"Where is the cinnamon incense?" Snow asked one of her fellow wolves and all they could do was give a sheepish shrug, the look of irritation quickly appeared on her face as she pushed the half asleep wolf out of her view. It was already so late and she had not gotten the ready for sleep yet. Today had already been a hard day for her, she didnt want another round of scolding. Inevitably, she would have to be up early in the morning again.
She bent over to check the cupboards on the floor that were rarely accessed and after a few swings and hisses, she found it, dusty and hastily wrapped. Another unaltered hiss escaped her being, who would treat the Luna's things like this? It was not where she kept it on an everyday basis, so what was it doing there?
Lighting the incense, the beauty tray was complete and now she could take it to Luna Lyana.
Snow had lived a life of servitude since she learned how to walk. She had no parents and was found abandoned on the steps of the pack house. The Luna took her and raised her with much love and as expected, they grew very close. Wheverevr Luna Lyana went, Snow was just behind her. People often said that Snow was her shadow, some even jested that she was the child the Luna was meant to have, but undoubtedly, wherever there was Lyana, there was Snow.
Snow was in charge of everything concerning Lyana. From her waking up to her laying to sleep. It was almost the dead of the night, way past her bedtime but the day had been busy and hence, they had lost track of time. She wore nothing but a simple white cotton dress, that stopped just after her knees, her hair could touch the ground if she only titled her head back a bit. Lyana loved Snow's snowflake coloured hair so much, she forbade her from ever laying a knife on it.
In fact that it was her hair that inspired her name.
As she took turns inside the massive structure of the Whitefang packhouse, an unfamiliar settled on her like a heavy cloak that did not belong to her. It was something faint she heard.
Screams?
No… the fatigue must have been getting the better of her. But as she approached the Luna's wing even more, the screams became more defined. And it sounded like Lyana.
"My Luna???" confusion pricked her heart and clouded her judgement, she sprinted to the Luna's room, dropping the tray in the process, the contents of myrrh and roses and oil and incense splattering on the ground dramatically, "Luna Lyana!" she noticed the loneliness of the wing, where were the guards? Where was everyone??
The door was left ajar and when she almost fell to reach the entrance, the Luna's eyes were almost snuffed out of the light that made them so beautiful, her blonde hair sprawled all over her almost lifeless form, stained heavily with her blood. Her lips were torn and coated with blood, her clothing torn, marks all around her body.
Her eyes widened as she saw Snow, who with now tears running down her cheeks and shaking hands run to her, crashing to the floor, unsure of if she should even touch her, lest she gives up the ghost.
"Sn… Alpha…" she gasped for air, knowing that it would be her last breath but she had to tell her something before she parted from the one person she loved so much.
"No my Luna! Dont speak! The healer will help!" Snow panicking was screaming, hoping someone would come to their aid, she didnt want to leave Lyana, "somebody help! Guards! Anyone!" she screamed as loud as she could but it felt like everyone had vanished from the entire world.
"Run...alpha...run…" Lyana didnt even have the mercy of closing her eyes before her spirit left her body.
"Luna! Luna…no…please…say something…" the gentle taps on cheeks that slowly lost their warmth. Out of compulsion, not knowing what she was doing, she embraced the lifeless body of Lyana, allowing her blood to stain her white. Lyana's white was also ruined with her essence and it had freely rubbed off on Snow.
The uncontrollable crying and screaming from the little servant teen was cut short when she heard movement. Every single strange of hair rose to her body and her head shook almost uncontrollably, like muscle spasm, over her shoulder to see the image of a shadowed figure just behind her. She could not see his face, his torn and worn out cloak hid him well but what the cloak did not hide was the axe that he held.
Her teeth were knocking against each other, "wh-wha-wha…who–a-ar—" she wasnt even given the grace to finish her statement before the figure, who seemed to be Lyana's killer brought out his axe, ready to send her to where he sent her Luna.
The first thing that left her body was a scream and out of instinct, she rolled away as the axe came overhead her, nearly cleaving her into two. With more screams, she scrambled to her feet, tumbling over herself, bolting out of the Luna's room, "intruder! Killer! Help!" she screamed the words that first came to her brain, not stopping for a second for the fear that he might just be a step behind her held her by the heart.
The first person she crashed into was a guard and soon she alerted all of them of the threat. Confusion and panic quickly flooded everyone that stayed in the pack house. When the guards got to the Luna's wing, there was a trail of blood and getting into her room, her corpse was there, staring at them in horror. The guards couldnt bear to look and everyone did e everything they could to comfort Snow but she was inconsolable.
The problem was that…something wasn't right.
Her eyes stayed open through the night and into the first rays of the sunlight, the Luna had been confirmed dead and she had been wrapped in a white cloth ceremoniously. People trailed behind her, especially Snow. She was smaller than all the people that carried her Luna's corpse and she had to fight for her place just to make sure she could still see her.
They were taking her to the pyre.
As they got every step closer, it reached a stage where guards stopped Snow and no matter how hard she pressed, they did not allow her to go beyond where they stood, as orders of the alpha.
The alpha watched her with contempt from the start of the ceremony to the end. Though she cried over and over again, his heart was set in stone. As the Luna burned, he grabbed her hair and forced her to rise to her feet.
"This is your doing." the hate in his voice snapped her, from sadness to pure confusion and guilt, "you had an oath and you couldnt fulfil it. You let her die! You did this didn't you?"
Unable to speak with the tears in her throat, she shook her head like a wet cat dying in the cold, how would he even think she would do something as heinous?
"No-no-no-there…was a man, cloak, with axe, he killed Luna Lyana!" she pleaded her innocence, her eyes racing to the pyre, the body of the woman who loved her as a mother, consumed by flames that didnt deserve her. Before she could say another word, she was thrown to the ground.
"It is not possible that anyone would pass through my defences and kill my Luna without an insider! You know something but you do not want to speak?" out of spite, his heavy leather boot connected to her stomach and then her head. He would have killed her there and then if not for the hands of the elders that held him back, "take her to the dungeon! Let her starve! She must confess who she helped achieve such crime!"
"No alpha please!" her hands clamped to his his leg, her head on his boot, begging for mercy, "I would never betray the hand that feeds me! Please! It was someone else! I—" his boot connected to her chin, knocking her over, blood dripping from her mouth profusely.
"Take her!" the order was given, and the guards moved to obey their alpha, holstering her to her feet, "I give you 3 days to confess or you will suffer the same fate as your beloved Luna."