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Finbar stared down at the rabbit. “Oh, uh,” he said slowly, an edge of confusion in his voice. He froze, trying to figure out what he should do with it. He did not know what to say, and didn't want to seem rude or ungrateful.
“Yes?” Willow raises a brow.
Finbar felt a bit embarrassed, as if he should know something he simply didn't. “Well… what do I do with it?” He asked gently, ears flattened, head lowered.
Willow smiles slightly, her attempt to hold back a giggle very evident. “You're joking, right? A wolf that doesn't know how to eat freshly killed prey?”
“No, you have it wrong,” he corrected her, tilting his head. “I'm a dog, not a wolf.”
“You could have fooled me. You smell like a wolf,” Willow pointed out, sniffing his dirty pelt. “Though, you definitely do have some dog in your blood, even if it's small.”
“I mean… I grew up with a human since I was just a pup,” Finbar explained. “Until he…”
“Let me guess. He threw you in the river?” she looked at him seriously, as if she'd heard of this sort of situation before.
“How did you know?” He asked quietly, a tinge of sadness ebbing out through his voice.
Willow snorted. “That's what humans do to half-breeds like us.”
Silence overtook Finbar's mouth, and through gloomy, narrowed eyes he looked down to the side, grumbling with uncertainty; was he really part wolf? It would explain a lot about his past, and his fate. No other dogs had acted quite like him, and he had always felt like the odd one out. His owner had had a lot of anxiety when letting him socialize with dogs and humans. In hindsight, this all came together to form a completed puzzle piece which said, ‘You are different’.
Still, it was hard for him to accept, especially after recent events that he also had to process. It was all a lot to take in. He lifted his golden eyes to look at the light brown she-wolf. She reminded him of the brown sugar his owner sometimes used in the kitchen for special treats.
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“Did they hurt you too?” He asked carefully, hoping it wasn't prying too much into a sensitive topic. They were already on the subject so he figured it would be alright.
A dark shadow seemed to cover Willow's face as she recalled unwanted memories. “Yes,” she told him pensively. “My father is a pure-blooded wolf, and my mother was a chinook breed farm dog; she became pregnant by him, then got captured by her owners. They took her away from him. She was gone for a while, and my dad said she came back one day, bloodied and beaten.”
“Oh…” Finbar commented, speechless at the cruelty.
“Her owners didn't want a half-breed litter, so they drowned them. My mom attacked her humans, and was badly hurt in the process,” Willow's expression turned to something like anger as she continued, her tone more chaotic. “She was only able to save me, one of the ten pups she'd birthed. She escaped and ran to my father with me in her mouth, then collapsed at his paws. She died soon after.”
A burning in Finbar’s chest kindled up, though he could not explain it. Was it anger? Was it depression? He couldn't tell, because he had never had to face such complex emotions before. “I'm sorry about your mother, Willow,” he said, giving her a genuinely sympathetic look.
“I hate humans,” she let out a low growl, curling her nose. “They're cruel, disgusting monsters for what they did to us both.”
The white dog didn't say anything, unsure what he should respond with; should he agree with her? Should he hate all humans just because his owner had been terrible to him? Should he hate all humans just because Willow's mother had been murdered by them?
Willow sensed his hesitancy to say anything, and gave a single knowing chuckle. “You'll see, one day, if you don't already,” she promised him. “You are everything a human hates. Whatever nice memories you have of them, let them go; your owner used and discarded you. What true friend does that?”
Finbar flattened his ears. “Yea…” he said in a low voice. “It makes sense… it's just hard for me.”
Willow stood up. “I am sure it is. I'm… honestly sorry you had to have this happen to you… but look! You survived. You overcame what that monster threw at you, and now all you need to do is let that leg heal.”
He didn't know much and remained undecided on the human issue, but he knew he had to obey the dancing flames bursting in his chest.
It was a drive, an urge, a voice without words; an all-around new sensation that he had never felt before, and quite frankly had never needed to in his pampered domestic life.
It told him in no vague terms that he must get better, that he must live, and most of all that he must run. “That I will do,” Finbar dipped his head, this time speaking confidently.
“Good. I will return tomorrow to bring you more food,” Willow said. “Rest up, and don't walk on your injury.”
The female wolf-dog turned to leave the way she'd come in, through the cave opening which led to a cold outside, but she looked back at Finbar, paws perched up on cool stones. “Remember this: you are capable of far greater than you know,” she said.
With that, she was gone.
Finbar, feeling pangs of hunger hit his broken body like a sore longing, began to nibble at the dead rabbit, attempting to figure out how to eat it. He was used to kibble all his life, so the concept of consuming an animal's body was extremely foreign to him.
Eventually, the young canine had proudly eaten his first fresh-kill, earning the right to call himself an apprentice of the northern wild woods of New Hampshire.