Color of Absense

In a world inhabited by giant wolves long after the human race has died out, the pack learns about what humanity was like from a werewolf who once lived among them.

We were always here, there are others, however we are the ones who stand immovably dominant here. The Elders tell stories from millions of years, eons upon eons ago; they tell of monstrous creatures, so soft so weak, like furless rabbits and yet these monsters used all means of magic and evil to destroy their world. They say we came from them, that we used to
walk on two legs and spout sounds like those of angry pigeons and pigs weaving chaos from nothing only to give feeling to our lives. However the elders also talk of these creatures having hearts, and how some knew, before the rest, that a time like this would come and were like us even as furless, soft, ugly monsters. Even with thoughts like that, and the slight pity I felt for the few monsters who didn't believe in destruction, I shivered at the thought of those things. What would it
have been like to be the first of our kind? In a world like that, those creatures would have slaughtered....

I shook myself off, each hair raising and falling back in place. Sighing, I let my large paws carry me to the cliffs up on the nearby hill. It was early summer and the vast field stretched out for miles before me. I lay down, the cool, dew-covered grass feeling nice against my thinly-furred belly. The sun was just rising, painting the clouds pink and orange, and all shades in between. The clouds themselves were brush strokes on the canvas of the sky. The scent of the rain from the
night before matched with the scent of early morning created an aroma each dawn that filled me with a certain energy as vibrant as the pigment of leaves in the trees.

A lazy breeze caressed my fur and I closed my eyes briefly, hiding the liquid gold for a moment in the crisp air.

"Inuya!"

Flomp!

A mass of warm fur and soft belly landed on my side, sending me rolling beneath it with a loud yip.

"Fen!" I snarled out of surprise, pushing at his large body with all four legs.

He made a snorting noise that would be a laugh, his mouth cracking open in a grin as he looked down at me, tongue lolling, canines shining.

"What?" he grinned. I kicked him off, but he pounced back and we tumbled down the hill. I couldn't help but grin and laugh as he did.

"Fen!" I giggled, "Fen, get off!" He finally hopped back, rearing on his hind legs and looking more like a bear than a wolf. I got to my feet and shook off again. He was panting, I could see the clear saliva dripping from the pink tongue that hung from his mouth. He had a rather large tongue, I noticed and even when his mouth was shut, the tip still stuck out from his jowls, thus adding a comical twist to the rest of his appearance. He was light grey, apart from his back, which was dark grey and black in places and his belly was a grey-white. He was bulky too, his muscles were especially bold around his neck and shoulders making him look hunched over. However when he lifted his head, he only looked regal, strong.

I remembered the time the pack had brought down a stag, the thing was nearly twice his size, a full eight pointed rack of antlers that could shred our hides. He had it cornered, the snow flying like dust in the air. One scar ran like a racing stripe across his left flank from where the beast had caught him with one of those deadly points. He still limped only the
slightly from the wound but one wouldn't notice without knowing it was there from the start.

"You're never up this early." He said, his yellow gaze looking me up and down. I would have blushed, but simply looked away. It was true, I would lounge in the morning sun for hours until it rose high into the blue-violet sky. I didn't want to tell him it was nightmares of the two legs that had jarred me from slumber; he'd laugh at me for sure.

"You're never this spunky." I retorted instead, thinking of his way of sluggishly walking around at dawn. He yipped and bounded in a circle, an odd gesture coming from one of his stature, he still was quite the pup.

"Kajva's been giving me lessons." He said, straightening up as if our esteemed alpha were watching.

"Uh huh..." I said, eyeing him now.

"Yep," He said, proudly, "I'll be flanking him from now on at the hunt."

"Whaaat?!" I asked, astounded.

"And maybe, I'll take his place someday." He seemed to get serious then, his eyes sparkling as he lifted his nose to the heavens.

"Yeah right," I said, "You're too silly to lead us!" I grinned again, but he seemed hurt.

"You call this silly?" he said, turning to stick his scarred leg in my face, "I may as well have been alpha that day." It was true, I had never seen him look so worthy of the title, but he had been too young then. Even now he fell just under the correct age to prove himself, and I was sure once he could, Kajva would graciously step down.

A chorus of howls rose up from over the next hill, the pack was looking for us. Instinctively we both raised our voices in return and started trotting toward the direction of the others, which quickly turned into an all out race as Fen nipped at my flanks playfully. I used his antagonism to plant a back paw right between his eyes and launch myself
off his face and further ahead laughing all the way. I looked over my shoulder, he was looking at me with a sort of dark playfulness. It made me giddy and I sped up, racing across the field. I felt so strong when I ran, like a bird, I barely felt my feet hitting the earth, my claws sending dirt flying up behind me. The faithful pattern of my paws pounding over and over was like a drum beat. My heart and mind fell into the rhythm and I lost myself in it, forgetting the race..and my speed.

I came upon the others all too quickly, lost in myself until the startled yips of my pack mates leaping out of my path brought me back. I dropped my back end, paws flailing for traction, front paws locking together in front as I skidded through the others meeting with a mass of black-blue fur at full speed, knocking him on his side and me tumbling over his head and rolling for several yards to land in a graceless heap in the dust. My neck hurt as I stood, shaking my fur off again
dizzily and trying to focus on the off-white color of my paws. Blinking and wobbly from the impact I looked to see the poor wolf whom I had unintentionally pummeled. At the sight I was suddenly very stiff. My ears stood straight up, tail flat against my flanks, legs tense, head high, eyes wide.

Kajva got to his feet slowly shaking his head, a blue sheen covering the black guard hairs of his midnight coat. I knew he wouldn't hurt me, but the look in his eyes was enough to send a pup yelping back to its mother. My jaw was tight, and my stare was glued to him as he turned to look at me. He was not quite as big or bulky as Fen, but what he lacked
he made up for in cunning and leadership, however he was still bigger than me. I lowered my head a little, ears slanting back apologetically as my tail crept its way under my belly, legs crumbling into a crouched position and I swallowed under his piercing blue gaze. His eyes were such a starling color, like the winter sky or the frigid sea. The color the heavens must be above the rim of the world. But he didn't look at me disapprovingly. Instead, he simply looked at me, then away as he walked into furred mass around him. Several faces turned to me questioningly and I felt myself relax, eyes still wide and blinking. Kajva was usually quiet, but normally he had more expression than that. My head fell to the side a bit.

"Haaaa! Ha! Ha! You should have seen your face!" cackled Fen as he trotted up to me, barking out a laugh to follow. He pawed at my shoulder as he rolled over onto the ground squirming in endless bouts of laughter.

"Shut up!" I barked in return, but he laughed harder at my embarrassment. "Ugh..' I growled and walked away, leaving Fen howling on the ground.

Sighing I joined the others, careful to avoid Kajva. A brown faced female, Eki, joined me,

"Geez Inuya, watch where you're going!" she said smiling.

"It wasn't my fault, Fen was nipping at me!" I paused and she only snorted lightly, the equivalent of a chuckle. "So what's wrong with Kajva today?" I asked.

"Didn't you notice he wasn't at the story telling last night?"she replied.



I thought a moment. Usually, in the balmy night air under the endless stars, in the deep calm of moonlight, he would sit near the elders as they told their chilling tales of the two legs; the way their world...our world...used to be. I wondered if he too was disturbed by the stories. "The others are saying no one saw him at all."

I let out a small sympathetic whine. Did he feel he could not trust us? Within the pack there was such a deep love between everyone, for everyone. Though there was some aggression, a deep bonded trust still remained. Simply love. The pack was love, eternal and definite. It was now I looked for him over the yawning and stretching companions. The sun was
rising higher now, the colors of dusk yielding to the brightness of day. Today was starting off with bit of mystery. It was exciting and freighting all at once, especially as the stories still haunted me in the depths of my mind.

"Speaking of that," I looked away, feeling silly, "did those stories bother you at all?"

"Of course they did, but not too badly, that was eons ago. They're all dead and gone."

"Yeah, you're right." I said, speaking words that weren't words, more like a series of mental images, physical whines and body language.

"What are you two whispering about?" blurted Fen suddenly. Eki, jumped, startled.

"Don't sneak up on us!" she barked.

He chortled at that, tongue lolling out again.

"You done laughing at me?" I said, eyes narrowed.

"I guess," he smirked, "Where'd Kajva go anyway?"

"I don't know," I replied, glancing around the pack, "I was talking to Eki."

Eki was smaller than I, but she was a ball of fire and energy most of the time. My eyes, still looking for Kajva scanned over the elders, their matted and thinning fur, their ribs could be seen though the loosening skin on their bodies. They looked pitiful and remained with the pack and family ready to die at any moment and return to the earth. Then the pups
bounding around their feet asking endless wide-eyed questions. The contrast was amazing.

Three loud commanding barks suddenly directed our attention to the black wolf of our thoughts.

"Last night there was a new scent in this land," began Kajva appearing from nowhere, his eyes looked cloudy, worried, "it is very much like our own, faint, but I followed it and found a loner."

The others looked around in astonishment. Loners were only spoken of in the elders tales of the first few of our kind who made themselves aliens from the old society in which we were not the majority, long ago when the two legs still existed.

"Are you sure?" asked an elder, "we've been all around this world and nothing like this has come to us before."

The alpha closed his eyes, "I spoke with him...He wishes to join us."

"But surely he must be a ghost." Returned the elder again, fur so thin it showed her speckled hide.

"He is not, I assure you. Though how he has survived this long is beyond my imagination, he exists. And he is here." A silence fell over us as Kajva turned to the brush at the distant end of the clearing. There, emerged a wolf.. His fur was a glistening metallic silver, paws and nose black. He did not look ancient, in fact, he looked as old as Kajva himself.

"My name is Lucca." Said the strange one. It was an ancient name, and the group became unnerved as the sun shown off his fur like diamonds. What was this? Images of the elder's stories flashed through my mind.

"I don't like him," I whispered to Eki and Fen. Eki, however seemed enthralled by him, while Fen had already gone to stand nose to nose with the stranger. Everyone held their breath as he inched closer, as if a breath would shatter our world and bring the entirety of the past reaching up from the ground to devour us. It seemed now I wasn't the only one weary of the elder's stories after all.