//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3: Wolves 
// Story: Wild Magic 
// by Detsella Morningdew 
//------------------------------//

I moved though the underbrush silently. The forest was silent today, and I hadn't been able to find anything. Still, something told me that I should stay, and it wasn't my stomach this time.

There was a rustle behind me.

I turned around quickly, as silently as I could, and my breath caught in his throat.

There was a wolf there. But not just a wolf. It was different. It didn't even look like an animal.

This wolf was made entirely out of wood.

For some reason, it didn't even seem to be bothered by the spear pointing at it, and I fervently hoped that it was because of the odd dog's friendliness rather than the spear's complete ineffectiveness against solid oak.

At least it looked like oak.

The wolf looked me in the eye, and barked a few times.

My heart did a somersault. I've owned a dog before. That was not the bark of an aggressor. It was more of a friendly greeting than anything else.

Could this really..?

The wooden wolf turned around and ran a few paces, before looking back at me expectantly.

"You want me to follow?"

The wolf nodded and started walking again, not leaving me enough time to properly collect myself.

I took after the strange creature. It seemed to run just slow enough for me to keep up, and yet with a relaxed enough gait that I knew it had to be keeping the pace on purpose.

I knew pet dogs were intelligent, and even that wild dogs had their own communities, but this was something else entirely. Those strange, glowing eyes pierced me in a way that I found hard to describe, and the way it nodded at me...

There was no denying its intelligence.

No, not just intelligence. I think this thing has actual sapience.

I supposed that I should have expected something like this. In the brief moment of wonder upon my arrival, I might have thought of something like alien intelligence. In fact, it was pretty much confirmed, due to the presence of that castle. But over the last month, I had been much more concerned about keeping alive from day to day. One day with a bad hunt, and the hunger returned.

My escort barked again, and I was brought back out of my thoughts. Just ahead, there were more of the same wooden wolves, laying down on the forest floor.

A few of them looked up and regarded me with interest, but all of them put their heads back down in short order. It looked quite a lot like napping.

Another sharp bark forced me to let sleeping dogs lie, and the wolf led me beyond them to a small hole dug underneath a tree. It was big enough for the wolf twice over, but I had to duck a bit uncomfortably to follow him.

Or her, really. I have no idea how to tell. Do wolves made out of wood even have genders?

Some more barking up ahead caught my attention, and I stepped out into a larger room, what seemed to be the den of a second wolf, this one a bit more... odd.

It was a little bigger than the others I had seen. A little darker of a wood. And instead of the slight curves of the others, the grain of this one's wood twisted and spiralled in strange and interesting ways.

Oh, and it was somehow holding a staff that was tall enough to reach my chest. It was hard for me to actually look away from the staff. That glowing emerald at the top was quite eye-catching.

It made some sounds at me, and I stepped forward, significantly more nervous.

I was significantly less confident in my choice to follow the thing, but I was now distinctly aware that I was surrounded by at least twenty wolves, which would have been a problem even if they were made of a material that a spear is particularly ineffective against. And that wasn't even taking into consideration whatever that glowing thing did. I just hoped it wasn't radioactive or something like that. Radiation sickness is one of the worst ways to die.

So I stepped forward.

It touched the top of the staff to my chest.

I actually had very little time to register this action, or even to panic.

I was just abruptly three feet lower to the ground.

"Do you understand the forest?"

...What?

I stared up at the wolf, which was now slightly taller than me. The suddenness of the change made my brain feel like molasses.

What happened?

"Fox! Do you now understand?"

"What?" I said out loud.

I looked down, my brain slowly registering the changes in the muscles used to do so. Foreign appendages were below me, very clearly black paws, that faded to an orangeish red as I looked up the new legs.

My head snapped up to the strange wolf with the staff. "What‽" I said shortly. "Why did you do this? Answer!"

The leaned in closer to me. Its words were soft, but I still felt a chill at the intensity of its stare. "I did favor. Form was wrong, would change on own. Change slow. In forest, change may kill."

The voice was oddly female.

"Change... did kill. Not enough food, no wolf to help. That was... long time ago."

I looked at the floor, unable to keep her intense gaze, and a sense of growing dread in my chest that seemed to come from nowhere. "So, I'm... supposed to be this way? I don't understand, I've always been human."

"Yes... I forget often, what was like then. But you know how hunt. You are now yourself. We do not know what else fox eat, but you must leave soon."

"Leave? Why?"

She gave an odd shrug that almost seemed human, but her words banished that thought entirely. "Fox is prey. Timber wolves will do duty to forest. But you survive after that."

A shiver ran through my new spine, a sensation that did nothing to calm my nerves. "Um... should I start running?"

"I not without justice. You have two days. We not seek you out of many. But fox does not count wolf as friend."

"Ah."

I backed away nervously, then walked out of the cave, all the while looking behind me. When it seemed that neither of the wolves was following, I started a quicker pace.

I don't know how I managed to get so far away from the wolves' camp without tripping over myself, but I did, and I finally collected enough of my sanity back to evaluate a little of what had happened.

For one, I thought I had a pretty good idea of who left the rabbit for me a few weeks ago.

At the same time, it was not long until the very beings that helped me survive might try to eat me.

To top it all off... I was a fox. Soft reddish-orange fur, fluffy tail, white underbelly... I was quite confused. According to the weird shaman-wolf, I was supposed to be like that, and I almost believed her. Despite how alien, well, everything felt, all the muscle memory was just... there. If I wanted to walk, I just walked.

But I also knew I was human. I was always human. I didn't even belong here, and was just waiting to see if the mirror could bring me back again.

Now more than ever, it all seemed hopeless. Even if the mirror was somehow open at this exact moment, would I even want to return in my current state? Maybe this world was just like Narnia, and all the animals were intelligent. It wasn't like that on Earth. Would I just lose my intelligence completely and become a dumb animal? Or worse, I'd be completely intelligent, just not able to prove it to anyone.

I suppose if every animal is intelligent here, that explains a little of why those wolves were just fine with eating me. I suppose I should just be grateful that they have good sportsmanship about the whole thing, or I'd be dead.

I was just glad that whatever that crazy wolf did to me, I was no longer hungry. Hunting rabbit again, knowing that they were perfectly intelligent... it was less than pleasant.

I suddenly shivered and started to run.

I can't stay at the castle.

It already had been a full month without progress on the mirror, and now getting back was even further from reach given my form. And while she had said that they would not hunt me specifically...

Yeah, easy prey is easy prey. One of the first things I learned while hunting.

It was time for me to leave this area entirely. Perhaps move as far as possible away from where the wolves were. I was one, and they were many. And they were also significantly bigger than I was.

And it's not like I had anything I had to bring with me. Not anymore.

I left my clothes and that spear with the wolves.





Once my panic had somewhat died down, the run became somewhat... enjoyable.

I was not... happy about what had happened to me. Home was now not just depressingly far away, but almost hopelessly out of reach.

At the same time, bounding through the forest was exhilarating, amplified by the fact that I could now do so with almost complete silence.

Now that the adrenaline was fading away, though, I started to slow, appreciating more of the forest around me. I was sure that some of the sounds had not been present in my previous hunts, and though that could easily have been attributed to my presence in a new area of the forest, I realized that the wolves' assistance might have extended more than a simple rabbit. And if they considered me as food, there... well, there might be others.

Still, the forest no longer seemed quite as... oppressive as it did before. Instead of the unease I felt when I first walked in, or even the underlying tension I felt every time I went out to hunt, I instead felt something very difficult to describe.

I guess I could say it felt like freedom.

A slight glow from the roots of a nearby tree interrupted me from my reverie.

I walked closer, poking my nose through the fortunately thorn-free bush.

There was a small ball there, a brilliant white, and clearly luminescent. I tested it with my teeth, finding it quite smooth. Jewel-like.

Odd finding it in a forest like this, but it wasn't mine. Perhaps the owner would be back later.

Or the owner was an animal and I was in its territory. Taking it would be a very bad idea then.

I started walking again. Roughly northwest, given where the sun was coming through the trees.

At this point, I knew that I was unlikely to still be in the wolves' hunting area. Well, I didn't know that. But I certainly had traveled a good distance already. Enough to feel reasonably safe, even if I stayed here more than the two days.

But the sun was still fairly high in the sky. It wasn't even noon yet.

Wait, am I supposed to be nocturnal now?

I shook my head. Still, I was curious to see what was at the edge of the forest.

If there was an edge, at least. It was completely possible that I had happened on a world completely covered in forest.

Still, that didn't make too much sense. If there was a forest fire, the entire world would burn at once. That was just silly.

Another glow made me stop in my tracks.

"What the..."

The bush right next to me was the culprit, and another brief exploration revealed another glowing orb.

I tested it with my mouth. It was the exact same shape and material.

And there was a deep feeling in my gut, that this was the same orb. That the orb was important. That I needed to hold on to the orb.

I started walking again, the orb fitting comfortably in my mouth.

I mean, it only made sense. And even if I was wrong, there was another one of these things a hundred yards back. Nobody would miss just one of them.

Huh, it feels kinda warm.