Dachar (Pronounced Dashar) walked around, his pack of three behind him. They had run out of food at their den site, and other den sites near them. To make matters worse, Dachar's mate, Rumor was pregnant. They needed to get food near the den fast, or the pups would starve. Every two steps, he sniffed the air, in hopes of finding food that is easy to catch. At last, he finds it: A deer, who is wounded by a previous attack by a different wolf pack. While the Beta male was distracting the deer with growling and snarling, Dachar mounded on top of the deer, swiftly killing it with a blow to the neck. They start to drag the deer's body towards the den. When they make it to the den, Rumor goes in the den. Half an hour later, three beautiful pups are born: A male that looks like Dachar, a female that looks like Rumor, and one pup that looks like the two combined. Dachar looks down at his children, affection glowing in his eyes. He turns to Rumor, who is drifting to sleep, and says: "When they grow up, they will make great pack leaders to the orange leaf pack." Rumor nods sleepily, "I know they will." She soon drifts to sleep.
Dachar, goes outside the den, and howls proudly. He hears a few congratulation howls from loners and wolves from other packs. He begins to mark his territory around the den, to keep the pups and his mate safe(and of course the Beta male), then goes back inside the den, curls up next to Rumor, and falls asleep.
He wakes up the next day, Rumor is gone, and the pups are sleeping beside him. So the pups could stay warm, he stays where he was. He fed them chewed up food and gave them warmth for a day and a half, waiting for the return of his mate. But she never showed up. He told the Beta male to keep the pups safe while he was gone, looking for her. He ran towards the faint scent of her. Then he sees a furry thing, just laying there, in the open. As he approaches the furry thing, he realizes that it was Rumor, and that she had been shot and killed by a hunter. Her body lies, with a dead rabbit in her mouth, for the pups.
He grieves over his loss for the next few months. Even a lone, female wolf decided to join the pack in the place of Rumor and to take care of the pups, it didn't help his pain. He was reluctant to eat, though he did anyways, so he wouldn't starve. He almost never slept, grief keeping him awake, so he would look up at the stars. Then one of his pups, the one that looked like Rumor came up to him and said, "You know, she'll always be with you...." Dachar looks down at his pup as she stands on her hind legs and puts her paw onto his chest, "Right here."
Dachar nods as tears run down his face. The pup was right. Rumor will always be with him. With his new found strength, he howls to the stars, and he swears, he saw the stars morph into Rumor's face, smiling down at him, and he smiled back.