A/N: I was cleaning up some files and found this WIP. It was mostly done, so I finished it up and...well, here it is. It's set in the same elseworld as The Gift of Language, but you don't need to read that one first. I hope yall enjoy. 
The Name of the WolfShe had another name, once. The old chief sometimes wondered if she even remembered it. It seemed to have disappeared, long ago, when that scrawny young woman with defiance in her eyes sharpened a piece of flint and ran out into the snowy twilight.
It wasn’t as though his adopted daughter had no offers from any of the tribe’s hunters. Granted, they may not have been the best or kindest offers, but surely any of them would have been better, safer, than trying to hunt game herself!
The chief was not ashamed to admit that his own hunting days were long behind him. Oh, he could still spot the bent grass and stray wisps of fur that even the younger men might miss, and his nose still told him a lot about whatever was upwind, but those things were the easiest part of it.
It was no simple task to chase down something that moved faster than you. Even if she found any prey, it would immediately vanish into the brush. She would then need to track it to its new hiding place, and the cycle of flee and pursue would begin again until one of them dropped from exhaustion. This grueling task left even the fittest young men tired and drained of their strength, and being tired, weak, and alone was exactly what made you prey for something else. Too many of his kin had ventured out into the night, never to return.
He strained his eyes against the darkness beyond the mouth of the cavern, long after the very scent of her was gone. He might not be strong enough for the chase, anymore, but the ability to sit patiently and wait for any sign of motion had never truly left him. The sun rose without his daughter. By the time he finally shut his eyes, it had gone down again.
He wasn’t sure how many days had passed this way when his youngest son suddenly shook him awake. He stood, immediately alert, and didn’t even need the boy’s excited pointing to see the shuffling figure silhouetted against the dawn.
She was blue-lipped, shaking, and covered in blood, with at least one set of teeth marks that he could see among the bruises; but her eyes were wild with victory, and with the hand that wasn’t carrying a rabbit, she dragged behind her the carcass of a wolf.
Mad Wolf.
The name suited her.
The young men became warier of her after that day, and that seemed to please her as much as the name. She was Mad Wolf: a vicious, unpredictable wild thing that feared no threat and gave no mercy. She needed no one.
And except for him and his son, she had no one.
Mad Wolf gained a reputation as a remarkable hunter, simply because she refused to come home empty-handed. The Chief couldn’t help but be proud of her, though he dreaded the day when she wouldn’t come back at all. She was becoming reckless, and reckless hunters never grew old. It seemed that whenever she was lonely, she would disappear longer and return with bigger game and more injuries.
Then, one day, she knapped the edge of her knife and stormed out, and the chief could sense that something was different. He told himself it was nothing, but soon the days passed, and then the nights began to lengthen. When the moon had shrunk to a faint sliver, Mad Wolf finally returned with her greatest catch yet.
Whatever he was, he looked like a man. In fact, given his nakedness and the animalistic way he recoiled from the forming crowd, the chief would have been sure it was one of the wild-men from beyond the mountain range. His attempts at speech were strange, and Mad Wolf's story was stranger still.
The chief would not have believed it if he did not see for himself, but the man could fly and summon fire. He was swifter than a bird, and could fight off a bear without any injury. His presence among the people was soon understood to be a blessing and a miracle, but the most incredible miracle of all was the change in Mad Wolf.
She was…calmer, somehow. Something about this wild-man's presence put her at ease. She laughed more easily, shared food more readily, and was once again a part of the tribe. The woman who needed no one was suddenly content to take from her mate's hand. Oh, she still kept her blade sharp and occasionally used it, but the Mad Wolf was as gone as the little girl she'd replaced.
Perhaps, the chief decided, she would need another name.
-End-
