Stories

Weeks after the Solstice Howl, the sun while it did return, still only rose low, slipping just above the treeline for a short while each day. It painted the snow with pale gold, cast long blue shadows over the frozen ground, then quietly vanished again behind the hills.

But it didn’t feel like enough.

Not this year.

People moved through the village like smoke—quiet and slow. Voices had grown soft, conversations clipped.

The children no longer played by the snow walls or raced their sleds over the frozen creek. They stayed close to the fires, staring into the flames as if hoping to find color there.

Even the reindeer were subdued. They moved in slow clusters, hooves crunching lightly in the frost. Their bells made only the faintest sound.

Pollox, usually the first to bark at a drifting snowflake, now lay near the hearth and watched the door with tired eyes.

Lumi watched from a distance, her breath curling in the dim air. The snow around her glittered, untouched. She shifted her weight from paw to paw, sat down, then stood again. Her eyes flicked toward the sky, then down to the snow. She took a step forward, stopped, looked back at the village, and then sat again.

Tara walked past her, carrying firewood in her jaws. She didn’t speak. But she hesitated, just for a moment, and her eyes met Lumi’s with something unspoken. Worry, perhaps. Or wonder.

Lumi looked away.

Something was missing. Lumi felt it in her chest—a quiet ache, like hunger but deeper. Like yearning.

Not for food. Not for warmth.
For light. For joy.

Lumi looked up at the already darkening sky. The stars were late tonight, hidden behind a smear of gray.

The world was still waiting.

And Lumi, still young and uncertain, still trying to understand the shape of what was expected of her, began to wonder…

What if she could give it something to wait for?

_

That night, Lumi didn’t sleep near the fire.
She wandered out past the edge of the village, paws leaving light prints in the crusted snow. No one called after her. No one noticed. The village was tucked in on itself, eyes closed to the sky.

But Lumi looked up.

Above her, the sky was a curtain of deep navy, stretched taut across the world. The stars blinked faintly, reluctant and cold. No moon. No glow.

And yet—something in her stirred.

A flicker.

A whisper.

It didn’t speak in words. It wasn’t a voice. But it was nonetheless real.

Lumi turned her ears into the soft Wind. Her legs moved forward, driven by the weight of something she could not have named.

She climbed a low hill above the frozen lake. She had never gone beyond the lake alone. But she didn’t pause. The trees here grew farther apart. The silence was deeper. Her breath came out in slow clouds.

The whisper pulled her onward—into a vast, open waiting.

She didn’t know what she was looking for. She only knew that:
It hasn’t been seen before. But it wants to be.

The snow glowed faintly under her paws. Lumi stepped through the trees, farther and farther from the sleeping lights of the village.

The land rose. The sky stretched. And the dark grew quieter.

Lumi stopped. She wasn’t afraid—just… uncertain.

What was she doing here? What did she think she could offer the dark?

She sat down.

Raised her nose.

And waited.

-

Lumi sat on the rise, the snow beneath her silent and smooth. The wind had settled. The forest behind her no longer stirred.

It was so quiet, she could hear the slow thump of her own heart.

She didn’t know what she was expecting. Only that this—this stillness—was different.
The stars were faint pinpricks above, scattered and tired. But then—

A shimmer.

So small she almost missed it.

Like breath on glass. Like a brush of silk across her vision.

It came from the northern edge of the sky, low at first. Just a soft movement of green—no brighter than the thinnest blade of grass. It hovered, unsure, as if testing the air.

Lumi blinked. Her breath caught.

Then—another thread. This one violet, almost hidden inside the blue. It curled around the first, not touching, but moving with it.

The sky above her—still vast, still dark—had opened a window. Something gentler.

Something curious.

A question.

Are you watching?

Lumi almost looked behind her, as if the lights were meant for someone else. Someone older. Someone more sure.

But she didn’t.

Because they kept coming.

Lumi’s eyes shone. She didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t turn away.

The lights grew stronger. They didn’t rush. They simply trusted.
As if they had waited all this time for someone to see them. Not chase them. Not call them.

Just know they could be.

And Lumi did.

A breath caught in her throat, and slowly, something inside her—tight and unsure—began to loosen.

They were dancing.

Because she was there.

Not because she had done something great.
Just because she was watching.

The lights kept dancing.

-

Lumi still sat silently in the snow. She was not tired, but she felt suddenly very small—and very still.

The lights above her weren’t fast or wild. They moved like mist over water, or like the dreams of sleeping trees. Green first, then violet, and then a pale ribbon of gold, faint as the edge of morning.

They didn’t make a sound. And that was the strangest part—how much they felt like music, even in silence.

Not a song with notes. A feeling.

Warmth in the chest.
Wonder in the bones.

The lights twisted gently above her, a slow spiral over the snowfields, casting soft reflections across the hill.

Lumi lifted her eyes. Her ears twitched, but there was nothing to hear—only the slow rhythm of her breath, the quiet pulse of the world noticing itself.

A moment passed.

Then another.

And still the sky danced.

She felt something shift inside her chest—not a howl this time, not a call. Just a warmth that pressed behind her eyes, full and quiet and wordless.

So this, she thought, is what the night was waiting for.

The lights moved again—closer, somehow, though they stayed high. One ribbon dipped slightly toward her, as if reaching.

Lumi didn’t flinch. She closed her eyes and let it touch the air above her head.

For the briefest moment, the world felt full. Not lit up like day. Not banished of shadow.

But balanced.

Whole.

A hush deeper than silence settled over the hill.

When Lumi opened her eyes, the auroras still moved, but slower now. Softer. As if they had settled in, no longer wondering whether they were allowed to exist.

They knew now.

And they had chosen her as their first friend.

-

Lumi lay down, folding her legs beneath her, her nose nestled against the soft snow. It was cold, but not biting. The kind of cold that reminded her she was real, alive, breathing beneath a sky that had changed.

Above her, the ribbons drifted and turned like sleeping creatures. They moved without purpose, without need. Just being. Just beautiful.

She realized she was holding her breath.

So she let it go—long and slow—and the warmth of it rose into the air, curling like a tiny cloud toward the light. Nothing in her stirred to move. No voice in her said, go tell the others. No part of her rushed to capture it, explain it, shape it into words.

There were no words yet.
And that was all right.

Lumi rolled gently onto her side and watched as the green and violet trails crossed paths—dancing like spirits, or maybe feelings the sky didn’t know how to express until now.

She felt something settle inside her. A quiet knowing.
She didn’t need to understand everything.

She just needed to be.

The stars around the auroras were clearer now—like they had come closer to see. The snow beneath her glowed faintly, pale green in patches. The wind had gone still.

And Lumi began to feel… not sleepy, but peaceful.

Like she had found a place the dark could not reach.

The auroras shifted.

Lumi blinked, half-lulled by the slow rhythm of their dance—but something had changed. A thread of violet had pulled longer than the others. A ribbon of green arced more sharply, then slowed again, curling in a shape that wasn’t random.

Her ears twitched. She lifted her head.

The sky above her had not just moved. It had gathered.

The ribbons drew together, curving in slow spirals, folding and flowing until they formed a single, towering silhouette.

Not clear.

Not full.

Just… suggested.

A long muzzle formed from gold light.
A mane of violet mist.
A great sweeping arc of green that moved like a tail.
A fox.

Or something more than fox.

The shape stood among the lights—not apart from them, not glowing like fire, but woven from the sky itself.

Lumi held her breath. Her heart thudded gently, not with fear but awe.

The figure didn’t move toward her. It didn’t speak. It only stood, watching. The lights rippled slowly through it, like wind across fur. Its eyes were twin orbs of pale light—no pupils, no expression.

But she knew.

It saw her.

And in that moment, she felt it.
Not in her ears,
not in her mind.
In her bones.

We see you.

Then, the shape began to dissolve. Not vanish—just fade back into the flowing ribbons, its body unraveling into threads of color. A tail became a streak of green. Eyes became stars.

Lumi stayed very still. Her breath shook in her chest. She wasn’t sure what she had witnessed. But she was sure of one thing:

She hadn’t been alone in the moment the lights were born.

The sky had answered.

And something ancient had noticed her noticing.

She tucked her head beneath her paw and curled tighter against the snow. Not because she was hiding. But because she was safe.

Above her, the auroras danced on—softer now. But no longer uncertain.

-


The night deepened, though Lumi barely noticed. She had lost track of time beneath the lights. The cold had settled into her fur, but it no longer bit. The snow beneath her body was packed from where she had lain, unmoving for what felt like hours, watching the sky unfold its new truth.

She didn’t sleep. She couldn’t. But she rested, heart full, head quiet.

And then—slowly—the auroras began to fade.

They didn’t disappear.
They drifted upward, higher and higher, like mist returning to the stars.

Lumi watched them go with no fear.

They hadn’t abandoned her.

They had trusted her.

She stood at last, snow falling away from her sides.
The sky was still dark, but it no longer felt empty.

She turned toward the village.

At first, the walk was just walking. Her legs were stiff, her breath steady. The trees welcomed her again, their branches sighing as she passed.

But after a few steps, she noticed something strange.

The snow around her shimmered faintly. Not bright—not enough for anyone else to see. But as she moved, little wisps of green and violet light clung to the air behind her, like echoes.

She paused. Looked back.

The light was following her. No—not following. Flowing with her.

She smiled, just a little.
Not proud.
Not surprised.
Just sure.

The auroras weren’t something she could bring in her teeth or tie around her neck.
But they had answered her.

And now, they traveled with her—not above, but within.

No fire nor sun.

A memory the sky had shared.
And Lumi was the one it had trusted to carry it.

-

Lumi moved like a shadow among the trees.

Each step left a faint shimmer in the snow—barely a breath of color. A sweep of pale green here, a dot of violet there. They vanished moments after she passed, like snowflakes melting into memory.

The forest was quiet. Not the hollow quiet of despair she had left behind, but a hushed stillness—like everything was listening.

Even the trees stood taller.

She passed under a grove of sleeping birch, their trunks like silver bones. The wind stirred once, soft and slow, and the branches whispered overhead. For just a moment, she thought they sounded like they were welcoming her home.

Not with fanfare. Not with song.

With recognition.

Something in her had changed. And the world knew it.

She crossed the frozen creek. The ice didn’t groan beneath her as it usually did. It held her weight gently, like it knew she carried something fragile and new.

Ahead, the low ridge rose—the one that overlooked the village. She paused there, just beneath its crest.

The lights above were gone now.
The sky was black and deep, the stars clear but silent.

The memory of color hummed in Lumi's chest.
She closed her eyes.

They must see it, she thought.

Not just know it happened.
Not just hear a tale.
They must see it, too.

And she stepped forward.

One paw into the clearing.

Then another.

Lumi stepped onto the ridge above the village, her paws pressing into the snow with steady grace.

Below her, the homes nestled close together, little smoke trails curling into the cold. No one stirred. The firepits glowed faint, half-buried in snow. The people had retreated early, as they had all winter, folding into their quiet sadness.

But the sky behind Lumi was waking.

First, it shimmered faintly—like breath on glass. Then the pale green ribbon unfurled across the stars, sweeping behind her in a slow arc. Violet followed, soft as a whisper, and gold flowed last, like the hush before a story begins.

The light did not come because of Lumi.

It came with her.

She moved down the hill, and the auroras moved too—not in great waves, not yet. But in gentle trails that echoed her steps, rising above the rooftops, weaving through the cold.

A child stirred behind one window. Then another.
A door creaked open.
Then two.

And then, slowly, one by one, the people came out.
Wrapped in furs.
Blinking against the cold.
Expecting nothing.
Seeing everything.

They didn’t rush to ask questions.

They didn’t crowd around her.

They simply looked up.

Pollox was the first to speak.
“Lumi... what did you find?”

Lumi didn’t answer.
She didn’t need to.

Because the sky answered for her.

Above the village, the lights grew stronger—green and violet, gold and blue, swirling together in silence, dancing with joy that had no name.

And in the center of it all, Lumi stood—not proud, not seeking praise.

Just present.

As the one who had believed the dark could hold more than shadow.
The one who had watched.

-

At first, no one spoke.

Not even Tara.

They simply stood, blinking in the cold, staring at the sky.

The youngest children stepped forward, their mouths open, eyes wide. One reached out a mittened hand, as if trying to catch the colors.

The lights rippled in answer—just a small pulse of green, like laughter.

Pollox joined her a moment later. “You were right,” he whispered. “There was something more.”

Lumi didn’t reply. She kept her eyes on the sky. The lights weren’t hers. She had never claimed them. She had only believed they might exist.

And now—they did.

Tara stepped forward at last.
Her face was unreadable, but her eyes were wet.
Not from the cold.

She looked at Lumi.

And bowed her head.

“There’s an old story,” she said softly. “That the sky once had guardians. Shapes of light and feeling, who only showed themselves when someone truly listened.”

She raised her gaze. “I thought they were only legend.”

She stepped beside Lumi, her voice steady now. “This is not a memory of the past.”
She looked toward the others. “This is a promise for the future.”

One of the elders began to hum—an old melody, wordless and worn.
A song of thanks.

Others joined.

Soon, the clearing was full of quiet sound. Not celebration, not yet. But something like… relief.

Like someone had opened a window in the long night.

The auroras danced, full and free now, bold streaks of color sweeping across the stars.

And Lumi stood still at the heart of it all, calm, certain, and seen.