It didn’t take long for the rest of the pack to exit the den. Charles was first, followed by Achelois. Katherine exited in front of Nicolas and last was Aceso. They didn’t say anything. William continued to move rocks around on the ground trying to get a better idea of what they had to work with. Katherine began helping him. Nicolas stood for a second looking at the forest around them. Achelois walked to a tree and climbed up the good-sized trunk. Nicolas followed and soon disappeared in the branches of another tree nearby.
Aceso and Charles looked around the immediate forest, surveying the land and trying to gauge where an attack would come from and what kind of tests the Elders would give them out here. Aceso nodded to her right and both werewolves took off running on all fours.
William looked over at Katherine and saw how diligently she was copying William’s work. He smiled to himself. This girl knows how to work. He realized that he had assumed that because she was ‘hot’ by all standards that she would be a spoiled, pampered, princess that had never had to work a day in her life. God only knew how many times he had seen that example played out in the people around him.
The two of them had all the rubble sorted, somewhat and William looked at the crevasse. He was whipped from behind. He turned around to get slapped in the face with pine needles. “What the hell?”
“Oh, sorry, William.” It was Achelois. She was carrying a large armful of tree branches. “I didn’t mean to hit you like that. Are you ok?”
William scrubbed his face with his hands, “No, I’m fine. It’s just that you hit me and then I turned around only to get a face full of pine needles for my trouble that’s all.”
Katherine was covering her face trying to hide a smile. Achelois peeked out from around the large handful of branches. “I’m sorry.”
Seeing Katherine smile at him and realizing the humor in the situation he started to smile too. “No, I’m fine really.”
Achelois nodded and side stepped past William and Katherine. She walked past the piles of rubble and squeezed the tree branches into the den. William stepped back even further as Nicolas passed by, carrying a similarly large load of tree branches and squeezed into the den after Achelois.
William looked at Katherine. She still had a grin on her face and all William could do was shake his head and laugh. I guess it was pretty funny. He looked at the rubble around him. “Ok, let’s see if we can put Humpty Dumpty together again.”
The work went on for some time. They we interrupted by Nicolas and Achelois carrying back large armfuls of tree branches. Katherine worked just as hard as William did and put in some helpful advice and asked questions about how it was going to look and what it was they were trying to accomplish.
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After some hours the entry way to their den was complete. William stood with Katherine and looked at their handy work. The rocks were strewn about the crevasse opening. It looked like a natural cave in or a minor rockslide had occurred. What they had accomplished was a folded entrance that wrapped around the actual crevasse opening. The rocks were stable and as solid as they could make them, being that they didn’t have any cement of mortar to help them.
William nodded at the entry way and smiled at Katherine. “It looks good.”
“Yeah, it does. I never thought I’d be so proud of a pile of rocks,” Katherine said with a smile.
Achelois peeked out from around the bend in the opening. Her black and white face was a stark contrast to the glassy black rubble that framed her. Her gold eyes were bright with excitement. “Are you two finished?”
William looked at Katherine. She nodded. “Yeah, we’re done. How about you and Nicolas?”
Achelois grinned. “It’s not like any den I’ve ever been in before, but it feels like what a home should feel like.” She came out through the new entry way with her tail high in the air, if she was a dog, her tail would be wagging a mile a minute. “Do you want to see what Nicolas and I have done with the place?”
William allowed himself to be herded into the den along with Katherine. They picked their way around the piled entryway and squeezed their way through the crevasse. They stood at the entrance to their den and took a moment to allow their eyes to adjust to the darkness.
William couldn’t believe that this had just been a rock hole only a few hours ago. The ground of the cave was covered in soft pine needles and shredded wood chips. The floor felt like it was covered in a thick carpet, a stiff carpet, but nothing like he thought wood chips would feel like. The walls were strewn with a light layer of dirt. It gave the cave an earthy feel to it. He couldn’t help but be reminded of his burrow back in his forest. There were whole branches and small logs that were propped up along the natural cubby holes of the inside of the den. It gave more definition to the spaces in the den and a clear definition of space. It was nowhere near separate rooms, but the added separation was a welcome addition to the den. William found himself smiling at the work that had been done.
“It’s amazing,” Katherine said.
William nodded his agreement. He noticed one last decoration that was curious to him. In each of the separated spaces, in each "room", he saw a design carved into the wall. It was of a same height that a work of art would have been hung in a person’s bedroom. The designs were different for each partitioned space.
“What are those?” William asked pointing out the strange artwork.
Nicolas, who had been resting easily in his own partitioned section of the den looked up. “That was Achelois’s idea.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Apparently, we were all reborn under different phases of the moon and those phases determined our skill set. Each of these symbols represents our skill set.” He hooked a thumb upward toward the symbol carved above his head. “That’s mine, the symbol for a Scout.”
William nodded and looked over at his space and the symbol inside it more closely. He walked over and admired the work that went into making the thing. The deep etchings seemed to wrap around themselves in sort of a pretzel pattern that shaped the harsh angles of a diamond. There were long grooves in the rock jutting out of the design here and there that didn’t match anything he had ever seen before. It was very good work, something he would have expected a master craftsman to take at least several hours to make. William shook his head in amazement at it all.