Changing

Raven's POV

Orocarni, SA 8

I woke one morning in bright sunlight. K'ashi slept beside me, exhausted after last evening's hunt. I had expected to sleep at least until dusk and felt a bit deserted and bewildered being awake so early. But I had gone to sleep at dawn with a weight in my gut that contradicted my feeling of emptiness. I could find no word to call it by, but that was not important.

I missed the wide snows, the barren mountains, and the cold lands in general. They were my world, I knew everything there, every plant and whatever else lived there, furred, feathered or mailed. I knew the scent of the seasons there, knew how the sky would colour at dusk, and what the clouds portended. That were all things I had not thought about there. They had been simply there, and went on according to the way it was in the eversnows. When things happened now I often could not explain them. Rains came out of nowhere, and dusk might be as much an affair of blinding colours just as an imperceptible grey darkening. Or lightening, if dawn was involved. As it happened, I watched dusk more often. That was when the wolves woke and usually played among themselves. The older ones of our clan knew these lands. It was good to have K'ashi who could tell what everything meant, but it also stung me to have to rely on him as if I were still a pup.

And I missed the northern lights. There were none here, and the nightskies seemed curiously empty at times, but all the same bounded. You had to walk far and climb high if you wanted a place where you could see far and wide around you. There was no spotting things from far away, and then running to catch up with your prey. You had to sniff, and track and stalk here like a great cat, not like the white wolves in the snows. At night, though there were no flowing lights there seemed to be fewer stars, or so I thought. K'ashi said it was only because there were high clouds here, and more hazes that obscured the smaller stars that it seemed so. But these lands here were not bad. I had the grey wolves to tell me what to do here to live well. In a calm way I did not understand a part of me knew I would soon be at home here as I had been in the eversnows. The wolves adapted, from one place to the next. They lived well in either one. Many of the clan had not felt so fortunate in the eversnows and were extremely glad to be back here. K'ashi for one. He had returned to his territory now. I would find a place here. Niy'ashi had, and so would I. Only I missed the great white wolves, who were gentler than the massive greys that travelled with our clan. They had not come with us to the warm lands here, except a few younger ones, mixed offspring. They were larger by far than our greys, as large as a changewolf. They were not as gentle as their white parent, and you had to remember in playing with them that if you really angered one of them, there was more weight, strength and larger jaws to those furred ones. And I could see why not more whites had left their own lands – it was too hot here. Of course, it was summer now, K'ashi said. The winters here would be cold and snowy, too, but I still did not like it very much. In the eversnows, the wind had always been cold. Here, even the wind was hot on days like this. The wolves slept those days away, the clan did, even Niy'ashi did. But I did not want to sleep now. I had dreamed. Not badly, but curiously. K'ashi said I was too young to change, to be like the wolves when I wished. I couldn't see why. I had walked all the way out of the snow-lands. I had hunted what I could. I was part of the wolves' pack as I was part of the clan. I slept with them, played, hunted and ate with them, guarded their pups. I could speak to them, and they would call me when they were about to play or hunt. Why should I not fur now, when they were treating me as one of them already? In my dreams, I was often wolf.

But this morning, for the first time, I had seen a way. I had walked a way to become a wolf myself, and this time, I had walked it seeing. I had a feeling I would know what to do even now that I was awake. In my dream, I had been wolf, the way I had been wolf in my dreams before, only this time that wolf had led me. I had followed a wolf that I knew I was myself.

Maybe that was what Onakir had meant when had said the change was inside yourself. But he had not said you got the key in a dream. It came to you when the time was right. And K'ashi said it was when you were grown up.

Which I was not. So I got up quietly, without waking K'ashi, and ran to the place where the pack slept. I wanted to try this, but I wanted a wolf near, and I did not want anyone else watching. If I failed, I need not tell. The wolves were all asleep. None bothered to wake as I walked among them. I went to the leading pair, and knelt beside the female. Her right ear was torn, and so we called her Notch-ear, but she did not care for the name. She listened, though, when she heard the sound, and would do us the favour of coming when we addressed her like that. She was the daughter of a white and a grey wolf, but she had come from the snows with us nevertheless. If anyone, she would understand my longing for the lands we had left. I buried my hands in her ruff and kissed her muzzle, then lay down close beside her. She shifted a little, stretched and dropped one of her forelegs over my shoulder, just as K'ashi would hold me when we slept. She was longer than I, and my feet would come scarcely to her hind legs. I curled up beside her, though at the moment I definitely was hot enough myself that I did not need the warmth of a furred one around me. This forest was lush green and leafy, and smelled very different from the airy and high forests in the eversnow-mountains. The sun burned the scents out of the ground and into the air. I quested for Notch-ear's mind, first to share for a moment her idea of a proper cool pine-forest, but then to get a better understanding of the present scents. Hers was still better than mine.

And then I moved to test my dream. Maybe having Notch-ear beside me would give me a better idea how it would be to really be a wolf. I desperately longed for the moment I could do that, when I myself could have a wolf's power. Long legs for running and leaping, and great soft paws instead of the two thin arms that were little good for running, or the long, thick legs of unfurred with feet that caught under roots and sprung twigs more often than a wolf's. A long muzzle with strong, sharp fangs and a nose that warmed the air as you breathed it.

I could see the wolf I would be clearly, only I did not know which colour I would finally be. Niy'ashi, K'ashi and Onakir all had black hair, but only Onakir was a black wolf. Niy'ashi was grey when he changed, a colour that was seldom in our clan, and K'ashi was special, because he was amber-coloured, with brown, tawny and black markings.

I did not care at all which colour I would be. Wolves did not care for that. I just wanted to run as one of them. I remembered the dream very well, though I had not seen a colour. Or I had paid no attention to it. Now I wanted to find out. I breathed Notch-ear's scent, listened to her heartbeat, and waited until my world was filled only with the wolf's presence, and then with her awareness of the world, and her calm. I let myself fall into that, and reached for the memory of my dream, how I had turned into a wolf. There was something older and wiser that sometimes said, do this, or leave this. It was almost like K'ashi warning me not to run into sting-weed, but it was not a voice outside me. The notions came from myself, but also as if someone was guiding me. Without being intent on or conscious of it. The notions were what helped me when I was with the wolves, they told me how to understand what they did, and what they meant by it. The dream now gave me the revelation I thought I should have had before. Because K'ashi and Onakir and Niy'ashi had told me of it. And they had said something like there was a wolf in all of us, and making up another part of us without which we were not whole. Well, that would be true. If I did not have the wolves, and could not talk to them and be with them…I had not thought about that either, before. What if I had not been able to do what all others of the clan did? If I could not lie here with Notch-ear now as if I was her own pup? What then? I could not finish that thought, chiefly because I had no idea how you could live differently from this. Could want to live differently from this. I knew there were indeed people who did live differently from us. Father came from them. Father did not have a wolf to help him. But I did not think I would ask him about that. I wanted my own wolf, not only as the warm and gentle guide in my mind, but I wanted him to be my body as well. Even as I thought that, it was as if my hands cupped a small, smooth stone and not held Notch-ear's pelt. I knew what I had to do as if I only needed to juggle the pebble which side up I wanted. My guide was part of me. I was my own guide. But still, I would never be alone, because that guide was not only myself – but a wolf. A true wolf, only furred. Not as I was, furred and unfurred. Of course there was no pebble, only a thought, something I had to reach out for – I had to will it, and I did, and the ground seemed to drop away from me. I had once stepped on ice that had given way beneath me and plunged me into a cold mire of slush and mud. It was like falling again, but only for a second, and there came no cold shock. As in my dream, my guide was there, and he now had not only a voice but a face, and I knew it was that face I had seen in my dream. A wolf, a black-furred wolf.

I opened my eyes, and though the world had changed abruptly, in depths and sound and feel, I was not lost. Everything was changed, but it was as it should be, as I had seen it uncounted times before, through Notch-ear's eyes, her mate's eyes, and those of their pups. I knew their ears and noses, and now I knew their bodies too. Because I was like them. Unfurred, I needed my eyes much more than I knew Notch-ear needed hers, and even now, though I mainly smelled and felt her, I first of all had to see myself. It was different seeing furred, but I still recognized everything. Where my hands had grasped Notch-ear's fur my paws now rested on her side. Short and thick black fur covered the naked skin of unfurred, and my breathing was different. Easier, and my body felt lighter, more supple and full of power. Notch-ear blinked in lazy surprise, stared at me, and then sniffed me. She started to lick me all over with her rough, powerful tongue, which was a curious sensation because I only knew the feel on naked skin. Though fur protected from thorns and brambles, stinging flies and even painful bows and kicks from hooves and horn it seemed more sensitive to touch. Wolves licked to wash, to soothe, and to say they loved one another, and I had often fallen asleep to the one or other rasping his tongue over me, but Notch-ear licked insistently and diligently as if washing one of her own puppies. Her touch was familiar as much as the new sensation of furred skin was unfamiliar, and it connected me to this also familiar but unaccustomed form very effectively. Then she rolled me over and nudged me °Go to K'ashi. He happy°

I mind-spoke the wolves all the time, usually my clan-mates as well, but I must have stared at her in dumbstruck surprise now because she dropped her head and flicked her ears to avoid an indirect challenge. I had not meant this and quickly assured her, nudging her muzzle up gently. I was used to wolf mind-speech, as warm as their dreams but with clearer images, yet not to such plain orders. With this wonderful shape obviously would in time come a much better way to talk to them. But I did not trust it to convey my gratitude and elation correctly right now, so I settled for the simple wolf-way of telling. I licked her muzzle and head.

But then I did not want to return immediately to the others. I almost reached for Niy'ashi to tell him, and held back thoughtfully. This was mine, my time, my experience. Except for my love for the now far away eversnows, this was what I had only to myself. For a while. I looked forward to show them, yes, but mostly I wished to understand all this for myself first. And so I trotted through the forest on my own, until Notch-ear caught up with me. I glanced at her, but she offered me no explanation and so we went on together comfortably. She left me in peace, only trailed me. I understood she was, once again, guarding me as she would watch over her pups exploring the world outside their den. I remembered the first time I consciously experienced springtime in the eversnows land. Within one hot, very hot day all the ankle-high snow had melted from the plains and the rivers had swollen into roaring streams, and a wonderful spicy scent rose from the steaming ground. In the night, there had been frost again, but the next day, there had been first brightly green shoots all over the wide meadows, and another day later, white and yellow flowers had appeared everywhere. As at that time, I walked in wonder now, only doubly so because in addition to the world of scent and sound that had opened to me I had also a body that I had craved all my life and in all my dreams. The wolf did not keep track of time. Only when Notch-ear's belly rumbled perceptively, and mine answered in sympathy, and I heard a voice that called my name I realized I had better show myself. I took leave of Notch-ear, wishing I could run and hunt with her right away, but guessed she would not have it. I had realized this day that she not only treated me as a puppy, in a way I was one indeed. This time, my pride did not grudge this. The wolf realized that, the wolf that I was, and he had no concept of pride. I now had time, all the time I could wish for, to learn to be a wolf. I would start with changing back, eating, and enjoying whatever reaction the others would have. Would they be angry? Was I indeed too young to change and had transgressed some rule I had not asked Onakir for and he had not thought of telling me himself? I decided I would not care as I followed the sound of the soft voice calling.

"Kela'shin! Come out, this is really no fun any more"

°Why do you call me that?° I demanded, thinking at K'ashi as I would have when I had been unfurred. It worked. And this was the first and only time I managed to startle him terribly. He gave a yelp, and even dropped the spear he was carrying. I took in the scene with relish, and knew I would tease him forever with this. He stared at me, his jaw dropping, and only then I realized he had neither scented me nor otherwise been aware of me. Instinctively, my wolf-guide had led me around to come upon him like this. I leaped down the small bank and came towards him °You know that such names are secret°

"K-…Raven? Is that you?"

He dropped to his knees and stroked my fur. I felt his mind questing for mine, and completed the contact we so often shared. Then he laughed, and embraced me and did not let go for a long while.

"Tell me" he said softly finally "Tell me how it happened"

°I dreamed° I said °I dreamed I was wolf, and when I woke and tried it, I found the way I had seen. And it worked°

K'ashi laughed "Oh, boy, tell me, not give me a single line"

°I am hungry. I want to change back and eat°

"Yes…You want to try on your own? Alone?" he added abruptly.

°Yes°

Gratefully I watched him pick up his spear and walk into the trees until we could not see each other anymore. I lay down, a simple motion which alone gave me a wave of pleasure. I listened inside myself for a moment, looking for the wolf-part which I could now find and join and separate from easily, and thought I wanted to go back to unfurred for a while. And then I lay on the forest-floor, naked, and uncomfortably cramped because I had lain down as a wolf would find comfortable. Unfurred's muscles and bones did not think much of this position and I quickly uncurled and sat up.

I licked my lips, and gathered awareness of myself as unfurred for a moment until I found the strength, will and voice to speak "K'ashi?"

He was back quickly, running, leaping the rotting stump in his path to get to me. He laughed, as happy as I had ever seen him for some reason, and swept me up in his arms. Once more, I could not begrudge someone the puppy-treatment today. I felt tired, and his carrying me was quite comfortable. So he marched into the middle of the camp and through it, and to his place. There he sat a rabbit in front of me, one that had been killed only a little while ago because it was limp and warm yet. I knew as wolf I would have set my fangs to it right away, and I longed for the time I could chase and kill my own prey. But for now I took a long piece of flint gratefully and started to cut and skin the rabbit. We shared it in silence, and then K'ashi asked "Ready to show the others?"

"Won't they be…angry?" I asked, feeling suddenly subdued "Onakir? You? You said I was too young-"

"Bah" K'ashi said "I thought you were too young. You proved us wrong, and there is no reason to be angry. You…I think there was no one who managed to change younger than you"

"You are teasing me again" I said "You are always saying I am the meanest, laziest…"

"Not on this" K'ashi interrupted with a laugh "I won't. You are what – eleven suncourses old?"

I nodded mutely. K'ashi knew my age very well, why did he ask?

"See" he said as if that explained everything "And those I know took more, much more suncourses until they were able to change"

"How many?"

"Some, twenty. More, over twenty"

"Twenty?"

K'ashi held up both hands "Ten, and ten again"

What a long time it seemed when K'ashi made small holes in the ground with his fingers. And each point was supposed to be whole sun-course? I shook my head "Wolves do not count. What use is it?"

"For wolves, little. But maybe for unfurred. We counted before your father came along with his rows and rows of numbers. If you want to go out scouting with Niy'ashi, you must know how to count numbers"

"Notch-ear did not ask for my age" I pointed out.

K'ashi laughed "Oh come on. We go to Onakir"

"I am tired" I hedged.

K'ashi grinned "I know the moment I leave you, you will be back with the wolves. Sleep if you will, but then I will stay, too"

I curled up beside him, really too tired to retaliate for his teasing and insistence. As soon as I closed my eyes, I could feel the beckoning way much clearer. Not yet, I said to myself as much as to the feeling which said now. It was there, and it was a little as if I could mind-speak Notch-ear again. But it was myself, somehow, and another wolf than Notch-ear. As K'ashi did, it too guarded me. I fell asleep as deeply as I thought I had not since we had left the eversnows.

I woke in the middle of the night, to the soft sound of voices. K'ashi and Onakir were whispering so as not to wake me. Keeping calm inside myself, I listened without really waking. It was the way wolves always listened even while they slept, and it gave me much pleasure to find I could do it nearly as perfectly now.

For a while, they talked of the clan business. That was nothing I did not know, and I let it pass by. Then Onakir said "That is a tale worth telling, that an Ashi'kha should change so soon that his wolf-form even is yet almost a pup"

"Sometimes you speak like Kelehan, shaman" K'ashi said amusedly

"Then maybe I am justified now in asking them to learn more from me than songs and tales"

"Maybe you are" K'ashi returned "They are both grown, in a way. But you should also keep in mind that Raven will go where Niy'ashi goes"

"Even if that would mean leaving you?" Onakir asked doubtfully.

I felt his doubt echoed in myself. I had not thought about something like that at all, ever, since the one time I had realized I would not be able or allowed to remain alone in the snow-lands. But if Niy'ashi went away, there was nothing for it. Yes, I would go with him, wherever he might go. But why should I have to be made to choose between him and K'ashi? Why should Niy'ash want to go? And when? I wanted to hunt with Notch-ear, to run with the wolves in the long autumn-hunts. No, I did not want to think about such a decision.

"Yes" K'ashi said quietly, and added "But rightly so. His place is with his brother. They will learn from you, but I think you will lose them to the other course you plan. As Kelehan's sons, you can send only them, if you will send anyone"

"I know nothing yet" Onakir said "Nothing except what Kelehan could say or suppose on the grounds of what he remembers. And the little the Hawk tells me. It is futile to worry about that"

Their talk turned to other matters again, and my attention wandered back into sleep. I did not forget the conversation, but did not speak to anyone for a while. Presently, I dismissed it from my mind, until in the next winter I went on my first great hunt with Niy'ashi alone. I loved winter-hunts, because they reminded me so much of the eversnows. One night, Niy'ashi drew symbols in the fresh snow and attempted to teach me some more writing. I went along with it until he said "You did not write K'ashi but K'asha"

We laughed, but then I remembered the overheard words of the shaman and asked "Why does K'ashi think we would leave the clan?"

"Who told you that?" Niy'ashi demanded "K'ashi?"

"I heard" I said neutrally "And why did you not tell me father and Onakir are up to something?"

Niy'ashi was silent for a moment "I would say you are a nosy little bastard, little brother, if I did not know better. What they are up to…I don't think they know, themselves. Father is…"

"Khai'toh. But he is one of the clan now"

"Yes. But what Onakir said, and what father said, is that we might…get into trouble again as when the orcs hunted us into the eversnows"

"Good" I said "Maybe then we can return to proper lands"

Niy'ashi grimaced "No. And what I meant was greater trouble. Father's people, they made a great enemy, in the west. He thinks that enemy might try to reach for these lands as well some time"

"And what should he want with wolves?" I asked, brushing away the symbols we had drawn in the snow "Does he need furs? And what has that got to do with our leaving K'ashi?"

Niy'ashi made an exasperated sound "If you could write at least his name properly I might feel more confident telling you this! – Look, we speak father's own language. At least I do properly" he grinned "And I still have hope you will, too, some far day. So we could speak to his people, find out if that enemy is still an enemy"

"You still did not tell me what he needs furs for"

"I never said he needs furs, Kela'shin!"

"Well, you never said he didn't, either"

My brother groaned, and then laughed "Do you remember what father said about the far west?"

"Of course" I said indignantly "The Valar made his people go there when there was only one folk of unfurred. But some did not want to go, and stayed, and some of them became friends with the wolves. But those who went into the west did not want to stay there forever, either, and when they left, the Valar were angry and said they could never return"

"Yes, but they left for a reason. To regain precious stones their enemy had stolen from them"

I sniffed "I would never take so much trouble for stupid stones"

Niy'ashi shrugged "But they were khai'tohr, so they did. And that enemy followed them back into this world and they made war. In one of those wars, the stone-shelter father came from was destroyed. But the enemy was never defeated, and the stones never regained. And the enemy did not only want to keep the stones, he wanted to win the wars forever and kill all khai'tohr. He still wants to, and father says that he will never stop that until he has not only killed khai'tohr but all other things. Except those he can make to serve him"

"He cannot hunt for himself?" I asked, disgusted "He needs others to hunt for him?"
"Oh, he can" Ni'ashi said "But he prefers others to do the work. He only wants lands, and slaves"

"Slaves?"
"People who hunt for him" Niy'ashi said with a grimace "In a way"

"We…we hunt for ourselves"

"Yes, and that is why father and Onakir think we might leave the clan, sometime. To go west, and to watch and listen. Maybe we can find out if the enemy is still there, or if he is coming east already"

"And if he is?" I asked doubtfully "I do not want to hunt for anyone. And father said he had wolves among his slaves, too-"

"If he is, Onakir says we must fight him. But he thinks we cannot do that as we are. We are only wolves. But khai'toh know how to fight him. Onakir says maybe we could fight on their side to defeat the enemy and keep our lands here"

I was silent for a while. The snow fell thickly now. I wished I could be wolf for a long while, and go all the way back to the eversnows. But then, I would have to go without Niy'ashi. And that was impossible. Just to think of leaving him made me feel hollow and lonely.

"Khai'toh hunt us. They killed Hinyan's father. And that was before we fled to the north. And they have fire" I shuddered involuntarily. Niy'ashi grinned "You made fire yesterday"

"I only did it to prove you I could" I snapped.

"But you did. And you do it without the things father uses. Onakir told me he taught you"

I shrugged "But khai'toh…We could not go to them furred"

"No" Niy'ashi agreed "We would have to pretend we are like them. Like their kin. The ones who look like khai'toh but never went into the west. We would have to watch them for a while, and then pretend, and talk to khai'toh"

"And you want to do it?" I asked doubtfully. Niy'ashi shrugged "Maybe not really want. But it is something we could do together"

"We hunt" I pointed out.

"I mean, something only we could do. If we are careful, we can pass as khai'toh"

I laughed aloud "I couldn't! I am wolf"

"Then you must learn to hide that"

"I am smaller than father. I am smaller even than you. They will know I am not one of them"

"You" Niy'ashi jabbed a finger at me "Are not even grown up, little brother. And it is not as if khai'toh were all as tall as father"

"I don't want to pretend I am not…Ashi'kha"

"Then you will have a problem. Because I want to go, if Onakir asks me"

I was silent again. So I would have to choose. Only this time, unlike when I had to leave the eversnows with all the rest of the clan, I could say no and live on my on. But I could say no to everyone except Niy'ashi.

"I am afraid to leave K'ashi"

"He will stay with the clan. And with father" Niy'ashi pointed out after a moment "And we would not go for a long time. I must learn to use father's sword. And you must learn this language"

I snarled and lunged at him. We rolled in the snow for a while "I will…ask Onakir…to show me…how to make someone…unconscious…with a…hit" Niy'ashi panted, trying to shake me off. I let him go and shook snow out of my hair "Onakir too said something about teaching. What have we done? Are we the only stupid ones that they always talk of teaching?"

Niy'ashi laughed "We are so bright we are the only ones he can teach. No. I think he was thinking as khaniru a rel. He has to remember quite a lot"

I frowned "Well, he would have to teach you alone then. I am not a singer"

"Don't you know the part can be split?" Niy'ashi looked puzzled "If I kept the songs, the names and words would be yours to keep"

"I cannot tell stories, either" I said "I come to you for that. I would not want to listen to myself telling a story"

Niy'ashi laughed "Not so bad. But I could do that, too, telling stories. In fact, there is little difference if I sung or told the story. But the different meanings, those you would have to keep in mind, little brother. What do you say?"

"Maybe" I said uncertainly "Maybe I will. If you keep the songs"

"Right" Niy'ashi pointed "And now make K'asha again a K'ashi, and then let us change and sleep. We missed the buck today, but tomorrow we get one"

I drew the symbol again, this time including the whorl I had missed at first and stifled a small sigh. Sometimes Niy'ashi talked so much like father. All tomorrows and todays when it was much easier and more pleasant to live as the wolves did.

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