The Girl Who Loved a Wolf

The girl was hunting, but not for her.

It was not the girl’s weapon that wounded the beast, but it might as well have been.

For her brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers killed the wolves.

She would just be one more, another pelt to keep their hairless hides warm in the biting cold that never ended, that said they didn’t never belong here, that howled it along with the wolves, until one by one their songs ended.

But this wolf, blood matting her hide from shoulder to flank, jaws loose and pink tongue long lolling as she whined and wheezed—the girl felt so deeply sad for this creature that she let a rabbit get away to go to her.

She had seen plenty up close, but only already dead, usually skinned or rotten.

Even bloody and dying, the living wolf was the most beautiful thing the girl had ever seen.

The girl crept closer, the wolf already scrabbling its broken body to face her, to fight her.

She stopped ten paces from the beast, and drew back her arm, aiming steady for the poor creature's eye.

Her yellow and black and white eye, bright with life yet, still fighting…

The girl lowered her arm.

“Wolf. I mean you no harm.” 

Slowly she took a step closer, and another, the beast watching her with lip snarling, claws flexing in the blood-muddied dirt.

The girl knelt down, and the wolf growled.

“Wolf. Let me help you.” The girl reached out an open hand towards the wolf’s hind leg and it kicked out at her, clawing red marks down her arm.

“Wolf. You’ll die without me.” The girl leaned closer to see her wounds, and the wolf snapped her jaws, catching the girl's wrist.

“Wolf, let me go,” the girl cried out, “or we’ll both die.” 

“Then we’ll both die,” said the wolf.

And they did.

End.