* The media image depicts the Moon goddess.

Penn experienced another restless night's sleep. She felt there was something amiss, but blamed the sleepless nights on the change in the weather. Spring had come early to the north mountain by a couple of weeks. The early spring was welcome. Though a long winter was not really a hardship for her, if there was plenty of game to be found. She was just surprised by how much she longed for the children over the winter months. And even more astounded by the growing desire to return, even for a short time, to the pack house.

She shook her head, stretched on the cave floor and struggled to her feet in an effort to shake off the drowsiness that clung to her like a wet blanket. But as she struggled to her feet she felt a wave of confusion. Why was she in her skin and not her fur? Penn touched her bare flesh to make sure she wasn't seeing things. However, the touch didn't seem to register with her senses and so she felt even more perplexed.

Looking around the cave she tried to ascertain what, if anything, was going on. Only, in the process, she discovered that she could not decipher if it was day or night, or if she was waking or in a dream state. It struck her suddenly that this feeling, this confused state, was in some strange way familiar to her. She'd experienced something like it before. Long, long ago when she was a small pup in her old pack - before anyone thought she was peculiar, before anyone had turned on her. 

She vaguely recalled once having an encounter with the Moon goddess in such a state as this. The memory now was so fleeting, so watery, that she did not remember what the goddess looked like or what she'd wanted from Penn. However, she hadn't forgotten the feeling  of being suspended in a sort of metaphysical limbo.

On a hunch of sorts, she took a chance and gently called out, "Moon goddess?"

The darkness turned into a burning inferno and Penn saw herself standing on the main drag of a small village. The mountains, the woods and the houses all around her were completely engulfed in flames. There was chaos everywhere she looked. Children stood alone in the street with their faces turned to the sky as they cried their hearts out. Grown adults stumbled out of doors and fell out of windows with their bodies engulfed in the scorching flames. People trampled one another, with children clutched under their arms, as they tried to scramble away from the fires. Several people bumped into Penn as they ran toward the end of town, but none of them appeared to see her.

Penn, clearly just an observer, looked calmly toward their escape route, but there was just a wall of fire. She turned around to search for another way out. It appeared that the only route was straight down the main street. However, there was a force heading her way. An army of men standing shoulder to shoulder who were trampling every man, woman and child in their path. The men walked right through Penn like she wasn't even there. She watched them strike down everyone who wasn't already dead. 

Someone took Penn's hand and she looked down into the face of a small child. It was no one she recognized. At least, not at first. The child, unharmed and unafraid, grinned up at her and pulled on her fingers. Penn followed her as she led her down to what appeared to be the centre of town. There, surrounded by many hostile soldiers, were a group of children who were growling and barring their teeth at the men who threatened them.  The child at her side let go of her fingers and slipped between the soldiers to stand with the other children, hand in hand, as they barked and snapped their teeth.

Penn recognized the girl now and in a panic cried out, "Mia!"

The moment the girl's name crossed her lips the dream or vision or whatever it was disappeared and to Penn's great shock, she found herself standing at the back door of the Orthos pack house in the what appeared to be the middle of the night. The place was in darkness and Penn could not pick up the children's scents. She pinched herself, wondering, no hoping, she was still in some kind of trance. But, she felt the sting of it and knew this, at least, was real.

Immediately transforming into her fur, Penn began to sniff the premises for the children. The place was locked up and so she was left to sniff outside. A few rounds around the building and she was sure they had not been there in some time. Not wanting to roam the town all night, she followed Fancy's scent knowing the woman would certainly be able to lead her to the children.

Fancy lived only a few streets from the pack house. It appeared, from the strength of her scent, that she walked the same path back and forth to the pack house every day.  The woman lived in a small two-story house. There were other scents there as well. She did not live alone. 

Penn surveyed the property, circled it a few times and then took on her human form so that she could try the front door. It was not locked. She was able to slip in and follow Fancy's scent straight to her upstairs bedroom.

"Fancy," she called gently to the woman who was sound asleep on her bed. When the woman did not respond, Penn sat down on the edge of the bed and shook the woman's shoulder as she quietly called her name again.

Fancy stirred from her sleep but didn't know what had woken her. She rubbed her eyes and looked to her alarm clock to see the time. It was 3AM in the morning. She closed her eyes and laid back on the pillow. It was way too early to get up even for an early riser such as her self. She groaned a little as she tried to get comfortable again.

She was on the verge of nodding off when she heard a familiar voice call, "Fancy, wake up."

This time her eyes shot open and she stared wide-eyed into the face of the most mysterious creature she had ever known. It was as it had been that night she'd found Penn standing in the moonlight all those months ago in the pack house basement suite. Penn's long sleek black hair shone like silken rivers in the pale light of the moon, which was currently pouring into Fancy's room through her large bedroom windows. And this same unrestrained moonlight lit up Penn's bare skin making it positively radiant. So much so that Fancy had to shield her eyes from the brilliance of it - of her.

Fancy was in awe once again. Her breath caught in her throat preventing her from saying a thing as she marvelled at Penn's exquisite and ethereal beauty, which was always hidden in daylight or under the artificial lights of the pack house. No she-wolf Fancy had ever met had looked this way under moonlight. She was as sure as she was that first time that Penn was some kind of goddess in disguise - in a body of flesh, blood and bone. Not the Moon goddess, whom records were quite adamant was silver-eyed and silver-haired, but surly a descendant of the Moon goddess in some way.

Fancy was so moved by her beauty and so taken with her encounter that she remained speechless. She only stared at Penn with great adoration. Her heart felt moved to tears. She could not explain it. It was like that first night - she was overcome by the experience which she had no words to express. Fancy was helpless when the tears spilled down her temples and into her hairline.

"Fancy?" Penn called the woman's name again when she realized she was in a bit of a stupor. "Fancy, are you awake? Where are the pups?"

The mention of the pups brought Fancy out of this peculiar trance state she found herself in. She sat up almost immediately and cried out, "It's you! Your home!" Then she flung her arms around Penn's neck and and hugged her close.

Penn was so startled that she didn't move. She didn't breath. She just waited with a stunned expression for Fancy to come to her senses. Fancy had always been quite straight-laced with Penn. She didn't think the woman liked her at all. Certainly, not enough to want to embrace her with such enthusiasm. Penn was a little touched by the display but also confused.

"The children?" Penn asked when Fancy showed no signs of letting her go.

Fancy then sat back and said, "They've been adopted out."

"Where too?" Penn asked with alarm. What did Fancy mean by 'out'? Surely she didn't mean out of the pack? Penn's heart began to race a little.

"To families in the pack," Fancy replied quickly. She looked over Penn's panic stricken face and gave the woman a warm smile. "They are all still here, with us," she reassured the she-wolf.

"If, if it's not too much trouble, can you take me to see them? Now, tonight?"

Fancy's mouth dropped open as she looked at Penn, then the clock on her bed stand, and then let her eyes fall to the window. Penn had returned, like a ghost in the middle of the night, in a panic, looking for the children. Fancy could hardly believe she was really looking at the one woman everyone wanted to be reunited with again. She burst into tears as she scrambled from her bed and began to dial Alpha Troy on her cell.

"Yes, of course," she was blubbering to Penn and she raced around the room digging in drawers and her closet for clothes which Penn could wear. She certainly could not walk around the town, at night, in the nude! The idea, which would have mortified Fancy the previous fall, now made her laugh out loud as she waited for Alpha Troy to pick up.

Her Alpha's voice was full of anxiety as he answered her call in a hoarse, sleep-filled voice, saying, "What's wrong, Fancy?"

"Nothing!" she declared with a grin as she threw a pile of clothes at Penn and indicated she put them on with a wave of her hand. "I've got the best news, ever!"

"Penn," was all Alpha Troy said in return.

It was just a whisper but Fancy heard it.

"Yes!" she exclaimed so loudly that she woke her parents up, who slept in the room across the hall from her. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" she declared as she heard them struggle out of bed and come out into the hallway. They had never met Penn. They had only ever heard about her from Fancy.

Fancy realized, as her parents looked in her room, that the call to her Alpha had gone dead. He most likely was throwing on some clothes and making a few calls of his own as he stumbled around his room in an effort to dress before coming to see Penn. The thought made Fancy grin. She felt giddy and alive and the happiest she'd been since she couldn't remember when.

Penn stood up from the bed, dropping the clothes to the floor, and bowed with respect to Fancy's parents, who were staring wide-eyed at her from the open doorway.

"I apologize for the night visit,"Penn said to the both of them. "I'm here to see the Griffin pack children," she explained hoping to appease Fancy's aging parents after them being so rudely awakened in the night. She did not want to make enemies of anyone in the pack, afraid that might prevent her from seeing the children.

Fancy's parents only stared. Penn was the most beautiful she-wolf either had ever seen. They were so stunned by her beauty, by her luminescence, that they bowed back to her as if she were a royal or the Moon goddess herself. A reverence fell over the two of them and they were silent and submissive in her presence.

Finally, after a long pause, Fancy's father stepped forward, bowed slightly at the waist again, and humbly spoke reassuring words to the radiant figure. "You are welcome here. Our home is your home. We are only to grateful to be of service to you."

Penn looked at Fancy's father with new eyes. His behaviour seemed quite strange to her. She looked over at Fancy, who was also falling back into that strange stupor she'd been in earlier. It seemed the entire household was still half asleep in a way. Penn felt this was in her favour as she nodded at the man and then pulled on the jeans and t-shirt Fancy had given her.

No sooner had she pulled on the t-shirt when there was a few knocks on the front door, followed by the door opening and slamming shut, and then the sound of rushing footfalls on the stairs. Alpha Troy nearly knocked over Fancy's parents, who stood in the hallway a semi-hypnotic state, as he scrambled to get through Fancy's bedroom door.

"Penn," was all he said as he crossed the room and enveloped her in his arms. He buried his face in her hair and breathed in deeply as he crushed her to his chest. He held her like that for several minutes. She never returned the hug but she didn't resist him either.

Feeling a little foolish for being so demonstrative, he let go of her and stepped back half a step but no more. He took hold of her shoulders and turned her a little this way and that way to get a better look at her. She looked thin but well. He was happy and disappointed. He was glad to find her physically healthy, but at the same time, some small part of him wished she'd suffered the same way he had all winter long without her. He'd never felt loneliness like he had that winter. He was haggard. He was thin. He had sleepless nights that lasted for weeks and had lost his appetite a long time ago. It was obvious that he suffered. Anyone could see it. But she, well, she looked positively radiant to him.

It struck him as peculiar and he let go of her to take a full step back so he could get a good look at her. He marvelled at the transformation in her. She was smiling at him and her skin shimmered with light as if she were lit within by the moon's silvery glow. He wasn't sure she was even the same person. Was this his Penn? Why was she all aglow like the moon?

Penn, realizing that Alpha Troy had fallen into the same stupor as everyone else, stepped up to him, took hold of his shoulders, and gave him a gentle shake as she explained, "I need to see the children. Please, Alpha Troy. Please, let me see them tonight."

She watched his face carefully. He frowned and she was afraid he would not forgive her for running. She was afraid he might turn her away. He then blinked a few times and seemed to come to his senses again.

"Penn? Is that you?" he asked with some doubt.

"Yes," she replied simply.

He then laughed happily. It was certainly his Penn. She was the queen of one word answers after all. He pulled her back to him and hugged her tightly as he reassured her saying, "You can see the children any time." He then released her a little and said, "We'll see them right now. I'll wake up the whole village," he declared with another merry laugh.

Penn looked at him as if he'd lost his mind a bit. Everyone was acting so strangely around her. She didn't know what to make of it. But, she didn't protest when he took her hand and pulled her out of Fancy's room and led her downstairs to the front door. Fancy and her parents followed closely behind them - all three of them still in their pyjamas as the spilled out onto the little street. Penn grimaced even as she half smiled. The Fancy she knew would never be caught dead walking outside her home without being totally put together. Something inexplicable had happened to her - to all of them - and Penn didn't know whether this was good or bad.

In the end though, all that mattered to her was seeing the pups. The whole pack could act as oddly as they wanted and she wouldn't care so long as they let her meet with Mia and the rest of the kids that night. Penn couldn't shake the feeling that the children were in great danger and the whole town with them.