Ylva a feral's tale
Ylva a feral tale
Chapter 1 The Passing time
The Fenris call this the passing time. The time between life and death. Not all wolves have the luxury of this time. Many are taken swiftly by fever or by the hardships of hunger, femmes lost bearing pups, males lost battling the predators of the wild or to the upright walking hunters and their magic.
Ylva stirs. She is at peace however there is no fear, nothing left undone. One more summer would have been nice but she knows as do all the fenris, that the wheel turns, young are born and the old pass beyond. Waking is harder and harder each day, sluggishly awareness return. The nights chill has frosted the tips of her fur.
The pains and aches are still dulled by the wolf moss she has eaten.It has too stilled the gnawing hunger pains of her empty belly. There is just a hollowness and weakness as she rises to greet another day. Ylva looks around the cave of bones where all wolves go who can no longer hunt and are becoming a burden to the pack. It has all the marks of a good den, a roof low enough to keep the wind and weather at bay and a supply of fresh water nearby. The cave also has wolf moss which has a natural anaesthetic in it but little nutrition.It keeps her belly full and her pain free but each day and night however she gets weaker from the cold. It becomes harder to wake and move to seek water and what little food might be found.
There are dream berries too to allow her to wander along the dream ways.
Scattered around are the skeletons and skulls of her ancestors and her kin. She herself has brought her father's and brother's skulls here and her beloved mate's. These she keeps close and in the dreaming they become her beloved kith and kin. Her brother half tail ready to make her laugh. Her father so wise and so kind his stories and actions the model by which she ran the pack. Her mate so strong so wild and yet so loving. Her memories of their loving keeping her warm even on the coldest of her nights here.
Winter has put snow on the ground and the local area is pretty much hunted out. The small scraps of life she catches by no means replacing the energy required to hunt. It is hastening her end perhaps but the joy of the kill makes her passing easier too.