Arlin shrugged to himself after a few minutes of waiting for his wolf companion. He knew he had no control over Morsilme and honestly did not expect the wolf to wait around for the wood elf to finish his reveries. It worked well enough for Arlin. The two had been companions for a long time now and the one thing Arlin had learned was that a wolf was not a beast to be tamed, nor were they meant to be. The magic of the animal was lost if its spirit was broken.
Ha, just like the spirits of any man or beast. Break it and you break them. Few ever come back from it. His hand tightened into a fist subconsciously.
Shaking his red hair out of his face, Arlin huffed out a breath. He tried not to let his mind wander to such places. It was merely fuel for the caged beast in his soul. To feet that thing was to make it stronger, and he had such tentative control over it as is. But then, he was in the middle of a massive forest. Should he lose control, there should not be any civilian casualties. Of course Arlin would regret the damage to the forest itself, but better that than slaughtering innocents as was his history when the beast raged. He sighed.
Where is that damn wolf!?Arlin reached out with his senses, following the link that lay between the wolf and him. It wasn’t so much an exact locator as more a compass that always pointed to his friend.
Friend? Huh. Never realized I thought of the wolf as such. Sensing the wolf lay a long trek to the south-west, the wood elf hopped down off the low branch and landed with an acrobatic roll to redistribute the force. He came to his feet gracefully and snatched his bag that was lying against the massive tree trunk, quickly slinging it over his shoulder to lie against his cloak. With a deep breath, Arlin plunged into the underbrush in the direction of his companion.
***
Leagues away from Arlin, Morsilme slowly stalked the pack that he had scented previously. The wolf’s ice blue eyes scanned its surroundings cautiously as it circled the scent so that it remained downwind. It did not want to be noticed by its brethren in case the pack was led by an aggressive alpha. Shows of dominance were an irritation to the lone wolf, such is why it had chosen to bond with another lone wolf, despite that one’s bipedal nature, as opposed to dealing with its own kind. Morsilme held a strange level of sentience and intelligence for a mere wolf.
It found itself slowly approaching the scents. Sniffing again, it detected…a human. And something else of a nature it had not come into contact with. Morsilme’s detected the pheromones that indicated this unknown entity was female but it could tell nothing much more than that. A sense of wolfishness came across but it was unlike any wolf he’d come in contact with before. Unknowns were a danger. Sticking to stealth, Morsilme crept closer until it could see through the bush it was using as a hiding spot. From here, it saw the six wolves, a human male, and a woman. The woman confused it but six wolves did not. Hackles began to rise as Morsilme surveyed the scene, yet it remained a motionless black shadow within the bush as it waited.
He felt a momentary pulse from Arlin and knew his companion would be following along eventually. Morsilme hoped he didn’t come from downwind either, because the wolf would be hard-pressed to smell his coming. The wood elf loved to sneak up on Morsilme. He seemed to like making a game of it.
