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Ben loves to hunt. His parents are surprised he hasn’t gone off to try and find a mate to form his own pack with, because he is so big now, but if he were a lone wolf, he couldn’t bring down such big game.
He loves sniffing, he loves howling the news when he finds something, he loves running and encircling and bringing down something four times his size. He loves being the yellow-eyed, black-furred thing in the dark the big thing is afraid of. When his parents and Finn, full of whatever they brought down last night and ready to keep eating until it’s gone, don’t want to join in, that’s fine. He’ll hunt rabbits. A challenge is a challenge; a hunt is a hunt.
That’s what he’s doing that night. The pack gives a perfunctory howl to find out where he is, and he gives a brief howl back. Then he trots out into the brush, big paws soft and silent.
He sniffs for something small. Something he can crunch and gnaw and enjoy his own strength and speed in catching. Something like... a wiry little rabbit. He can smell it. He drops low to the ground, keeps his scent off the wind.
It’s nervy, but it doesn’t smell him. It looks nervously around, and sets off at a run, but not in the right direction. Not dead away from him. Two quick bounds and a pounce, and Ben’s teeth snap behind its head. Which is when she hits him.
Teeth, claws, yelps, howls, growls — for a second he thinks he must have crossed a territory line and a whole pack has come down on him for trespassing. But it’s only one wolf, skinny and ragged and furious. He tries to rear back, prey between his teeth, but she won’t let him go.
“MINE. THAT’S MINE. I HUNTED IT,” she growls, as she lunges after him, trying to snap it from his jaws. But he caught it; it’s his. And this is his pack’s territory. He digs his teeth in. Nasty cold pain scores across his muzzle, and he yelps.
She has the rabbit out of his mouth in an instant, and her teeth are rending it before she even has it on the ground, eating it midair like every second she has with it counts. Which it should; he ought to be fighting her for it. Or calling the pack to drive her out.
But his muzzle hurts.
And she looks so thin. She shouldn’t be able to hunt, that thin, let alone fight him. She should be scavenging, eating what’s already dead.
She’s alone. She scarfs down the little bit of meat she can find between the fur and the bone, eyes on him the whole time. He really should howl up the pack to send her on her way. She knows it, too. She can smell that he belongs here, and doesn’t. “I’ll go,” she pants, watching him as she crunches for the little marrow the thing has to offer. “I’ll go. But I hunted this. It’s mine.”
That’s not how it goes. He pushes in the dirt with his fore paws, uncertain. He doesn’t understand. “Are you alone?” She must be. But she’s young, too. Her coat is still a little patchy with her puppy fur. There’s no reason for her to leave her pack and go hungry.
“I’ll go,” she says again. There’s nothing left of the rabbit. She’s eaten every scrap of meat. She backs away, and he drops into a play bow. She’s so confused she stops in her tracks, quizzical from head to tail.
“What happened to your pack?” he asks her. It must be something terrible, if they made her leave so young. Some wolves like to be alone, like Uncle Luke. But she’s starving. “Why didn’t you ask us to share?”
“...share?”
“We have a big carcass. I found it.” His tail curls up a little in pride without his meaning to.
“But I’m... I’m not in your pack.”
“You could still share. Hunt with us next time. Then you can leave again. If you want to.”
“I’ll just go,” she says, and backs away.
She doesn’t think his kill is big enough to be any good. He bounds into the brush after her, howling, and she bares her fangs over her shoulder. “I SAID I was going!”
But they’re a fast, strong pack, his pack, and they’re already coming running, howls mingling as they triangulate Ben and the stranger. She spins wildly, teeth bared, as Han bounds near, sandy-grey and almost as big as Ben. “Trouble, son?”
“Tell her about the kill,” Ben snaps, hackles a little bristly. “Tell her it’s good, and she can have some!”
The stranger’s ears are back, but when she growls it comes out as a whine of confusion. Ben’s mother pads into view, ears up. Finn circles, cautious and crouching.
“Do you want to join us?” Leia asks, and the stranger gives a strangled little yelp and a wriggle, as if something small had bitten her.
“Join you?”
“You think there’s something wrong with us?” Han asks, hackles rising to match Ben’s. Finn growls indignation and pads closer.
“No, I — no, I just — “ now she’s the one kneading the ground in confusion, head twitching and ticking like a bird’s. “I just — you’d let me have something you — you JUST killed?”
“Not tonight,” Leia says. “Last night.”
“Pretty big, though. Neck up about here,” Han says, and jumps to demonstrate. The lone wolf’s eyes go wide and Ben’s hackles smooth a little. He helps get good kills.
“Don’t get her hopes up,” Leia chides. “But there’s good meat left.”
“And I could — I could —“ The stranger’s head is still whipping back and forth, and Finn moves close in a soothing slow crouch.
“Hey,” he says. “This is our breeding pair, Han and Leia. That’s Ben, and I’m Finn. We can all have a sniff before we go eat, yeah?”
The stranger shakes herself all over. She’s dirty brown, lighter than Finn or Leia, but nobody’s fur looks good when they’re that hungry. But her yellow-green eyes are keen as she looks at them. “I’m Rey.”
Ben muscles forward to be the first one to trade sniffs. (He saw her first. He’s the one she bit.) She backs up a half step as he comes on, but then braces herself like he’s a rainstorm for her to endure. Ben tries not to be hurt. She doesn’t smell like she hates him too much. She smells like she does mostly eat dead things. Like she doesn’t have dry, safe places to sleep. Like she’s been sick. Like she’s afraid.
Ben backs away and let’s the others take their turn. His mother doesn’t even nip him for not letting her go first; she just politely circles Rey and trades sniffs. After Han, Rey’s ragged tail is in a peaceable curl. After Finn, she almost wags. Ben tries not to resent it.
“Kill’s this way,” he says, and heads for the carcass. Her steps are so light they’re close to silent — no wonder he didn’t hear her when he was tracking the rabbit. But he can hear her eager breath now.
She stands stock still for a moment, by the big dead elk. “It’s huge,” she breathes, and Ben suppresses a wag of his own.
“Eat up, kid,” Han says, and Rey becomes a blur of teeth and gratified growls.
The fun for Ben is always in the hunting. Not that the eating isn’t good, isn’t the point. But the hunt is what makes his ears perk, his heart beat.
Watching her eat with so much relish, his ears stand up a little straighter. His heart beats a little faster.
Her whole jaw is red. One of her feet is planted between the carcass’s ribs. She’s eaten more in five minutes than Finn and Ben have together in a day. Ben gives a soft whine of amazement. The whole pack echoes it, and Rey freezes.
She backs away hurriedly, her tail between her legs. “I ate — so much — I’m sorry — I’m so sorry.” She’s dipping her head to Leia, frantic, clearly on the point of rolling over. Ben can’t have that. He nips at her back leg and she yelps.
“Hunt with us tomorrow,” he says.
“Can you hunt?” Leia asks. Which is a silly question, in Ben’s opinion; can she not see the bite on his muzzle? Where does she think he got it, sticking his head in a trap? Sticking his head in a stranger’s mouth?
(Okay. He might. If it was her.)
“Yes,” Rey promises. Still a little frantic. Vibrating with what Ben begins to recognize as a puppy’s desperate will to please. “Yes. I can hunt. Very well. I promise.”
“Sleep in our den,” Leia says. “We’ll hunt tomorrow.”
It isn’t sunrise yet. Leia herds Rey into a stream, and scratches at her until big clumps of mud dislodge from her fur. Underneath the mud, she doesn’t seem to be any color at all. Just ragged. Ben lies on the shore with his head on his paws, watching Rey twist and sneeze.
On the shore, she gives a wild shake, and then blinks as Ben stands up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there. And there’s water in my nose.” She sneezes again. Ben doesn’t say anything. Rey gives him a look back over her shoulder as she follows Leia toward the den.
It’s tight, in the den, with five grown wolves. Ben feels a moment of guilt that he hasn’t left, hasn’t started his own pack... his thoughts trail away as Rey curls into a tight ball, her nose hidden in her tail. She looks so small she could be one of those dogs that pull sleds up north.
He should volunteer to sleep outside. But instead he lies down next to her, his nose next to her nose. He hears Han grumble about overgrown puppies and what if it rains, and he feels guilty again. He doesn’t move. Just closes his eyes and breathes in the strange new smell of Rey.
He wakes up a little later with her yellow-green eyes looking at him. Her tail is dry and fluffy, and she peers at him through it. “Am I — am I in your pack now?” she whispers breathlessly. “For tonight?”
“Yes,” he says.
She only wants it to be tonight.
Some wolves like to be alone. They only see Uncle Luke maybe once a year, when he wanders close.
Maybe she’ll stay a little closer than that, and they can howl together, and —
“Then — then I’m sorry I bit you,” she says, and her rough tongue sweeps the cut she left.
She licks and licks, past when he’s clean. She probably doesn’t know better, but he doesn’t tell her. He gives her a shy little lick along her jaw, and pretends it was an accident— just licking his own lips, only her muzzle was in the way. She keeps licking, and his eyes close.
When the sun sets, she’s the first one awake, nudging him with her nose in the deepening dark. “Time to hunt,” she says. “Right?”
Finn opens one eye. “Wait for everyone to wake up first, please.”
“Sorry, “ she whispers, drawing back.
Ben stretches, and shakes, letting his thick coat ripple, and yawns, to show off his big shiny teeth. He lets one narrowed eye drift towards Rey, to see if she’s impressed. She’s just watching. But her tail’s a little curled, right? Maybe?
Han will laugh if he asks what girls like. He’ll tell him to go start his own pack, even though it will be cold soon, and Ben doesn’t want to leave. He likes to hunt alone. He’s not so sure about being alone.
Finn rolls, and shakes, and Leia gives a little evening howl. Han joins in, and Leia goes outside to sit beside him. Finn goes out into the dusk, and howls too. Ben adds his harmony, just a little lower, as he leaves the den, and looks back over his shoulder at Rey. She takes a deep breath and comes to sit beside him and howl.
It’s a hoarse, timid little howl. Like she’s forgotten how. Or maybe never learned. He puts his nose under her chin and gently pushes it higher, then howls again. She’s stronger this time, her throat more open.
They sound good. They sound strong and wild and intertwined.
She’s more than good at hunting. She runs fast, her nose low, and she picks up good scents. But she keeps forgetting she has all of them, that she doesn’t need to lose herself hunting rabbits and squirrels. She has a pack, and the pack is strong. She makes it stronger.
They pull down another elk, with Ben and Rey at its heels and Finn and Han at the head for the throat and neck, and Leia to tear open the stomach for the good red softness to spill out.
Probably it sounds horrible, to the elk who get away. Five wolves snapping and snatching, pulling entrails and meat hot from the bone. But it’s their kill, and Ben watches Rey between every bite. She eats with crazed focus, swallowing meat and cracking bone.
They eat until they’re full, Han and Leia and Finn and Ben, and Rey goes on eating, singing her hungry song of slavering and tearing all alone, until she staggers backwards and falls to the ground with the rest of them.
“Ready for seconds?” Finn asks, tongue lolling in a smile.
“Oh — CAN I — are you — “ She looks around wildly at them where they lie, sated and panting.
“Lie down a bit,” Leia says kindly. “Don’t eat so much you can’t run home, my mother always said.”
Rey lies down. She puts her head on her paws, then on the ground. Then she lifts her head and howls, all alone, a pure, painful, foreign sound. It’s nothing like their pack’s howl. Ben’s heart constricts; he leaps up, and as she lowers her head, he’s there to lick her jaw.
“My pack went away,” she says softly. “My parents went out to hunt and they didn’t come back. And then my siblings found meat and there wasn’t enough to share and they died.” She howls again, softly, against his ruff, and he nuzzles her ear. “I barely remember them. But they used to howl like that.”
It’s a little puppy’s howl, from a far-away pack. She doesn’t know how to be a lone wolf, or a part of a pack. She only knows hunting she taught herself. He licks her again, and casts a pleading look at his mother. “She’s so good at hunting. Tell her she can stay with us.”
“You’re a lone wolf, Rey,” Leia says, slowly but not unkindly. “But if you can hunt with us, and be nice to your packmates, you can be part of our pack.”
Rey freezes, still as stone. Then Ben feels the breeze of her tail as it wags madly, and Rey rolls over on her back and wriggles. Ben’s never seen anyone be so happy. About anything. Ever. Then she springs up and tackles him, play-biting his big ears, and he’s happy, too.
They’re unstoppable hunters. She loves it as much as he does — maybe more; she’s so happy to be hunting with the pack. She leaps recklessly after prey, but her teeth never miss.
As the cold season comes on, Rey’s appetite starts to moderate, just a little. She still goes on eating longer than the rest of them, just not quite so long. But Ben has discovered that he doesn’t need to ask Han what girls like.
Every time he puts a rabbit or a squirrel or a still-cold fish down in front of her, she squirms with delight. When he noses bits of elk-fat to her, her tail swishes the air.
Her fur gets thick and lustrous, a tawny grey that blends into moonlight the way he blends into shadow. Her flesh fills out, and he props his chin against her soft stomach as they sleep in a pile in the den.
The cold comes on, and she greets it with a fresh fluffy undercoat that makes her chin disappear into her chest when she bows her head. He has one too, soft and black.
Finn stands at the edge of the den, and he licks them all, one by one, and bites them gently, to show how much he loves them. “Why do you have to go,” Rey asks, distressed. “Is it me? I can curl up smaller in the den, I promise!”
He gives her an extra lick. “No. I love how big and strong you are. You’re perfect. It’s just that I think I want my own pack.”
“But it’s cold,” she says, distressed.
“I’ll be okay,” Finn says. “Though I can always use tips from the toughest lone wolf around.”
“Don’t eat anything with worms in it,” she tells him seriously. “If you’re really hungry, you can eat the worms in dirt. But meat and worms together are bad.”
“No worms,” Finn promises, and bats at her ears with his paw. “No worms at all, if I can help it.”
They howl together, and then Finn runs out, out towards the edge of the territory that’s always been theirs, and they howl and howl to say goodbye.
Ben looks at his parents, to see if they want him to go. They’re not looking at him. But his mother is looking at Rey.
Rey doesn’t want to go, does she? She was so happy to join them. She wouldn’t want to leave. They’re such a good pack together.
But she starts to be irritable. She snaps at him. She wanders away and she digs in the dirt.
He brings her a rabbit, with snow-white fur only a little bit bloodied by his jaws, and she picks it up and takes it away to eat it by herself, behind a rock. Ben lays down on the ground and whines, because he doesn’t know what else to do.
Leia lays down beside him, and he puts his head on her paws. She licks his ears gently. “Ben,” she says. “You know it’s time for you to go soon.”
His stomach feels full of stones. He doesn’t want to go into the cold, alone. It’s not that he can’t hunt. He can. It’s just.
“Rey’s going to go into estrus soon,” his mother says, and Ben covers his head with his paws.
Rey will go into estrus, and she’ll want a mate, and Ben will make a fool of himself, and she already knows she doesn’t want him. She doesn’t even want to eat with him there.
“Why doesn’t she like me?” he asks, trying not to whimper, even though it hurts.
He doesn’t know what he expected his mother to say. You snarl too much, maybe, or you know you never could keep your tail under control.
He didn’t expect her to laugh.
“Ben,” she growls, and knocks him on his side with exasperation, “she adores you. You need to go with her. If you two stay you’ll be unbearable.”
Ben picks up his head and stares. Go away? With Rey?
“Besides,” Leia says, licking her paws. “Your father and I need some alone time too.”
“But — she ran away! She’s always digging in the dirt!”
“Ben, I did not think I had raised an idiot. Where do you think dens come from?”
Ben staggers off to consider the information in this new light.
He could go away. With Rey. He could have his own pack. With Rey. Because she adores him, his mother says.
He could go somewhere he’s never been, together with Rey, and they could hunt, and he could bring her fish or squirrels or whatever lives in the new place they’ll go.
He goes to find her. She looks like she still might be irritable, so he takes slow steps, his tail half-curled under. She doesn’t growl. He sits down, and tries to think how to ask.
“Rey,” he says. She looks so soft. There’s a little bit of rabbit fur in her teeth. He wants to lick her clean, all over, and then lick her all over again, just to show her how much he loves her sweet winter softness. “Rey. Do you want to have a pack with me? Just me, I mean,” he clarifies, since they are already in a pack together. “I mean, do you want to go somewhere else and be our own pack? We won’t be able to take as much game, but I promise I would hunt a lot for —“
“Yes,” she says.
“Yes?” he says, a little dazed. Because making a pack is for life. You pick a mate and then you are always, always together and he thought he would have to do more persuasion than that. Maybe kill a whole deer for her.
“I want to go west,” she says. “Not too far.”
“West,” he repeats. “Not too far.”
“No,” she says. “If you go too far west... that’s where my parents went away. I don’t want you to go away.”
He yelps. As if he would.
“I just want to be careful,” she says. She leans over, just barely resting her weight on him. And he will be careful, he will be so careful. He noses the rabbit fur off her, to show her how careful he can be.
She gets up and walks away, and for a moment he wonders what he did wrong. But she looks back over her shoulder, and he follows her into the shadow of a rock. It’s cool there, but she’s warm, and she smells warm, drowsy and inviting. She half-curls up, and he lies down beside her. He nuzzles his long snout in her soft fur, and sleeps. And he wakes up at the first touch of dusk, and surprises an unwary squirrel. He drops it between her paws.
“Do you want to go?” he asks. “We’ll say goodbye. But we could go tonight.”
“Yes,” she says, and crunches down on the squirrel.
They howl together one last time. Rey’s voice is strong and clear and melodious. They howl and howl, each voice dropping in and out, and then Han and Leia both fall silent and only he and Rey are howling together.
It’s a good sound. They are wild and they are sweet and they are leaving. They run west, grey and black, two pairs of gleaming eyes in the darkness. They run together, and they are happy.