Stories in the Moonlight

Ignatius · 05-03-2012, 01:48 AM

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A big thank you to Bria for giving me the idea for this story!

Still as a statue, he waited. Only his golden eyes moved as he followed the motion of each wolf who took a seat around the clearing. The first to arrive were those he had already met. Shadow, who had been tasked with watching him while he was here and his bubbly mate, Insomnia. He had spent the afternoon with Tharin, seeing the territory and getting to know more about how to live the way New Dawn did. He smiled warmly at the male as he took a place among his pack.

Those that arrived after were wolves he had not met. He felt more of a stranger now then he had all day, surrounded by those who did not know who he was or why he was here. One even thought him an intruder and came into the clearing ready to attack before she saw the rest of her pack gathered around him. His ears pressed back against his head and the smile left his face. He felt so vulnerable in his lupus form. If these wolves decided that he was a threat to their safety he would not be able to defend himself. He was half their size in this form and neither as strong nor as fast as they were. Once he was amongst wolves, he realized how truly different he was from them.

His fear overwhelmed him then until he was suffocating in it. His breathing got heavier and his eyes flicked around the clearing, watching the wolves he did not know with a frightened stare. The voice of another broke the hold the fear had over him and reminded him that he was there for a reason. These wolves were waiting for a performance, not gathering around to hunt him down. They were all watching him because they were waiting for him to begin. Why would they want to hurt him? It had been a ridiculous thought that led to his fear and he shook it off. How stupid of him to freeze up at a time like this.

A story was what he needed, one to captivate these traditional wolves. Not a tale of humans nor of Luperci, but of wolves, packs, and families. Suddenly, he knew what story to tell. His ears slowly perked up again and he looked around at the faces of the pack one last time before he began. He had barely gotten to know any of them and already his time here was almost over. He would return though, he had already decided it. He would see the rest of what Nova Scotia had to offer and then he would be back to tell his stories and sing his songs again. He nodded his head once and began.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Some of you have met me already but for those who have not - I am Ignatius.” He dipped his head in respect before going on. “And tonight I will tell the tale of how the first wolves got their howl.”

“A long time ago, when the world was just beginning, the wolf did not know how to sing.

Before the wolf learned to howl, he had no way to communicate with his brothers and sisters when they were far from the pack. Without the song of their pack mates to call them back home, many wolves got lost in the wilderness and never found their way back to their families. Puppies had to be kept close so that they too would not disappear and lone wolves could not call out to the packs they wished to join and thus they lived their lives in solitude when they longed for the companionship of their brothers and sisters.

Tired of living life in constant fear of getting separated from his family, the wolf set out with his brothers and sisters to find their song. The birds had earned their song when they flew up to the sky and snatched up drops of sunlight in their beaks. The coyotes had stolen their song from the little girls who liked to play in their woods, taking the voices to use as their own. But the wolves could not fly and they did not know how to steal voices. So they wandered the earth, looking for a way to get their own song.

The wolf walked with his brothers and sisters across the first grass to push through the ground. This new grass was greener than the leaves when they first start to bud in the spring and always smelled like fresh rain had just fallen upon it. The wolves ran and laughed and played in the grass, rolling in its fresh scent until they too smelled of the earth. But still, they could not sing.

They splashed in the first rivers and creeks that wound their way through the land. The water was so transparent that they could plainly see the perfectly round pebbles that covered the bottom. They drank and danced and swam in the water until their fur was heavy with it and they smelled like the fish that made their home there. But still, they could not sing
.

So they shook the water from their fur and continued on into a forest. The trees in that forest were so tall that they reached all the way up to the sky and their trunks were so big that a hundred wolves could sit around them. The wolves hunted and ate and slept in the woods, and when they were done they smelled like the bark of the trees and the blood of the animal they had hunted. But still, they could not sing.

And so the wolf began to climb the tallest mountain. It took him all day to reach the peak and when he finally rested at the top, a full moon greeted him in the night sky. He sat on the peak, too tired from his climb to do anything else. As he sat there he heard a voice talking to him as if from a great distance. He looked down the side of the mountain but saw no one. Finally the voice said to him, ‘It is I, the Moon.’ And the wolf looked to the bright moon hanging above him.

The wolf did not know what to say and stayed silent until the moon spoke again. It said, ‘Brave wolf, you have journeyed far and done many things. You have done all that the wolf was made to do and so I give you the gift of song.’ When the moon was done speaking it sent down drops of moonlight that fell upon the waiting wolf and all of his brothers and sisters. Finally, the wolves could sing and they raised their voices as one to give thanks to the moon who had given them their howl.”

Ignatius let his last word fall into silence before he slowly lifted his muzzle to the sky and let his own howl pierce the night air. Though his was not the true howl of a wolf he hoped that the others would join him in his song to give thanks to the moon for giving it to them.

Ignatius

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