Freeouroboros

Curled up, eyes wide, woolen blankets pulled up close, three pairs of eyes, two pair dark and umber as peat, one pair golden brown as winter honey, follow Cymbelle inquisitively as she stealthily peers under a blanket, behind a trunk, into the dimness of the shadowy corners of the little room.

“You said there was a story!”
Cymbelle shushes the voices. The story must be found.  Stories are furtive and secretive creatures and must be sought out and enticed until they come to you.  Softly, softly Cymbelle turns back the corner of the faded blue wool and her eyes widen.  She holds her hand out, palm up, curling her fingers so, so slowly and gently in entreaty.  Cupping her hands together,  she turns to the three eager faces and silently shhhhhs them.  The story has revealed itself and is waiting to be told.
Cymbelle crosses her ankles and lowers herself carefully, carefully to the floor.  She looks intently into her cupped hands as the story begins to unfold:
Once, in a time far away and a place long ago, there was a maid who loved the wilds and the beasts and roaming the mountains and glens.  She was fair of face and her name was Riyanna.  She ran in the moonlight with the wolves and swam in the star lit streams with the otters.  On a moonlit night - just like this one - the Prince of the Wolves saw her dancing with the seal people on the rock-strewn shore under the lights of the stars.  The Wolf Prince gave his heart that night.  He sat in the shadows, unseen, all through the night until the dawn began to break over the sea.  The seal people donned their seal skins and returned to the sea, singing their farewells to Riyanna.

The Wolf Prince followed Riyanna to her home and slept hidden as only a wolf can hide in the woods through the day, waiting for Riyanna.

Two days and a night he waited patiently as only a wolf can wait.

On the second night, Riyanna left her home to follow her heart into the wilds, and the Wolf Prince followed his heart, running silently as only a wolf can run.

Riyanna followed the little river that chuckled and tripped down to the seaside until she came to the forest edge.  She stood staring into the moon until she heard a step behind her.  She turned and saw the Wolf Prince standing, flame eyed, with silver tipped fur, huger than any wolf she had ever seen, staring at her as only a wolf can stare.

Three sets of eyes, two dark as loam, one golden brown as dark amber, stare gaping and wide eyed at the storyteller.

Riyanna heard the voice of the Wolf Prince in her heart.  He would give her a wolf-skin woven of moonlight by the Faei-Folk who lived under the hills.  The wearer of the wolf-skin may live as a wolf in the skin, living life free and wild as only a wolf can live.
The price?  The price is to live with the Wolf Prince as a wolf.  The bargain is the Wolf Prince will live half of that life as a human.  This seemed a good bargain to Riyanna.  The Wolf Prince looked deep into Riyanna’s heart and saw her answer as only a wolf can see.

Riyanna watched in wonderment and awe as the Wolf Prince stood on hind legs, towering over her, stretching his throat long, and with a piercing howl, shimmered in the starlight and began to change.  Riyanna watched the Wolf Prince become a human man, tall, silver haired,  long of limb and lean and hard-muscled, but with the burning green-gold eyes of the wolf.  And Riyanna looked at the Wolf Prince,  yearning as only a human woman can yearn.

Three pairs of eyes blink and look at each other and three mouths quickly stifle giggles.

In the morning, the Wolf Prince trotted beside Riyanna as she made her way back to her home, but on this day he waited impatiently in the woods for nightfall to come again.

At nightfall, Riyanna went to the woods to begin her journey.  She brought nothing with her, yet left nothing behind and the pair began the journey to the home of the Faei for the wolf-skin woven of moonlight.

Cymbelle, lost in thrall to the story, doesn’t notice the three pairs of eyelids closed over the three  pairs of eyes - two umber, one amber.

The pair reached the Halls of the Faei under the hills and the Wolf Prince gave three soft whuffs at the moonlit side of the hill.  An opening appeared and the Wolf Prince lowered his silver head to the ground thrice before stepping over the threshold.  Riyanna bowed her head and followed after.  The pair walked into the hill, four feet padding softly, two feet treading cautiously, until they came to a chamber so large the ceiling could not be seen.  Light glowed from crystalline urns like captured moonbeams, striking veins of rose and amethyst and citrine in the walls of the chamber.

The Wolf Prince spoke to the air: “I have come to claim it.”  The air sighed and asked, “Will she follow?”  Riyanna answered, “I will follow.”  The air rippled, and a crisp voice asked, “How far will she follow?”  And Riyanna answered before the Wolf Prince could reply, “I will follow until I am no more, and then I will follow still.”  The air laughed bitterly: “So be it.”  The Wolf Prince cried out, “She does not know!”  The air answered, “It is done.”

The wolf skin lay at Riyanna’s feet, gleaming and coppery in the cavern lights.  She knelt and picked it up.  Wrapping it around her shoulders she felt the ground spin under her feet.  The colors in the chamber changed.  She fell to her knees.  She felt the world change.

The two wolves loped through the passageway and back into the moonlight.  Riyanna heard the night as only a wolf can hear.  She smelled the world as only a wolf can smell.  She found the sweet scent of the moon.

The two wolves, one ice-bright silver and one the hue of hottest fire, ran through the night forest shoulder to shoulder.  They found the little sea-bound river and drank.  They lay on the soft moss until the daylight.

The two wolves lived and loved for a full turn of the moon, sometimes in wolf guise, sometimes as humans.

Riyanna followed her Wolf Prince.  The nights tumbled over and over; the moon turned.  The seasons turned and became years and the years turned and turned and turned again.  Riyanna became weary and desired a home, but when she asked her Wolf Prince where his home lay, he looked at her with eyes of sadness and told her she must follow.

Riyanna became wraith-thin.  The wolf skin lay loose upon her shoulders.  But still the Wolf  Prince looked at her with unfathomable sorrow and told her she must follow as she  promised.

Riyanna followed and followed and followed.  Weary and sore, she followed, faithful to her promise as only a wolf - or a woman - can be faithful.  She yearned for release, but the wolf skin draped her spirit and there was no release.  She followed until she was no more, and still she followed, faithful to her promise.

At last, on the moonlit shore where first the Wolf Prince spoke to her, Riyanna’s spirit watched her Wolf Prince halt in the moonlight.  He walked to the point where the little river joined the sea and she followed.  The Wolf Prince stepped into the stream and still she followed although her spirit was cold and shivering even in the wolf skin.

The Wolf Prince threw his head back, silver moonlight running like streams of water from his pelt and sang a song of longing and loss to the night.  Riyanna fell into the water, where the stream met the sea.  The heart song of the Wolf Prince continued, long and sweet and full of the plaintive yearning of all the long turnings.  Riyanna let her head lay in the water.  The tide rushed in, filling her eyes and nose.  As the haunting song mingled with the sound of the sea Riyanna heard a voice in the sea say to her, “You have followed without question, followed until you were no more, and you followed still, Oh Faithful One.  Be free, be whole, be forever filled with joy and life, for you have fulfilled your promise.”

The two wolves became legend and stories to tell fretful children.  The silver and the red, ice and fire, forever following the scent of the moon, living and loving as only wolves can love.

Cymbelle hears the soft snoring of sleeping boys, and opening her cupped hands wide, releases the story with a breath of gratitude and slips softly from the room to finish tidying up for the night.