The cub came from his mother and she came from hers. “But who is the first mother?” he asked. “Where did she come from?”

“Hush, child, for there is no first mother, and if she was, she was born in a cave and she crawled towards the old familiar light.”

“But what was she born from?”

“If there was a first mother, she was born from a fallen star, crashing into the earth, rolling in the soft of the sand, the sharp of the stones, the grey of the gravel, and she slept that first night beneath old trees and older stars. She rested and sleep gave her soft fur and sharp teeth, and a gray body, but the shine of the stars remained in her hunter’s eyes.
“As the nights grew cold she found a cave to keep the wind off. She was a fallen star learning that to live on this earth is hard. And so she slept in this cave night after night, her hunger feeding her. And she became a wolf, and a wolf wants to feast, and she was born from the cave and into the light of day, the dark of night, and into the ancient shine of the stars that she still remembered from her own womb. This first mother, if she was, from the stars and great sky, taught herself to hunt and swim and fight, and she held power still within her to make wolves, and she became the first mother again. Mother to herself, mother to her cubs. She is our grandmother, if she was. She taught her cubs to hunt and swim and fight, and she had more cubs and was their mother, too. If there was a first mother, child, then this was her, and she is my grandmother and yours. I know her tale as I know mine own.”