The snow was all around, she stood in a patch of dead brown grass in the middle of a glittering field of ice. Screams echoed through her mind but made no sound disturbing the crystalline peace of this place. The sun dipped its lower edge against the horizon, and a weal of red-gold spread itself across the sky, gloriously bruised.
The sound of a deep wolf voice shattered the silence and, paradoxically, quieted the screaming inside her head. Cracks appeared in the ice riming the snow across the plain, and the entire world seemed to shatter, including the sky. When it reformed, the sun was showing its last sliver above the edge of the world. The last rivulets of pink slipped silently into indigo.
When she woke, Diane remembered the cold of the dream, and the beauty of the sunset reflected in the snow-covered plain. She heard the two voices again in her mind's ear, one deep, one high. She wondered who they were.
Bonnie wrote this one based on a conversation between Woofy and Diane
The wolf stretched in the noonday light and kicked at her ear with a back paw gently. She yawned wide as she rolled to her feet, her glimmering black tongue lolling over her lips. She walked slowly to the mouth of the cave and sat, looking out over the land, her huge white form silhouetted against the late winter landscape outside. Diane walked over to the big Bone Gnawer, curious. Woofy attacked her mangled front paw fiercely, after a flea.
"Hey Bane of Cars..." Diane sat beside her, cross-legged, still in her human form "Do you know your lineage, or anything?"
Woofy perked her ears toward Diane as she spoke, then cocked her head to the Child of Gaia. "Lineage?" She paused for a minute, panting softly in the heat, "Mostly garou." She licked her chops, "You can call me Woofy, if you want."
Diane laughed softly, "Okay, thanks Woofy," she reached out and scratched behind one of Woofy’s large furry ears, "I meant in a bit more detail… any stories about your garou ancestors’ feats, or like that."
Woofy’s foot twitched contentedly at the scratching, "All my ancestors but one are Wendigo or Uktena… or kinfolk… My dad’s the odd-man-out."
"Really? How did you get to be a Bone Gnawer then? Or should I not ask?"
"Wendigo didn't suit me… My cousin is Uktena though... you'll meet her soon, maybe."
Diane nodded, scratching deeper into Woofy’s thick coat at the positive response, "Did they take it hard, you leaving them?"
"They weren’t too keen on it, no, but I’d been resisting them for years. I think they were glad they could finally give up on me."
"Maybe so."
"My mom led a small mixed pack of Haida Wendigo and Uktena, she tried to call the cannibal spirit on someone and it backfired, that’s when I left… You can make a story of that, Diane-the-Galliard." Woofy licked at Diane’s fingers, causing the woman to giggle.
"I will then. It sounds like it’d be a very good one."
"What about you? What is your lineage?"
Diane hesitated before answering, "Mom was a Child of Gaia. My father…"
Woofy thumped her tail against the ground and tilted her head toward Diane, "That’s all right… you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want." She smiled, toothily.
Diane smiled gently at Woofy, "Maybe another time?"
Woofy nodded her head a few times, "I’ll tell you who my dad is too, then we’ll be even." Woofy stepped back from the woman, and shifted to her human mien, to scratched her head around the metal plate that replaces a mass of missing skin. Diane, in turn, shifted to her wolf form and rested her head on Woofy’s knee.
"Even, then," Diane whuffed softly, and Woofy settled into a scratching behind her ears.