Graceful Rooms of Alabaster Stone

. . .


The land was quiet now. Well, it had always been quiet -the snow saw to that, but Cross remembered a time when the night was dawn was alive with the howls of wolves and the thunderous stamp of a thousand head of elk. In summer when the thaw came, the eagles would screech in the skies and the fish would flow in the streams and lake. Every whisper of wind would bear the scents of ice and pine and family. "Hasn't really changed," the youth murmured to himself as he stood there in the splender of the far northern summer. He was an alabaster island amidst the sea of grey-green tundra grasses and mossy rocks. A passerby would find it hard to guess that he was only a year. Judging by, not only his size, but his sober eyes and collected voice, one would've thought him an adult. Maybe he was in some ways. Cross had grown up fast after the things that he had seen.

His massive chest swelled with the crisp, spicy air. Black claws kneaded at the earth. He was torn between running off through the tundra - perhaps to swim in the lake or charge some stray herd of caribou - but no. He had seen enough of his abilities lately. To be honest, a part of it scared him - the things he could do; like ripping out a deer's throat at a full run? Or swimming across an ocean channel? Not to mention finding himself beyond the combative level of just about every wolf he came across. What sort of yearling could do those things? For so long he had been silently afraid of the world and all the grim dangers he knew it to hold. He'd been terrified but stalwart, petrified but uncomplaining - he didn't think that made him brave.

He wasn't fearless like his ancestors. He'd felt his knees seize up and his jaw tremble. He was a coward. But he was a coward who was still willing to do what had to be done. And more and more often he was finding that that was enough to keep him alive in this crazy world. At least so far.







. . .