Chapter 6 — Welcome
Yvette sprinted up the stairs, gave a passing ear scratch to the wolf, and then was gone. The sound of the cottage door closing so too closed any chance for Rína to properly lodge her complaints. And her complaints were simple ones, mostly revolving around being left alone in the company of predators.
Rína looked up at one such offender. The spiral staircase was far wider than most, and ignoring the other visual cues, the giant wolf that laid at the ground floor could be mistaken for a mundane—albeit mostly wild—breed of dog. Similarly, its eyes could be mistaken for being expectant, and the barely visible tip of its tail could be misconstrued to be wagging in excitement.
“Actually, I think I’ll pass. I don’t—”
A low howl interrupted her.
“No really, I’ll be staying—”
Another howl: slightly louder and more insistent.
“Tough shit,” Rína scolded, locking eyes with the wolf, “because—”
The next howl Rína less heard and more felt in her bones. Some of the larger glassware and even the staircase railing sang in resonance.
“Two can play at that game,” Rína huffed, and began rummaging through the laboratory’s drawers. She soon found cork stoppers for particularly narrow test tubes, just narrow enough to fit in her ears. It certainly wasn’t comfortable, but Rína nevertheless spread her arms in victory, her hearing muffled, “What’cha got to say to that?”
The wolf took a deep breath.
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Rína laid on the couch with every manner of muffling material—mostly spare blankets she had found—piled on her head and with her palms clapped over corked ears.
It wasn’t enough.
The wolf had followed her around the cottage as she gathered what was her poor woman’s sensory deprivation chamber. He didn’t stop her or make any aggressive actions, just kept on his howling drone. Just as he was now doing, the wolf changed the pitch and timing between breaths just often enough for the howling to not become background noise.
He had been at it for close to an hour, with no signs of stopping.
‘Days’. Two days is how long Yvette said she might be gone…
“FINE! FUCK! GODS DAMN IT!” Rína roared as she threw the blankets off her head. The wolf, immediately silent, was standing behind the couch, his head looming over her. Rína skewered his eyes with hers, “If a single carnivore so much as looks at me funny, we’re getting the hells out of there, and I’m telling Yvette!” Rína threatened.
The wolf huffed what might have been an agreement, as Rína could hear his tail begin swishing through the air.
Defeated, she rose from where she lay, “Just let me get my coat…”
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The traveling salesman with blonde slick-backed hair took in the small town. As he rode in on his oxen wagon, the first thing he noted was the lack of a wall, or any real defensive measures. Sure, there was a palisade that was a few meters tall, but certainly nothing that could hold back a rampaging beast. The salesman chastised himself; of course highland towns wouldn’t need such defenses. Still, it was strange to see a human settlement undefended.
The salesman inquired with some passersby where he could set up his wagon and was soon open for business; selling fabrics and spices, mostly. He received confused but welcome looks from the townsfolk. Confused that a traveling salesman would still be on the road at this time of year, but all the more welcome that he did.
He struggled to make small talk, only finding conversational refuge in simply letting the more chatty townsfolk go on about what they liked. He learned that the town was generally doing well in the broad strokes, but recently there was some nasty business concerning a family feud that had escalated to arson.
With regards to other villages, the salesman learned that quite a few were sprouting up, all full of people eager to carve out a new home at the edge of civilization. Deflecting further questions, the salesman left Leighton only hours after arriving.
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Rína once more found herself riding on the wolf’s back as he turned the snow dusted forest into a blur. On her first ride, between the blood caked into the wolf’s fur and Rína’s general mental state, there were a number of details she originally missed that she now caught.
Firstly, the wolf’s green speckled fur was thick and incredibly soft. She rode with her arms barely able to wrap around his neck, but that just meant that her cheek rested on what was quite literally a luxurious fur coat.
Secondly, though the wolf had to weave between trees and over roots, Rína was jostled far less than she thought she should be, given the speeds. It seemed to be the result of the wolf’s careful footwork, preventing his center of mass, and thus Rína, from swaying too much.
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Thirdly, the wolf’s footfalls were still eerily quiet. They certainly made at least some noise, but what little they did was almost entirely drowned out by the rushing wind.
After a half hour, the wolf slowed to a trot in a section of forest no different than any other. He then gave a short howl.
Rína grimaced, half expecting him to continue howling till he drove her insane. Instead, the next howl, the next several in fact, came from closeby. He continued through the underbrush until the forest opened onto a small hill. Along the slope of the hill was a great tree, some of whose roots had been exposed either through soil erosion or excavation. The result was a small cave made of dirt and roots; a small cave brimming with wolves.
Half a dozen gray wolves poured out to meet the goliath and his human passenger. Rína still stood by her very rational wariness of anything that could easily kill a human, but looking at her hosts, she couldn’t help but dismiss them as a threat. Firstly, next to the one she rode on, these wolves—though their shoulders came up to her sternum—looked almost cute, like puppies or small dogs. And secondly, they clearly weren’t hostile, they were all wide eyes and wagging tails, and one or two of them might have even looked wary of Rína.
Her ride laid himself on the ground, allowing Rína to disembark, but before she could even think of setting her foot on the ground, the Great Sniffing began.
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The octogenarian huntress waded out from the forest. Her light, easy steps and keen eyes held a youthful spark that contrasted harshly against the sagging skin of her cheeks—at least, that is how she intended most people to see her.
She strode past clear cut trees and bare minimum housing, and waved hello to the folk working their starter fields. The huntress received confused but welcome looks from the villagers. Confused that such an old woman could survive out in the wilds alone, but all the more welcome for proof that even the geriatric could manage it.
The huntress struggled to make small talk, only finding conversational refuge in her incredibly believable backstory. She had lived in these wilds for a lifetime, she said, and would be happy to trade her local knowledge for news of the wider world.
The villagers had only just arrived last year from the eastern province; some were from families of farmers as far back as there were records, others were debtors from the big cities and would have been doing hard labor either way. All of them were eager to trade information.
After a fruitful exchange of information, the old huntress returned to the forest from which she came.
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Rína sat on the forest floor with her back against a fallen log. On her lap was quite possibly the cutest wolf pup to have ever existed. She was giving the little guy belly rubs with one hand and was playing keep-away with her other hand’s wiggling fingers, keeping them just out of reach of the pup’s playfully snapping teeth. Not the wisest game to play, Rína admitted to herself, especially since the little guy would sometimes try to cheat by trying to go for the belly rub hand, but it was all too cute for her to resist.
A few minutes passed and the pup grew bored of the wiggling fingers, floating just out of reach, so Rína repurposed the hand to give ear scratches instead. No longer needing to keep an eye on her fingers, Rína looked around the wolf den.
It was the third they had gone to, and besides the specific kind of shelter the given pack had, the actual encounters with the packs all more or less went the same: the two of them would arrive, every bit of them would be sniffed, and then play and belly rubs would ensue.
At the moment, some wolves were lounging, others played amongst themselves, and a few seemed to be receiving a lesson on how to move quietly from a certain someone. The closest wolf to Rína, besides the pup, was a female wolf that had kept Rína and the pup in her line of sight for the entire time. The pup’s mother, Rína guessed, though she could have been way off. If she was right, she certainly didn’t begrudge the mother her wariness over the human playing with her child.
The belly rubs and ear scratches halted. The little guy yipped in protest, snapping Rína back to the present as she resumed the rubs. It was then that she noticed a glint of green in the pup’s fur. She’d already seen a couple of the other wolves with small specs of green in their coats, so Rína felt a little foolish for only then making the connection.
“Hey Felix,” Rína called, interrupting the lesson, “At least some of these guys are your distant descendants or something, aren’t they?”
Felix stood taller and howled in pride, before returning to the lesson.
Rína supposed the ancestry made sense. She’d heard talk that the wolves in the area—the ones raiding the livestock—were a bit larger and noticeably more clever than wolves elsewhere in the Serric Highlands.
“Wait… how in the hells could that have worked,” Rína wondered out loud, noticing the rather significant size difference between Felix and the rest of the wolves, “Nevermind, I don’t want to know.”
Felix’s lesson eventually concluded as the sun began to set and by expectantly laying on his stomach next to Rína, he signaled it was time to go. Rína hopped onto Felix once again and said her farewells to the pack. She had no idea if they actually understood human language, or if they even had the intelligence for it—none of them had ever given a Felix-like response—but she still decided to err on the side of politeness.
The introductions as a whole seemed odd to Rína. She, Yvette, and Felix would, presumably, be leaving in a matter of days. There was a non-negligible chance that she’d never see this forest, or Leighton for matter, ever again.
A sour taste filled Rína’s mouth.
“Hey Felix? How would you feel about a short trip to Leighton?” Rína asked over the rush of wind.
Felix slowed to a stop, craned his head up to Rína questioningly.
“I… I just need to say a few goodbyes.”
With a yip Felix changed direction and once more turned the nighttime forest into a blur.
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The diligent courier was hopelessly lost. He pushed his chestnut bangs out of his eyes and threw himself on the mercy of the honorable residents of the village he stumbled across. Leighton was his destination, but he had no idea how to get there, and it was getting dark.
The villagers, for their part, gave the courier confused but welcoming looks. Confused that a professional courier could become lost so easily, but all the more welcome to a traveler in such dire need.
The courier was of course offered dinner, directions, and invited to spend the night in the village. The courier gladly accepted, but over the meal struggled to make small talk, only finding conversational refuge in the news he brought from the eastern provinces—the place he most definitely had just come from.
He inquired if anyone had news from other parts of the Serric Highlands, and was in luck as two of the village’s families had just come from the northern province.
After the meal, the courier thanked the villagers profusely and went to bed, performing an approximation of sleep.