He hadn't liked the country. There was no one to talk to and he couldn't get food(plants tasted yucky. How had Yanne and her mother eaten them?), and Shiga really did want food. He was hungry, and his leg hurt, too. He didn't know how to fix it, but Yanne would have called it a "boo-boo". But it was a really big boo-boo, not like when Yanne fell and scraped her knee, and then her mother would kiss it and make it better. But Yanne wasn't here and neither was her mother. They didn't want him anymore; he had been bad and her mother had said, "Get out, and don't you ever come back!" So he had gone.
Of course, Shigatsu was very young, even for a wolf cub. He could eat meat—it didn't have to be spit back up for him—but he was very small. And very scared. With the optimism of youth, Shiga had returned a week later, missing Yanne and hoping that he could make up for what he did, only to find that he had been replaced by a dog that had not received him well.
That was two days ago, and now Shiga huddled at the entrance of an alley, in the space between a crate that smelled of wood shavings and the wall of some building or another. It was late in the evening, sun slanting across the city and creating deep shadows that scared Shiga. Yanne had once told him that all the bad things came out a night, from cracks and holds that they hid in at night to steal people who had been bad. She had described them well:
"Dey're yucky, Shiga," she said, and used her hands, too, to paint her picture of them, "Dey're black an' gold, and dey have long arms, really long arms, like longer dan Mama's! You can't hide from dem, dey always find you. When dey catch you, dey eat you fer bein' bad, unless you have a grown up wif you!" She had continued to describe they to Shiga, and he had become so scared he had hid the rest of the night under Yanne's bed. Her mother hadn't been happy to find him there, but it had made Shiga feel better. The dark under the bed felt more like a den—though how Shiga knew what that felt like was unclear even to him.
Shiga was not born.
Shigatsu was made from stuffing and glass eyes and fake fur. Shiga had been a stuffed animal for a long, long time before he was real wolf. He had lived for years in the window display of a store, enticing children to enter the store, but never being bought himself. he had pleaded each one—please ask for me, please, I want to leave here. It hadn't happened, however, until Yanne had chosen him. She had stopped right outside the store, tugging her mother's hand with her on, and in her bright yellow dress approached the store window.
"Mama," she had said, looking at Shiga, "Can I have de wolfie?"
"Yanne," her mother had said with a sigh, "I said that you could have any toy, but I do not think—"
"Pwease, Mama?"
Her mother had caved and bought him for Yanne, and for months he had been adored by the little girl, and had adored her in turn. She couldn't hear him, but then no one could. It was something that Shiga had accepted a long time ago, while in the shop. Yanne had named him Shigatsu, but constantly shortened it to Shiga. He liked that. He liked the way that she spoke, though he never duplicated it. What he did not like is he did not like Yanne's doggie or Yanne's mother. Both were mean to him. Even if he was a bad wolf(I'm not a doggie, Shiga constantly had to remind himself, because he had been treated like he was one often, over the three months he had been there), he didn't think that that gave them the right to be mean to him. Yanne's mother had been mean from the moment that they met and the doggie didn't even know him.
No one knew him, though, except Yanne, and she had mostly treated him like either a dog or a stuffed animal. But he was a wolf, because Yanne had said the magic word, the "W" word that he wasn't allowed to say anymore(neither was she). Shiga wasn't just a wolf cub, though, he could talk. That didn't get him anything special, of course, but it was such a relief to be able to talk aloud. he tried not to do it too often when he was at Yanne's house, because her mother hadn't liked him, but sometimes forgot to be mean to him if he was quiet.
Maybe he should give up on speaking and pretend to be a dog. Some human family might take him in and though they would never be Pack, he would have food. But Shigatsu wanted a back. He wanted a mother or a father or Packmates at the very least. He was good at sensing when people would be a good Packmate for him, and Yanne would have been, if he hadn't had to leave her behind.
But all thoughts flew from his head as he scented another wolf passing by. An Alpha, his nose told him. Someone who probably would make a really good Alpha—but he didn't have the scent of any other wolves on him. An Alpha without a pack? But he liked the scent. It was warm and clean, comforting—he'd protect his pack, wouldn't he? Shigatsu wasn't so hopeful as to think that the Alpha would really want him in his pack—a cub that wasn't his, one that had been bad. But maybe he would give him some food? Or make his boo-boo go away, like Yanne's mother did for her? Or maybe just be nice to him.
Shiga thought he would be alright, if he could get a kind word from someone. To keep him going. Because he wasn't really sure of what to do—he was so lost. Maybe the Alpha would help him, though. Maybe he would know where to find a Pack that would let him join. He would be better, he knew. if someone gave him a chance. This Alpha felt to powerful, though, to put up with Shiga for too long. But he could ask for help, couldn't he?
He had to.
He let out a whimpering whine, a common distress call between wolves. It was simpering and timid and no human would hear it or take notice of it, but a wolf would. And a wolf would be able to smell him, if he couldn't see him, so the Alpha would know he was there, maybe ignore him, but the Alpha would know, at least. That there was a cub near by. Shiga hoped that he could understand human speech, though, because though he instinctively knew some things, he leg and side hurt too much to really make an attempt at it.
