Was it real? Spring green eyes had recently been unleashed, prickling beneath the sun’s fervent glory. The tiny fem - not petite, literally several inches shorter than the average wolf and quite scrawny at that - had been sprawled upon a loosely crafted abode of scattered foliage damp with the thick wet of dew and traces of previous deluges. Little more than the fitful shade of intertwining, decaying logs supplied some false hope of shelter. At the very least, the wet of the lean-to proved useful in the brightness of the sun. With it piercing the sparse, brittle canopy and glinting off the white surface of muddied snow it was excruciatingly bright and warm for the winter.
These minor details held little bearing when compared to the larger thoughts brimming in her mind, however. “Was it real?” being one of them.
Dreams were fickle, that she knew, but the one she had encountered that night had been intoxicatingly real. The brush of the tranquil fingers of wind, the light pitter patter of rain drenching her already sopping pelt, the rush of the river about her slender legs, the cry of other wolves meeting in unison, the sudden lack of sound from her own muzzle, the erratic flight of a dislodged bird, the glow of the moon…
It all felt so real, yet so distant. So desired, yet so detested. She wanted it to be real, craved for such magic to be real… But then she didn’t. Why experience such wonder when she was unable to take up the throaty chorus herself?
And yet suddenly the delicate thoughts were all lost to instinct when her bowels gave a meek groan of displeasure. Food. How long had she been without proper sustenance? She had dined merely on petty creatures such as crows and squirrels or even the occasional decaying carcass left behind by some other hunter for so long…
