Lone Wolf

sometimes."
    "The cold sleep is the way of bears."
    "Yes, and she knew I wasn't a bear." Faolan paused. "But..." He could not finish the thought.
    "But what, Faolan?" Gwynneth asked gently.
    "But what am I?"
    "You are a wolf."
    "A cursed wolf."
    "Not cursed forever. You will prove yourself." Faolan held up his splayed front paw. "This is why I am cursed."
    "I know, your paw. I see it."
    "No, you have not seen all of it. Take a closer look." Faolan flipped himself onto his back and showed the bottom of his paw, the pad with the spiral marking. He saw Gwynneth flinch, and flipped instantly back to his feet. I am worse than malcadh. Much worse!
    But Gwynneth hopped closer to him and spread her immense wing over his head, patting him gently as she combed a burr from his ear with her beak. "You are a good wolf, Faolan. You are a good and honorable wolf. Both of your milk mothers would be proud of you."
    He looked into the Masked Owl's dusky face. Her eyes were like gleaming blue-black river stones. They were darker than Thunderheart's, but he could see his reflection in them as he had once seen this face shining in Thunderheart's eyes. Faolan suddenly realized that this was his first conversation with any living creature since Thunderheart. It felt good. It felt comfortable. He sensed that he could say anything to this owl and that she would understand. The fire that had scared him at first now wrapped him in its warmth.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
    ***
    YOU MUST GO TO THE WOLVES

    "MAY I STAY WITH YOU? I CAN hunt. I can get you big meat. Not just these little voles." Faolan nodded toward the bodies of the small rodents he saw stashed under a rock.
    Gwynneth swiveled her head slowly, a wide arc that was almost a complete circle. But the meaning of the gesture was clear: No.'
    "What do I need with anything bigger than a vole? I am small compared to you. I can't get off the ground if I weigh myself down with too much food."
    "But I want to stay."
    "You belong with the wolves. You are a wolf."
    "You don't want me." He stepped back.
    "It's not a question of me wanting you or not." This was slightly untrue, but it was difficult to explain to a social animal like a wolf. Owls, especially Rogue smiths,  were known for their solitary ways. So she simply repeated, "You belong in a pack."
    "On the fringes of a pack."
    "Not always. No. You'll learn. You will gradually find a place in the pack and most likely will become a member of the Watch at the Ring of the Sacred Volcanoes."
    "I know nothing about the ways of wolves and I am sick of this Sacred Volcano stuff," Faolan snarled.
    "What do you mean sick of it? You don't know anything about it."
    Faolan lowered his head and shifted his gaze. It was his turn to not be completely honest. He had not told Gwynneth about the Cave Before Time and now he was unsure if he ever would.
    "If only Thunderheart were here."
    "She's not. She's gone on." Gwynneth now flipped her head up so it was upside down and backward, and scanned the sky for the Great Bear constellation. It made Faolan dizzy just to see this extraordinary move.
    "How do you do that?"
    "Do what?"
    "That thing with your head."
    "We -- owls, that is -- have extra bones in our neck. It allows us to spin and twitch our heads every which way." Gwynneth began to demonstrate.
    "Don't!" Faolan growled. "It's making me nauseous."
    "Sorry! But as I was saying, Thunderheart is gone now. You can't recapture that time." Gwynneth spoke firmly, restoring her head to a fairly normal position with her eyes looking straight at Faolan.
    Faolan huffed. Hadn't he done that in the cave? He had gone back to a time before time. He thought of those two owls separated by time: one plunging in what appeared to be a suicidal dive into the crater to retrieve the enigmatic ember; the other flying through a curtain of flames with the ember in its beak.
    "But I can," Faolan said softly. Can't I? he thought.
    "You must not think of time as a quantity, a period, a measure. Look at the sky," Gwynneth said. "The moon has now slipped away to another night, into another world. It was not the time it was here that you remember, Faolan, but rather the luminescence of the air, the blue shadows cast by the trees in its light. It was not the length of the time but the quality of the moon's light that you felt and remember." Gwynneth paused. "It is the value, the quality that lives on."
    "But the moon will be back tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and Thunderheart will not. It