Chapter 8
"Love"
I must return quickly. It was a long way down the mountain from Ezekiel's lair and I had already missed much of the council on my way up. Few dared to met a Seer in the dead of night on the turn of a new moon and even fewer still could miss the discussions of Exile and his pack, so I volunteered to go and end a tradition that had begun long before my time. I was neither relieved nor disappointed at the end of our alliance. Doom Seers were far too mysterious for the living. They could play with smoke and visions and bones while the rest of us continued to fight with life as it came to us. A life which was growing stranger with each full moon.
In the quiet of the night, disturbed only by the sound of my paws scratching through the leaf litter, I thought of what transpired yesterday night at Castle Rock. I did not expect Damon Doom Seer's illusionary gifts to be so strong. I never met a Seer capable of making such lifelike visions in the present. He must have had help to create them. Which reminded me of the creatures I saw in his manipulations. If they were any indication of what the Mighty Hena were up against, the return of the Bone Takers was no coincidence. Dark forces were conspiring against us. Damon had been planning this before our encounter at the river, long before I ever heard the drum beats, and Exile, even longer.
Exile. The Betrayer. Banished One.
He first came to the grasslands as Xiuhcoatl Dark Star. A Hena whose past remains a mystery to this day. The only thing he ever revealed about his origins was his name. It was alien to us. Neither from the grasses or the rivers or the forests, but from lands far beyond. Being Moonborn myself, I knew he had been born in rare circumstances. Not in the night when all others were born, but the day. A day darkened and eclipsed as if it were night even though the sun was still high in the sky. No one knew where he came from or why he came at all, but he was unquestionably different than the rest of us.
His black fur and black coat was the wonder of a generation and his way with the Spirit was unlike anything I had ever seen. Shadows bent under his will. Darkness radiated from his body and the power of his jaws was just as menacing as his smile. He was faster and stronger and more cunning than any other. More prideful and spiteful and angry too. So when he came to us as a young one no older than my own Mato, and earned a place in the pack, I kept his history, unwilling to let it be forgotten, and Dark Star he became. Blessed and boastful, until his transgression against the pack stripped him of his honor and his name. To see him again, so much stronger than before, despite his banishment, made me tired.
I slowed and detoured off of my original path and onto another that brought me to an outcrop that overlooked the range. Constellations lit up the sky with bright twinkling diamonds so densely spaced it was like looking at minerals split open from the rocks. They cast light upon the tree tops even without the fierce glow of the moon and I saw a land that stretched to no end. The wind sliding through the valley stroked my fur, enticing me to sit and rest. I closed my eyes and took a slow deep breath, but the darkness behind my eyes and the solitude of this place reminded me of the void I saw and felt in Exile's taunts back at Castle Rock. The abysmal hole that was what I had lost and what I desired.
In that memory, I saw the same figure as before. Only this time, it lingered in the quiet of my mind. I saw Father. A Mighty Hena that had no equal. Like Exile, he'd been blessed by the Spirit unlike any that came before him. His coat had no comparison, but the two were nothing alike in their distinctions. Whereas Exile was once Dark Star, Father was once Sun Catcher, for when the sun began to break, his fur shined in the light as if it were dusted with gold and bronze. It never failed to cast a glow about him. This radiance marked him as the courier that carried the sun on his back every night, and every night, he dropped it off at the horizon the next morning.
From his ears to his paws and his legs and his ears, everything was perfectly balanced. He had a mane that was never too thick or too short, scraggly or flat. His tail was not too long or wiry. He was crisp and colorful for black and grey tones, ebbing the Mighty Hena's promise of blood with a peaceful golden stare. Born as Calian Summer Smile of the grasslands, he was surprised to find that one day he had become Alpha. He lived it long before he ever realized he had ascended. He had been a good and strong Alpha like his pup, and Mato would always be a pup when I thought of Father because Father had also been my mate.
My beloved. The only one capable of catching a Day Breaker.
I lowered my head and the stars fell with my gaze, twinkling as they dropped to the ground, long and bright and silent. They streamed across my black face, looking for the end of the horizon. The sun that was now always just out of reach.
The wild brought death to us so frequently that it was shaken off and weathered as easily as a rain shower. But even Mothers could mourn. Especially Mothers. Sometimes, I still felt him with me. I would never forget his great reassuring presence. So easy and light despite its size. Like the shadow behind the stars, darkest by being closest to the light. It was no wonder he chose me, a Moonborn, as his mate. I was the light of the night, the Mighty Hena's sun, and he, my shadow.
Now, my shadow was empty.
Who would fill it? Alpha? Omega? Maybe. For a time, but it was only temporary because I would never love like that again. But that was also why I was Mother, so that all could fall under my watch.
I raised my head and opened my eyes.
I was Mother and the entire pack was my family, but that didn't make it any less lonely when I sat upon the hill or the table or this outcrop as one when there used to always be two.
I missed him. Calian. My love.
From the times we chased one another as young ones in the grasses, to bantering as Blessed when we journeyed, sitting beside one another as Alpha and Prima, then Mother and Father, and eventually lying down together on our last day as soul mates. I closed my eyes now as I did then. I could still hear the sound Father made when he took his last pained breath. I missed him from the very bottom of my soul. And tonight, it was too much to bear. I leaned back and howled, calling for a voice that would never answer. It lasted as long as my heart could manage. All the way to the end of my breath when there was nothing left within me. At the end, my heart dropped with my head and I might have left it there had the night not broken its silence.
My eyes widened and my ears perked as a voice took up my call. It sounded so much like Father's that I held my breath. It was Mato. He was telling me where he was. That he heard my mourning. Then, I heard the pups, answering me just as I had taught them in their lessons, none the wiser of my grief. One after another, more and more voices sprang up and echoed across the mountain. My ears swiveled trying to keep up with them. And suddenly, I realized it wasn't just my pack anymore. It was all who recognized my voice. There was Wind Talker and Boulder and Warrior. The Mothers and Fathers of the rivers and the woods.
Once again, the Spirit had lifted us all together. My howl had long since ended, but the songs of the Mighty Hena kept going far into the night, all the way to the horizon. So I must keep going too. I stood up and shook out my coat. The dust and tears of the journey floated about me a moment, glittering in the starlight. I must return quickly. My pack was waiting for me. So I abandoned the path, braced my legs on the rock, and leapt off of the ledge and into the darkness.
I did not feel so lonely anymore.
