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Part II

With all of his vigor he pulled the great barn door shut and moved closer to the hay pile before him. The barn was not too large but it wasn’t a small barn either. Inside were some wooden stalls some carrying horses, another a few head of cattle and the ducks and chickens squawked and roamed what seemed to be freely amongst the barn floor. The floor was an uneven and solid stone floor and the walls of the barn were planks nailed to the massive wooden columns that held the barn upright. He had to act quickly, he could feel his digits on his paws starting to go numb and tingle. He had to get these clothes off of his body, he remembered that much from the training he endured with the sergeant at arms in the castle. As he fumbled with the clasp that held his cloak around his shoulders, he remembered the sergeant at arms. He was an older wolf who had seen many battles and survived many wars, leaving him cold and crass with nothing truly to show for it aside from gnarled ears, a scar across his left eye and an empty hole where his left eye once was. At least he sergeant at arms had worn an eye patch when he was teaching his lessons to his royal students. He was harsh with his students but he was fair, but the wolf had never really appreciated his lessons, until now. Finally with a click the cloak fell to the floor revealing the bare chest of the black wolf. Most of the fur on his body was black aside from a large patch of gray fur that covered his chest and upper abdomen. He was tall and thin, but as he was thin, he was also fit and toned. His lankiness often fooled his opponents into thinking him weak, but when he flexed his muscles and drove his fisted paw into your face, you quickly rescinded any previous statements of insult.

Slowly the wolf turned his body to face away from the pile of hay. Every movement he made ached and pained him, he truly was starting to freeze. He fell backwards into the hay pile, letting the cushion of the stored grass catch his aching frame. They hay was warm and soft and he finally began to feel its heat against his body. He pulled up his frozen paws to his muzzle as he had done before and gently blew a bit of hot air into them, bringing them a little bit more back to life. The wolf went to his makeshift boots, torn sheets of leather and fur tied around his feet to keep the snow from getting inside and a feeble attempt to keep them warm. These were pelts from a feral deer his brother had claimed while they hunted together on their father’s private grounds. He struggled to untie the bits of sinew that held the furs in place, they too were frozen solid against the furs that now were almost sheets of ice. As he grew more frustrated he remembered his own struggles with his brother when they were younger. His brother was sturdier built than he was, not as tall but with broader shoulders and bigger arms. The two wolf pups were always at odds with each other, always butting heads, always fighting. Now as the wolf thought back to his brother and their younger years he couldn’t even remember why they had fought so much, aside from the petty things they would use as bait to lure the other into yet another hostility, but he could remember his grandmother who always commented that the true reason for their needless bickering was to get the attention of their father, to whom they were always attempting to prove their worth. In more recent years, as the two wolf brothers grew into adults, the bickering stopped. The wolf remembered his brother for his wisdom of the wilds and always working with his paws. His brother proved a master craftswolf and had indeed proven his worth to their father, but the wolf’s brother did not brag or mock his elder, thinner brother, instead he was kinder and even more helpful. In later years the two brothers would even joke on how ridiculous it was to play into their father’s games of competition for approval. The wolf had chuckled at this thought and finally he finished untying the threads from sinew from his improvised boots.

The fur was hard though and frozen with ice and he gave a little tug at the leathers, he winced in pain, they were frozen to the fur on his feet. He quietly whined in anticipation for what he knew was to come. He would have to pull these wet furs from his feet or else he will never warm his body. He attempted to rub them briskly with his paws and rubbing a bit of the hay on them, attempting to warm them up even if just slightly so they wouldn’t cling so much to his fur. Anything to make the coming experience less painful. He couldn’t wait though, he needed these off of his feet or else the frostbite will set in and his feet will die. Quickly he put the strands of sinew in his muzzle and bit down as hard as he could in an attempt to ready himself for the coming pain and grabbed the ends of the fur on his feet with his paws. He readied himself and mentally counted… one… two… thr… He pulled with all the strength he could muster and with a fell rip, the leathers came from his right foot. The pain wasn’t even as bad as he had thought it would have been. Cautiously he looked down at his foot and he was instantly relieved, not much fur has been taken off at all! He picked up another clump of hay and rubbed his left foot this time. This shouldn’t be so bad. He gripped the edges of the leather and furs frozen to his left foot and again he counted in his head… one… two…. THREE! Again, the frozen strips of leather came clean off of his foot, finally all his feet were free from their icy prisons. He quickly shoved his feet under the pile of hay, trying to warm them. They tingled and ached as bits of feeling returned, thawed under the warm hay.

The next step was his pants. The thin ridding pants were once his favorite pair but now he hated them deeply. The thin pants provided no added warmth and did little but keep the snow from his bare fur. Now they clung to his fur, frozen solid as icy sheets, keeping his lower body from warming up. They had to come off. Luckily, he didn’t need to warm them as he had done with his boots. The inside of the barn was warm as is, and sitting in the hay had melted much of the ice from his trousers. Slowly, he began to inch down the pants from his waste, slowly sliding them down over his rear and pushing them down his thighs. It actually felt good to sit here, naked in the hay. As the wolf slowly pushed the pants lower down his legs he again drifted back to a past time. He remembered the first time another pulled his pants from him. He had met this other wolf in the stables his father had owned inside the castle, and he always had a certain fascination with him. The other wolf was shorter than he and the other wolf’s fur was not black was a darker shade of purple and the other wolf was usually very quiet as the wolf had worked alone in the stables. Of their many differences, there was one part where the two were alike and that was that they were both males. You see two of the same sex sharing any sort of intimacy was not illegal where the black wolf’s family had resided but it was surly frowned upon. Those who would be caught or merely just accused of lewd acts with the same gender were often humiliated and run out of the kingdom. The black wolf remembered a younger time, when just looking at the purple stable boy sent his heart racing and his stomach fluttered like he had swallowed a whole swarm of butterflies. It was a magical feeling really, and though it made him nervous, he still loved it all the same.

One night, the black wolf was in a hurry to rush back to his room after a long and boring lesson on the art of butter churning, he decided to take his secret shortcut through the stables and up the rafters up to his room’s window. He moved the large saw horse that was kept in the stable to the point under the rafters, as he had done many nights before and jumped up to catch the rafter and pull himself up, but upon jumping, the saw horse buckled under him and collapsed, sending the young black wolf to the ground and into a pile of hay. Upon hearing the commotion the stable boy rushed out to assess the scene. The black wolf was covered in hay and struggling to pull himself up, and the stable boy of course rushed over to royal wolf to help him out of the hay. They had clasped paws and the shorter stable boy had attempted to pull him up and just as he was pull the black wolf up he had yipped and slipped on a clump of straw and tumbled into the hay pile, right on top of the royal black wolf. The stable boy attempted to struggle to get off of the prince, but the hay was too thick and they both struggled, embarrassed and blushing on the awkward circumstance. The stable boy pleaded and apologized for his clumsiness and the black wolf attempted to calm him down and offer forgiveness telling him that it really was ok.

At some point in their struggle to get out of the hay, they had met each other’s eyes. They both attempted to speak, but neither could form any audible words. Instead, the black wolf merely closed his eyes and slowly pushed his muzzle towards the muzzle of the purple wolf and before the stable boy really knew what was happening, the black wolf prince was kissing him. The stable boy felt as though he was in a sort of dream and wondered if this was some sort of royal trick, the black wolf’s family was not known for interacting with the lower classes, they were royalty after all, but then the black wolf pushed his kiss farther and when the stable boy felt the comforting touch of the black wolf’s paw on his arm he finally let go and gave into all his hopes and desires and they spent much of the night sharing kisses and much, much more. His name was Krys, and he was his.

In the ensuing months to come, the two young wolves would meet in secret in the stables after dark; sharing secrets, holding hands and kissing in the dim lamp light, all the while cuddling together in the hay. One night the stable boy was not as he always was and looked a lot less happy than usual, even sad. He told his black wolf mate that he had overheard the black wolf’s father ranting again about his hatred of same gendered mates, how they were absolute degenerates and a plague on society. The black wolf attempted to comfort his purple mate gently rubbing his back as he had before to give him reassurance but it wasn’t working this time. Then Krys looked up at his black wolf mate and his eyes watered and he finally formed the question he had been meaning to ask, and he asked him to go with him and leave the kingdom. He tried to tell the black wolf that there were other lands more accepting of their kind and that he had already arranged passage with one of the soldiers, he just needed the black wolf to bring the money to pay the bribe for the solider. The black wolf protested the stable boy’s choice, telling him that it was his honor and his duty to reign over the kingdom. He was the oldest brother, and he was even to become king someday, he couldn’t just throw that away. He tried to tell the stable boy that once he was king, he would take him as a mate publically, no one questioned the king and he surely couldn’t be run out of his own kingdom, but the stable boy had already made up his mind and told the black wolf that it was this or nothing.

The black wolf tried to compromise with Krys and he ended up telling his father, the king, his dark secret. Much to the wolf’s surprise, his father had accepted him for who he was and had even told his oldest son that his greatest regret was not a homosexual son, but not being open enough to his son and his family to be able to talk. He was too much of a king and not enough of a father. The father would end up being the oldest son’s greatest supporter and from then on tried his hardest to be more accepting and loving of all of his family. The black wolf, so excited by this, rushed to tell Krys the joyous news, but when the black wolf had arrived to the stables, Krys was already gone. The black wolf would never again seen his purple stable boy and to this day he never figured out truly why he didn’t wait for him.

Finally the black wolf had slipped the last leg though the last legging of his frozen ridding pants, and he now lay naked atop the hay inside the barn. The building was warmer than it was outside, but it was still bitter cold. He needed to start a fire. He reached into the frozen pocket of his ridding pants and pulled out a small finely carved wooden box. When he was chased from his kingdom and his castle, his father had given him this one box and had told him to keep it close. The black wolf’s father said that in the most difficult of times one must be able to create his own light, start his own fire, for your mother and father may not always be there to guide your way. He slid the small wooden box open and inside lay a small flint and steel. He couldn’t just start the fire inside or else the smoke would choke him, so the wolf looked around what was available in the barn. He spotted a small old cast iron stove in the corner of the barn, connected to a series of pipes then lead out of the roof. It was dusty and covered in cob webs, clearly it hadn’t been used in a long time. He grabbed some clumps of hay and peeled some slivers of wood from the plank walls of the barn. He bunched up the hay in the belly of the stove and laid his kindling atop it. He readied the flint and steel his father had given him and gave a few strikes. Nothing. Again he struck the flint and steel, sparks flew out into the clump of hay and small wisps of smoke carried out. He bent down and gently blew into the small embers and with each gentle breath, the embers glowed till flames finally caught. He carefully laid the small bits of kindling on the flames and they slowly grew to maturity. Little by little the wolf added larger pieces of wood to flames and finally he felt the warm glow of the cast iron stove.

He gathered up his frozen clothes and laid them on the low hanging rafters around the stove in an attempt to melt the ice and dry them. The black wolf scooped up a large stack of the hay from the main pile and laid it down in front of the stove. He could sleep here for the night, and the door on the stove would keep the embers from catching his improvised bed on fire. Just as the wolf was about to lay down, a loud rolling sound from behind him shook him from his drift to sleep and the wolf instinctively dove into the pile of hay attempting to stay hidden from sight. The barn fell absolutely silent, even the barn animals stopped their usual neighs and squawks. He was so close, he was so close to finally getting some rest after so many days in the cold with no rest! The frigid air swept into the room with a vengeance, the blizzard was still blowing outside and now with the barn door open it was beckoning to come inside once again, but who had opened the door? The farmer of this barn most likely thought the wolf to himself. He had hoped that the species was at least canine, only then would he have a chance to maybe make a plea to allow him to stay for the night. The sound of boot steps on the stone floor of the barn walked right past the hay pile where the wolf was hiding and the next thing the wolf heard was the sound of the creaking of the stove door being opened followed by something whispered under the figure’s breath, something the wolf couldn’t quite make out. The wolf had to be careful, one wrong move and he could give his location away and it might even spell the end of his life, depending on the allegiance of this nowhere farmer, but he had to see. If the farmer was canine, he might share some sympathies for exiled wolf prince. He shifted his head, just slightly to see if he could get a view out of the hay pile, but the sound of the shifting in the silent barn was just enough. The wolf couldn’t see very clearly, but he knew that the figure had heard the rustle coming from the hay pile. Slowly the boot steps moved closer to the wolf and he could make out the sound of a tool being lifted off of a rack. The boots steps came closer still and the wolf could make out just a little bit more of the figure as he noticed that the figure had armed himself with a rather pointy pitchfork and just as the figure had attempted the prod the hay pile the wolf jumped up and out and put his back to the wall of the barn. What the wolf saw before him placed him in such a shock, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move. In front of the black wolf prince, armed with a rusted pitchfork stood a furless, pink skinned humanoid creature wearing a black leather jacket, blue denim jeans, and tan leather work boots that were not even tied. The wolf’s gaze shifted again to the young male’s face. Aside from the short blond goatee around his mouth and the red hair on top of his head, this creature was devoid of any sort of scales, feathers or fur. This creature was truly a human. He had thought the humans were all destroyed thousands of years ago, at least that is what history had told him, but here before him in this barn stood one, who was red cheeked and struggling not to gawk at the point below his waste.