Chapter 8 #4
Yuka had her back to the door when I entered.
She’d been combing her hair with an ornate, ivory brush while she awaited my return—the only one in the village, as their tribe was not one for vanity.
She looked at me with the sort of calm fortitude that told me she’d been expecting this for a long, long time.
She lifted her chin in a sign of strength, the hand-poked tattoo running from her lower lip down her neck highlighted by the red-orange flame as she did.
She did not answer. She simply stared.
It was so strange to realize that while I knew her, she did not know me. “I’m…” I struggled for a name.
With the quirk of one corner of her lip, she supplied: “Fluffy.”
The corner of my mouth tugged. “If it pleases you.”
“And what is your name,” she said, voice clear and even as though she were calmly addressing a crowd. “So that I might properly address you.”
Her shoulders were too level. Her posture was too straight. The formality hurt me almost as much as if she had feared me. I shook my head. “No, Yuka. I’m not seeking recognition. The only name I want is the one you give me.”
She exhaled, brows pinching in the middle. She resumed brushing her hair.
“Interesting,” she said. That was all. No argument. No questions. No fight.
“I suppose it is,” I said, unable to keep the edges of a smile from my expression.
She set the comb beside the bed and turned to face me. “I sense that you might be able to tell me why I know this song.”
The perception struck me.
I was so unfamiliar with being on two feet that it took a moment to ensure I hadn’t wavered. I gestured to the furs on the bed, asking permission, and waited for her nod before I took a seat.
“This is the first time I’ve heard you sing it,” was all I said.
She tilted her head to the side. Loose, freshly-combed locks tumbled over her shoulder as she listened. The high, metallic noise of the lights informed her of their presence even if there was no window in her home. “Perhaps it’s a night for the spirits,” she said. “Including ghosts of the past.”
A sacred night. Yes, I supposed there might be something to that.
I didn’t know much of humans and their clairabilities.
I knew of their lore and of days they’d gossiped and warned of spirits and demons, but as I had only paid mind to one human, I’d spared little time thinking about the veil being thick or thin.
Athena, in her wisdom, created a crack in the veil for me to appear in the flesh to humans who belonged to another pantheon.
Many gods could take the shape of men at will, but stepping into corporeal form was not an ability afforded to all of us.
I was new to the practice, and had no idea how much of it was achievable without external help.
Could I take the shape of a man and walk through a city as a stranger, seen by all?
Would I always need to be chosen, or take a safe, accepted form?
Had I always possessed the ability, but never searched for the edges of my power until I was pushed to grow?
I suppose I had lifetimes to figure it out.
As it stood, I had to use the gift sparingly. Even when wearing the skin of a man, I could never truly blend in with humans. But on a sacred night such as this, perhaps my appearance wouldn’t be so terrible.
Again, she spoke. “Truly, you come with no name? No message from the gods? No wants as our guardian spirit? Ask it, and it’s yours.”
This gave me pause. Perhaps ten years was a very long time for her, but it had been dust in the wind for me. I’d busied myself with keeping her alive and happy. This was my first time succeeding with my human for more than a few poorly-attended years, and that, in and of itself, was a victory.
“I have a singular want.”
Her shoulders were too straight once more.
I realized my sentence was more horrifying than a strange man entering her tent unannounced. Then again, I was as pale as the white wolf, and she’d had no reaction. I was not dressed for warmth, but she hadn’t been afraid. Maybe with her, I wouldn’t lie.
“I want to succeed here, where I’ve failed before. The human life is short, and yours has been shorter than most. This time, my lone wish is to keep you alive.”
“This time?” she repeated.
Wind, metallic hum, crackling fire, and the thump of my own pulse made a disquieting symphony between us.
I couldn’t tell if I’d made an error.
I knew her people grew up with legends of the afterlife.
I knew animals were believed to have a soul, and that some souls could return to earth in a new body, should their soul be wholly claimed by the gods of their afterlife and consent to retiring into the endlessness of forever.
I knew Eleni would choose me over any regional afterlife. With Yuka, I couldn’t be sure.
I had no authority over this theology or their traditions. Then again, while their gods claimed them, I’d certainly made my stake to her clear. She’d come back time and time again. With any luck, the gods of her people would continue to leave her untouched.
“You’re regarded as a spiritual leader, given your attachment to the guardian wolf,” I said, delicately changing the subject while continuing to address her path in this life. “Is this life fulfilling? Are you happy?”
She didn’t have to think for long. With a small, serene smile, she said, “There is no greater joy than knowing that your existence makes the lives of others better. I can uniquely help my people. With the wolf, or with you, as the wolf’s spirit before me…I am happy.”
I tried not to hold my breath while she was speaking, but my exhale relaxed us both.
“I’d like to help you,” I said.
Unlike our time in Athens, I had no urge to touch her.
She was beautiful, to be sure. But Yuka had no interest, romantic or otherwise, when it came to the flesh.
I’d never heard the pattern of her heart increase at the nearness of a human of any gender.
She didn’t swear, didn’t grow excited, didn’t blush the way mortals might.
Asexuality did not deter her from joy, from community, from fulfillment.
It didn’t change a line of mauve or amethyst or white in the shimmering glow of her aura.
I didn’t have to taste her soul to know that my greatest pleasure was to be near it.
“I’ll be the wolf you need around the people.
And at night, we can speak. Ask any question, and I’ll answer, if I’m able. You can be an advisor for your people.”
She considered this. “A line to the spirit world.”
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure I had the right to. I couldn’t speak to the fallen, or give messages of the afterlife, as one might hope from a spiritual advisor. But we agreed. I would guide her. I would protect her. I would be there for her.
In return, I would not shatter.
“You’ll become a man again? We can speak like this in the future?”
The smile might have reached my eyes, though I couldn’t be sure. “If it pleases you.”
Lines around her eyes crinkled, despite her youth. “It does.”
My reward was the satisfaction of going as long as I could without my heart cracking like the ice beneath our feet, plunging us into the black, arctic abyss.
And, so, it was.
She was Yuka, Wolf Rider.
Under Yuka’s role as anjatuq, shaman in another tongue, women made it through their pregnancies without issue. I tested my abilities to their limits and discovered new ones I’d never had occasion to access.
Anyone who fell ill was better by the next morning.
Her advice was sound, even without the wisdom of her spirit counselor, and never questioned by her people.
Her leadership was sovereign and respected.
She lived without harassment or threats.
Neighboring peoples heard word of her leadership, and at each trading post, our tribe grew.
Other nomads visited for medicine or advice, and in the form of the magical wolf, I would brush against them, gifting them with health before they left.
Yuka was beautiful at twenty, and at forty, and at sixty.
Our lives were full, our conversations invigorating, our relationship as deep as the ravines that shaped the world.
In the years that followed, I did my best to explain my pantheon, but she had no need for categorizing enemies and adversaries.
My kingdom and its wars were a far-off nothing, irrelevant given that not even the ghostly shape of my legion had laid its smoke upon the ice.
She didn’t need warding or protection from succubi and heavenly hosts out here.
I was from elsewhere, I was other, and that was all that mattered.
We spoke of time and soul and death.
I told her stories that she said were decidedly magical and fantastical. And we looked at the stars. Fuck, did we look at the stars.
She knew the Qawiaraq names for every constellation and recited the rich, passionate tales behind them.
We’d wander as far from the village as we could so everyone would perceive a wolf and a woman—never the man he’d become—as they spent their nights on the ice as unlikely companions who stared at the stars.
And life went on.
Gods above and below, it was a life.
I experienced true, profound joy.
There was music. There was dancing and art and community, the likes of which I’d never truly experienced.
I felt the days—truly felt them. The sun rose, it set, and sometimes in the long months, it would stay up all night or stay gone for months.
My explanations of rocks and their tilts were boring, and rejected on the grounds of being uninteresting, which I found utterly delightful.
I loved her more now than I had in her bed in Greece, as if each day with her was more wonderful, more beautiful, more absurdly precious than anything the immortal realms might deign to craft, despite the ice and snow and winters.
This was what it meant to be alive.