Shadow Mountain zoka

hunting.
hunger and instinct were heda's most constant bedfellows now. when she was not wrapped in light, fitful sleep, she was hunting for her girls and for john as well, splitting the tasks of food-gathering and patrols between the pious man and herself.
today, a herd of elk tested her mettle; she followed them into a sweeping rain which led her out of the rising sun and into the mountain range once more.
day had passed to night. heda found herself in the unfamiliar stone teeth and glanced around. 
the clatter of hooves on shale swung her ears forward, and she followed with growling belly.

Anselm followed the herd as they wound out of the hollow. He had no intention of hunting today; his mind was elsewhere.

Two women, two men. Any other wolf would be happy for such numbers -- but Anselm felt only the bitter sting of jealousy.

What if he began to like them?

Anselm busied himself by taking note of the herd's migratory patterns. Some rested in fields afar; others cut through the swath under the clatter of shale.

Another figure trailed long behind them. Anselm's ears swung forward in earnest as he studied the creature. Wolfish. Thin. Another vagrant, perhaps. Anselm had already done his one charitable deed of the year letting Fiona in -- he steeled his heart against any kindness, watching the willowy wolf as she gradually stalked uphill.

she had no hope of taking the elk herself, and when it bugled before a sprint along the rocky rises, heda fell back with a sigh.
for a moment she only shivered. she had gone so far for this; she looked desperately back the way she had come, toward the bypass, and then toward the sea where her sons — her sons.
a failure! going mad! heda would not sob despite the heat which was sudden on her face.
she did not notice the other wolf as she turned and doggedly began to climb after the elk, muscles setting out beneath her tousled fur which had not yet fully thickened for winter.

Most days Anselm would have seen this wolf, and went the other way. He wasn’t one for pleasantries; she hardly looked pleasant. Her rough fur and tormented face said enough - she was riffraff, blown in by a useless wind. 

But Anselm wondered of her intention as she stalked after the elk. Did she truly think she could take one? 

Maybe she did; that might kill two birds with one stone if a neat kick to her head ended her. It would save Anselm the effort of having to ward her off of the herd he’d been watching, and he’d get a warm meal regardless. 

Anselm followed, a grim shadow that now closed the gap between them.

she stumbled, caught herself, looked up. and then she saw the following wolf. young though he was, size was on the stranger's side.
a warning bubbled in her throat before she could stop herself; the sweetharbor wolf gathered her thin frame into a sit and hunched her shoulders against the wind.
"am i trespassing?" her voice was a hopeless whisper against the scour of the air around them. "i'll go, just let me leave."
heda had no idea how to be off the island.

Anselm's hunt came to an end, the waif of a thing detecting him and whirling round to face him.

Miserable as he was, he was not prepared for the slap of her gaze: sorrow made its home there -- and an ugly loneliness too.

His eyes narrowed. He would not be charitable to a wolf caught eyeballing his herd. Though his possessiveness had no true rights, Anselm would not let her know that: another mouth, was just another piece of competition.

Then go, vitch. He hissed, ears cupped forward and eyes hard upon a sitting woman who truly deserved little rebuke.

there was hatred in the younger wolf, a bleakening reach of pain underneath it. heda only knew this because it flared too in her breast: loathing for god and confusion by the very earth over which he had made her steward.
slowly and with a dignity she truly did not feel, the widow stood. "you don't know any women, that's why you're calling me a witch." she was offended despite the moment, and stepped past the brash brute, not turning her back as her golden eyes remained balefully watchful upon his hard face.

The she-wolf rose with composure that Anselm almost admired. I don't know any useful vomen. He answered, a curl of his lips announcing his disdain further.

It was not that he hated women. Did he hate women? He held the burn of her stare as she brushed by him, rigid. She was pretty, close enough to his age -- but so many hardened miles under that sorrowed stare. So many leagues of unfathomable grief Anselm would never be able to peel the layers back from.

But he was already halfway there, wasn't he? They may have walked the very same road. 

Go on then. He was not above setting his teeth in someone's hide -- anything to chase away the dragons that settled around his barbed heart.

"all women are useful," heda snapped in the stentorian tones of a preacher at a pulpit bathed in syrupy orange light. "god made us as companions and help-meets to our husbands. you've also clearly never been married, so I can't possibly explain how fulfilling that is."
why was she fighting? she needed to get back to her girls, to john — heda inhaled and this time she did take several steps away from the rude young harpy.

There it was -- a glint of something knife-like under the careful guise of sadness. Anselm set back on his heels, marveling how an antagonistic barb could reveal so much so quickly. Maybe all people were layered, and each barb pulled back defensive covering after covering, until nothing was left but a bitter and thorny pit. 

How close was Anselm to the pit?

He glanced from the woman to his feet, then all around him -- as if measuring his husband potential. Who was she to say he'd never been married? What clued her off?  And what was all the talk about god? Did she truly believe such a being existed? If so, no wonder she looked so incredibly sad.

I do not need to be married to know it is pointless. He gave a rough roll of his shoulders, gaze pinned on the woman as she backed up. He was not so sadistic to step forward and close the gap -- truthfully, it didn't make him feel good when he scared other wolves. Seeing his hostility reflected back in their wide-eyed gaze often only made him feel small. God makes nothing. There is no god. Vhy vould you vaste your energy believing such a thing? It is almost as pointless as marriage. Trot back to your husband and leave my elk alone.

"you're a fool," heda choked out, more affected by the mention of her dead husband than the stranger's continued offensiveness. 
but he had pressed proverbial fingers into a pair of bruises; one for the god who had forsaken sweetharbor and one for the quiet grave of the man she had only just learned to love.
they should have had years. hot tears scorched her face as she curved her shoulders and pinned her ears, willing to hear no more as she stumbled forward and contemplated the journey back, the long trek with nothing to show for it.
her daughters deserved more.

You're a fool.

It should have hurt, but it didn't.

Anselm expected outrage. Denial. A flare of righteous anger as he spat in the face of her god and her matrimony.

Instead, she turned her shoulders and stumbled forwards, face darkened by fresh sprung tears. 

Shit, she was crying?

His torn ears cupped forward and he snorted. I may be a fool, but at least I did not marry vonne. He called back as Heda fled.

Good! Let her leave. Let her leave him like everyone else did. It was what he deserved and frankly, what he had come to expect of every living thing that managed to cross his path.