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“Some animal awakening, how my body refuses / to learn moderation”— Kanika Lawton, from “Phases,” Loneliness, and Other Ways to Split a Body. Evgeni wants it to be violent. Quick. Sudden. Like it always is in his dreams. But it isn’t. It’s summer and he’s home. His first home and the one he always finds himself returning to. Magnitogorsk, Russia. Outside the city, beyond the steel and smoke, the Ural Mountains endure. The mountains are an old place. Everyone knows. The stories are rusting away, but Evgeni knows them. It’s not a place that he likes to go. A handful of Metallurg players have convinced him to join one of their endurance building sessions with his old trainer. Sweat and swearing; kilometre after kilometre. It’s good. Simple. Straightforward. In motion, his body feels his own. The aches and pains and disappointment of the previous session feel far away. Another life. Another version of him on the ice, watching as the New York Islanders took away the final win of the season and the Penguins missing the playoffs for the second time in a row. Here and now, he’s focused on keeping pace. Sidney hates running. Always has. And always, he pushes through it until he comes out the other side. It’s Sidney who Evgeni thinks of as the incline increases and lactic acid begins to burn. Thousands of kilometres away. Times zones apart. Hours behind and probably sleeping.They’re planning on meeting in Miami, before the preseason begins. Evgeni is looking forward to it; looking forward to seeing him after weeks apart. It had taken some work, but he’d convinced Sidney to join him. Distance comes easier to Sidney than Evgeni. He’s not sure if he’ll ever get used to it. But he’s trying. They both are. It - them - has been a long time coming. Longer for Sidney, but there on the same page. Above his head, the sun is now high in the sky and the trees cast long shadows. Beneath his feet, the trail goes from concrete to dirt as it twists. He’s running in the middle of the pack, when someone ahead curses and bodies collide. Someone ahead tripping, Evgeni thinks, in the moment. Then - “Fuck,” someone swears; one of the young guys. A commotion. Confusion. A trellwolf up ahead, blocking the trail. They all know the rules. They all grew up with them. So they all know to keep their distance. The mountains belong to the wolves first. Give them space and they keep it in exchange. They’ll have to turn back and reroute. But Evgeni is stuck. Frozen. Pale eyes pin him in place, and he can feel his heart within his chest. It is pounding and he’s panting from prolonged exertion. He knows to back away; slowly turn, and retreat. He knows what to do but he’s not doing it. The wolf is small, with pale and wiry fur. It just looks at Evgeni, and for a brief moment it feels like something brushes the back of his mind. The moment stretches. The back of Evgeni’s mouth fills with the taste of something bitter. Around him, there is movement. His friends. Former teammates. No one realises what is happening. Not at first. But somehow Evgeni does. His heart is pounding in his chest. “We’ve got to go,” Ivar says; hand on Evgeni’s arm, “Come on Z,” And;“Zhenya, what the fuck,” Danil tells him; his tone sharp like Evgeni isn’t listening to him.The wolf lowers its head and moves. Slowly. Silently. They’re predators. For decades after the Crimean War and then again after WW2, they were pests. Extraneous to a civilised society. A solution for war and a problem for peace time. But they’re predators. And Evgeni swallows as he feels it again; neurons in unused pathways in his mind; a phantom spark; pack sense . It doesn’t hurt when the wolf bites him. Not like people say it does in the stories. There is no blood or gore. Just the careful pressure of teeth on flesh and a flash of something akin to recognition. Just like Sidney said.So no. It won’t be a lie when Evgeni tells his mother that it didn’t hurt. They are meant to name each other. That is the tradition. Evgeni will give her a spoken name, and the wolf will give him a scent name. Tradition means something to wolves. Much like hockey players, they are superstitious creatures. Evgeni knows this.The wolf’s scent name; the bitter cold wind off the water . Her. Not a puppy but a grown wolf who had weaned her last litter in spring. Her exact age is unknown. To her, it doesn’t matter. A human question for something wolves don’t care about.Evgeni already has a scent name. A sense of curiosity; Evgeni can feel it through the bond. He can feel her; the warmth and life of her. She wants to know what it is. She wanted to taste his scent name and hold it within herself as she already holds him within her. She wants to know who gave it to him; her brother; the other half of her soul.He - There are traditions. He knows the burden of them. The weight of them. He doesn’t need anyone to remind him of that. Not when people so often forget how he broke away from so many which were used to bind him. In the years since he escaped Magnitogorsk for the NHL, he has made a life of his own. It was not a gift freely given. He fought and he worked and he took it for his own. The past is so often rewritten, but he has not forgotten. He will never forget. He left everything behind once. It took everything he had. But he did it. And so he knows, bone deep, that he can do it again if pushed too far.So no, he does not give the wolf a name. No one can force him. Evgeni doesn’t call Sidney.There is a clock ticking. The preseason. Training camp. Miami. Evgeni can’t keep this a secret.But still. He doesn’t call Sidney. People were there when it happened. Friends. Former teammates. Evgeni’s former trainer. Russia is a world away from Pittsburgh, but news travels. It is traveling. Fast. Within 48 hours, Evgeni’s agent calls him. His Russian one and his American one. They know what happened. He doesn’t have to tell them a thing. They talk at him. They talk a lot. The wolf - his sister -“It’s not a problem,” J.P Berry tells him. Blunt and to the point. His contract has allowances. All Penguins contracts have them. Just in case. It’s another reason to thank Sidney. The groundwork for having a wolf bonded player has long since been established. It won’t be an issue to accommodate Evgeni and - “We’re going to need a name for her passport,” J.P says. He has his people coordinating vets and paperwork with Penguin representatives. Together they’re working with the USDA. It’s happening quickly. It needs to happen quickly. Evgeni needs to be back for training camp. What Evgeni is doing - or not doing - is making everyone else’s lives harder. “Just call her something,” J.P says, when Evgeni isn’t forthcoming. “We can change it later.” Sidney reaches out, like clockwork. At some point along the way, Sidney calculated time zones and their separate commitments, and came up with a schedule of his own making. It was something Evgeni occasionally liked to disrupt. He’d text randomly. He'd send photos and ask questions. Conversations between them would happen simultaneously across multiple platforms and apps while he’d ignore the team group chats for weeks, sometimes. But he always liked to call, just to hear Sidney’s voice as he narrated what he was cooking for dinner. It hasn’t been more than a week since they last spoke. Evgeni was meant to fly out on the weekend. He still has his ticket. There were plans. Not many apart from a few dinner reservations. Mostly he wanted to enjoy some time in the Miami sunshine with Sidney before going to Pittsburgh. The rhythm of each NHL season is familiar to them both, but they haven’t become less grinding. To have even a few days with each other and no other competing commitments or responsibilities was rare. Evgeni doesn’t want to think ahead. He doesn’t want to answer the phone; he doesn’t want to sign or initial paperwork or go to vet appointments where he has to deal with a litany of questions he can’t answer while holding down a 40kg wild animal for a battery of vaccinations. He doesn’t want any of that. He wants to go back a week in time. Evgeni knows how to run, but he didn’t realise how flight could still come so easily to him even after so long. (Evgeni doesn’t answer Sidney’s calls.) The texts arrive in succession. There are so many from so many people. But the only ones that matter are from Sidney.
I know
It’ll be alright
I’m here
I love you It’s Evgeni’s mother who names his wolf; her tiny handwriting on the paperwork.
Neva.
The name is rolled around his sister’s mind and pushed into his for due consideration. She likes it. That is her first, instinctive response. She likes that her name came from Evgeni’s mother - that she named them both. In a way, they are brother and sister twice over. Neva - “Like the river,” Evgeni’s mother says, later, when it's just the two of them. Only it isn’t just them. Evgeni feels his mother touch the back of his hand. Gentle. He remembers being a child and being wrapped in her arms. She used to wear this mohair cardigan in winter. It would tickle his nose. It’s been such a long time since he was small enough to take shelter in her arms.Evgeni finds himself unable to breathe for a split second. Like the river. Neva is sleeping by the window in a nest of blankets. The circadian rhythm of her slumber is feather soft in the corner of Evgeni’s mind. Echoes of her breathing flood his own lungs. He had been trying not to look at her, but he doesn’t have to look. He knows exactly where she is. There is so much he hasn’t told his mother - his family. There is so much distance he has allowed to form between his life here, at home, and his life in Pittsburgh. Home too. But of course, she knows. She probably knew long before he gathered the courage to tell her. She’s always known him. At the airport, the back of Evgeni’s neck prickles. He ignores it. He’s not a rookie. The rough edges and wide eyes have long since been sloughed away. If jokes are being told, then he’s the one telling them. That was the trick he learned long before he made it to the NHL. The rest he accumulated over time. The right car. The right clothes. The right watch. The right way to hand over a credit card and spend money without hesitating. Neva’s nativity bristles. She has never been in a car; never flown in a plane. Within her crate, looks at everything. Her hackles go up when someone gets too close. Within the confines of her travel crate she paces not like a dog, but a wolf. There is no mistaking her. No mistaking their bond or its newness either.They won’t be together for the flight. There wasn’t time to organise it.At check in, they part. Each step away from her is conscious. Every part of him strains with the sustained effort. He cannot settle when he takes his seat in the airport lounge or in his seat. He can feel it when her crate is loaded; like an elastic band stretching. Only ten, maybe twenty metres separates them. He can feel it. He tries to ignore it. Tries to ignore her. (It hurts). (It all hurts).(Is this what it’s always like? How did Evgeni not know?) It never gets any easier. Hours and hours and hours in the sky. In the back of cars. In transit from Russia to America. And eventually, to his home in Pittsburgh. Finally out of her crate, Neva presses her body against Evgeni’s. It hurt being separated from her, even though they were travelling together. It hurts too, to feel her warm body pressed against his. Like a rush of blood to the head. Is this what it’s like? Evgeni wants to ask. Is this what it has always been like? He can hardly breathe. Their bond is a tangle. Worn thin, Evgeni doesn’t know what belongs to him and what comes from Neva. Mind numbing exhaustion blurs the lines between them even further, and it’s all he can do to stumble into bed. The sheets are cold and stale. He curls his body around Neva’s. Home, home, home, his heart beats and their bond sings. Under his hand, her ribs rise and fall. He tucks his nose behind her ears and if he finds himself blinking back tears - no one is there to see. He doesn’t know why he’s like this. He can’t be like this. Not when he has to be on the ice so soon, not when he puts on his jersey in only a few hours. There is a clock and it’s been ticking the whole time and he isn’t ready. Not yet. He has things to do. He - Sleep finds him and it’s not his dreams but Neva’s that he slips into. He is in the forest, in the snow and ice and nothing can catch him. Him. Them. They are together; two parts of the same soul under the moonlight. They chase and they hunt - but not him. For the first time, it is not a nightmare he is trapped within. In their shared dream, he is not trying to outrun something nameless at his back. His feet aren’t sinking into the melting ice, he isn’t tripping or stumbling. He isn’t losing ground, but covering it. Each step is a leap. The snow shimmers and the light refracts. Together, they are smart and they are untouchable and there is pleasure in it. It fills and overflows. There is no beginning or end to it.In the morning, there is sound downstairs. Neva’s ears prick but Evgeni swallows her growl before it can escape her throat because he knows without knowing that it’s -
Sid -
Steel on ice -
A fraction of a second and Evgeni shares everything. Neva slips into his mind and her nose follows the trail through years and seasons and she finds the heart of him; finds Sidney there, grinning up at Evgeni from behind his visor on the ice they’ve shared and made into their own. She finds and knows Sidney as well as Evgeni does. Mate, Neva names. She isn’t wrong, but it isn’t the word Evgeni would have ever thought of before. It’s too big a thought. He isn’t quite brave enough to hold it. Not quite. Not yet. It’s - so much. Too strange and new even though he and Sidney have been intertwined since they were little more than kids. Pulling on a pair of old sweatpants, it’s muscle memory more than anything that drives Evgeni from his bed and to the kitchen where he finds Sidney waiting. On the counter a takeout smoothie is waiting. Evgeni’s favourite. The plastic perspiring; Sidney’s handprint as visible as his name written in sharpie on the lid. Two cartons with breakfast. One for him, and one for - Neva, who is by Evgeni’s heels. Not like a dog, but a wolf. Before Sidney can say anything, Evgeni opens his mouth -“No River?”It’s the wrong thing to say, but Sidney knows him too well. They know each other too well. “I thought it’d be best for him to wait outside.” Because this was now Neva’s territory. Because there were now new customs and traditions to adhere to. Because Sidney was bitten, back before Evgeni met him. Back in his first training camp when the Penguins were playing war games at West Point as a bonding activity. Sidney hadn’t played a minute in a NHL game but he was already a household name. So much so that he was given a special tour of the military base by a group of cadets and they were stupid enough to introduce him to a litter of wolf cubs.Everyone knows the story. It’s an old one now. It is a story that Evgeni missed because he wasn’t there. He came a season later, and by that time River wasn’t a cub but a wolf no matter how much he tried to act like a dog. Here and now, Sidney offers the back of his hand; he offers himself and it’s Neva who steps forward just like in the forest and -Pack sense cracks open, and light spills in. River is an officer grade wolf. That’s common knowledge; as much a stat to his name as any of Sidney's career achievements. Born as West Point with a pedigree that dates back through the centuries. It must have been a disappointment to the military when she bonded with a civilian. More so when Sidney didn’t abandon his NHL contract to enlist. He meets Neva on the lush grass outside the entrance of Evgeni’s home. Well trained, to a fault, River forgos any prior claim to Evgeni. Allowing her to hold her ground, he lowers the gigantic bulk of his body and holds so still before she presses her nose against his. There is something so strange about the sight. River is huge - Evgeni always forgets how big - while Neva is so small. She doesn’t even reach his shoulders, but at her touch, pack sense sparks and River is invited into it. By Evgeni’s side, he feels Sidney exhale. Evgeni feels his relief too, carried in the background of the pack sense. “You never know,” Sidney says, when he catches Evgeni glancing at him. For some reason, it cuts. Evgeni can’t let it stand. “I knew,” Evgeni tells him. Because he did. Because he can’t even imagine anything else other than Neva accepting River. Sidney ducks his head, hiding a hint of a smile. For a moment, he leans his body against Evgeni’s. Call and response. Something Evgeni understands and can match without thinking twice. Even after everything, it’s unchanged between them. “Don’t know anything else,” Evgeni finds himself telling Sidney like it’s some kind of secret rather than something everyone in the entire city must know by now. “You’ll figure it out. You’re not alone in this.” Sidney says. And - a part of Evgeni cracks open. There is an old story that has been passed around the locker room and sports journalists for years now. It’s been fine tuned over the years into a funny one. It goes something like this; Evgeni didn’t know River’s name until his second season with the Penguins. Both a story and a punchline in one. It’s more or less true. Coeur de loup , that’s what guys on the ice used to say. Guys on the Penguins too. The ones who would be one thing when Mario was there alongside Sidney in the locker room, and another when Mario was gone. It was the truth and it was a slur and Evgeni didn’t understand what any of it meant. He understood a fraction of what was said in English at any given time. How could he be expected to parse québécois? It’s only now, Evgeni can admit he was afraid of River. Because he was, despite trying to hide it from everyone including himself. Yet River, like Sidney waited, and held the distance Evgeni kept until he was ready. “Neva’s a lot like you,” Sidney says after a beat. “Brave.”Evgeni looks at her; she and River are weaving their way through the garden. Years ago, in a moment of homesickness, Evgeni had his landscaper plant a small forest of silvery birch trees. Over the years they’ve grown strong and tall. His tiny piece of home in his home away from home. The dappled light shades the wolves as they follow a scent. Evgeni swallows. He has been running for a long time. Neva’s left everything she knows, too. Her home. Her pack. Her entire life. All for him. “I think she waited for me,” Evgeni finds himself saying. He thinks of his dreams; he thinks of the mountains that had haunted him for as long as he can remember and how she had been there all along. He thinks about how much of his life he has spent running and how she had walked to him up in the mountains when he had finally stopped. “I know what that’s like,” Sidney says. He’s smiling and Evgeni knows that but Sidney says it so easily. Says it like it doesn’t hurt. “Worth the wait?” And Sidney laughs, easy as breathing. “Always.”