And as she turns,
This way she moves in the logic of all my dreams.
This fire burns,
I realize that nothing's as it seems.
I dream of rain,
I dream of gardens in the desert sand.
I wake in vain,
I dream of love as time runs through my hand...
--Desert Rose, Sting

It was all a game to her.

Pacing herself, she follows as the bull elk walks backwards, facing her, ensuring that his rear is protected from her fangs. Sola, ever so calculating, lunges, within yards of a cow elk’s carcass, tearing at the elk’s throat, just missing his jugular. But before he can even bring his hooves crashing down upon her head, she darts just out of reach, standing beside the fallen cow. She catches her breath, watching him intensely.

The plan was simple; tire the bull enough to attack without getting hit. Stand beside a cow elk, seeing as how the bull wouldn’t dare go near the body of his own dead. Rinse, lather, repeat. Sure, it took a long time to kill a bull in such a manner, but if it was one thing Sola had, it was plenty of patience.

She watches as the bull returns to his grazing just a few yards from her. She eyes his entire figure, looking at the open wounds, calculating just how many more bites and tears it would take to finish him. She smirks at the elk stumbles momentarily, finally feeling the effects of blood loss.

She howls.

The bull glances up just in time to see Sola charge fearlessly, only to witness his vision going blurry, and then falling into nothingness. This time, Sola hits her mark, tearing out his jugular, the blood spray hitting everything within several feet of them; trees, the ground, herself, and a poor squirrel trying to dig up an old cache of nuts nearby. She watches as the newly baptized squirrel scurries away, leaving a trail of urine behind in his wake.

In the viewpoint of a tiny squirrel, blood flooding out of a giant elk was more than enough to warrant pissing on yourself.

She howls again, signifying that she has, in fact, won the game, and she begins to gorge on the fresh carcass. She watches as a Grizzly bear approaches, looking for an easy meal. But instead of chasing the hulking figure off, like most wolves did, she continues to eat, and the bear stands across from her, enjoying a portion of the fresh kill. In the meantime, a coyote circles around them, waiting for one or the other to leave. Three predators at one kill was just too much of a dinner party for anyone, and as far as the coyote was concerned, he was the odd man out, being significantly smaller than both wolf and bear.

Within minutes, the kill is nothing but skin and bones, and Sola glances behind her as she leaves, pitying the coyote as he tries to scrounge up whatever meat may have been left behind. But bears and wolves were quite thorough in their feeding habits, and she knew that there was no meat left whatsoever. Tossing her head, she catches up to the bear, trotting beside him like she did with every bear. The Grizzly is startled at first, but eventually walks at a calm pace; only to glance behind him to find her completely gone. He looks around, only to spot her sleeping by a group of fallen trees a few yards away. He approaches, curious by the wolf’s bizarre behaviour, but a sharp growl tells him to stay away. He backs up, and continues on his way, wondering if perhaps she was trying to scare him on purpose.

But silly pranks weren’t her style.

No one knew where she came from, and why she chose to live almost exclusively in The Burn. The only thing they knew was that one day, there was not a single wolf in The Burn; the next day, they awoke to hear a lone howl coming from the area. The Slough pack was the first pack to investigate, seeing as how they were the closest to the area. When they arrived, they were shocked to find a lone, silver coloured female feasting on a freshly killed bull elk. They glanced around, thinking that her mate was somewhere nearby.

“There’s no one else. It is just me.”

They all jumped, startled by her voice; it was quiet, but strong, and they noticed that she didn’t even miss a beat as she immediately returned to feeding.

The Sloughs were shocked by her statement; bull elk were no easy prey, and they could tell by the way she ate, and just the shape of the carcass itself that she did, in fact, make the kill. But how could a lone female wolf take down such a formidable foe without any help whatsoever? They doubted her claim that she was by herself, but as brothers Mono and Luke searched the area, they realized that she was, in fact, by her lonesome.

Apache, the youngest sister, approaches her warily, knowing that Dispersers, by nature, were often ill tempered and aggressive towards wolves that lived in a pack. But Sola pays her no mind, ignoring her as she stops within two feet of her. Apache watches as Sola continues to ignore her, and she becomes frustrated by the wolf’s cold shoulder. Apache, daring herself to do so, approaches closer, and stomps her paw on the elk’s rear leg, only to jump back yelping as Sola swiftly grabs her paw, letting go as the wolf pulls back from the fright.

“This is my kill. Do not touch it, unless I allow you to do so.”

Apache retreats to the rear of the pack, frightened at how quickly the lone wolf moved to get her paw off the kill. From a glance, she knew Sola was young, most likely the same age as her and her siblings; yet she moved and spoke as if she had been alone her whole life, which, to Apache’s knowledge, would have been impossible.

Luke, the oldest brother, and the unofficial “leader” of the pack, steps forward, angered by Sola’s gestures and words.

“Listen girl,” he says in a threatening manner, arching his back as his fur rises, “I don’t know who you are, or where you came from; and to be honest, I don’t really care. But I will not allow you to bully my sister just because she touched your kill.”

Sola stops eating, and stares at the male wolf as if he had ordered her out of the land. He finds himself immersed in her yellow-orange eyes, noticing how much it looked like a fire. He feels it burning through his body, burning through his soul; he doesn’t even notice himself backing away from her, his siblings finding themselves doing the same thing.

“For starters, I have a name. It’s Sola.”

She approaches, each step as deliberate as the last.

“Second of all, what right do you have saying what I can and can’t do? This is not your land; if it was, I wouldn’t even be here. Your sister should know better than to touch the kill of another; to be frank, you could all learn some manners. I only tolerated her because she was of no bother to me; until she touched my kill.”

Sola stops and the Sloughs do the same, feeling as if they had just been run over by a semi truck. She continues.

“If you’re just going to stand here and gawk, I suggest you leave. There’s nothing interesting for you to see here.”

“Well, it’s not every day you meet a female wolf who wasn’t here the day before, and you arrive to find she has taken down a bull elk by herself,” Mokona, another sister in the pack, says.

“I’ve come and gone through many areas before, and I must say, I quite like it here.” Sola says detachedly, watching all of them intently. “I have no plans to leave here for quite some time; if you wish otherwise, you’ll have to go through my throat in order to do so.”

Once again, the Sloughs find themselves surprised by her words; on one hand, it almost sounded like a suicide attempt, one wolf against five. But on the other hand, they could tell she was serious, and that she was not one to back down.

But foolishness was the word of the day, and Chita, the second oldest brother, lunges without warning; only to have the wind knocked out of him as he is slammed onto the ground, Sola on top of him, her paws resting on his chest, as if preparing to suffocate him.

“Leave. Now.”

She sighs in annoyance as the band of siblings leave swiftly, unsure of what to do with the display of power. She turns to find a coyote nibbling on the bull elk, happy to have found a free meal. Sola approaches, and the coyote moves away, thinking that she will kill him. But she pays him no mind, and hunger pushes him to approach again, finding her quite docile as he eats right next to her.

And such was how Sola was; she accepted the company of bears, coyote, ravens, just about anything that dared to approach her; even elk occasionally found themselves resting within a few feet of her. Even if she didn’t speak to them, they found that she was quite interesting company, regardless. But there were times where she didn’t want company, and they would find themselves on the receiving end of growls and displays of fangs; she was a mood swinger, and no one knew what mood she was in at any given moment.

The Agate pack never visited The Burn, but they attempted a few times to get her to communicate with them through howls. But she would never respond, and they, like Apache, found themselves frustrated with her cold shoulder. The Druid pack heard of her through the stories the ravens overhead would tell, and they scoffed at the thought of a lone wolf strutting as if she knew it all. But at that point in time, they were more concerned with rebuilding their pack after it was all but decimated as a result of the Druid-Agate war. They didn’t have time to race to The Burn and show her what it was like to be on the receiving end of someone truly superior. And the Sloughs preferred to stay away from The Burn, the memory of Chita being soundly defeated forever fresh in their minds.

The truth was, while Sola didn’t hate other wolves, she honestly didn’t wish to speak with any of them. She was quite satisfied being on her own, responsible for no one but herself. If they were looking for it, she had no dark and dirty past that involved bloodshed and dramatics; hers was a simple past, a female wolf that grew up wanting to live the life of a loner. When she turned two years of age, she left her natal pack, wandering around, seeing and hearing everything. Life was how she saw it, and she knew of the hardships that being a Disperser entailed; despite knowing such, she turned down every male Disperser that she crossed paths with, leaving them to wonder what she was really seeking.

But she wasn’t seeking anything at all. She simply lived her life, day in, day out, with no set goal in mind; other than to live, of course. She could be considered “spoiled” in a sense; spoiled by Mother Nature, she did as she pleased, and was denied nothing.

It was through her travels that she learned how to hunt elk efficiently; she would watch how coyotes, bears, and other wolf packs hunted, and she took mental notes of how the elk responded to every gesture, every sound that the predators made. It was through this process that she learned several things:

Elk hated the sight and scent of their dead.

Elk scattered when they were attacked.

Elk often ran into rivers when chased.

Elk were slower to respond than she expected them to be.

All of these led her to one conclusion:

Elk were generally quite stupid.

While it was true that most hunts ended in failure, she concluded that it was mainly because the predators didn’t take as much notice of things, and therefore, were unaware of most of these points. She theorized it was because wolves and coyotes hunted in packs, and bears were powerful enough to simply charge blindly, without much thought to anything. By doing so, they already had an advantage in numbers or strength, and felt that true strategy was not required.

But for Sola, a lone wolf, strategy was crucial to success with minimum injury.

And so, she began to hunt elk on her own, exploiting all these weak points; it became a strategy of getting one by itself, then darting in and out, tearing off flesh as she went. If the elk charged her, she took care to remain near an elk carcass, allowing her time to catch her breath and make further calculations. If the elk ran into the river, she would follow it, checking to see if the elk was going to stay in the river, or climb out onto the other side.

Simply through all of this, one could conclude that she knew elk better than they knew themselves.

And it was here that she began to acquire a taste for bull elk; she noticed that they, in particular, were especially dumb, possibly because their only function was to eat, drink, poop, pee, and pass on their genes to the next generation. She also had to admit that she got a certain thrill out of being able to control a male, herding it as it walked backwards near an elk carcass, only for her to attack, dodge, and retreat. The bulls were at her mercy, and she knew it. It humoured her in a dark way almost, knowing that they were bending to her will, not the other way around, as the bulls themselves most likely thought. This style of hunting could take anywhere from twenty minutes to four hours; but the end result was worth it, bull elk carrying much more meat and muscle than cow, and therefore, being much more valuable.

Such was how she was successful living in The Burn, a desolate stretch of the Amethyst Mountains that happened to be a prime grazing ground for elk. Perhaps she could have taught at least the Sloughs how to take an elk down efficiently; but after the failed attempt at a display of dominance on their behalf, she found the band irritating and ignorant. She doubted they would have the patience to listen to her, or even execute the strategy.

She did, however, notice that the bears and coyotes seemed to be picking up on her strategy and using it to get kills of their own; they were quite surprised to find how successful they were when they implied her tactics.

Perhaps it was part of the reason why they hung around her; perhaps they felt she was a good luck charm that had unexpectedly aided them in getting a kill. Or simply perhaps, they were fascinated by her; she barely spoke a word to any of them, and yet she was docile in her mannerisms, and didn’t seem to act up around them unless she didn’t want company. She was quite surprised to wake one morning to find a bear snoring directly behind her. Another morning, she awoke to find a coyote curled up right beside her, only to yelp and run away in an apologetic manner as she had risen. She shook her head, perhaps somewhat saddened that they seemed afraid of her when all’s she ever really did was growl when she didn’t want company. And most mornings, she was quite content to awake to someone keeping her company.

But it was this that made her think; maybe someday she would in fact take a mate and start a family. Maybe someday she would instead join a pack, and hunt alongside them, sharing her knowledge with them, and brimming with pride as they succeeded. Maybe someday, she wouldn’t be, as her name suggested, alone.

But for now, solitude was true freedom, wrapped in a bull elk hide.

And she wouldn’t have it any other way.