She closed her eyes for a minute, and then she looked back at me. “There once was a little girl who lived in the forest.” She continued the story for a minute before she stopped. “Aren’t you going to cut me?”
I just tapped her nose. “Pay attention to your story. Does closing your eyes help?” She thought about it for a minute and then nodded. “Okay, then close your eyes and focus on your story. Really picture it.”
She started again, eyes closed and her breathing finally evened out. I waited for a few minutes, and I realized everyone had stopped to listen. I gestured to them to keep going and then I shifted my claw. Abby had gotten to a part of her story where the little girl ventured out of the forest, and I could tell she had finally relaxed enough that cutting into her wouldn’t do more damage than I intended, and I acted. I quickly slid my nail against her, opening a shallow cut. Her blood came quick, quicker than it should have, but she was right before. The spell that was making her sick was chasing after death.
Her quick inhale was her only reaction. She kept telling her story even if her voice quivered a bit. Once I was sure I had enough blood, I pushed my magic into her, but it was my turn to gasp. My magic flowed through her body and I could feel all the damage the hex had done to her body. It had damaged muscle, weakened her organs, but it was her wolf that broke me even more. Her tiny pup inside of her was skin and bones.
I pushed Nix into her with my magic, and she walked over to the pup. Abby, the sweet girl, knew something was happening, and was suddenly beside me in her mind. “How are you here?” She looked up at me.
“Magic, sweetheart.” I walked over with her to her forest, where her tiny pup was hiding just inside of the trees.
“Where are we going?” She trailed behind me.
“To your safe place for your wolf.” I held my hand out to her. She finally caught up and slipped her hand in mine. I could still feel my magic doing its best to heal her, even though it wasn’t much. But this, this was too important to ignore.
We walked over to find Nix cuddled around a dull, red-furred wolf. The sickness had leached the vibrancy long ago. She was shivering in the cold, fighting to survive. Nix had barely laid down fully before the tiny wolf pup howled softly and tucked herself closer to her warmth. She looked up at me with horror-filled eyes. “She is close to death.”
“How long do we have? To save the pup?” I knelt, pulling Abby with me. I turned to her. “This is your wolf, sweetheart. Comfort her.” Abby hesitated, looking at Nix. “Don’t worry. She is my wolf.” Abby got close then, laying down next to her wolf and cuddled her against Nix’s side.
“Not long.” Nix signed, and she nestled the pup. “Maybe a day.” Abby started to cry when she heard.
“She won’t survive without her wolf, Nix.”
Nix looked up at me with pain written on her face. “I know.”
“It’s okay Nala.” Her words were soft. “We did our best.”
My heart broke as I watched Abby comfort her wolf. “Nala?” I leaned over the three so I could see her face.
Abby nodded. “I don’t know how, but as soon as I touched her, I knew her name.” She rubbed her face against the patchy, dull fur. “She is sick, like me, isn’t she?”
I just nodded. “Yeah baby girl, she is.” She snuggled in closer.
“Why is she so small?” She cracked open an eye and hugged her wolf pup closer. “Shouldn’t she be bigger? I should have met her soon, right?”
I looked at Nix and remembered that I started talking to her when I was about five or six. She had always been there, strong, steady, and my best friend. My heart ached for the pair in front of us. “Yeah, she should be bigger, but so should you. The sickness ate away at your strength, at your power, and it stunted you.”
She looked at me with sad eyes. “It’s okay, you know.”
“What is?”
“That I have to die.” She closed her eyes as her puppy whined and rolled over into her arms. The tiny wolf cracked an eye and used a bit of its strength to slowly lick Abby’s face. Even in her weakened form, Nala was doing her best to be there for her human. Abby’s lip quivered as she kissed her wolf’s nose. “I’ve spent the last year getting used to the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to grow up. That I would leave my mom and dad.” She turned to face me fully. “On the days where I couldn’t leave my bed, I wrote letters to them. They weren’t much. Mostly pictures at first, but when I learned more words, I started to write down how much I loved them.”
“Abby…” I reached out and stroked her hair. My magic zipped through her and she felt stronger. Like the magic I sent through her to heal did more good than I thought possible.
Nix looked at me as she felt it, too. “Pick up the pup, Amy.” I looked at the wolf pup, and she cracked her eye again.
She couldn’t speak, but the pain there, the fear, the loneliness spoke volumes. “Come here Nala.” I picked her up and instantly my magic flowed through me and into the wolf in my arms. “Oh, Goddess.” This small thing was skin and bones. But instantly I knew exactly what happened.
“What’s wrong?” Abby pulled herself up, leaning against Nix for support.
“What do you know of the relationship between a wolf and their human?” Nix wrapped around her, and settled again, watching me cuddle Nala.
“You wolf is your best friend, someone that shares your body and your soul.” Abby turned to her. “That’s what they tell you in school.”
Nix nodded. “They are right, but it goes much deeper. We become your closest ally, your first confidant, and…your first line of defence.”
Abby’s face scrunched up. “What does that mean?”
