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The full moon’s pale yellow light glowed brighter than the envious stars in its flawless elliptical orb against the navy blue of the night sky. Stray tufts of clouds left behind by some storm of the past lingered here and there, whispering of rain. A hawk called somewhere from its perch in a distant tree, complaining about the freezing wind, only to be drowned out by it. There was a feeling of iciness in the air, though it was uncertain whether it would snow or not. Below, the zoo was dark and dormant. Dim streetlights decorated with silver and copper elephants and lions and bears illuminated the empty sidewalks they were placed beside. A wrapper from some forgotten chocolate bar was thrown about by the violent breeze, making a scuffling sound as its rough papery surface rubbed against the harsh stone pathways.
Beast lay in his exhibit behind the chain-link fence that was thrashing wildly in its battle against the wind. His red eyes searched the shadows, and his long black fur fluttered in the harsh weather. His hackles were raised in anticipation and impatience and his tail tip twitched rhythmically, counting the seconds of his wait. A harsh sigh escaped from his throat as he realized he was going to be there a while, waiting. His heart beat wildly as he wondered of what could be happening to Sasha.
Beast twitched his ear, straining it to be able to hear better, but all efforts were in vain. The wind just didn’t let him hear anything. He whimpered and placed his head softly on his paws, his body shivering from the bitter cold. A sudden, especially vicious gust of wind sent drops of water from a nearby puddle flying to Beast’s face, making him sneeze in shock and lift a heavy paw to wipe it off. He snarled and turned his exasperated gaze over to the dark cave that towered in the darkness behind him, where was she?!
His wet nose was slowly freezing and his large black paws were going numb, the neatly trimmed nail tips dug into the rock-solid, frozen ground. He let out one last whine, and situated his head on his paws once again, this time allowing himself to close his eyes. All around him he could hear the howling of the tempest surrounding him, and he imagined himself sinking into an ocean of blackness…
*~*~*~*
An anxious howl echoed from the inside of the cave and vibrated its walls as it made its way out into the air and into the startled Beast’s ears. He woke with a start, not even realizing that he had fallen asleep. Immediately, he was on his feet and rushing over to the mouth of the cave, all senses alert, all muscles tense in his hefty body. His paws couldn’t seem to move fast enough and the dangerously icy ground seemed to be holding him back. He let out a yip of excitement like something a pup would do, and for once in his dignified life he didn’t care that that’s how he was behaving. He scrabbled clumsily as rapidly as he could. It felt like moons before he actually got to the cave, but in reality it had only taken a couple of seconds.
“Sasha?” he barked in a voice shaking with fear and excitement.
Beast peeked into the cave, the contrast in temperatures inside the cave and out hit him like a wave. It took some time for his aging eyes to make out the figures in the darkness, but in the end he made out Sasha’s slim silhouette. Her eyes glowed yellow with a sort of passion.
“Beast!” A female voice echoed from the darkest reaches of the cave, making Beast’s heart do a somersault. The voice paused, as if waiting for a reply, but all Beast could do was let out a strangled bark.
The head of the silhouette tilted at an angle, the pointy, erect ears standing straight up curiously. “It’s ok love, you may approach.” The voice sounded so sweet, so tender.
Beast tentatively took one step forward, his head low. He stopped, and strained his ears forward as if to ask “Are you sure?”
Sasha read his body language and answered with a tiny nod. Her paws seemed to tingle with excitement, she was dying to show him what he had come to see, and she could hardly contain herself, as her countenance revealed.
Beast continued onward once more and paused when he was about two feet from her, he touched his cold nose to her warmer one, and she licked him in the jaw with her warm, pink tongue in return.
“Before I see them, please tell me, are they alright? How many are there? What color are they? Do they look like me, or you? Is there a runt? Is one deformed? Did one die? Did…” He let out a string of questions in one breath, not even thinking twice about it. He wanted to know what to expect before he saw anything with his own eyes. He wanted a vision in his mind first, a mental picture.
Sasha interrupted him with a chuckle, “Oh Beast look for yourself! Honestly how long is this going to take! Come on, just look!” she grinned and swept her tail from her side, where she had been holding it. Beast looked into her golden eyes for reassurance once more before looking down and squinting to see what was there.
In place of what was there previously, Beast saw two small forms, both of them hairless and about the size of mice. No- not hairless, he saw now, just very wet. One was larger than the other- a male, Beast could tell by his scent. He smiled to himself as he realized this one looked like himself- broad shouldered, and well built, with a deep chest and a long tail. It was too soon to be able to tell what the color of his coat would be, but Beast could already imagine him in his mind, just like himself. The other was smaller, but by no means a runt. She was of an average size, with a shorter tail like Sasha’s, and although she was too young to have a form, Beast could tell she would be slim and attractive one day, just like her mother.
A long grin spread across his face as he regarded them. So this was what being a father was like. A warm feeling spread through his body, coming from somewhere deep in his chest- his heart. This was love, a different kind of love that he felt for Sasha, but it was the same feeling, the same principle.
“Sasha… they’re… just so beautiful.” He whispered in awe, letting the warmth and the emotions course through him, run through his veins. “They’re yours and mine… our perfect miniatures!” he barked with a laugh.
Sasha dared to stretch her neck to bury her face in her mate’s shoulder, letting his black fur cover her face, her silver pelt seemed to glow with the same feeling that Beast was experiencing. “Yes they are.” She agreed, “We must force ourselves to raise them as best we can, so that they may make us proud one day.” She smiled.
“Of course.” He promised, “They will be as perfect as possible!” he tore his gaze away from his pups to lick Sasha’s cheek, “But in order for us to raise them right, we need rest.” He suddenly saw how tired Sasha was, how her eyes and shoulders drooped, how her flanks heaved slowly and labored. “And by the look of it, it seems you need some right now.”
She nodded gratefully, and tucked her tail back into place, covering the pups like before. She sighed and lowered her head onto her quaint silver paws, before shutting her eyelids, heavy with lack of sleep and energy.
“Good night Beast, we shall speak more in the morning.” She murmured tiredly and soon her breathing slowed to a steady rhythm.
Beast padded over to her other side and wrapped himself around her, enveloping her in his warmth. He buried his face in her shoulder and smiled pleasantly as the fur there tickled his nose. He shut his eyes as well and soon sank into a dreamy blackness, his mind too loaded, too tired, to summon any pictures in a dream. Outside the wind screamed in fury, trying to upset the sleeping wolves that were safe and out of its reach, but despite its noise, it could not do anything.
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And so begins the story of how my life changed dramatically. In the beginning, I never knew anything about that pack of wolves, or Phantom and Slash and their plot against Blackbird. I didn’t even know they existed. I never knew I would ever get past the sheltered life I lived, the chain link fences that surrounded me. I never thought I’d leave my parents, I never thought they wouldn’t follow me. And yet here I am telling you this story. Who am I? My name is Lobo and you’re never going to believe where I am after I’m done telling you this.
My life started off in the normal way. I had two normal parents, a normal sister (for the most part), and I lived in a normal place. Well, normal by our standards. I later realized that living in a cage all of your life surrounded by exotic animals in a zoo and being tended to by humans was not normal, but I’m jumping ahead of myself.
I was born on a windy night, during a terrible blizzard that threatened to tear our little zoo apart while the full moon shined down ignorantly, making the dangerous tempest beautiful in its feeble yellow light. I was the first born in the first litter my parents ever had. Later came my sister Alma, and we were named after… well I have no idea. We were the only two, Alma and I, there was supposed to be a third pup but he didn’t make it. Our brother, the youngest, was stillborn, blue and cold the first time my parents ever saw him. He was born much after us, maybe a few hours later. He was so late that my parents thought they were done. Of course, I never got the chance to get close to him or anything, but it hurts that he died, and I’m pretty sure it hurt my parents even more.
Maybe that’s one of my reasons for leaving, one of my sources of inspiration. Yeah a tragedy like that isn’t usually something that makes you want to become something more than what you are, but I guess in my case it did. But again, I’m getting ahead of myself.
We were born in a cave (which I later learned was not even a real cave), in a bed of straw that was safe from the weather outside. My mother Sasha told me the whole story when I was a pup, she would say:
“I was scared that the wind would make the cave collapse, and I panicked. Your father, Beast, was waiting outside. I would not let him come in until I gave him the signal. He waited like a good mate, but he risked a lot since the weather was so nasty. When I finally let him in the poor wolf looked so nervous that I was certain he would pee himself. We were both nervous, and excited. But when we saw you, and your sister, we smiled and thought everything will be fine. We have the most beautiful pups in the world and one day they will grow up to be something special, yes, we will raise them to be the best that they can be, and they will not let us down.”
I guess that was another reason I left, I should thank my mother. Even though I’m afraid I let her down in more ways than one. My sister too I suppose, took this as a sign that we were meant to do more than just sit around to let humans watch us all day. I guess if our mother never raised us to try and do our best I would never be here.
But let me continue on to tell you about my pup-hood, after all, you will not understand if I start in the middle. As soon as Alma and I could see, the first thing we did was try to go outside. It didn’t work. We still couldn’t walk correctly and our little legs wobbled with effort for a few moments before we could even go forward the equivalent of one step. I guess it must have looked pretty comical because my father stood at the entrance of the cave laughing. I remember my sister burning with rage that someone would dare laugh at her, but I didn’t care really if my father laughed at me. I loved the sound of laughter, and come to think of it, I really miss that sound. Where I am right now there hasn’t been much laughter going around lately.
I always wanted to be like father. He was a large, heavy built wolf with a black pelt and red eyes that actually frightened me a little. It was that fear I had, though, that made me want to copy him. I had immense respect for my father and he never wronged me, at least not so badly that I could remember it to this day. My mother on the other hand, was smaller and had a light silver pelt with a longer body than Beast’s. She had yellow eyes and longer fur. I was always disappointed because I seemed to have inherited my mother’s looks instead of my father’s with my dark grey fur, long body and green eyes. Physically the only thing Beast and I had in common was our size, broad shoulders, and a long tail. Alma wasn’t so happy with the fact that she was built with a square body like father, only slightly slimmer, and she had the darker pelt. But I guess life’s just not fair sometimes, actually, a lot of times.
We would always try to follow in our parents’ footsteps. I would follow Beast’s, and Alma would try to copy Sasha. It was mere pup play when we were younger, but as we started to grow they taught us many valuable lessons that would help us later on in life. Thank the stars for those lessons.
I guess I first realized that something was wrong with my life the first time I ventured out of the cave. I expected it all to be bigger, with trees and running rivers and streams and lots of room to play. You know, everything that’s in my instinct, everything that’s right. But I got a big shock. Of course it was still big and amazing to me since I never saw it before, but I remember sitting at the edge of the chain-link fence and whining. Sometimes I howled. I wanted to go further and I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t let me. The humans scared me. Some poked sticks through the fence and when the older humans weren’t looking the younger ones would throw stuff. It was all a very horrifying experience. What was even worse was the fact that there was nowhere to escape to for privacy except the cave. Every time I went outside I was bombarded with the rank smell of humans and their trash. And there was only one corner where we could relieve ourselves which smelled more and more every day. I’m making it sound worse than it was though. I guess to someone that was born for that kind of life (my parents I suppose), it was totally fine. But living in a zoo and liking it was not in my destiny. Alma felt it too.
That’s when we decided to escape. It was a gradual thing. It’s not like we woke up one night and realized that there was more to life than just fences. In fact it started off as just a fantasy when we were both about six months old. We used to play a game where we would take turns trying to smash at the fence. Whoever could make the most damage won, and of course I usually wound up winning. I think I was just a little too enthusiastic to break the fence, even more so than Alma. I’m pretty sure that’s what fueled our inner desires to be free. We were still too young to understand that real wolves actually do live outside of this fence, and our parents… well they weren’t going to tell us any time soon. Actually, I think in our small family it was almost a taboo to mention freedom. My parents would always give us that look and flatten their ears whenever we brought up life outside the fence. My guess is that something happened out there to them to make them fear the wild, but I would never know since they would never talk about it. That only made me more curious though, and I began to even dream about the wild.
