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A soft snow descended upon the wooded northland; the first sign of the winter's natural wrath against all living creatures, and the first warning of what was to come. The ground lay bare of summer flowers, no color other than the damp, dark green of the grass and the unified green and brown of the forest. The sky stretched out into an endless sea of grey. These were the colors of the wild in the coldest season of the year.

Humans were few and far between out in the depths of the mountains, they shunned the cold. They didn't like it. They had no fur for warmth, no claws, nothing other than their guns. And those that decided to venture so far north only did so out of some sort of quest, and were always dangerous. Humans meant death, as many hunters scouted the forests during the warmer seasons...

Though there was no one now. A human would consider this a lonely existence. A life of shivering in the cold. Bitterness.

But not when one had a fur coat. The loneliness and misery of staring at such a dead world for months failed to bother her, and the cold she was used to. She wasn't human; she lived with contentment in the mountains.

Her cerulean blue eyes peered at her surroundings with interest, the calculated stare of an intelligent animal; her ears twisted atop her head at every sound, every cry of a bird and every howl of wind. She scanned the forest with a guarded expression and stood up whenever she caught wind of something suspicious.

She yawned and demonstrated a vicious row of sharp teeth. She dared any carnivorous animal to step out from the forest.

She blended into the night like a shadow in darkness.

Blue rested at the edge of the woods, the danger of the wild just outside her reach. Her domain was not the wilderness, nor the harsh life or death struggle of the northland. Her life was that of a dog. She was the last and only dog for miles upon miles, and she was the sole guardian of her master's livestock at night. A bear or a fox would not steal any meal from under her nose.

The sloping field gave way to pine trees and brush all around her. She was unaware of what animal could be hunting her down in the night. But she feared no one. She could fight for herself, and her master and his rifle protected her back. Any creature with minimal sense knew not to mess with a human's servant.

Especially not when that servant had a strong bite of her own.

Blue curled up in her wooden doghouse in an attempt to defeat the cold. She placed her head on her forepaws, careful not to slash her front legs with the spiked color around her neck.

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A flash of glowing eyes beyond the treeline caught her interest.

The green flashes focused on her, bouncing up and down as the creature crept behind the brush. They blazed in the darkness like a pair of hot coals, like a demon's eyes; there one second and gone the next. They shrunk back into the shadows.

Blue's hackles rose. She suppressed a throaty growl as the roll of fur on her back stood on end. Sharp, pointy hairs cascaded down her neck like tiny needles. She could no longer see the animal's eyes or the blurred outline of it's body, but she knew it was out there.

It couldn't have been a bear, it was too low to the ground, yet too large to be a fox. The animal had to be a meat eater, it knew exactly what it was doing, it lingered right outside the reach of her nose. She failed to pick up it's scent.

Her black fur was useful at night; the beast was hidden to her vision, but she knew it couldn't detect her either. She slowly crept out from her doghouse and stood outside, her tail held high in the air.

Blue waited for the creature to make an appearance.

A wave of doubt overcame her. She didn't hear any movements, couldn't smell anything...had it gone away?

She saw a glimpse of grey fur in the moonlight. The animal loped silently out from the protection of the forest; she would have never known it was there if not for the glowing eyes.

She bared her fangs at the sight of it.

It held the appearance of a large dog; heavier in weight and muscle than her, and with a long pointed nose on it's face. The closer it came the more details she could pick out. Grey coat, gold eyes.

But it's scent screamed of the stranger's power. It was no dog.

Her heartbeat thundered in her chest. All her hair stood at attention. She knew instinctively that she should be afraid.

Nevertheless, her loyalty and duty to her master drove her body forward towards the wolf.

The stranger had his hungry gaze towards the chicken coup, where the defenseless birds slept totally unaware the the danger; blind to the possibility of being devoured.

But Blue wouldn't let that happen.

She saw the wolf's surprised expression when she let out an angry snarl. She barreled into him, tearing at his furred flesh with everything she had. The animal never knew what hit him, as if the black night had lashed out at him from the shadows.

She made a mistake and miscalculated his size, he regained his bearings and knocked her off right when she aimed for his throat. She turned and instead she got a mouthful of hair on his upper back and held on. For a quick moment she cursed herself for her error, but forgot it as she fought to keep the wolf's teeth from catching hold of her.

Her growls turned into an almost roar. Her snarling reached a crescendo, the louder she was, the quicker her master would wake.

Instead of turning tail and running off, like she had hoped, the animal swung a furious expression at her and snarled; it was a deeper sound than her own, packed with the rage of a big male wolf. He could back up his threats.

The iron taste of blood filled her mouth and stung her nostrils. She tried to reach the pale softness of his throat but his snapping jaws kept her from it.

"You bitch!" He clicked his fangs together, a long pink tongue curving in his mouth. "You've got a deathwish!"

He slammed into her; one second she was on him and the next she was sprawled out on the hard ground. The impact had her head spinning.

He lunged at her, but she was on her feet and snarling like a living chainsaw before he could overpower her smaller body. He tore at her throat on instinct, but yelped when the spiked collar sliced his mouth. She had cut his shoulder blades and back to ribbons, and he did the same in return; he could reach nothing else.

Frantic whining threw her off balance. She heard high pitched yelling of "Tsume! Tsume!" somewhere in the distance to her left, towards the chicken coup, and she became distracted. The wolf's fangs almost clipped off one of her ears.

There where more of them! In her rage, the fact that another wolf had slipped right under her watch, she forgot her current opponent and sprinted madly towards the other offender.

"Go away!!" she growled.

She left herself open. She saw the trembling face of a smaller wolf right before the grey one caught her hind leg in his teeth. She fell, stopped mid-run, her torso slamming onto the ground. He swung his head back and forth, cutting more skin and making her unable to get up and fight. She screamed as she felt the ligaments tear in her leg.

Blue waited for the other wolf to attack her, to help the other in ripping her apart, but no other blows came.

Her heartbeat rammed against her ribcage like a trapped animal, and she could hear the panicked cries of livestock. The noise had woken them. Her blood filled with hatred at the wolf; the silent killer who crept in and stole what was rightfully hers.

A door slammed open in the distance and banged against the shillings of the old house. Several gunshots rang out in the clear night air.

All fighting ceased.

"Shit!" The wolf let go of her and she grabbed at whatever she could reach with her mouth. She crushed the soft fur of his tail before he could run.

He yelped but sprinted in the other direction. Blood hit Blue in the face, but her hold on him was gone. An injured tail was better than death by bullet.

"Ah crap!" the other wolf yelled.

"Get moving, Toboe!"

They ran off towards the woods, Blue unable to get up and unable to stop them. The rifle's shots followed them all the way up into the edge of the brush.

Finally a quiet overcame the field, and her adrenaline levels died down. The hurt began to seep into her nerves. Her back leg blazed with pain.

She heard Quent Yaiden's worried calls of "Blue!" before her head hit the ground.

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My first Wolf's Rain fanfic...it's alittle strange to me since it's AU, but I always want to write AU stories for some reason. And I'm not planning for this to be very long, but I hope that the flow of the story remains consistant. There's such a huge lack of Blue/Hige stories too, I've noticed, so I wanted to add my own fic to the mix, and I hope you all like it! There will be more romance in the next few chapters.