Silver moonlight mingled with the shadows cast by flickering orange torches as the bear walked amongst the people, casting idle glances with coal-black eyes as he left enormous prints in the snow. The tribe knew from the exchange that they were on their own, and in response, they remained utterly still.
The night came and went. I had passed the test, at least for the time being.
Satisfied that I would not interfere with Nanook’s mastery, he never challenged my presence again.
But he was not the only bear on the ice.
As if life in the Arctic wasn’t hard enough, there is no predator more blood thirsty and dangerous than a hungry polar bear. In our years together, the tribe needed protection, and I threw my body between any claw, tooth, storm, or weapon that might put Yuka in danger. The predators were half the god’s size, with none of his ethereal shimmer, but every bit as dangerous to squishy, vulnerable mortals. Each bear kept its life for all of three minutes from the time it threatened the village to its last breath.
I’d been Fluffy for so long that I nearly forgot I’d ever been anything else. I may have remained Fluffy if Yuka hadn’t asked.
Twenty years on this earth with ten of them at my side, Yuka stroked my fur as she did every other night. Her mother feasted with neighboring villagers, leaving us to settle by the fire. Meals with friends always resulted in her spending a familial night in their tent, as she’d become the village’s mother. Sheknew Yuka was safe with me and deserved her own senses of companionship where she found them. Nights like these we knew we had to ourselves.
“You are no wolf,” she said. “The village watched our protector appear from the air and we have believed in you faithfully. We’ve known peace. We’ve known prosperity. And never once have I asked you to reveal yourself.”
I knew what she was asking.
For the second time in years, I felt fear.
“Surely, you’d open your mouth, and say your name,” she continued. “One day, when you were ready, you’d show me what god walks the earth as a Great White Wolf.”
I’d spent years scouring the earth to find her. Once we’d connected in this life, I’d had no occasion to consider stepping out of my lupine form. She was safe. She was happy. I was with her. What else could we need?
“Fluffy? I know that isn’t your name. And I don’t know what I’ve done that I’ve failed to earn your trust…but I’d like to fix it. Tell me how I may honor you, how I may become worthy of knowing the god who walks among men.”
I got up from my reclining position. She pulled away, skin tight around her eyes, folding her legs stiffly as she watched me. She’d asked. She was ready. She wanted this. What’s more, she’d wrongfully shame herself if I refused.
And yet…I was terrified.
I hadn’t thought of Hell in a decade. My kingdom was fine without me.
The true panic was here in the snow, wondering how Yuka would receive me. She’d only known a creature, an animal, a dog. I was respected as somethingother, but I was not a man. What’s worse: I wasn’t a god. At least, not one ofhergods.
In this life and the past, I wasn’t the god she’d called. Yet I’m the one who answered.
“I know you understand me,” she said.
Yuka had spent her life being told I was a god who’d taken wolf form, and it certainly didn’t hurt my case. She’d never treated me like a pet. But once we crossed this line, there was no going back. I wanted to be with her.Let me cling to my wolfish form one moment longer, I thought.Let me stay right here, before your worldview cracks. Let me have one more heartbeat of you choosing me.
“Please.”
There it was again. That feeling. A twist in the guts. A fear. A longing. A complicated, strange, terrible, wonderful, altogether newness that a demon couldn’t have experienced if he’d spent ten thousand years among peers in Hell.
This, here and now, was the appeal of gods adopting humans.
Black and white juxtapositions skewed my life in opposites. The cold war between Heaven and Hell defined our kingdom, drove our pantheon, and informed my every decision. And despite the stakes, gods, demons, angels, fae, and the like faced the monotony of foreverness.
Somewhere in the middle was a painful, beautifully, exciting, chaotic gift.
Immortals worry, stress, and donned responsibility when they took on a human.
Living among the mortals, caring for them, attaching ourselves to them, we were given the delicious, terrible rarity of agony, terror, and sorrow. And in this moment, on this night, I experienced a true, bone-chilling fear.
Beyond the tent, pink and emerald lights began to ring with the high, metallic hum of swords sharpened against one another, and I, myself, had become a believer. This was a sign from something bigger than me to treat the night as sacred.
“Please.” That word again. She dipped her chin. “I’m ready.”
I nodded, then left the tent, pausing in the antechamber of its insulated neck between the two leather flaps. It was a moment for myself and also to allow her the preparation she needed for my transformation.
