Cyrene walked the boy back to her house. The strong scent of blood and entrails was too noticeable, and Cyrene's parents walked over with shocked faces.
"Who…is this boy," her father asked. "Did you capture a Bandit?"
"He's not a Bandit," Cyrene reassured him. "But he killed a small group of them. He's completely covered in their blood."
"What in the stars was he doing out there?" Her mother asked.
"I don't know, but he's freezing. I'm going to go get him washed up. Do we have any spare clothes for him?"
"Y-Yes, I have some old clothes in my bottom bottom shelf," her father said. "But Cyrene, are you sure about this. I mean, what if the Chief says something?"
"I'll let the Chief know once this storm passes, but he needs help now."
And with that, Cyrene walked the boy to their bathing room.
It wasn't the most spacious room, but it was large enough for the two to move comfortably. Though the boy didn't seem to care about comfortability right now.
"Just stand right here for a moment," Cyrene said. "I'm gonna go spark the rocks."
What Cyrene meant by this was basically how it sounded. Underneath a giant steel cauldron were a pile of rocks. And underneath those rock were firewood used to heat the rocks. Cyrene grabbed two rocks and scraped them together until sparks flew down to the wood and created a flames. She then blew gently at the wood to get the flames going faster.
While the rocks helped get the heat going faster, they also, along with the cauldron, helped prevent the fire from spreading since their house was mostly made of wood from the forestry.
This world was always piled with snow, so getting water wasn't very hard. They had a small window on the wall that opened and piled up snow into a large bucket, which Cyrene used to dump the snow into the cauldron. The snow would melt from the heat and turn into hot water.
While the water was being heated, there was another section where you would clean yourself before you went into the cauldron. Cyrene grabbed some water that was heated in the cauldron with the bucket walked the boy over to that section.
In this section, the floor was curved inwards so that the water dumped here would head downwards into a steel pipe where it would be taken to a steel container right in the middle of town. Many pipes were connected underground (or under snow) to everyone's homes. And every night, someone would go there and light a fire in the bottom section, where it was sealed off from the cold, and leave it to boil the water over night so that all the water would turn to steam and empty the container.
Cyrene had to make sure to take off all the entrails that were all over the boy's body since it would've clogged up the pipe.
"Alright, let's get these rags off," Cyrene said. "Can you lift your arms up?"
The boy didn't do anything.
'Does he not understand what I'm saying?'
Cyrene decided to just lift his arms up for him and took his shirt off. It was soaked with blood, so it stuck a little to his torso, but she managed to get it off with no trouble.
'So much blood… He must've killed at least three of them then.'
Next, came his pants.
"Ok, just pick this leg up…ok…then this one. There we go."
Cyrene got his pants off with surprisingly no trouble. This boy had pretty good balance.
"Ok, I won't make you pick your legs up again. I'll just cut them off." Cyrene said, getting her claws extended.
They were razor sharp claws. Like steel as hard as diamonds and as sharp as a blade. While they were exceedingly powerful, nobody ever used them after an incident that happened a decade ago.
Cyrene tore through the side of the boy's undergarments until they fell off. And Cyrene stared at him, half shocked, half curious. He looked like he hadn't eaten in days. His body was covered in fresh, bleeding scars and bruises. His hair was a curly mess. No part of him looked untouched.
'I've never seen someone so beaten like this. Who is this boy really? If he's not a Bandit, then…what? And…are those his ears? On the side of his head? His hair is black too. It's the same color as that of a Bandit, but why does it look so different?'
Cyrene reached out to touch the boy's hair. It didn't get soaked in any blood, but it was still a tangly mess. But the feeling when it met her fingers was a soft sensation. An innocent smile formed on her face as she play with his hair, ruffling it with her fingers.
"You're so adorable," Cyrene said. "I bet you were a nice boy when you were younger. Actually, how old are you? If I would guess, you look to be about sixteen."
When Cyrene was done playing with the boys hair, she got him cleaned up with the water. She also had a small wooden box with what looked like mud in her hand. She spread the mud like substance all over the boy's body.
"This stuff's really hard to find," Cyrene said as she scrubbed his back. "While you don't really need this, it helps keep our fur soft. Plus, it keep us from smelling bad. I'm not sure if it'll work on you though. You don't have any fur anywhere! Well…almost anywhere."
There was a small patch of fur that Cyrene noticed on his crotch.
"Hehe, everyone has that though!"
When she finished lathering the boy's body in the muddy substance, she poured the water on him and rinsed the mud off. Once all of it was off, she walked him over to the cauldron and helped him into the water.
"You wait right there, I'm gonna go grab some towels then come join you."
Cyrene ran off to the laundry area and grabbed some towels made of wool from a sheep sewn together. She came back to find the boy still sitting in the iron cauldron.
"Ok, give me one sec." She said.
She quickly undressed, washed herself with the mud, and hopped into the cauldron with the boy in a blink of an eye. The Wolfpack loved hunting and working a sweat, so they made sure that cleaning themselves was a brief process. However, Cyrene decided to stay in a little longer than usual.
One might thing 'why would this girl put so much trust in this boy?' Well, first of all, she's a primitive hunter, so she can defend herself with her sharp claws and teeth in case anything happens. Second, she had an odd amount of trust in this boy. Odd, because she had never met him. However, when she saw the eyes of this broken boy, she felt the need to save him.
"What happened to you," Cyrene asked. "I guess that's a dumb thing to ask since I'm not even sure if you can understand me."
The boy stared at the girl with eyes the color of emeralds. While they had a charm to them, they were broken beyond repair. Cyrene didn't know what to do to help him. If she didn't understand his situation, she couldn't do really anything for him besides offer him comfort.
"Hey, you wanna message my ears," Cyrene asked the boy. "Our ears are incredibly soft, so whenever someone in the pack is stressed we just message each other's ears and they feel much better."
Cyrene gently guided the boy's hand over to her ears. They were a little wet, but still unbelievably soft.
The boy didn't move his fingers though. Instead, he just stared at his hands placed on the girl's head. Cyrene felt a little sad about this.
"You won't even move your fingers around huh," she sighed. "Oh well. Come on, let's get you dried up."
While the boy wasn't stunned by the sequence, Cyrene exposing herself out of an iron cauldron full of water was quite a sight to behold. She was a petite girl who was about five centimeters shorter than the boy. Snow white hair and fur, creamy white skin, a well-toned six pack, modest breasts, and muscular, yet slender, legs.
She had the body of both a ferocious hunter as well as a beautiful girl.
"Here, let me help you out." Cyrene said.
She helped the boy out of the cauldron and dried him up with the wool towel. She then helped him get into some clothes her dad lend over and walked him out to the living room.
"You look much better now," Cyrene said to him. "I hope you're hungry, cause we've got dinner ready."
Sure enough, the wonderful scent of sizzling meat breezes through the house as Cyrene's mouth watered with excitement.
"I see someone's ready for dinner," Cyrene's mother said, setting down a book. "I hope the boy likes ayala meat."
"I'm sure he'll love it," Cyrene said. "I mean, it's only the best meat there is."
"You really are Sasha's daughter," Cyrene's father chuckled. "However, we all know that averett meat is the best."
"I don't understand you dad! Averatt meat is way too rough. Plus, it gets stuck in my fangs."
"You can't call yourself a true Wolfpack member unless you love averatt meat!"
"Oh Ewan," Sasha sighed. "You've grown too fond of the mountains."
"What's wrong with the mountains?"
"It's not the woods." Cyrene chimed in.
They all three laughed at her comment.
"Sometimes going back to your roots helps calm you down a little." Ewan said.
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Sasha said "Ayala meat is still the best meat though"
"Yeah, I'm still siding with mom on this one.
"Are you sure that you're my daughter?" Ewan joked.
The boy watched as the three joked around and laughed off the friendly banter. While his eyes had shown no sign of emotions, he still stared with those emerald colored eyes.
Cyrene led him over to their table and sat him down with a plate of ayala meat along with a cup of water with some strawberries in it and some liquid in another cup. The plates and cups were all made of wood and there were no utensils.
"Dinner is ready everyone," Ewan declared. "Dig it!"
Everyone picked up their pieces of meat and started chomping into it. They were pretty huge pieces, so cutting them would be pretty tough. Well, they were part wolf so it wasn't really a huge shocker that they would just eat bare handed.
"Com on, shry thum!" Cyrene said to the boy with a mouth full of ayala.
The boy looked at his plate of meat, then turned to the cup of strawberries, then to the odd liquid.
"What, you've never had strawberries before," Ewan asked him. "Don't worry. Fruit is really sweet, so give it a try. Oh, and that cup has some nice cherry wine with a bit of honey. Trust me, it all tastes good."
The boy then stopped staring at his plate, then stared at the three who were giving him hearty smiles.
"We're not completely sure what your situation is, but we'll help you," Sasha said. "If Cyrene trusts you, then I guess I'll have to trust you as well."
"You can stick around with us for as long as you need," Ewan said. "God forbid what kind of monstrosities you saw out their in that storm."
Cyrene placed her hand on the boy's hand and gently squeezed it.
"We're quite ferocious hunters, but we're also nice people," she said. "We'll halo you out the best we can."
One of the many things about the Wolfpack that's beyond incredible was their intuition. They could easily tell a good person from a terrible one. While Cyrene had a little trouble trying to figure out this kind of person, she could tell that deep down, beyond all of the blood, scars, and breaks, that this boy was a good person. And after reassuring herself as well as her family of that, they all welcomed him with open arms.
The boy blinked his eyes a few times, then looked back down at his plate, picked up the chunk of meat, and bit a piece off. He swallowed the piece he bit off, then ate a strawberry. Finally, he took a tiny sip of the wine and-
*…drip*
The ears from the three twitched a little of the sound of liquid hitting the table. At first, they figured a bit of wine dropped from the corner of his mouth.
*…drip*
There it was again. The same sound. When the three looked over at the boy…
*…drip* *…drip*
…he was crying. While no sounds came from his mouth, tears welled up in his eyes and fell to the table. Cyrene dropped her ayala onto the plate and rushed over to hug him, bringing his head to her chest and holding tightly. Her parents stopped eating and walked over to hug the boy as well.
Within seconds, the boy was had arms covered in warm fur wrapped all around him, with no sign of them ever letting go.
"I can't imagine what you had to go through," Sasha said, tears welling in her eyes as well. "And honestly, I'm not sure if I could take hearing it without crying myself."
"Dad, will you welcome him?" Cyrene asked Ewan.
"How could I not after seeing this," Ewan said. "Hey, listen to me boy. Whenever you're ready, tell us your stories. But for now, let yourself rest in our arms. Welcome to the Wolfpack. And welcome to our family."
The boy was still not making any sounds, but the tears rained even harder after Ewan's last sentence. When was the last time this boy ever just sat down and relaxed with a meal? How many times has he had to fight to stay alive?
These were the questions that the family wanted to ask the boy, but for now they wanted to let him rest. The storm wouldn't end for about another three days, so the boy could sleep for as much as he needed.
Cyrene grabbed extra blankets and lay the boy down next to her on a pillow next to the fireplace in the living room. Ewan and Sasha both sat on the couch with books in their hands until they too fell asleep. Cyrene wanted to waited for the boy to fall asleep, but she eventually caved in from all the comfortability around her.
However, it didn't take the boy much longer to close his swollen eyes. It was beyond obvious. This boy was very exhausted and hasn't had a good rest in a very long time. But now, he could finally sleep without worry. And within seconds after closing his eyes, he instantly drifted off to sleep.
He wouldn't wake up for the whole three days, but Cyrene and her parents just smiled at the boy. They knew that he must've been very tired, so they let him be until Cyrene eventually grew tired herself and crawled back into the blanket with the sleeping boy.
After two days had passed the family started to notice differences with the boy. His face looked more well toned, the cuts and scars on his body were healing nicely, and his ragged breathing had gone to a more normal pace.
"Looks like he's starting to feel better now." Sasha smiled.
"Guess he really was that exhausted," Ewan said. "Poor boy."
"He'll get better soon," Cyrene said. "And when he does, I'll make sure to give him a tour around the town. And I'll introduce him to the Chief as well."
The boy definitely had a lot to look forward to once he wakes up, even if he doesn't know about it yet.