Wakinyan sat on the small stair in front of his trailer to laced up his boots, put on his wide brimmed black hat and shoulder his bag. As he did so he looked up to find that the weather was dark and gloomy, not that it bothered him. There was always some type of storm when he was around and today was no different. He enjoyed a good storm and found that it made him content. Today’s storm brought with it a rather acrid scent though. It caused Wakinyan to scrunch up his large nose.

“It smells like burning oil,” he thought, “too many cars.”

Wakinyan’s trailer was parked in the Badlands far away from people. Partly because he didn’t like them and partly because he’d been kicked off of tribal lands for “questionable behavior.” His trailer was surrounded by open land not far from the infamous Black Hills of North Dakota.

Wakinyan stood up from his step and starting walking. His heavy frame could easily be spotted on the open plains, but no one was around to see him.

Wakinyan’s destination was the base of the mountain range which ran along the edge of the Badlands. The walk wasn’t far or particularly long, just about 10 miles that his long legs ate up. As he walked the stormy weather followed him and chased the sun away. By the time he reached the base of the mountains dark clouds had formed and a light rain had begun to fall. Wakinyan found a rock formation that would serve as a nice resting spot, sat down, and leaned back until he was comfortable. He knew that the man that he had come to meet wouldn’t be until closer to nightfall, so he moved his hat to cover his face and took a nap.

Sometime later, around an hour from sunset, Wakinyan woke up to the sound of small pebbles and rocks sliding down the mountain. He moved his hat back to its normal position and looked up to see a large black wolf confidently making its way down the slope. The wolf slowed its pace and eventually halted in front of Wakinyan. Face to face, man and wolf were eye to eye. The pair stared at each other for a moment until the wolf tilted its head to the left and seemed to lift its eyebrow. The wolf snorted.

“Right, sorry,” Wakinyan said standing up and taking his bag. He walked about two feet away and turned around. As he crouched down and opened his bag, Wakinyan could hear a staccato rhythm of sharp pops and snaps. He tossed the pants and shirt that he had packed over his shoulder and stood up. About a minute later Wakinyan turned to find a tall fit man covered in coarse body hair pulling a shirt over his head.

“Shunka Sapa.”

“Storm.”

“I hate that name.” Wakinyan shook his head. “You know that is not my name.”

“I know, but it’s true. The weather is only shit when you’re here.” Shunka Sapa found a relatively dry spot overlooking the Badlands that Wakinyan had just recently walked and sat down. He felt tired and weaker than he had been in a long time. Becoming a man was getting much harder. It made him glad that only Wakinyan was around to see him this way. The only sounds that he could hear were howling wind, Wakinyan’s light breathing and the pitter patter of rain hitting the ground. There were no animals. They had gone in hiding when they sensed the storm that had followed closely on Wakinyan’s heels.

Wakinyan came up beside him and squatted down, “I’m surprised that you sent the canoti to me.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Shunka Sapa sighed. “The old woman wasn’t supposed to rest for another 10 years at least. Three days ago, she stopped knitting and started readying the cave for sleep. I had to take the opportunity, so I sent one of the few canoti that still live here. Something is clearly wrong.”

“I’d say so. She shouldn’t have gone to sleep yet. Any ideas why?”

From what Wakinyan remembered, the old woman rarely slept. When she did it was usually to gather strength so that she could work more ardently on her blanket strip. Her going to sleep earlier than usual was troubling.

“She’s been working faster,” Shunka Sapa said, burying his face in his hands for a moment. “She’s also been eating less. She’s creating less and less opportunities for me to pull apart the blanket strip.”

“When was the last time she slept? Was it the last time we met?” Wakinyan asked, looking at the distraught Shunka Sapa.

“Yeah, ’92 I think?”

Wakinyan let out a deep breath. “How close is she to finishing?”

“Closer and closer every day. She’s working harder. She used to work passively, but I think she’s actively trying to finish. It’s like she’s being compelled. The same forces that are compelling her to finish are the same ones making it harder for me to change and keeping you from the sky.”

“It’s not just you and I, Shunka Sapa. All of us are being affected. Coyote hasn’t been seen for years, Unktehila is sick, even peaceful beings like the canoti are being influenced by evil intention. Our world is crumbling. The human world is decaying too.”

“I’m pretty sure even humans with the gift can feel their connection to our world fading.”

“Probably. I haven’t met a gifted of notable power since Rillieux. Their collective abilities have declined significantly.”

To Wakinyan, humans with the gift across the world had never been exceptionally powerful. They often had to rely on familiars and relics. Even his own people never had substantial amounts of inherent power. Now, in the science age, he knew of no gifteds who could use their power without a familiar or relic. If things continued as they were, the gifted would lose their power altogether. Everyone would lose their power.

It started to rain harder. It only took moments for Wakinyan and Shunka Sapa to become drenched. While Wakinyan barely noticed, Shunka Sapa started to shake. He wasn’t used being out in the cold as a man. He missed his fur immensely. The clothes that Wakinyan had given him were thin and provided no warmth.

“What about your brothers and sister?” asked Shunka Sapa, who continued to shiver and wrapped his arms around his middle. “Have they been affected?”

“Yes. They can’t change anymore, but they can still send me messages on the wind. They’ve told me that every powerful being in North America grows weaker. Some have even resorted to the old magics to maintain their power.”

“Nasty stuff.”

“It is. Eventually people are going to start to notice.”

“People? You mean humans? They won’t, they never do. We’ll notice though.”

All forms of old magic were gruesome. They relied heavily on murder, blood, bones, and intense emotions like fear. Wakinyan remembered when old magic was just magic. Humans and lesser magical beings were fodder for beings like himself. Sometimes they would even give themselves up in the hope that their sacrifice would result in blessings for their families. No blessings would ever come though, just death.

“Can you please do something about this rain before we talk about anything else?” asked Shunka Sapa. Without his fur, the wind that whipped around stung his face and the rain allowed the cold to cling to his useless man body.

Wakinyan huffed. He never understood why storms bothered people so much. The man looked up to the sky and focused on how the clouds danced above. He hated to break up a good storm. The clouds always looked so free when they were that riled up. The more Wakinyan stared, the more he felt like he was falling forward into the sky. It was like jumping off a diving board. The storm seemed to be close enough to touch. It begged him to reach to reach out and caress the roiling candy floss clouds. Wakinyan heeded the call of the storm and fell into its embrace.

From the outside, Shunka Sapa watched Wakinyan’s eyes first go blank then alight with a bluish white color. In fact, his eyes crackled with electricity. The hair on Shunka Sapa’s arms stood straight up. For a moment the storm grew stronger and the rain poured harder. Then, all at once, it stopped. The dark clouds above gradually lightened and dissipated. The sunshine was able to break through and shine down on the pair. Wakinyan’s eyes slowly returned to their normal amber.

“Oh, that is so much better,” Shunka Sapa huffed. “I almost forgot what the sun looked like. Between being in that old woman’s cave and hanging around you I never get to enjoy a nice sunny day.”

“You’re welcome,” Wakinyan said as he rested his head in his hand. “But it won’t last. The clouds will be back, also, the sun will set soon.”

Shunka Sapa leaned back until he was lying flat on the ground. His view of the sky was better that way. “So, all that is left is to figure out what to do,” he said. “I’ll keep doing my job, but it’s not a solution.”

“You don’t think I know that?” Wakinyan questioned angrily. ‘I am sure that there is something that can be done, I’m just not sure what. I’ve been searching for answers for years. I don’t want to lose my gifts. I don’t want to lose this world.”

“Sometimes I wonder if this is even something that can be stopped.”

Wakinyan grabbed a handful of dirt from the ground beside him and thrust it into the air with an irritated yell. He was beginning to lose hope. “Honestly, sometimes I feel the same way.”

The mystical and mundane worlds had been on the decline for nearly a millennium. Many others had tried to stop the decline of magic and the subsequent decline of the world. Of course, some had managed to slow down magic’s demise, but Wakinyan wanted something permanent. A real solution to the problem which would affect every living thing. He didn’t want to stop being special. He didn’t want to lose any more friends. The people that he had once known were long gone. Life seemed to lose more and more of its vigor with each friend who left, disappeared, or died. His world seemed to be growing dimmer each day. He couldn’t decide whether or not this was a symptom of the magic slowly seeping out of the world or what he saw in his mind’s eye. Either way, he wanted to see his world in full color again.

“The world just isn’t the same any more. It’s lost its…. stuff,” Wakinyan complained.

“Stuff?”

“The stuff that makes it worthwhile. The people, places, and things that makes an endless life worth living. I’m afraid that even if we fix the world, all of its stuff will stay lost.”

Shunka Sapa chuffed and turned his head towards his friend. “You can’t have stuff without the world. We need to fix what we have so that we can regain what we lost. We need to make a world that’s worth having stuff in it.”

“For wolf masquerading as a man you seem to always have the answer to the problems of men,” Wakinyan said with a smirk as he placed his hand on Shunka Sapa’s shoulder and squeezed briefly.

“I don’t know if I should be happy or pissed off with such a shitty compliment, you glorified bird.”

Wakinyan shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t really care about Shunka Sapa’s reaction either way. He did, however, raise an eyebrow. “Technically, I am not a bird,” he said.

“Technically, I don’t care,” Shunka Sapa rolled his eyes. “Speaking of important things, what happened to Larue?”

“Don’t know,” Wakinyan said gruffly.

“How do you not know? You practically raised her. I know for a fact you could track her.”

“I don’t know because I can’t find her. If I could, I would, but I can’t, ok?” Wakinyan was once again aggravated. “I’d really rather not talk about her.”

“You really can’t?” Shunka Sapa was confused. He couldn’t remember the last time that Wakinyan couldn’t find someone or something. He was certain that only Coyote could hide from the man.

“I really can’t,” Wakinyan concluded.

At this point, the sun was slowly beginning to dip below the horizon. As it set the Badlands and the foot of the Black Hills were bathed in a soft orange glow. Shunka Sapa sat up from his prone position and stretched.

“Well figure it out,” Shunka Sapa said optimistically. “We will regain our former glory, the people that we love, and a world worth living in if Wankan Tanka believes our cause is just.”

“Wankan Tanka is a mystery, perhaps the greatest mystery, I want to believe in my creator,” Wakinyan sighed, “But I fear that the creator doesn’t believe in us.”

“Don’t question the unquestionable my friend,” scolded Shunka Sapa. “The creator works in mysterious ways.”

The sky then started to fill with purples and blues in addition to orange. The light which was rapidly beginning to dip below the horizon was at just the right angle to give the land to the pair’s front and back an ethereal glow. It seemed like every single bland of grass in the Badlands was back-lit with a holy inner light. It was a beautiful moment.

“I have to head back soon, I don’t want to stay to long after dark. Please speak to your sister and brothers. They may know something. Especially your sister. She always had the closest connection to Wankan Tanka.”

Shunka Sapa stood up fully so that he could turn around and walk towards the Black Hills. He shed his clothes as he walked further away from his friend. The change back was much quicker because he was turning back into himself. He became a wolf and turned back to Wakinyan. Shunka Sapa yipped to gain the man’s attention. Wakinyan twisted his neck to look at the large black wolf Shunka Sapa had once again become. He nodded to the wolf in acknowledgement and Shunka Sapa returned the gesture. The great wolf then bounded off into the Black Hills.

“I’ll talk to them,” Wakinyan called out to Shunka Sapa’s rapidly retreating figure.

With Shunka Sapa gone, Wakinyan remained where he sat for a little while longer. His mind was heavy with worry. His heart was heavy with worry. It was all he could do to breath and calm himself down. He stood up, checked his hat, and took one more deep cleansing breath. He then recited a prayer in his head as he walked off into the inky blackness of the night.

“Wankan Tanka, Great Mystery, teach me how to trust my heart, my mind, my intuition, my inner knowing, the senses of my body, the blessings of my spirit. Teach me to trust these things so that I may enter my Sacred Space and love beyond my fear, and thus Walk in Balance, with the passage of each glorious Sun.”