Black Maw
Few in the pack speak of the Black Maw, and fewer still have seen it. It lies at the furthest reaches of the cave, sealed by thick rock formations and guarded with warning markers to keep the young and curious away. It is a place of fear, of horror, of a lesson that Haru refuses to let time erase.Anput and the Black Maw
Shortly after the pack had sealed the entrance to the Black Maw, she had appeared within.
The air inside was thick, stagnant, untouched by the living world beyond the stone barrier. Dust clung to the cavern walls, undisturbed, save for the slow, dragging movements of what remained.
But Anput did not flinch.
She had no fear of the dead.
For she had already carried Emi's soul herself.
When the she-wolf had taken her last breath, Anput had been there—silent, unseen, waiting. The moment Emi's body had failed, Anput had lifted her soul gently from the husk it had left behind.
Emi had been sad, of course.
She had been one of the best hunters of the pack, proud of her skill, dedicated to her family. To leave them so suddenly, to fall not in battle, but to something unknown, something unnatural… it had shaken her.
"This isn't fair," Emi had whispered, gazing back at the fading world, watching as her body lay still, her packmates mourning around her.
"No," Anput had agreed. "It isn't."
But she had guided her forward.
And as they stood at the threshold of the afterlife, she had spoken the truth Emi needed to hear.
"They will always remember you."
"They will honor you."
*"And if you wish—" Anput had turned to look at her, eyes ancient, knowing. "You may choose to return."
"Return?" Emi had echoed, confused.
"Reincarnation."
A choice granted only to those who had truly left their mark upon the world.
"You may live again, as a different she-wolf, in another time. Perhaps even among them once more."
Emi had been quiet for a long time. The weight of that choice was not one made lightly.
Anput had not stayed to hear her answer.
Some souls took time.
But she had left her with the option.
A Thing That Should Not Be
And yet, as Anput stood now in the Black Maw, she knew that something else had refused to let go.
What lingered here was not Emi.
Her soul had passed beyond.
But her body—her body had been taken by something else.
The thing that moved in the dark was not a wolf.
It was something older, hungrier.
It shuffled in the silence, occasionally twitching, its breath slow and unnatural. Its lifeless eyes did not see her, did not recognize the presence of a goddess standing mere feet away.
There was nothing left to recognize.
It was trapped inside—but it had also ensured that no one could destroy it.