THE BIRTH OF THE ABYSSINIAN WOLF

drawing of tarot card "Volpinina and the two Warriors"

One must imagine a time when the earth did not yet have a name, an era when the world was a cathedral of silence perched on the rooftops of the sky. It is there, in this aesthetic of vertigo, on those high plateaux where air fails the lukewarm of heart, that our drama begins.

On one side, there was the Vixen. She was not a simple woodland animal, but a russet flash, a flame that had snatched her freedom from the chains of captivity. She ran not to die, carrying within her that terrifying incandescence of those who know that to stop is to lose oneself. On the other, there was the Wolf. A statue of shadow and power, sculpted in gravity. He bore the burden of the pack, the sacred duty, that invisible armour that protects yet isolates. He was the guardian of order, beautiful and terrible as a cliff face.

Their meeting was not a chance occurrence, but a Nornian weaving. It was an equinox night, in that fragile interstice where day hesitates to yield to night. They found themselves in a frost-covered clearing, a neutral territory suspended outside time. He saw in her the dizzying freedom he lacked. She saw in him the anchor she was fleeing yet secretly hoping for.

So, they ran. And what a chase! It was not a game; it was a fever. The Shadow and the Flame, flank against flank, tearing through the mist. In that momentum, they attempted the impossible alchemy: merging savage freedom and pack loyalty. During that suspended moment, they were one. They were a perfect creature, intoxicated with the absolute.

But love, you see, is a high-altitude sport, and not everyone can breathe there. The Wolf, this hero in everyone's eyes, felt fear freeze his veins. Not the fear of an enemy, but the fear of the unknown. He recoiled from the immensity of the freedom the Vixen offered him. He chose to return to the security of his golden chains, to the reassuring and suffocating warmth of his pack. The Vixen watched him walk away with the tragic dignity of queens without a kingdom. She did not hold him back. She knew that some flames are too vivid for cautious hearts. She left alone into the snow, her heart licked like an open wound.

One might believe the story ends there, on this sad finding. But nature abhors a vacuum, and great loves, even unfinished ones, always leave an imprint on matter. From this collision, from this wild energy released by their race and their wrenching separation, an entity was born. A creature of the soul, a spirit materialised by the force of their desire. In the summit mist, the Abyssinian Wolf then appeared.

Watch him stride into legend. He is the living memory of their embrace. He is a paradox on four paws, a russet enigma that haunts the mountains. He bears the fiery coat of the Vixen, blazing and untameable, but he has retained the lean silhouette and dark extremities of the Wolf, as if his father's shadow still caressed his fur. He is beautiful, with a rare and threatened beauty, as fragile as the purest feelings.

This guardian of the peaks, Volpinina as the elders call him, carries the dual nature within him without breaking. Observe his secret life: when evening comes, he rejoins his own. He sleeps curled up against his brothers, honouring the need for warmth, tribe, and protection inherited from the Wolf. He accepts the bond. But as soon as dawn breaks, as soon as hunger gnaws at him, he gets up and leaves alone. Absolutely alone. He refuses to hunt in a pack. He then becomes pure freedom, traversing the frozen immensities in solitude, thus honouring the fierce memory of the Vixen who relied on no one to survive.

He is both communal and solitary. He is the love that remains and the freedom that endures. It is said that sometimes, when the mist descends upon the valleys and the world becomes blurred, one can glimpse a mysterious being. He runs silently, a russet ghost among the rocks. He seeks no one. He watches. He is the Abyssinian Wolf, the melancholic guardian of a universal secret: he proves that a Wolf and a Vixen once loved each other with such force that their passion ended up creating a new species, capable of living where others lose their breath, just a little closer to the stars.