William took a very tentative step out into the clearing and saw that Physis was now sitting down looking out into the trees. William made his made to Ares as Ares lay back down with his head up. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said that Ares was smiling and the wolf did nothing to control his tail which was wagging back and forth.
A werewolf that was about his size came tramping through the trees toward them carrying a large deer on his shoulders. The newcomer was covered in a mottled tan and brown coat of fur. Physis yapped once and came back to sit next to Ares. She laid herself down next to him and placed her head on his neck. William felt a little uncomfortable being so close to them. Somehow, he didn’t want to move because that might offend them. However, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was intruding on some very intimate moments between the two of them.
The werewolf unceremoniously dropped the carcass on the forest floor. What William hadn’t noticed were the two wolves that had walked into the clearing behind the werewolf. One of the wolves was covered with a cape like coat of black fur along her back and her legs and stomach was covered with light tan fur. The other wolf had a calico pattern of grey and brown covering the whole of his body. The female werewolf melted and changed back into a wolf. All five of the wolves picked out different areas of the deer carcass and started to eat.
William was unsure about what to do. This wasn’t his pack and he hadn’t participated in the kill. If he started eating it the wolves would take offense to that. His mouth watered at the sight of the fresh blood as it was smeared all over the wolves’ faces as they dug deeper and deeper into the carcass. William wanted to take a bite. He was so hungry. But he knew that that would start a fight that he couldn’t win. He was almost rocking back and forth with hunger.
William backed up a step and decided that he would have to wait till the wolf pack had had their fill and he would get the leftovers. Ares pulled his face out of the dead animal. His brown snout was now red with blood and his neck had taken on a bib appearance as the deer gore had soaked into his fur. Ares looked at him and cocked his head to the side. He stood up and placing his forearms into the carcass ripped off a large chunk of leg and whatever else stuck to the dismembered limb. Ares stood up and, with the deer leg in his mouth, walked over to William, who watched as Ares lay the piece of meat in front of him. Ares looked up from the meat and nodded his head once. William leaned over the piece of meat and tore into it with more fervor than he wanted to. He was hungrier than he had realized. Ares barked once then walked back to take his place with his pack.
William devoured the leg of the deer. By the time he was finished there was nothing much left of the deer. Ares and his pack were finishing cleaning the rest of the dripping guts and flesh from the skeleton. William in his werewolf form watched as the wolves finished eating. The tan and brown wolf walked off through the trees. The other two wolves followed her out of the clearing. William wasn’t sure why till he caught the look that the calico grey and brown wolf gave him. He looked at him with a dead calm stare and nodded briefly toward Ares and Physis.
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He understood.
The two mates had moved away from the carcass and were lying with each other in the shadows of the surrounding trees. Physis was licking her mate and Ares was playing with her tail. He was batting at it with his paw in the middle of rolling around playing with her. Physis kept moving around her mate half jumping and nipping at his neck and paws.
William looked back at the calico wolf as he shook his head. He threw his head and pointed over William’s shoulder. The message couldn’t have been clearer if the wolf had yelled it out over a loudspeaker, ‘get out of here and give them their space, pup.’ William did as he was advised, not because he was afraid of what the calico would do, but because he respected Ares enough to allow him his space with his mate. Even if they were wolves some human rules of decorum, it seemed, were followed by these shape shifters.
William turned away from the clearing and allowed Ares and Physis their privacy. He wandered through the forest by himself. He was still in werewolf form, and he had no idea how to change back to his human shape. Even if he had known he wouldn’t have changed. For the first extended period of time, he was content with himself. His other was asleep and hadn’t rustled or attempted to influence his emotions at all, pretty much since the confrontation with Ares. William was content to walk the forest. The smells of this place brought his home, his true home, back to a sharp clarity in his mind. He could see that the light source for this massive underground cavern had dimmed. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said that he was outside the mountain. He looked up and saw that the imperfections in the cavern ceiling were shining like stars. Looking up and seeing all those lights he could have been looking at stars and the illusion was seamless. He found himself thinking about things that he hadn’t given any thought to since he had moved to his valley. Is there life out there? Are we alone in the galaxy? What did poets see that was so brilliant and beautiful about stars to write about them so much that the simple, but elegant, light show of night is perpetually connected to love and romance?
William smiled, the first in a while, and shook his werewolf head at the thought. How much of this world do I not know and how much is out there in the heavens that nobody knows? Of course, those lines of thought brought back some of his old grievances with society and people in general. People as a rule wanted to catalogue everything in the world to fit their own precepts of what they think it should be. Scientists are the worst offenders, especially now a days. He had never heard a scientist give an interview where the scientist of anything, astronomy, psychology, biology, had ever even hinted at not knowing for sure what they were talking about or that there could be another explanation to whatever theory they were explaining.