through the darkness to the dawn
There is something odd about the wolf pup that loiters in the shadows.
It is not a behavior or even a color (although, if you looked close, you would see a wink of gold buried in all that fur). It is the bright blue flowers at the base of the pup’s tail, spun in a ring around one ear, how it appears to be smiling even from a distance.
The behavior is not odd, necessarily. Wolf pups are wont to sprint and roll and leap. But this wolf pup laughs to itself as it goes. And, when it gets tired, it collapses in a heap in the center of the playground and sucks in great, gasping breaths, each one punctuated by laughter.
It’s not that the colt prefers to be a wolf pup, it’s just that it makes the sprinting and rolling and leaping easier. So he lies there in the grass, panting. He rolls onto his back and stares up at that bright blue sky. He grins secretly to himself and curls onto his side. It all happens so fast, as if the wolf pup cannot possibly keep still.
And perhaps he cannot. Because there are so many things to explore. How far he can stretch the legs, how it feels to dig his spine into the cool dirt, how sharp the teeth are.
When he shifts back into that graying colt, he does so with a heart buoyed by the fact that he can visit the wolf pup any time he wants. He is giddy with the knowledge that the wolf pup lives inside him.
And he tests out these coltish limbs, too. He sprints and leaps, but the rolling is harder and he cannot lie on his back and look up at the sky like this. Unless he lays the wings out flat to steady himself. But this quickly tires him out and he promptly rolls back to his side before heaving himself to his feet, beating his little tail against his haunches with vigor.
He stomps his little hooves, dancing in place, waiting for a friend.