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This is set in a Worldpool, or alternate universe where Scouter, Dewshine and Tyldak have threemated, and the events of Blue Mountain and Kings Of The Broken Wheel have been postponed. Some Gliders left Blue mountain and settled in the Palace in the Frozen Mountains. Kahvi is raising Venka with Rayek. And Skywise's four year old daughter is going to meethim for the first time.

Fire In The Sky

Yun is going away tonight.

She whispers this to the fires that dance above her. They are the ones who will miss her most, because Firesong is going with her, and only two other cubs will care.

Yun is going to her Father.

Yun doesn't know her father. He isn't Vok, or Chet, or Dari. He isn't Frik or Sol, either. Yun's Father isn't any Go Back.

Firesong doesn't have a father, either. She doesn't have a mother, really, because her mother brought her to Yun. Firesong is her only friend. She isn't the same as everyone else, either, but instead of watching stars and the nightfires, she has furry paws and a tail. Firesong sings to the night and the moons like Yun does, and her tongue is rough, but nice.

Yun's Father has a friend like Firesong, too. Mother told her this, when she told her that she was going to take her to him.

Yun is going tonight, before the dawn can come and chase away her stars.

Yun is leaving the pale, cool blue of the mountains. Yun is leaving the fires that dance at night. Yun is going to a green place, a place where her furs will be too hot for her, and the trees change colour every year.

Yun is afraid. She is only four turns of the seasons old.

"Yun?"

Yun turns. It's Jirda and Aki. Jirda is hiding something behind her back. Aki looks very proud.

"We made you something."

Jirda takes her hands out, and holds them up. She's made a necklace, and it isn't a bit clumsy, so Yun knows Aki helped, because Aki's two more winters than Jirda and Yun.

The necklace has beads made out of bone on it. It's a weaving of beads, and while Yun stands still, Aki, who already knows how to tie, puts it on her. She touches it, feeling the beads under her hands. Jirda and Aki hug her, and for a moment, she's safe. Held between these two, she's warm, and she's Yun.

"No matter where I go, or how far," and she can feel the tears under her eyes. "I'll miss you."

"We'll miss you, too." Jirda is in tears, and so is Aki. "We'll miss you so much."

"Yun!"

Mother's voice is strong and loud, full of life. She doesn't know, Yun thinks, how much it hurts that she can still be so strong, even when she is sending Yun away.

Yun's mother wears a head band and she's tall and lovely and she picks Yun up in one hand and Firesong up in the other. The deer is waiting. Firesong has a basket on one side of the deer, and Yun has one on the other. It seems very high up, but the snow will be soft to fall on.

As they ride, she waves to Jirda and Aki, to the Lodge, to the Mountains and to the fires in the sky, until first the dark, and then the dawn, swallow them whole.

Yun is going to her Father.

It takes them days to get out of the mountains, days where Yun is mostly bored, and where mother is mostly quiet.

Days where Firesong is mostly wanting out so she can run.

Yun doesn't really like this.

She wants to know who this stranger-father is.

Why she has to go to him.

Why she can't stay with Mother and be a warrior.

Mother is quiet until the day Yun falls out of the basket. The ice is jagged and hard. She lands at just the right angle to scratch her cheek. She yelps, but doesn't cry.

Mother is out of the saddle in moments, picking her up, while Firesong kisses her cub kisses over the scratch. Mother stares at Yun, as though seeing her for the first time.

"Are you alright?"

Yun nods, and Mother crushes her in a hug.

"My little Yun!" Mother is- Mother is crying?

She is! Mother is crying!

"Mother?"

"My poor little wolf cub!"

Mother is crying and Yun is held in stiff, strong arms.

Soon afterwards, while the sky is darkening, Mother pulls out the tent, while Yun builds the fire, and Firesong guards. Mother is nervous, eyes darting to holes in the mountains, but Kahvi's Pact should hold, she tells Yun. No Trolls tonight.

The fire is small, and it's only the two of them. Mother holds Yun on her lap, and stares silently into the fire.

After forever, she speaks.

"His name, your father's name, it's Skywise. He has silver hair and silver eyes. His skin is soft as new hide, but you don't need to know that."

Mother wraps her arms a little more tightly around Yun. Firesong makes her way to the fire and paws at Mother until she can be in the lap, too.

"Yun, who am I?"

Sometimes grown ups are strange.

"You're Mother."

Mother's arms tighten.

"Yes. I'm Mother and I love you. You are my whole world, but you have to go away. Do you understand?"

No! No, of course she can't! She wants to be at home, in the Lodge, with Jirda and Aki!

"No! I want to go home!"

She struggles, wants to escape, wants to run, but mother's arms are too tight, and she's caught tight. So she stills and begins to cry.

"Because it isn't safe here, Yun. Not for a little wolf cub, and that's what you are. You're no fawn, no deer, just a sweet little pup, all cuddles and kisses. This is no place for wolves. They freeze and die. You'll freeze and die."

"I won't!" Yun twists so she can wrap her arms around mother's neck, which squishes Firesong. "I'll wrap up warm, and I'll be careful. We can go home!"

Her mother just holds her, and cries, quiet little crying that makes Yun want to cry, but when she does, Firesong licks off her tears and she giggles. Mother sees this, and smiles.

The crying is over.

Yun is not a baby, but Mother holds like she is, that night, and keeps a hand on her all the next day. The nights are the same, as though Yun is Mother's only life. Yun smiles to see that her mother thinks she is more important than the dagger she still has from the War.

"It might have been different," Mother murmurs. "If Jali had lived. Jali was going to have a baby, too."

Yun looks up at Mother. Mother said it was their last day in the mountains, and Yun had been trying to breathe in, to drink in, the green and white and the black. The tall, pale sky.

"Who's Jali?"

Mother smiles, and it isn't a sad one.

"Jali was your sister. She was tall and dark, though. It was her last battle, the Palace War. She was going to have a fawn, but then she died. If she hadn't," Mother is sad now. "If she had lived, this might not hurt so much."

Yun thinks about that. About her tall and dark sister. About the baby that was never born.

Then she thinks of something perfect.

"You can stay with me!" She's excited now. "We can stay together! You can live with me, and have a wolf friend, too!"

Mother's eyes are wet again, maybe tears, maybe the sudden wind.

"No, little wolf cub. I could never live there. There are things I have to do. I have to be here for those."

Yun wants to protest, wants to scream, but Mother has that same look she had when Chet wanted to dance with her while Yun was still a baby enough to sleep in her bed. Still, strong and wise. She has to do something and Yun, who knows that Chet is a most accomplished persuader, knows she can't change her mind.

Suddenly, Mother points straight ahead, to where the black and white of the mountains changes suddenly to a thick, vibrant green.

"Look, Yun! The woods!"

Mother is trying to smile, but she has tears on her face, so Yun sits up straight, and smiles for her. Firesong yips, and wriggles a bit.

"Hush, pup!"

Yun knows Mother's hand is hard, but gentle as she pushes Firesong down into the basket again. Yun leans around, and scolds her friend.

"We're not there yet, Firesong. We have a whole nother day!"

It does take them a day. A day where Yun wonders if it will be scary in the green, growing space, if it will be hot. If she will be eaten by a monster. If the trees will change colour in front of her, like Jirda says Aki's brother Tekka says. If she will fall into water and drown.

She gulps, and steels herself, all day.

When they get there, though, she sees that it is golden and green and soft brown everywhere. That if she holds up her hands to the leaves, they brush her as gently as the fir trees in the mountains.

She thinks, maybe, it will be nice.

Mother seems to be waiting for something. Her face is screwed up and she only murmurs sweet things to Yun's questions and answers distractedly while Yun chatters. This doesn't really matter to Yun, but the fact that it's getting dark worries her a little.

It keeps getting darker, even darker than in the Frozen Mountains, where at least the sun had the peaks to blame on laziness before Mother stops. Yun has been absorbed in how much more she can smell in this strange green place, but she looks at Mother as she hops off the tree. Mother takes out Yun's bundle, but not hers. She pulls Firesong out of the basket.

Yun wants to cry when Mother picks her up. Mother looks as though she wants to cry, too.

Mother puts Yun on the ground and looks her in the eyes. She tries to smile, and puts her hands on Yun's shoulders.

"Who are you?"

Grown ups are strange.

"I'm Yun."

Mother smiles, but her eyes are tight at the edges.

"And who am I?"

Yun brushes away a tear on Mother's face.

"You're Mother."

Mother crushes her in a hug again.

"Don't ever forget that."

How could she forget her Mother?

"I won't."

Her mother, her mother sends so seldom, that this sudden wash of love is a roar of heat from a dancing fire.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

Yun is crying again.

She tries to reach back, and even though she's young and clumsy, she knows Mother feels it.

It's over soon, and she sees in the meantime, strangers, tall and small, dark and light skinned, have made their ways out of the trees and the bushes, through the air that had turned blue, dying streams and the moistened leaves with it's softness. In their lead is a stranger with long, creamy hair, part of which is caught up in a long crest.

Mother has heard them, and she stands, pushing Yun out in front of her.

"Where's Skywise?"

He comes from the woods, behind the stranger with the crest, his hair silver, his eyes silver. His clothes were blue a soft night colour that Yun has never seen in leather before. He looks troubled.

Then the crested stranger is in front of her, crouching and grinning. Yun can tell from his smile that he knows a thing or two about little she-cubs. He takes a few deep sniffs before he speaks and it seems to need some sort of answer, so Yun sniffs back.

"She's yours, Skywise!" He grins over his shoulder now, at the Skywise person and the maiden behind him, who has long red hair. She's grinning, too, both hands over her mouth.

The Skywise person is staring at her, as if she's a dream, or a mist creature, too fragile to hold. She finds that she's still uncertain about this Father-stranger.

He pushes the crest-elf out of the way, and kneels in front of her. He touches her face, and suddenly, like the moons coming out from behind a cloud, he smiles.

Yun is glad, then, to see this Father-elf, this Father, smile. She knows then, that she is alright.

He takes her in a hug, as strong as Mother's, but more gentle.

"Cubling."

Yun thinks about how wonderful he smells, how soft, not like anyone in the Lodge. She wraps her arms around him as tightly as she can.

Mother must have liked his hugs.

Mother!

Yun turns, and sees, in the bare darkness a trail leading back to the mountains. She tries to run after it, but Father holds her back.

"Mother!"

She's gone.

"Why didn't she-why didn't she say-"

She can't finish, and Father picks her up, so she can watch better. Around her strangers shake their heads and turn away. Yun isn't sure if she likes their head-shaking. The crested elf holds something up.

"She said," He smiles, sad, like Mother's smiles were that whole, long strange trip. "She said this was for you."

Yun knows this dagger. It's the dagger her Mother brought back from the Palace war. It's Strong and finely edged. Perfect for throwing or stabbing or slashing.

She swallows her tears.

She looks at her Father.

"Can we go home now?"

His smile is the brightest star she's ever seen.