Wolf-Shifter

Dancing among the Stars Part 3

Namid trudged home with a heavy heart. Rakab had been her only true friend and to lose him, pained her. She walked home, head bowed and tears making tracks down her cheeks. Green-silver eyes gazed at the other cubs, laughing and playing but when they saw her, they froze and glared at her, hate in their eyes.

But why did they hate her?

Was it because she was heir, or the one to fulfill the prophecy? Were they jealous?

Yes they were jealous, jealous of all those things they were not. Envious, even.

Namid hurried past them and into her den. Her mother was not there but her father sat fletching arrows at a desk. The proud wolf-shifter's silver eyes were fraught with concentration as he fitted feathers to the shafts.

The girl smiled as she watched her father finish another arrow and balance it on the tip of his finger and put it aside with others. Yiska looked up and Namid bowed her head in embarrassment as her father grinned, "Hello, my little star." He said, using his nickname for her.

"Hello da," She whispered, going to hug him. "Fletching arrows again?"

Yiska nodded as he lifted Namid into his lap. "I'm getting too old for this." He complained which made his daughter laugh.

"You're never too old for me, da." She murmured, leaning into him, smelling his familiar scent of pine and wood, as he gazed out the window.

"No, I suppose I'm not." He whispered, a smile tugging on his lips as he took one of her hands.

The girl studied their hands and noticed the difference, hers was small and dainty and his was large and calloused. "Do you think I'll ever have to fight?"

"Fight? Fight what?" Yiska asked, eyebrows raised and eyes searching.

"For our clan, for the Lupine." She murmured, fidgeting with the hem of her cream silk dress.

"I have no answer for you, little star…" Yiska took one of her hands and turned away, silent.

"Da?"

His daughter's small voice reached deaf ears, for Yiska thought of his own childhood, when his father was tortured under the hands of the wolf-falcons—wolves with the wings of falcons and possessed by Ecl—Yisk saw his father fall, hearing his mother's howl of anguish as she snatched up her son and ran. Yiska saw the gore of battle, heard the screams of his father's pain and saw the three arrows buried in his mother's back before her eyes closed. All this had been seen through the haze of the young wolf's tears…

Yiska shuddered and closed his eyes, breathing deep, and turning to his daughter's innocent face. "No." he said forcibly, "Pray to the gods you will never have to fight, Namid."

"Ma says I'll have to fight my own battles someday…" she insisted, arms crossed over her chest. "I first thought it meant fighting in a war."

Yiska laughed, a soft, gentle laugh that Namid found comforting, "What she meant, my little star, was that you should stand up for what you believe in."

"Oh." Namid grinned and slid off her father's lap to get something. Yiska chuckled, shaking his head as she came back carrying a book.

"It's an old book I found. About the genealogy of our clan." Namid explained, "I suppose the elders fill it in it ever few years?"

"They do." Yiska's eyes traveled over familiar names and times and his sparkling silver eyes turned gray.

Namid did not smile as she read; rather gazed at the names and how far back they reached in time. "Could you tell me a story?" she asked, "About the first Alphess and her mate?"

"I can." Yiska took the book from Namid and placed it on his desk, and going to sit near the fireplace, Namid following.

Yisk began the tale: "Long ago when the Earth was still young, the skies cried their tears and from a pool of rainwater rose a pale white light. This light took the shape of a woman with skin as pale as moonshine, hair black as ebony wood and blue eyes flecked with the reflections of stars." "This woman stepped from the small pool and the wind whispered her name, "Ylva…Ylva, it said." "The woman nodded and turned her head to the skies, "Show me the moon." She commanded the raging skies."

Yiska paused and smiled, "And show it, the sky did. The moon was in its full cycle, large and round. Ylva took a breath of forest air and let out a howl, too musical to be a human's…" "As she let the cry echo, the whole forest fell a tremor in the air—but it wasn't an earthquake, it was the sky seemingly tearing open, as if the gods had taken a knife and stabbed it, ripping it apart." "The 'hole in the sky' spilled out a brilliant silver light that covered the woman and echoed with the music of wolves."

"What happened?" Namid asked, intrigued.

"Hush and I'll tell you." Yisk replied, "The singing soon stopped and the silver light dimmed to reveal a white wolf. Standing upright like the human she had been." "The wind whispered by, "Shifter…Huntress…Alphess."

Ylva shifted back to her human form, and shaped a bow and quiver from branches, string made from a vine. Bow and quiver on her back, she shaped arrows from shooting stars and clothes from deerskin."

"She met her mate, the sun wolf shifter, Helaku, and loved him as was proper. His skin was a golden-brown, his eyes were a warm sky-blue flecked with gold and his hair was the color of sun-beaten sand. His wolf-shape was of a golden wolf. He was kind to her and they lived blissfully together in the forest…yet the arrival of a war upset the balance of Ylva and Helaku's life."

"Ylva was in the safety of their den when the Alpha went out to patrol his borders." "By the next day, a raven came to report that he had found Helaku's body near the river where the fighting had gotten nasty. When the raven saw Ylva's pregnant belly the raven bowed his head and flew to perch on the she-wolf's shoulder. "I know his loss was hard but you have to move on," said the raven."

"Did she move on" asked Namid, engrossed in the old tale.

Yisk nodded, "Her child, a male cub named Otsoko, was born a few moons later and became the ancestor of the Lupine people."

"Is it over?" Namid asked, crestfallen.

Her father nodded, and noticed his mate coming inside. "Kamaria." He stood and hugged her as Namid stared into the empty fireplace.

Kamaria smiled, "Namid?"

Namid turned at the sound of her mother's voice and smiled ruefully, "Hello ma." She stood and hugged her mother tight before deciding to go to bed. Her mother nodded and ruffled her hair, "After you scrub that dirty face of yours." She sternly replied.

Namid quickly did what she was told and went to her bedroom, closed the door and changed into her nightgown, her heart feeling heavy again as she remembered Rakab.

As she climbed under her blankets, her dreams gave her restless dreams of her friend's leaving. Namid woke up several times in the night, gasping and her cheeks wet with tears from dreams of Rakab's death, strangely she never screamed out his name.

But she did feel afraid for him.

Just the thought of him brought tears to her eyes, a funny feeling in her stomach and a fluttering in her heart.