Lass came from a family of good mothers. Her mother, her older sisters, and even her cousins and aunts were all considered among the best bloodlines in the entire village, not only because they were able to produce females, which for gray wolves was a great achievement, but also because their pups were born strong and healthy. So Lass had no doubt that whoever married her would be a lucky male. She was the prize, and as such, she wouldn't accept any less than her worth.
It was then that her grandmother, Fass, the leader of the family, was contacted by the head of the Farunt hunting family, who were among the three best families in the entire village and among the ten richest in the eastern region of the forest. The Farunt were not just hunters, they were part of the eastern guardian council and haven't had a single sacrifice in six generations. So her grandmother gathered all the women of the family, to decide who would become the next wife of the Farunt.
To everyone's surprise, the groom would be Drog Farunt, the best hunter of his generation, which made it a great honor. Many of the families with females wished to associate with the Farunts, that was the truth, but few families had that honor, and from Lass's family, only one of her cousins had achieved it, and it was precisely with Park, Drog's older brother. The rest of the wives of the Farunt family came from the city of Vaen, capital of the gray wolf territory.
Lass's family was named Limk, and they weren't exactly poor. Among the gray wolves, families with females never were. The marriage dowries were enormous: hundreds of goats, chickens, and their respective servants. A family with a female daughter would have their future secured for a while if they married her to the right wolf. The reason was simple: among the gray wolf race, males outnumber females ten to one. This resulted in females being extremely coveted, and their families married them off to the best of the best. A common female married at a high price; a female with a good bloodline fetched a fortune. As for the males, they agreed. In the Black Forest, only the strong survived after all, and as such the strong make the rules.
Of course, the gray wolf race was strong, but even they would be destroyed if a generation failed. So the strongest males got the best females; that was how it should be, and no one questioned it.
Females were treasured; they had more rights than males. If, for any reason, one of them were injured or died for any reason other than age, the family that allowed such a tragedy could face terrible penalties, even requiring the sacrifice of most if not all of its males. On the other hand, females who committed crimes would be judged by other females and rarely received truly severe punishments. Did it happen? Yes, but very rarely.
So Drog presented himself to them after a while and quickly chose Lass as his wife. Lass wasn't surprised; she knew she was the best of them all. Arrogance? Maybe, but she had the skills to show off. Everyone there knew it: her scent, her posture, the color of her hair—everything about her showed she was the best choice. Even her upbringing was above the rest in the family. So when her first child was born very small, it was Lass who took it the worst.
Seven in her first litter is beyond excellent, for all the pups to survive birth is even rarer, few females can boast such a feat, but in her family there is a deep-rooted superstition that the first pup born will dictate how good the mother really is and her first pup was very small.
"He fits in the palm of my hand" said her grandmother, who had acted as midwife. Lass couldn't believe it.
The rest were born a good size —just one, a mistake, nothing that can't be fixed— she thought at that moment. She looked at all her cubs, six of them settled and crying, as they should. But not him, he wasn't crying. He didn't say anything. When a cub is born, it's born screaming. And the only word its body can say is "mama." It's natural; their little bodies had to call out to her, and it was Lass's job to protect them. But the first one born didn't scream; its body didn't say anything, it didn't move, as if it hadn't even been born yet. Lass was determined to finish it off. A sick cub would only have a cruel future in the Black Forest. If she let it live, its future could be bad, perhaps even worse than death—they'll make it a servant, an exile, or worse. A sacrifice— Lass thought, as she watched him, she slowly placed her hands on the other pups and their cries turned into sobs, one by one until only he was left.
Her first cub. Lass placed her hand on his chest and listened to his heart. And then...
She decided not to kill him.
She couldn't. With her hand on his small chest, it would be easy, she could do it quickly, he wouldn't suffer. But she couldn't do it.
"I'm a failure as a mother," she thought. Putting her feelings before her duty is something she wasn't raised to do. And yet she did it.
"And now? Why aren't you crying?" she signaled with her hand. And she felt the cub's heart calm down —at least it's not deaf—she thought, as she prepared to feed them.
As the weeks passed, Lass fulfilled her duties. She attended to her husband, cared for the pups, maintained the house, and managed the servants. All tasks she had been bred to perform. All performed perfectly.
Her husband hadn't seen the young ones. His scent was too strong; his mere presence could kill them if they didn't get used to it first, and they needed to grow a bit more before being introduced. They were all growing well, their temperaments was appropriate, and they had begun fighting at the perfect age, even the one she worried most about.
He couldn't speak and didn't seem able to communicate with his siblings, which was worrying since he wasn't weak. Lass watched them eat and realized that despite being the smallest, he was the smartest. Unfortunately, in the Black Forest, intelligence without strength can only lead to a terrible end. Strength was everything, and among gray wolves, the strongest were always the biggest—even among "fury" users— she thought.
As the months passed, she saw him win fights over food, letting everyone eat. Something like that wasn't normal.
Gray wolves, as pups, tend to be extremely competitive, a type of natural selection. In a large litter, rarely more than three survive, especially among hunters pups, who let the strongest eat until they were full and the weakest kept the leftovers.
Of course, she would have fed those who went hungry; that kind of natural selection practice was archaic; letting them fight from a young age was the best way to develop their skills, that's all. But he didn't let anyone go hungry, which caused everyone to suffer in the end. So she was forced to carry an increasingly larger and larger bowl of food.
It was strange; nothing she'd been taught had prepared her for him. He'd eat more than the others when he saw the bowl growing bigger and less when he saw there wasn't enough for everyone, which forced her to bring a bigger bowl.
He also slept less than the others. Because of her duties, Lass had to be out most of the day, but when it was time to clean the house, she'd hear it. Knocking on the walls or the floor. When they were supposed to be sleeping, someone would be jumping around, and when Lass would go in to see what was happening, he'd see him sitting on the table, the floor, or in bed next to his siblings, pretending ignorance.
The most worrying thing of all was his face. He was smiling. It's not as if there aren't expressive wolves among the gray wolves; one is born every now and then. But never this expressive. He was expressive all the time. "Are you not from the black wolf tribe by any chance?" Lass thought, as a joke to try not to worry. Of course, it was impossible; black wolves were bigger than gray wolves, after all.
A year later, they were finally named. Her husband was surprised when he walked in and saw him for the first time.
"He's very small," he told Lass, and that was it. He didn't reproach her or get angry, which was his right. She had given him a disabled son. But he limited himself to a comment and that was it, not another word. Gray wolves aren't known for talking too much, and her husband was no exception.
Wail, that's what they called him. It means the weakest in the Black Forest language. The one who cries, the fool, the jester. Its meaning is cruel, and even crueler is naming a cub that way. But she had no say in it. It was her husband's right and duty to name the cubs, and he had chosen to name him that. One more cross in the little one's path.
"Perhaps I should have ended his life that day," Lass thought, as she watched the seven pups retreat to their room.
Sadness crossed her gaze as she watched her cubs return to their room. Worried, for the strongest had now been named the weakest