The Stone Wolves

Once there lived two strong and proud wolves that loved each other and made their way throughout the vast forests, hunting together as strong and proud wolves do.

Keeping to the deep woods, the wolves usually tried avoided people; not out of fear, but because people always made trouble, both for the animals of the land and for themselves.

Yet, on one hunt, their quarry brought them close to a modest hut, further into the forest than people usually made their homes. This was because the hut belonged to an old, cantankerous wizard who himself wanted to stay away from other people as well, for he found trouble for himself always.

And as of late, a pesky fox had been making trouble, poaching the wizard's chickens; so it was that when the wolves passed by the old sorcerer's wooded home, he was surveying the latest of the fox's crimes.

He spotted the grey and white wolves as they darted through the trees, stalking a majestic white-tailed buck that leapt and bounded ahead of them, and thought they had pilfered his meagre chickens.

His ire raised, the wizard took his anger out on the unlucky wolves, who would have been too proud to ever have resorted to robbing chickens from a pen, as it would be very low and undignified.

Casting a powerful spell with his crooked staff, the wizard blasted the wolves in a blinding flash of light that sent them both to the far ends of the immense forests, separated from each other; cursed to a life in the shadows.

For the spell the malevolent, old wizard had cast upon them would turn them to stone if they ever were touched with daylight again.

As soon as the wolves awoke from their abrupt journeys, they knew their fate in their hearts; if they felt the warmth of the sun's light again, they would be petrified.

Alone, with thousands of leagues between them, the wolves began to make their ways back to each other, for they also had a love in their hearts for one another that drew them together like a shimmering beacon.

Long, cold nights of travelling through the wild and thick woods they spent hunting alone for whatever creatures that were foolish enough to venture out in the darkness; fighting fierce battles with other predators that were the reason most of the animals feared to come out into the night, but their determination to get back to one another gave them the strength to persevere no matter the challenge.

Many moons passed and the two wolves had travelled such a long way, always careful to find shelter from the day before the sunrise broke through the forest's thick canopy of trees.

And though their arduous journeys were solitary and taxing, they never felt abandoned, for they could feel one another coming closer and closer as they made their way across the lands.

The pull of one another became stronger and stronger, until, after almost a year apart, the wolves could feel they were finally nearing the other and their hearts swelled with love.

All through the last night they both ran, the knowledge their lost love was close at hand drove them on, through their hunger, through their exhaustion; soon they would be together again and that was enough to keep them going.

Leaping and bounding up the last rocky slopes of the climbing forest ridge, they felt one another just over the next peak, and as they reached the crest of the hill, the trees abruptly ended and there was a clearing of sun-bleached stone ground.

Spotting one another breaking through the tree line, they sprinted with all their might towards each other; all thought of the early dawn light creeping over the horizon forgotten to their joy of reuniting with their lost love.

But their reunion was not meant to be, for as they came within a few last paces of one another, the sun's rays breached the horizon to their left and they stopped dead in their tracks; turned to solid stone by the wizard's curse.

So now it is that the stone wolves stand facing each other in the clearing at the top of the forest mound; strong and proud, they watch over one another, forevermore.