"So ya been noticin' dat ya can 'read' others."
Ghede was 'speaking' to the wolf, who had been growing bigger by the day. She had told him about her meetings with other wolves, and how she had been able to pick up certain thoughts from their minds. She wanted to know more, she wanted to learn how to read at will.
"But be wary of ya own t'oughts, small one." he warned her one day. "For if ya try too hard, ya might share dem without meanin' to."
She had thought long and hard on this concept, trying to find ways to 'hear' without being heard. For the rest of the night, she attempted the trick on Ghede. The few times it worked, she wondered if it was because she was getting better at it, or if because he had already mastered the concept.
They sat together for hours now, for the man knew that the best teacher was the mind itself - doing a task over and over, completing it and making it harder with each repetition. The wolf was finding that with each passing sun, she could willingly call forth Ghede's thoughts, without him having to project them 'at' her. She could now delve into his mind without an invitation.
She couldn't wait to test this out on her own kind.
He made sure to warn her each day of the dangers of letting others in on her little secret. It wasn't a terrible thing to be able to do - reading others thoughts - but he had felt the pain of telling his own kind and receiving their insults and finally walking away into the forest alone, after they had cast him out, fearing that he had been mindsick, and that he would pass it on to anyone he came close to.
Ghede wanted to make sure that the pup would grow strong as she came to adulthood, but at the same time, he did not wish for her to be a loner like he had become. She could live a normal life if she would only listen to and heed his warnings.
"Ya must be subtle, ya mind must be quiet." he confided a new 'secret' to her every few days, and she practiced and built upon it with each passing hour.
One day, the pup remembered her meeting with the wolf Reaumer. He had called her creature a 'two-legger', and she was curious about this now, as it seemed a fair assumption. As with the first day she had come across Ghede, she asked once more - this time in a way he could understand. "What are you?" Out of the blue, the familiar question came as he lay on his bed of hide and thatch. He rolled onto his side to face the wolf, who was sitting in her usual spot beside the bed.
He had neglected yet to make her her own nest as well, as he had promised that night. But she kept this thought to herself for now, it being a more playful point than an annoyed one.
"Aaaah." he made the noise audibly, as it was more an emotion attached to it, than an actual word with a specific meaning. There was a mysterious smile that came with the noise, and the emotion was one of interest, contentedness, and acceptance.
The man laid back on his self-made cot and raised his arms back, resting his head on them. His eyes closed and his breathing slowed as he fell asleep. The last thought to tickle Shiva's brain came a few seconds later.
"I am Human."
