"Gorram! It's colder'n a convent in the core out here!"
You follow the huge man, your head bent against the wind. You amuse yourself by stepping in each of his dinosaur footprints (He is with them always, now, you murmur through chapped lips). This is also practice. Two by one, confuse the Sun.
He wears seven-league boots, you believe, and yours only three. The mistakes matter less here; the only punishment more crushed white. Crush, crunch, crisp, cringe as the mercury falls. The mercury—no, mercenary—money-man takes the brunt of the whiplash currents (no red for the better and how is that possible?) for you, sacrifices his body, again, to your health.
Always the sacrificial lamb. You think you'll call him Isaac. After all, he laughs. No doe, no Jack (Jill is a girl's name), no waterhillcrowns. Brown paper to patch the broken? Such a strange custom. These are a few of my favorite things.
Your delight in snowflakes melted when you tumbled through them. Should not chase the shiny, silly RiverOtter, unique like each other body. The Lambasaur, Isaac-on-the-Cobb, came tumbling after—maybe Jill would be a more appropriate appellation. You should be Mary, contrary, followed to school one day. Your IsaacJayneLambJack would make the children laugh and play, to see such an incongruous aberration.
You are very glad not to be Bo Peep, happier to be the one separated from the ninety-nine, and suddenly the sacrifice is the very good shepherd and the links create a chain, chain you to him and them and your brain is such an interesting place. Of course, it is also a funhouse horror show, a stony, rocky horror picture show.
But not always. This white slickhard insulates against forced knowledge. Who in her right mind would read for pleasure? You were once in your more correct mind: welcome to your left.
The coldwet has numbed your flanges, the ones near your metatarsals, and you must wonder if your footwear is cracked, flawed, letting the unwanted in, or if the moisture you will find is sweat, performing its function.
Your ankles. The Aech-Tooh-Oweh sneaks in and matters its state, state of matters, state of the union of matter conversion from solid to liquid to girlflesh to shivers.
You feel the mansheepboy's exhaustion, frustration. You wish you could open the back to the forth and teach him your gratitude. You know he's worthy (miles more worthy than what you've got) and you know what you'll call him. He could be your Vera, and he will, but time is a fickle dimension, Einstein. Tricksy, masquerading as low steady beat or tick-tick-tock, hickory dickory dock.
And suddenly you are impatient and you push at the time-curtain with your mind. Gorram rutting chronos, Kronos, Zeit, que hora! Heavy, foolish, stubborn curtain. It shifts a smidge under your weight, compensates and now it is you who are shifting back.
Simon is always the one to say, Patience, mei mei, patience. Idiot boob. Gormless tit.
So you are still trudging and everything has not changed and then the mutton pauses on the path to the slaughter. You notice too late, distracted by Brother Needle Breast, and your face is smooshed against Alpha ram's fleece.
You step back, embarrassed, trip and land on your pi gu in the snow. Lucy in the sky with blue diamond eyes look down at you, twinkling and amused despite themselves, and you remember now that the lamb with mint sauce is only wearing sheep clothes, granny clothes.
What big eyes and teeth, but you have no need to cry wolf—no need at all. This is your Alpha male, someday your mate, and you are not afraid. You grin back and, because you are already soaked, slide your appendages along the surface of the white. Flow, Riverangel. The wolf is laughing teeth, now, as your antics distract and please. Alpha feels like a pup, a youngling despite his years, and you thrill to know you are the cause.
When your exuberance has left you tired, belly aching from the giggles, your Alpha bends his form, his eyes on yours, reaches for you with his sizable paws. And the electricity goes through you when yours touch his as he helps you to your feet.
He is task-focused again, pointing to a miracle across the clearing. A little cabin in the woods—you've gone into the woods and met a wolf and his song greets you: Hello, little girl.
And you dance toward the shelter, your den for the night with your wolf-mate, dreaming of fires and quilts and affection-love. In his head, he chuckles from his belly, but this is silent from his exhaustion. You bound to the door, and if you had claws, you'd be scrabbling, and if you were less human, you'd whine high in your throat.
But it is unlocked and you enter, your Jaynewolf mere strides behind you. And you freeze and you scream.
