White Wings

Pleione

Travel and hardship had turned Pleione into a hollow shadow of the wolf she could have been. Pride had at long last been swallowed by desperation, time wearing at her meticulous routines, training and cleanliness forgotten when all spare time was spent finding enough food to carry her to her next meal. Dirty and matted, salty seawater crusted in her fur, washed up on a beach like a dead squid, Pleione had never felt lower in her life. And yet, she lived. For now, that was all that mattered.

Coughing up a spray of ocean foam and dragging herself through the sand, Pleione had no idea how long she’d been lying there, baking under the open sun. Maybe hours, maybe days. She couldn’t remember going under or passing out but she supposed she must have, and that she must now be incredibly lucky just to be alive. Right at that moment it was hard to feel lucky. All she felt was cold and sore, sea breeze sinking into her very bones as heavy paws struggled to pull her deeper inland.

She knew what she needed now was water, but all she could think about was finding somewhere safe to rest. There was no such place. Not now, when sleep could mean death. Her body felt fragile now in a way she hadn’t felt since she’d been weaned, and her mind felt cloudy, far away, like her spirit wasn’t quite synched up inside her frame. Water first, and then maybe she could think again.

By the time she found the mouth of a river to follow upstream, Pleione was on the edge of collapse. She distantly registered both the sound of birdsong and the smell of pack wolf, neither of which she could do anything about at the moment. She didn’t sit by the river so much as crumple on its bank, forepaws splashing in the shallows as she lapped at the cool, clear stream.

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