Stranger Skies
Aftermath
She didn’t know if it had been eight days or six, or maybe ten? She’d walked into Steelmint and hadn’t stopped walking until her stomach growled loud enough to wake a hibernating bear. Then she’d stop, eat something from her pack, and keep going.
She thought she was heading southeast. She hoped she was heading southeast. Every fifty feet or so she’d make some sort of marker: a branch leaning against something in an odd way; scraped bark; some of her hair tied around a tree trunk. She didn’t remember seeing any of her old markers, so either she wasn’t going in circles or she was delirious and was going in circles.
Either way, she was running out of food.
The flight panic had died down after the first two miles. Then all she noticed was how tired she was, and in how much pain. She plodded along through the forest, withdrawn into herself, too out of sorts even to give a good morrow greeting to the various animals she encountered. She suffered many more bites from bugs and spiders as a result; it had to be pure luck, or Saeas looking out for her, that kept the Death-spinners and their venomous brethren away.
At some point she ran out of food. She didn’t know how long it had been at this point; all she knew was that she’d eaten all her bread and all her jerky.
Did she sleep? She must have slept. Or perhaps she just kept on walking while in a dream state, not quite awake, not quite asleep.
She kept hoping this was all a dream, that soon she’d wake up safe and sound and warm in Enendoa’s cottage.
She’d forgotten what warmth was. Her fingers and toes were frozen. The cold had penetrated her layers of clothing; now she was a walking icicle; she was winter itself; she was made of snow and cold and death.
Soon she just kept on moving because she knew if she stopped, she would die. Out of food, out of water, out of energy, on she stumbled, not knowing where she was going, or frankly caring. So long as it was away. That was all that mattered.
She didn’t let herself think about Brinna, or the fact that she’d never see the woman she loved again. If she let herself think about that, she’d stop moving and if she stopped moving, she would die.
On and on, through a haze she walked. Was she even still in the forest? She didn’t know. It didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered.
Though Thalaea did not know it, it was on the sixth day of her journey into the woods that she tripped on a root and fell. She tried to get up and could not, and before she could summon the strength to try again, her body had fainted.
Thalaea woke to a warm tongue washing her face.
She didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious, or even how she’d fallen unconscious. She vaguely remembered tripping and falling, though that could have been a dream, she supposed.
The tongue continued to wash her face, paying special attention to the side that Kaz had beaten.
Kaz. The dead hunter.
Should she feel remorse? She supposed she should. She didn’t. The man had skinned wolves alive. He’d earned his death.
Were I not mortal, I would have been able to deal with him with impunity.
A whine met her ears, and convinced her to open her eyes. Green eyes stared into hers. Green eyes set in a furry face, above a long muzzle.
“Hello again,” she said, or tried to say. There was no moisture in her throat; she carried a desert where her voice had been.
The wolf whined again, and bunted her face gently.
It was very clear he was asking her to get up.
Thalaea tried to find her hands. They were somewhere on the ground, she knew, and she assumed they were still attached to her arms. She couldn’t feel them. Perhaps that was a blessing; there was no more pain from the spider bites that covered them.
Move, she commanded her body, and her fingers responded by wriggling. She felt them move against the soft flesh of her teats and she worked on getting them into a position where she could push herself upright.
Muscles she thought were gone, for she couldn’t feel them, screamed. She swore they were being ripped off the bone. She managed to get up a few inches, and then the pain made her lose all control; she tumbled back to the ground and hit her chin hard on a rock.
Tears sprang to her eyes with the new, sharp pain.
Maybe I’ll just lie here and die.
Another whine. She opened her salt-stung eyes. The wolf was looking at her again, obviously pleading.
Okay. I’ll try again. For you, pup.
He let out a soft growl, one that clearly said Thank you.
Briefly, Thalaea wondered if she were in fact dead and allowed to be important to wolves again now that her mortal life was over. The pain that ripped across her entire body as she forced herself up and onto all fours quickly disabused her of the notion.
The wolf seemed pleased she’d gotten that far. He bowed, his front paws flat on the ground and his tail in the air; then leapt away in an obvious invitation to play.
Thalaea groaned; then coughed. “I’d love to play with you, pup,” she said, finding her voice back. It was hoarse and painful. “But you’ll have to accept a rain check.”
The cub stretched, shook, and padded over to her. He licked her face again; then bunted gently against her sternum.
“Okay. Okay. I’m getting up.”
She forced herself up into a half-standing position: her torso straightened, though she was still on her knees. Thalaea looked around for something to hold onto to help her get up. There was no tree or stump or rock or branch or anything close enough. Dammit.
The wolf hadn’t moved away. Now he moved closer to her, offering up his shoulder.
Thank you, beautiful. She put her hand on his shoulder and, careful not to put all her weight on him, used his strength to leverage herself into a standing position.
A head rush nearly knocked her back down but she managed to stumble over to a tree and lean against it for a few minutes, trying to steady herself by breathing. Miraculously, her rucksack was still on and so far as she could see nothing had spilled out of it. Thank the Woods for small miracles.
The wolf stood and stared at her, his mouth open in a lupine grin, his tail wagging slightly. He bowed again and bounced away, facing off…southeast? She thought it was southeast.
He looked off into the forest in that direction, then back at her. Then he padded over to her and tugged gently on her jacket with his teeth.
“Okay, buddy. You want me to follow you?”
He let go of her jacket and let out an excited growl-bark. Then he ran around her tree in a circle, and bounded off towards the southeast again. He stopped and looked back at her, still smiling and panting.
Thalaea smiled despite herself and pushed off from the tree. Her muscles were not happy with her but they could take a long walk off a short pier. She was going to follow the wolf no matter what.
It had been twilight, the early hours of dawn, when she’d waked up to the wolf’s tongue on her face. As the wolf led her into the outskirts of his pack’s den, it was late morning.
Her guide stopped suddenly and Thalaea followed suit. She’d found a large stick at some point and was using it to steady herself while she walked; now she leaned against it for balance.
Shortly another wolf emerged to greet them. Another alpha, she could smell, and of female sex, though what that meant for gender she didn’t know. Perhaps the wolves of this planet were very different from the wolves of her former homes. Her guide’s…mother, she thought. Perhaps aunt. Definitely closely related. They looked similar enough: same eyes, same colouring, which was predominantly grey with some strong brown highlights. The bitch was more filled out, but then, she was no longer an adolescent. She was an adult wolf.
Thalaea’s guide and the alpha who met them exchanged greetings; then the alpha bitch growled, and the younger wolf rolled over onto his back, exposing his belly and letting a few drops of urine dribble out.
The wolves here spoke a slightly different dialect from the one she was used to but Thalaea understood clearly what the alpha bitch had said: You dare bring a human to our den?
Her guide whimpered, pleading his case: She’s different! She’s the one who saved me.
We’ll see, growled out the other alpha, and then she turned to face Thalaea.
There was no shaky ground under this one: she was a fully grown, fully confident wolf. Thalaea would not out-alpha her.
She opted for the polite greeting of a stranger from a neighbouring pack.
Forgive the intrusion, she growled at the other alpha, and the wolf’s ears flicked back in surprise. I simply need a place to rest for a few days. I will leave your pack alone after, if you could let me sleep for a while.
The alpha did not reply to Thalaea directly but growled at the younger wolf first. You didn’t tell me she spoke Wolf.
I told you. She’s different.
Hmph. The alpha looked back at Thalaea, trying to look unimpressed. You can stay. We will talk later. She turned and stalked off.
Thalaea didn’t know what was so different between right now and later and why they had to wait to talk but she didn’t question it. It was this pack’s way of doing things; she would respect it.
Besides, she really needed to sit down for a bit.
Her guide-wolf had gotten up from his submissive pose; now he stood in front of her, tail wagging again. She smiled at him. “Hey buddy. Where’s a place where I can rest for a few hours?”
Thalaea was allowed to rest in the warmth of the cave — it was winter and there were no puppies newly whelped, so the wolves were less wary of letting her into the den. At any rate, they could easily rip her throat out if she posed a threat, so not much of a fuss was made when her wolf-friend asked if she could curl up and nap in the warmth.
He curled up next to her and soon Thalaea didn’t feel quite so cold. It was certainly not so warm as her bed in the cottage but it was warm enough for her to catch a few hours of sleep.
When she woke, her wolf-friend was no longer beside her and she felt slightly chilled. It was night time, or close to it. The sun was setting and twilight was descending on the land.
Thalaea looked around, willing her eyes to adjust to the dark. Humans had terrible eyesight. Wolves’ eyesight wasn’t wonderful but it was usually better than the human version, in her opinion. When she’d been a goddess, her eyesight had been as good as she needed it to be. After all, a being who chooses to take corporeal form can also choose the limits of that form.
Now she had no choice but to rely on her peripherals to see at night. What an odd quirk of humanoid engineering! Direct vision was always better in the day, and peripherals better at night. Wolf eyes were movement-based, regardless of time of day.
She smelled her wolf friend. Soon after, he padded up to her and sat down.
“I don’t suppose you have a name?” she asked him in Wolf.
He said nothing, only looked up, as if preparing for a song. She sat in silence with him, waiting for him to start the Howl, even if it was strange timing. The full moon was the one she would expect them to sing at. It was closer to the new moon now.
In fact, perhaps it was the new moon. She’d lost track of time on her flight from the cottage, but tonight seemed especially dark. She looked up through the treetops, trying to see the sky through the far-reaching green fingers of the earth, clawing their way to heaven. They didn’t look green in the dark; everything was deep shades of gray to black but she saw the difference; she saw the darker, inky black behind the jagged black teeth the treetops formed above her. Within the dark of the sky winked the stars, tiny candle flames in the house of the gods. There was no moon. All remaining light from the sun had been leached from the land.
She looked to her wolf friend again. As if cued by her gaze, a small whine escaped his throat. His mouth opened and let out the sound, and it developed into a small howl that flew up through the trees to rest among the stars, letting the universe know it was observed, letting it know that the wolves still sang creation into being. It was small and sad, and she put a hand on her friend’s shoulders, letting him know she howled with him, deep in her soul.
His fur was warm under her flesh, and she burrowed her fingers in it, searching for his own skin, wanting that contact. She could feel his hearts beat — three, as in her own mortal body — and his skin rippled in response to her touch.
Oh, how she missed that form! How she missed changing to her four-footed lupine grace! To run and jump and play and tussle! She was wolf-souled and would always be. As long as she was in this mortal form, she would long to be as she once was.
She’d changed her face once, since landing here. Why could she not do it again?
Did she have to be in real danger? She wondered. Was the wolf form still in her, lurking, ready to come forward only to protect her frail humanoid form?
That seemed a cheat. It certainly wasn’t fair.
She felt like crying, again.
No. She felt like howling. Her human throat couldn’t produce the sound that yearned to break free from its ribcage prison. It stayed trapped in her, poisoning the well of love in her hearts, sticking like unchewed meat in her throat.
So she squeezed her friend’s shoulder, trying to tell him without words all that she felt. Trying to ask him to howl for both of them.
His skin rippled again, and then began to change under her disbelieving fingers. Fur slipped away and flesh became smoother, thinner. The bones shifted; ribs expanded, the clavicle changed shape, the shoulder became larger. Soon her hand rested flat against bare, furless skin — against what felt like a human back.
“Hello, Thalaea.” A deep, male, Minae voice spoke out of the darkness; she heard it with her ears and felt it under her fingers. “My name is Laeanai.”