Journey and Conversation

"Why do they chase us? They are us." One wolf speaks with his mind as he leaps over a fallen tree. The moss on its dead bark seems to glow with ancient knowing.

"Focus. Run. Survive." The Matriarch echoes in the backs of their heads.

"Everything is changing." One wolf speaks with her mind as she dodges an outcrop of crystalline rocks that sparkle and shine from within.

"Everything changed long ago." The Patriarch calls from the distant ether.

"The Ancestors created them when they broke from the Spirit!" One wolf speaks with his mind as he scrambles up a steep slope, 10,000 years of bitterness dripping from his thoughts.

"The Ancestors were driven by the Spirit. They were never broken from it." The Matriarch echoes in the backs of their heads.

"How could this be so?" One wolf speaks with her mind as she crashes through the wounding underbrush. She's hungry, tired. She knows she's not as strong as the others.

"The Spirit sets the conditions. The Spirit chooses the terms." The Matriarch echoes in the backs of their heads.

"The Ancestors were ignorant. Arrogant." The Patriarch calls from the distant ether.

"Cross the river here. They come closer." The Matriarch echoes in the backs of their heads.

The wolves move as one into the icy water, following the commands of their alpha female. Their alpha male still speaks to them, but was taken long ago by the very hunters who chase them now. His calls are as memories in their hearts, reverberations of the resentment of his violent transformation.

"The Spirit gave dominion to the humans." One wolf speaks with his mind as he pants and paddles. He feels the aching cold in his bones.

"The Spirit drives the humans as it drives us. The joining of the Ancestors and the humans was always going to happen." The Matriarch echoes in the backs of their heads.

"Don't the Wolf Hounds know what they are?" One wolf speaks with his mind as he shakes freezing droplets from his coat on the run.

"They know what they are--as they are bred and born. They are humans' companion and humans' tool." The Patriarch calls from the distant ether.

"The humans teach them to hunt their own by the Will of the Spirit?" One wolf speaks with her mind as she maneuvers around snarling briers. They rip and tear her delicate skin as she passes, slowing her down.

"They do not hunt their own. They hunt what they could have been." The Patriarch calls from the distant ether.

"The Spirit drove the Ancestors to change. They could do nothing else." The Matriarch echoes in the backs of their heads.

The baying of death approaches the water's edge.

"They're gaining ground! Focus!" One wolf speaks with his mind as he weaves through the reeds and struggles against the sinking mud.

"They wouldn't hunt us if they knew what they could have been." One wolf speaks with her mind as she splits the tall grass, leaving red blooms in her wake.

"They can only know what they are. Be what they are. They must hunt. They must obey. We must RUN." The Matriarch echoes in the backs of their heads.

"The Spirit drove the Ancestors to join the humans. But some refused. Why?" One wolf speaks with his mind as he pivots on lithe paws.

"The Spirit sets the terms. The Spirit chooses the conditions." The Matriarch echoes in the backs of their heads.

"Tell us truly. What is the Spirit?" One wolf speaks with her mind as she dances through the dust. She feels as though a veil is nearing, lifting. She feels lighter in the agony of her exhaustion.

"The Spirit is change. The Spirit stays the same. The Spirit is Everything and Nothing At All." The Matriarch echoes in the backs of their heads.

"From what is the Spirit made, if it is Everything and Nothing At All?" One wolf speaks with his mind as he glances at the setting sun. He curses the star for retaking its warmth. He curses the endless motion of the earth.

"The Spirit is dust and dust is the Spirit. It makes us and moves us of its own Self." The Matriarch echoes in the backs of their heads.

"What is it to be dust of the Spirit?" One wolf speaks with his mind in the gathering darkness.

"It is to run and to live. To change and to die. To become dust again, as ever we were. It is to RUN." The Matriarch echoes in the backs of their heads.

"It is to suffer." One wolf speaks with her mind as the stars ignite. She senses what's to come.

"It is eternal and temporary and eternal again." The Matriarch echoes in the backs of their heads.

"The snake eats its own tail." The Patriarch calls from the distant ether.

"What is the reason for the Spirit? What is the reason to be made from dust?" One wolf speaks with his mind near the journey's end, the baying of death close enough now to rattle the pit of his empty stomach. His energy wanes but his anger drives him on.

"The dust is the reason for the Spirit. The Spirit is the reason to be made from dust. The Spirit sets the conditions. The Spirit chooses the terms." The Matriarch echoes in the backs of their heads.

A loud sound. A snap. A split-second decision in the endless ocean of time. It means everything and nothing at all.

"Everything is changing!" One wolf shrieks with her mind as gnashing jaws close around her throat. She feels the blood leave her veins and the breath leave her lungs. She feels fear and she feels peace. She feels her place amongst the all-encompassing nothingness. The black closes in and she embraces it.

"Everything stays the same." The Patriarch whispers to one wolf from the nearing ether.

"Everything is changing..." One wolf speaks with her mind as she returns to dust and speaks no more.

The baying of death becomes silence. The life-giving stars witness a new transformation. The life-taking stars are indifferent. They are one and the same. The cycle completes and begins again.

"The Spirit is dust and dust is the Spirit. The Spirit is Everything and Nothing At All. RUN."

The Matriarch echoes in the backs of their heads.