January 26, 2017, 11:26 AM
(This post was last modified: January 26, 2017, 11:53 AM by Saxifrage.)
When the cold came, bitter and unforgiving and far worse than anything she'd ever known, the old wolf knew.
It was getting harder to stop the cough once it started. Harder to find her breath again afterward. Sometimes she couldn't — and those times were the best and the worst for the same reason: it was strange not to fight. It was strange to simply sink into a dark and heavy sleep, without worrying about where or when she'd find her next meal. Waking up afterward, though, was all stiff limbs and blackened toes and aching hips, and that seemed worse than dying every damn time.
The stars seemed nearer and her memories further, and by the time she reached the lapping waves, it didn't seem so important that the ocean wasn't as impressive as she'd imagined it or that the cold was causing her limbs to fumble and her extremities to ache. She didn't feel so shitty that she'd traveled miles and miles to see, in essence, a lake that'd grown too big for its damn britches and was putting on airs. She felt hollow all over. Weightless.
Well, that's it, then, she thought to herself — remembered thinking to herself — and shook her head with wizened amusement. "Mm? What's that?" she mumbled to no one, turning her head distractedly without taking her eyes off the rolling waves. It didn't seem strange to her that no answer came. What did seem strange was the sudden feeling of warmth that blossomed from her breast and spread outward, because it was pain to start with: a white-hot, searing pain the likes of which she'd never experienced. Her jaws gaped with it in a grizzled rictus of agony. After a moment, though, she didn't feel it.
Where the strength came from, she'd never know. She didn't even feel the earth as she kicked up the sand and played tag with the lapping waves, wild and stupid and guileless, her tongue lolling from her jaws. Her tail windmilled like a helicopter rotor as she careened across the sea itself, wings of water spurting up alongside her as she climbed clear into the sky. "Take that, y'idjits!" she cackled, giddily irreverent as she leapt headlong from star to star and whirled away —
— and she never saw the tawny sunspot of sodden fur that the wavelets worked to hide, because she never looked back.
It was getting harder to stop the cough once it started. Harder to find her breath again afterward. Sometimes she couldn't — and those times were the best and the worst for the same reason: it was strange not to fight. It was strange to simply sink into a dark and heavy sleep, without worrying about where or when she'd find her next meal. Waking up afterward, though, was all stiff limbs and blackened toes and aching hips, and that seemed worse than dying every damn time.
The stars seemed nearer and her memories further, and by the time she reached the lapping waves, it didn't seem so important that the ocean wasn't as impressive as she'd imagined it or that the cold was causing her limbs to fumble and her extremities to ache. She didn't feel so shitty that she'd traveled miles and miles to see, in essence, a lake that'd grown too big for its damn britches and was putting on airs. She felt hollow all over. Weightless.
Well, that's it, then, she thought to herself — remembered thinking to herself — and shook her head with wizened amusement. "Mm? What's that?" she mumbled to no one, turning her head distractedly without taking her eyes off the rolling waves. It didn't seem strange to her that no answer came. What did seem strange was the sudden feeling of warmth that blossomed from her breast and spread outward, because it was pain to start with: a white-hot, searing pain the likes of which she'd never experienced. Her jaws gaped with it in a grizzled rictus of agony. After a moment, though, she didn't feel it.
Where the strength came from, she'd never know. She didn't even feel the earth as she kicked up the sand and played tag with the lapping waves, wild and stupid and guileless, her tongue lolling from her jaws. Her tail windmilled like a helicopter rotor as she careened across the sea itself, wings of water spurting up alongside her as she climbed clear into the sky. "Take that, y'idjits!" she cackled, giddily irreverent as she leapt headlong from star to star and whirled away —
— and she never saw the tawny sunspot of sodden fur that the wavelets worked to hide, because she never looked back.
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