This is an excerpt from the journal of the human baby whose mate transitioned as a pup, then ate several fingers and toes off him before either set of parents noticed.

Very little of his writing is preserved, and even less of it is personal, as he is, by classification, an unimaginative man. This excerpt superficially makes a liar of that assessment, as his choice of slang is extremely colorful for the era.

Wednesday, June 24th, 1874:

I've been spending much time staring at my missing fingers on my left hand--no idea why that is calming. Probably the scars remind me of my little love. I've loved Meredith my entire life. Of course, most our trips around the homestead were of me on the back of a horse, and her as a wolf. The cattle tend to behave better when she is in a form that makes sense to their little brains. They cannot stand a wolf in man's form for long. But even the view did nothing to prevent my obsession with the scars on my hand.

I wasn't focusing on my knuckles because my dearest love's announcement. She is with child again. My Pioneer of Nature only has to think of being as rigid as a Maypole and the dear girl rounds like a fertility goddess. If she wasn't a wolf, my Eavesdropper would have put her in an early grave. Twins, triplets, every other year brings forth more mouths to feed. If we did not live on the verge of the pack lands, handling the more docile food, I wouldn't be able to support this many children. 23 children, a little over 1 a year, although we do manage to use a few sheepskins after each birth, delaying the inevitable. Still, I doubt I've memorized their names, especially not for their wolves.

But I digress. I am sitting here, writing by a sputtering candle and in my poor penmanship, not because I'm to be a father, yet again, but because I'm doing this while my own son steps up to take over the pack from his grandfather. In the normal course of events--that is, if I had been a shifter myself--I would have taken over for him when I mated his daughter. Instead, he kept his position, and I have been barely tolerated until my sons began proving themselves as warriors.

Now, at least, the pack treads carefully, not knowing how my sons will take their behavior towards their own father. I urged them to leave things be, and Meredith urges for reconciliation. It had never set well with her wolf that I was so disrespected. I've not been blind to the quickly fading scars from fights she's tried to keep from me. The fact that I still live and breathe is a testament to her prowess.

My intuition is that I am to be a pawn in a move against my sons, the moment their grandfather pulls away from the pack. The worst of Meredith's battles had always been in her father's absences. But, as tradition dictates, the elder will tour other packs--with his daughter, since his own she-wolf passed at her birth, and by all rights I should have been stepping down, making this tour.

I do not know if my own sons will defend me as loyally as their mother. I am not their mate, and a warrior's training does not leave room for a human father to coddle his sons. I do not even know if their grandfather's indifference prolonged my life or has caused this moment to be upon us.

What I do know is that I will not go down without a fight--as weak a fight as I provide. This is the age of the gun, and by God, all men are forced to be equal, whether they wish it or not.

~~~

Accompanying information sent in by the pack who found the journal:

This journal excerpt is the thoughts of Alpha William Lightfoot's father: Martin Lindsay, estranged Earl of Crawford, on the eve of William's ascendancy. William took his grandfather's name, during the ceremony. Martin's own father escaped Scotland without much of anything recorded on him in their peerage. The title, instead, became a 1st title to the Earl of Balcarres' line (a cousin), when George Lindsay-Crawford became the last to officially hold the title.

4 wolves, in the space of a month, were found shot in the head on Lindsay's property, followed by a challenge for title the day before Norman Lightfoot returned to his pack. Surprisingly, Martin Lindsay came out of that month with only a broken rib and a few gouges that left scarring from his left shoulder blade to his right hip.

It is estimated that Meredith Lightfoot bore some 57 children that managed to survive to early adulthood. The Lightfoot pack is a homogeneous Canadian pack.