wrote: There is a bond that forms, between kin and their wolves -- or perhaps it's wiser to say there is a bond that can form. It is a certain connection that is difficult to explain, a camaraderie that makes them comfortable with each other. There is no language, neither can speak through each others mind, but sometimes it becomes easier for them to understand each other through a glance. To read into the little movements they make.

To hunt as a pack.

And then, one night, there comes a dream. The kin goes to sleep and wakes in a new shape, with heavy paws and thick fur, teeth bared as they look to one side and find their wolf companion at their side. Now, their shapes match, both of them sleek hunters with the whole night to spend running step in step.

BREEDING PROMPT

The prompt you have to answer is a simple one: it is a wolf dream.

Your kin lies down for the night, and when next they open their eyes, they are a wolf. Their companion wolf is beside them. What happens from there is up to you -- do they hunt together? Do they race, go for a swim? Do they fight? Be creative, or go for a classic.

If you complete this prompt with over 500 words in your response, this will also earn you 3 RP points[/i] towards Ascension.

Essence was Memory's closest companion. They had found each other in blood and snow, another hard winter after nothing but hard winters. They had both been young, wary, and thin. Scavengers. The hunt was for packs of creatures. Creatures who could herd and tunnel, and turn a long, futile stretch of expending energy they didn't have into a short game with a satisfying conclusion. The puppy fat was shed from both of them. They were gangly juveniles. They should have had brothers and sisters. Mothers and Fathers. Then they could hunt. But it was a hard winter. Only they were left.

The carcass was long dead, and all that was left was the bones and dried scraps of skin. Even the smell of it was buried in the snow.  The birds had long left it.

It was Essence who found it, nose keener than Memory's. Essence who lapped at stake of bone jutting above the snow. Their eyes  met, measuring each other. Essence kept her teeth around the bone. They knew each other from the start. Alone. Young. Tired. Memory had not wanted to fight, if only because the golds of Essence's coat were like his mother's.

Memory hadn't interrupted the wolf. He'd moved further down, and dug, and found something to chew on himself. Licking at the snow was cold. His eyes met Essence's. He took the carcass in his teeth, and he pulled. Then they were pulling together. They hauled the skeleton out of its tomb. It bobbed up like a whale shark surfacing. Then they ate.

In the cracked bones there was marrow, and the skin went down if Memory tore it up into small enough pieces and didn't chew.

They hid what was left, and the next day, they met to eat again. And again. They began to hope. To trust.

The carcass was nearly used up. When Memory got up to leave, Essence stretched, and cocked her head in a friendly way. She got up herself, then looked back to see if Memory was following her. He knew, somehow. So he did follow her. The den was small, but it was dry, and it was warmer with both of them heaped together. The next day, they'd hunted. That was better together too.

And then Memory had dreamed.

When Memory opened his eyes, he had paws instead of hooves. His muzzle was long, his teeth were sharp and efficient with fulcrumed force, and his nose could read the world in full color. The moon was full. He looked over at Essence, asking what she wanted to do, and mouth split into a relaxed grin, tongue lolling out of her mouth.

They went out together.

The evening was filled with the soft gold light of fireflies, and above that an impossible expanse of stars. They stopped at a stream to drink, and the water was cold and clean. The grass was soft beneath them, and they ventured further than they ever had. Beyond Essence's well-marked territory into new sights, new smells, until the peat and mud and chest-deep water gave way to sand and the smell of brine.

Neither Memory or Essence had been anywhere like this place.

The water stretched on forever. And it must have been very deep. No trees or stones jutted from its purpose past the cliffs and sand. The water whispered in strange voices as it reached across the shore. Unusually hard prey, insects but larger, scuttled across the sand. It was all dark, pitch dark, if not for the moon, and the stars and ocean seemed to almost be the same space.

Memory experienced a feeling that wasn't hunger, something greater, and for the first time since they had been cubs and foals, they played. They played in the surf, chasing the water and each other, they played games without meaning, chases without stakes, they had wandered somewhere new and they hadn't lay claim to it. They revelled for the sake of enjoyment, they explored only for the taste of something new, and when they were both worn out they made their way up to one of the banks with seagrass and watched stars streak across the sky.

When they woke again, it was in their den. Memory had his hooves, and his heavy head of horns, sturdy and himself. Essence was as she had always been, fleet and bright, and looking at him with keen understanding. From that moment, the pair couldn't be separated.

Words: 744