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Prongs sees better in the dark. It takes time, but eventually, his eyes adjust. The sky looms above him like a ceiling, one his antlers might graze if he were to rear up on his hind legs. There are faint white marks on his brow—if you looked closely, they might resemble spectacles.
The ground beneath him feels like solid steel, holding him down as if he's magnetized to it. The full moon glows dimly, shrouded in a haze as fog creeps across the ground. The moisture brushes his mouth, carrying her scent, threatening to suffocate him.
In this form, he’s a stranger to himself, and he prefers it that way. He doesn't need to know who he is. All he needs is his dog, his rat, and his wild wolf.
But she steps closer, and suddenly, all he wants is to escape himself to become himself. Yet out here, there’s nowhere to run. He casts a glance over his shoulder; he doesn’t need her to come any closer. A temporary numbness washes over him as he remembers—the wolf is dangerous, and she is just a girl.
A girl with red hair that gleams through the fog.
The longer he gazes up at her, the more he wants to sink down—lower and lower, until his knees press into the damp forest floor. Lower still, until his antlers brush against the lower branches of the bushes where she’d been gathering frog spawn. He lowers himself just as she steps closer, her body mirroring his descent until they’re both kneeling, just five feet apart.
His eyes instinctively turn to the sky, as they always do. He imagines that if he were soaring above, she wouldn’t spare him a glance. But in this form, out of his body, out of his mind, seeing through these eyes? Her gaze is unending, and he drinks it in like starlight.
As she moves nearer, he bows his head. He watches her breath curl around her face like tendrils of smoke. Through his wide, unblinking eyes, he sees the awe in her expression. He’s always been searching for light like the one that shines in her eyes.
He wishes she wanted to hold him. She makes him want to lose his mind. Her lips, cold and pale, stand out starkly against the vibrant autumn leaves.
A howl pierces the stillness of the meadow, and his heart goes numb for a whole different reason. The sound cuts through him, sharp and urgent, pulling him out of whatever spell he’s under. Prongs surges to his feet, and the girl mirrors him, her eyes wide with fear, her face suddenly drained of color.
He instinctively shakes his antlers at her, a warning, an attempt to drive her away. She stumbles backward, her hands slipping as she drops the pot of frogspawn. Before she can even register what’s happened, he moves too fast, his hooves crushing the pot with a sharp, final crack. She scrambles away on her hands and knees, her green eyes wide, seeing everything and yet nothing at all. Human eyes were so fickle.
He snorts at her, a low, guttural sound that reverberates through the night. He stomps his hooves, urging her to run, and she finally manages to get back on her feet. He watches as she turns and flees, her footsteps frantic, echoing through the trees. He follows at a distance, making sure she’s truly leaving, his senses on high alert. Only when she breaks through the trees by the old stone hut, her silhouette disappearing into the distance, does he allow himself to relax.
With a deep breath, Prongs turns and bolts back into the forest, his heart pounding not just from the exertion but from the urgency of the howl. The wolf had called out for friends. The shadows close in around him as he races through the trees, driven by the need to protect, to be there when it matters most.