The moon rises big and red above the trees, and below pads a wolf through the ice-crusted mire. Her ribs are showing, the bones of her face hollowed and gaunt with hunger. Winter is a time of plentiful prey for her kind, and yet the girl - recently dispersed - is having rotten luck finding anything larger than a toad.
One paw after the other, she stalks to where the croaking of amphibians grows louder. Her time in the marshes of her old home has made her an adequate hunter and starvation drives her quickly onwards. And she spies them then, through the darkness of old trees. She spies the bubbles on the surface of pitch water, the glint of shiny eyes, and surges forward with teeth outstretched.
The blood moon bathes her in ghostly light as the meal is tossed, caught, and disappears swiftly down her gullet.
One paw after the other, she stalks to where the croaking of amphibians grows louder. Her time in the marshes of her old home has made her an adequate hunter and starvation drives her quickly onwards. And she spies them then, through the darkness of old trees. She spies the bubbles on the surface of pitch water, the glint of shiny eyes, and surges forward with teeth outstretched.
The blood moon bathes her in ghostly light as the meal is tossed, caught, and disappears swiftly down her gullet.
O painted moon!
Her voice was an airy wail, as she danced around a collection of blood-spattered items. The marsh grass became flattened beneath her pattering paws as she whirled, featherlight, in a ring around an odd symbol, composed of an antler, a white stone and a rabbit’s ear. From her dirty forelimb, blood trickled from the wound she had opened; a little line of red ran from her teeth down her chin. But in spite of the wound, and the primitive dance she performed, the wolf beamed with happiness.
Come, Spring!She called, and plucked the blood-spattered stone, and after whirling around thrice she released it- sending it off into the murky waters nearby.
Come, fertility!She called, and performed the same act with the antler- it rose and spun, before landing in the waters with a plunk!
Come, warm rains and longer days!The rabbit’s ear was next. It did not go as far, barely reaching the water’s edge where it landed in stinking shallows.
Left on her own, now, she began to sing in high, wailing arcs- still dancing beneath the crimson light of the moon, kicking up her muddy paws and rolling back her eyes as she split the darkness with a display that was neither beautiful nor elegant.
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