Lullaby for a Stormy Night

We were meant to live for so much more

But we lost ourselves

Somewhere deep inside,

Somewhere deep inside

We were meant to live

We were meant to live

SwitchFoot: Meant to Live

Prolog

I don't claim to be a prophet. I know nothing of wisdom or prophesy and yet… something deep inside me whispered in my ear since the day I was born under a harvest-red moon.

It's hard to explain just how I know, but …… I do. Paradise is real, and it wants me to follow it to salvation.

It must have had something to do with where I was born or something ….. Look at me, getting ahead of myself.

Let me try this again:

I am the 2nd pup born to Sasuke and Diya; a wise alpha wolf and a mysterious red she-wolf often called a vixen for her fox-like fur: a product of Diya having a fox ancestor somewhere in her bloodline. They adopted a son before me, Jasper, about five years my senior, but he acted like a second father to me. Always filling my head with silly wolfy stories he said he'd heard when they were still wild and free in a pack. They came to the city when they caught scent of the lunar flowers and followed papa's instinct to search it out. The rest of the pack stayed behind, believing that papa was just a star-gazed dreamer.

Jazz said that Momma never liked the idea of being near humans, much less working under one like a "lesser being", but what could she do? She couldn't leave her mate while she was pregnant with me waiting to be born. I personally can't remember my mother. She left us and the city before my eyes were able to open and Papa found another female who had lost her own pup to a human hunter who knew wolves still reined free in this world. Her name was Shura, my step-mother. Papa fell for her and they became mated.

We were happy to leave it like this for nineteen years. During that time, we met and befriended many humans at the labs while we posed as guard dogs in our wolf forms. One scientist, Cher, took a personal liking to me. Since I was considered unnecessary to the guard dog squad of the keep, I was forced to wander around kennel my family and other dogs lived. Cher noticed I was different from the rest with the foxy coat I inherited from my mother. She especially noticed when they brought in the flower maiden they'd recovered from the "Darcia" family called Cheza. The flower maiden reacted when I passed by the room while in my wanderings.

Cher requested I reside in the lab from then on while the rest of my family patrolled the grounds at night and in the middle of the day and I stayed there ever since.

I remember those times …… It was when that scent seemed to imprint itself in my mind and even coated my fur since I was around Cheza so often. I never was able to speak to Cheza before, yet I never felt the need to. Each day I spent in that lab under the orb she was in as she slumbered away undisturbed, I could feel myself being drawn closer and closer to her until it felt like I knew her personally and she myself as well. I felt a need to stay with her and follow where ever she may go, even if she was currently slumbering in an orb-like tank.

Cher and I became very good companions too, and I silently listened to her every concern at night when the rest of the lab crew went home for the night and it was just us and Cheza. I knew of her conflicting feelings to help Cheza and her concern for her newly divorced husband, Hub. I'd even seen the human once or twice when he 'dropped in' on chance. I could tell he would use any excuse to see her again. He still loved her, she was just ….. Not ignorant, but …… confused I guess. Cheza's lab tests seemed quiet time consuming, and I guess they just fell apart from the large bump the flower maiden had caused in their relationship.

Lately, Papa and Jazz had been returning from patrol with a few wounds here and there. They claimed that more wolves are arriving in the city. Shura was the scout of the squad. She would be sent out to patrol the area without a lease to seek out wolves and strays and Papa and Jazz would then chase after them after that, and usually just drove them out of the city or into a secluded corner where they did do much damage to the human society of the dome of Freeze City.

As of late though, everything seemed to be getting more and more exciting! Cheza started to open her magenta eyes and Cher was surprised to find that she was blind. Her emotions on the scanner wavered more often. The scientists believe she is reacting to some sort of presence. Not only Cheza, but Shura as well. Papa and her were so happy when they found out she was pregnant again! This time with Papa's pups! I was going to be an older sister!

For just that brief moment of a few days, I believed my life to be looking up.

But it was all just a silly dream that was cast away soon as the blissful fog of it cleared.

Papa came home later than usual one night. The team had split up looking for the members of a bothersome gang lately. He suspected that a wolf was the leader of the notorious humans and was right on the money. He went off on his own on our night off when the rest of us were asleep and came back late the next night bleeding with deep wounds marring his canine body.

The humans were terrified at what could have created such wounds but chalked it up to the belief that he had a run in with an enemy's machine sniper that got pass the outer wall's security. He would heal within a day or two because of his wolf blood, but the humans were blissfully unaware that we were wolves, or even that wolves still existed. They had thought it best to put him down since he was in obvious pain. So when dawn came, Papa was healed enough to move and led the 3 of us out of the keep and into the city. He said we needed to move on and that something was about to happen. We needed to flee the city.

0.0/\^_^/\*o*/\T-T/\./\-_-;/\V_V/\(_)/\0_o;

Sasuke checked the sewer he was about to lead his family into, nodding in his satisfaction. His hazel eyes darted up to address his son, mate and daughter when a flash of white and grey fur caught his attention on the roof. He gritted his teeth, "Don't those fools take a hint? I told them to get lost!" the dark coal-brown shag of his fur ruffled as he moved through his small pack to go after the impudent young wolves when Shura's soft pleading voice stopped him.

"Sasuke?" she whimpered. Her violet eyes as beautiful as ever, even when filled with tears as hers was in her fear of what was going to happen to them, "Please, Sasuke… don't leave us- we have to get out together!"

"Shura," the large dark wolf lowered his ears as he turned back to her and nuzzled the fur of her neck while she did the same for comfort, "Shura, I will not leave you but for only a while. If I don't do something about this, they will be captured by the humans, and our numbers aren't enough as it is. We have to help one another out to survive." He turned to the roof again, "I must go." The soft metallic clink of his chain around his neck with the silver cross identical to the ones they all wore flashed in the florescent light as the large wolf disappeared into the shadows of the pre-dawn light, "I leave them in your care now, Jasper. Do not fail me."

The silvery-white young wolf nodded. His green eyes full of confidence and pride that his father put such faith in him, "With my life, father." The young wolf turned to his mother, "Come on, now Shura." He coaxed the worried pregnant she-wolf towards the man hole and helped her down before he came back up to his sister. Akira had yet to look away from the direction her father left. Her eyes transfixed on the roof where her ears picked up the sounds of wolves fighting.

"Akira, let's go!" Jasper snapped.

"Why do they fight, Jazz? Aren't they the same race?" the red young she-wolf turned her bright orange eyes to her brothers green ones that glared up at the roof that hid the wolves he and his father had warned earlier today.

"They're sad and pitiful creatures. They've forgotten who and what we are and so they fight amongst themselves. Don't ever get mixed up with those kind, right Akira?" brother and sister shared a look of understanding and amusement between the two of them, "Go on and get into the hole, little one." He helped her as she climbed down. Once she reached the bottom the three wolves were startled from a sudden shockwave that burst through the city.

A high piercing noise pierced their ears and forced Shura and Akira to hold their ears that started to bleed from the inside. Jasper fell to the ground above them near the manhole entrance, crying out in pain.

"JASPER!" Shura cried just as gunshots were heard from above and more frequent tremors of the earth started up. The once peaceful morning turned into a war zone in minutes, "Jasper- get down here!"

"They've found us!" Jasper called back. A split second later he yelled back down at them, "GO! GO TO OUTSIDE OF THE DOME AND TAKE THE TRAIN AWAY FROM HERE! I'LL LEAD THEM AWAY AND THEN CATCH UP TO YOU! JUST GO!" he shouted down at them.

"JASPER!" Shura cried out.

"Jazz!" Akira called back to him, "NO JAZZ! PAPA TOLD US TO STAY TOGETHER!" she started to climb up the steps to try and force him down with her.

"DON'T COME UP HERE!" Jasper commanded in a deadly voice that froze Akira and her stepmother, "Look, Father did say that, but he also made me promise to ensure that you and Shura get out of here alright. This is the only way available right now- NOW GO!"

Akira looked into her brothers deep green eyes once again before nodding while gritting her teeth to hold back the tears. She slid back down the steps and took Shura's hand.

"Come on, Shura! There's not much time!" she lead the pregnant woman down the pungent pipes of the sewer. Time after time they came to a dead end and the commotion from above grew more and more intense.

"I fear the roof could fall on us!" Shura gasped for breath.

"I see light! This way!" Akira led her mother towards the blinding light of the outside world. A world of a vast icy wasteland where it always snowed and was always overcast skies.

"NO!" she cried out, slamming herself against the bars that cut her mother and her off from their escape.

"We can't go back- it's too dangerous now." Shura panted for breath, "I can't take much more of this, Akira." She panted.

"Just hang in there, Shura, I'll get us out!" the red she wolf snarled at the bars and launched herself at them, banging her body against them and snapping her jaws around them to no avail, but she was determined to try, "LET. US. OUT!"

"You seem to be stuck down in there pretty good." A strong feminine voice startled Akira from trying to rip off the bars with her teeth that were untrained to do much damage to anything other than kibble. The young wolf and her mother looked up at the raven fur of the she wolf that stood out like a messenger of death against the stark white snow. A pair of red eyes had an upside down white hart-shaped marking on her forehead. The red-eyed wolf smiled genuinely as she crouched down in the snow in front of the bars, "Need a helping hand?"

The she wolf bared her teeth, the sharp fangs startled Akira and Shura into stepping back wisely as they expertly ripped through metal after grinding them between her teeth for a moment. Once both of the wolves were able to squeeze through and were blasted by the harsh winds and snow from the other side, the black wolf nodded her head, "I'm Heart, by the way."

"Akira and this is my stepmother, Shura." Akira introduced.

Shura bowed her head in thanks, "We are in your debt, Heart."

Heart's ears perked to the great wall behind them and scoffed, "I assume you two wanted to get away from here, yes? Well to do that effectively, we need to catch that train."

"What train?" Shura questioned.

"That one." The black wolf nodded towards the bullet train that was starting to cast off, "once on the train, stay in human form." Heart instructed, "Follow me!"

0.0/\^_^/\*o*/\T-T/\./\-_-;/\V_V/\(_)/\0_o;

We barely escaped with our lives, let alone we were thankful for the fact that Shura and I escaped unharmed physically. Heart was able to smuggle us onto that train and took us with her to the Island she was headed to herself. She said that it had a large wolf population that would let us rest there with them while we waited for Jasper and Father to come back. The leader of a pack of wolves named Zali and his mate Cole took us in as their own. We were welcome to join them at in their own den at the city, but we took refuge in the grave yard. It didn't feel right to intrude on a different pack out of sympathy.

Heart kept her distance as well, only going near the pack when she was with either Shura or me. She was much more wary of the others than she was to us. She said it's because we seemed to call to her somehow, and she admitted that she liked my scent as well- the lunar flower scent. That's what leads her to us in the first place.

Once again, I fell into a rhythm. 6 months have passed and Shura's belly grows larger every day. She can't work at the station anymore in the mornings to help pull cargo loads to and from the train cars for food like the rest of us, so some of the other wolves, including Zali, Cole, and Heart, help me bring the food to her instead. I was pleased to see that while a few of the males of the pack like Moss and some others still saw Shura and I as the Omega's of the pack, Heart, Zali, and Cole saw us as one of their own now. They were very protective of Shura and treated the pregnant wolf with care as if she would break. They treated me like a sister or a daughter of their own. They even listened closely as the passengers got out to gossip with the other humans while the train briefly stopped to chat to see if there was any news or hint about what happened to Papa and Jazz.

I was beginning to accept my fate here, though I never accepted that the pack didn't believe in paradise. They said they've seen it once and it was hell, but I refused to believe it. Zali saw how passionate I seemed about it and quickly stopped any discussion about it when I was near, much to my relief. The others loved to pick on me about my naïve thoughts, but I could care less. Paradise was real and one day I'd see it with my own eyes when I saw Cheza again.

I still feel restless and my gut screams at me that a new change is rapidly coming for me. I don't know what it is, but my heart bores of this town and I long more than ever to search out this feeling and maybe follow it to Cheza! Somehow I knew that she had something to do with the way I felt.

I just never knew that she wasn't the only reason or role in my path to Paradise.

A/N- The lemon? Working on it. Instead of a one shot, I decided to go through and edit this story a bit, tweak it to satisfaction now that I'm more experienced you know? The Lemon will be IN the story now. Weather its one or two- we'll see. But there will be new parts added and older parts tweaked around a bit. I'm happy you guys love this story so much because in truth, so do I!

-Dessy-san