Thandi stumbled in the dark, running for her life. Cold bit at her bare arms. There had been no time to grab her fur. Why had Bhati thought he could reason with K’tal? One could not reason with hate.
Bhati faced the village alone, buying her time to flee. She heard his roar of defiance as he stood alone against her people. Her people! Her steps faltered as she considered returning, trying to change their hearts.
A scream of pain drove her forward, away from him, away from the only home she’d ever known. She imagined her brother, driving his spear through Bhati’s heart, watching him fall. Tears choked her as she fought for breath, one arm cradled around the small bump at her waist.
She felt him die, the bond between them severed between one heartbeat and the next. Sobbing, she fell to her knees. Her love. Her forbidden love. A man of the Meningu tribe, her people’s sworn enemies. Her reason for living, gone.
Again, her hand found the swell of her abdomen. The child. Bhati’s child. A reason to go on. She pulled herself up, grasping a low-lying branch. They would follow her. Even if K’tal pardoned her, he would never let the babe draw breath. She ran, knowing he would follow.
Thandi ran through the night, as only the forest-raised could, making no sound, leaving no trace. K’tal was faster still, the most skilled tracker of their tribe—a predator she knew she could not evade.
Her despair deepened, even as grief overcame her. K’tal would find her. She would not go back. She could not live again with the brother who had murdered her mate, who had planned to gift her to their chieftain for a spot on the council. Who would see her child dead. Better they should die together, here, tonight.
Even as Thandi thought this, she quailed at the crack of a twig behind her. She spotted him, before he saw her. She dove into a thicket to her right, biting her tongue to silence the hiss of pain as thorns tore into her exposed arms and legs.
She held her breath, though her lungs begged for air. She saw K’tal through the tangle of branches behind which she hid. He ran past. Stopped. Retraced his steps, coming to stand directly in front of her. He stepped toward her hiding place, falling into a crouch, then looked up at the sudden sound of footsteps back the way he had come. He leapt up, running to follow it, as Thandi, shivering in the dark, finally drew a breath.
While she had been running, Thandi had not noticed the cold. Now, terrified to move from the thicket lest K’tal return, it seeped into her flesh. The certainty of freezing to death finally won out over her fear. She carefully extricated herself from the thicket, garnering fewer bloody gashes on the way out than she had on the way in.
Rubbing her arms for warmth, she turned from the direction in which her village lay and began to walk, though she had no idea where to go. Even if she knew where Bhati’s village lay, his people were her sworn enemies. She could no more go there than home. With nothing more to sustain her than a determination to protect the life growing inside her, she doggedly placed one foot in front of the other, running to place as much distance between herself and K’tal as she could.
A light snow began to fall. As the night wore on, it became heavier, obscuring her vision and blanketing the forest floor. Forced to again slow to a walk, she began to shiver. Finally, unable to walk further, she sank to the ground, her back against a tree, resigned to death.
As she wandered in and out of sleep, the clouds cleared and the moon shone through the treetops, glistening on the new-fallen snow. The glint of a pair of green eyes brought her fully awake. A massive wolf stood before her.
Terror froze Thandi in place, even as her heart raced and her mind screamed at her to run. And yet, the wolf, instead of attacking, curled itself around her, laying its head in her lap, one ear pressed against her abdomen. Closing its eyes, it sighed, then fell asleep. Despite her fear, Thandi, warmer than she had been since fleeing her village, also slipped into sleep.
Thandi woke to a wet nose, followed by a warm tongue, touching her own nose. Her eyes shot open. The tree at her back blocked her attempt to back away. The wolf, standing before her, pushed a branch covered in winterberries toward her, then sat on its haunches and began to lick a paw.
Hunger overcame fear and confusion. Thandi reached tentatively for the branch, then, when the wolf did not attack, she pulled it toward her and pulled the berries from it, savoring their tart sweetness. She followed the berries with snow, which she allowed to melt in her mouth, providing the moisture her body craved after last night’s exertions.
Once she had finished, the wolf again approached, nosing at her. She rose. She would have to move again to keep the cold at bay. She began to run, the wolf loping at her side. As the sun rose through the morning, Thandi became aware of the wolf’s subtle leading. He would move closer to her at times, forcing her to change direction. He was herding her, though toward what, she couldn’t say.
For three more moons, the wolf stayed by Thandi’s side, keeping her warm at night and finding berries for her during the day. Always, grief ran with them, though it felt somehow more bearable with the wolf beside her.
As the sun rode high on the third day, they emerged from the wood. A village lay below, smoke rising from chimneys. Thandi stopped, a protective hand around her unborn child. She looked to the wolf. “I can’t go down there.”
The wolf nudged her, urging her forward. When she didn’t move, it leaned against her side, whining. Her free hand found its back, resting against the rough fur. She had to believe it had led her here for a reason. And, realistically, she had no other option.
Thandi ran toward the village, aware the cold would take her if she slowed. The sun had already begun its descent in the west when she came close enough to the village that its people spotted her. Her footsteps faltered as a lone man, wrapped in furs, ran to meet her.
He stopped, eyeing both Thandi and the wolf with suspicion. The wolf rumbled a low growl. The man turned toward it, then stared, seemingly mesmerized, into its eyes. Something seemed to pass between them. Tears filled the man’s eyes. “Bhati.” Was all he said.
The wolf turned away, loping back toward the forest. As Thandi watched him go, she noticed that only her own footsteps marked their path in the snow. After a short distance, the wolf’s image began to waver. He looked back once, then faded away, as though he had never existed.
Grief washed over Thandi as Bhati’s father draped his own furs around her shoulders and led her into his village, his heart, and his home.
This Laura prompt, which was to write something mystical, was also supposed to be about the new year, leaving 2020 behind. Somehow, the fantasy side of the story took over completely and it became more about a new life and leaving hatred and division behind. Maybe my subconscious was at work, thinking of Black Lives Matter and the killing of black people for no reason other than racism and hatred.
Regardless of the influences, both conscious and unconscious, that led to this story, I wrote it a few months back, and find, as I tee it up for publication today, I like it as much as I did when I wrote it. I hope you do too!
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This is wonderful!! I was mesmerized throughout. You are an amazing writer!