Author's Website: http://www.finnatics.com/otsoko.htm

Disclaimer: Alliance owns all.

Author's Notes: Thanks to the singular Aukestrel for the fastest Beta in the west, and emmy.esq for the encouragement.

Story Notes: 1. The title was originally in Basque (Ostokori Diefek edozera azaldu dio), just because 'otsoko' is Basque for 'wolfcub' So it's 'Dief explains everything to Otsoko' = 'Dief explains everything to a wolf-cub'.
2. I have written a parody of a linguistics article, 'A short grammatical sketch of Wolf-Speak', mainly as an excuse to actually use my linguistics degree. It can be found at:
http://www.finnatics.com/wolfspeak.htm

He is so difficult to understand From the first time we met in that abandoned mine shaft, he has been something of a mystery. Maddeningly so.

He takes the simplest things and complicates them beyond all measure.

And I understand his pain at being exiled from his pack, the look in his eyes as he sees snow falling again after the too-warm time down here. I, too, wish I were back in a reasonable climate again. All the old legends about the evil place one went when one died being hot seem to be borne out in this purgatory to which I have accompanied him on his exile.

Unlike back home, in the wolf-lands, I find myself relying more on him. It seems remarkably inappropriate. It is my duty to take care of him and protect him.. After all, it was I who saved his life, not once but twice, first in the mine shaft and then pulling him from the waters of the ice-sea.

Humans can be charmingly na*ve. His insistence on acting as though he were the alpha, the leader, is enough to make me snicker. I think at other times he understands I am with him because I have accepted him as one who needs protecting, as part of my pack. But, like a cub, he plays at alpha.

His lack of a mate confused me for a while. I even feared that he was waiting for me to claim him, which would have been well, disgusting. Ugly hairless balding beasts, humans, and all the wrong smells.

I don't think he ever had that in mind, thank the one who makes all things.

I thought he was going to become the mate of the one who plays on ice, He, at least was one of us, from the wolf-lands, and not from this land of stinky heat. And I think they tried it. They closed the door, and my hearing is not what it once was. But the smells in his sleeping-place were those of mating. Quite a bit of mating, actually. But the one who plays on ice returned to the wolf-lands without me and my human.

At least the evil one, the one with the gun, is gone. Because the evil one was not a good choice for a mate: no understanding of the pack, no understanding that the pack protects its own, the pack does not shoot its own. I was shot, he was shot. We shared that fate. Another bond. Humans are not particularly good with the whole choosing of the mate thing. At least my human isn't.

But I miss the openness of the wolf-lands, I miss the one-ness of the pack, of having the whole group in harness in front of the sled, having the human navigate as we lead the way.

But he is a good human: I am well fed. And when I told him to take me back to our land, the wolf-lands, he did. Although he explained that it could only be for a short time (one moon's worth). I watched him carefully back in our home and native land, thinking that perhaps, he needed a mate from our homeland. But he showed no interest either in mounting nor being mounted (My pack leader when I was a cub tried to explain this to me about humans, about how who mounted whom was more . . . flexible among humans than among wolves. It remains a mystery. Not that one really wants to understand such things.)

But there was no-one in the wolf-lands for my human. Although, I was pleased that there were several for me. (I must get my human to bring me back to the wolf-lands more often.)

Soon it was time to return to the stink-lands. I resolved that I would try harder to help my human find a mate. It must be difficult for them, not being able to smell when the mate is available. I remember the dirty jokes about humans when I was a cub, about how they couldn't even lick themselves. Like a lot of jokes about humans, this turned out to be perfectly true. The one who makes all things must have hated humans to have played such a nasty trick by making them that way.

The old partner was gone when we returned. Ah yes, youngcub, 'partner' is a human term for the one who pulls the sled alongside you. Or rather, 'partner' is the wolf-lands human term. In the stink-lands the word is 'ray'.

From the first day with the new one, I tried to tell my human to select this one. I have always had a fondness for the ones with yellow hair. I find them decorative. I couldn't have been plainer. That day in the car (human for 'dogless sled'), licking him, accepting him, telling my human that this one was appropriate. He had all the right smells. He had the right look in his eyes when he watched my human. (Humans do many smell-things with their eyes; it is a human thing, youngcub, you wouldn't understand.)

My human was so oblivious, it was endearing. He didn't recognize the new partner, the new ray, as his one-who-pulls-the-sled-alongside-you at first. It was so obvious: the new ray made all the proper ray gestures, the paw on the shoulder, the riding in the car together, the swimming together.

But finally my human recognized him as his ray, and brought him a gift at the place of the ones who pull sleds no more, on the day when the sun took a nap (I am glad the sun does that very rarely). I left the two of them alone, and played the summer game of piling the flowers together, hoping they would take the hint and mate. Instead, they played the human game of yelping at each other.

But I knew my sense of smell had not failed me when my human began murmuring the stink-lands word for partner in his sleep, and when he would pet himself (Remember, youngcub, they cannot lick, poor things).

Sometimes I think that if I just give his right paw a good bite, he wouldn't be able to pet himself for a few weeks, and the sheer frustration would drive him to mate with his ray, yellow-hair.

Sometimes I think my human is not the sharpest tooth in the jaw.