The cold air stung at my sensitive nose, and with the sharp sensation came the tangy scent of the woods, and the clear fresh scent of virgin snow. I took a step forward, hearing the crunch of it under paw, and froze. Something else lingered on the winds, and it took me a moment to realize what the taint was. It had been unfamiliar in these parts for so long, but I'd smelled this before somewhere, and I remembered.
The long, ashen hairs on my spine and around my neck bristled and stood at attention. I felt the faintest of warning growls trickle past my fangs before I had the recognition that it was me making the noise in reaction to that almost alien scent. I knew then why I was feeling that way - why there was the cold tingling of fear in the pit of my stomach, and the hot sting of rage in my chest: last time I had smelled human, I had also smelled blood, and the acrid air of death that had hung in the forest that morning. Hunters... that's what they were. Though not honorable hunters, like us; not even clumsy or awkward, like Brother Bear. They were hunters for sport, for pleasure... a concept unknown to me or my wolf-kin.
They were evil.
I spotted the frosted bridge over their little hunting lodge just past the hanging fog of the frozen pond, and the warning growl in my throat rose to a snarl. They were encroaching now... far too close to my home, to my alpha, to my... children. Would I be the next to lay splayed on the ground, the snow underneath me stained crimson? Skinned before the eyes of my pack brothers, hiding in the forest, too afraid and helpless to do anything? Would I be the article of clothing they'd wear over their flimsy, flabby, hairless bodies?
I certainly hoped not. I pondered for a moment, mulling over what I knew and what I didn't, and then raised my maw to the sky, letting forth a forceful, haunting howl. My song reflected my frustrations at first, and then it changed, and I thought possessive thoughts. I staked my claim to this place with my howl, and I wanted the humans to hear it.
This is my land, do you hear me! I am the she-alpha here! Your kind has no claim here!
They belonged in their stinking cities, their disgusting hovels, their false, unnatural domiciles. I was the true spirit of the Earth here, and I would preserve Her from their grubbing, greedy, grasping hands. Amidst my song, I recalled a time since past, when humans had shared the forests with us, and we had called him Brother. He was as wild and free as we were, an intelligent, skillful hunter... But he had lost sight of the Great Mother, and turned away, evolving as it were into a horrible, aberrant creature. He had not been himself for many millennia.
I hoped then that my howling song would frighten the 'hunters' from their cozy little hollow, and turn them away from this part of the forest. Humans had called this place home once, and they had left it; if the forest did not welcome their presence any longer and neither would I. They had become abominations.
Only wolf belonged here.