Tales From the Alps Short Stories #1: A New Life

A New Life

It was late afternoon. The wind was blowing faintly through the pale green meadows, which were full of late-blooming spring flowers. Two wolves were moving across the mountain grassland--an adult and a pup. One of them was old and big and sturdy with a devious cyborg eye, while the younger one was very small and had a brown coat.

Grief overcame Lynn. It had been only a few hours since her father had been brutally murdered. By who? She had no idea. She just remembered stumbling upon her father's torn and beaten body in the middle of the woods, covered in mud, bruises, and blood. There had been no trace of the murderer, but it was very clear that it at least wasn't a human.

But then what did kill her father? Lynn shook her tiny head and blinked away some tears. She didn't want to think about it. Not now. 

Not long after her father's death, the strange gray wolf had found her. He frightened Lynn a lot. He looked so strange, with that unnatural eye and those scars, not to mention his humped back. Yet she had still come with him. Lynn just knew she had. Her father was Running with the Stars now, together with her mother and siblings, and, as a lone pup, she couldn't take care of herself. A lone pup needs to be looked after. Even if that someone is about as odd as the gray wolf she'd just encountered.

And, even though he'd sworn to take him with her, and possibly take care of her, she felt terrible.
"Keep up, squirt," the old wolf said in his raspy, high-pitched voice.
***
One-eye looked over his shoulder for a moment as he shouted these words, trying to look stern. Don't cry. Don't you cry, you stupid! Don't you cry!

The pup wasn't allowed to see him cry. He couldn't do it in front of her. But, now that he wasn't facing her, he did.

After all of those years of holding onto one vow, he had broken it. It kept echoing through his head, in a million different voices, driving him more or less mad. He even heard his own voice from all those years ago, back when he made it. "I will never be able to kill Lone Ones with families!"

He thought of sister at the memory. Great. Another thought he couldn't bare. As if it wasn't bad enough that he had just orphaned an innocent child and thus lost the one and only thing he had ever lived for, the pup also bore an uncanny resemblance to his deceased sister who he had played so much with in his childhood.

True, Laika had been chubbier and more reddish-brown than this pup, with longer hair and markings that already had been defined at a very young age, but she still had been an innocent brown pup. Like the one that was following him now.

What even is her name? One-eye wondered. Did he have to make up one for her? 

No, you idiot. You can't name it! Once you've given it a name, you'll grow attached to it. Let's just dump her with some loving pack and we'll be done with it.

He subtly looked over his shoulder, his deformed spine aching in the process. The pup was walking slowly, hardly keeping up. She kept her black-tipped tail down and her ears were drooped as he saw her blink away a tear.

She's crying. What do I do now? Comfort her? The pup had unexpectedly held her head against his chest back when he first met her, to seek comfort. It was that that triggered him even more, after breaking his life-long vow. 

Do I want her to do that again? I don't know. No, of course I don't. No one touches One-eye and gets away with it! He looked at the pup again. She was still trying to hide the tears in vain.
For now I won't hurt her. I mean, I just killed her father for crying out loud! I wonder if she knows... 

Nah, of course not. Otherwise she wouldn't have asked me to take her with me. Besides, how old is she? Eight weeks at most or something? She's too young to put the pieces together. I'm just a random, ugly stranger to her.