lacuna (n.)

"blank or missing portion in a manuscript," 1660s, from Latin lacuna "hole, pit," figuratively "a gap, void, want," diminutive of lacus "pond, lake; hollow, opening".

🌀 Lacuna as in lack, as in lacking braincells. As attentive as she is reckless. 

The kindness of strangers kept her alive during her adolescent wanderings; she founded her pack on the same principle. Like a small town, most pass through, true friends stay. The first of these, and first among equals, is Anarch.

After a tragic stroke of forgetfulness on her part results in an unnested wolf losing half her litter, Lacuna finds herself unmoored. The passing of one of the pack's founding members and a close confidante, Fæger, only worsens things. Perhaps a change of scenery would help. So she pitches the idea to her pack: Northwards, perhaps, into the dense coniferous woods.

But she doesn't expect the challenge. The hunts get harder while the caves grow full with pups. Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of her own newborns dies that same autumn, washed up along the riverbank. Her own scouts find the body. Reeling from this new kind of loss, reminded of how she'd inflicted something similar upon another, she takes to wandering the forest listlessly, sometimes getting lost in her own territory. If it is her own territory anymore.

...But nothing ever stays the same. The god of second chances often works slow magic. And when the pack emerges intact and fed from a difficult winter, Lacuna realizes she had never lost their trust or their friendship. The foundations are solid; the next generations are in good paws.

There's still some time left. Beyond the dense redwoods, she remembers an erstwhile homeland of maw-deep snow and dazzling aurorae. She left those treacherous glaciers as a wayward yearling - would it be too crazy to dream of dying under the familiar polar lights? Surely there isn't still a warrant out for her arrest - all the sheriffs who knew her should be dead by now. 

Well, she'll die there or die trying. And lay out a plan for a better pack on the way. A few of her most trusted wolves accompany her on the way: Numskul, Balthaz, Duete, Vœu, and Hræfn, among others. Despite her old age, there's no convincing Anarch to stay, but she dies in the night during the journey, just beyond the bounds of the territory. Her children mark her grave with stones and slashes on tree bark - to know the way, and the way home. Others return to the den before the icecaps are even in sight, having gone as far as they can. All night, they howl. 

Once the biting frost enters the air, Lacuna opens up, for the first time, about the pack she left behind. Eking out a living on the harsh ice, worshipping the aurora borealis - the shimmering, collective might and glory of only the most valorous fallen creatures. It was her pack's tradition to have all wolves trained in all roles, regardless of their preferences or inclinations. But above all they were trained in ruthlessness - towards other creatures, towards themselves - to ensure entry into that hallowed afterlife. Wolves who didn't see their way were...well. They disappeared, one way or another. It was a small pack, even by glacial standards. A cult prunes well.

"That sounds so awful," says her son.

"It was. But they had some good ideas."

At the peak of the world, she lays out her blueprint for their future. So it ends, so it goes.

___

[wardrobe concept - yearling]