they will learn a painful lesson but at least you dont have to buy it</3
"I'm sorry to hear that," they said, the casual ease dropping out of their voice. "Don't know how it was for you- and I ain't askin', if it's personal- but mine weren't how I was hopin' to go out. Fewer gunshots, when I imagined it." A wry smile. "So I get it...if that means anythin'."
Then, more easily, "Good to hear there's real wolves here, though. With proper names. Could go for a lesson or two on how all this works. Not to discount you, of course."
And of course, they knew all the church said. Hard to avoid. But they'd clearly been wrong on this count, so in their opinion it weren't worth considering.
Cecil whistled. Or as close as a wolf could get to whistling anyway, which more or less came out as that coyote-howl they'd got used to hearing over the empty desert.
"There's stories." More than. "Ain't what happened to us, though." They put a finality on that. "And all those stories the church has about the afterlife are just that- nobody's around to tell the truth of 'em. Other worlds, I could get- but when people walked between it was always on two legs. No tales about makin' a man into a wolf."
They chewed on that a second. "Wonder if we're still where we came from. My people return to the world when we die- just split up, in pieces. Different places, different ways. Might be this is just how we spring up again." Sure, they didn't know the place, but there was a lot of world they hadn't seen. "...Wasn't expectin' to keep all the memory though."
The only proper answer lay in going out and finding it. Which Cecil fully expected to do, just- not right now, when they were bumbling around like a pup taking its first steps.
"Territorial, ain't they?" they commented. "When the dogs have themselves a fight, get a new face in the pack, one of 'em always ends up on their back with tail between their legs. You tried that yet?" The grin on their face said it was a joke.
Mostly.
english | navajo