Ballad of the Desert

Chapter 1: The Past

The days pass as fast as the nightly desert winds, a moment becomes a thousand miles. It was supposed to be a brief respite after being injured, but the grass on the plains have wilted three times already and the leaves in the Hu Yang Forest have fallen three times already. Three years, over a thousand some days and nights, accompanying the wolf pack wandering from the North of the desert to the South, and then back up to the North again. Within the happy playing, I've almost never left the wolf pack. The six years spent with Papa appears to be buried underneath the yellow sand. Except.....it is but an appearance.

In the dark night, when all is quiet, next to the fire I sit with Brother Wolf. He's already deep asleep but I have not one whit of sleep in me. During the day, I glimpsed the Xiong Nu army, the first time in three years. Unexpectedly, under the thundering hooves of the horses, it awakened the buried past of years ago.

Nine years ago, Xi Yu desert.

A person lies in the desert. I stare at his eyes, he stares back at me. A lizard crawls over his face. He doesn't stir. I curiously use my paws to swat his face, but he still doesn't stir. But the corner of his mouth turns down, like he's smiling.

I investigated from sun up til sun down, finally realizing why he doesn't move. He's dying of thirst.

Even today I do not understand why I saved him? Why give him the sheep I worked hard to capture? Why did I find myself a Papa? Is it because his eyes has something that seems familiar, yet also unfamiliar? After feeding him fresh blood, he regained his strength, and then did the proverbial thing people are said to do – metaphorically stabbed me in the back he did. He used a rope to secure me and took me away from the Gobi desert where I lived with the wolf pack, bringing me into a tent where humans live.

He drank the fresh blood of the sheep, but forbade me from drinking blood or eating raw meat. He forced me to walk upright, forced me to learn to talk like him, forced me to call him "Papa". For this I fought with him often, but he was never afraid. After every fight I would try to run away, and he would capture me back.

The torture was hard to endure. I didn't know why he treated me this way. Why force me to be a human being? Is there anything wrong with being a wolf? He told me – I am a human, not a wolf, so I can only be a human. Once I started to write, I understood a bit about my past. I was a lost or abandoned orphan that was raised by the wolf pack, who treated me like a baby wolf, yet he is trying to turn me back into a human.

"I won't comb anymore!" I screamed as I threw the brush down. I was so angry I wanted to take it out on something. My arms are tired and still my hair is a mess and I can't make a simple braid. Initially I was excited to look at how pretty I looked by the edge of the river, but the ever messier hair left me with only a belly full of frustration.

A bright clear day, there was only one average sized cow by the river banks drinking water. I eyed the black cow and then walked behind it, delivering a huge kick to its flank hoping to shove it into the water. The cow moo'd but didn't move. I wasn't done with it so I kicked it again. With a flick of a tail and a head turned to look at me, I realized something was wrong. I found the wrong outlet for my frustration. The cow was a rock, and I was the egg.

I decided to go first and unleashed a wolf howl, hoping to scare it away. Usually when I did this, the horses and sheep would run away scared. But the cow just turned and pointed its horns at me, spitting mad. The second it started to move, I turned and ran with a scared scream. I finally understood why people used the phrase "bull temper" when chiding stubborn people.

I felt my butt hurt but I had no time to worry, turning left and right......

"Brother Cow, I was wrong, please stop chasing me. I would never dare kick you again, I'll only pick on the sheep from now on." I was exhausted but the cow kept chasing. "Stupid cow, I warn you, don't think I'm just a lone wolf right now, I have a lot of companions. When I find my companions, we'll eat you." My threats didn't work, leaving me crying as I kept running.