While Boudicea mourned her fallen Pack, I close my eyes behind her and bow my head towards the wolves.
“I’m sorry you had to die”. I tell the wolves in my mind, bowing my head in their direction. I should have done this earlier, in the cave with Greenie.
“I’m sorry it had to end this way...”
Quietly, under my breath, I copy Boudicea’s howls. On a much lower tone, humming it so that the melody entwines with her resonating pitch.
I sang it carefully, so that she would barely be able to hear it. Her ear twitches in my direction once while I sang, but she never commented. I don’t think the wolf heard me.
That felt right.
When she finally finishes her rounds, stroking her snout against the frozen bloodied cheeks of each wolf corpse, Boudicea’s large bottom thumps into the ground with finality. There, the female wolf sat upright, back stretched tall, gaze tracing over each dead wolf.
I can’t forgive you.
Her back speaks volumes. The grief that she felt knocking at my mind.
The quiet response slinks out of my mind.
Don’t.
If I were her, I would find it hard to forgive me too. Boudicea would be a saint if she forgave the murderer of her family so quickly.
I won’t.
Boudicea whuffs.
Slowly slinking up behind her, far enough that she wouldn’t accidentally bump me with any sudden movements, I waddle forward into what I figured was the corner of her vision. I didn’t want to surprise her by patting her on the back.
Though I did want to comfort her, seeing the ghastly loneliness that dripped off her, standing tall and strong over her loved ones, a gatekeeper for the dead.
But patting her on the back was a distinctly human feature, I knew, and I didn’t want to do an action that she might dislike.
So I waved up to her, though the silver wolf kept her eyes focused straight ahead, the small purple flames glowing dimly atop her ears.
We should go back soon, before the others get worried about us.
None of them knew we left. I could see Greenie freaking out once he saw the two of us gone. And I needed to go check up on Crixus too. Hopefully his 2 green sprouts hadn’t turned Crixus into a Minotaur-shaped garden by now.
The Dryad’s Tears wouldn’t do that.. right?
….
Bowing her head, with ears tilted down and face relaxed, the silver wolf closes her eyes.
She ends her mourning song with one last howl, and another gentle touch to the fur. The longer she sang, the more this Ice Cavern felt like a naturally formed church, I thought. It was the way the icicles and stalactites wove themselves together, like the ceiling of a great cathedral, the humming sounds pinging off the columns in soft whispers.
Shivering, I glance at the huge door that had once been hidden behind a large sheet of ice. If the Ice Cavern was a cathedral, then what lay behind that door would be..what?
My neck creaks from tilting it too far to the side in thought. Hurriedly fixing my posture, I turn away. No use thinking about something I didn’t know the answer to.
How long are you going to leave them here?
She asks me, eyes still closed.
I don’t know. Until Greenie and I can come back here?
Slowly lifting herself off of her haunches, she pivots her head in my direction. No purple was on her drooping tail now, or on her pinned back ears.
They must be brought outside. Let the earth take them.
I shake my head.
I’m sorry. We can’t.
Judging from the low growl she sends my way, Boudicea was NOT happy with my response.
It’s too dangerous, Boudicea. With the sun up high in the sky now, the bodies would go bad quick. And then the scent would draw other predators, before we could even finish bringing all the wolves out.
Silently, the huge wolf paws the ground in front of me, expressing her disagreement.
But I stood firm.
We can’t do it with only the two of us now.
Another push to convince her.
And if we leave them here, their bodies won’t rot for a while yet. You can see them in this condition for longer.
My breath huffs out of me in soft white puffs of smoke, the moisture condensing in front of me.
Brr. It was getting chilly in here again. It wouldn’t be good if I stayed in here for too long.
Boudicea didn’t seem to feel the cold at all. The one instance where her fur proved more useful than my feathers. Taking a deep breath to firm her resolve, the silver wolf ambles in front of me, like she hadn’t just argued with me to do something else.
Shall we go, then?
…Yep.
Tottering after her with my much shorter birdie stride, we head towards the crack in the wall that was the exit to the cave.
Hurry. The others wait for us.
Looking back over her shoulder, she points her snout towards the exit, as if that would make me go faster. Now who was the impatient one to leave, hmm?
I don’t let her change get to me, instead relaxing my shoulders and continuing forward at my own place. Of course, that gets her annoyed, narrowing her eyes and snorting.
It went like this: Boudicea would take a few large strides forward. Then stop. Look back over her shoulder. Be annoyed at how long it was taking me to follow her. Wait for me to waddle close enough, one wing in clay splint and all. Then walk forward.
Though she didn’t speak a word to me after the first hurry, I could see her getting more annoyed while we began the crawl to the outside.
The nice thing about being a bird was that I could at least pretend I didn’t know she was annoyed. As a bird, my face didn’t have the same expressiveness. It was frozen in the same look. I mean, all I had was two eyes and a beak. Other than body language, the level of difficulty in expressing my feelings using facial expressions was practically at impossible.
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Keeping my face blank, I just stare back at her and shrug, filling my mind with only thoughts of putting one talon in front of the other.
I didn’t know why she was so annoyed. She could just go outside and wait for me there.
On the way out of the Ice Cavern, we pass by an especially large sheet of ice, smooth on the surface with only the smallest smattering of air bubbles. With its clarity, the ice wall reflected us with little distortion; a little less than a mirror from my world.
What- is this?
Boudicea asks, frozen mid-step with her hind-leg paw in the air. Brown and plump? Now those were some toe beans I wanted to try squishing.
I refocus my blank stare forward to see what she was looking at. Nothing to be surprised about. One wolf with purple flaming ears and tail, and one raven furiously hopping and wobbling to keep up.
You mean your flames?
I ask, mid-step.
My FLAMES?
Whirling around, she puts her head down to eye-level with mind, an intense gaze staring me down. I don’t stay frozen in surprise at her sudden nearness. Well, after she turned back to look at her reflection in the ice again.
Hey- No need to raise your voice? Thoughts? Mind-voice? Whatever. Anyways, you’re telling me you hadn’t noticed??
When did I have flames!?
No wonder she was so calm about them so far. Boudicea didn’t even know she’d evolved?
I thought you already knew?
That what? That I had strange-colored fire on my fur? But I hadn’t eaten anything strange?!
That piqued my curiosity. Boudicea said that once before, about the Wolf King. Exhausted from the long-gone adrenaline rush trying to figure out how to get all the wolves healed, I hadn’t had the bandwidth to ask her what she meant then.
What do you mean? Does eating something have something to do with the Wolf King being able to throw fire?
Yes.
This was a chance! If I could wield fire like them, it would be another weapon in my arsenal for survival. A STRONG weapon.
What did he eat to become able to set himself on fire?
A stone.
A stone.
Waddya mean a stone? The way she put it, I could eat any old stone Andvari dug up from his hole in our cave and BOOM!
Super-powered Raven!
That sounded too good to be true.
The stone came from a human.
A human? Where?
Near our old home.
Where was your old home?
Our home was near the same land as the humans. Outside of this place. If you go out of this place when the mists are absent. Out past the trees and further, there’s fields and a place where many humans live. Beyond the town, past the fields on the other side opposite this place, was our mountain. The food there was plentiful. All the prey we needed. Good water.
Eyes growing far-sighted, Boudicea tells her story. While she spoke, I brushed aside shards of ice aside and proceeded to plop down on the cold ground.
This was great! I was getting the information I’d been looking for, for so long! There was no way I was going to interrupt her.
We enjoyed the occasional snack of the soft, fluffy creatures the humans kept enclosed for us to enjoy. A great delicacy those were, which we saved for special occasions. It was great fun seeing the pups attempt to get past the wood boards that kept the prey in.
Uhhh. Seeing the happy look on the reminiscing wolf’s face, I decide not to interrupt. Whatever the animals were, they were definitely not being kept for Boudicea and the others to eat.
Winter was always hard, with less prey to hunt, but that last winter. It was strange. All the prey disappeared. The mountain grew silent. Only the smallest of the rodents remained, and those could not satisfy our hunger. We had no choice but to eat all of the delicious creatures kept by the humans. But then the humans grew angry.
They hunted us. Hunted us into the mountains, where food was scarce, until there was no choice but for us to leave.
And the stone? When did the Wolf King get the stone?
I prompted her.
One of the older humans carried it. We hadn't seen him in the village before that. He had it till we hunted him, when he tried to burn our pack out of our den. A red stone, deep red, like blood that shined bright in the sunlight. My mate hunted him and ate it.
That simple, huh.
Rubbing the underside of my beak, I shake my head. No way the story was that simple.
That’s it? Why did he eat it? Was there anything strange about the human that carried it?
Boudicea scratches her head, gingerly touching a paw to the purple glow.
No. My mate said it smelled delicious. And the man, well….
I lean forward in excitement. A clue for me to get magic!
…he was very loud.
My shoulders sag in discouragement. Now that. Wasn’t very useful information. And I kind of felt bad for the dead guy the wolves killed. I wouldn’t want anyone to describe me when I was dead as simply: very loud.
That’s just sad.
Taking her paw back down from her head, she stares at it, deeply pondering.
Looked like the flame didn’t burn her.
Hearing her story so far, yep. I was right.
Unless I could get my way out of here and find one of the humans carrying the stones that Boudicea spoke of, super-powered Raven was still far, far away.
Maybe I should just go and transfuse myself with the Wolf King’s blood?
Instead of looking at Boudicea’s reflection in the mirror, I switch to looking at myself.
There was also the issue of matching blood. Though I don’t know how much Earth science worked here, there was the possibility of my body rejecting the Wolf King’s blood.
I was no doctor.
Maybe I could try it on the other wolves? Hmm….
But jeepers!!
I take a moment to get a clearer look at my appearance. This was a lot better than the reflection from the lake, but my, my.
I looked terrible!
Where were my pretty feathers? My clean white tuft that grew at my below my throat, right above my chest? My sparkly eyes were barely even visible!
That was it. I needed a good wash. ASAP!
A hot sudsy bath, with lots of steam rising from a claw-footed tub. That was a luxury I had no time to afford in my old life. It was always a quick shower with warm water. Coming home exhausted from work every night, the main thing I wanted to do was crash in bed. My personality being the type of person who took a shower before bed, there was never the opportunity for a good, long soak.
You wouldn’t happen to have one of the gourds with you, Boudicea?
No, I didn’t happen to have a gourd with me. I was doing other important things. Like finding the rest of my Pack.
Sounding a bit salty, Boudicea turns her nose up at me. Again, her flames flared brighter when she faced me.
Ok, that was interesting..
Excuse me.
Sidling up to her, I give her a light tap on her chest with my beak.
Fresh blood wells under the small gouge I’d made in the clay that covered her chest.
Rearing back the silver wolf growls at me in anger.
WHY DID YOU DO THAT?
No Boudicea!! Look at yourself!!
WHAT! All that effort spent to heal me and you-
I frantically gesture towards the ice, waving my wing in the air so that she could know I meant know harm.
I was glad she was distracted from her anger towards me, stopping mid-sentence to look at the brighter and bigger flames.
I’m sorry Boudicea, I thought it would work better if I didn’t tell you first..
From what I’d noticed so far it was either pain or anger that made her fire come out, and made it stronger. Quickly crawling my way up onto a icy ledge, I try sprinkling some of the clay from my cast on her tail.
Crackle-crackle. Zssssssss.
The clay quickly disintegrates when it touches the tip of the burning amaranthine fire.
That was a flame all right. Probably poisonous too. I was getting all excited again, thinking of the different ways we could test it. We would have to hunt some test subjects, and other materials I wanted to check how her flames would interacted with them.
Looking up her body, there on her ears too: The twisted tongues of purple hued flames curled high above her ears like a twisted crown.
Before, as a grey wolf, Boudicea already had a commanding air around her. An intelligence in her silver eyes, and elegance in the way she carried herself.
But now, looking at her like this, she looked more and more like a warrior queen in her own right, a tall swathe of the stronger brightly colored flames crowning her ears and trailing behind her with her tail like a royal veil. The clay on her chest, with a starburst of red in the middle from where I’d poked her, was even starting to look like a badge of honor.
Looking at herself in the mirror, she puffed out her chest, back straight.
It fit her to a T.
After all, purple was the color of royalty.
Crawling off the ledge, I step backwards behind her so that her glimmering tail would reflect in the ice as well.
You look pretty, Boudicea.
I do, don't I?
I ignored the niggling feeling of self-pity and anxiousness I felt. Though there was the black-brown spot reflected in the ice behind Boudicea, little ol’ me covered in poop and blood and other stuff, I chose to grin. After the sad moments spent before, it was nice to watch her enjoy the moment.
----------------------------------------
Can we go this way?
I ask, body leaning slightly to the right in a direction slightly off the path we usually took back to the cave.
I was riding on the same stick Boudicea picked up, pointing my beak in the direction back to the cave feeling like a cuckoo bird.
Boudicea wanted to run straight back to our cave, but I insisted we go my way on the slightly more round-about route. This was a necessary precaution, to protect the others if anything tried following us. I even made us follow a small stream, walking directly in the water to hide our scent even more. (It was another trick I’d learned from watching too much western TV)
On our way back on this route, though, I’d cheeped once to catch Boudicea’s attention.
There was a new scent. Something from [Scent Detection] that I hadn’t smelled before. It smelled old. Musty. But the scent itself was light.
Boudicea paced forward, loping on uneven terrain and taking us in the direction I asked her to. It should be alright, from what I smelled there was no predators in that area, and with this wolf lady here she could spirit us away in a jiffy if something went wrong.
Passing through the next bush, the leaves part in front of us to a tree with a twisted trunk.
And there…
There was a man sitting on the ground, back to us, body leaning against the tree in front of us!