“Knock knock knock.*

“Come in” a mature woman’s voice could be heard in response, the door cracked open, and in entered Emma

The mature woman was seated at her dress table looking straight at the table mirror, the table also had two small candles lighting up a 2-meter area. She was attended to by her personal maid

“M'Lady, young Lord Nikola has left by the window again.” It was shortly passed what would be 10 pm not long after Nikola left.

The mature woman sighed; she was Nikola’s mother. She had noticed strange behaviour from Nikola for a while now. She had tried to question Nikola in the past about it, but he was evasive and tried to hide his actions even more.

She knew he had a stashed knife outside and had a hunch that he was involved with the chicken’s incident.

“All right, you can leave.” She said.

“Yes, M’Lady.” The maid turned and left, closing the door behind her.

“Margaret what do you think of the matter?” she asked her maid.

“We can only keep this a secret as long as possible. M’Lady.” Her maid responded.

___

*Huuuuuh* Nikola suddenly gave out a long gasp as he came too. He was lying face down on a patch of gritty sand. His legs felt wet, and he could hear running water nearby. He had a burning sensation in his heart, although, from what he remembered from the night before, it had mellowed down. He noticed it was light out as he turned over onto his back.

“Where am I?” he rose steadily to a seating position, to which he discovered the reason for his wet feeling, he had been washed up on the shore of the riverbank, his legs still submerged.

He looked over to where the source of light was coming from. “Shit, it’s just past dawn.” The sun looked to be a few meters off the ground.

“Mother’s going to be worried, I’ll just say I went on a long jog,” Nikola said to himself. It was at this moment that Nikola saw something on his left forearm, it looked to be a tattoo or something. It was a list of words and numbers in the old pagan language of the northern continent. he recognized some of the words, like his name, and the words for baptism, but couldn’t remember the rest.

Nikola remembered seeing a book in the library about the old language. He checked the other arm and noticed more words, he recognized ‘class: child’, but couldn’t make headway of the rest. The current language followed with the spreading of the church, but enough time had gone by to evolve it to be recognized as a different language.

Nikola couldn’t do anything about the tattoos until he went back, so he had to drop the matter and find a route home. He was currently at a shallow part of the river, and judging by the dirt roads on either side, this seemed to be a place of crossing. The problem was that he didn’t know where either road lead to.

He looked down at his body. He didn’t have a top on, he had taken it off before going hunting as he knew he would get blood down it. And he was only wearing the shorts below. This was what he usually wore when hunting as it tended to be a bloody affair.

He looked around the area, but couldn’t find his knife anywhere, “I guess I better head back.” He decided to follow the stream upwards until he found something recognizable. But when he got up, he was a lot faster than he thought. ‘what the hell’ his body groaned and ached as if he finished a tiring exercise the day before.

___

half an hour later Nikola heard some familiar voices up ahead, it was Gareth and Jerry, they were two hunters of the village, they were not far, and Nikola could hear their conversation.

“Shit, Jerry, Wind wolves, two of them, what the fuck killed two wind wolves?” Gareth said, looking over Nikola’s kill.

“it’s just two young ones, Gareth,” Jerry dismissed his complaints.

“Yeah, but this is wind wolves’ territory, if something has killed them here, they should be able to contend with the pack,” Gareth said.

“Look, these wounds are neat, like a blade, but these wounds look like an animal,” Jerry commented, looking closer at the kills.

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Nikola tried walking around them, he remembered this area and now could work out where his clothes were stashed. He was just walking off when he saw a glint in the corner of his eye, as he turned, he saw his dagger in the shrubbery. He moved over quietly and picked it up, then looked at the hunters, decided to bury it, and leave a marker there.

He restarted his journey to find his clothes.

“Hey, who goes there?” Nikola was startled, he recognized Jerry’s raised voice. He turned to look at them, who were now looking at him with their bow’s half drawn in a ready position.

“It’s me, Jerry,” Nikola had been in a crouching position for a while, trying to reduce his silhouette, now that he was caught, he straightened up and waved at them.

“Young Lord, what are you doing out this early in the forest?” Jerry asked, concern in his voice, Nikola was just walking around the bushes to the clearing.

“I was practising my running; this forest is good for training my footwork,” Nikola said, he was making sure not to show his new tattoos to them.

“In that Dress, young lord, it is not good for you to be seen like that,” Gareth said they had both noticed his attire when he came round.

“My clothes are not designed for running through the foliage,” Nikola said.

“That makes sense, anyway Young Lord, you shouldn’t be out here at the moment, something in this forest has killed two wind wolves this morning, and it could still be out there,” Gareth said, gesturing at the wide expanse of the forest.

“I see,” Nikola acknowledged. As Gareth gestured with his arms, his long sleeves drew up his arms a little bit, revealing similar tattoos on his forearms, only, from what Nikola could make out, they were written in the common language.

‘Why have I never seen this before,’ then he realised, that all of the people he remembers interacting with him generally wear long sleeves.

From what he could tell on the tattoos, it had said Rouge – Level 18, Archer – Level 15.

“Come on, Young Lord, we will escort you back to the house, we need to make a report to the Lady about our findings anyway,” Jerry said.

“Thank you. we need to stop off nearby, I left my clothes there when I entered the forest.” Nikola said.

“Yes, young lord.” Gareth Said.

___

It didn’t take them long to exit the forest, Nikola had dressed in simple attire, something that could be slept in, hence why his maid never questioned what he wore to bed.

“Young Lord, your hand, it’s injured,” Now they were out of the forest, the light shone brighter. Nikola’s hand had recovered a bit, and the bleeding had stopped, but evidence of damage was still there.

“Err, Yes, I had scraped it past a thorny barb, it had shredded the skin a little,” Nikola played it off.

However, the experienced hunters were able to see more details now they had noticed it, the wounds looked like puncture marks, that were similar to wolf’s teeth. They were no fools and had many experiences with the wildlife of the forest.

Although all they could do was drop the matter, they couldn’t question their young lord on what to them was a blatant lie.

___

They reached the house, where Margaret and the butler came out to greet them, soon Gareth and Jerry were escorted to a reception room to make a report with the Lady, Nikola, having nothing better to do, followed them.

“Good evening M’Lady,” the two greeted, they were standing in front of a desk, where the lady was seated at. Nikola had seated down on a rugged sofa to the side next to Isabella.

“Where’d you go, Nik?” Isabella asked.

“To the forest for a run.” Nikola said.

“Aww, you should of taken me,” she said, pouting.

“You weren’t up, you call me all sorts of names when I wake you up early.”

“That’s not true.” She protested.

“We are here to make a report,”

“Go Ahead,” the Lady spoke, her Butler was seated to the side of the table with a quill and parchment to make notes.

“At the early hours of the morning we came across two carcasses of young wind wolves, both received injuries by multiple sources, they both had lacerations to the neck and one of them had it along their side. The lacerations seemed to be the work of a sharp object, either a knife or blade. Then other wounds on the monster seemed to be more savage in nature, either teeth marks or claws. Furthermore, there was also a dead deer nearby. It seemed to have been stabbed in the side with a knife, but what killed it seems to be a bite of some kind to the throat.” Gareth Narrated the findings.

The lady took a quick glance at Nikola and then back to the two men, only Nikola was aware of such an action, but his mother didn’t notice that her actions were spotted.

“And Nikola? how come he came back with you?” The Lady asked.

“We found him in the forest, after we found the carcasses. He said he had been running in the forest, as the terrain was ideal for building up his footwork. M’Lady” Jerry commented.

“I see, is there anything else?” the lady asked.

The two hesitated, looking at Nikola at the side of their vision, he currently had his head down, not looking at them, “Em, No Ma’am.”

The Lady had cottoned on to their meaning, “I see, thank you for coming to me with this. I will escort you out.”

This was unusual for the Lady of the house to do; however, the butler noticed an underlining meaning from it that he knew not to expose.

Nikola was oblivious to this, he was good at noticing body gestures and movements, but he struggled with social gestures, as well, he was in his own world thinking about what happened. The Lady and Butler followed the two men out of the room and to the entrance.

Once there, the Lady asked again, “Is there anything else you want to tell us?”

“M’Lady, when we came out of the forest, we noticed injuries on the young lords’ hands, when we asked if he was ok, he said he scraped them along with a barbed bush. But… those marks seem similar to wolf bites, and the cuts to his face match the attack patterns of wind wolves,” Gareth said.

“We also found him in nothing but shorts, no top, and no shoes or socks,” Jerry added.

“Very well, please keep quiet about my son, and use his alibi as the story if anyone asks.” The Lady said.

“Will do Ma’am, and what about the two wolves, shall we keep looking for monsters nearby?” Jerry asked.

“Yes.” The Lady said and dismissed them, she closed the door and sighed as she braced her back against the wall.