(1873) tl;dr Anatole gets his guide.

The days had begun to drag on. Anatole wandered alone, his steps ragged and his body sore. A festering wound from the bobcat had turned raw and angry. Had he been a wiser wolf, one who knew about the uses of medicine, he would not have licked it or only used the salt water to heal such a thing. Yet his mind was now feverish and knew only the needs of his body. Rest; he wanted rest and he wanted nothing beyond this.

Anatole slowed his pace. It was night now and frigid, but his body was hot. Brilliant eyes were fever-bright, gleaming in the gloom. His tongue lolled from his mouth, dripping saliva. He made it to an enclave formed by the sharp angle of a stone and a fallen tree. The wolf crawled under this extreme angle and curled up, pelt fluffed up and tail slinking up to his nose. Mercifully, he slept.

As all things do, the world began in darkness. He saw nothing, heard nothing, but he felt. Someone was watching him; someone was approaching from those shadows, someone with sightless eyes and only a splash of white to break its presence from the nothing. A voice spoke, but it was not a language he knew. Words, words, sounds—he heard but did not hear. White teeth flashed against a black pelt, a pink tongue rolled, and he saw red. Someone was weeping. He turned and saw a flash of white—mother?

She was ragged, unlike anything he had ever imagined her to be. Her pelt was deeply soaked with water, her head low. Anatole approached cautiously, his feet nervous and unfamiliar.

“Mom?” He called to her, the Quebecois rolling from his throat peculiarly. A puppy whine broke from his mouth. His body left him, abandoning shape for that of the small, scared boy he had been as a child.

The she-wolf turned her head, meeting his eyes with a pair the same neon color that still invoked fear and respect within him. They were sad, but unbroken. Her voice was rough, but he heard the love within there and knew she would not harm him. “Hello my son. Why are you here?”

It was but was not her voice. He hesitated.

“Do not be afraid. Come,” she looked back to the rolling water. Anatole slowly approached her side. The river was terribly rough; it roared as it passed, all white and brown and churning. Heavy and unfamiliar fear filled his throat. He whined and pressed against her leg. “I’m scared,” he admitted, not looking from the savage cut in the otherwise empty landscape.

“Of what?”

“The water.”

“Why do you fear the water, my son? Water is life.”

He stiffened, though trembles broke through his puppy legs. “You said water was dangerous. I wasn’t supposed to go near anything I couldn’t see the bottom of.”

The woman (who was but was not his mother) smiled down at him. He had never noticed that her fur was not simply white, but also brown, and gold, and a thousand other colors caught in drying tendrils and soft shades he had always overlooked. Her eyes, even, were different—they were not simply green, but blue, and dark blue, and black and purple and—

A puppy rippled and a man grew in its place. “You’re not my mother,” he challenged, hackles raised. Adult teeth cut a savage snarl across his face, turning him into a beast. The woman only smiled at him. “I am. I am your mother, and her mother, and her mother before her. I am all mothers. I am the first mother, and I will be the last mother when the sky goes dark. I am that is; I weep for those who have forgotten, but all sons forget,” she lamented, though her voice was never truly angry. He imagined he saw it though, flashing in eyes that turned from the color of the sea to that of a rolling storm. Anatole pinned his ears back.

“I don’t understand,” he bristled, legs stiff. The ground felt strange beneath his paws, as if it too was changing, shifting.

The pale woman (who was now darkening, who was now streaked with gray and brown and ash and black) only smiled. “You never have; you look only ahead and without thinking. You lack vision. You forget your spirit, boy.”

As he opened his mouth to object, the woman grew. She did not only grow tall, but wide. Her body filled, her body turned into that of a pregnant wolf, to that of a pregnant woman, to a massive circle that pushed against him and filled his head with the scent of honeysuckle and snow and flame. He cried out but was pushed from the bank, left tumbling and falling through the air. Anatole hit the water hard and his lungs filled with ice.

The water pulled him down, up, back and forth. He fought for control, struggled.

Let go.

No. The will to survive held him, and his panic made his struggle, push up (if it was up—he couldn’t see beyond his nose) and towards the surface. A shadow flickered across the earth-colored water.

Trust your spirit; all things must flow.

The panic continued but was now faced with an equally peculiar thought. A calm began to wash over him; he wondered if he was dying. The water pulled him up and he broke to the surface. Something sharp dug into his back, pulling him high, wrenching him from the murky depths.

Look, boy, and see with eyes unclouded.

And he did look. Below him the water rushed towards a fall; it cascade down, rolling over a cliff and into a pool below. The pool trailed out into a river—then the river shifted. Anatole watched, wide eyed, as the river became a snake. It slithered across the blackness, the nothing he had not seen before, and then burst. From the snake came a thousand beasts; birds, caribou, wolves, rabbits, dogs. He watched them run, watched them change shape and color and form. Everything was too colorful—it was a living painting, an image he could not tear away from. The pain in his back grew.

You have mettle, but what is courage without vision?

He was flying still. Wolves ran below him in a field of snow, timber-brown, gray, black. Then a terrible noise ripped through the air and one of the wolves tripped and tumbled into the snow. His pack did not stop. Anatole became aware of the horrible screaming of some unknown beast around him, and of a strange, unreal voice shouting in a tongue he did not know. It sounded angry.

The landscape rippled, shifted, changed. He saw creatures on horses wearing the skins of bears, and saw wolves running at their side. They called the hunting cry and ran on, through the land even as it again rippled and again rolled. Now fires burned in the night and hairy things huddled around them. Wolves slept at their feet, but they did not sleep. A pair of yellow eyes lifted to meet him, and a challenging snarl rippled up from the ground below. Anatole realized he had begun sinking, begun rushing towards the ground.

He saw a puppy, running from him, and a she-wolf rushing to meet him. She was white, like his mother. She snarled and threw herself skyward and he felt something sharp and awful strike him—

The wolf woke with a start. A branch was digging into his chest. Anatole growled and rolled out of his lean-to den. His mind felt clear. His nose still ached, but it no longer burnt like fire.

“It’s about time,” a voice said from behind him.

He started. There was no scent; he whipped around, head and tail high. To his shock, a massive eagle was perched on the fallen tree he had used to make shelter the night before. It was a deep brownish-gold, with sharp, piercing eyes. The bird met his gaze unflinchingly. It was unnerving.

“What do you want?” The scout rumbled, but he already knew in his heart that this was not an ordinary creature.

As if to prove its point, the eagle ruffled its chest. “Is that any way to speak to a spirit, boy? Do you remember nothing?”

The dream rushed back in a haze of doubt. He could not remember all of it, but enough was clear. Green eyes narrowed, now puzzled. “I didn’t…I—“

“You didn’t think you believed in us. I know. Your mother didn’t believe either. Still doesn’t, and you know that crow took off to follow her. They’re like that though,” the woman’s voice went on, suddenly strikingly familiar. “As for you, it is not too late. You went into the river, after all.”

“I don’t understand,” he repeated, desperate. The eagle tilted her head, a single eye fixing on him. “If you did I would not have come. You cannot leave your Tribe; you must return to face what you did.”

“Did!?” He barked, eyes flashing. “What did I do? That coyote—“

“Enough!” The bird spread her wings, the noise and sight of such a display frightening the wolf to silence. He stared at her blankly. “You will go back, Anatole, and you will speak with your council. Judgment will be faced; only cowards run.”

Though he felt doubt, the wolf could not deny the eagle’s logic. He turned his ears back and after a tense moment, let out a low sigh and dropped his head. Satisfied, the eagle let out a high noise that was some form of victory cry. “Good! Now follow me; you are still ill and will need a healer.” The eagle launched from the tree and began flying south. Anatole walked after her, finding that his pace needed only to increase slightly to match her. The eagle landed now and again as if to make sure he was keeping up with her, though she offered neither praise nor scold.

By nightfall, they had made it back to the Tribe’s border. Anatole slunk towards his den, the eagle following. When he crawled in, she settled near the entrance. The wolf stuck his head out to meet her. “I’m going to sleep now,” he said firmly, the exhaustion clear in his voice.

“Do so; tomorrow you will speak with the Councilwoman.”

A grunt escaped him, but he was too tired to argue. “You got a name? I don’t have to call you ‘bird’ like my mother did with that crow, do I?”

The eagle cocked her head again, and a sudden sharp talon struck his head. Anatole whined, too tired to even wish to fight. “Show some respect. You may call me Donoma; now rest, and we will speak at dawn.”

Though sore, physically and egotistically bruised, Anatole crawled into his den and curled up easily enough. He fell asleep quickly, and did not dream. Outside, the spirit shimmered in the gloom and vanished. She had led her ward home, and now had much to prepare to save him from a true punishment, as she imagined might come from a woman who had been raised with the laws of AniWaya in mind.