(Note: This is my interpretation of why the Roman Empire and the Wolfen Empire so closely resemble each other)

Iagia Comitia LV-IX Ilia was exhausted, and her head swam from the milk-fever. She wasn't sure how long she'd been walking. she vaguely remembered sleeping, but couldn't remember if that was before or after she left the last village.

It had been three days since her cubs had fallen to the plague; she had survived it as a child, and the priests had told her that she was immune because of that, but she was not able to prevent the shadow of death from falling on her cubs. Her eyes began to water, filling up with memories of suckling mouths and tiny paws reaching to for her. She fell to her knees as the memories ran over her, and let the sobs wrack her aching body.

When she woke up, the sun had just gone down. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the semi-darkness, and her nose picked up the subtle shadings in the scents around her. Her breasts still ached from too much milk, but she couldn't convince her hands to work with enough precision to do anything about it. She could feel the shakings and pangs of hunger running through her, and she knew that if she did not eat soon, she would likely not have the strength to hunt later. Her equipment she had left behind when she left the village; she knew that was stupid, now, but at the time all she could think about was getting away from her lost children.

She brought herself up short. If she let that thought dominate her now, she would sink into a depression. She felt the will to live returning to her, but it was still just wisps; threads attaching her soul back to the world. Sinking too deeply, too quickly, would snap those threads and she would be lost. On the air, she scented a hare. a big one, by the smell of him. She reached out, grasping at a rock that had been digging into her side while she slept. Rising as silently as possible, she crept towards the scent until she was able to pick out the foraging hare. The hare tried to run when he heard the swing of her arm, but the rock was the size of a human head and flew almost as fast as a sling stone; with a sharp crack it fell, twitching.

Ilia was upon him in an instant, quickly ending the hare's life with her claw, then devouring it quickly, barely removing the fur before she ripped into the meat, and not noticing the slightly blue glow that sprung up about her as the life escaped the hare. An ancient spell, still lingering from days long past flowed over her as she ate, and such was her hunger and distraction that she did not notice the changes in the land. The hare itself was not enough to satisfy her, but it was enough to take the edge off, to concentrate on other problems. She smelled berries, now that her need for meat was satisfied, and she walked over to harvest them and relieve herself. Her breasts still ached; she managed to milk them a little, to take away the worst of the pain, but she knew that she would need a more permanent solution, or the milk-fever would take her. She needed to get somewhere that she'd be able to find a healer, but she didn't know where she was; one direction seemed as good as another, so she turned south, hoping to cross a road before too long.

The night was clear and crisp as she moved higher into what seemed to be foothills; she thought that would put her close to the Algor Mountains, since that was the closest range to the village where she left. that she had be in last. As she walked up the rise, she saw the a glow beginning to touch the tops of the trees; a golden glow, the touch of a rising sun on a wakening world. Birds twittered awake, and she looked forward to the touch of warm sunlight on her fur, maybe leading her to the water she was beginning to smell on the wind.

She turned downhill, towards the river she now caught glimpses of through the trees. As she walked, she looked down at her torn and ragged clothing; what remained of her uniform after her three day run away from the pain behind her. "A sad appearance for a Wolfen Soldier," she thought, "looking little better than an Orc after a weekend on the town." She chuckled to herself, and hoped that whatever town she found would sell her some clothes, rather than run her off as a wild wolfen. or worse, mistaking her for a coyle. Wolvenar forbid anyone ever mistake her for a coyle!

She reached the river, drinking deeply from it, then stripping off those remains of clothes and diving in the water. Without soap, she bathed as best she could, letting the dust and twigs rinse out of her fur, enjoying the feeling of the mud between her toes. "Those branches along the edge should be good for fishing with" she said to herself, and climbed out of the water to harvest some, absent-mindedly shaking the excess water off as she went, feeling much more wolfen after her bath. She cut the branches with her claws, washing her clothes quickly and setting them on a rock to dry as she prepared to work on a set of fishing poles, or maybe a spear. Either way, she knew there would be some good fish in this river, and she had one already half-cooked in her mind when she heard the cries.

In the middle of the river floated a basket, which rocked back and forth as though whatever was in it was flailing around. Curious, and hearing the cries of young humans (so different than her lost cubs, but still tugging on some maternal heart string hard enough to make her gasp), Ilia walked out to the basket and towed it to shore, looking in wonder at the two human babies inside. They were so tiny, she thought she could lay one out in each hand without problem. Their cries were loud, though, and she could tell they were hungry.

She did not know if Wolfen milk would feed human children; she knew some wolfen who had trouble with their milk would give their cubs the milk of goats or cows, but could humans take the same? She did not know, but she had nothing else to try, and knew that they would starve without help. She brought them to her own chest, feeling them seek her nipples out and nurse eagerly. She didn't know if she was helping them or would merely make them sick, but she hoped that they would have their fill. When they finished, she placed them back in the basket and let them sleep; their mother had likely put them down by the river, and they'd just been swept away. She would be along in a bit, or would be overjoyed when Ilia went back upriver to return them. At least she knew where a settlement would be, now.

Ilia waited for an hour, catching three fish, thinking that the mother would be along, soon. She waited another hour, grilling and eating the fish, washing and changing each of the babies while she waited, now wondering if their mother had been injured coming to them. She dressed herself in the now-dry (and delightfully warm. there was simply something about clothes right off the rock) clothes and started upstream.

After half a day, she had come to the conclusion that this was not her world. She could see mountains in the east, but they looked like no mountains she knew. While she recognized most of the plants, there were many that were alien, and the one village she had approached had screamed and thrown stones, even though she announced she only wanted peace in the half-dozen languages she knew the salutations for. The two humans she carried with her were young and always hungry; they kept down her milk, but they always demanded more. She felt fortunate that she produced enough milk for four wolfen cubs, as these two humans took it all, and still seemed to want more. By the end of the day, she was tired, and resigned to the fact that she would have to raise these humans herself. Their own kind would never let her get close enough to turn them over, and she did not trust humans, especially these humans, enough to leave them on a doorstep.

That night, she hid the basket at the edge of a meadow and raided the village. She had little fear for the children; her own scent was strong near them, and few scavengers would be foolish enough to attack something that smelled that much like a predatory mother. Her raid was quick and quiet, though she knew that some of the men who tried to stop her would be showing bruises for a while. She stole food and a human-sized sword that would do for a dagger; a human-sized axe that would do for a hatchet, and some cloth for her own clothes, as well as diapers for the human children. As she ran back to where she left the basket, she howled in laughter, wondering what stories these humans would tell about her in the years to come. She remember a village that had once been convinced that they were under siege by the ghost of a bearman, only to have her track it down and kill the Western Silver Bear that had somehow moved into the Northern Wilderness. What would a wolfen seem to humans who knew no kind other than their own?

She saw a light before she reached the meadow, and heard the voices of a man and a woman, and smelled the scent of their dog. She crept closer, hoping that the dog would remain silent, thankful that she was downwind of them. She watched as the two human cubs were picked up out of the basket, the young woman kissing each one, calling one "Romulus", and the other "Remus"; their new names, she guessed. The babies cried and reached out towards her as the man, his wife, and their dog walked off, carrying the two babies and the tale of two men who were suckled by a wolf. Men whose city would someday rule all the world that mattered, and whose descendant would someday travel to the home of their first foster-mother, and teach her people the ways of Empire.