Tay

Lore rough - a wolf looking like she's covered in long dried blood emerges from the forest and onto the grasslands one day, meeting Quiver. She introduces herself as Tay, and seems quite friendly, assuring Quiver that what looks like blood is no more than an unfortunate marking.

Quiver soon accepts her into the pack, suspicious though she can see no sign of worry bar her fur, which is indeed just a matter of unfortunate genetics.

Soon, however, wolves that stray away from the pack alone seem to begin to vanish. One by one, the 'lone wolves' dwindle, until even the mighty Hailstorm and his apprentice, Smoke, refuse to go and scout unless they do so in pairs. Eventually all wolves are instructed by Quiver to only ever leave the pack in pairs. Yet the vanishing continues - even the most tightly bound of pairs may suddenly find themselves alone if they leave their partners' side even for an instant. Quiver, naturally, correlates Tays' arrival and suspicious appearance with the disappearance of the wolves, and immediately chases Tay far away from the clan.

To Quiver and the rest of the packs' horror, their numbers still dwindle. By day all wolves travel in groups of three, some of the more paranoid in a group of five. By night all huddle as close together as possible, no matter how uncomfortably warm. Still, their tormentor persists, and a pack once nearly 25 wolves strong has become a pack of 10.

Determined to put an end to this horror, Quiver decides to set out on her own in order to face Tay herself - she will kill her or die trying. Once deep into the grasslands and far from her pack, Quiver finally meets the monster - it attempts to grab her by the tail from behind. She spins around to face Tay, yet to her horror she realises she was wrong - for it is not Tay who now stares her down, but a wolf of pure magic, some poor soul never fully released from this world. It flings her about with ease, and just when Quiver is on the brink of death, who should come to save her but Tay, the one the pack shunned and nearly killed not a long time ago.