Once Upon A Time...

There is a short story that I've included below about this piece.

This is for the 's contest. This piece falling into the theme of "Strength in Knowledge and Wisdom (The intelligence of being a wolf)"

This piece expresses the intelligence within the lack of intelligence. What I mean by this is the wisdom gained from the lack of the distractions our human lives often revolve around.

A short summary of the story below is a wolf who has come upon a book left behind by some campers in the tundra. Though his small pack his going hungry, and the winter is coming, he is consumed by the story within the book, and forgets his responsibilities.

I do hope you all enjoy this piece, and the story that goes along with it.

Art & Story © Kigai (myself)






"The dark months are coming" the wolf's instincts told him.

The summer had been hard enough on his small pack of three. The addition of a new pup had not made it any easier.

It was time now to return to his pack. The wolf had been hunting for small game to satiate his dying hunger that still ached his stomach, but harder times were soon to come, and his small family needed his leadership.

As the wolf padded along his normal route to the pack's rendezvous site, a peculiar scent caught his attention. He stopped, raised his head, and perked his ears upwind.

Man was a curious creature to this wolf. He, like many others in the arctic tundra, had not be subjugated to the wrath of the early settlers, and thusly had little reason to fear them. Nevertheless, he took caution to the scent of an old camp.

Though his nose still tingled with excited senses, neither his eyes nor his ears caught more signs of humanity. The campers had already moved on.

The wolf could not know this though, for he is a beast with little understanding of the habits of man, and with no confirmation of any threat in the area, his curiosity pulled him toward the scent.

Angling his head this way and that so that his eyes may better survey the area as he approached, his paws carried him ever so slowly towards the abandoned campground.

All that remained was a smoking pile of ash, and some discarded wrappers from sweet fruit snacks. The wolf took little interest in the ash, he had seen the remains of fire before. One quick whiff satisfied his curiosity of the wrapper.

Just as the wolf set his mind towards moving back to his route, his eyes caught something between the piles of stone. A large, tattered, red book stood propped between two rocks, its pages flapping now and then in the wind.

Though the sound discouraged him, the movement of the pages intrigued the beast. Just as he had moved towards the campgrounds, he angled his neck this way and that as he moved towards the forgotten item. His nose caught little more than the scent of wood and dust.

As the wolf moved closer and closer, his curiosity began to flourish. Stronger and stronger became this sense of 'wanting to know.' The noise of the flapping pages no longer bothered him, the scent no longer intrigued him, and the worries of his pack were forgotten as his mind comprehended the words laid upon the page: "Once upon a time..."