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It doesn’t take him long to figure out where I’m going.
“Little bird, why are we here?” he asks, his voice the wind’s sigh through pines and over snow.
My ear flicks, straining in vain to catch the direction of his words. Every once in a while my eyes find movement in the pockets where tree shadow obliterates the faint starlight from overhead. Movement which, if I squint, may be the loping gait of my companion. Or a shifting branch. Or nothing more than my mind conjuring shapes to populate the darkness.
“You don’t want to guess?” My own words might not be wind but they do become clouds in this frigid air.
He scoffs. “Well, I usually wouldn’t peg you as one for gloating, but-“
That annoys me enough to cut him off. “I’m performing your rites, jackass. You’re welcome.”
No sarcastic response comes, so I stop. “What? I thought you wanted to pass on. And this way I don’t have to deal with you anymore either. Win-win.”
The silence stretches, and suddenly, I see him. Not in the dark that moves, but in the dark that doesn’t. A hunched shadow of stillness in what should be wind-rustled void.
“It’s… not so simple,” he says slowly. He speaks with a hesitation I’ve never heard before, and I just manage to not pin my ears back. “Rites may only be performed by family.”
I groan, snow crunching as I stomp my frustrations into the ground. “Please tell me there’s a work around, and that I did not just freeze my ass off coming out here for nothing.”
“There is.” His words are so soft this snow-choked world almost swallows them whole. “I’d have to make you my heir.”
“...Alright,” I snort, talking to the churned snow at my feet, “then do that.”
“You would have a father of the wolf who tried to kill you?” he asks, his tone a few shades too dark for amusement.
“And you would have a daughter of the deer who did kill you.” A wry smile crosses my face. I’m amused, even if he’s not. “Honestly, from what you’ve said about your progeny, that sounds like an improvement.”
He laughs like breaking ice, the echo lingering longer than it should. “You’re not wrong. If anything, I worry you’re getting the worse end of the deal.”
I shrug. “I’ve never actually met my father. So you’re arguably a step up for me too.”
The darkness lurches forward, indistinct and mostly wolf-shaped where it stops before me. “You’re serious,” he breathes. It’s not a question.
“Why not?” I answer. It’s not really a question either.
I wait, and I wait, and I wait. I am halfway to deciding I’m a moron when he stretches out and touches his nose to mine.
There is no sensation of physical contact, as I would expect. But I know he’s touched me from the cold that jolts through me, from my nose to my tail, more biting than any winter wind. I'm grateful I don’t flinch.
"I have to give you a name," he explains, the flat black mist of his face taking up my whole field of vision.
"Get on with it, old man."
“You're a nightmare,” he says. “I name you Skalla Skollosdottr.”
Skalla Skollosdo- "Are you fucking kidding me?"
There are not -- nor have ever been -- any features on his face to make out. But I know he's wearing a shit-eating grin. "Your fault for letting me name you," he replies. He retracts, but the cold refuses to leave my bones.
"Gods, fine, whatever." I shiver. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Well.” I shift awkwardly. “Let’s get a move on.”
We do not speak the rest of the way.
The hollow is easy to recognize, even under the softening cover of snow.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you,” Skollo says, finally breaking the silence, as I begin pawing at the spot I remember him lying.
Skollo. Skollo. SkolloSkolloSkollo. It’s just occurred to me, after all this time I finally know his name. “My mother named me Maurya,” I blurt. I don’t know why.
Though he is a shade in the darkness, I still catch his start.
“It’s a good name,” he answers, once he figures out how to respond to my inane-fucking-comment. “I suppose Shrike is a name you gave yourself?”
“Yup.” I feel dizzy and stupid.
“Another good name. You chose well.”
All my names are good names, I think. But thankfully I do not say that out loud.
Digging him up is, predictably, a miserable drudgery. One which leaves my blood streaking snow where ice cuts between my hooves. The end result is none too pleasing either.
“What now?” I ask, trying, and failing, to not wrinkle my nose at the corpse. While an autumn spent left to the elements has removed most of the meat, what was left has been well-preserved by winter.
“You must remove my jaw.”
Of course I do. I wonder if wolves have any customs that aren’t grisly.
Once I complete that task — with minimal complaining, I hope Skollo appreciates that — he tells me: “Now place your head in my jaw.”
I do, lying down and settling my face between his mandibles. I am grateful that his skull was one of the cleaner parts of his body. It’s mostly yellowed bone that I rest my head within.
“Skollo?” I ask, when it takes too long for anything to happen.
“This… this next blessing is meant for a wolf, I don’t know what it will do to a deer, we can skip-“
“I’m not one to turn away the blessing of a parent,” I interrupt. I feel stupid, again. And it could not be more different, but there, lying in the snow, pointed teeth obscuring the bottom edge of my vision, I remember the smell of dry grass and the feeling of a tongue smoothing the fur between my ears.
“...I can hardly argue with that,” he whispers, to my relief. But there is another pause. "I... I'm glad. That it was you. This is better than... your mother should be proud. You make a fine daughter."
"Skollo..."
"Sorry." I don't want him to apologize. “I'm sorry. Let's move on. Would you take my teeth?”
“I would,” I reply. I want to say more, but I don't know what.
With that, the bone cupping my face grows hot, then tight. Tighter and tighter. Tight enough that it should be cracking my skull, but instead it goes in.
It hurts. I don't scream, but the choked sound I make is arguably worse. My skull throbs, the bone of my own jaws sing, my gums split, and my old teeth are wrenched from their roots. The teeth ripping through to replace them are too large, they are the wrong shape, and I already know they will never fit fully comfortably in my mouth.
I don’t know where the words come from, and they are somewhat mangled by teeth I have not yet learned to speak around. But they leave my tongue somehow, once I am done panting, and spitting blood from my mouth. “Your teeth, now mine, defend what’s ours. And so you protect your family even in death. You will not abandon them in passing on.”
“Thank you,” Skollo sighs. They are the last words I ever hear him speak.
I say nothing in return. Instead I clench my jaw as hard as I can. He fades, he fades, and then the last of him is gone. But my fathers teeth remain with me.