Wapun Meadow 고기를 먹고 싶어 샤샤샤

Even had Coelacanth been privy to Kierkegaard’s thoughts, she would never have believed them. It was not that her opinion of herself was particularly low, but she knew well her limits — and in these wilds, she had learned with enforced alacrity that although they did not multiply in number, they absolutely did so in weight. It was more prominent out here that she could not speak; it was more evident that she was a weaker, smaller creature than her full-blooded brethren. Her gently-reared upbringing had not prepared her for life outside the protective bubble of immunity that came with being the naturally appeasing, submissive daughter of a king. Her flesh was virginal and unsullied, unmarked by any scars or scores save the vertical line tucked within the inkdark hollow of her throat. She was a dancer, not a fighter, and the generations of domesticated dogs that dappled her DNA lent her a childlike quality that would never truly leave her.

The inky ingénue did not quail at the sudden, near-physical force of Kierkegaard’s sunrise eyes gripping her own; yet her dainty paws etched an indecisive staccato step as she faltered, recalling only after her impulsive action that it was unwise to take such liberties with unfamiliar wolves. Had she overstepped her bounds by touching him so boldly? Her feathered tail sketched a quick apology, beating like a caged bird against her slim hocks — but she recovered neatly at the lively spark kindled within those fiery depths, a new light of interest and warmth that had not been present moments ago. Her keen seablue eyes mapped the differences between the Cortens and Kierkegaard — there was a spectral, otherworldly quality about the long-legged serpent wolf that none of her father’s wolves could boast. They were robust and hardy creatures of the sand and sea, painted in earthen tones and compactly constructed. Only Amoxtli bore the flicker of flame within his plush pelage, and only Kirynnae and Catori bore the pallid coat of Seelie’s beloved spirit bears. Kailani, too, was unique in her blue-black and silver loveliness — but this wolf —

This wolf, with the pale ash of his coat and the monochromatic gradient that darkened into charcoal, soot, and ink along his shoulders, back, and saddle was wholly new and strikingly familiar. In his eyes she saw Amoxtli’s fire kindled against the amber flicker of Corten orange; in the pallid fur she saw Kirynnae, Catori, and their ursine guides; in the ink of his spine she saw Kailani — and yet, he was completely foreign from all that she knew and understood. He dwarfed her completely, but she felt no fear — he had not yet given her reason to. The barest flicker of a smile claimed his kohl-lined lips and a deep breath swelled his boxy chest, then spilled from his nares — he closed the distance that separated them and with a serpentine motion of her own his Nathimmel snaked her body along his taller one like a cat. She did not press herself to him but merely allowed the uneven lengths of his fur to tangle alluringly with her feathered pelage, drawing her body in a circle and curling her slender haunches to sit demurely facing him.

What he intimated then was strange: “you have found me at a bad time in my life.” Tipping her finely-sculpted head first to one side, then the other, “I do not understand,” bespoke Kierkegaard’s Nathimmel. There was no other time to meet him; there was no better time. Although the weight of weariness and sorrow lay upon his haunted frame like a burial shroud, Coelacanth could not see what he perhaps saw, looking at himself. He was tall of stature and long of leg — a handsome specimen. The tattered and unkempt edges lent him a weathered air, like the scored binding of a well-loved volume or the patina of a rare and tempered metal, and the inky Groenendael cross could not look upon him and see anything but dignity and strength. “What is wrong?” she wondered, an airy whine falling from her lips. Her eyes, glittering with oceanic bioluminescence, traced his face as her tufted ears sprang forth upon her skull with pointed poignancy. He could speak to her, if he wished. She would never tell his secrets, even if she could.