01.25.2016
The observatory on the Knuckles became a semipermanent settlement as the wolf’s actions persisted. The day time was used for astronomers to hike down to the town of Suu-manth and collect the water and food that had been donated by the town.
In exchange, the hikers spent a few hours at the pubs in town and relayed the happenings of the previous night. Capitalizing on the fevered interest in the wolf were bards who turned the stories into ballads which grew one stanza longer each day. Plays reenacting the birth and early days of the wolf were put on in a few of the central squares. The town shut down in the early afternoon each day for the gossip and news and entertainment.
A few smaller telescopes in town rented out time in the night to those wealthy and interested enough to try wolf-watching. The social capital that seeing the wolf with your own eyes brought was well worth the cost of admission. Many families stayed up late, laid out on their blankets in meadows, casting predictions and tales of the wolf’s upbringing as fireflies and warm air stirred about them.
The astronomers kept voracious logs of events during the evenings, and enjoyed the donates ales and wines from the generous city. Their necks craned skyward for most of the night. But it took weeks before one of them ever noticed the pitch dark that spread across the Far Finger. The lights of Bansuth were nowhere to be seen, even though the town lay just at the feet of the Knuckles. And there was nothing further out, although the observer wasn’t sure she’d be able to make out the smaller towns from this distance.
She was the same person who’d seen the wolf first leap skyward during the meteor shower and wondered if the two things were related. ((Wolf leapt from that side of the mountain range.)) She finished her night’s watch, keeping her curiosity to herself. The wolf finished with the rocky remains of Mercury and Venus tonight and scattered the crumbs into the distance with his tail before vanishing further out. And as day neared, she descended not toward Suu-manth, but toward darkened Bansuth.