The dusk air was cool on Marpesia’s fur as she patrolled her territory. She was trotting along the border, hardly noticing the foliage she passed. She had done this so often that nothing was new, the lands under her care imprinted on her mind. But on this evening, something was different. Marpesia shook herself out of the haze of familiar steps and looked down at her feet. A field of white flowers stretched out before her in the pinkish light, wholly unfamiliar.

She knew she’d walked the same path as always, passing the same trees and walking the same distance. Marpesia shouldn’t be here, wherever here was. Still, she was here. She would just have to move forward, find some way to return to her pack. But when she scented the air, she found nothing to indicate a pack, hers or otherwise. There were only the stale scents of wolves who had passed by some time before, and the warm smell of the local prey. Huge trees, far spaced and verdant with life, guarded bunches of snowdrops, and birds flitted between their branches, chirping to each other as they settled in for the night. Marpesia was well and truly lost.

Her tail flicked with annoyance. This was just like the silly tales the elders used to tell to children, about wolves who wandered into a faerie grove and never came out. Marpesia had never seen this place before, and she knew her territory and those around it like she knew her own name. She hadn’t been walking for long enough to go any further than the closest of territories to her own, and yet. And yet, here she was, stuck in a fairytale.

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