Seven whole words-- not a bad record for him.

 Rover shakes her head. “Ah but Finch-- you’ve never seen a swamp like this. It was alive, I’m telling you-- mud? Hah! I would have given my tail for some mud right about then! No-- that swamp wanted me dead. 

I was picking my way across a log; all rotted by rain and slippery underfoot. I was concentrating just to keep my balance on it-- when, just to distract me, a voice cried out in the fog!

“Enemy,”* it said; “You should have told me before coming here!”

I almost lost my grip on the log-- the cold spirits in the water reached up and clutched at me, their icy claws--”

“Rover,” Finch says, warningly. Perch has her face pressed entirely into his fur, her tail tucked between her legs. 

Rover clears her throat. “But,” she says, quickly, “I managed to escape their clutches once again, and turned to meet my new assailant-- a wolf. Or at least, he seemed to be. As I discovered, much about this place wasn’t as it seemed. 

“Enemy,” he said again, his strange accent twisting the words, and approached me through the fog. “Stop-- who are you?”

“Rover,” I told him, “Of The Pack at Sanctuary! I’m no wolf’s enemy-- unless they choose to be mine.”

He bared his teeth at me; they gleamed in the night like a shark’s! Rows upon rows of them!”

Setter bares her teeth in imitation and mock-growls, tackling her brother. The two go wrestling across the ground, biting at one another. 

Perch peeks up from Finch’s side. “Who was he?”

“Hm?”

“The tooth wolf!”

"The tooth wolf-- he was Pietro, the scout of a pack that called themselves…” Rover pauses, waiting until all three pups are looking at her. “The bone wolves!”

Perch gasps, her fur bushed out like a startled cat’s.

“This- ‘Pietro’ brought me to the lair of his pack; he led me through every switchback and sinkhole he could, hoping I would be pulled away; I was soaked through and muddy, pups, and all clawed about by the waters’ spirits, but Pietro-- he remained dry and safe as can be.”

“So you fell in the water,” Finch says. “And he didn’t.”

“Call it what you will.” Rover sniffs. “It became clear to me that there was some strange magic at work. And clearer still once we reached his lair: a Rowan Tree growing vaster than any I’ve seen in these woods. Unnatural, I tell you.” 

The pups are rapt; even Perch has crawled forward, a little, out of Finch’s protection, to sit closer by Rover’s feet.

“And this wolf Pietro-- he began to threaten me. To say that even his new puppies could best me in a fight; that they were strong and clever, and could grind my bones to dust should they choose. And then-- oh pups! And then... the pack’s leader emerged! 

She looked normal at first. But I would swear that as she moved through a beam of moonlight, her glamour fell away, and saw what she truly was: a monster of many limbs and many heads, with many mouths and many eyes! 

And then, in the space of just a blink, she looked a normal wolf again. Such powerful illusions-- a wolf like her could walk among us even here.”

“There’s no such thing,” Finch says, flat. 

Rover she turns on him, voice lowered to a whisper.  “It could even be you, Fincher. What secrets do you hide?”

He scowls mutely at her over Perch’s head. The effect is reduced, a little, for his angry face being framed by two floppy puppy-ears. 

Rover goes on: “This strange wolf spoke with Pietro a long while- deciding my fate, no doubt! To be fed to this pack of hungry spirits? To be set free to wander the swamps alone, lost, never again to be found?

And then, pups- this is the strangest part. The leader came to me- and gave me a pup of her own litter. She said she was ‘curious’. Well-- I didn’t stay to ask what she meant! I knew it was my first duty to bring this pup to safety, and I fled that place as if death’s hounds where on my heels!”

“But you were OK!” Setter says, a little anxiously. “You’re here!”

“Yes.” Rover noses at her pup; Setter yips in delight and romps a circle around her, flopping down at Rover’s paws. “Yes. After a long journey, carrying the poor, terrified pup in my jaws-- we arrived back at Sanctuary. The strangers couldn’t follow us here-- we’re safe in these mountains.”

Rover bends one foreleg in invitation, and Dane stumbles over to join his sister between Rover’s paws. 

“But,” she says. “Be careful not to tread outside of camp-- not without one of us with you. Who knows what creatures still lurk in the shadows outside our territory?”

Well, and Rover had gone and stirred up the pups again. It’s always a chore and a half, getting them settled after her stories. It had taken no small effort, on Finch’s part, to get Setter and Dane to stop re-enacting ‘ghost wolf’ battles and scaring the marrow straight out of Perch.

Finch huffs, turning to take his nightly lap around the camp. One last check, before he goes to bed. Just to make sure everything’s safe. 

The night is warm and gentle; a long, purple, summer evening, the bright day fading only slowly into dusk.

“Finch?” Says a voice behind him.

It’s Carnassial. The ‘terrified pup’ of Rover’s inane story. Her eyes shine up at him in the dark, gold and liquid.

“You should be with Saturn.” He sniffs her over; yes. There’s the sharp, herbal smell of the healers’, thick in her fur.

“She said I could go.”

“She did?”

“I’m all better.” Carnassial opens her mouth; her teeth gleam in the dark. Like a sharks’, says Rover’s voice in the back of Finch’s mind. Rows upon rows of them. “See? No more sore throat.”

Finch blinks. Stupid. “Yes. I see.”

Carnassial is looking up at him, still-- and still drooping, her stumpy puppy-tail dragging nearly in the dirt.

Finch noses at her, worried. Is she still sick? Unexpectedly, she leans up and rubs her cheek against his, her little body trembling. 

“Nassi,” he says, startled.

Carnassial buries her nose against his neck; he can feel her taking deep, shaky breaths. 

“Hey. What is it?”

“--is it true?” She says, muffled against his neck. “Rover’s story?”

Finch blinks. He’s going to kill that no-good wolf, and scat to what Seven has to say about it. A growl builds in his throat, low and rumbling. “You listened to that?”

“Sorry.” Carnassial backs away. “I was gonna say something, but I didn’t--”

“No,” Finch says, low. “Don’t be sorry. It isn’t true.”

"It isn’t?”

“You were born to another pack. Rover brought you here. That’s all.” He grunts, stands. “Come.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll sleep in my den, tonight.” He pauses. Looks back at her. “If you like?”

Carnassial wastes no time in coming after him, butting his leg with her shoulder as they walk.

She is a tiny, warm thing, curled between his paws that night. Just a puppy; silver fur and outsized ears and a dark, twitching nose. 

Perfectly formed. 

*Pietro actually said “Enit” here, not Enemy’; he mistook Rover for Enit, the Rowan’s Shade Packs’ leader! Like most of the rest of this story, Rover has misunderstood or deliberately mischaracterized this in order to make her story more ~spoooooky