Cause A Scene - 15 June 2026

PROMPTS

• Character Dimension - Optimistic, Insecure, Woman, Shapeshifter

• Time - Alternative History

• Place - Fantasy Setting

• Theme - Identity

• POV - Protagonist

• Conflict - vs Supernatural

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For the fifth time today, I cannot seem to get my claw to retract back into my human body and it’s just embarrassing at this point. I’m the Alpha’s oldest daughter – one of four – and the inevitable Alpha on the Rising Moon pack when my time comes.

But lately I have found myself wincing at the thought of leading the pack. Especially these last six months. I have somehow reverted back to a pup who can barely control their shift causing me to question pretty much everything in my life as a twenty-three-year-old wolf shifter in Hyrathia’s capital.

“Gemma,” Felix’s voice echoes through the tall cythra trees and I sigh at being discovered in what I thought was my safe place.

“Hey, Felix.”

He laughs at the apparent annoyance on my face. “What are you doing out here?” I feel his wolf’s spirit nudge up against mine and it settles me a bit.

“Oh you know, just taking in the old ruins from the humans and contemplating my existence.”

I smile, half-heartedly as I wave, my still clawed hand toward the large filed outside of the edge of the forest where stone and twisted metal and piles of former civilization have merged with the natural beauty of the planet after the humans brought about their own demise after World War II over a hundred years ago. The history books tell the story of our kind and others like us – supernatural that is – surviving the destruction and with the help of magic and some tenuous alliances, we built a new civilization that is thriving.

“Gemma,” Felix says and I hate the knowing sympathetic tone in the way he says my name. “It’s just stutters. It’s not a big deal and it always goes away.”

“But I’m the Alpha daughter, Felix. I’m not supposed to get stutters.”

“You're just a shifter like the rest of us, Gems.”

“Am I?” I look at Felix and we both know that I’m write.

I’m more than just a shifter, but right now, I just don’t know what that is. I’m my father’s heir. The future of my pack. I’m a woman who’s been in love with her best friend since she was a pup but can’t tell him. I’m strong, a great fighter, but I don’t love the fight like my sisters do. And an Alpha who hesitates to defend her pack could be a problem.

Just as Felix opens his mouth to respond we feel the air shift, the temperature drops and a shiver runs up both our spines if the goosebumps on his arms like mine are any indication.

“Felix,” I whisper and he nods, knowing what is coming.

A winter wisp has entered the woods. While the wisps of Irish lore are mischievous and dangerous in their own rights, a winter wisp is something far worse.

“Shift now. There’s not enough time to get the others here,” Felix says as the scent of fire and smoke fill the air as he begins his shift. I breathe it in and hear my wolf purr as she inhales the delicious aroma of Felix’s wolf emerging.

I relax my aura and initiate my own shift, and the crisp scent of snow and scent of hellebores fill the air. My wolf’s shift marker and I can’t help but wonder if Felix reacts to it the way I react to his.

There we stand, two massive wolves standing guard ready for the impending fight.

Felix’s giant paws dig into the damp earth rooting his massive black form into the ground. Deep orange embers sizzle and shimmer at the end of his tail and around the scruff his neck and his eyes are the same color as the flames of fire he conjures with his magic. He looks fierce and regal and everything I want in a mate.

My muscles tense in my wolf form, ready to fight. My gray and white fur is crusted with ice in the same places where Felix is heat. My eyes shine a bright cobalt blue as I search the area for the approaching wisp.

“There,” Felix’s wolf growls through our mental connection. “I’ve already warned the others.” He means the Guarda, the defending force of our pack. Being the captain of the Guarda, it must have been the first thing Felix did after he shifted. “They are coming, but they won’t be fast enough. We have to move in now.”

I see the black ice moving swiftly across the forest floor. The wisp is alone. Not uncommon, but they are usually in pairs.

We explode from the clearing where I was standing only moments ago, worried about who I could be for my pack. Now I was focused on one thing, and one thing only. Defending my pack from this fae menace that is swiftly approaching as I race toward the threat.

Felix leaps over some felled trees and snaps his jaws, narrowly missing the nimble wisp as it averts certain death from his lethal bite. Felix’s claws light ablaze as he digs into the sheet of black ice as he slides and spins to launch and second attack.

Running along the perimeter of its path, I watch the dark flittering creature, much bigger than its glowing relatives of the north as it weaves a taunting path between trees infecting the landscape with its dark icy touch. It’s cocky, so it seems to settle into a pattern, which was its fatal mistake.

I time it. I speed up my steps to match its rhythmic threads between the cythras and then I pounce, snatching the deadly pest between my bone white teeth.

Crunch.

The acrid taste of its blood is unpleasant, and I spit out the limp corpse of the wisp just as Felix comes to a stop by my side. He paws at the dead wisp and sets the thing on fire from his touch dissolving it to ash in seconds.

The black ice will require attention. I can hear the beats of the Guarda’s paws against the forest floor. Mila can handle that with her magic. The regrowth will take time, but she can do it.

Felix, still in wolf form, rubs against me and his muzzle dips below mine, a sign of respect. But then he brushes the bridge of his snout along my jaw releasing the floral scent of my wolf for his inhale and feel it then. A strand of connection sparks between us, the warm pull of my mate. The bond will grow over the next months until it fully forms. But it’s there and I can tell he feels it too as we look at each other.

“You know who you are, Gemma. I know who you are. And you will be an amazing Alpha. And so much more.” Felix pressed his midnight black forehead to my silver one and we breathe each other in and I believe him.