Clara brought the wolf pup back to the dormitory. Her three roommates, filled with reverence for the offspring of a heroic mother wolf, fell over each other trying to hold it.
"Clara, you said its mother gave her life to save yours," Sally Bess said, stroking the pup's head with a mischievous grin. "You'd better repay the debt properly. Once it grows up, why not offer yourself to it?"
"Pfft—" Clara nearly choked on her water. "Are you seriously suggesting bestiality?"
"Let's give it a name." Jessie Dutt scooped the pup into her arms, cooing softly. "Come here, little one. Let big sister think of something good."
The three gossip-hungry girls huddled together with the wolf pup between them, debating names with great enthusiasm before finally settling on one: Naber.
Clara stared at them, utterly speechless. "Out of everything you could have chosen, you had to pick something that sounds that awful?"
The pup whimpered under the collective fussing, and she quickly rescued it from their arms, cradling it gently against her chest.
"Naber means 'wolf'," one of them explained. "Wouldn't it be wonderful for our little one to grow up as powerful as a wolf?"
Clara sighed. No matter how you looked at it, a wolf was still a wolf.
The school had a strict rule against keeping animals in the dormitories. But the four girls, united in their conviction that the child of a hero deserved to live, quietly conspired to keep Naber hidden from the dormitory supervisor.
Perhaps there truly was such a thing as a bond between human and wolf. Naber recognized Clara's scent instinctively. It wanted nothing to do with the heavy perfume that clung to the other three girls — whenever they reached for it, the pup would squirm and snap at their hands. Yet the moment it found itself in Clara's arms, it settled immediately, nestling into her palms with quiet contentment as it nursed from the bottle.
Clara slept in the upper bunk. To keep Naber safe during the supervisor's room inspections, she taped two cardboard boxes together and placed them on the bed as a makeshift den. Before leaving each morning, she would lean over the edge and speak to it in hushed tones.
"Baby, while big sister's in class, you have to be good and stay in the box. No matter what you hear outside, not a single sound — understand? Otherwise, you won't be able to stay here anymore."
"Whimper…" Naber sat curled in her palm, still nursing quietly.
"Big sister has to go now." She pressed a gentle kiss to the top of its head and lowered it carefully into the box before hurrying off to class.
With a living creature hidden in the room, Clara spent the entire lecture distracted, her mind drifting between worry and something else entirely — the photographs she had taken on the grasslands.
She had captured a great deal during the trip, and after consulting with her professor, she found that the shots taken inside the wolf den had made a particularly strong impression.
"Clara," her professor said, flipping through the images, "the national photography competition opens in a few months. Going to the grasslands for your external shoot was absolutely the right call. Wildlife conservation has drawn enormous public attention in recent years, yet photographic work in this area remains scarce — especially anything involving wolves. Capturing truly striking images of them in their natural state is no easy feat. Revise a few of these shots and submit them for the preliminary round. Time is tight, so don't wait."
Buoyed by the praise, Clara felt a quiet thrill. She never imagined that a few offhand shots of carcasses in a wolf den would hold such unexpected power. She threw herself into preparing her competition entry.
The moment her morning classes ended, she picked up lunch from the cafeteria and brought it straight back to the dormitory. Setting the food container down, she climbed up to her bunk and lifted the lid of the box.
Naber was crouched inside, perfectly still.
"Naber," she called softly.
Its ears pricked up at once. The pup rose onto its haunches and began sniffing eagerly in her direction.
"You were so good," Clara said warmly, lifting it into her arms and rubbing the soft fur along its neck. "Are you hungry? Let big sister make you some milk."
The words had barely left her mouth when a rush of warmth spread across her front. She looked down.
She could have cried.
"This is how you treat me?" She had lined the box with several layers of tissue paper precisely to avoid this very situation — yet Naber, apparently, had spent the entire morning holding it in, only to relieve itself the moment she picked it up, soaking her brand-new blouse without a trace of remorse.
"Whimper… whimper…" The pup wriggled restlessly in her arms, latching onto her fingers and suckling with single-minded determination.