In the morning, you stir and yawn – then stretch. For a moment, you stop and wonder why you are in a mine tunnel. Also, why you have a dark muzzle. Your memories then kick in, and you recall being turned into a wolf. You sniff, and turn to check out the scent of the other lupine present…
‘Slurp’!! Erin gives you a facial lick, greeting you. You grimace.
“Hey! Stop that, Erin!”
“Sorry, Clyde. It’s just that I’m glad to have someone to wake up with! Did you sleep well?”
You consider this. “Well… I miss my bed. But for my first time of sleeping rough, I was glad we were keeping each other cosy. And yes – I slept like a log. Or a dog. And you?”
“Me, too – despite the rain,” Erin replies. “What a dark night! No moon or stars to admire…”
“Yes… Didn’t you tell me you got ‘silly’ during full moon nights? What’s that about?”
“I’ll show you tonight – if the skies are clear.” Erin butts you with her dark nose. “Anyway - c’mon, wolf boy! Let’s bathe in the nearby lake and shake ourselves – then I need to teach you how to hunt. And I can show you where the best berries and streams are in the woodlands!”
The mention of food and water makes you perk up, and you rise upon your four paws with eagerness. “Lead the way…, wolf girl!” you tease her back, smiling.
During the course of the day, Erin teaches you various things you need to master. How to filter and identify the many scents you are now able to drink in. How to approach your prey from downwind of it. How to corner it and dispatch its life quickly with your jaws, and so on. Although you botch your initial efforts – leaving Erin to catch and kill the squirrels for your joint breakfast – by late afternoon you manage to ambush and keep up with a sprinting rabbit, before making it your first successful kill.
Just before sunset, you and Erin chase one another, as you play tag with your tails. Eventually, you leap upon Erin and collide with her, just as she’s about to turn a corner on the path in the woods. The force of your collision sends you both skidding on the fallen autumn leaves, and the two of you roll down an embankment, yelping - to land in a bed of windswept leaves, tangled in each other.
Erin yips, and then lolls out her tongue. You realise that if she was human right then, she would be helpless with laughter. As you would be. Instead, you both lock your gazes on each other. Times seems to freeze, as you move in to touch dark, wet noses together – then affectionately lightly brush your muzzles.
“Whoa…” You pant, pulling back. “I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun!”
“Neither can I, Clyde.” Erin gives you a friendly lick, and this time you don’t mind. “There are some perks to being a wolf, you see! Are…, are you all right now? With what you are, I mean? And with me?”
You nod. “I accept this body now. I have adapted. I can run like the wind! I’m faster and stronger than I ever was before. And I’m glad to have you as my pack sister, Erin! But what about the other Changed who became wolves? Where are they?”
“Oh – they are an Indian couple, who’ve made the territory on the other side of the park’s main river. We greet each other, now and then – but they prefer to keep themselves to themselves. Especially since that encounter I had, not long after I was Changed, two months back…” Erin trails off, and looks at the darkening sky. The sun is setting. And your eyes spy the rising full moon on the opposite horizon.
“Yes…,” you reply. “Why do you act ‘silly’ at full moons?”