He was still running days later, hadn’t stopped. Not to eat, not to sleep, no biological urge prompted him to tear his mind away from what he had done. It was the transformation, he knew implicitly, rather than just the grief. The transformation had taken so much from him physically, but it was nothing when compared to what he had lost in that clearing, the family that had been taken from him. His heart ached in his chest, beyond the pounding from his swift pace. The distance had done nothing to numb the anguish of loss.
His body had changed again, he perceived resentfully. His breakneck gallop had sent his body out of phase with the world, had broken space itself, leaving behind the greens and reds of dancing lights in his wake. His speed had changed his body, another set of limbs behind his front legs appearing, separating from his forelimbs with the speed of his after image, expediting his passage through the lands. If it got him away, far far away, he supposed it couldn’t be all bad, he thought with mournful acceptance.
Eventually he slowed, mentally exhausted, though his body felt like it could keep going forever. Perhaps that would be a fitting penance, he considered. But not yet. He needed to mourn. He had been mourning for days, but it had been an abstract sort of revulsion with himself, rather than the dignified mourning that his family deserved. They deserved to be honored.
He found a lake, a beautiful stretched out sliver of glassy silver, surrounded by elegant lupus flowers. He stretched back, behind his neck to see the stars above, visible brightly, even through the planet’s rings. The blue moon shone high in the sky, the larger silver one half hidden behind the horizon. The blue moon was the wolf’s moon, his parent’s voices echoed in his head, phantoms of his childhood, now gone forever. Fitting, he thought.
He gave a long howl, an eerie, beautiful thing full of all his agony and yearning. Yearning for a different outcome, a different life, really. It lingered in the air long after, echoing distantly, far longer than any howl should, more similar to the one that had started this whole lamentable experience than any other he had sung. He gave another, the reverberation of it rippling the moon’s reflection on the surface of the waters. He cut off suddenly. The ripples on the lake’s surface were getting larger, more pronounced, finally reaching the water’s edge, rustling the reeds there. A shimmer appeared, different from his own shimmering green lights, a sort of diaphanous blurring of the air, a near transparent glittering, like that of a soap bubble.
A tall man stepped out, eyes as blue as the moon above, surrounded by a fluttering flurry of large luna moths, one perched on his shoulder, whispering in his ear. He nodded distractedly, peering at Tva with perplexity. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. With some confusion, Tva realized he understood what the man had said, a sort of reverse aphasia implanted by the lights.
Who was he, he thought. He was a hunter of hunters, as his parents had told him many times as they lulled him to sleep along with his litter mates. He was Tva of the wolves, of the snow, of the lupus flowers. He was Tva of the dancing lights, Tva that had killed his own kin. ‘Tva’ he croaked, his voice stiff from the lack of practice, an unused vessel cracked open for the first time. ‘I am Tva.’
The man cocked his head, a wolf-like gesture, Tva thought. Was this man a hunter too? He had the piercing shrewd eyes of a being sizing up a kill. Would that make him the prey, Tva wondered, unable to summon concern through the haze of his self-loathing. If this being killed him it would be what he deserved.
‘Tva,’ the being repeated slowly, tasting the sound of it. ‘You are unfamiliar to me.’ Why would this being know him, Tva thought bemused. The being paused, sizing him up. ‘You’re new,’ the being said, its voice one of sudden realization. ‘A freshly born god,’ he murmured, voice raspy as night. ‘A god?’ Tva repeated stupidly, dazed by the revelation. Was that what had happened to him? Had the lights transformed him into a great one? His parents had told him stories of great ones, being with otherworldly abilities, stronger than the strongest wolf. Beings that were timeless, endless and eternal. But he had never given any thought to the creation of such beings, hadn’t even considered that they might be made, rather than born, rather than having always been.
The power that had channeled through him did seem like those of a god, he reflected, with no little disgust. Was this what it took to become a god? To have your body violently reformed, ripped apart and reassembled. To murder your family, your kin, their blood drenching your skin.
‘...you’re Noctua,’ Tva said slowly, looking up at the blue moon, the god’s complete body high in the sky overhead. One of the great ones, the moon of his people, who they gave their dreams to willingly, without reservation, tribute to his guidance in the darkness of the night when the sun set for weeks on end.
The tall man smiled a small proud smile, satisfied at the reverence in his tone. ‘Hm. Yes, and you are a newly formed god, welcome baby brother.’ He inclined his head, a dignified acknowledgement. Noctua turned, half in and half out of the shimmer, the slightest hint of ripples underneath his feet on the water's surface ‘Oh, you can call on me again, if you need. Sing to my moon’s reflection and I will emerge…your songs are uniquely lovely. I will answer your call.’ With that he stepped through the shimmer completely, returning to the skies above, not a ripple left to mark his apparition. And Tva was alone once more.
