Habiba & Bataar

Beginnings

A Spring in New York City is not like a Spring in Ethiopia. The weather here in New York is still chilled, except in patches of sunlight. Habiba walks down the sunny side of the street so that the sun warms her dark face and bare shoulders. She keeps her headphones on, even when she talks to an Ethiopian vender. He speaks twelve dialects but they both have Arabic in common and she barters for pretty beads and lets him win every time.

Habiba speaks the language of the Motherland because she misses it. She sings a little lullaby on the subway as she waits for the L train and her heart aches. America is big and wild too, with wild humans and wild machines, and old world wolves who live like nomads. Her pack immigrated to New York City when she was a pup, following the path of the Elders before them. A great, great grandmother had come once and made a life for herself, opened a restaurant, and made Kitfo so good that people waited outside of her door in a line that stretched around the block. There was no shortage of customers who wanted to try spicy food with their hands and drink the dark, strong coffee from imported beans.

At night, Habiba races through the city, her skin melting into fur the way old friends melt into one another. Her pack of Ethiopian wolves like their solitude. They live together, but they run alone. It is the very best in Spring because instinct tells her to run as far away from familiar scents as possible. Spring is the time for mating, and new smells attract them all like magnets.

It is a night like this where she meets him. He is alone too, and dirty. There is blood on his temple and his nose, which looks broken, and she can taste the salty copper of him on her tongue. He is wary when he senses her and shifts quickly in the shadows, but she already saw the tears that shimmered on his cheeks. He slips deeper into the alley and out of sight.

Habiba goes into the shadows with him, hops around to get him to play. He is too injured and growls a warning, hackles raising. When she doesn't listen, he snaps his large jaws at her, so close that she whimpers. His teeth are sharp and large. 

She shifts out of her wolf form and this startles him. He didn't expect to see naked flesh. She wasn't supposed to shift here in front of a stranger, her clothes are stored elsewhere. She trusts the dark night to cloak her only from human eyes. He could see her strong body clearly and the light in his eyes proved that he liked what he saw. 

He shifts too and is only briefly naked because he hurries to pull on the jeans he lost when he shifted before. His arms and chest are tattooed and toned. Small metal hoops pierce his nipples. Courteously, almost shyly, he hands her his blood stained tee shirt and she slips it over her head. He doesn't look when she's dressing and Habiba thinks that his tan cheeks are flushed. It's cute that he blushes because he didn't seem the type. The shirt is big enough to shield her, but all of her brown legs are bare and she has no shoes in the dirty alley. He even avoids looking at her legs. 

"What's your name?" Habiba asks. She leans on the cold brick wall but she's still pleasantly warm.

"Bataar. You?" He sounds like he's from the Bronx and it endears her further.

"Habiba." 

"Habiba." Her name is soft on his lips when he repeats it. She likes how it sounds and wonders what his name would sound like when she says it.

"Bataar." He grins and she notices that his lip is split. He's got piercings, two shiny balls beneath his bottom lip. 

"You're not from here," he notes. He leans on the opposite wall, but it feels like they were so close.

"My pack is from Ethiopia. You're not from here either," she reminded him even though he might have been born here. Only native wolves are from here and they live around the reservations in the midwest now, with only one pack in the city. 

"Mongolia," he admits and smiles. His teeth are pink with blood but his smile is sweet and it lights up his whole face. She immediately smiles too because she likes him. He smells sweaty and bloody, but new and different. A wolf outside of her family, outside of her species.

"You were fighting?" Habiba asks.

"I was losing the fight, actually," he replies and touches his nose gingerly. She could see that he was already healing, which meant that he was healthy and young.

Habiba smells the air and frowns. "Three against one?"

"There was an audience. They're gone now, running together. Assholes." He looks mad but his dark eyes didn't catch the emotion. 

Habiba laughs and he laughs too. Her family is proper, just learning how to assimilate. They don't curse. Which means that Habiba thinks profanity is hilarious.

"Forget them. You can run with me," she offers when the laughter dies down and they're only smiling.

When they shift together, it is oddly intimate. She does it slow so he can watch how her bones bend and her face narrows. She doesn't need his shirt, it is too big for her torso now. He moves slow too, and even though he is male, they are the same size. By the time they are done shifting, she knows that he is healed and ready to run with her.

The night is busy and there are lots of people around. It is mating season and the air smells delicious and full. They play a game of shadow tag and hide and seek. They wrestle in the park until someone catches a glimpse and shouts. They run away into the night, howling and huffing. Habiba has so much fun that she forgets to miss home, to miss Ethiopia, the way she always does in Spring.

It is morning when they stop and nuzzle each other's faces. He smells so good that Habiba takes her time saying good bye. She already longs for him when she leaves him at the edge of the Bronx. She finds her clothes and takes the L train home to a pack that waits for her.

When Spring comes to full bloom, Habiba runs around the city, inhaling the scent of him. She realizes then that she could miss two things at once and have room in her heart for both. 

*****

AN: If you enjoyed this story, go ahead and give me a vote, comment, and follow. 

Check out the inline comment for links to follow me on other sites. As well as ways to support my work. Heading to my profile will give you the actual links if you're using the mobile device, otherwise, links are clickable on browsers! 

Warmly,

Alexa