• tab The moon shone down in ivory paths broken by the towering trees of a mountain long forgotten. In those wild paths walked Artemis, followed by the laughs of her nymph companions. Her pale golden hair hung straight down her back to her waist, flashing silver under the trees' mosaic. Long legs maneuvered the ground, and a beautiful bow rested lightly on her back. She smiled to herself, her favorite young wolf by her side. The she-wolf was the only mundane animal in the whole of her family.
    tab On the other side of the forest, a man rode through the shadows in silence. Hades, god of the underworld, was clothed in the simplest of black clothes. His smooth skin was as void of color as the winter snow, and his black curls shined with the sprinkle of gems he had forgotten.
    tab The lord of the shades of the dead drifted in and out much like the souls he reigned. He stood in his golden chariot with the gleam of blood rubies, pulled by the blackest of horses. He was in the pursuit of happiness for the only person that could reach his cold heart; his wife Persephone- and it was in the form of two silver wolves.
    tab Meanwhile, Artemis had reached the clearing at the top of the mountain. The she-wolf, Aristae, barked, for all the wolves awaited them. The pack was a beautiful sea with all the shades of white, grey, and black mixed together into a beautifully woven carpet- a carpet with thousands of glowing eyes. Two stragglers ran into the clearing, faces alight.
    tab Artemis stepped forward, and a bbreeze swept up her long her and let it spill over her shoulders. He pale skin shined under the night sky, and a shadow of a crescent moon kept flickering on her forehead. Anyone would agree that her beauty that night had no equal.
    tab "My children!" Artemis called out. "Tonight is our night. We will shed our wolf skins and celebrate under the moon." Her smile then was radiant. "And then we hunt."
    tab Hades watched from the veil of trees, listening to the joyous howls that slowly multiplied from one wolf to hundreds. He stood there to witness the transformations. The wolves' bodies hunched together, and they growled in tandem as the magick pulsated through their bones. Slowly, they stood, men and women covered in fur. The wolf people shook, and the fur turned animal pelts, the ears melted into hair, and they shifted so all that remained of their animal selves were the eyes, and a wicked set of claws.
    tab Hades walked out of the forest in long strides, his horses grazing on green grass. The werewolves stared at him steadily, watching his every move as he approached their queen. The young children trembled in fear.
    tab "Quite fascinating," Hades adressed Artemis, his voice smooth and dark, "That you should have an army at your beck and call. Especially a pack of wolves."
    tab Artemis's warmth leaked out of her face, and her dark eyes flashed dangerously. She stepped forward. "This is not an army, the accused that you have been spying on. These people are my family, and we have no need for you here."
    tab "But on the contrary! I come here to take some wolves back to my bride, but instead I'll be bringing slaves."
    tab Artemis growled, her face red with anger. "You cannot take them, Hades, for there will be much bloodshed." The wolves howled, looking odd in a human throat.
    tab "You dare defy me?" Hades thundered, black eyes boiling with rage. "You threaten to spill my blood? No one will stand in the way of what I desire!" And with a great shout, Hades threw up his arms, shooting thick, dark evil straight at Artemis.
    tab The moon goddess was also the god of the hunt, and now she hunted the most important thing of all- her people's safety. Artemis flung out her arms, a shimmering glow burning in her chest, and she took the evil. She absorbed it and shot it back at Hades in a thousand glittering pieces. He flew into the air and hit a tree, standing up a second later.
    tab "I have bested you, Hades. You are not the better god; therefore you cannot take from me."
    tab Hades fumed at his loss to Artemis, who was actually his niece. "You may have bested me, but that does not mean I cannot take from you." He took his revenge with an eternal plague, one that would follow her for the rest of time. "You shall regret the day that you ever crossed the lord of the dead!"
    tab And she did.
    tab The plague killed many a Were, and as her followers fell, the moon lost slivers of herself to the sky. This physically hurt Artemis, who was suffering from heart ache and rage.
    tab But roughly a fortnight later, after the moon had been eaten away, the remaining wolves were shocked to find the females heavy with life. Artemis finally slept after two weeks of torture and with her emotions at rest, her power over fertility had awoken. The pack flourished. Pups were born in days, and the moon grew bigger. Artemis's family was being restored.
    tab But soon, the horrid plague returned, and the miracle happened a second time, and then a third and a fourth. Hades' curse began to sew itself into the lives of the wolves, and Artemis called their struggles the phases of the moon.