08-21-2010, 05:02 PM
((Thank you. :]))
Her patience was rewarded sooner than she had ever dared to hope. She swung her head immediately to the side and lowered her belly to ground without so much as a glance in the newcomer's direction, for it did not matter who or what the creature was. All she cared for was the simple fact that it had come from across the border--from the inside where it smelled of fresh blood and meat and many wolves--, and the fluid change in its gait, --from aimless meandering to a narrower purpose--, that portended an end to the solitude in which she had been enshrouded. For many moons she had lived alone: hunted, eaten, slept without a partner to share the discomfitures and complaints of life in the wild. It frightened her to be approached so quickly, and by a wolf that smelled so much like a beast that was yet not a beast. If life in the wild had taught her anything, it was that the unknown was to be feared.
And fear emanated from her in pungent waves. She had wet herself in her fear, and the grass around her stank of the fetid reek of the sick and dying. Her urine was a foggy brown color, and smelled of blood. Yet she had the decency to feel embarrassment, and her high cheeks flushed with a color that would've been considered quite becoming in a separate set of conditions, times, and lives; but with her lackluster coat, emaciated body, and hanging jowls, she seemed to have caught a fierce fever.
And then she took a deep breath that seemed to expand her bony chest to its limits, swallowed in a feeble shudder of muscles long wasted to skin, and struggled to position her lips as if to speak.
"Meat," was all she could manage before she collapsed at the stranger's feet.
Mustering the last of her strength, the wolf lifted her head and exposed her neck to the other in an utterly submissive gesture. She was too far gone to hope for anything more than to rouse a mixture of pity and disgust in this stranger, this wolf who smelled like a wolf but not like one--of smoke, burning wood, and fires--, things that were beyond one so vicious and untamed as she. But by now she was no longer there in the pleasant clearing, lying in the warm patch of sunlight. She was truly gone, resting in darkness.
Her patience was rewarded sooner than she had ever dared to hope. She swung her head immediately to the side and lowered her belly to ground without so much as a glance in the newcomer's direction, for it did not matter who or what the creature was. All she cared for was the simple fact that it had come from across the border--from the inside where it smelled of fresh blood and meat and many wolves--, and the fluid change in its gait, --from aimless meandering to a narrower purpose--, that portended an end to the solitude in which she had been enshrouded. For many moons she had lived alone: hunted, eaten, slept without a partner to share the discomfitures and complaints of life in the wild. It frightened her to be approached so quickly, and by a wolf that smelled so much like a beast that was yet not a beast. If life in the wild had taught her anything, it was that the unknown was to be feared.
And fear emanated from her in pungent waves. She had wet herself in her fear, and the grass around her stank of the fetid reek of the sick and dying. Her urine was a foggy brown color, and smelled of blood. Yet she had the decency to feel embarrassment, and her high cheeks flushed with a color that would've been considered quite becoming in a separate set of conditions, times, and lives; but with her lackluster coat, emaciated body, and hanging jowls, she seemed to have caught a fierce fever.
And then she took a deep breath that seemed to expand her bony chest to its limits, swallowed in a feeble shudder of muscles long wasted to skin, and struggled to position her lips as if to speak.
"Meat," was all she could manage before she collapsed at the stranger's feet.
Mustering the last of her strength, the wolf lifted her head and exposed her neck to the other in an utterly submissive gesture. She was too far gone to hope for anything more than to rouse a mixture of pity and disgust in this stranger, this wolf who smelled like a wolf but not like one--of smoke, burning wood, and fires--, things that were beyond one so vicious and untamed as she. But by now she was no longer there in the pleasant clearing, lying in the warm patch of sunlight. She was truly gone, resting in darkness.