Sunday Scribbling prompt #225- letter.  This story brought to you by the letter W for Wolf

Some people were afraid of storms.  Jae loved them.  They made her feel like every cell in her body was alight. The sky had darkened to the west and the clouds crept closer all afternoon.  The air smelled like rain and Jae raised her face to the sky and breathed the taste of lightening in.  She could hear the rumble of thunder still in the distance.  She wondered where Aedan was, if he and the pack were up in the mountains hunting.

She wanted to hate Aedan.  She was still angry at him.  It was confusing to be mad at Aedan the wolf and then like Aedan the man.  She knew they were the same, just as she was the same inside, whether wolf or human.  But, that wasn’t quite true was it?  She needed to see her family.  She hadn’t seen them since the first change.  She knew Simon spoke with them, letting them know she was okay.  She just wanted to see for herself.  Could she change and slip up to their home with the storm covering her?  She had never changed at will before but she knew she could. It wasn’t pleasant, but not painful either.  There was no one around, but she still felt exposed.  She stripped off her clothing and laid it in a neat pile under the bench on the porch, out of the way of the weather.  Jae walked out toward the stream where she had sat and talked with Aedan and concentrated on the wolf inside.  She felt a stretching and bending inside herself that was uncomfortable but familiar. The weird perspective change made her feel slightly nauseous for a moment until she adjusted.  The ground seemed much closer, smells and sounds assaulted her, clear and pure.  She could separate and name each one individually.

The storm was much closer now.  Small animals were burrowed down and even the birds were silent and crouched on branches nearest the trunks of the trees.  The world around her breathed with anticipation for the coming wind and lightening.  Jae took off at an easy lope, heading for the tree line.  She stayed in the edge of the woods.  Finally her house was in sight.  This might have been a mistake.  No might about it.  This was definitely a mistake.  She stood at the edge of the woods listening.  There was movement in the house and she could hear a fiddle.  Her dad was playing.  It was raining now and she slipped closer to the house.  The darkness and noise from the rain would hide her.  The sound of the fiddle became clearer.  She could hear her mother singing.  She was probably dancing with her little brother.  They sounded happy.  They sounded like they didn’t miss her at all.  All the pain and anger welled up in her and she raised her muzzle and let go to the moon and the lightening and all the storm, a howl that came from her heart, from her gut, from the place where all the unfairness lived.

The fiddling stopped.  Jae looked around in a panic, but it was too late.  The front door opened and her father’s shape was silhouetted in the light spilling out from the house, fiddle still in his hand.  Jae bowed her head, but stood her ground.  Her dad slowly raised the fiddle and began to play a few notes.  Jae whined, he played a few more.  She stretched and began to howl again as the man she had known as her father played a sad song to the little white wolf at the edge of the woods. A bolt of lightening hit something in the woods and lit up the sky for a moment.  Jae and her dad looked at each other.  Jae would always remember that he lowered his eyes first.  She ran through the night and the rain and the wind, all the way back to Simon’s house.  She fell asleep dreaming of fiddles and thunder.

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