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She had wished on a shooting star before. Maybe it was a shot in the dark, but feeling a deep-seated loneliness, a yearning for family, for pack, for more than what she had, Cyanide Stardust had loped up the hill and left an offering for the mythical Wishing Star. Asking to be blessed with a pup that she could love and dote upon. A pup she could train the ways of the wolfkin. And that star had granted her wishes—well, mostly. She’d been gifted with a beautiful daughter whose eyes shone as bright as the stars themselves, but whose breed was fae in appearance. Nothing like her own claws and fangs, or Phosgene’s spikes and eternal wounds. The filly was completely unscathed from the darkness, a being of light that they named Lithium.

Cyanide loved her to pieces, even if her newfound daughter ate grass instead of meat. With a stubby little cery tail and her gauzy wings, Lithium was family—pack. Slow but sure, the longing for other wolves like herself dimmed. She had Phosgene and she had Lithium. She should’ve been happy. And she was! But… There was still something missing. Maybe it was her maternal instincts. Maybe it was just Fate. She found herself upon that hill once again, asking the stars for another beautiful baby. Phosgene would come to love them, just as he loved Lithium.


The rainbow marked mare slinked through the shadows of the night, following her usual hunting route. Deer were plentiful in this area and she was large enough to easily take down a doe without help. Ever since she’d met Phosgene in a sorry state of disrepair, she’d put herself in charge of keeping them both fed and healthy. She was a swift huntress, her sleek black fur covering lean, lithe muscle. But tonight she wasn’t hunting for food.

Call it intuition, but something was out there. Calling to her soul and it was a cry that Cyanide couldn’t risk ignoring. So leaving Phosgene to slumber in their den, she snuck out on light paws, moving through the trees like a sprite in the woods. And there, to the left, almost completely obscured by a berry bush, were two dark figures. The only way she saw them was from the moonlight, which caught the gleam of the green gems at the fronts of the baskets.

Heart skipping in her chest, she crept forwards to find them warm, smelling of stardust, and a grin broke out across her maw. “My babies…” she whispered to them, her voice low and husky as she nosed around them. One was hued with bold reds and greens, and the other the softer shades of violets and blues. A rainbow, either way. Two little rainbows… And they were hers. She knew it just by looking at them.

Slowly and carefully, she nudged and nosed them through the woods to take them back to the den they called home. Then, not wanting to wake Phosgene, she curled her body around the small wicker baskets and laid her head atop the second. The stars had answered her once more.

Cyanide's keen hearing picked up the sounds of Phosgene in the den, his cloven hooves and spaded tail shuffling over the hard stone floor. Her fickle heart began to pick up speed, remembering the way he'd reacted when she'd brought Lithium home, safely cradled in her basket. He'd been afraid, uneasy around the wicker cradle. As if one wrong move would crack it open...and when Lithium emerged... Cyanide frowned at the memory. It had taken her love awhile to come around to the fact that Lithium was different than them--she was special, blessed by the stars and the moon--but she was still theirs. She had never not been theirs. Eventually, he came to love the clingy little filly with eyes as bright as the sun.

She lifted her head with a happy tail wag as he approached her, her thick tail scuffing up a puff of dirt with each sweep of it. Just seeing him brought happiness to her heart, her broken lover. She would always take care of him, because he was hers and she was his. They shared a soul, a bond. Soulmates. But as he stiffened and seemed to glare in her direction, her heart sunk. "Phosgene..." She leapt to her paws, nimble and swift, and ran to greet him. She nosed under his jaw despite her large size, begging for attention. Her tail never slowed. When she pulled back, her ears folded back, suddenly uncertain.

Did he not want a family? "They are ours," she said, head cocked to one side as she looked down at the rainbow adorned wicker baskets. "The stars have sung for us once more. Twins this time, Phos! And they're girls..." Her smile was bright as she danced around him before dropping to nose the baskets closer together, breathing in their soft scent. Her nose knew they were female; call it mother's intuition.

She looked back up at him, wonderingly. "Are you upset? Do you not want them?" she asked softly, blue eyes gazing up at him with worry gleaming in them. "They were all alone. I couldn't leave them."

Cyanide watched her mate with a sudden wariness to her pale blue eyes, which seemed to put off a low glow in the darkness, casting the dark wicker baskets with soft blue light. Phosgene seemed…uneasy about the idea. But he loved Lithium…or at least, he slowly had grown to love their little faerie. She was as much of them as the stars could grant and neither of them could deny her existence. Cyanide knew, deep in her soul, that when she stumbled across that cream and rainbow basket, marked with swirls, that the baby that rested within was hers. Without a doubt, the stars had granted her request… And shortly afterwards, a tiny foal had emerged from that basket, tinier even than Phosgene would’ve been as a colt, and he was a fairly small statured stallion. And they had raised her--together. She was theirs. The beginning of their pack. And these baskets, the fillies who lay slumbering inside their wicker cradles, were the next step. Why couldn’t he see that?

His snarl didn’t make her flinch, but she whuffed out a low breath, almost a worried sigh. She wanted him to be happy. She wanted a family… Maybe it was the fact that she had no memory of her own childhood, her thoughts clouded by a tragic accident. Thoughts and memories that she may never recover. Or maybe it was because, although she didn’t know it, the wolfkin mare was pregnant with foals of her own. Foals that would be true blooded. Foals that Phosgene could never deny as his… She wanted these baskets. They’d been abandoned and they were /hers/.

She let out a low growl at his hissed words, ears pinned flat against her head. She felt a sudden burst of anger at him--a sudden moodswing, caused by hormones, no doubt. “Well I didn’t steal them!” she barked back, curling around the twin baskets, black marked only by rainbow borders. “You know me better than that, Phosgene.” Her eyes narrowed on him, pinning him in her sights, before she grew soft once again. Whining softly. “They were all alone. Just like Lithium, and the stars… I prayed to the stars. I just…” She whimpered. She wanted a pack. She wanted to be surrounded by wolfkin. She loved Monfulta and his sheepdog family but they weren’t true blood. They were fully canine, not wolven like her. Not wild…

“Phos…” She tucked her head under his throat, nuzzling him. “I want a family. A big family to take on hunts. I want it so badly, and we haven’t been lucky…” Even as her stomach grew rounder a little bit every day, she would be oblivious until she felt the first kick of a paw or a hoof. “I didn’t steal them. They were all alone. I couldn’t leave them to be orphans…and besides. They’re rainbow. Just like me.” She smiled brightly at him, tail wagging a mile a minute. “I want to raise them. I want you to love them, too.”