The Girl and the Wolf

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Dream Wolf

The Girl and the Wolf

Post by Dream Wolf »

Long ago, in a time when men were just beginning to spread, there existed a village below a mountain. The village had long been plagued by wolf attacks, a lone wolf that killed the herd beasts and maimed the hunters. The village women feared their daily trips to the forest edge to gather wood and greens. They told stories of the beast. Some said it was as big as a herd beast, some said as big as the thatch shelters the people slept in.
In the village there was a girl, she had not yet reached her fourteenth summer, and her life was ruled by her curiosity. She pondered the wolf, this monster that seemed to have come straight from the old times. At night she listened to the howls of the animal. Her mind heard a sound as fear instilling as any other, yet in her heart she felt a dull emptiness, as though she were missing something important.
Soon she could take the feeling no more. Late in the day she left the group of other women and began to ascend the mountain. For two days she climbed. Spending the nights crouched in darkness, shivering in fear. On the third night the first snow began to fall, and she rose to walk the chill away. As the moved further up the mountain side she notice strange white objects poking up from the ground. It was not until she spotted the first unearthly grin that she realized this was a killing ground. The bones of wolves lay scattered about, spear and arrow heads lay near the bodies, their rounded edges telling her they were the same as those used by her people.
As she passed through the still, silent meadow of death she looked forward and saw It. The Wolf. He stood taller than her father’s waist, and that man stood at almost two full meters. Not as large as a herd beast, but, more than large enough to take down a large male herd beast alone. The creature was at least as long as her father was tall, more if you counted its tail. Its coat was thick and shaggy, black as the new moon, with small flecks of gray intermittently spread about its shoulders and muzzle.
She could only watch as the beast moved, coming closer to her, it’s eyes orange like twin Harvest Moons. The eyes held a feeling the girl associated with her village’s sentiment toward the wolf. Hate. The eyes of this beautiful creature held the hate of an entire species. The girl awaited her death, for it was surely to come. Her eyes closed, her breath quickened. Yet death did not come. The animal was so close now she could not help but reach out and touch it. The warmth was like nothing she had ever known.
‘This wolf holds the life of your village in his jaws.’ The words were not human; no they were far greater than anything on this earth. The voice was neither male nor female, yet it could have easily been both. The girl held onto the beast before, gripped with a sudden awe and fear. She saw the wolf’s heart. The memory of the humans who came to this land, who killed its family when it was barely old enough to survive on its own. It had far outlived its normal life span, living on its hatred of the ones who took all from it. For more than thirty passing’s of the summer winds it had hunted and lived.
The girl returned to the village. Spoke of the ‘Voice’, of the wolf. She was silenced as mad after her terrifying ordeal atop the mountain.



This story is not my own, it was told to me by by Matron six years ago.
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