Pup grew,
slow in the moment,
fast in the memory.
Mother stood at the lowest precipice of their territory again, above the endless deep, washing herself in the wellspring of darkness where the silence boomed like thunder.
Pup was not so small now, but he was not his mother. She was strong like the long years had pressed the constancy of stone into her body.
He knew what it meant that she was drawn to that place, their furthest refuge from air and sky. It was instinct. Even he knew the tug of that narrow ledge if he went too long without sleep and the thoughtless part of his mind wandered free and unchecked.Go to the deep places. Go to the deep places.
She was going to go. There would be no returning.
On the one hand, it was the highest compliment.
She would not go if she didn’t think him ready to serve as the mountains’ guardian.
On the other, it was like anticipating a wound that would never stop bleeding.
It was true that he hunted easy as breathing now.
It was true that when the thicket singer had come for him, he wetted the ground with its oil and stood howling in its wreckage.
It was true that he dared the lonely deep things to reach for him and they all shied away from the challenge.
But he was not his mother.
Fear and doubt and sadness were the price of wakefulness and he would pay them, but he didn’t have to love the transaction.
He pondered his mother’s lessons.
The stories.
Always the stories.
Mother told such stories, each of them a reminder about duty and a call to prepare.
She could show him images of the things she had driven from their mountains, things that might return. The tooth-wind. The hateful orb. The frozen deer.
Things from just away were bad.
Things from outside were worse still.
Pup was strong, but he wasn’t his mother.
He wanted to do his duty, but he wasn’t his mother.
He felt the mountain’s own heart pumping life through his dark flesh, but he wasn’t his mother.
Mother was leaving.
When she left,
it was a wound of the body.
When the pain was dulled with years,
it was a wound of the spirit.
