Quileute Lugosi Romulus Remus
Humans are social creatures. They relish touch.
A baby against its mother's skin: unblemished cheek to full breast. A young man genuflecting in front of an elder, clasping a corded, withered hand between his own strong palms. Lovers, body to body in a bed. A child, chattering and tightly hugging her father's legs. A family fighting: the peacemaker holding conflicting parties at bay, hands to chests, then initiating apologies and hugs of relief and acceptance. Colleagues shaking hands, making eye contact. Mourners holding each other: embracing grief and soothing it with the warm presence and contact of a living body.
-xxx-
Wolves are pack animals. They relish interaction.
A pup squirming against its littermates, all seeking a teat along their dam's side. A cocky, half-grown youngster full of bluff sinking to his belly at the snap of the alpha. A bitch in heat backing up to a male, his tongue lolling in a triumphant grin. Pups gambolling in a merry circle around the adults returning from a hunt. A fight amongst the pack over the last scraps on a carcass followed by grovelling and licking acts of contrition from those in the wrong. A pack circling: hunting together. The loss of an old warrior in the hunt; whining, licking the gored hole in his side and then trotting away from his still-warm body knowing he must be left.
-xxx-
Jacob is alone.
She is gone.
Gone. Not dead. If dead was the case, he'd be able to understand it. In his wolf form there is only room for alive and dead. Alive is here. Dead is gone. But she is both here and dead. Despite this confusion he cannot bear to leave his wolf because there is less pain in his canine head than his human one.
He hunts. He eats. He wanders. He sleeps. He runs. He hunts again.
The snap and twist of warm sinew between his teeth. Alive and then dead. The act of killing another animal is not social nor is it merely an interaction. It is a necessity. The death of prey gives life to the hunter.
But her death gave life to nothing. Nothing except a monster and his monstrous pain.
He paces. He swims. He dozes. He travels. He avoids. He hunts.
Every time his meal dies he wonders if this is what happened to her warm flesh. Did the tissue give way to invading teeth like dough under a child's fingers? Did the bone splinter from pressure like a tree under an axe?
He roams. He dreams. He exists. He rambles. He evades. He does not hunt.
He is weak.
-xxx-
Humans are social creatures. They relish interaction.
They laugh, cry, play, love, hate, fight together.
Wolves are pack animals. They relish touch.
They bite, mark, sniff, lick, feed, touch each other.
-xxx-
Jacob is alone.
He has chosen to be the lone wolf.
His wolf is cold and vacant. It recalls a time when it was both a human and a wolf. When it had both friends and a pack. Something about old, grainy horror movies flickers across its mind. A room full of pack/friends and a now-foreign commodity: laughter. The ridiculous villain Dracula on television.
He curls up around a rock. An empty oil drum. A tree. An abandoned truck. A fencepost.
The memory changes. A classroom appears. It is full of friends and pack/friends. A history class biography presentation on Bela Lugosi.
None of the things the wolf touches return his touch. He shifts. He breathes. There is snow. The wolf is chilled and nearly empty.
In the dark, the wolf remembers what a dare is. Or what it used to mean. One of the pack/friends had dared the wolf's human form to do the presentation on the man who played the world's most famous vampire:
I guess I'm pretty much of a lone wolf. I don't say I don't like people at all, but, to tell you the truth, I only like it then if I have a chance to look deep into their hearts and their minds. -Bela Lugosi
-xxx-
Humans adore being in love. They adore being able to fit within another's heart. To be wanted and to be held in the snug warmth of someone else's affection.
Wolves adore being in pack. They adore being able to slide into a hierarchy. To be useful and to be strong within the powerful structure of their family's group.
-xxx-
Jacob is alone.
He did look deep into her heart and her mind. When those organs were alive. And here, not gone. When one beat and the other raced. He looked and he saw and he loved beyond words, touches or actions. He loved so much. And now there is nothing.
His wolf breathes in. It breathes out. That is all. He is not wanted or held. He is not useful or strong.
The wolf cannot bear the idea of life and death when that perfect, circular, endless dichotomy has been ruined. He cannot kill to live. He can no longer live.
-xxx-
The trim, cream-white female trots along. She has no path and is barely visibly against the snow.
She stops to sniff a slab of stone where an odd scent lingers. Something she's never smelled before. It is unfamiliar but not unpleasant.
Her pups, four bundles of fluff, died. She does not know why. Her grief is only present in the heavy pressure of her full milk glands and rigid teats. Sitting, she licks at her side but is unable to relieve the swelling.
She huffs into the crisp air and continues her trek. She's not sure what she's seeking. Maybe it is something to replace her babies. On the edge of a settlement amidst the acrid whiff of the two-legs, next to a big tin holding a lingering slick scent, she again catches the odd smell. She's sure it belongs to something living and carnivorous but she is not threatened by it.
While she was nudging the dead pups, her pack left. They moved on, following the caribou and hunting in fresh grounds. The little white female was suddenly unaccompanied and began her own travels away from the den and the cold nip of death.
Her small paws are sharp on the snow. Near a low bush she finds the smell present, stronger this time. Inhaling its tang she is reminded of her mate, now gone, and something like the two-legs. It is comforting and disturbing.
A hare satisfies her appetite. She does not need to eat much; there is no one to feed. She knows that over-indulging will only intensify the stretch in the tissues along her belly. She lies down to sleep near one of the metal boxes the two-legs use to move themselves around. Their scent is nearly gone from it but the odour of the unknown animal is at its strongest yet. It is not fox, dog, lynx, fisher, cat, bear or wolverine. It is better.
Rested, the female wolf picks up the pace. Her milk is still paining her but she has a path now so she can ignore the discomfort. Following a barrier constructed by the two-legs, she knows she's near her destination. The scent is palpable on her tastebuds.
She finds a pile of auburn fur wrapped around one of the tree-pieces used to hold up the barrier. Beneath the fur is a body. Like her pups, it holds no warmth. The female folds herself around it. She does not know why. She waits. The smell and her milk are telling her to wait.
She is awakened by suckling. The body has moved. It is gaining some warmth. Stretching, she gives it access to her whole side and realises it is much larger than her. Thin, a skeleton covered by a pelt, but huge and full of potential.
-xxx-
Jacob is dead.
The wolf no longer has any human memories. It has no memories except the warmth of both white milk and a white she-wolf.
It learns. It hunts. It mates. It runs. It plays. It lives.
The pups are varicoloured. One is reddish with a frosted white overtone. The fattest has splodgy patches of brown and cream. Another is brindled, brown and grey stripes. The littlest is roan, nearly pink.
-xxx-
The Capitoline Wolf raised two humans. Two sons who grew to men. She loved and touched them. Her milk warmed their bodies.
The Arctic she-wolf rescued one man/wolf. Two beings who healed into one wolf. She loved and touched him. Her milk warmed their babies.
A/N - Wrote this months ago and am finally getting around to putting some stuff up here in FF. This is what happens when you're sad, try to write heartfail and then realise you're actually an optimistic biologist who really can't let anything die! It is also what happens with you decide to breed non-canon Twilight with old vampire movies and Roman legends and wait to see what happens. Hmmm...mad science, anyone?