Starlight Starbright

While Kione was reminiscing of old days and watching the stars with a large number of his kind a wolf also thinking of stars appeared.  No matter how large Kione’s pack had been there were certainly more stars in the sky.  No matter how far Kione had walked from one land to another, the same stars did indeed look down on him in their appointed season.

“These same stars,” Kione started to tell the wolf of the stars being in his past and present but changed his mind part way through.  No one needed to hear of that time.  Perhaps that secret was only meant to be shared now with the stars. “yes,” Kione tried to not sound too much like he was dropping off his initial answer, “it is humbling.  I’ve roamed much of the land and yet these stars were at all marks.”

Kione was a happy sort of guy but the peace here had left him in a bitter-sweet state.  He was a bit melancholy now, now like himself at all.  Still, they were pleasant memories and the stars knew them all.  “Did you know,” Kione easily turned the subject with a thought, “the true great predators, not by blood but by deed, those who did not let their souls fade away but instead were able to travel up and become part of the night sky.  It’s no easy achievement but it's certainly a wonderful goal for one to aspire to.  It’s not just wolves or painted wolves but any predator has a shot at it.”

If such a thing was true Kione doubted any in his family were up there.  It wasn’t that they couldn’t have made it but that they had been cheated of the chance to live long enough to prove themselves.  Kione pointed out one of the brighter stars, “That one for instance, is apparently a spirit of a fox, or perhaps foxes.  My aunt was uncertain if the family would join the one who made it there.  Most likely that means they don’t and she didn’t want to tell a bunch of kids that part.”  Kione smirked at the idea but in truth, he’d never know.

“The wolves have two stars up there.  One,” he pointed out a dimmer star, “is brightest in what would be summer in Boreas."

"Kione"