Aurals

Wailing, incessant wailing. Carran tried not to be irritated, but Deign had a few spring litters to deal with and nearly all of them were sick. The spring had been wet and rainy, not good for tiny babies, but he’d been out training the night before and wanted nothing more than to sleep. “Carran, I need your help,” Deign said. He pulled himself up and helped her make sure the pups were cared for. “Where’s Akela?” Carran asked as a pup wiped its snot on his foreleg. “She’s trying to gather supplies in this godforsaken rain,” Deign muttered, trying to get the mewling pup to swallow an herb packet. “It gross,” it squeaked. “I know, but in order to get big and strong you have to eat it. Look at Carran, he’s a fine young apprentice and he takes his medicine.” The pup looked over at Carran. “I wanna be an appwentice.” “Then you have to take the medicine,” Deign said gently. She managed to get the pups to chew the herbs and their coughing and mewling stopped for the time being.

The first snow had fallen. Carran slipped out of the healers den that morning and stretched. He’d been doing well on patrol and Ravencall had hinted that they were nearly done with what they needed to know. The icy air swirled around him and for a moment, he longed to go back in and curl into his nest, but he wanted to get in a quick patrol around the den center for practice. He’d been learning everyone’s scents. Following where they led until he got to a point where he wasn’t allowed to go. Carran hadn’t disobeyed the rules again, even though Scarling and his buddies had. Some of the higher ranked Aurals knew and no one did anything about it. He was sure Jinx knew too. A footstep alerted him to someone’s presence and he turned his head. “I do know,” Jinx said as he approached. Carran crouched a little, not liking his thoughts being eavesdropped on. Jinx looked completely healthy. It’d taken a few weeks, but Carran suddenly understood that his time training with Watch and