Chapter Twenty - Boy And His Dog
-Summer-
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Without the howls, it was much harder to find the source, and the wolf had gone quiet after only a few howls. Eefim seemed driven to get to him, though, and Belbet followed, vaulting over fallen logs, pushing through scratching brush. Loping along wasn’t actually difficult anymore, and the Victoria part of her was amazed at how much ground they were covering.
The trail led them south, following the river away from their cliffside home. Deeper into the woods, past the first aspen grove she’d seen this side of the river. Even further, they actually passed the almond-tree grove. Eventually, Eefim threw out a hand, stopping his aunt. She looked at him, expecting him to have something to report. She wasn’t disappointed when he knelt and pointed out pawprints in some dried-up mud. She personally didn’t really recognize what sort of creature they belonged to, but when he pointed out the clawed tips and the four toes, she realized it could probably look like a dinosaur-sized dog footprint. Or maybe a wolf’s footprint.
They followed them, careful to remain quiet, lest they attract the attention of something worse. Belbet had plenty of time to be in awe of her little nephew’s tracking skills. They only had to backtrack three or four times before they caught the sounds of their prey, a whimpering, growling struggle.
They came upon him under a big tree that Victoria thought might be a sycamore. The big wolf was wrapped in vines that had been braided together. Someone had made a snare here, and it was tied up around the tree limbs, to hold the beast’s weight. Whoever had put this together had clearly meant to catch something big and hold it for a long time. But as far as Belbet knew there wasn’t anyone in this world that knew about traps.
“Cut him free.” Belbet pointed to the vines hanging from the tree.
“...I think he’ll be calmer if I’m down here near him. Can you cut him free, Aunt?” Eefim countered.
Seeing that the beast was in fact whining heavily and trying to reach Eefim’s side, despite being tied up, she had to agree. “Alright, but if he charges you, put your knife between you and him, and aim for his belly.”
Eefim nodded, taking up a stance just out of reach of the wolf, and holding out his hands as if to soothe the beast. Belbet climbed the first few branches and set about sawing the makeshift rope off.
After a few minutes, the rope went slack, and the beast shook off the remaining bits, a loop of rope still around it’s throat. Eefim immediately drew out some of the jerky the creature knew, and tossed it to him. The wolf sniffed it, before horking it down.
“He’s safe, should we go?” Eefim asked.
“If we leave that rope on him, he could get caught on something and choke to death.” Belbet pointed out. Then, an idea came to her. “...Pick up the end of it. See if he’ll let you lead him.”
Eefim gave his aunt a confused raise of the eyebrow, but did as she directed. Picking up the lead, he gave it a soft tug. The wolf looked at him, and huffed. As Eefim began to take steps back, however, the wolf gave a low growl, pulling back against the rope. With just that motion, Belbet could see it was favoring it’s back leg. Had it been twisted while the wolf tried to escape the trap?
“Come on,” Eefim coaxed, showing the wolf some of the jerky, his brows drawn, lip bitten. The jerky didn’t seem to attract the wolf’s attention, however. It was biting desperately at the rope connecting it to Eefim. Between the wolf’s weight and the jerking of the rope, Belbet realized that Eefim wasn’t dragging the wolf anywhere.
Belbet looked between her nephew and the wolf, and made a split decision. “Give me the rope.” She reached over, taking the leaping lead from her nephew’s hands and palming her knife. She dragged the rope to her, keeping it taught between herself and the wolf, trying to get as close as she could before the wolf turned those teeth on her.
She stopped, once he dropped the rope to snap at her instead. In that instant, she pulled the rope and slashed the knife through it, cutting it as close to the wolf’s body as she could reach. He launched himself at her, clearly intent on fighting off the threat to his life, only to have his entire bulk slammed to the side.
Eefim, pulling a scream from his aunt in horror, had bulldozed into the wolf, a hand pushing up under it’s jaw. Belbet dashed forward, trying to find some way to help and completely unable. Eefim was using every ounce of weight he had to roll the wolf onto it’s back, pinning it with the same strength he’d used to hold onto the snake-woman.
The vicious growls and Eefim’s own shouts shook Belbet’s attention, even as she snatched the wolf’s back legs, holding them so that Eefim wasn’t gutted by the sharp claws of them. Eefim’s growls grew muffled, and when Belbet managed to get a look, she realized he was holding the wolf’s head in the dirt by it’s underjaw, his own teeth pressed hard against it’s throat.
The legs in her arms and the body beneath Eefim went rigid still, soft whines crawling out of the throat that had been growling just minutes before. Eefim removed his teeth from the throat, but Belbet couldn’t see what he was doing instead. She could still see his hand holding the wolf’s head down, but she could only hear Eefim make soft shushing noises.
Then, the oddest thing happened. Eefim’s body began to glow a bright orange. Or rather, his belly began to glow, but his body blocked the light a bit? Belbet blinked and wondered if this was what her family meant when they said she glowed. She watched as boy and wolf looked at each other, glow between them, and then the wolf began to glow as well. Rimmed in that bright orange light, the wolf ceased whimpering, his tail thumping listlessly against the ground.
Eefim let go, prompting Belbet to cry out, to warn him not to. But what she was warning against didn’t come to pass. Once the wolf’s jaw was free, it twisted it’s head, but instead of biting as she’d expected, it licked along Eefim’s face and jaw, eliciting grossed out laughter from the boy.
“You can let him go now, Aunt,” the boy laughed, pushing the muzzle of the beast that had attacked them twice away. “He knows we’re not here to hurt him.”
“What?” She croaked, confusion soaking in every word. Eefim climbed down off the wolf’s chest, and began pushing his aunt back. She spluttered, but let him push her away from the wolf. The canine stood, shaking out it’s coat and stretching as if it was just waking up.
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“He’s fine now. He won’t hurt us. He knows we’re not here to hurt him, and he knows we’ll help him if he comes back with us.” Eefim stated, as if guiding his aunt through the process of realizing this.
“How do you know that?” Belbet demanded, her eyes still on the wolf, even as it limped a few feet away and sat down. “What happened?”
Eefim bit his lip, looking down with a furrowed brow, then he looked up at Belbet, staring her right in the eyes, brow drawn. “I can understand him. In my heart.” He pressed a hand to his chest, as if that would convince her.
“...Okay, does this have to do with you glowing just now?” Belbet asked, setting her hands on his shoulders, hoping to ground him.
“Yes!” Eefim declared. “Exactly! It was like, the core energy? The energy I was having so much trouble with… it’s going through him now too! And then it comes back to me, and it’s so much easier to focus once it does. I don’t even have to be sitting now!”
This information staggered Belbet, but she took a deep breath and nodded, “Okay. Alright, that’s fine. He’s not going to attack, and you’re fine, right? No pain, no sinking feelings, nothing?”
Eefim shook his head, the boy’s ears perked up and his eyes sparkling. He looked right as rain, honestly. Belbet sighed, the tension refusing to leave her shoulders. But there was nothing she could do now, unless she wanted to attack an animal that was a) not harming them and b) hurt. So she nodded, “Alright… Let’s get out of here then, before the trapper gets back.”
The two of them turned and began heading back, their furry follower a few steps in front of Eefim. “What’s a trapper?” the boy asked as they followed their path back home.
Eefim’s question took Belbet off guard a little. It shouldn’t have, she realized a second later, “What the wolf was caught in, that’s called a trap. Your cousin, Dahnei’s been working on making some for us. But that one was made by someone else. Someone who uses traps is called a Trapper. They use traps to catch animals instead of hunting.”
“...Isn’t that mean to the animal?” Eefim asked, his face scrunched in defense of metaphorical animals. Or, maybe in defense of the real animal walking in front of him, brushy tail swaying left and right, Belbet thought.
“It can be. Most traps are meant to hold the animal until it either dies, or until the hunter can get there to kill the animal themselves. It’s a way to get meat without having to track it through the forest, which uses a lot of energy.”
Eefim held a branch out of the way of his aunt as she explained. “If we spend all day hunting, and come back with nothing, it was a waste of time, right? But if we set up four traps, and none of them catch anything today, but two of them catch something tomorrow, the only energy wasted is the few moments to set them up and then the moments to kill whatever was caught in them.”
Eefim nodded, his eyes never leaving the wolf before them as it limped along. Belbet couldn’t see any sign of blood on its back left leg, but she thought maybe it had twisted it somehow trying to get out of the trap. She didn’t really know what to do for a wolf whose leg was twisted, other than making it rest.
“Eefim-” She called, and he turned to look at her, not slowing his steps even slightly, “You can understand him, right?”
The boy nodded.
“Can he understand you?” She asked, “Like, if I asked you to tell him that when we get back to camp, he needs to rest and not walk around much on that leg until it feels better?”
Eefim considered it, and then ducked under a branch. “I could try to make him understand that… but I don’t know how much he really would.”
She supposed that was fair. She couldn’t exactly say she’d be able to make him understand it. Or else, what were the cones of shame for, if not because animals didn’t always understand what was best for them? The wolf was panting in the midafternoon heat, and she felt overheated. She could tell Eefim did too, so she suggested a stop by the river, which they could then follow up to their home.
The rush of the water alongside their trip also provided her a nice white noise to slow her thoughts. The more she turned over what happened, the more confused she grew. Her own core, her glow, the golden ball in her belly had never allowed her to spread that glow to another creature. She’d pushed it into the ground and the plants around her, and that had felt quite pleasant, however. Should she try with a creature? She could try on one of the chickens, maybe…
That said, did the ability to spread one’s glow mean that Eefim also had a core? Was his orange, considering the glow? She should have asked what color her own glow was, perhaps color had something to do with it? Was this some kind of magic inherent in this world? Victoria’s world had so many stories about so many different types of magic and abilities that it was impossible to assume this wasn’t something special too.
She’d turned it over in circles so much that by the time the Farm came into sight, she was sick of thinking altogether. The three of them rounded the big boulders at the edge of their little water-fall-induced swimming hole to find their entire family taking a watery break as well. Deenat was holding Mohniit, and Kaion was once again on his rock, pouring water over his bulk. Belbet had to be careful not to get stuck watching the water drip down his body.
“I’ll take the wolf to camp,” Eefim called. “See you guys soon.”
Belbet waved her nephew off, before heading into the water herself. “Sister!” She called, and Deenat turned to her, Mohniit letting out a happy shriek as he slapped the water. Belbet laughed, reaching out to take her boy, Deenat handing him over with a relieved sigh.
“He missed you,” Deenat said, her eyes soft as she watched the two of them.
“Did he?” Belbet cooed, rubbing one of his boy’s cheeks until he made an annoyed sound and buried his face in her neck. “I missed Mohniit too. Does Mohniit want to blow bubbles?”
The boy threw himself back so hard that he almost unbalanced Belbet, his cry of “Yah!” echoing around the rocks. Belbet laughed, and nodded, shifting him in her arms so he can face the water. Within seconds, the boy’s face was in the water and bubbles were popping to the surface.
She made sure he was close enough to the surface that if he choked or spluttered she could yank him up and then turned her attention to Dahnei, who was practicing moving her arms while walking. “You’re doing great Dahnei! Think you can turn over on your back, and try to float like wood does?”
The girl looked at her, one brow raised, before turning and leaning back into the water. She flailed several times, before coming up spluttering with a face full of thunder. “No! I keep falling!”
Belbet sighed, waiting for Mohniit to resurface for a breath, before wading over to her daughter and settling a hand on her shoulder. “You’re going to. Water isn’t solid, so when you lean against it, it’s going to move out of your way. But, once you give it your weight, it will support you. That’s what it means to float.”
The girl looked entirely dubious but nodded. She leaned back into the water, and Belbet smiled, “Try spreading your arms out. It’ll help you balance, and feel more in control.” Dahnei did as she was told, under the watchful eye of her baby brother. Mohniit forewent bubbles in lieu of watching his sister try to float on her back.
However, anytime the girl lifted her feet from the riverbed, her practiced spread stance went to hell, arms flailing as soon as the water rose up against her face. Belbet sighed, trying not to let her frustration leak out. She didn’t have the option of passing the baby off to someone, so she couldn’t support her daughter the way Victoria did when teaching her nieces and nephews how to swim.
She tilted her head, “It’s okay, Dahnei. You can always try again later. Just play around for now, okay?”
Dahnei nodded, but there was a stubborn set about her lips that made Belbet think maybe she was sulking. Such a cute child, Belbet thought as she watched Dahnei turn over and start doggy paddling around. Very cute.
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