|
|
Aurora Borealis (pt.4)
The next morning I thanked the Night Forest pack for their hospitality and departed from their forest. Fang and Amber bade me farewell, River nodded to me, and Lily, Ivy, and Moon just watched me as I left. Shadow, however, was conspicuously absent.
It wasn’t until that evening, after I had caught a rabbit and settled down to sleep, that I remembered River’s words. The reason they came back to me was that I sensed someone nearby. I looked back in the direction I had come from and saw a boy of around seventeen dressed all in black, with black hair and piercing blue eyes standing in the snow. He was watching me.
Slowly I rose to my feet and approached him. I offered him a hand in greeting, but he didn’t even look at it. But I knew who this was. I would have recognized those eyes anywhere. There was something so wild about them that even a human would probably have realized what he was.
“Shadow?” I inquired.
The boy nodded.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked. “You should be with your pack.”
“I have no pack,” the boy said. His voice was as cold as the snow that fell all around us.
I narrowed my eyes at that. “You are a part of the Night Forest pack.”
“No,” the boy said. “I have no pack. I am alone, as you are.”
“No,” I said sternly. “My pack is dead. You have a pack. You belong with them. Go back.”
But the boy shook his head. “I can never really belong to the Night Forest pack. You saw the way Amber looks at me. I do not belong there. That is why I plan to join one like myself. One who does not belong anywhere.”
“You’re not coming with me,” I said.
“Why not?” Shadow replied.
“It’s too dangerous for you out here,” I told him.
He merely scoffed at me. “I think it is more dangerous for you than it is for me. River told you what I am. Take me with you. Or do you not want a wild Canthine as a companion?”
“Why do you take a human form?” I asked, evading his question. I admit, I was intrigued by his chosen form. Never before had I seen a wolf Canthine present their human form.
“I have my own reasons,” the boy said.
“You’re proving you can be trusted,” I guessed. “That you aren’t as wild as most of your kind.”
“Perhaps,” Shadow replied. “But we have not yet been properly introduced. I am Shadow of the Storm Sky pack.”
“I am Isolf of the River Bend pack,” I said. “You wish to be my travelling companion?”
The boy nodded.
“Do you know where I’m going?” I inquired.
Shadow shrugged. “It does not matter to me.”
“That’s good,” I replied with a grin. “Because I don’t have a clue either.”
|
|
Comments