Twilight Encroaching

It was twilight. The sun was setting on a day of pain and anguish, love and loss. But it wasn’t over yet. The night had just begun to fall.

Two wolves walked together, the setting sun dancing on their pelts and transforming the sky into an oceanic pink, all corals and seashells. Nectarine-colored clouds climbed over the horizon, distant balls of cotton floating with the currents carelessly.

The first wolf was an entirely gray male. All for his vivid yellow eyes and twitching black nose, he looked as if he were carved from granite. His strides were long and purposeful, and he kept taking nervous side glances at his mate. She walked with less flow, her muscles clenching and unclenching irregularly. The she-wolf was as deep black as the shadows, her slim cat eyes downcast and fluttery. She was flighty as a sparrow and lithe as a doe, but when the neighboring wolf pack had come and chased them from their territory that evening, her voice was so thick with poison the male had never heard in her tone before. Now she lagged along behind him, neck drooping with the weight of her head, pale stomach straining with purple stretch marks.

The silver wolf halted and lifted her chin with his muzzle kindly to gain her attention. In front of them was an old badger’s hole, spacious enough to hold the both of them, though just barely. She gratefully lumbered inside and dropped onto the cool dirt floor. A sigh hissed out of her teeth in white ribbons, twisting like dragons in the chilling air, and thinned out until they could no longer be seen. He chest heaved strenuously, out of rhythm. Their was a consistency in her pumpkin eyes and her claws clung to the soil as if she would be dragged away if she did not hold tight.

Her mate watched her for a moment and then snuggled his face into her neck fur, reassuring. Then he let her be. This was a task she could only complete on her own.

The forest was still. The sky was filled with pinpricks of stars that winked down at him from their unreachable thrones. Replacing the moon was an ominous, black sphere that interrupted the light with its depth. It made the young male feel very lonely all of a sudden, without its hollow light to shine down upon him. He toed through the woods with caution, listening to all the sounds; pine tree limbs snapping and breaking in the cold fall air; a raccoon’s nails scraping against the bark; a fox jogging along through the underbrush, its red strands of fur twisting around brambles in its path.

The lonely wolf was very tired and did not feel like hunting. The two of them had run for a very long time before the pack abandoned their chase, adopted his home as their own, howling victoriously, shrill, disturbing his heart. It echoed through his mind, the horrible sound of loss. They had chosen that particular cave, hardly large enough for the two of them, only decided out of desperation, as the spot to raise their soon-to-be-born pups. How ironic it was, to be driven out on their birth date. Certainly they wouldn’t be raised in an old hole, far from a water source and any decent prey; but they needed to be received somewhere. The poor male tensed with anger and confusion for the future. What was to become of them? The newborns would certainly be too young to survive any long journeys, carried or not. But the parents wouldn’t last long without a decent meal. How would she make any milk for them? How would they dig out the cave so they could all fit? How was living even possible? How-? How-? How-?

All those nightmarish thoughts that ate away at his mind evaporated when he came into the clearing.

A brilliant green glow completely filled the area. Fireflies. They beamed around him, glistening softly, holding him spellbound. Attracted to the similar coloring of his night vision, the insects floated beside him as if he were one of their own. There was something very comforting in their presence. It was like they were the replacement moon. Or perhaps, when the moon was not in the sky, it was broken into little pieces and those pieces came down to earth, to share its beauty with the scorned creature in his time of grief.

It did not take them long to dissipate. The lightning bugs spread out across the nocturnal world, leaving him with nothing, no one. But the moment had been entrancing enough for him. Something deep inside him stirred and wrenched free. The gray wolf picked up his front legs and pivoted around towards ‘home’.

He backtracked to the badger hole. It was silent, scarily so. The male entered quietly and saw his mate lying there, still as stone. The metallic fur on her tail was curling with sweat, her ruff wet and matted. Two newborn pups drank greedily at her belly. Each was coated in a tufty down, like peach fuzz, their veiny skin clearly visible through it. The air smelled of fresh blood, life…

And death.

Three pups lay still behind her, their sickly white bodies scrunched and small and motionless. Blood sat unmoving in the vessels. Growth stopped before starting. They had a tangy scent, incredibly gruesome, disgusting as it blazed in the depths of his nostrils. He shook his head to empty it. But even when his nose cleared, nothing would remove the image from his memory.

The gray wolf turned to the black one. Her autumn-colored eyes were far away and clouded with disbelief.

The father sauntered over to the carcasses. He plucked one off the ground and brought it outside. He dropped it onto the ground as carefully as if it were still alive. He could feel the fluid just past the paper-thick skin, sloshing around irregularly. Cruel fate. The next and the last he transported, trying to rid the den of its terrible air. He could not stand to breathe it, and he knew the she-wolf could not bear it for much longer herself. He reentered, leaving the little bodies there for now. The remaining two made little gurgling noises as they slurped; it was the only sound that broke the anguish.

The male laid down next to the new mother. She refused to look at him, tilting her head away, misery glazing her expression. Yes, two of her children had lived, but the other three… Weeks of carrying them her bulging stomach, weeks of feeding them off her own stamina, all of that work for nothing. It broke her heart, to see them die. For a long time they had been a part of her, each bending and kicking, simply moving, as if they were another organ, vital to her existence. When they tumbled out, there had been no effort involved on their part. She smelled them, smelled their already decaying cells, and knew. And it was so painful to know.

Her mate reached out with his teeth and caressed her forepaw between his jaws. His canines found the grooves between her pads and massaged into the crevices, at the untouchable flesh. He did this for a long time, grooming ever so gently through her tangled fur, the knots coming free in his fangs. He finally caught her peering at him out of the corner of her vision. Her cheek pushed back and her tongue slid across her muzzle to catch a globe of sweat balancing on the end of her wrinkled nose. Her voice was rasping out of her throat, the oxygen stinging at the raw skin. The she-wolf needed water, so thirsty from the ordeal, but it was impossible for her to get up right then.

Finally, the new mother lifted her head and pressed her snout into her babies’ backs. They smelled alive and healthy, a much better aroma than the others. Their scents were retained in her memory, and she could easily identify them even if she were blind now. Two females. Two little fighters. They had to grow up strongly. It just wouldn’t be fair, wouldn’t be right.

The older of the two pups raised her young maw to the ceiling and forced it down, sneezing squeakily. It wasn’t from illness, however, just a speck of dirt bothering her already sensitive nose. Her mother clucked good-naturedly and wrapped her tail around their backsides, coaxing her litter closer to her teats. They would live. They absolutely had to live. Fate had ruined their family enough. It was time it did something nice for them.

The father, who had been like a statue as he observed, gathered himself up and traipsed outside the den. He needed to hunt. What he did not know. But he had to find something. He sped out into the dawn, feeling its golden warmth gathering underneath his pelt, swelling in his muscles, giving him their energy. The shield of doubt, the sword of uncertainty, those were the only things protecting him. Thus was life. Thus was survival.

~Even when the hope looks bleak, as lost as the moon in the dark universe, it is always there, whether whole or fractioned, waiting to be found.~