did that, Adam climbed in the wagon behind her and knelt down. He carefully moved her hair, giving him a better view of the injury. With her wearing nothing but a bathing suit, it was easy to see her back. It was filled with cuts and bruises already forming. Guess it was a good thing Dean wasn’t beating her back right now.

“Gabe. Run into the forest and find my shirt. Quickly, we need to stop this bleeding.”

The smallest of the bunch ran with haste.

“What’s wrong?” Dean’s twin asked.

“She’s bleeding from her head.”

“I didn’t see any blood when I grabbed her.” Brian stated as his voice grew in pitch.

Adam shook his head. “No. The water would have washed it away. It’s also possible the seaweed acted as a bandage. From all these injuries, I’m thinking she fell off some rocks. Maybe knocking her out before she went into the water.”

Gabe came running back over, holding the shirt up triumphantly. He was proud he could help with something. Being so small, he rarely got to do anything.

“Thank you.” Adam wrapped his shirt around her head, in a similar fashion to what he had seen his mother wrap a scarf when she would clean, or working in the barn, and wanted all of her hair up. At least, that was what he was trying to do. It didn’t turn out anything like what his mom did. Oh well, at least the hair was out of the way.

“Any more water coming out?” He asked the others.

“No, I think that’s it. It should be safe to lay her on her back now. What are we going to do with her? We can’t leave her out here. There’s no way to tell how far she floated.” Dean responded.

Adam looked around the beach they were settled on. Even though no one was around right now, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t be eventually. No, this would not be a safe place. Especially for a female all alone. Rogues weren’t what worried him. There were plenty of bad seeds within their village and pack.

The traveling ones were some of the worst. They had had fish stolen right out of their wagon on more than one occasion. Which was why he now chose to shift and stand guard while his brothers fished.

“We’re going to have to take her home with us for now. When she wakes up, we can find out who she is and where she is from. I’m sure her parents are looking for her.”

“What if she ain’t got no parents? Like us.” Fitz asked softly.

Adam sighed sadly. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” He placed his hand in the pup’s dirty hair and ruffled it. “Alright?”

With one firm nod, Fitz moved away to start packing up. There would be no fish for them to sell at the market in the morning.

The family of males left ten minutes later. The female was positioned in the back, next to the empty fish barrels. Gabe and Fitz sat on the flap, their feet swinging down, just like they had done on the pier.

Normally Adam would have sat on the bench seat, driving the horse and wagon. Instead, he asked Charles, Dean’s twin, too. Charles cheerfully whistled as he drove, as was his norm. The sound was like a soothing balm for the rest of them.

Adam and Brian walked along one side of the wagon, while Dean and Eric walked on the other.

Adam walked near the injured female pup’s head, close enough that he could frequently reach in and check her pulse.

He didn’t know why, but he and his wolf felt very protective of her. The whole time he had been patching her up, his wolf was pushing for him to save her.

Neither of them knew why.

Adam was only 16, he had had his first shift just over a year ago. Which was very young. Most people experienced their first shift closer to seventeen or even eighteen. One of the village elders said it was probably due to necessity. He claimed that in times of great need, a wolf could appear sooner than normal. Only the strongest would be able to pull it off.

Seeing as how they had lost their father, their only living parent, to an attack the year before, it was not unexpected that Adam would shift. His wolf would have felt the need to protect his brothers.

Their father had been killed by a traveling salesman, someone who went from village to village selling their wares. Some were good males, good wolves. They worked hard at their trade. While others preferred to steal what they considered valuable and sold it as their own.

Adam Sr, the pup’s father, was well known for his carpentry skills. This particular salesman tried to sneak up behind the wagon, while their father was on his way to the market.

Their mother, Zelda, had died within hours of giving birth to Gabe, a few years before that. The midwife said something about too much blood. Adam had only been around nine at the time, he didn’t understand why his mother’s wolf had been unable to heal.

Even now, after seven years, he still had difficulty understanding. Wolves were supposed to be able to heal from everything. But, as he was learning every day, there was a lot he didn’t know about being blessed with a wolf spirit.

Gabe was the quietest of the seven orphaned brothers. He rarely ever spoke to anyone, and never in the presence of someone outside the family. He was the only one who never knew their mother. Not that many of them had very clear memories of her, they were too young when she passed.

The boys moved slower than normal, trying not to hurt the female more than she already was. So, the hour-long trip took them nearly double that. Plenty of time for Adam to think about where they would put her for now and what they could sell at the market tomorrow instead of the fish.

They were low on funds, like always, and needed to buy supplies.

One of the Barons had requested aid with their harvest this year. It would take Adam away from his brothers for a week or two. He had planned on saying no. He couldn’t leave them, not without protection.

The last few days had been rough with the fish, catching very few. With the weather turning cooler, the number of fish coming this close to shore was going to go down. Adam had hoped to get them further ahead financially before the winter months came.

They had been lucky, outside of losing both of their parents. Their land had been in the family for generations. Besides their yearly land taxes, they did not have to pay rent or mortgage on any of it.

Technically speaking, his brothers were big enough now that they could manage the harvest without him.

Thankfully, their father had passed down the family tradition of carving and building. A few of their father’s customers still requested specialty items from time to time. Adam usually kept a few things around to sell at the market. That would have to be the best he could do for now.

The money the Baron would pay him for helping with his harvest would be enough to feed his six brothers for a month. If they all buckled down and carved various things, surely, they could make more money. Plus, the money they would get for selling their grains. The sheep would need shearing again soon. If they had too, they could sell one of the cows. Adam hated to sell any of the animals though. They still needed them.

Then there was the female. How long would she be with them?

Could they afford to feed another mouth?

Would she even remember where she was from?

Adam decided he would ask around at the market tomorrow, see if anyone had heard anything about a lost pup. The sooner they sent her home, the better for them.

His wolf whimpered at the idea. Which confused Adam.

He had no one to talk to about things pertaining to his wolf. Traditionally, it was the parents who helped their pups out during the transition. Yes, Adam could go back to the village elder. Or the Baron. But Adam wasn’t comfortable with doing that.

The Baron especially was waiting for Adam to show a sign of weakness so he could sweep in and steal their land out from under them. He tried in the beginning, claiming Adam wasn’t fit to look after his land, let alone his brothers. He even tried to convince Adam that they would be better off living with his servants and getting paid to work their own lands.

The Baron said it was a kindness he was willing to bestow upon them.

Gabe had spoken quietly to Adam that night, telling him what he had overheard one of the females saying. People always assumed that since he didn’t talk, he was dumb too.

How wrong they were.

Gabe was always full of information and shared it when he felt it was necessary. That had been one of those times.

Apparently, the Baroness was telling her friends how they were going to swindle the land from the pups and if that didn’t work, they would take it by force. Had she not been bragging all over town, it might have worked.

Adam shifted the very next day.

His young age made the others wary enough that they backed off and watched from afar. Hoping that he would fail to care for and protect them.

Which was one of the reasons Adam was loath to go help the Baron. It might be time to set his pride aside though. He could trust Brian to ensure the other males in his family did their part.