RAW KINGDOM ENTERTAINMENT

                   How Mram, The She-Wolf Ate Him

 Mram the she-wolf ran through the forest in the full glare of day, her flanks heaving as she searched for what might still the hunger gnawing at her belly. She was mother to five wolf-cubs, small and starved, waiting in their den for food that had not come. For two days she had caught nothing of worth—only a few frogs and a feeble rabbit, scarcely enough even for herself. Her milk had dried up, and the cubs, desperate and unknowing, bit at her empty teats, trampling her with their small paws and nipping her with sharp young teeth.
 Driven half-mad by pain and hunger, Mram pressed on. Her red tongue lolled in the heat; spittle trailed from her half-open jaws, and before her weary eyes flickered strange blotches of yellow and green, dancing like will-o’-the-wisps in the shimmering air. Still she ran, for she must, if her little ones were to see another dawn.
 At one point, Mram snatched up a startled hare and chased it. Yet hunger had hollowed her strength, and her legs—once swift as wind—now carried her only in a weary lope. Soon the hare pulled ahead and vanished into the shadowed tangles of the forest.
Parched from the fruitless pursuit, the she-wolf made her way down to the river’s edge.
There, by the quiet murmur of water over stone, she came upon Thumbelina.
 The turtle lay dozing in the heavy heat, nestled among sun-baked stones and sparse thornbushes. Since losing her way, Thumbelina had done little to seek Yoshi. Hope had thinned within her, and she drifted into a kind of weary surrender. Most days she slept beneath the hard light of the sun; and when memory stirred her heart, she would burst into tears for her missing friend.
Food was plentiful here, and when she had eaten her fill she would sink at once into slumber. She grew so indolent that even lifting her heavy trough became a burden, and she could scarcely drag herself from one patch of shade to the next.
 As soon as she caught sight of her, the she-wolf thrust out her tongue—broad and red as a strip of cloth—snapped her jaws, and sought to swallow her whole. But Thumbelina was a great burden, larger than any prey Mram had taken in many seasons. She could not gulp her down. So the wolf clamped her teeth and tried to crack the trough that shielded the creature. It groaned under the might of her jaws, yet would not yield.
 Irritated and impatient, Mram set upon it again, gnawing as she would at the thick leg-bones of elk in the deep winter months, following all the old rules of tooth and sinew. Still the stubborn thing held fast.
At last, with a low growl rumbling in her throat, Mram resolved to drag her prize to the cave—there, in the shadowed hollow beneath the stones, five hungry cubs waited for their mother’s return.

 She left the turtle upon the stones, went down to the stream, and drank long and greedily. Then, with a shake of her ragged fur, she returned, took Thumbelina once more between her jaws, and padded toward her cave.
In the dark hollow of the she-wolf’s mouth, Thumbelina’s breath fluttered faintly, like a guttering ember.
Mram ran with all the strength left in her gaunt limbs, weaving through the forest’s shadowed pillars. Suddenly she halted, stiff as a struck stone, and lifted her ears.
 From the deeper wood came the sharp clamour of magpies and the harsh caw of jays. Their voices rang like warning bells under the great boughs. Something was astir beneath the trees.
She heard then the cries of Blacky and the rasping croaks of his horde echoing through the undergrowth.
“Either they have stumbled upon worthy prey… or some peril prowls there,” Mram thought, a low growl rising in her throat. She stood listening. The furious croaking left little doubt: the horde was upon someone, and they were attacking with feral delight.
 Mram remembered such a day long ago, when the forest crows had raised just such a ruckus—harsh cawing that rolled through the trees like the clatter of black iron. She had gone then, quick-footed and lean from hunger, to see what fate had stirred their unrest. There, beneath a crooked oak, she had found a hare, wounded and staggering, while the crows leapt and flapped about him, their beaks already red with triumph. They had pecked out his sight, and yet still they shrieked, as if the poor creature’s suffering were not enough for their wicked delight.
 Mram had seized him in front of their glittering eyes, and devoured him without shame or haste, though the crows spat their dire curses and hurled threats like stones after her.
 That memory now flared within the hollow of her hunger, bright and fierce—a wild, driving hope that once more a wounded hare awaited her beneath the forest’s gloom. With a sharp breath she let Thumbelina fall from her jaws, the turtle thudding softly against the earth, and she bounded toward the clearing where the birds’ cries rose louder and louder, echoing like a summons through the darkened wood.
 There, beneath the boughs of an ancient tree where a murder of crows had gathered, the she-wolf beheld a shape large and brown sprawled upon the earth.
It was the owl, fallen and half spent, its life flickering like a dying ember.
 Though its flesh was sour and lean, Mram wasted no moment: with a swift tightening of her jaws she stilled it forever, and soon its feathers flew in little whirls about her.
For a short while the crows croaked their rough approval, but their voices soon turned sharp and bitter, as though old grudges had stirred again. Clearly they had not forgotten the rabbit, and forgiveness was not yet in their dark hearts. Mram only flicked an ear at their scolding and cared nothing for their spite.
 When the meal was done, she wandered deeper into the forest’s shadowed reaches, her muzzle hanging low, burdened with clinging tufts of down from the torn bird.
Long did the crows pursue her, railing from branch to branch, until at last they left the task to the jays. But even these, chattering though they were, soon understood the futility of chasing one who heeded no voice but her own hunger and the call of the wild ways.