Let The Stars Guide You Home

The night sky is clear with not a cloud to be seen, as Keahi makes her way back toward the pack lands she now calls home. The brisk night air makes the tropical wolf trot faster and her breath turns to clouds of steam as soon as it leaves her mouth. She chides herself for not leaving the southern area sooner, but her natural curiosity had got the better of her. Now, she finds herself weaving her way through some barren landscape that connects to the area she needs to go. Eyes scan around her, looking for trouble but only finding cracked, dead trees poking their broken spines toward the sky. A darkness hangs here and it almost feels as if this place is cursed which has Keahi moving faster in the hope to put this land far behind her as quickly as possible. A subtle sound tickles at her ears, begging the red wolf to stop and pay attention to it but the wary red wolf is determined to leave this place... now.

Slowly, moment by moment, the sound builds until Keahi is forced to stop and listen. Blue eyes turn down to ground in wide, horrified fascination as she realizes she knows that sound. The earth is groaning in pain as forces beyond her comprehension force two tectonic plates to rub against each other. For Keahi, it means the ground will begin to move violently at any moment and she needs to seek shelter. Body turns toward a large outcropping of rock that she had seen moments ago, knowing it will provide a place to hide from falling debris. The sound builds until it is a deafening roar as everything begins to shake. The ground sways as she stumbles onward, eyes seeing broken trees roll with the motion of the earth. Her stomach reels in time with ground and she makes it under the outcropping, just as huge chunks of debris begin to rain down from the heavens. Slamming her body against the wall, the red wolf curls up on her side and shoves her paws into her ears as she works to breathe through the terror.

It seems to go on forever, the wailing, painfilled cry of the earth, the disorienting shaking that leaves Keahi wondering what is up and what is down. Tears begin to leak out from behind her tightly closed eyelids, the wolf singing herself a small mantra as she tries to calm herself while the world falls apart. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, the shaking begins to subside but the red wolf remains tightly curled around herself. Tremors shake the ground every now and again but they are smaller and further apart. The main earthquake seems to have passed and Keahi slowly blinks her eyes open. Uncurling herself, she pulls her paws away from her ears to find that her nails have spots of blood on them. Frowning, she wipes away the tears that linger on her cheeks and slowly begins to crawl toward the exit. It pitch black in her and she knows something is blocking the way she came in. Low and behold, a large piece of a dead tree trunk has come to rest where the opening is and it takes a few, well-placed shoves before it finally dislodges and moves.

Slowly, carefully, the red wolf crawls out into the night and slowly moves to stand. Her body trembles from the scary experience and, while this is not the first earthquake she has been a part of, they never seem to get easier. Scanning the horizon, a rock begins to form in her stomach as she slowly realizes she does not know where she is. Panic begins to claw at her mind, trying to gain a hold of her but Keahi banishes the monster back to the shadows. Taking a deep breath, the red wolf tilts her head back to gaze up at the night sky. Whatever happens down here, those stars always remain steady. Even back on her island, those stars remained constant and, when she had made her new home here, Keahi had made sure to look for and trace the stars she knew.

Eyes scan the brilliant heavenly bodies searching for the bright beacon of Sirius. She doesn’t find him so Keahi slowly begins to rotate where she stands. A familiar star catches her eye, not the one she is looking for but one that will guide her to Sirius. Taurus, the bull, stares down at her and she smiles up at him. Eyes trail down to catch the star that forms a corner of Orion. The constellation’s legend and what it is has been lost to the shadows of memory but she can still trace the invisible lines the stars make to form the constellation. With the knowledge firming locked away in her mind, Keahi traces down to the ‘belt’ of three bright stars and from there she finds Sirius. A smile on her lips, the red wolf sets her course and begins to make her home once more.

WC: 845/800

"Keahi Mogotsi"