It was a soft winter night. The sky was clear revealing the stars and the bright rond moon. A light frost mingled in the night's air. Deep inside the Polish woods a camp of tents was located, invisible and undetectable by those who were on the outside. The smaller tents were empty tonight. All people had gathered in the big main tent where children slept in their bed rolls and some adults kept the ward. It was a night like every other full moon of the month.The werewolves wandered around the forest while human adults kept the ward up, protecting the camp.

The children slept without making a sound. Except for one that was twisting and turning and woke up Lewis who was sleeping next to them. The curly haired boy opened his eyes, softly groaning as his sleep just got disturbed. He turned his head towards the sound of disturbance and found himself facing a girl who was a year older than he was. Oh yeah she and her brother were the new kids. "Ilona was it? Can't sleep?" He whispered softly, not to wake the other kids. "This is your first full moon in the pack, isn't it? Are you thinking about your little brother?" She nodded in return and the worry on her face was clear. "Don't worry, he is safe out there with the others. In fact I dare say he is safer now than he has ever been. You'll see he'll have a lot less injuries tomorrow than all the moons before," he tried to put her at ease. From what he knew: werewolves who lived among the human society often had to lock themselves up which caused a lot of injuries. The girl nodded and something resembling a smile formed on her face. The adult that was near them didn’t smile in the slightest bit and signaled them to be quiet.

If they wanted to continue their conversation, they’d have to move to one of the smaller tents. A quick nod from both sides sealed the deal as they silently got up. The bedrolls and a heat source were taken with them. Quickly with big jumps to avoid as much snow with their bare feet as possible they moved to the nearest tent. Halfway their journey they froze and took in the scenery. Wolves were roaming all around the camp but they didn’t notice them. This was a powerful and surreal experience, knowing a werewolf usually wouldn’t hesitate to tear a human to shreds. Ilona seemed especially frightened. “They can’t see, hear or smell us, we’re safe. Come, it’s cold,” he extended his hand, inviting her into the tent he’d just opened. Hesitantly, she took it and after a quick look over her shoulder joined him. After zipping it close and gathering around the heat source, Ilona opened her mouth. “They can’t get us but what if they come across an outsider?” Her words had Lewis thinking for a moment but he couldn’t make things seem better than they were. “Well, I suppose a human has to be rather stupid if they are to wander the woods at night,” he started, not very good at subtlety. “And if they do well, I guess it’s just the law of nature at that point. You can’t really get mad at an owl for hunting a mouse, can you?” To him this was just simple logic, the way things were. Humans were prey to werewolves thus putting werewolves above them in the food chain. Apparently it wasn't so normal for Ilona who looked horrified.

"You're… just letting them kill people?" This reaction startled Lewis, he took a moment to blink and think. “Uhm… Well… we’re of course trying to prevent that by doing the transformations at places where we don’t expect anyone would come.” Having a human killed by someone of their pack came with a lot of trouble from governments and other organizations. So logically they had to prevent that. “It rarely happens that a situation like that occurs.” Though he couldn’t say it never happened. Some things in life just happened. It wasn’t fun but the way things were. However it seemed like Ilona wasn’t really doing much better from earlier. He made a slight improvement and then screwed it up. This was bad. He was supposed to make her feel better. How was he ever going to be a leader like this? Best was to change the subject. “You went to Durmstrang right? Do you plan to return after the winter?” Lewie snuggled further into his bedroll as the cold breeze went through the tent and watched Ilona’s face.



to be continued