Hunting for Spring//Part 7: Kalath, Pascale, Vail

This was the world as the tokota saw it. As Kalath, Vail, Pascale, and Voltire saw it.

Ribbons of colorful light flexed and folded like snakes back and forth across the sky. The great dark void was cut through by streaks of turquoise, vivid blue, and near purple. They moved and shifted with minds of their own, bringing light to what would have been merely endless darkness. The ribbons connected to one another, shifting from one color to the next seamlessly. From behind that veils of color small pinpricks of light cut through, winking merrily as though this was a celebration. It looked as though it were one. Beautiful colors shifting in silence, revealing and hiding the stars like a promise as yet unmet.

The moon was there as well, but all the sky was clear and clean around that luminous orb, the ribbons moving like the fingers of that glorious moon. Beneath their dance was the world spread out. Even as the moon and stars offered illumination so too did the aurora. It cast the world beneath it in a dozen shades of various colors. Here was a hill bathed in green bright as newly grown grass. Here was a valley cast in blue. Like the sky laid out on the ground shading to an almost dark royal purple. Only darkness lay where the light failed to find the earth.

Night was a time of silence. It wrapped everything in those gentle lights and darkness in soft cloths to muffle every sound. The pounding of paws and hooves was soft and rhythmic, echoing the sound of the pounding of the blood in his veins so loud that he could hear it. His feet fell in time to it, in time to the rhythm of the footfalls of the others, the flowing of blood through his veins, and the breath rising and falling from his lips.

With Pascale, Votaire, Vail, and Kalath ahead of him he ran in the wake of the tokota, in the wake of his pack as they poured like streams over the hill in chase of the deer that they had spooked out of the forest. It had for a time run, bounding through the trees until they had come to an end and now it ran across the unmarked earth instead. The deer was pure white in color. A stag with arching antlers turning shades of green, blue, and purple as they ran. The stag spilled into a shadow and turned to ebony, but they were all of them right behind it. It could not disappear.

Voltaire ran ahead, herding the stag to the right and nearly directly into Kalath’s path. Kalath was pale enough that like the stag his coat kept turning colors. The deer had to jump to evade Kalath’s snapping jaws, nimbly dodging to the side and putting on another spurt of speed. Pascale let out a bark to encourage Vail who was in the rear her voice chiming loudly. It could be difficult to keep track of one another in the darkness, particularly when one’s coat was as dark as Pascale’s was, and so she spoke up rather than relying on uncertain sight.

Renor’s heart was beating too fast, his breath coming too quickly. He could not keep up with them at this pace for very long. He patted Vail’s shoulder, and the tokota stopped long enough for him to climb onto his back. Vail might not enjoy the hunt much, but he seemed to actually enjoy Renor riding him. Now that was a thing which Renor was grateful for. Renor’s fingers sank into Vail’s mane and he picked up his pace to catch up with the rest of the tokota. Pascale was on his right but slightly further back than the rest.

They had been exploring these lands for the last week, and when this deer had appeared from between the trees they had reacted to its presence unquestioningly. It ran, they hunted.

Again Kalath almost caught the deer, snapping at its hind quarters and forcing it to jump away. In leaps and bounds it made its escape, becoming turquoise rather than ebony. Renor could feel Vail’s muscles flexing beneath him. Every motion as he kept up with the rest of the pack. Pascale picked up where Kalath failed, managing to hit the deer and spill crimson into the pure color offered by the sky above. It made a black mark on that lovely stag.

It was not enough to stop the deer entirely though. It kept running, leading all of them along the green path to where the earth turned blue. Vail never got close enough for a strike of his own, but then it would have been difficult for him to really with Renor on his back. Renor knew that the tokota had little desire to actually close in however. Vail did not enjoy hunting as the other tokota did. He did not mind running however.

Vail lifted his head and howled, a sound echoed by the rest of the pack, that sound chasing the deer as much as the tokota themselves hunted the pale colored stag. It ran all the harder, fleeing into darkness as Voltaire again swerved to cut it off. All of them worked together, weaving through the light and darkness to catch up.

As they crested the hill Renor could see them in the shadows below, Pascale leaping for the stag’s rear and catching it a second time. The stag staggered this time, and fell. Kalath was close enough to fall upon the deer, to ensure that it did not rise up. Even bearing all that weight it did try. Voltaire joined the others and by the time Vail brought Renor through the shadows to where the rest of the pack was finishing the hunt it was done.

He slid to the ground, watching as Vail joined the others.

This was the last day. The last night of the strange event which had brought them together. It seemed fitting that it end in this. In one last hunt beneath the moon and stars, and the spill of crimson against the earth. Fresh snow had fallen just before the sun set, and it crunched quietly beneath his feet as he joined them to take his share. Just as this hunt was the end of their journey westward so too had the setting of the sun been the end of the warmth that had taken the length of this week from the chill bite of winter.

There would be snow now. For a few days. Turning the world back into a pristine whiteness. Stealing what little warmth that the earth had managed to salvage from the sky. But the winter was well and truly ended, this snow would not last either. When they finished feasting, they would rest, and then they would have the whole journey home together.

Renor sat down in the snow, tilting his face up to the dark sky where the lights still danced.

How many places, how many things had they seen together? How many small moments built up to this one?

In truth he did not want this to end. No small part of him wanted to continue following the sun to where it sat nestled in the darkness now. Keep traveling forever. He knew that some day he would. That it was his fate to find the road again, to pick up the things from the cave that he had made into a home for himself and the now growing pack of tokota that were a family to him. Some of them would likely travel with him. Perhaps all of them. Perhaps Pascale would remain at his side, she might enjoy traveling in that way. It certainly seemed likely that Kalath would, and Vail… His mind said yes, but part of him thought that there was too much about the tokota that he did not know to say it so easily.

He closed his eyes and found the darkness inside waiting for him, and one by one the tokota joined him where he lay. Their presence, their weight, their warmth pulling him into a restful sleep where their thoughts and their dreams were his dreams. In dreams he where he was a red wolf marked with black. A wolf that ran with tokota larger than he but kin to him. In dreams they sang the ancient songs together and chased prey.

In dreams the sky was a part of the earth bathed in colors that no man could see, and the tokota were forever free.

                                                                            - End -

-Elm