Chapter Text
Elder Brother passed away that winter. They, now only two, walked away from his deceased body with its rheumy eyes still open and black and staring. She glanced back once, as she reached out to her remaining brother, burying her thin, pale hand in his thick, warm coat. Beneath her palm, she could feel the movement of muscle, the slight but steady pulse of blood beneath white skin: a pulse which echoed her own heavy heart.
A week later, while huddled together in their new lair, drowsily waiting out the storm, the thought of return occurred to her for the first time. She ventured out onto the untrodden snow, perched on Younger Brother's back with her two bare feet peeking out beneath the furs with which she wrapped herself. They marked a wandering path in footprints back to where the corpse still lay, now part bone curving into icicles. San slid down to the ground and touched the point of one rib, ragged with tendons and half-eaten flesh. She leaned over one black eye, still open and staring, and observed the small white filamentous web creeping out from one corner. She felt her cheeks grow cold, her feet colder.
Younger Brother, only brother, asked her curiously, "Where are we?"
She turned. "Don't you remember?"
"Wolves' memories are both short and long."
"This is where Elder Brother died."
"No, it isn't," he replied, without hesitation.
She gestured at the body, half-buried in snow.
"There is no way to return to death," he told her, gently for a wolf. "That is not Elder Brother's body."
She looked at him with confusion. He nudged at her with his nose. They left, and this time she did not look back.
A month later, when winter was over, she returned alone. She could find no trace of the body; even the bones were unrecognizable. Younger Brother made no comment when she rejoined him. She told him, "Sometimes I am too much human."