The memory unfurled like an ancient wolf legend whispered beneath the full moon. It was the month of November, the first Saturday beneath a restless sky—ten moons earlier. The rains had begun to retreat from the land, and the dry season prowled just beyond the horizon like a patient wolf waiting for its moment. The air was calm, the wind soft and wandering, carrying the quiet scent of an ending year across the territory.
Beneath the sweeping branches of a willow tree in the territory park, a thirteen-winters-old she-wolf sat curled at the roots, her attention buried inside a worn novel. That willow had become her sanctuary since her twelfth birth moon—the only place where her restless soul could breathe freely. In barely two more Winters, she knew she would be forced to leave Santorini forever, sent away like a discarded omega.
