Releasing the dove

Following the river from the west had led her to this strange place, and what a magnificent land it had been. In all her lifetime, she never could imagine others of her species existing in such a vast and plentiful number. The very concept was one that was fraught with danger. Insistent teachings drawled by her mother scratched at the back of her skull in a ghostly reminder, condemning the girl to heed the persistent notions. Other wolves were akin to demons wearing fur. They weren’t for trusting. However, it was curiosity that drove her footfalls further and further across that rock laden beach. An infatuation with the unknown had won her over, even if just for the moment. If only she may catch a glimpse of someone like herself. Well then maybe she would be content to return to a life of the hidden after witnessing their animosity.

The sea had always beckoned her - a mother calling its sweet child home to familiar waters. Waters that would entangle and merge with simple streams, facets of life and energy cascading down from the mountain tops to dwell beneath agitated ripples. Ripples evolved into tides, and tides grew into the waves that would leap from the water to bask upon the heat of the shore. The ocean was eternally adapting, shifting and becoming new with every crash upon the sand. The way it was always changing is exactly how it stayed the same. The only aspect of this strange new land that remained vaguely nostalgic.

Sweet salty air kissed her skin and knotted the untamed fly-aways of her fur. Dancing wildly in the breeze, the eggshell strands curled around cream painted paralleling ears. The shoreline stretched for miles before her cyan eyes, seemingly untouched by any living creature. The icy waters would roll in to occasionally bite at her toes, scattering pristine beige granules haphazardly across each paw. If there were ever a place that she could call home now, this was it.

A generous breeze of saline wind cleansed her pulsating nostrils of unforgiving memories. Echoes of sugary maternal aromas filling their shallow den of earth and stone, dethroned in the hum of the rolling tides. The truth was clear, and the fact was, Ruelle's mother was dead. Left in the wake of the rising and falling patterns of the sea, doubt was prevalent upon her trembling tongue. Fate, what a contemptuous beast you are.