CHAPTER 1
The mates eventually came to a watering hole, where they could drink and rest. There was some soft grass for them to lie down on, and after spending another day traveling, only to find no food, Whiteclaw needed to relax. Lying on her side, she saw her mate still up and walking, moving around the area in circles, smelling the air for food... or danger.
Whiteclaw slowly closed her eyes, resting, but not sleeping. She remembered how all this had happened...
11 months ago...
"...and he said yes?" Whiteclaw said to her mother.
"Well, actually, he said something a lot stronger than that, but basically, he told me that when I asked your father if he wanted to come to this land..." responded Greentail, a medium-sized female...
"And, he led you here, where you later laid my egg?" Whiteclaw asked
"Yes, my child. Coming here was his idea... Your father was a brave male... strong, tough, sometimes a bit too stubborn for his own good... he followed the migrating herds, and learned of their travel patterns... following him brought me more food than I could ever eat..."
Sharpteeth were not as stupid as the leaf-eaters made them out to be. On the contrary, they were quite intelligent, and were fully capable of thinking ahead, making plans, and had a grasp of abstract thought, just as the leaf-eaters did. Unfortunately, the mindset of the sharpteeth was very different. Leaf-eaters had the luxury of being able to eat almost anything that grew in the Earth... they could afford to stay in one place, and just eat and eat and eat...
That was not a possibility for creatures like Whiteclaw, who had to find, chase, and kill her food in order to eat it. Only the predators with the strongest muscles, fastest limbs, and sharpest teeth could really expect to flourish. Because of this, the various sharptooth species had come to value physical attributes over mental or spiritual ones... and over time, this became not only ingrained in their physiology, but in their culture as well. With no society to speak of among her kind, unlike some of the smaller sharpteeth, Whiteclaw could only trust the members of her close family, and maybe a few friends... and all bets were off if hunger became an issue among them.
"Mother... when father died protecting you... did he have any last words?" Whiteclaw asked. She had never met her father, but Greentail had told her daughter about him...
"He told me to keep you safe, and to teach you everything that a sharptooth needed to know... like how to find water, or the different kinds of footmarks made by prey..." she responded. "Whitefang was always a good tracker... I even gave you the first half of his name, whereas the other half of your name-"
"Come from grandma. You've told me a million times, mother..." Whiteclaw said. "I only wish I could have met her..."
"She was dead long before I ever met your father..." Greentail added, sadly. "My father was the one who had raised me, mostly..."
That was not quite the truth... Greentail was indeed protected by her father when his mate was still alive, but even before her death, he frequently laid with other females... when Greentail's mother had died, her father spent most of his time hunting or seeking females... and spent little time with her... even letting her go hungry at times... he seemed to care more about mating than actually caring for the children who were the result of such an encounter...
Greentail was also cheated on by her mate, who had left her... last she heard of him, he was seeing at least four different females... she didn't want her daughter to grow up with a hatred or a fear of males, so she told her stories which, in her mind, were white lies... and there was some truth to them... Whitefang was indeed a good trackers... he just spent much of that time tracking down females to mate with instead of food for his mate and daughter...
Whiteclaw was unprepared for the harsh world that awaited her, as a result.
