Anput

Anput had existed long before the wolves of Haru's pack had taken their first breaths.

She was there when the first rivers carved their paths through the earth, when the winds howled over barren stone, when the stars scattered themselves across the night sky in a cosmic design only the gods could comprehend.

She was a goddess of death, but also of rebirth. She had watched countless wolves fall to time, to sickness, to war. She had guided their spirits to the next world, ensuring their journey was met with dignity and purpose.

And yet, for all her power, no mortal had ever laid eyes upon her.

She did not walk among them as others of divine blood had once done. She did not meddle in their conflicts, did not claim followers, did not demand reverence.

She observed.

She waited.

For what, even she did not know.

The Goddess and the Mortal Realm

Though she had no need for a physical form, Anput often chose to take one.

A great she-wolf, her coat black as the void between stars, adorned in golden jewelry that shimmered in the moonlight. Her eyes—the color of ancient wisdom, sharp as the edge of a freshly forged blade.

When she walked through the world, she left no paw prints.

The wind did not disturb her fur. The grass beneath her did not bend. The living did not see her, did not smell her, did not hear the quiet rhythm of her steps.

She was a presence just beyond the veil, felt but never seen.

The wolves of the land, though unaware of her, spoke of omens in the night.

A whisper on the wind, a flicker of shadow where none should be. A cold shiver up the spine.

Some claimed she was a phantom.

Others, a legend.

Only the dead knew the truth.

The Watching of Haru's Pack

Anput had no reason to linger among mortals for long. Their lives were fleeting, their struggles repetitive, their fates inevitable.

And yet…

She found herself returning to one pack.

A pack that did not turn away those who were different.

A pack that did not shun the broken, the abandoned, the cursed.

She had seen packs before—strong, disciplined, ruled by order. Packs that crushed weakness beneath their paws, that feared the unnatural.

But Haru's pack was different.

He and his wolves did not seek perfection. They did not reject those who bore afflictions, did not exile those who did not fit the mold of what a wolf should be.

He had built a home for the unwanted.

And it was there, within their ranks, that she saw something she had not seen in centuries.

A place where even the forsaken could belong.

It intrigued her.

It was not devotion that drew her in—they did not even know she existed.

But something deep within the core of her being told her that she needed to see more.

So, she watched.

A Goddess Unseen

They never knew she was there.

She walked through their dens at night, unseen, listening to their whispered fears and quiet laughter. She stood at the edge of their hunts, watching the chase, the strategy, the way they worked together not out of dominance, but out of trust.

She observed their rituals, the way they honored their fallen in the Echoing Rest.

She lingered near the Black Maw, sensing the corruption inside, feeling the disturbance that came from the undead creature locked away.

And then she turned away, knowing there would never be another she-wolf from this pack to enter inside.