Ull ☉ ✒️

Crisp spring winds play and whisper along the groves like loving couples do. The streams hasten, finding no rest, until down into the depths the waves crash. Beat, my heart, lament and listen; the sound of the horn dies among the cliffs. The stream wolf is howling, the sorrows are sharing their wake over mountain and valley.

The spring song is the first song Ull remembers hearing.

His warm glowing yellow eyes is not the only thing he got from his mother, no, this wolf is a perfect copy of his mother before she ever knew the hardships of responsibility. He's nice and strong, hopeful and looking for someone to spend his life with. His attributes remind the elders of the pack of his mother, the one they met all those years ago when she was a carefree young wolf just wanting to help. This made him very popular among them and Gull, Astrid and Räv constantly doted on him for it.

-

"Hard work around the home, hard work afar as well, the silent breath of the woods, and the roaring of the stream. We all share common dreams, some come and some leave. But the land belongs to us all. Hard work around the home, under northern lights upon the sky. The land of still lakes, a southern wind brushes the cheek. The yellow fields, the blue sky, we walk together you and I, because the land belongs to us all. Through night and through day, we're together you and I, because the land belongs to us all."

His mother sang the most wonderful songs. This was a new one to him.

"It's a song about sharing, about seeing eye to eye," Ull stated, "who is it about, mamma?"

"This song could be applied to any situation where you see it needed. I think it suits our pack well.." she paused, clearly not having told the whole story, "but its origins are sad. Like most other songs I've taught you, this one is from northland, I heard it a lot in my youth but the wolves stopped singing it. I asked.. I asked my mamma about it. She told me an awful story, Ull."

"I want to hear it, Mor," Ull wanted to show that he was ready.

"This was right before I had to leave. I hadn't heard the song in a long time, and I remembered it and asked her. My mor told me that this song was about humans," the mere mention of the word gave Ull chills, like hearing someone talk about a ghost, "the humans, they hated us. All we wanted was to live in peace with them, but they didn't. The truth is, Ull, that we are not that different from humans. We don't like being threatened, we don't like sharing or competing over prey. They don't either. This song.. it was a symbol of the hope we had, the hope that things would get better, that we could share the land. As that hope dwindled, so did the use of the song. It is a shame, because the song is beautiful and has a good message. No one here knows the song, they won't know of its past. My son, you have the permission to give the song a new meaning."

Ull nodded.

-

Ull really wanted to experience love, but it didn't go so well for him. First he tried to date a female from a different pack, and it didn't work out. He was really longing for pups and a family of his own and had to watch his sister having them. He loved spending time with his niece and nephew. Then he found a mate, but no pups..

-

He had heard from Skade that both their little sister, and now the alpha, had become apathic and wouldn't leave her cave, and when he visited sure enough she was lying in a corner looking lifeless.

"Gerd, what's wrong?" He sat down waiting, but she stayed still at the same spot, not responding, "Please tell me."

Her eyes moved up to look at him. Her body didn't move at all.

"My pup, she is alone" Gerd looked down, "What did I do wrong?"

"You did nothing wrong, wolves have lone pups sometimes, it's not weird," Ull tried to console her.

"But we are always two, where is her other half?" Gerd curled up a little bit, "like you and Skade and Lusse. In the alphas lineages litters there's always born two pups to complement eachother.."

"I know lillasyster, but let me tell you something. There's more to the prophecy than that," his words made her look up curiously, "Before I had Björn and his sister, me and Nejlika had a really hard time starting a family. We tried many times but nothing happened, one time the pups born were dead.." Gerd had now lifted her head, looking worried, so Ull came closer to comfort her, as he usually does "and you are correct, Skade had a litter of two that complemented eachother, and her son also did. But her daughter, Hel.."

Ull knew that Gerd had heard about how their late mother and alpha, Tyr, had set a ban on having pups for all her descendants. Hel hadn't liked this, and protested by mating with Tyrs old boyfriend. Gerd looked at Ull like a pup being told a tale, but Ull wasn't telling a tale this day.

"Hel had a pup, too. Only one. The pup grew up in our pack, she was a good wolf in all ways and Hel raised her, but she left the pack. And before you say anything, she did not have only one pup because she had done something bad. Hel wasn't a bad wolf, she just wanted to have pups of her own just like you and me," Ull had now laid down next to Gerd and her head was resting on his paws like an overgrown puppy, "there's not a single sibling pair yet that hasn't had one of them have this issue. You did nothing wrong,"

-

Ull sat by the patch of dirt for three days. He slept there, but no one saw him eat. One could think a wolfs mate would be the most important person in their life, and he did love his mate, but his companion and best friend would always be Skade. And now she was under this patch of dirt, decaying, giving her nutrient rich body to the plants of the forest. Ull sat there looking at the dirt, and looking at her name carved on a stone. He couldn't believe it.