All Together Again

The wolf looked to the sky as the sun was setting; the sudden change of brightness of the sky of the sky had caught its amber eyes. The colours that were strewn across the sky made it look more like a painting than the actual sky. Of course, the wolf didn't know what a painting was, since a painting was something human made. This feral creature had never even seen a painting and couldn't know that it was even human made. To the wolf, it just looked unreal and as far as he knew it could have been.

It wasn't like the ground beneath his paws; it wasn't like the leaves of the trees. It just wasn't tangible, so maybe it was only an illusion. Maybe it wasn't; the wolf felt that he couldn't know for sure. Not that it truly mattered as he stood there with the chill wind ruffling his thick pelt whilst he stood at the edge of a copse of trees. All that mattered was what he knew and what he could learn by seeing with his own eyes and hear with his own ears. And then there was what he could smell with his highly heightened sense of smell and what taste and touch told him about all else. He knew that the sky, whether real or false, was there in his sight.

As he took a few steps outwards, it wasn't the soft blades of grass that he felt under the pads of his paws but the coldness of the snow that layered the ground. Upon first touching it, the coldness had bit at the fleshiness of the bottom of his feet, but that feeling soon passed. The wolf had long ago grown used to feeling the snow and had grown used to it being deep. So deep that it would crawl up his legs with each step he took and make it hard to walk. It seemed like walking through water, but snow seemed much less dangerous than water. It wouldn't sweep him away, never to be seen again.

The chill wind caused him to walk with eyes half-closed to prevent the bitter stabbing that the wind could cause. That and there was need to prevent the light snow that was falling from falling onto those eyes. Essentially, seeing wasn't the easiest thing to do at the time, but he had to trudge on, separated from his pack in the storm that had occurred the night before. Somewhere within the forest they'd all been separated, though they'd tried so emphatically to stay together.

No concern was within this wolf even with this separation, as he knew that he'd be able to find them again. It was a simple matter, no? Just call out to them and they'd respond, for even the wind couldn't overpower the voice of the mighty wolf. 'Least, that was what he believed, yet his calls thus far had been without response.

So he continued to tread along, the smells around him invading his nostrils, though not giving much in way of scent of his fellow pack members. Perhaps it was because the snow was much like water and it destroyed the scent. Or maybe he was on the wrong path entirely. Whatever the case, there was no scent of them to be found.

Occasionally he'd stop, perking his ears up and then letting them flicker to pick up any sound that might alert him of danger or of his companions. The sound of the wind howled in his ears, but he could also hear the sounds of birds brave enough to fight through this weather and of other small creatures moving around through the snow. The feral canine's head would also occasionally dip down to take a sniff at the snow, the sharp cold scent wafting up instantly. At times there'd be scent of some other creature that had tread along the way and marked their path, but nothing recognizable.

A pause came in his step as he heard something crashing through the air; the sound of a call. This was not just any call though, but a call to him. With a feeling of relief and glee running through him, he raised his head back, ears flattening against it before opening his jaws to howl in return. Indeed, the sound annihilated that of the wind, perhaps even aided by this wind to carry it to his comrades, who definitely seemed close. The sound produced by his vocal cords carried in an echo, but finally became too quiet to hear.

The first voice, the one he'd responded to, fell into the skies again before he took off in a run towards that voice. The snow no longer seemed difficult to travel through, but yielded his limbs as they flew forward and backwards. Even as paws sunk into the snow, the powerful muscles in the wolves legs drove him forward to get to where he needed to go.

His panting caused his own breath to hover before him a second before just becoming part of the air around him. The small, white puffs of air escaped his mouth with each exhale. The small portions of snow flying from under his feet flew up and clung to his thick, winter pelt, but never really reached the skin beneath the fur. Of course it didn't cling forever, as it would fall off or even melt from his body heat before new snow would take its place.

The open field around him yielded his desire to run and just continue without worrying about having to avoid anything. Even the small slope he had to climb up was free of any obstructions and he just ran up without delay. At the top of this small slope he stopped, panting for a moment or too and looking down at the world, though it wasn't all too far to look down. It was far enough though, for he saw the rest of his pack standing there in the snow. Their tails started to swish back and forth as they saw him standing up there and their feet began to shuffle through the snow.

With a wolf-like grin, he began his descent down the hill and over to his comrades. Their greetings met his ears, even as he almost slipped on a hidden patch of ice beneath the snow. As he came to a stop, his own tail began to wag. It stopped for a moment as he shook, getting as much snow off of him as he could before his tail began to swing back and forth again. More intimate greetings were given, all quite glad to be all together again.