Chapter Text
The Smiths and the Hunters had been working on a truce for generations, centuries of hatred and hunting hadn't brought them anything but fear and hurt. It wasn't easy, Peter Smith, the first to suggest a truce a hundred years ago was nearly thrown off the pack, and then almost killed when he approached the Hunters, but somehow both agreed to give it a try.
It had been a long process, the first generation only agreed to not interfere with the other's affairs and not kill on sight. Gradually more interactions and cooperation had been added, until they decided it was time, the youngest generation was to be raised together, looking out and caring for each other.
And care they did, from the moment Maddy was born, four months after Liam, they had started bringing the babies together. At first it was mainly sleeping in each other's presence, and getting Maddy acquainted with Liam's scent, but as soon as they could sit and crawl, they shared floor time. Maddy was rougher, but soon she learned how hard to hit or bite her friend without hurting him.
The summer before kindergarten they sat Liam and Maddy down for a talk, it hadn't been discussed until now how different Maddy's family really was from the rest of Stoneybridge, and the kids had no way of knowing full moons and people turning to wolves wasn't normal out there.
"Pups" started Emma "you know how Dan and I are a bit different from Rebecca and Chris?" They both nodded.
"Yeah, aunt Em and uncle Dan are wolves sometimes".
"Not just sometimes" it had come out harsher than what Rebecca intended, the point was for them to grow up without the prejudice of their past.
Emma sent her a warning look before continuing "what Becca means is, that we, the Smiths, are wolfbloods, Maddy too".
"But Maddy isn't a wolf" he's never seen her turn into one, not even on the full moon.
"Am too!" She showed her teeth as if trying to get her point across.
"Maddy can't change forms yet because she's still a cub, but she will when she's older".
"Liam's a cub too, you said so" pointed out Maddy "will he change when he's older?"
This conversation was turning to be more in depth and complicated than what the adults had expected, but that's dealing with two four year olds bouncing off of each other's thoughts.
"Well, Liam's more of a cub inside our pack, but since his parents aren't wolfbloods, he isn't one either" Emma lookd at Rebecca, signaling it was her turn to take over.
"The people you will meet out there, the kids in kindergarten will be like Chris and I, humans who stay human all the time, and they don't know about wolfbloods, it's like our families' little secret".
"You can't tell anyone about wolfbloods, because people get scared of what they don't know, especially grown ups" Emma tried to speak in a way they understood without getting overwhelmed.
"This is our way to protect each other" Rebecca hesitated "to protect our pack, okay?" they had agreed on the term, but it still felt weird to say, intimate yet foreign.
Both kids nodded, knowing they would do anything for each other, even if they didn’t really know from what yet.