A wolf with fur as deep as the oppressing darkness of night, Loveless was initially welcomed into the world with kindness. "Lovely," her mother had uttered as she groomed new life into her small, wriggling body, the pup's inky fur catching the sun and shimmering blue in the entrance to the den. "What a pretty name for a pretty pup," her mother had whispered to her father, who then licked flat the fur on her tiny head. There were three of them: two with blue black pelts and one a dusty brown, perfectly healthy and squirming to nurse.
The three pups were inseparable from the moment their baby blue eyes had opened. Tumbling over each other with untrained limbs and biting needle-point teeth into skin during play. Lovely and her dusty-brown brother progressed faster than the little shadow that was their runt sister. While their brother was quick to leave the littlest in his dust, Lovely took to her side like a bur to skin - encouraging each step with gentle nudges and watchful eyes. Naturally nurturing and placid, Lovely was an unwavering sentinel to the smaller bundle of soft black fur.
But after an unsupervised trot into the forest that had the pups heavily scolded, Lovely soon began to notice strange quirks within her sister that no other pack member seemed to be concerned with. She began to slow, as if her body was obeying a broken clock to theirs. Her body appeared to shrink and her limbs moved clunkily, as if she was reverting back to a young pup. She suffered, and yet Lovely was the only one that seemed to notice her pain.
It was not long after Lovely began noticing these declines that the tranquillity within the pack evaporated with a single, heartbroken keen - the tiny shadow that Lovely had embarked to always protect, was dead. The pack was horrified upon finding the two - with Lovely hunched over the pups' body, blood staining her lips with the rotten taste of her sibling's life.
Lovely was quickly hefted by the scruff and tossed from the den with biting instructions to stay put. So she did, eyes unfocused and body as still as her sister's. What felt like a lifetime for her was only moments before the pup was pronounced dead and her mother's shattered yowls tore birds from the tree canopies. When questioned, Lovely explained that her sister was sick, and that it was her mercy that prevented her from watching the runt decline any further.
The pack was torn between what to do - some requested that Lovely was exiled, but for a pup that would mean death. Within their conflict they isolated the pup from her brother and pack, shunning her to a dark pit within their territory. The pack become cold, ignoring her attempts to justify herself or beg for forgiveness. She was tossed scraps of gristle and meat-gnawed bones to sustain herself, only visited by her mother who turned bitter and ghastly. She was condemned to her mother's grief, and given the moniker Loveless.
Upon the anniversary of their birth, her brother visited her. It was the first time she'd seen the dusty brown wolf in moons. He'd grown to tower over her, his maw much more larger and intimidating than when they would play as pups - and his mischievous nature was tainted by grief, anger, and a thirst for vengeance for their little sister.
But he didn't kill her - proclaiming that he would not stoop down to Loveless' neolithic way of thinking. Instead he exiled her - something he wished they'd done when she was fragile to the hardships of life. Chased from the pack by her brother, Loveless ran and ran until her lungs burned and paw pads were cracked.
Lovely may have been welcomed into life kindly, but Loveless was not welcomed into the world that way.
Glen Nevis
Aspen Trees