After witnessing the "map" Naber had drawn across Clara's shirt, her three roommates grew noticeably more hesitant about holding the pup — none of them particularly eager to become its next target.
Dutt made a peace offering of sorts, returning from the pet store with a pack of diapers for Clara. Clara, for her part, took it all in stride. She had been the one to bring Naber home, and no matter how inconvenient things got, looking after it was her responsibility. Besides, a wolf was an unknown and fascinating creature to her — full of mysteries she had barely begun to unravel.
It was while preparing for the photography competition that she had spent an entire month racking her brain for a worthy subject, coming up empty every time, until she made the trip out to the grasslands. Perhaps it had always been fate. She had found Naber there, and Naber had given her the answer she was looking for.
Clara made up her mind. Her entry would be titled: The Lone Wolf.
"Baby," she murmured, watching the pup nurse, "whether big sister eats well or goes hungry — it all depends on you now."
Photography was an expensive passion, and Clara's family had never had much to spare. She had always been largely on her own. With graduation looming and no job prospects in sight, placing well in the competition could make all the difference.
Five days after Naber had been brought back to campus, Clara was sitting on her bunk giving it its bottle when she noticed something — a faint crack of light between its eyelids. Her breath caught. She lifted the pup close, studying it with barely contained excitement.
"Baby, can you see what big sister looks like?"
"Whimper…" Naber nuzzled toward her face, its tiny nose pressing and prodding against her cheek before a small, warm tongue darted out and gave her a lick.
"Ah — hahaha—" Clara collapsed back onto the bed, laughing until her eyes disappeared into crescents. "Are you actually looking at me right now?"
"Whimper…" Naber crawled up onto her chest and began rooting around with single-minded urgency, nose pressed against the front of her shirt in search of food.
"You little wolf," Clara laughed, cupping its small head in her hands. "Barely got your eyes open and you're already up to no good. Shameless."
Girls tend to be drawn to novelty — but they tire of it quickly too. The initial excitement over Naber had worn thin among Clara's roommates. Even though Clara took on all the cleaning herself, they had begun to complain about the faint animal smell that lingered in the room.
Under Clara's careful watch, the once fragile pup had clawed its way back from the brink. It now tottered around the room on unsteady legs, occasionally relieving itself in a corner, which Clara would clean up immediately — though not quickly enough to escape her roommates' grumbling.
To support her passion for photography, Clara had been working part-time as a photography assistant at a portrait studio throughout university. She had never minded the solitary routine before, but now there was Naber to think about. The worry that it might go hungry, get cold, or be ignored by her roommates weighed on her constantly. After much deliberation, she settled on a solution — she would bring Naber to work with her, tucked inside a cardboard box.
"Be good in there," she told it, placing the milk bottle inside and tucking the flaps closed. "If you get hungry, there's your bottle. Big sister will take you home after her shift."
Throughout her shift, Clara slipped away whenever she could steal a moment, peering into the box just to check.
A wolf and a dog, she was learning, were two entirely different animals. Wolves possessed a deep, instinctive wariness. To Naber, everything beyond Clara was foreign and unknown, and the slightest sound put it on high alert. Yet it sat quietly inside that cardboard box for hours — not a whimper, not a scratch, not a single sound. That kind of stillness, that capacity for patience, left Clara quietly in awe.
The city around her buzzed with restless, anxious energy — people rushing, fretting, chasing. But Naber had none of that. It simply waited, calm and composed. Perhaps that was the most fundamental difference between humans and wolves.
It was late when her shift ended. Clara walked home through dark, silent streets, the wolf pup cradled against her chest, the night breeze lifting her hair and carrying with it the cool edge of the small hours. Naber poked its head out from the crook of her arm, small eyes taking in the strange, cold world around it.
"Whimper…" it looked up at her, a flicker of unease in its gaze.
"It's alright," Clara said softly, resting a hand on its head. "Big sister's right here. Don't be scared." She stroked it gently as they walked. "This isn't the grasslands, I know. But I'll be with you — always. And one day, all of this will feel like home."
Naber's pointed ears stood straight up. Its front paws rested lightly on her arm as the two of them moved together through the wind, side by side.