the beauty and the beast

Little Val snoozed in the back of the den, curled up comfortably upon the deerskin rug Bazi had given his mother. Every now and then he would whimper and kick his paws, lips twitching as he dreamed. Only good things swam in his mind. The swaying sweet grass. The smell of his mother and father. The dragonflies flirting with the clover. Few things worried the youngster and he was completely unaware of the dire complications Swiftcurrent endured. The children had never met Fox... didn't know what Sunspire was. The tribulations his parents faced seemed so far away, and Valtýr was a shining light of unadulterated innocence. It was partially due to the sheltering of his parents, but the supportive Swiftcurrent wolves had a hand in it too. Good-natured visits from the others supercharged their learning, and the Sveijarn children bloomed with the resilience and vibrancy of wildflowers.

A deep voice roused Valtýr from his nap, and he lazily looked to the mouth of the den. 'Juu,' Maera called to Jökull, wanting their bold sister by her side. The red girl was a chatter box, and though Valtýr was much more reserved than Maera, his vocabulary grew by leaps and bounds each day. "Mae," Valtýr whispered as he stood, trotting with little wobbly steps towards the mouth of the den. Something was familiar about that platinum silhouette... and suddenly he remembered.

"Gali!" Valtýr squealed, bounding towards the older wolf who had once visited the den. Tuwawi had mentioned something like Bazi and Galileo as the two had departed that one morning, and the names had been committed to Valtýr's growing encyclopedia of knowledge.