She had left him three years ago to the day.  Somewhere out East—the drink had helped him forget where exactly.  Now his jacket was torn. His backpack was stained brown and near empty.  A tin cup that hung from his belt bounced about against his thigh, and his boots did all they could to break free of the many laces wrapped about them.  He sang as a desperate man, but wouldn't call himself so.  Well-dressed socialites that flew by in warm cars threw questionable eyes at the drifter, but he paid them no mind. He sang to the water below and the trees ahead.  “Bounddd to get lucky,” he sang, and believed the words as he sang them, but then the verse ended. He heard his own breathing and the steady step of his boots on the wet pavement of the bridge.  And he saw her face in the hills.  He took a draught, and started again. The blues flowed from his tired lips.  She was somewhere back East, and he was wandering out West, but she was always there following his verses.

The Mountain was shrouded in a mist of hail.  Its face was a sheer wall of stone and the call of wolves could be heard throughout the surrounding forests every night.  It was a fearsome place, where few dared to go.

             Petra was young, faster than all the other children, and a better hunter too.  She was drawn to the Mountain, who she considered lonely, and she set out in the dead of night to meet him.  She leapt through her window as her parents slept, and made for the pack she had left in the wood.  Her fur boots made little noise as the trees flew by.  She ran on for miles, her gait confident and light.

The hail found her in the early morning.  She tightened her hood and gritted her teeth, but the storm refused to give, so she wandered in different directions for hours.  Her feet froze and her nose was an icicle drooping from the middle of her face.  The mist took her sight. It was beginning to take all feeling in her legs.  All Petra could hear was wind and the howling of wolves, yet she resolved to keep stepping forward.

            She was at her wit’s end when, in a stroke of fate, the Sun’s rise rescued her and gave her direction.  She found a peculiar forest at the base of the mountain where the hail stopped falling.  Bizarre trees of white she had never seen before surrounded her.  Petra could not feel her feet.  She was battered and stiff, yet she smiled, happy to be free of the frigid mists.  She built a small fire in the wood to dry her feet and bring life to her limbs. She had only sat for an hour when she heard them: padded feet running some ways off. A call of arms rang out in the morning.  Petra slung on her boots and made for the peak.  The wolves were coming.

            The backside of the mountain was a network of steep game trails interconnecting among tall rock.  Petra climbed quickly with her eyes on the peak.  Her legs screamed at the sudden incline and she began to warm in the little sunlight that broke through the fog.  After some hours, she was sweating.  The howling was getting louder. 

Petra reached the peak midmorning.  Her stern legs powered up the slope until she stood atop a wall of stone and looked out.  Beyond it were miles of forest up to the mists and then over the clouds she could see her home, and the homes amongst it.  Petra turned away to see a massive grey She-wolf, on four legs as tall as Petra’s shoulders, standing only a stone throw away. Petra shook inside. Just beyond the alpha paced a pack of hungry wolves, anxious and quiet. Petra could not keep track of all the wild dogs moving about ahead of her, so she concentrated on the leader.  The great wolf stepped a foot forward. Her eyes were brown, just as Petra’s, and the two eyed each other high upon the mountain for what seemed a long time in Petra’s mind, though she dare not move. She stood firm and ignored the yelps of the hungry wolves as they circled around her.  She took a deep breath and thrust out her fears.  She gathered herself, closed her eyes, and howled up to the sky. Even as the sound left her lips, she was puzzled by it.  More puzzling was that the great She-wolf howled back, causing Petra to flinch.  The other dogs began to fight amongst each other but went silent at their leader’s snarl, and all of them began to depart back down the mountain.  Petra swore she saw a great toothy grin as the She-wolf turned to go.

It was our haven.  No amount of malice could break through to us there—there with your arms around mine, and our terrier a ways ahead.  The rain fell and the leaves followed.  All about us things fell and died, and they said that we’d never last.  But we never let go.  Warm sheets and fried eggs were our livelihood.  Coffee and dreams were our conversations.  Love was the air we breathed.  No amount of cold would shake us.  No amount of fear could make us flee.  You gave me the courage to live.

I hope I remember your hair blowin’ about.  The boy running in the waves.  The clouds giving us a show.  Your laughter and the gleam in your eyes.  The steam of the pizza and the light on the wet streets.  His uneasiness at the smells and the beer drops in my beard.  I hope the world remembers us young and laughing.  I hope we can remember ourselves so.  I hope to eat pizza with you someday wearing different skin, and greyer hair, but with the same eyes.  I hope.