Lying soaked on river's edge he woke himself by coughing up a splash of water, as he came to he had a blurry recollection of fighting the rapids and eventually sinking, looking up at the water's surface and watching the bubbles and whorls distorting the light. He remembered a feeling of warmth enveloping him...and then nothing afterward. He picked his head up and felt less groggy than he expected to, rose to his feet and wobbled less than he anticipated.
The pup had been following his nose all morning and it led him to the natural log bridge in the middle of his pack's territory, at this time of year the river was bloated and there was a few feet of fast moving water beneath it, but he had been following this deliciously stinky trail all morning and barely noticed the river as he mounted and began to cross the huge downed tree. As pups will, he clumsily slipped off the mossy bark and with a splash he disappeared from sight in an instant. If his pack had heard the splash they could not have seen its cause. His little legs tried desperately to find purchase on the riverbed but it was far too fast and far too deep to fight. He tumbled in the water, flailing desperately, sometimes grazing the riverbed, he suddenly felt a pain in his head so sharp it made him yelp, sucking in water as his panic deepened. His lungs began to feel so heavy...and his head was so cloudy...as he slipped into unconsciousness it seemed as though the water was becoming still, quiet, and the sunlight trickling through was gleaming all around him. The water rushed over and under his body, through his fur, and as it did so his pelt became the new home for the speckles of light the water carried with it. His body gently bobbed at the surface, the cut on his face bleeding badly, the river that carried him for over a mile finally stilled and deposited him on a soft and sandy place along its bank. Lapping at the drowned pup's body, it encouraged him to cough up the water and come back to consciousness.
A wolf with a striking pelt that made him smell smoke and flame was sitting nearby, silently and peacefully gazing off into the distance, although he had obviously heard the pup stirring just now. Unworried the wolf swiveled his ears towards the pup as he took his first weak steps onto the dry grassy bank. The pup shook his fur and winced and lost his footing, the blood poured again and pooled in his eye, by now he had realized he couldnt see as clearly as before... The striking wolf rose to his feet and began slowly walking back up the riverbed, toward a wooded area. Swishing his tail, he stopped after a few paces and turned his head to look behind him at the new pup, a welcoming and encouraging gesture. For a brief while he would wonder if he had died in that river...but the pounding in his head brought him back to the present moment. As well as he could he bound after this new wolf and picked his way through the forest, watching the dappled afternoon sun glistening on the wolf and the trail in front of him.
