The Red-Eyed Reindeer

her heaven is only half alive
i fell asleep in his, but he could not breathe in mine

Not often was Jendayi compelled to hunt something larger than herself—most times, even larger than half her size. The limber woman had been content to use her agile legs to chase rabbits across the snowy moors. Eventually, however, the rabbits fled to their warm dens and the snow plows grew too large for her to trudge through without effort. She had found solace only in the caves now, her wintry and plush fur able to bare the cold away but not enough to make her a true northerner. Jendayi’s past in the green-and-gold summery forests unable to make her a truly hardened wolf, no matter how much she subjected herself to the brutal wintertide. She strode evenly on top of the ice, where the snow was compact enough to support her weight, her ears pricked forward and her eyes wide and attentive. She had left the safety of the caverns during a break in the storms in hopes of searching, but even the grayish fog did not allow her the surrender of seeing all these lands had to offer. It left her grandiose visions of leering mountaintops and endless tundra entirely obsolete—empty was her mind, staring nothing into the unyielding gray. It was unfortunate, and it weighed heavy as disappointment on Jendayi’s shoulders. Eventually, she gave up and moved on.

The trace of her scent along the snowy tracks was slowly disappearing, the continual overlay of new and fresh snow often covering the path she had once carved. While it was advantageous in certain ways, Jendayi was not often running away from others, and found it far more useful to track where she had once walked other ways. Now, however, the dark silhouette of the lumbering mountainsides where her makeshift home now was allowed her to amble in its direction without the need to retrace her steps. There was something stark, however—a sudden shift in the wind, something unmistakable, the familiar scent of iron and copper. Blood. Jendayi’s golden gaze lurched downward where once it had followed the careful peaks of the graying mountains, and suddenly, thin droplets of red appeared on the fresh-laden snow. With it came scents; they seemed stale, but it was always so hard to tell on an ever-changing environment if they were truly far away or much, much closer. Jendayi, in all her disappointment and curiousness, decided (perhaps against her best interests) to follow.

Eventually, the silhouette of a lumbering beast took form. At first, it was unrecognizable. It was easily thrice her size, and walked each powerful step as if it were carrying a mountain on its shoulders. Behind it the droplets of blood soon became long threads, crimson streaks staining against the powdery alabaster. Whatever it was—it was bleeding. Eventually, as Jendayi neared, the darkened silhouette soon took the form of a white wolf, and the prey he carried with him. What fluttering nervousness felt in Jendayi’s heart was soon quelled, if only just, and a quiet and incoherent noise marked her greeting (for, she figured, it was far too late now to escape his notice). Her appearance was unaggressive, her sudden reality reminding her that curiosity often killed the cat. She kept her distance, her golden gaze wide and wild upon him.