Polaris Skies

Chapter 4

In the morning, the friends found themselves not in warm beds but in a freezing tent. Their body heat seeped out through the thin shell of second-hand polyester. Benj, first to wake, tiptoed out of the tent, letting in a draft.

Nat, comfortably warm between a dun-coloured wolf and a golden yellow wolf, indifferently watched Benj's coal grey wolf leave. Hazy consciousness flitted at the edges of his sight. White paws. Monstrously huge, fluffy paws with sharp claws.

The wolf nuzzled in, tucking his front paws around his back legs. A massive tail flopped on his nose, warming up the frozen tip.

Hold up.

Nat sat up, gasping for air, clothes under him. "What the absolute fracking hell?"

Yeller's golden wolf twisted, a half-opened eye regarding him dismissively.

"Sorry, sorry." Nat pulled his pants out from under him to cover himself and shot out of the tent. He tripped on the tent zipper and found out the concrete was covered in an inch of snow and ice by way of his face hitting pavement. "Crap." He tugged on his clothes and shook the snow from his hair. Bare feet shot pins and needles up his legs. Staring through the roofless building, he watched the clouds shift colours with the sunrise while he contemplated if he wanted his shoes badly enough to go back into a tent full of wolves.

The golden wolf emerged from the tent and dropped a pair of combat boots at Nat's feet. It went back and fetched Yeller's clothes. The man took over his physical body from the wolf and shifted into the emo Viking. His black and green hair dye had disappeared with the first transformation. Ash-blonde curls fell loosely about a pair of built shoulders. Nat cleared his throat and walked out of the concrete shelter to go look for kindling.

Benj joined up with Nat at the edge of the woods to strip dead trees of dry limbs. "You doing alright? Look like you saw a ghost."

"Nope. I'm good. Just woke up as a wolf. Nothing weird about that." Nat twisted a tree limb until it snapped off. Snow dumped on him from the disturbed evergreen.

"I have to wonder how long it'll take to get used to that." Benj kicked at the snow in search of any fallen branches.

"Anything you find under that is going to be too wet to light or rotten, then it'll just smoke." Nat broke apart his branch into smaller pieces.

"Oh. Really? It's so much easier to find, though." Benj followed Nat deeper into the forest.

"Great way to find edible lichens and dormant mushrooms." A deeper voice greeted them.

"Maidin mhaith." Nat pulled another limb from a dead tree, this time watching for the snow.

"Dia dhaoibh ar maidin. I piled up a batch outside the shelter last night. We won't be here too long this morning, so come on back." Yeller took the bundle of twigs and branches from Nat.

"Well, that's helpful. Alright." Benj headed back for the concrete building, Nat and Yeller close behind.

Deck had a fire smoking in the burn barrel by the time they escaped the snow and leaf litter.

"Glad you brought matches." Yeller held his hands to the tiny ember.

"Meh, they were in there. Actually, now that I think of it, this isn't even my coat. It's your old one from high school, Yeller." Deck held out his arms in the welding jacket. He was roughly six foot and burly like a bouncer, whereas Yeller, though taller by three inches, was leaner in the shoulder, but the coat still swamped the ex-footballer. Deck had always been into competitive sports. His varsity coat came to mind as one more thing that he had given up on in leaving Jenton. He snickered to himself. The Huskies, that was their mascot back at school.