Wolf Lake

Chapter 6

It is challenging to fully describe the sensations of shifting. From the outside looking in it seems so fluid, so easy. The body appears to almost liquify as it changes shape, thick fur growing in a blink. From the inside it is an entirely different story. Every structure in the body, bones, muscles, tendons, organs--even cells-- contort and morph from human to Wolf. Looking at our cellular structures before and after the change under a microscope shows what appears to be a normal human before and a normal wolf after. It would be interesting to see how the cells change under a microscope, but I am not sure there would be a way of doing that.

I feel and hear the bones and sinews snap and pop back into their new positions. It is an extremely painful experience, but fortunately it is also fleeting. After years of practice it is much like being slapped--the pain is sharp for a moment, but quickly dissipates. The change from Wolf to human is far more painful and takes a little longer to complete--it is also exhausting. When it’s finished, I only ever seem to have just enough energy left to get dressed and slog my way back home. It always feels like I have been up running for 48 hours straight and I tend to fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. 

I sit back on my haunches for a moment blinking, giving my eyes a moment to adjust. The changes to my eyesight have always taken me the longest for me to adjust to. The forest in front of me is in much sharper focus, I can see deeper into the dark trees than I can as a human, but the colors are more muted, less vibrant, and my peripheral vision is much narrower. 

Because I am approximately an average sized person, I am also an average sized Wolf. I stand around three feet at the shoulders and am about six feet long. My first change was when I was at my heaviest, so I was an unnaturally rotund looking Wolf. My parents had found it ‘adorable’, but I certainly did not. It had been the kick in the pants I had needed to finally start to get a handle on my health. 

Larger, stronger humans do tend to make for larger, stronger Wolves. While we tend to be a little larger than an average wolf in the wild, we do not tend to be so large that a sighting would draw undue attention to ourselves. Most Alphas get a slight boost in their size, speed, and strength, giving them a potential edge on any would-be competitors, but that does not guarantee that a challenger wont be bigger, faster, or more powerful than them. Despite our large size, from far away, our long legs and lanky bodies often give the first impression of a deer or calf more than a large canine to unsuspecting humans.

I roll my neck and shoulders, taking a deep breath into my narrow chest and bending into a low stretch along my back and tail. I stand and shake out my fur. I can feel the dense layer of soft, fine undercoat that has already begun to slowly grow back in preparation for winter between my long guard hairs. My fur is very dark at the base, a deep chocolate brown that is almost black near the skin. The ends of my guard hairs however, stretch into an almost golden amber. My muzzle, ears, paws, saddle, and the top of my tail are all nearly black, while I have a lighter colored strip down my throat and chest. 

My mothers side of the family has historically had very dark, even black coloring. Despite being a natural blond, Grandmother is the darkest Wolf I have ever seen, jet black except for the grey dusting on her muzzle that has come with age. According to her, Grandpa Buckthorn was also extremely dark, and that was what first caught her eye and attracted her to him at a Gathering all those years ago. My mother has black hair and an olive-to-tan complexion and her Wolf is almost as dark as Grandmothers, but her saddle and underbelly fur are just a shade lighter. Dad’s Wolf is in stark contrast to Mom’s as his is the perfect replication of so many grey wolves you see in the media. A grey head, mane, back and tail, with white on his face, chest and underbelly, and wisps of black mixed in along the lines of muscles with the tip of his tail looking like it’d been dipped in black paint. 

Willow has some of the most distinct coloration I have ever seen. While she is mostly black from nose to tail, she has striking light markings across her chest, hips, saddle, and behind her legs under her tail. Her unmistakable beauty shows prominently in both her human and Wolf forms. Willow is the epitome of the waifish model. She is tall and thin but has grown more curvaceous with motherhood. Her dark chestnut curls seem to always fall effortlessly at her shoulders. I always envied her looks even if I did not envy her desire to be Alpha. I was much happier running the trails with my uncle Hawthorn and the Braves he leads. 

My mother’s younger brother is also her second in command, her Beta. Some had questioned why such a charismatic leader had not challenged my mother for her position when he grew old enough, but Hawthorn--like me-- just never felt the draw of all that added responsibility. 

I take off through the trees, listening to the hum of the forest wildlife as they are either settling in for the night, or preparing for their nocturnal endeavors. It isn’t long before I reach a small clearing where the lines of pine trees had been cut back to give new electrical lines clearance. I amble up silently beside Hawthorn, who sits waiting for the rest of the Braves to arrive. On his other side is his husband Dean. 

Visually they are night and day, yin and yang. Hawthorn has similar dark coloration to mine, but his guard hairs lighten only slightly to a grey, his ears, paws and tail are dark as pitch--he blends into shadows instantly. Dean on the other hand is better suited to blending in at the beach or a desert. He’s a creamsicle. An almost white undercoat accented with a top half that is amber, nearly orange. It almost looks as if he had been an orange colored Wolf  that had swum across a river and the color on his bottom half had washed out. His unique coloration only made his dark nose and bright blue eyes all the more vibrant.

I greet them both, running my snout up along their muzzles. They welcome me in kind, our tails wagging happily, nibbling and being nibbled gently on our chins and cheeks. While I have never felt the desire to greet my uncles in this manner when we are in our human forms, in my Wolf form it seems that the natural instincts trump traditional human concepts of many behaviors. 

"Did you hear the news?"  I ask, dialing in on the communication frequency used by the Braves. In our Wolf form, we are able to speak with a sort of telepathy that most closely resembles radio waves. Using the Braves’ frequency, I can put forth my thoughts and share them in an instant with all the Braves within about a half mile radius. Luckily the connection isn’t free flowing and we don’t have access to everyone's every thought. I close the connection to only direct the question to Hawthorn and Dean. Their ears perk as they sit and look at me, then back at each other. 

Hawthorn responded first. “I know Holly had a meeting with the Tribal Elders…. Did they talk about the latest missing woman?” Hawthorn and Dean shared a knowing glance at each other before Dean continued. “I was with John when the original call came through to the tribal officers reporting her missing. He said Anthonette isn’t the kind of girl to just take off without telling someone.” John was their close friend and most trusted connection on the force. He and Hawthorn had known each other since elementary school. We discussed what Mom had told me at dinner as the rest of the Braves arrived. ....

We take off into the trees, eleven blurs in the darkness. We are cursorial creatures, designed to be able to run non-stop through the night, our bodies adapted to maximize fast, almost continuous travel. Our long limbs and paws land almost directly under the center of our bodies, our legs press into our chests and our elbows turn inward while our paws turn slightly outward. Our large, semi-webbed paws carry us smoothly across the soft earth of the forest floor, our thick dark nails dig into the soil with each quiet footfall.