Jae ran through the evening dew, feeling the damp under her paws, the cool evening air rushing over her fur.  Her wolf needed to just run sometimes. She leapt in the air snapping at fireflies.  Would they glow in her mouth if she caught one, she wondered?

She splashed through the stream and the crystal clear sky above twinkled with a million stars in the darkness.  It was moments like this that she could let go of the anger and frustration.  It was hard to hate the change when the night whispered it’s secrets and she breathed in the smells of a thousand living things.

She climbed jumping from rock to rock, claws slipping on smooth stone and gaining purchase again as her own forward momentum carried her further. As last she came to the top of the bluff and stared out over the valley.  She could see a few far away lights, homes where sleep refused to visit.  There was a whiff of woodsmoke from a campfire far down the other side of the mountain.  She heard and smelled his approach, staying still, waiting.

Aedan stood next to her, looking out over the same valley.  He laid down, head on his paws and closed his eyes.  Jae stood a moment longer, then settled down next to him.  She turned her head slightly and he opened one eye.  She again faced the valley and closed her eyes.  No fight tonight.  No anger, just peace.  She would remember this night.  As she drifted off her last thought was that life seemed so much less complicated in wolf form.