Deciding against taking a drink from the Lake of Solitude, I turned away. The picture the ancient voice had shown me burned in my mind. I shook my head in disgust and padded towards the dark forest to find my sorry excuse of a daughter and the other Matured that followed her so eagerly.
Just before I entered the maze of trees I gazed up at the sun. It seemed to shine brighter than usual and I could feel its power pulse through my veins. Taking a deep breath, I started back the way I had come, back towards the land I had been banished from.
Racing over barren expanses of land and through foreboding forests, it had been four days since I had been outcast, and longer since I'd eaten. Yet I didn't feel hungry. Inside I knew that the sun could sustain me - but how?
On the seventh day, I reached the boundary of the pack's land. It was so familiar, yet so alien. Cautiously, I entered.

A sliver of silver caught my eye and I snapped my head around. A soft, yet menacing, voice drifted to me. I swivelled my ears to detect the source - but I couldn't find it.
"State your purpose here," It growled. "For you are not welcome."
I stood my ground, twitching my tail. "I come to see Blizzard. My daughter."
A pause, then, "The alpha's mother is no longer welcome here. Neither are her... acquantainces."
"Well, I'm not leaving."
The growling increased and one of Blizzard's guards stepped out of the inner darkness, but remained in shadow. It was one of the two that had chased me out of this place. He was one of the largest in the pack. Now, I towered over him.
The guard's pupils narrowed to a slit. An ear flickered back, listening to something. He stood, turned around and padded away, "wait here." He growled over his shoulder.
I waited patiently. He reappeared a short while later, he nodded curtly. "You may proceed."
Walking forwards into the uneasy darkness I wound my way through a worn path until I reached the opening of a cave. At the mouth, a splinter of sunlight shone weakly. The guard circled this and watched, almost enviously, as I walked through it easily.
A familiar cold voice echoed around the cave. "Don't put another paw forward if you wish to live."
Obediently, I stopped where I was and watched as Blizzard materialised out of the black before me. She seemed so small to me now, I found it hard to believe I had been so intimidated by her.
"You know my mother," she spat the word, as if it were poison, out of her mouth. "What does she want? Has she sent a message begging to return?"
The other Matured which appeared as she spoke laughed quietly. Wide blue eyes stared at me from between the Matured Ones legs. The Young Ones stared up at me with an expression I'd never known them to behold before. Fear.
"It's ok," I said quietly to them.
Blizzard snarled angrily. "How dare you speak to the Young Ones!"
Anger blazed within me, and I roared, "You speak to me like I'm scum? How dare you! What about these other Matured Ones that follow you so eagerly? Do they know what you did to our kind? How they helped you? Do they remember? Or did you make them forget that too?"
The other Matured frowned at her. They quickly wiped the expression from their faces, but not before she had noticed. Turning on them she hissed, "You believe that thing? It turns up out of nowhere and you doubt your own leader at the flick of a tail?" She turned to me again. "Who the hell are you?"
Taking deep breaths I hissed, "Your mother. Arrouena. An outcast from the Matured. Once a Creature of the Moon, I am now one of the Sun." I tilted my shoulder towards her and her jaw dropped open in surprise. "This is the scar you gave me the other night. A reminder of what a fool I was to accept you as my kin!"
She stared at me wordlessly. I turned to the Young Ones before she could recover. "The other day when I spoke to you for the last time. I was speaking to you about time. Do you remember? Can you recognise my voice?"
They nodded timidly. I faced my pathetic daughter. "Would you call your own offspring liars Blizzard?"
Her body shook with rage and her muscles tensed. With a gaze that could cut through ice she launched herself at me with a snarl.
I reared up and met her pounce, bringing her down to the ground. In here we were equals. I was stronger, she more agile.
I faced the shocked Matured. They edged further away from me. Keeping an eye on Blizzard I spoke to them, "do you remember the days before you were all so selfish? The days when we could bask in the sun without pain? I didn't until today. My daughter made sure of that."
Blizzard got to her feet and swayed terribly, she stumbled towards me and swiped me on the shoulder. It deflected easily and I headbutted her, rolling her over on to her back. I placed a huge paw over her neck and applied some pressure. Her eyes rolled in their sockets and bulged slightly.
She took another swipe at my head. Growling, I clamped my jaws over her neck and raced out into the sunlight. Powerless in the sun that gave me power, I pinned her down and watched her fur start to smoke.
The Matured Ones followed silently, waiting for their leader to give them the order and attack.
"The pain you feel right now is nothing like the anger and suffering I feel towards what you did," I snarl. I flexed my claws.
Realising my intent, the ancient voice broke its silence. "No! Do not kill her, then you will become what you detest. The curse I lifted from you will return and we will achieve nothing."
I hissed angrily, but knew it was right. I retracted my claws and let Blizzard go.
Thinking I was doubting myself, she slunk out of the sun's rays and patted the patches of smoke from her fur with a bloodied paw, snarling, "Those days are gone. Get over it!"
A murmur ran through the group. "What days? I don't remember a time before we were Creatures of the Moon."
"Back then, the Creatures of the Sun ruled over the land. We took care of the plants and animals that lived on it. Flowers blossomed and animals filled themselves with the abundance of food surrounding them. We did not need to eat, the sunlight nourished us," I said, staring at each Matured intently.
Blizzard snorted and circled around me, lunging in and out - taunting me yet not able to reach as the sunlight acted as a barricade.
I sighed, "We don't have to fight."
"Shut up! Only cowards don't fight. So what are you? Coward? Or fighter?"
She lunged at me once more. Fed-up with her, I lifted a huge paw and cracked it down on her head. I bit into her back and tossed her into a tree. She groaned then went still. She was alive, just unconscious.
I faced the Matured Ones, sat down and looked at each in turn. None could face my gaze, "Then Blizzard was born. And everything changed." A few of the Matured stiffened, starting to remember the events of long ago. "She looked like any other Young One. She was slighly larger, which was a good sign of health. Her eyes though. So different from the innocent blue of her sisters and brothers. Paler, more sharp. I never thought anything of it, as she would listen the most intently out of the whole litter at my stories. The amazing feats of your ancestors. Back then I was proud of her."
Gasps emanated from the pack, and I heard my daughter stir. Turning to face her, I saw the pain filling in her eyes at the wounds in which I had inflicted. Before, I would have pitied her. Now there was only room for contempt.
I spoke directly to her, "I didn't notice anything wrong at first. Maybe I just chose to ignore the signs. When you reached the Maturing Age I noticed too late. You stopped taking part in the pack's duties, which was to look after the animals in the area. The days you spent awake in the sunlight lessened too. Of course, the younger ones followed you like the faithful servants they are."
A couple of snarls exploded from the group. My tail thudded on the ground threateningly, ordering them to be silent. They obliged after a slight hesitation.
Blizzard spoke up then, sneering at me. Blood dripping from a broken tooth, "Then I Matured and you caught me torturing an animal before I killed it and needlessly ate it." She limped forwards, "You challenged me about it, but me being younger and more agile I easily overpowered you."
Uneasy mutterings seeped from the Matured, Blizzard spun and faced them, "Oh please!! You believed every filthy word I spoke! Did you honestly think you could be sustained on sunlight alone?"
"That is not why they mutter, Blizzard. They are Remembering," I said.
"I never fogrot, how could I? It was the sweet scent of victory for me on that day!" Blizzard hissed.
She was right, I could remember that day clearly, now that the ancient voice had awoken the memories. How could I have ever forgetten that fateful day...?

The sun had been setting, and I had awoken cold and sore. I had just witnessed my daughter doing something terrible. But what was it? whenever I tried to remember my head burned with pain and my vision blurred. I had to warn the others, about what she had done, whatever it was. I knew that they needed to know. Maybe i would remember when I started to tell them? I limped back to the den, despite my aching body screaming in protest, to behold a terrible sight.
At first what I thought had been the rays of the setting sun were actually streaks of golden blood on the ground. The blood of fellow Matured.
A roar of pain exploded before me, and I saw in horror a fellow pack member and my brother fighting off five silver creatures. They were slowly backing into the Lake of Solitude. My fellow pack member fell as the smaller, yet agile, creatures took advantage of their numbers.
Defeated, my brother was chased into the deepest part of the Lake, where they kept him captive until he could swim no more. Defeated, he drowned.
I raced to the edge of the water, mourning the loss of my kin and my pack. I looked down and into my reflection. My fur had become silver, matching the murderers that destroyed their own bloodline. How could my fur have changed? I didn't partake in the death of my kin. Maybe the thing I had witnessed my daughter doing had changed me somehow.
The silver creatures surrounded me, and from the outside of the ring stepped my daughter, Blizzard. Her fur was drained of colour.
"What did you do?" I cried.
"It was time for a change. It didn't take much to make the others do what I wanted. I made them pledge their alliance to the Moon, as I did. The moon, it seems, has also claimed you. That is the only reason you live. For I will be a reasonable leader, merciful..."
The more she talked the more we were all drawn in by what she had to say, until we forgot what she had done, and what the others had been made to do, and all we could see was the coldness of her colourless eyes.

"You tricked us all!" "You made us murder our own kin!" "Liar!" "Murderer!" "You manipulated us!"
The angry calls built into an outraged roar. I don't know how she had the power to manipulate us as she did, but her work was undone as the power of the Sun aided me in helping the others remember.
"I did it for us! To create a better life!" Whispered Blizzard, as the Matured closed in around her.
I turned the Young Ones away as the pack leaped at their former leader, claws flashing and teeth gnashing. It was the last I ever saw of her.
"Why did Mum do all those things?" The young Ones cried, innocent eyes staring at me wide-eyed. They shook and wailed as Blizzard roared at the sun, then fell eternally silent.
"The Moon was jealous of the Sun, how it had such creatures under its command. Blizzard was the first of us to be born at Sunset, not Sunrise, when the Sun's power is at it's weakest. The Moon seized its chance, and took her. It was only when she Matured that it was revealed."
"It is done."
I turned around with surprise, recognising the ancient voice.
Out of the tree line a large golden Creature of the Sun emerged, three times bigger than I. A pair of wings extended from its shoulders blades, shining with different shades of gold, impossibly bright. The sun Insignia was almost blinding, it shone so bright you had to squint to see clearly.
"You!" I gasped. It nodded.
"May this be a lesson to all. No Creature will ever again be either of the Sun or the Moon. From now on, there shall be an equal balance so that the Moon - or the Sun - will not be jealous of one another," the giant Creature of the Sun gestured at the Young Ones by my side. A ray of sunlight hit them, as did a ray of moonlight shortly after. Disguised from view, the rays of light expanded and dissipated suddenly, revealing the Young Ones.
Except they weren't Young Ones anymore.
They had Matured. Their fur shone a glimmering silver, with gold spots and stripes covering their bodies. One eye glowed silver, the other bronze. On their foreheads was an insignia of the beginnings of an eclipse, so the sun and moon shone equally bright.
"Behold, Creatures of Eclipse," the ancient voice announced. "You are under the equal command of the sun and the moon. From now on, at certain times throughout the year, the Moon shall now pass the Sun, causing an Eclipse. This will represent what occured this night, aswell as the Sun agreeing to give power to the Moon, as an equal. Whenever this eclipse occurs, you will be at your strongest."
As the Creatures of the Eclipse exclaimed and studied one another, the Creature of the Sun stretched its wings and soared away into the sunlight.