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The trees part before the All-Mother. Crystalline green and yellow, shimmering below the sun’s gaze, giving way at her strides. It is a forest of art and beauty, as much as a home for living things. The wisps of the forest scurry aside before her, the Hunger of halla and hares, the Cunning of rats and foxes, the Patience of owls and badgers, while the animals themselves watch with wide eyes from their burrows and perches. Now, beneath the steps of the All-Mother, Fear and Worry join them, wondering what has brought the first of the gods to this wild place.
Pride follows Mythal in the shape of a wolf, sleek and light-footed. Its fur is dark, shimmering, the expanse of it broken only by a bright silver pattern curling below the wolf’s eyes on either side. Pride has not felt the urge to shy away before the gods’ power like the rest of its kind in a long time, and it brushes past her trailing mantle, her legs, as it darts to overtake her. Abandoning the wolf’s shape, it floats up like smoke into the highest branches, and settles as a sparrowhawk.
“Will you not tell me what worries you so?” it asks. “If there is to be battle, I shall warn your people.”
Mythal slows for a moment. She turns her unmasked face up at Pride, her kaleidoscope eyes shifting through a rainbow of colors. It is a sight that still unmoors Pride—the gods do not show their faces lightly, and to be allowed a glimpse beyond their masks is among the greatest honors. Even as her messenger, as Mythal’s Wolf, its power far out-stripping that of many a spirit or elf, Pride is rarely allowed to see her face. And every time, it remembers little else but those ever-changing eyes and the snowy pallor of Mythal’s skin, too tremendous is her power.
“There is to be no battle,” she says, her voice filling the air, full and ringing. The entire forest, the ground itself, seems to settle peacefully at her words. “Do you not recognize this place?”
“It’s naught but a passage,” Pride replies loftily, and takes flight from the branch to soar around her head. A trail of dark mist follows its flight. “I have walked it often, yes, but there is little here beyond the paths and the beauty.”
Little here to concern a god like the All-Mother, at least. She appears to disagree, for she strides swiftly onward, her dragonscale mantle glittering like waves upon water. Pride slips into wolven shape once more in a burst of black billowing fog, to keep pace beside her.
The trees part further, flowers bloom and shrink away, the sunlight pools golden as honey before them. They have come to a crossroads within the forest. Paths of earth that have been beaten smooth as glass by the passage of countless feet disappear in several directions into the forest. But right now, none but them dwell here. Standing watch over the crossroads is a tall rock of augen gneiss, webbed throughout with darker stone, its front carved with a hollow. Inside, a relief has been carved: a wolf’s head emerging from the stone, its six eyes gazing forward and perfectly matching the augen of the stone pattern, its ears alert. A watcher upon the path. Below the wolf’s head, inside the hollow and spilling out, lie—offerings. Flowers, gems, crystal leaves woven into jewelry, split-open fruits, a spill of red blood beneath it all.
It is a shrine.
A shrine to Mythal’s Wolf.
Pride hesitates, its paws stirring up the mirror-beaten earth. Mythal sweeps past it. Pride expects her to crush the rock, sweep aside the offerings. These are her lands, she is guardian and protector to all who dwell here. For anyone to usurp her worship, for Pride to be called on as if it is anything but her messenger—
Mythal touches her fingertips to the stone, fingers splayed wide, and silver flows from her fingertips, sweeping along the rock. Coating it, like the great statues within her palace, the stone’s original pattern swallowed up. Pride’s body loses corporeal shape with unexpected relief. She is not angered. It floats closer, not bothering with a body.
“I wasn’t aware it had gone this far,” it says, somewhat apologetically. “I coaxed up shrines in Elgar’nan’s lands, and Daern’thal’s, but…”
“I heard.” Mythal smiles full of teeth, her eyes shifting to sun-gold. “They were very displeased.” She holds out her hand, and Pride reaches out with one wispy tendril in turn. It is reeled close, feeling Mythal’s power like the heat of a fire even without being in corporeal shape.
“And I suspected as much,” she continues, her power holding Pride close, “since I have shielded you from the song of prayer, as you have asked. But now…”
The air shifts, Pride shifts, and suddenly a murmuring comes to it as though from far away, and all around it.
Mythal’s Wolf, guide my steps. Wolf, protect my journey. Wolf, hear my plea, send it to the All-Mother on swift feet…
“Oh,” Pride whispers, shuddering. “Oh, is there no end to it?”
“This is a mere whisper,” Mythal says softly. She tugs at Pride and its vallaslin flares bright. It flows into an elven shape, face framed by that same vallaslin, silvered branches curving along its cheeks. The marks are blessedly cool when Mythal traces them, an anchoring relief. To hold a corporeal shape dulls the call of prayers just as much as her touch. “There is more than this. There could be vastly more than this, if you seek it.”
Pride blinks, for it has eyes again. All six, blue glinting with silver, gazing up at Mythal.
“What—what do you mean?”
“You could become as a god, my dear wolf.”
The connection of the vallaslin is the only thing that keeps Pride in its elven shape.
“I could not,” it manages, its heart trying to beat, to flutter, and not quite knowing how. “I am only a spirit, I am your messenger—”
Mythal bends down to it from her great height, her scaled hands holding Pride’s face. Her eyes burn with colors. “You are a rare and marvelous spirit,” she says with an intensity that has the wind singing around them. “You could become my general, my herald, a power to make even Andruil and Anaris falter.”
Pride shivers, all the way down to its essence. A shining beacon, great and beautiful…
The vision beckons it as much as it makes it shy away. It is no god. To be admired, to be sought, yes, but to be worshipped…
“I enjoy existing like this,” it whispers. “To be swift and unfettered, to be small enough to go unnoticed, if I wish…”
Mythal’s expression softens into a fond smile. Pride feels wisps of affection bloom around them, though at a distance, kept at bay by the All-Mother’s power. The forest washes warm like sunset light.
“I am aware,” she says, and her voice holds the same fondness that has Pride’s shape gleam and glow. “You do that a lot.”
Pride cannot help but grin.
But the mirth fades, as the weight of what Mythal has offered crashes down upon it once more. To take a place among the gods themselves—
“Do not worry,” Mythal murmurs gently. She lets go of Pride’s face, stroking her thumbs along its vallaslin. “You will still be mine. I would never cast you out.”
Pride shivers, half melting into its wolven shape. It roils, fog and mist swirling about it, within it. “You offer a great boon, All-Mother,” it begins, but knows not how to continue.
“It is more than a mere boon,” Mythal says. “You have been a great boon to me, and to my people. But the mantle of godhood… Do you not wish for more? To truly change the world, to protect those who call out to you? All that has limited you would melt away.”
The prayers’ song reaches Pride again, an unending susurrus. Oh Wolf, help us, carry our plea—
Calling out to a shining beacon, great and beautiful—
The power to answer, to do something in reply to that song—
“How long have you shielded me from them?” Pride asks quietly.
Mythal’s eyes shift and change, deep blue like the sea, the sky under night. “Long enough, my wolf.”
Pride draws its essence close, a shape of shimmering silver. It has no lungs to breathe, but it wavers as though it does, steeling itself.
“I will take the mantle,” it tells Mythal. “I will become as a god.”
The All-Mother’s smile is blinding. Trees burst into bloom from it, birds sing in joy, spirits of exultation form and rise, catching the sun’s light.
“You will shine like a star,” Mythal says, pleased. Her wings flare out behind her, a storm in the making. She raises her hand and the wind rises with it, rises, rises, whirling through the forest around them. Leaves are torn from branches, twigs and other debris are ripped from the forest floor, but Pride and the All-Mother stand untouched, facing one another before the Wolf’s shrine.
Out of the gale steps a wolf. Huge and black, twice as big as Pride’s own wolven shape. The whipping leaves and branches leave no mark in its thick fur. It paces to Mythal’s side; she lays a hand upon its nape. Icy cold washes through Pride’s core, and it knows what must happen even before Mythal speaks.
“You shall need a mask.”
“I know.” Pride’s voice does not shake, even as its form does. It floats to Mythal’s side, to the wolf. It trails a tendril of its essence along the fur, the snout. The wolf looks at Pride with old eyes, a different sky entirely reflecting in them. It was born of Mythal’s power, but even so, it breathes. When the blood spills, Pride does not cry out.
Silver, spilling and spilling, over the flowers and gems and crystal leaves woven into jewelry and split-open fruits, until at last even the red blood below the other offerings is subsumed. Mythal raises the silver wolfhead mask, a great cape of black fur trailing from its back.
She raises it, she offers it to Pride, and Pride accepts it.
The susurrus of prayers turns to screaming.
Pride keens, sinking helplessly to the floor, nearly crushed beneath the wolfhead mask. The voices are inside it, praying, begging, pleading, calling out over and over, endlessly, tearing at everything Pride is—
Wolf, guide us! Wolf, protect us! Wolf, hear our prayer!
He is a swift runner, tireless and cunning, the miles melting away beneath his paws, he is a fierce guardian to match Mythal, watching over his pack with teeth blood-stained, he is a hunter in the dark of moonless night, his howls pierce the air to carry across oceans, he bears cub after cub and all inherit his blessings, he devours the sun and the moon, the Wolf is a messenger, the Wolf is a killer, the Wolf is a protector, the Wolf is—
Pride is—
Pride needs a body. Anything to shield it from the onslaught, from losing itself to the storm.
It slams elven hands down into the silver-stained earth. It drags ragged, heaving breaths into new-formed lungs. A body. A body that outlasts Pride’s attention, stable even in distraction, that will shield it against all that power. It can feel it, power pouring into its skin, its bones. This is the price. This is the price.
“My wolf,” Mythal’s voice drifts to it, another anchor. She speaks softly: “You are in pain. It will pass.”
Pain.
Pride sucks in another breath, its body trembling, shaking, as it creates itself. “I am—” Its voice splinters, echoes. “I am—well.”
The pain passes. Its body settles. A shape that echoes Mythal’s in its construction but far smaller, thinner. A slim shape with sharp angles, something weightless and lean, like a wolf’s legs. Dark hair spills long and curling down Pride’s back, over its shoulders and chest, stark even against its brown skin.
The All-Mother takes its hand and aids it to rise to its feet. Pride lifts the mask, looking up at Mythal with six eyes. Silver, meeting the rainbow of Mythal’s ever-changing eyes.
“Beautiful,” the old god murmurs, trailing the tips of her fingers along the young god’s cheek. “I will introduce you to my court. Let them gift you with jewels and filigree to adorn all of you.”
Pride smiles, its new power shining out of it like a beacon.