Aniu’s Tale

I am the white wolf. I am the alpha female of the Anvil Creek pack. I am a mother, a grandmother, a spirit. But above all, I am a mystery.

For as long as I can remember I have worn this cloak of hidden secrets around my shoulders, encasing myself to become the mystical spirit my family and others have come to know me as. But now I have decided to reveal all and tell the story of my past, my present, and possibly my future. Throwing off this shroud of darkness has taken much courage, so listen well. I promise you your time and patience will not be in vain.

Here is my story, my tale.

My earliest memory is of my father, Wildfire, looking down upon me as I lay next to my mother when my eyes opened for the first time. He was a tower of dark fur with cream flames licking his chest and throat, and yet I hardly felt any fear of him. I smiled up at him and whimpered happily, but his withering look of uncertainty was not the reply I expected.

“She’s too weak. She’ll never survive.”

My beautiful white mother, Silver Snow, seemed not to hear his remark. “We’ll call her Aniu,” she murmured, rubbing her nose against my fluffy fur. I licked that big, black, cold nose with such innocence of my uncertain future that it caused my parents to laugh grimly. It would be the last laughter I would hear in a long time.

I was not born of noble birth. Indeed, I and my litter were not supposed to be born at all. We were an ‘accident.’ The alpha male of the pack, Kalim, chose my mother as his alpha female. Alas, Silver Snow loved Wildfire, and her new title could not freeze her feelings for him. My siblings and I were the result, and the ultimate disgrace.

As soon as I could walk my parents made sure I knew what a delicate situation my family was in. We should have been banished to wander the tundra alone, but my mother begged and pleaded for her family, if not herself, to be spared. Kalim’s heart was softened by my mother’s beauty and courage, but even with his mercy that day, the lives of myself and my littermates would always be in danger.

One morning in my seventh week of life, my father took me aside from my play. The expression on his face was grave, and though pup I was I knew he was going to tell me something deadly serious. I scampered up to him and peered into his grim face, realizing that I had never seen him smile except for the first minute I had opened my gold-as-the-sun eyes. I pawed anxiously at his dark brown leg. “What’s wrong, Daddy?”

“Everything, Aniu,” Wildfire replied, never taking his tired golden eyes off Silver Snow as she played with my siblings, “Everything has been wrong since Kalim discovered your mother was heavy with you and your brothers and sisters. It’s dangerous for you even to be alive.” He finally ripped his gaze away from Silver Snow and burned into me with his determined stare. I almost took a step back, but knew my father wouldn’t like seeing me afraid. “I’m telling you this first, Aniu, because you are the weakest of your litter. Danger lurks everywhere for you, and you can never let your guard down. You’ve got to survive! Live! Don’t let anyone kill you, by Kalim!”

By this time I was trembling at my father’s paws. He stopped swearing by the pack leader’s name, as all wolves do, and scooped me close to him with a dark paw nearly as big as my small body. I shook against him, and he nuzzled me softly and kissed my forehead. His voice quivered like a bow after a fatal arrow has been shot. “Stay strong and quick and clever, Aniu. I can’t let any of you be killed. I don’t know what I’d do…I love you.” It was the only term of affection I would ever hear from my father, but I immediately felt safe and wanted, right there with my head tucked under his chin and my ear pressed against his heart. The heart’s solid thumping seemed to carry a promise of life.

Wildfire suddenly stiffened. I looked up at him with my ears pressing down against my head. He slid over me and trotted cautiously over to the lush thicket, where urgent voice could faintly be heard drifting down the wind. I tried to follow silently, but a pup is clumsy on her paws.

“No! Stay there,” Wildfire hissed, whipping around to face me. I managed to backpedal and sat down smartly in the dirt. He twisted around again, and this time I slunk back to him more carefully.

A glance through the greenery confirmed Kalim was speaking with Ice Moon, his more faithful, replacement alpha female.

“Kalim, are you sure you want those bastard pups roaming around our territory?” Ice Moon was saying, “They’re a nuisance, and they shame the pack!”

“Of course I don’t want them! The only thing they’re good for is to remind me that Silver Snow loves another! That Wildfire needs a dose of some of his own medicine, some humiliation…”

“The pups are the closest things to his heart,” Ice Moon sneered, “Anyone can see that.”

“Yes, getting rid of the pups will get him…” Kalim stopped to reconsider. “But what of Silver Snow…”

“Who needs Silver Snow when you’ve got me?” Ice Moon screeched, “She’s the one that betrayed you in the first place! Believe me, Kalim, hurting her will be the best revenge.”

Suddenly Kalim raised his head and sniffed. I could barely move. I was stunned to hear this outrage against me when I had done nothing wrong but be born into this world. Would Kalim really hurt me? Kill me?

“Wildfire!” Kalim’s flailing form crashed through the green to knock my father to the ground. I flattened myself just in time before I was crushed, but as I looked up I nearly retched at the sight of Kalim plunging his ice-white teeth into my father’s chest, ripping out flesh and unleashing a hidden fountain of blood.

A strangled yelp from my father ended my world.

It was as if a storm cloud had veiled my thoughts as it veils the sun. With my dropping sadness came an uplifting, angry red storm of rage. Sensing Ice Moon behind me, probably poised to kill, I kicked her sharply in the jaw and let her cries follow me to my mother, who I slammed into as if the Monster of Death was chasing me. Silver Snow immediately hustled my six other littermates into the shadows behind the pack cave. There she pushed us into a small den underground and covered the entrance with a large evergreen branch as she followed us in. It was as if she had known this day would come.

My siblings and mother pestered me as to what had happened, and as I told my tale I hardened myself against their shocked expressions. Silver Snow began weeping silently, and she pulled me close and fondled and kissed me as my siblings began whimpering, too.

I knew then that the world truly was against me and my family.

The avalanche of events afterwards still causes me grief to remember. My mother kept us hidden for as long as she could, but when Kalim eventually did find us I was sure our deaths were the next order of business.

Weeks passed. Nothing happened. There was no funeral for my father, but none was expected. The tension in the pack was noticeable even to other animals, and sometimes I thought even the caribou we hunted looked back at us with absurd curiosity in their glassy eyes, as if to wonder if all wolf packs had turned as distrustful and hating as ours.

Then things finally began to happen. Two sisters accidentally ate some rotten caribou and were found dead the next morning. One brother was shot through the head by a hunter. A sister drowned in the creek we drank from. Another brother was found frozen outside the pack cave after a terrible blizzard. In the end, the only family members I had left were my mother and my brother Nava. Whether these deaths were planned or not, I told myself not to care. The three things I had to look out for were me, myself, and I. This may sound selfish, but it was the only way I survived. I tried not to grow fond of Nava, because if he was the one to die next, I knew my heart couldn’t take it. My spirit would die.

To credit my avoidance of him, we only ever had one real conversation together. It was the night after we discovered all our siblings but us had died, or been murdered. We lay huddled against Silver Snow’s warm body, and Nava’s changing blue eyes glittered like stars in the half-light.

“Aniu,” he muttered into the night, “Do you ever feel like we’re not pups anymore?”

“Yes,” I admitted, “Sometimes I feel older than Mom. We’ve seen too much to really be pups.”

“Who do you think’s going to die next?” he asked bitterly.

I was silent. Rigid emotions twisted in my stomach.

“I don’t want to die,” Nava added softly.

“I don’t want to either,” I whispered, “But we all have to die sometime. Let’s just hope it’s not too soon.” I pictured Wildfire’s dark, handsome face with its firm expression. “What do you think Dad would do now?”

“He’d kill Kalim and Ice Moon!” Nava growled. I smiled grimly. “I would, too, if I wasn’t so little!” He jerked to lay on his other side with his back to me. “I hate this pack! Nobody trusts anyone else! When I become pack leader, I’ll make sure no one hates each other, and if anyone hurts a pup I’ll strangle them! I’ll be a greater pack leader than any ever before!” He was panting by the time he was finished.

Something dark and piercing coiled up inside me when I realized Nava could never be a pack leader. We were bastards because of our parents’