The boy had been told not to wander beyond the jumping circle of firelight, that the dark held eyes that remembered hunger better than mercy, but children in any age test the edges of things. So he sat just outside the glow, where the warmth still touched his skin but the shadows held a watch of their own.
His older brother was inside the circle, already big enough to work flint alongside the men. The boy had tried earlier, mimicking the angle of the strike, but his hands were still soft and the stone had skittered away. Someone had laughed. Not unkindly, but enough. So he'd brought himself here, to their threshold, where he could still hear them but where the darkness hid the fire in his cheeks.
Behind him, the adults spoke in low voices, working flint and softening hide with reindeer tallow. They rehashed old news from other valleys, other winters. The fire spat resin; the air was fat and smoke and damp furs. It was late. When they spoke like this, of other times and places, and he tried to think of the distance in between them, the boy felt the queasy impossible bigness of the world, and it brought him to quietness.
He looked out into the textured dark and reminded himself that he was not afraid.
Across the clearing, where the trees drew their dark shapes together, another watcher waited.
It was not wolf, not exactly. Wolf-shaped, yes: narrow muzzle, the long patience of predators in the stillness, but this one's stillness did not hold the coiled threat of the hunt. Its eyes ranged, weighing something.
It had been circling the camp for three nights, drawn by warmth and the scent of marrow. Hunger brought it, at first. But hunger alone would not have kept it there. Wolves followed hunger down many paths, and most did not end at the edge of a fire. Still it stayed.
The boy felt eyes on him before he saw them. He lifted his head. Across the dark, two pale embers regarded him, steady as little moons. The not-quite-wolf's gaze rested on him- a calculation, a choosing, rather than the quick measure of prey.
He had words for many things now, but none for this. He only felt his breath go still.
He did not look away.
A twig snapped in the forest behind the creature, but it didn't startle. It stepped forward, one silent pace, into a shaft of firelight thin as a reed. The light caught the edges of its fur, tipping each hair with bronze.
He should have called out. Should have returned to the circle. But the air between the boy and the wolf held its own still spell, and seemed to dare them both to break it.
So he stayed where he was, breathing as quietly as he could, letting the warmth of the fire brush his back, and kept his gaze soft and open.
Across the clearing, the wolf-shape tilted its head. The child mirrored it without thinking. The creature blinked once, long and unthreatening. The boy did the same. A rhythm formed: unspoken, tentative, real.
Behind him, a woman laughed low, tired and genuine, and the boy glanced back for half a heartbeat. When he turned again, the creature was closer. Not near enough to touch, but a jump. A lunge.
A breeze moved between them, thin with night-cold. The creature lifted its nose to catch the boy's scent: smoke, earth, milk-tooth breath, and something in it eased. It lowered itself to the ground, watching. Staying.
The smell of the small human settled in the creature's body in a way that eased the muscles along its spine. It felt no urge to chase, nor flee.
It did not look away.
The boy eased his fingers toward the ground until his hand rested on the dirt between them. He didn't extend it fully, just placed his palm flat to the earth.
The creature rose, lowered its head.
Listened to the quiet inside itself.
Shifted.
Stepped.
Closer.
The fire popped; sparks rose like brief stars. No one turned to look.
Now the boy could see its breath in the cold. See the line of its ribs. See that its eyes were not just hungry or rageful as the stories said, but full of knowing, and the wild. Its front paw hovered for a heartbeat then settled closer.
It had chosen stay.
The boy exhaled slowly. His shoulders dropped. He felt the dirt under his fingertips and saw the stars beyond the patchy cloud.
I am here.
A shout from the fire: the boy's name.
He flinched, only a little.
The creature stepped back. Silent and unhurried, it slipped into the dark, appearing once more at the treeline, where it looked back briefly before the night closed around it.
The child went back to the fire. He said nothing. Had not the words to tell it.
* * *
The boy's hands grew steady and clever. He found he could use the hardest of the sharp stones to cut antler and bone into forms the whole camp could recognise. His work found many uses, but when carving for himself or his children, from the antler always came the shapes of wolves.
