She remained in her posture as she cradled her soon-to-die child. She's waiting expectantly for the flames to swallow her. The intense heat of the fire insulted her in the same way that a wild mountain beast mocks and plays with its quarry before devouring it whole. But all she could hear was silence; the floor itself was not warmed by the fire. She sensed her formerly singed-up fur that had touched the flooring being mixed with a new aroma that was foreign to her.

It was soft, pleasant, breezy ground. Laughter could be heard from a long distance all around her, as if there were beast children present. It was completely impractical to confine young beasts or human children in these types of dungeons. They're far too weak to be placed with the elder beast, besides they're more submissive to the master who purchases them.

It must be a trick by the mind.

She thought to herself. She didn't want to move because she didn't want to trust what she was hearing. Her breath was increasing at an exponential rate by the second. “It's a hallucination. It's all a hallucination.” She uttered out loudly what she had said in her head. It was a nightmare within a nightmare. “All beasts will perish in a dream that’s actually hell, one they will never be able to touch”, the humans of the celestial temples recited it every morning again and over the next day. It’s impossible to believe it.

“It can't possibly be true. Those humans couldn't possibly be right about the afterlife for beast-folk.” Her ears perked up as she heard a calming voice, from close, beckoning to her. She could hear the man chuckling as she paid close attention to that voice. Her brief panic attack gradually subsided, just enough for her breathing to return to normal. After blinking a few times from the unexpected blinding of the glowing light, she carefully opened her tearful eyes. What jolted her to her toes the most was the realization that she was no longer in the burning dungeon.

She became aware of her chest and arms being stripped of any weight as she felt the swiftness in her arms. She panicked and ran around the grassy ground, convinced she had dropped her infant. She looked everywhere, but there was no sign of a newborn puppy. She shifted her attention away from the old fart, noting that he never stopped laughing at her.

She paused before picking up her tail, realizing it had completely healed. Why hadn't she realized, sooner, that the wolf had placed her hands on her stomach? The pain her body suffered has fully subsided. She felt completely renewed. She was initially hesitant, but it was now obvious to her where she had gone. “I did die in the fire.”

The odd old fart quieted his laughter and agreed with the wolf. Her fur puffed out from the agreed-upon awareness. The guy spoke again, this time with a crisper tone than the last. “My child, you did not survive the fire's destruction. You did, however, save your daughter in the brief timeframe you had left.”

He extended his arm, helping the wolf to her feet. “I was able to transfer enough of my magic to barricade the flames by utilizing your own body, as well as the Tranquility and Protection gemstone you've been wearing around your neck. Tell me, kid, what I'm going to do with your child. She is alive and alone in your realm right now.”

Unsure of what to do or say, she knelt back to the ground, allowing her snout to hover an inch over the ground. “Sir Dimitri, father, and savior of all beasts who speak and walk. Please, I beg you, reconnect me with both of my children!” She approached closer while keeping her gaze fixed on the ground. She begged, clutching his chiffon pants, to rejoin the three separate souls.

Dimitri rubbed the back of his neck as he tilted his head. “I apologize, kid. I agree that you should be reunited with your children; there is now just one issue, a problematic condition. I did my utmost to repair your body while you were unconscious. Because you already lived in that world, that new body rejected your soul for whatever reason. I can accomplish great things, but changing the balance of the realms to bring someone back from the dead isn't something anybody can do. I could get into serious problems with the underworld's holy rulers.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

She wanted to reject the comment she heard, but there was still another option to reunite her children together as a family. Dimitri had no understanding of what was going on in the wolf's mind. He sat down and patted her on the back. He was consulting her as best he could. “Dimitri!” The wolf seized the divinity by the shoulders and shook him about as if he was a giant sack of potatoes. “You are known worldwide as the father of all beast types, but you are also known and branded an evil spirit by a majority of people. For you created a sheer clusterfuck by letting highly evolved transmigrated souls to my realm.”

“What? Who is it that deemed me an evil spirit?” The sack of potatoes seemed misplaced as a result of the several times she shook him around so violently. “We don't have time; she's still in the fire, isn't she? I'm not sure about the actual potency of the gemstones, but even they have a limit, and the fire will quickly diminish your power from the crystal soon, won't it?”

The wolf was dead serious. Dimitri was astonished by the lack of information she received from the prince she was with. “Didn't you find a solution?” The wolf nodded her head vigorously. Looking at her eyes, he was certain he found the right volunteer for her assignment. Someone willing to go the extra distance, even if it means sitting it out. Allowing the true hero to take the lead.

Dimitri last encountered a soul with the same earnestness as her has, been roughly around three hundred years ago. “You remind me so much of him. I can see why he chose you.” She disregarded Dimitri's statement, unsure what he meant, and waited for the response she expected to hear.

Nodding to her acceptance of his condition, she rashly pestered Dimitri to establish an additional condition for her as well. He stood back up from the ground, annoyed, allowing her to have only one condition added by her request. “I don't want to go just yet. I know I'm supposed to travel to the underworld and await my next journey into another new realm, but I'd want to watch my children are growing up into adults.”

Dimitri tried to grab a beaming smile, reassuring the wolf that the arrangement was certainly identical for him to handle. But mostly because it took a whole millennium for any of the deities to properly meet and make an agreement with the holy ruler of the underworld for her soul. “But we don't talk about that now.” The wolf glanced at Dimitri, perplexed, it seems like she didn't know who he was talking to.

He began to cough nervously, clearing his throat, then he extended out his hand, pivoting the wolf abruptly to face a mirror she had her back to the entire time. Distracting her with his blunder.

Speechless. She expelled a little puff of air. Her arms dropped from her shoulders because what she was witnessing with her own two eyes was astonishing. “This is a new technique I've been developing on. Isn't it incredible? Seeing a body that completely resembles and doesn't resemble your old one, calmly walking out of a burning building, evading everything in his path with the protective spell from that gemstone of yours. All the while holding your daughter in his arms.”

She heard stories on her travels, always assuming they were nothing but urban legends created to strengthen Dimitri's image as a divinity. This man who saved her newborn daughter was renowned across the world as the savior who saved beast beings from salvation, and she gets to meet him in this way.

She was perplexed as to how all of this was even somewhat conceivable for someone who resembled a person more than a beast. Her younger self would never believe her if she told her that all the monks had misidentified Dimitri's true form. He was just a middle-aged-looking geezer rather than a panda beast.

A geezer?

When she got closer to the mirror, she saw something strange about her previous figure. “Wait…?” Her former body transmogrified into a male wolf. She wasn't a dame wolf anymore. When she remembered what Dimitri had said earlier, her eyes widened as if she had seen a ghost.

His path? His arms?

“THE MOMENT MY BODY ENTERED THE WOODS, YOU TRANSFORMED IT INTO A MALE WOLF!” The wolf turned, shifting her attention towards Dimitri, deeply insulted; as much as she wanted to snarl at him, she knew she couldn't because he had helped her pup survive. “I'm impressed you saw it so quickly just by glancing at him in the mirror; I did say I was tinkering with a new technique. To be honest, he's rather gorgeous for a wolf.”

“… I know he does look gorgeous.”