6. Ylfa
I snap awake, reachingmy hands up to my face. Who am I? Where am I? And what bloody year is it?
Patrick is asleep beside me as we rest in a wooded clearing, and it appears I’m still Ylfa in the year 2120. Shifters are the dominant species of the earth, far outnumbering that of humans.
Holy cow... What a dream. What a dream indeed.
Only I don’t think it was a dream, but a memory... Silver’s memory.
Wait... was Silver that woman? That Palaeolithic or Neolithic woman—I forget which. But who was the wolf? Her name was Silver, too.
Yes. I was both the woman and the wolf, Ylfa... and it’s Palaeolithic. That event took place fifteen thousand years ago.
“Shit...”
Shit indeed.
I need a moment to adjust. I was just inside the head of another. Silver’s past life by the looks of it, and I’m so disorientated. Everything is spinning, and I can still feel the biting chill of the snow against my cheeks.
I went back to the Ice Age...
“H-how...?”
She takes a moment to respond. That’s my origin story. That night when my two halves looked into the moon pool together, mother created us, then merged us into one being.
I’m still panting as I’m trying to process. So, Silver was once a human woman and a wolf? It makes no sense, yet does at the same time.
Is she two people or one? Or one person and one wolf?
I am both those beings reborn. We changed that day we fell into the moon pool. Did you not think it looked familiar? That was how you met mother and merged with me... Remember, Ylfa?
So, my wolf is the reincarnated spirit of a woman and a wolf who lived 15,000 years ago?
I need a drink of water.
I’ve reincarnated many times. You are my current incarnation, Ylfa, and by far, my favorite...
Her words echo through the dark recesses of my mind. No wonder she is more intelligent than the average shifter’s wolf. Patrick tells me that Lucky speaks in simple sentences, and from what Hunter has told me too, Shadow is the same.
Yet Silver is different because she’s the reincarnated spirit of a Palaeolithic woman who combined with her wolf.
She has all the intellect of a woman and the cunning of a wolf, thrown in with a dash of moon magic. No wonder she’s unstoppable.
I find a small, shallow stream and cup my hands into the water, splashing my face. As the cool water wakes my mind and spirit, I sit back, gazing at nothing. My mind transports me back to 15,000 years ago.
So was that how dogs were domesticated?
Luna told me she created the first wolf shifter because she was inspired by the bond between humans and wolves.
Silver replies. Not that moment specifically. It was not one singular event, but many over the course of a thousand years.
I figured out that much. So I ask the next question on my mind. Were you the first wolf shifter?
Again, she takes a moment. I believe I was. But mother created others after me, and that’s what led to the growth of our population. Yet the bond you saw between my two past selves was the event that inspired her. We were two grieving mothers who lost their pack and tribe, and found friendship.
So shifters truly originate from humans. Just as Luna had said.
They originate from wolves too, Ylfa.