- Dec 18, 2022
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──⇌•〘 INFO 〙 The early sun finds Wolfsong out on the moors. It has left the horizon behind, but the sky still blushes behind a canopy of downy clouds, bellies free from the storm responsible for their swollen river. His gaze is reserved not for the dawn awning above him but the thaw-wet earth. It isn't, he knows, an intentional stacking of small stones. They're haphazard and barely overlap, likely disturbed by the racing paws of several WindClanners at least, or by rabbits, or the tumultuous snow.
But even so, he falls back seasons upon seasons to a day of two eyes and small toes. He was his mother's daughter then, and he has never longed for more than the impossible life where she knew him as her son. She wanted to teach his hasty mind patience, and did so in the clever guise of a game: stacking stones. "Learn the shapes first," he hears her say, and even separated by death and memory, he listens. Wolfsong inspects each stone, some of them smooth and small, others rough and hefty. "Now, think: which stones at the bottom? Is it easier for me to lift you or you to lift me?" He'd vowed that one day he would be strong enough to carry her, but had taken her advice to heart, nudging the heaviest stones for the foundation. The lighter among them follow. "Careful," she says. "It's all right if you have to start over as long as you know why. What went wrong?"
It was heavy on the left. Wolfsong rearranges the stones again, their cold, bitter shells drying his mouth. Occasionally, her voice is there, guiding him as she had that day— or how he imagines she had. It does not escape him that he does not remember what she sounded like. "Yes, good. See? You can listen to me after all."
He steps back and stares at the balanced tower, no taller than the mid-section of his leg. His remaining eye blinks rapidly, feeling not unlike the oncoming blizzard's clouds must have: fit to bursting but brittle.
But even so, he falls back seasons upon seasons to a day of two eyes and small toes. He was his mother's daughter then, and he has never longed for more than the impossible life where she knew him as her son. She wanted to teach his hasty mind patience, and did so in the clever guise of a game: stacking stones. "Learn the shapes first," he hears her say, and even separated by death and memory, he listens. Wolfsong inspects each stone, some of them smooth and small, others rough and hefty. "Now, think: which stones at the bottom? Is it easier for me to lift you or you to lift me?" He'd vowed that one day he would be strong enough to carry her, but had taken her advice to heart, nudging the heaviest stones for the foundation. The lighter among them follow. "Careful," she says. "It's all right if you have to start over as long as you know why. What went wrong?"
It was heavy on the left. Wolfsong rearranges the stones again, their cold, bitter shells drying his mouth. Occasionally, her voice is there, guiding him as she had that day— or how he imagines she had. It does not escape him that he does not remember what she sounded like. "Yes, good. See? You can listen to me after all."
He steps back and stares at the balanced tower, no taller than the mid-section of his leg. His remaining eye blinks rapidly, feeling not unlike the oncoming blizzard's clouds must have: fit to bursting but brittle.