Archive of Our Own

Grey.

The color of wisdom, age refined in experience. The color of wealth, in shining silver. The color of power.

The color of reverence.

It was also the color of the water, as Hyunjin turned his head over into the bowl, across from his sister, letting the dye sink into the roots of his scalp, burning his head from below.

"Good," his mother inspected sections of his head, "Good… good. One more time."

He waited for Yeji's face to peek out beneath her hair, before he divided the dye and began running it through his hair again. Every wolf learned to dye their hair– any wolf of position .

Yeji's hand stilled when their mother left the room, falling limply to her lap. The brown dyes of the warriors lay organized on the shelf, above the sand colors of the healers, and above the bright children's colors. 

It was an honor to wear grey.

An honor that took the death of their father to receive.

That, and–

"Come, Yeji," Hyunjin worked it into her hair himself, "It'll dry if you leave it too long."

A good healthy pack always prepares their young ones. Every wolf knew where they would rise, what shoes they would fill, and Hyunjin had always admired how silver gleamed in the sunlight. Running in tandem with his sister through the forest, on the tail of a hunt, or just in the free wind of a run, the dull colors of dirt blending wolf to wood.

Hyunjin’s blurry dream was always silver hair, proud on a hill. His greatest fighters, handpicked and loyal to the bone. 

It wasn’t that Jisung didn’t fit that mold next to him, it was just that he never imagined seeing the back of his sister’s head as she walked away from home. 

“She’s holding her head high,” Chaeryeong mumbled, hair newly dyed an earthy red to plaster her with the redwoods, “...Unnie is so brave.”

Mating ceremonies were honors. Blessings. Celebrations. 

But there was something bitter, souring in the lowest parts of Hyunjin’s stomach, as he watched his sister kneel across another alpha.

“The union and peace between two great packs,” the elder rehearsed, tying the leather around their joining hands, Hyunjin biting back a scowl as his mother applauded at her choice match. 

The Hwang pack had fallen to the mercy of two adversaries in the past year: the relentless drag of death, and the hollow surrender of pack alliances. 

It was thus that Hyunjin became pack alpha of the Hwang pack. 

And it was thus that Yeji was mated to the pack alpha of the Bang pack. 

“Hm,” Seungmin’s lips remained pressed in neutrality, but he tracked Yeji as she left them as was wrapped into the throngs of her new people, “She’ll be fine.”

An alpha had to learn how to bite back their opinions. To swallow their thoughts in diplomacy. So even if Seungmin knew every horrid thought Hyunjin had, inside and out, the curse of growing up as packmates, Hyunjin didn’t dare respond. 

Because no one knew Yeji better than him. 

The rigidness of her movements as she tried to grasp the subtleties of pack differences, the stiffness in her back after long nights of worried tossing, the subtle flinches everytime she had to join hands with–

“We needn’t remain for the banquet,” Hyunjin suggested– no, informed to his mother, “The journey back is long, and the pack will be eager to welcome her without the threat of us over her shoulder.”

His mother was old, no longer having to dye her hair as the matriarch of a pack. She’d stopped the moment her husband had left her, and the silver started fading to an ethereal white. 

“Shrewd,” she nodded slowly, “But not wise.”

“Mother–”

“Excuse yourself, I shan’t do it for you anymore,” she walked slowly to the banquet hall, “You’re an alpha now. Act like it.”

So Hyunjin did. He took Jisung on one side, Seungmin on his other, and Chaeryeong behind him, and made his way to the pack alpha. He didn’t sneak in through the side like he would have preferred. He didn’t rush, he didn’t push his way through. 

He came slowly, smiled and bowed at any who greeted him. 

He bowed deeply when the alpha finally saw him– albeit only by Yeji tugging at his sleeve as she caught Hyunjin slipping through the crowds. 

“Ah! Hyunjin–”

The alpha tried to bow, but Hyunjin was quicker. 

He bowed lower. 

As respectfully, and reverently as he had before the grave of his father.

"A great honor you give us with this alliance, alpha," he spun adeptly, "A greater honor still, to allow us to feast with you."

This pack had a crude alpha, graceless in his speech, "Nothing as great as this friendship, Hyunjin, I promise you."

Hyunjin's eyes rose to meet the alpha's.

Smiling, in every feature, a mask hiding the power to level packs with a single word.

Hyunjin despised Chan's face, and his empty, lying words, with every fiber of his being.

He met his sister's eyes, which held a warning, in a low simmering fire.

There was no love lost in the ground between their feet. The Hwangs did what they had to survive.

The Bangs would pay.

Chan would pay.

"A strong alliance," Hyunjin affirmed, a rehearsed line with rehearsed gratitude, "The Hwangs remain ever to your beckon, alpha."

Chan bowed, hand to his chest, "And the Bangs to you, alpha."

Any longer, and Hyunjin would have choked on his insincerity. He took his leave the most discretely and respectfully he could, smiling at the right moment, bowing lower at opportune seconds, and meeting Yeji's gaze long enough to make it clear:

This wasn't goodbye. 

He would come back, but not at Chan's call.

No.

Hyunjin turned on his heel with his pack pressed closely behind them, lighter and scared under the strength of the pack they'd left.

Hyunjin would be back with the fury of a thousand suns.

And when he did, Chan would burn.

✧✧✧

The color of wheat had always been more pleasing to Chan than the color of stone.

It had a summer pleasantness to it, a harvest joy.

There was nothing in storm clouds and sheer rock that struck Chan as particularly beautiful.

"You need to touch it up again," Changbin warned gently, like he did every moon cycle when most wolves reverently re-dyed their hair.

Minho scoffed, "Hyung's waiting for someone to scold him. Shame, really. This man-child needs someone nagging behind him to get things done."

“He will now,” Ryujin waggled her eyebrows knowingly, earning her Jeongin choking on his drink and socking her in the arm.

Chan didn’t think about his mate-to-be often. It was a necessity of rule– the last necessity he hoped to ever carry from the old traditions of wolves and their purposes.

Chan didn't ask to be a pack alpha.

He was born first, and as it so happens, the responsibility falls on his shoulders from his father's, as it had from one wolf to another for centuries. 

Chan had only been twelve when he started to despise the burden for what it was– because when he was twelve, his father had come bloodied and fiery eyed, the skin of another alpha around his shoulders.

"The Lee Clan submits to our rule," he threw the fur at his feet, "Long rules the pack!"

"Long rules the pack!"

It had made Chan gag, and he covered his little cousin Jeongin's face at the sight. It was horrid, and vile, and a tradition of pack dominance Chan never became accustomed to, no matter how many packs his own began to rule over.

Minho was much wiser than Chan, newer to the pack since the fights, but no less ill-fitting than Chan himself, "Wolves are stubborn. Fierce. They'd eat their own clan apart if they could. Packs fighting for dominance is the only way the wolf pack survives."

He was a sensible wolf. Chan thought he'd make a much better alpha, if given the chance.

But he wasn't, so Chan's right hand had to suffice.

"You're so strong," Minho's baby brother Felix would say, and he'd shake in his sickly human form and lean against Minho, "You'll both do a great job of protecting the pack, I know it."

"I don't know," as he got older, Chan drew away from his father, and formed a close knit group of younger wolves.

Not as warriors, but as friends. Companions.

Children who'd lost their belonging in the struggle of the pack.

"Safe," Ryujin nodded, and Chan waited for her to say more, but she never did, only nodding at Chan as though that word said enough, before quickly finishing up her meal.

In her lap, Yuna whined and tried to steal from Ryujin's portion, which made Jeongin tattle, and made Chan take the little one who had no mother to nurse her, and let her gnaw on little bones. 

"You're the best alpha by this," Changbin would tell him, reassuringly, between the blood and war and travel that grated on his bones, "You care. What alpha actually cares? Good is good enough."

Changbin was a good warrior, but Chan could not settle for "good enough." It wasn't right. 

But his father was a man of great renown, and greater respect. An alpha, embodied in every sense of the word.

And who was Chan?

"You are a learning pup," his father would tell him on long walks, scouting the pack before them for hostility or hospitality, the former more common than the latter, "You're strong, but not in resolve. It will come in time. You must follow the tradition for now. The hesitation will bleed away with wisdom."

In the night, when the pack slept together, he would walk with Minho under the moon, skipping stones on a silent water.

"It isn't hesitation," he would simmer angrily, "It's guilt. All the wolf blood on my hands."

Minho's rocks would skip faster, but fall shorter, "Patience. When you lead, you'll do it different."

Now Chan was alpha, and it was his chance to do it differently.

Inviting the Hwang pack to the mating ceremony was his show of goodwill. He’d seen how well it had been accepted in the carefully leveled lines of Hyunjin’s face, but it was a start. He held Yeji’s hand with all sincerity and honesty, and vowed before the moon to do better than his forefathers.

When he led her to his rooms, he wanted to vow before her as well. 

“Yeji–”

“Goodnight, alpha.”

She remained curt and civil with him. After a few days of trying to earn her affections– finding her flowers, bringing her meaty portions, catering to any small thing he thought would please her– Minho convinced him he couldn’t force his kindness to bring back love.

“I can carry things fine on my own, alpha,” Yeji had practically pulled the dishes from his hold, leaving Chan awkwardly empty-handed as they entered the hall. 

Minho shook his head and rolled his eyes, and offered a seat beside him as Yeji took Ryujin’s company to be more pleasurable than the rest of them, due to the sheer amount of spite the younger wolf managed to package into herself, by Changbin’s reckoning anyway.

“I’m not allowed into the hunting teams till next spring, because my wolf is too small, ” she scoffed, managing to get a smile from Yeji, “Impossible. Anyone who’s anyone knows I could take Jeongin down within the hour of a challenge.”

Yeji’s eyes flashed, barely skimming over to Chan, “Surely.”

She had still been mated against her will.

“But you love her,” Jeongin mused while Chan sorted his warriors by strength, skill, and age for the autumn hunts, “Don’t let it bother you. She’ll come around.”

“Maybe,” Minho shrugged as Jeongin glared at him, “Don’t look at me like that, she’s a wolf. You’re alphas. Duty before pleasures and all that, you can do your best, but there’s plenty of strong will between you both.”

Chan had absolute regard for Yeji– she was a skilled warrior, and even more skilled alpha.

“The problem isn’t whether you have affection for her,” Minho smirked, “Do you respect her?”

He had caught her out on a rare night when she hadn’t returned to their rooms, holding a sobbing Yuna while she hid from her father in the forests.

“I can’t, I just can’t join the hunt, I’m not like them!” Yuna’s hands curled in her head, and Chan ached remembering her mother had been lost in a hunt under a cold autumn breeze years before, “Unnie…”

“Sh, it’s alright,” Yeji’s voice lacked the bitter strikes behind each word as she spoke, calming and smooth as she soothed the young pup, “There is plenty for a wolf to do outside of the hunt. And should… should alpha make you hunt, then you stick by me, little pup, and unnie will take care of you, hm?”

Chan had more respect than he could possibly express for Yeji. 

“She’s so kind,” Felix confided in Chan, when Chan would visit to see the sick wolf as he laid in what would eventually be his deathbed, still as bright and hopeful as when Chan had met him, “Hyung… hyung she’s such a good wolf.”

“I know, Lix.”

“No, no you don’t, you–” he coughed into his arm and Minho clicked his tongue in scolding to make the boy lie down and rest, Lia shaking her head as she pulled more furs for him, the insistence in Felix’s eyes burning as strong as Yeji’s when she had joined her hands with his, “She’s… she’s… she’s like you .”

Chan didn’t know what Felix meant, But he knew what a good wolf was to the pack. Kind, fierce, strong.

She was impossibly strong for a wolf in her position. Chan had never met a wolf with stronger mental fortitude and sheer stoicism. It was why he placed her in charge of an entire hunting pack of her own.

Everyone could see the strength he could when she managed to secure them the first kill of the season. Chan was immensely proud, and he took every sneer over him not managing to secure the first kill himself like he had every year as a commendation of his mate.

There was no way to tell her as such, so he took to remaining quietly proud from the side, and let her bask in the acceptance of the pack on her own. Silver hair shining and all.

She actually managed to keep smiling when she fell into bed next to him that night.

“I don’t think I’ve ever–” she laughed into her hand, staring at their ceiling, “I’ve never been so loved in my life. I would’ve coveted the first kill a little more fiercely.”

Chan smiled, looking at the bridge of her nose and the sparkle in her eyes from the side, illuminated only by the moon peeking around the clouds, “Yeah?”

“Hyunjin was always just a bit faster,” she huffed, “Ever since birth. The blessing of… men… I suppose.”

Chan didn’t want to speak. He didn’t want to break whatever let her talk to him so freely. But then she turned to him like she expected him to say something, and he scrambled to find words that wouldn’t hurt her.

“P-Possibly?” he stammered, “I’ve never had siblings, I wouldn’t know…”

Yeji’s eyes became calculative, “Because Alpha Bang had a son, and saw no need?”

“Yeah…” he scrunched his nose, “What a horrid tradition.”

“Mm. What if you died?”

Chan stared at her for a moment, before barking a laugh, “I was thinking more of how lonely it was growing up, but perhaps if you want to be morbid.”

“Oh,” Yeji’s eyes went wide, and then she started laughing as well, “Well, I suppose there’s that as well.”

They spent several hours lying in the dark, lit only by the moonlight and their laughter. Chan didn’t know what shifted, but he woke in the morning with her in his arms, and felt warm.

Melting gold, cascaded right into his arms.

He pressed his lips to Yeji’s head and breathed out in the promise that things would be better.

Yeji smiling against his chest, he had the hope it would be.

✧✧✧

Yeji liked Chan. 

She truly did– she had spent too much time being bitter to notice it at first, but she had a lot to be grateful for. She wasn’t her grandmother marrying a cruel wolf who beat his mate, or her aunt who was forced to sit and watch as she was traded for crops and cattle. 

Chan was gentle, and kind, and nothing like the wolf her pack had been led to believe.

He listened to the wolves under him with a patient and generous ear. He visited both the young and the old, and sat with his warriors to encourage them as well as discipline them. Yeji had yet to find a single wolf in the pack who had anything but praise for him. 

But Yeji didn’t seek out the wolves of the Bang Pack too eagerly. 

“Do they treat you well?” Chan asked, overflowing with concern when he noticed she hung to the outskirts of the pack during banquets. 

“Mm,” Yeji started to take his arm when she could, noticing the other mates much more mature and silver-crowned in age doing such, “Was never taught to mingle well… Those lessons were reserved for my brother, for when he became alpha.”

“Hm,” Chan laced his fingers with hers, “Does the company… bother you? I know Minho would say it felt suffocating to talk shallowly with everyone, when he could be talking deeply with a few select people.”

Yeji had great regard for Chan’s right-hand, who seemed to sprout wisdom wherever he was.

“Perhaps… yes,” Yeji held Chan tightly and nodded, “But no banquet seems too large when you’ve got someone trustworthy by your side.”

There was a lovely strawberry shade that Yeji had learned to coax from Chan’s face if she was intentional. He would laugh, and try to hide his face, but the blush would spread and paint him sweetly. 

When Chan was happy, Yeji was sure everything would be alright. He had a confidence that fell from him and enveloped those surrounding him.

Just as dangerous, however, was his bitterness.

"What happened," Yeji had been sitting by the door, waiting for him, when he entered with heavy steps, face shadowed and shoulders weighed down, "Chan?"

Chan grabbed his well stitched cloak, the one he wore for ceremony, and threw it around his shoulders.

"I need to bury Felix."

"Oh, Chan…"

"You needn't come."

Yeji went.

It wasn't a pack alpha's job to bury all the dead, but it was his job to bless the burial. Yeji knew it would be hard– she'd seen the way Chan visited Felix with hope, how he's encouraged Minho against all believable odds.

She didn't know the extent of his grief till she watched him dig the spot in the ground with Minho, where Felix would be laid to rest.

Ryujin and Yuna had come to watch with their father, and all the other respected warriors, and the once Lee Pack gathered as well, crowded around that small hole in the ground. Lia was weeping and apologizing, her calloused hands having put many years into coaxing Felix to health feeling wasted– Yeji pulled her up and praised her for her strength and skill. It was all she could do.

It started to rain at some point. Yeji couldn't discern the wetness on Minho's cheeks to be tears or the sky mourning for him.

Chan was filthy, covered in mud when he blessed Felix's body, the moon hiding her face as one of the purest wolves was stolen from the Bang Pack. He said something moving, heart-wrenching, but Yeji didn't hear it over every strain in his voice. Condolences were paid, and weary arms threw flowers over the shroud of Felix's small frame. Changbin helped fill the grave. Yuna asked her sister questions that couldn't be answered.

Jeongin stood solemnly by Yeji, "He won't take it well."

"Why?"

"He cares too much. Even against all hopes."

Yeji waited till everyone had left before she picked up a shovel and helped them. She rolled up her sleeves and didn't leave Chan's side.

When they'd finished, Minho fell to his knees and could not be moved. Changbin and Jeongin had to carry him unconscious in his grief.

Yeji gripped Chan by the arm and had to lead him away from the grave. He staggered like a drunk man, and stood numbly in the room while she peeled off his cloak and boots.

It was one of those things she never imagined herself doing– undressing her alpha, waiting for him to sleep before she did, being concerned over what he ate– she suddenly found herself acutely aware of it.

Chan simply shut down. Yeji had to force him to live and be and had to pull him up from bed in the morning and back in it at night.

Yeji understood grief. She knew how it killed.

She wasn't ready to lose the wolf she'd just begun to meet.

"I know you're sad," she'd whisper once he'd finally managed to close his eyes, "But I don't have anyone if you leave me. I don't have anyone but you, Chan…"

Chan tried. He was good at trying, and pretending, and pulling himself up to be strong for others.

Yeji learned that Minho wasn't. He didn't pretend for anyone– he left for three weeks and returned with a resolute look on his face. He refused to talk about Felix.

Perhaps Chan took that as his cue to move on, and he pretended until it no longer weighed him down.

"Thank you," he whispered to Yeji one night.

"For what?"

He couldn't say anything, only take her hand and kiss her knuckles. Yeji didn't understand, but it made her feel several shades of pink, brighter and louder than strawberries in spring.

It was an interesting push and pull– Chan repaid her back many times over.

The first snow brought Yeji a deep pain she couldn't place. The hunts were finished, the pack was hunkered down for the season, save for select warriors sent out to hunt.

Hyunjin used to say Yeji never did well in the winter. That she was too wild to be kept inside.

Hyunjin. Her brother had never visited. He'd promised in the alliance, but never come. And neither had her mother.

Yeji realized it as she skinned furs for the young ones, knife slipping and bright red dripping on the floor–

Her mother had probably died. Her duties and promises to her pack's future were finished. The thought made Yeji want to shrivel up and die.

"Unnie?"

Yuna had such a sweet, concerned look in her eyes.

"Don't worry about unnie, baby. Look at this fur, hm? Fits you perfectly…"

Pastel colors had always been Yeji's favorite. She'd always told Hyunjin she would try shades of blue, pink, and the loveliest purple he could imagine when she grew old enough to pick her colors.

She hadn't ever considered that such a thing would be stripped away from her.

"You should touch up your hair before the solstice," Ryujin scolded aimlessly one day, towering over her as she showed off her new bright pink hair that hid a fierce warrior who had earned her place in Yeji's ranks, "The grey has faded, a bit."

Chan frowned as he played with her hair, "I should do mine too… it would look nice, all fresh for the ceremony." 

Yeji didn't tell Chan she detested grey. She didn't tell him that it was a heavy burden on her soul. She didn't tell him the younger wolf in her dreamed in bright colors.

Her mother had told her fate was curious like that.

It was unspeakable, and always struck when you least expected.

Chan came late one night, the night they planned to dye their hair before the solstice, several powder bowls in his hands. His eyes were wild, as he laid them before her.

"I found these spare colors lying around," he shared it like a secret, something hidden between the two of them, "There wasn't much, it was more leftover, but I thought maybe I'd mix the blue in a little with the grey. Wouldn't that be pretty?...Yeji?"

He'd brought some of Ryujin's pink, and Yuna's yellow, and that bright and beautiful blue that Jeongin had done his hair with. Yeji nearly cried from joy.

"All of them," she hoarsely whispered, voice thick with emotion, "I want them all. Please. "

She didn't ask if it was allowed, or what they would say if they were caught, hands deep in Chan's curls while he laughed and pulled locks of her hair to color, the dye all over their hands and the floor by the time they were done.

Yeji felt like a child. It was a very temporary balm for her soul. She chewed on the ends of her hair too much for it to last, anyway.

The solstice ceremony came and went. Everyone was too concerned about the smoke on the horizon to notice or care about the bright colors. Yeji kept her eyes to her feet, and watched the snow become muddy beneath them.

"Yeji? Darling?"

Chan had taken to calling her this new nickname, and it made her feel sour. Not towards him, never to Chan, but just to life.

It made her want to claw her heart out, thinking of how she'd been abandoned. How alone she was.

"Yeji," Chan breathed against her skin, pleading, "I can feel your pain… what can I do? How can I make it better?"

The dye had been an attempt, Yeji learned that from Changbin and Ryujin, although they had tried to hide it from her.

"You're back to being morose," Minho told her rather bluntly, "It distracts him. He's always thinking of how to cheer you up."

Perhaps it was the winter cold, maybe the numbness of her family cutting themselves off from her, but she couldn't explain her request of him if she tried.

"A baby. I want a pup."

He couldn't always be with her, she tried to reason with herself, she was sparing him the burden of being charged with her happiness. It was a sacrifice, a ploy to keep him from forgetting his pack duties.

A kindness to him.

"Truly?"

"Yes."

Chan was a beautiful wolf. And a more beautiful mate. Yeji didn't expect him to try and please her so earnestly.

But one uncertain visit to the healer later, where Lia had her drink a bitter tasting brew, before screaming in delight and–

"Yes? Is that a yes?" He swept her up in his arms and kissed her giddy.

Yeji wasn't sure who she was punishing. Perhaps she wasn't punishing anyone, because as her appetite grew and Chan's stories for their little one to-be were what lulled them to sleep, that hole in Yeji's chest melted and molded around something new and warm.

Baby pinks and blues, a lovely lavender around her home.

Home, she smiled at the thought of it, How lovely that sounds…

✧✧✧

Grey.

The color of a long winter under a stormy sky, of war smoke always on the horizon. Of death.

The Hwang Pack was three cabins between ashen ghosts of where the full strength of their fellow wolves had howled strong.

"I'm cold."

Chaeryeong said it a lot, and no amount of placing her between them, before the fire, seemed to dismiss that horrid chill.

"They're going to smoke us out of the valley," Jisung would say, pouring over their map of the territory, growing smaller and more cut off from aid with every day, "Why haven't any of our allies come to our aid?"

Seungmin shrugged, sensible and noble as he was, "They've surrounded us. How would the message go from us? Every wolf we've sent has never returned."

Older warriors pressed in and threw their thoughts, and the burden of their impending doom pressed down heavily on Hyunjin's shoulders.

Hyunjin tried everything. Tried to make them seem stronger, tougher, larger, tried to smoke out a path to their allies, tried to bargain for some middle-ground.

His pack was going to be slaughtered.

"Our best hope is to evacuate us all while we have the chance," they decided, "Smuggle out the young and elderly, defend the weak, throw ourselves at the mercy of a kindhearted alpha."

"Bang," Seungmin pressed, "Our best chances are with alpha–"

"Don't be daft, the Bang Pack has slaughtered hundreds more needy!"

"Shall you parade us to our graves?"

Hyunjin silenced them, "If nothing else… Yeji is with them. She will plead on our behalf."

The meeting ended with several warriors deciding on the wolves they would protect and when they would leave, the element of surprise on their backs, but no reaction was more harrowing than Seungmin, who scowled in disappointment.

"If an alpha has no trust in him, what does he lead for?"

Were it not bitingly cold, Hyunjin might have felt the sting of his words.

Everyone knew he held no kindness for Chan. It was hard to, when such an alliance had boded the beginning of the end for them.

But only few knew how far his bitterness ran– far enough that Seungmin spit the word "pride" in his face, before bundling beside Chaeryeong and ignoring him for good.

Under the haunting feeling of their enemy breathing down their necks, they left in the bleak morning, separate paths headed the same way. 

Hyunjin knew they were doomed before they departed.

He didn't know what made an alpha, but he was sure running for his life with the distant hope of surrender his only hope wasn't it.

"You sham of an alpha."

It happened so suddenly.

Hyunjin didn't know why he was alone, except that he had to keep this wolf's attention long enough for Jisung to run and get the pack to safety.

" Hwang ," the wolf scowled, like he was enjoying what was about to play out.

Hyunjin didn't feel the cold of the snow seep through his paws, only that he was losing, and needed his blood to buy as much time as possible.

Yeji, have mercy on them, Yeji, stay Chan's temper, Yeji, remember us–

Sharp claws tore across his back, "Fight me, you fool!"

Hyunjin fought.

He fought to delirium, to his pleas bringing hallucinations, of his father's disapproving eyes, his mother weeping, Yeji–

"Eyes open, don't you dare close your eyes."

The ground dragged below them. Hyunjin was hauled on shaking shoulders, a short stature pulling him–

"Y– Yeji-ah?"

"Shut up and save your energy."

Even in his weakness, he could hear the tremble in her voice, the stagger in her step, the betrayal of injury.

" Yeji… "

"I told you to shut up."

They collapsed outside the safety of the tree-line. Although he lacked the strength to pull them back to the protection of the shadows, he knew enough to pull himself over her to make them small, keep her warm, and–

His eyes pried open. Her legs were covered in blood.

"Y… Yej… Yeji…"

"They'll come. He'll find us here," she promised, "He'll come…"

Hyunjin didn't care, there was no curse or blessing to bring honor or life back to him. Yeji ought to have left him and crawled back to her pack, because unlike him–

"Ye… Yeji–"

He heard paws tear through the snow, and the concern instantly vanished, darkness claiming him as it's own and pulling him far away from the pain.

Hyunjin knew nothing. Thought nothing. Felt nothing.

" You must come back."

Hyunjin had fought all his life. He'd won, he'd lost, he'd seen the brightest mornings, the darkest nights. 

But is she safe?

His mother had said there was something fate-touched about the way he'd been born. She'd only been prepared for one pup, but then her son had breached the world with one arm reaching behind him, grasping another little arm.

Hyunjin slept in a world where he was a young wolf trying not to cry as his sister screamed from the thorns in her hand. Keeping a stiff upper lip when she was publicly punished for endangering the pack. Pretending to be strong when she accepted her fate in another pack.

You're stronger than me.

No, only more stubborn.

Somewhere the fire was tasting like spring, and his fingers felt the grain of the cot below him. Buzzing and pulsing, life felt like a burning red, embers on a coal pulsing with purpose.

His eyes landed on Yeji, crouched on the floor by the bed.

Tear stained cheeks staring at him in disbelief.

Hyunjin wanted to reach out and reassure her, a searing pain threatening darkness back on him, someone pushing him back down to the cot to rest.

He didn't rest. Not till he saw Chan pull Yeji up from the ground and away.

As he closed his eyes, he realized Chan had been sitting behind Yeji and crying as well.

The thought surprised him.

When he woke again, Seungmin was sitting by the bed, with a much more passive expression.

"How long?"

"A whole moon cycle," Seungmin sipped something steaming, "And since you will want to know, Yeji was beside you until yesterday."

Knowing did not comfort Hyunjin, his gaze blurry as he found her by the other wall, back leaned against Chan, who pulled her close to him. She seemed limp against him, exhausted.

"She…" he fell to the cot again, looking bitterly at Seungmin, "She's with child."

"She was with child," Seungmin said quietly, "They're to bury the pup in the morning."

The warmth of the cabin greyed with Hyunjin's tears. 

"It's not your fault."

" Everything is my fault."

Someone else let out a disbelieving laugh behind him, and he turned to see Chaeryeong, sitting beside a curious wolf with pink hair.

"Men are stupid." Chaeryeong huffed, and the girl nodded.

Chaeryeong wasn't shivering. She didn't say she was cold. Her cheeks were rosy.

"Chan said we could stay, by the way," Jisung sat by the foot of his bed, smirking, "He's already settled everyone who's come, and sent search parties for those who haven't. He was going to meet with their alpha, except…"

Jisung empathetically dragged his eyes over to where Yeji was passed out, looking lifeless and worn. Hyunjin stopped himself from looking too long.

He stopped himself for so long, he closed his eyes and slept, something dreamless and deep. Mournful.

When he woke he ignored all protests to walk across the room and kneel before Chan.

Chan only kneeled opposite him, and then offered him a hand to stand. He quietly walked him to every single wolf who had found protection with them, and then again to every grave that had been dug for those who didn't.

He left Hyunjin alone to bless the buried and departed.

Hyunjin only found them again when the moon was high, and every wolf was gathered around a small hole in the ground, where Yeji howled like her heart had been torn out and sacrificed.

The whole pack joined them.

Hyunjin kept his distance, but mourned for them.

He kept to the shadows in the hopes of slipping away unnoticed, but Chan found him before he could even try, hair a hauntingly blue-tinted silver.

"Stay. Yeji will hunt you down if you don't."

It startled Hyunjin wordless at how well this alpha seemed to know his sister's mind, and then she came herself to grip his arm and insist.

"You must. Chan will make it official. Both our packs–"

"--I don't want to fight for power. He can lead, he'll protect them better than I, I'll leave."

Chan made a startled expression, "...Why would we fight?"

Yeji made a disbelieving sound, "You can be so daft."

Mating had done nothing to temper Yeji's spirit. Her embrace was still as tight, as demanding. 

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" She scolded, "Don't apologize for what you could not avoid."

"Still."

"Don't be stubborn."

More than demanding, Yeji was still as strong. As fierce. Fiercer still than when he'd last left her.

The pastel in her hair framed her face with happiness he'd never seen her wear before. He envied it.

Just enough to stay.

Hyunjin never understood Chan's love for a harvest gold, till summer came. It broke through like a victorious sunrise, and bathed everything in peace. 

Then he understood it, and stood to disagree. Gold was brilliant, but not as powerful as rich, rolling green. 

Because green broke through like a free  unburdened laugh, like the fresh paws through tall grass, like contentment under a gracious sun.

But more beautifully, like a baby's cry on a cool summer day, wrapped in her mother and father's arms, and loved from her first breath.

Green was the color of peace, the color of hope, the color of wealth in love and home and hearth.

The color of life.

The color of living.