Forever is the flow of time
A constant change that never ends

Owna told her that the greatest gift is life.

She taught Aulka how to preserve it, how to support it, how to make it flourish and bloom like a flower in newbirth's snow. Life is a precious, irreplaceable gift, Owna had said time and time again as she packed serialized moss into wounds, or pounded herbs into poultice, or tucked a fur around an ailing eldu.

Healing, Owna taught, is to preserve this life, and no kind of pelt, no power of shard, no threat of fang and claw, should ever stop her from tending life. A life is a life, a soul is a soul. Each one is wholly unique, and once lost, it is gone forever.

From tiny, soundless and sightless pups, to ever-growing youngsters, to new-to-the-world adults, to wise, aging eldu, life is an adaptable, ever-changing, ever growing concept to flow with and along. Life is change, like forever is endless, while Death is stagnant, stillness, changeless, though eternal in its own right.

Owna taught these things and Aulka learned. Learned to open her heart and expertise to all who came, to treasure each and one of her pack members, to appreciate the life growing all around her.

All life is precious. All life is unique. All life is change.

So as the pups play like leaves falling, Aulka worries. Worries because they aren't a paw bigger, a leg taller, a snout longer than two icewalks before.

When she asks, do you feel bigger? Stronger? they always say yes. Are you hungry all the time, do you have to take naps? And they always say no. Over and over, the same questions with the same answers and Aulka worries.

They tell her not to. Don't worry about us! they say with open mouths and wagging tails. We're fine! We'll grow big and strong like Father soon!

But soon hadn't come. Not in the first icewalk that was only cold enough to make one feel alive and where the elk had pelts that glittered like glass; not when newbirth passed, not when worldfire came and went along with icewalk again, not when whelping season turned around... And for a second time there were no new mouths to feed, despite Umble's belly full of unborn pups.

It's unnatural, Aulka says. Too long. But when she asks the eldu and the youngsters, none seem to notice or care.

Don't worry so much, Aulka, Eldu Atta whuffs as she lifts her head from her sun-warmed rock. Some pups take time to grow.

And no matter how many, It's been two Icewalks, and, They haven't grown a nose-length since a sernar spin, or, Umble's been due to whelp any day now for narblinks, she says, she gets no more than a reassuring tail tap and, All will come in time.

Eldu Teol only sighs and mumbles, You'll worry your snout of yours grey. Pups are pups. Let the elk gather their young, and the swallow her eggs, and resumes nibbling on his paws and watching the pack from under the purple and gold willow that overlooks their dens.

Even Owna, the one who taught her to measure pups to seasons and recognise the signs of soon-birthing mothers, only presses her nose into her ruff and sighs in the way of patience tested. Aulka, my dearest star, she rumbles as they lie in their den of warm-scented earth and pine boughs, let bones be buried and your paws rest. Worrying will change nothing of time's course.

But Ama, the pups have not grown, Umble still has pups in her belly, and two Icewalks have frozen and melted away. Aulka rests her head on her paws, her soft whine brushing her pawtips as she gazes past the blue-tinged grasses lining the edge of their den. Should those not be bones to carry and gnaw?

Owna settles her head close by, warm gold eyes gleaming in the fading gaze of Ser. You forget, my pup, that we live in a dream. The pups will grow if they grow and Umble whelps if she whelps. It is Molder's will and Maikai's dream, one way or the other, and worrying your snout will not change it. You need not carry any bones to chew; the time of gnashing teeth has passed.

Aulka sighs, ears flicking back. Why would the Molder will no change? Why would Maikai, whom she knew to be just as excited for new little ones as Umble, want no growth? It just doesn't seem right. If the Dream is all things good and safe, is not pups growing and whelping new lives desired?

Perhaps pups take longer to grow and come in dreams. Owna nudges her cheek with her nose. Let the bone go, my dearest star, and learn to be content where you are. Is not the Dream better than what came before?

A ripple of smoke tickles Aulka's nose and her paws burn with remembered embers stuck between her pads, and she sneezes to rid herself of it, ears falling flat. Yes, just...I feel that something is wrong.

Owna shifts to spread herself over the dirt, a yawn stretching her jaws. We are safe here, wun. Try to enjoy the Serstep.

And so she tries, nose full of smoke as she watches Ser step down past the horizon, his flaming tail turning the sky into amber and burning dusk-blue, her pelt itching with not-right fleas.

⥊⬩⬫⬥🌟⬥⬫⬩⥋

Aulka never knew Maikai well.

She'd seen him in his circle of friends—dispersals from other packs—laughing, or him and his sister pouring over history engraved onto bones, or them reciting tales under the lorekeeper's sharp ear. They'd share tail waves across the glen or nods over meat, sure, but they never lingered quite long enough to stop for a chat. He was distant, far away, tucked in a corner of the pack where she did not reach.

They'd talked before, yes, but their conversations are countable by the number of canines she has: twice. First is after she and Ama spilled their story of their pack falling to the Coren's ruthless jaws and claws and poison-tipped iron spurs strapped to legs and tail tips. He'd been in the back of the cave strewn with fine pelts, listening with a gaze heavy like bronze yet filled with the soulful sorrow of a doe, and once it was over, he'd walked up and started to talk.

It was none of the, I'm sorry for your losses, or, Are you okays, or, even the, If you need anything, we're heres. It was just the best hunting grounds and the quietest places to nap in the day, funny stories about the two pups with noses for trouble, or the antics Eldu Gede had got himself into when he was younger, or simply stories that happened long ago under the stars of Tatalune pack.

He talked and talked about the types of songs they sang and listened to the types of songs she'd sung—all the things that didn't really matter in the great scheme of stars. All the things that weren't Coren and Corrupted and how their ranks were spreading, the diminishing safe territories to flee to, the wolves she has lost, the everything big and important.

And when topics were exhausted and her head was heavy, he'd shown her to her new den and smiled a kind smile. You're very brave, you know, for coming all this way.

I don't feel brave, she had said, startled out of her drowsiness.

I don't think Soni of Stars or Ewol of Battles or any other legend felt brave when it happened. Still, they were brave all the same. Maikai yawned and waved his tail, nodding towards her den. Have a good sleep, Aulka. If you need anything, just ask.

The second time he'd found her out under the stars during dreamtime. He'd sat beside her and they'd talked about the legends etched into the stars and the Wolves Who Watch Against the Dark standing guard over them age in and age out.

Do you think they're lonely up there? He had asked, snout tipped upwards as if he could scent the stars if he looked high enough.

No. Stars had other stars, other legends to shine against, other duties to tend to than the riverbed of loneliness. Stars, legends, couldn't be lonely, she had thought. Not with who they were.

Maikai looked at her, then, expression serious in the stiffness of his ears. Legends are just normal wolves who stepped in to fill the gap.

And he must have been right, because when the Coren came for Tatalune, Maikai was the one to fill the gap.

⥊⬩⬫⬥🌟⬥⬫⬩⥋

How long can a wolf dream?

The thought comes to Aulka as she's trotting through the Old Forest back towards the dens. Experience says a couple hours, a day if tired, or more with the help of slumber root. It has been two seasons now, and Maikai's star still shines bright on the horizon.

In an open patch where Ser's gaze falls and warms her fur, she peers past the hurrying clouds to the place where Maikai's star hangs. Is he there, she wonders, under that star, asleep?

Does he watch them in his dream with paws and ears and nose, or is he simply in the sky like his star, only able to look where he is pointed? Does he feel alone, standing in the gap for all of them? Is he okay?

The sounds of two pups playing and the scent of sweet milk clinging to Umble's bulging belly washes over her. Are we okay, she murmurs to the forest, the sky, the birds nestled nearby, living in a dream being dreamt with no change?

The sky has no answer and her pelt itches.

Aulka sighs and shakes out her fur, returning her paws to the scents of her packmates leading to the Boundary Stones that line the border between the Young Forest and the Old. She has only walked a few wolf-lengths when she notices the plant.

It smells cold, like a frozen lake in the middle of serbright. She pauses, snout swinging to her right, and stares. The leaves are wide and long, upturned to catch Ser's gaze, and outlined in deep, dark shadows too complete for the time of day. The shadows sit directly below the plant, stark lines blurring the edges of the grass they cover and entirely ignoring how they should be slanted like their brethren.

Cold? A plant shouldn't smell cold. She takes a breath, and...it is not cold, not like ice, it is...absence. A simple nothing, a void where a fragrant spice—as she knows the plant should smell—would be.

The plant ignores reality. The plant ignores the Dream. The plant feels so very wrong.

Frost creeps over the tips of her fur and her hackles rise to the tingling tension. The plant is wrong. Very, very wrong, her intuition screams, and yet she cannot take her eyes off it, stop her nose from twitching closer to untangle the scent, stop her paws from carrying her nearer—

Don't!

Aulka jerks back, narrowly missing her nose being grazed by the streak of black fur skidding to a halt in front of her.

A dark wolf with yellow patterns around his eyes butts her shoulder with his, urgency spilling from his coal and pine scent. Move, hurry! You've woken it!

Aulka's ears flatten and she takes another step back. Woken what? Her gaze flies back to the plant and—

The plant, trembling, turns its leaves towards her.

Watch out! The black wolf throws himself into her side and she slams into the ground flank first with a yelp. Something rushes over them with a shrill scream that echoes like a rip in reality, like the whoosh of a consuming fire, like a wolf dying. It is black, edges flickering like smoke, and it turns perfectly round eyes on her, twin white voids staring like the ones in her nightmares.

A Coren.