Growing Pains was a most unremarkable Kimeti. In fact, you could say he was a sorry excuse for a Kimeti. There was nothing particularly strange about him, but all the same, it was plain to see he ill-fitted his skin. For one, he gangled – he had gangled as a foal, and then as a colt, but foals and colts are meant to gangle, and his mother had said he would grow out of it. He had grown into a buck, and he gangled still. His limbs were just uncomfortably shaped, and his pelt disagreeably scruffy. He was a mess, and at odds with his own body. Such was Growing Pains, and he shuffled through life, moaning and groaning all the way. Well – I say he shuffled through life, but, really, mostly he just pootled around in a little patch of Swamp, complaining to his mother of his misfitting skin and aches.
And then, one day, the most amazing thing happened: he felt worse. He had not know it was possible, but he did. It started as a a little twinge behind his eyes, a little thud in the back of his head, but by lunchtime, it had become a full-blown splitting of his skull.
"Oh," he moaned to his mother, who was the forbearing sort, "I don't feel so well. Perhaps I should take a herb for it."
"You don't feel so well?" his mother repeated, somewhat unnecessarily, "could you have eaten some strange plant you shouldn't have?"
"Perhaps," he admitted, for he was in the habit of taking herbs, or, at least, what he assumed were herbs, of whatever kind, "perhaps another herb will cure it."
But his skull was splitting, so he did not look for one, and spent the rest of the day lying about, and moaning, instead.
The next day, his skull was still splitting.
"And my teeth, I rather fear," he moaned to his mother, "are tearing up my gums."
"You are looking rather long in the tooth," his mother agreed, peering worriedly between his open jaws, "and rather long in the face. Have you lost some weight?"
"I would not be surprised," he said, glum, as he nursed his gums, "I don't feel so well."
"Perhaps you are just tired," his mother said, "if you sleep, you would feel better."
When he awoke on the third day, he did not feel any better.
"And my tail, I feel," he moaned to his mother, "has grown heavier – it drags, I have no strength to lift it from the floor."
"Why, it is rather shaggy," his mother agreed, peering at his tangled tail, alarmed, "perhaps it would do you good to wash it out."
"I am too tired to wash it," he moaned, "and my head hurts – much too much!"
"Poor thing," his mother said, for she was the forbearing sort, "I'll tell you what – I shall go and find a healer, and I shall bring back one of those plants you like so much. When you eat it, you will feel better."
"They're called herbs, mother," he whined.
And so Growing Pains' mother left their little grove – at first her little grove, but now his too, for he would not leave and she did not make him – to find a healer, to bring back one of those plants he liked so much.
The first day that his mother was gone, Growing Pains did not feel better. He felt worse – ever worse: his skull was splitting, his teeth were tearing up his gums, and his tail dragged. His bones felt strange, uncomfortably shaped, and ever more uncomfortable, as if they stretched, and squashed, and bent beneath him. He shuffled and stumbled and rubbed his odd limbs against rough bark, shuffling and scraping till deep night fell, and he finally fell asleep.
The second day that his mother was gone, Growing Pains felt worse – ever worse.
"This pain," he howled, rolling about, with his bending bones and his tearing teeth and his splitting skull – and his hooves, even his hooves, that felt like they splintered and dug, deep, deep into his flesh, "this pain – aaarrrghhh – aarghablaaaarrrrgghhh – aarrrrrrrooooo!"
The third day that his mother was gone, Growing Pains felt – rather good, actually. For the first time in his life.
He felt fantastic.
His hooves felt sleek, and sharp, like deadly points. His bones felt neatly curved, and tensile, and strong. His teeth – what teeth! They glittered and flashed, cutting the air where he bared them. The magnificence of his tail plumed low on the ground – then swished high in the air. His skull was no longer splitting – no, it was whole, and so much better: he could hear things, from such a distance away, the leap of a hare, the wing of a bird. He could smell things – a feast of smells! The tantalising headiness of the blood that beat through a passing mongoose's body…his wild eyes gleamed.
Had he truly been alive before this day? Surely this was how he was always meant to be: not that ill-fitting skin of a Kin, that gangling, scruffy, mess of a misfitting body. This, strong, and free, and sharp, and wild, claw and fang and red, red – red to the blood!
For that was what Growing Pain's mother found him as, when she finally returned that moon, carefully bearing one of those plants he liked so much in her mouth: a bonny, bouncing wolf!
But not a little one. Not like the ones that come yea high, up to a Kimeti's haunch. No, he was a big one – bigger, a hulking beast, with jaws that bite and claws that catch: a werewolf.
"Growing Pains," she dropped the plant and screamed, for she could well recognise her son, warts and all, even as a shambling wolf, 'oh, Growing Pains – Growing Pains!"
After all, they did say: if you call a werewolf by their Swamp-given name thrice, they would remember who they are.
The hulking beast that was Growing Pains stilled. His wild eyes gleamed. He crept before her, snuffling, peering down with his wild, gleaming eyes. This was the Kin, the doe, who had borne him, and given him life, then borne him with equanimity and given him home. She had called him by his Swamp-given name, thrice.
Growing Pains remembered who he was…as he was always meant to be: a wolf! Claw and fang and red, red – red to the blood!
And so he gobbled her up."
Distant Tidings bared his own teeth in a maniacal grin, waiting patiently, if not a little obviously, for the horror or delight of his captive audience.
The three foals: a Kimeti sister and brother, and a Totoma colt, stared rather boredly at him and scowled.
"That's stupid," the girl said.
"What a lousy story," her brother said.
"That is a bad ending," the Totoma said, sternly.
Tidings snapped his dainty jaw shut.
"What?!" he exclaimed, "no! It's a wonderful ending! Certainly, he had his share of pains, and went through more – and even more – and also ate his mother but that's something else altogether to get to where he needed to be, but the point is: sometimes you must suffer to change, and change to grow, but all the pain is worth it to be a better self, your truer self, and that's what counts – for he ran away into the Swamp after that, and quite happily lives as a slavering wolf to this day."
"Oh, I see how it is," the Kimeti boy said.
"You're just trying to scare us into behaving," his sister said, "don't run around by yourself and all that."
"This is a thing grown-ups often do," the Totoma said, solemnly.
"I don’t care if you little brats get eaten up by a wolf," Tidings huffed, "I, for one, think it's a beautiful story, and it's wonderful he gets to be himself."
"I question that his true self is a wolf," the Totoma said, seriously, "because wolves don't eat their mothers. I've seen them. They are pack animals."
"Yeah, you're grie-vo-us-ly misrepresenting wolves," the Kimeti boy said.
"He's not a wolf," the girl said, "he's a very naughty boy."
"Alright, so I took some creative liberties," Tidings snapped, "but I think a wolf ought to be able to eat his non-wolf mother if he so desires.
Somehow, that elicited the horror that he'd so craved at the original conclusion of his tale from his picky little audience.
"You want to eat your mother?!" the girl shrieked.
"Oh no," the Totoma gasped, "he is a mother-eater."
"Mother-eater!" the Kimeti boy screamed as they scattered, "Mother-eater!"
"That is not the moral of the story," Tidings yelled after them as they ran away.
"Well," he sighed, dusting off his hooves, "I suppose that tale still needs a bit of workshopping. Maybe he should suffer more, to really drive in the point. I should probably go find a werewolf or two, ask them some questions. Make it more authentic."
And so Tidings ran off into the Swamp to find a real live werewolf, for one must suffer for their art, and a story, too, must change.
END
(Originally told for Cold Comes In: Reindeer Story Contest)