I stood before the dead corpse of the wolf that made me look like a terrible Halloween ornament as my body took one step before I crumbled down to the ground again.
I wanted to moan in pain, however, I don't think that I can due to the sheer pain and lack of certain muscles needed. So I just lied there, letting my body get even more filthy from the dirt that's been kicked up and brown leaves still falling from the sky.
The wolf's green lines that ran across it's body were still strongly prominent, but they seemed to begin dulling. The pack on the sidelines all watched in quiet as the mate of the alpha that I fought walked over to it and prodded it lightly with her nose, whimpering a little before setting it's sights on me instead.
'.....I suppose there's not much of a concept of honor amongst wolves? At least I hope they have something like this, because right now I have about a couple lives to waste, but I'd rather not waste them in the first place.'
My thoughts were still teetering as it looked at the corpse of it's lover, then to it's pack that were next to the child and the deer, and finally to me, cycling over and over for what seems like an eternity.
It then took a couple steps away from the corpse before it howled into the air, a ball of orange and red starting to coalesce above it's lover's corpse as it slowly lowered and created an inferno.
It was at that moment I knew, that I had fucked up. I was holding another magic wolf by the throat, and I suppose she wanted a genuine battle to occur, so she called up her big boyfriend to come over and shred me alive with floral powers.
Right as my thoughts were telling me to get up and kill it before it could set it's sights on the kid, it looked to me and bowed once, before it went back to it's pack and lowered itself before the child.
She was more than confused about why another wolf went and made itself prostate before her, and so she glanced over to me, seeing the fear in my lidless eyes, trying to convey the feeling that I didn't want her to get any more hurt than what she could handle.
Was this a stupid thought? Seeing as how almost all of nature would bend themselves over in majesty before her? Maybe. Then again, they're animals, and my life is technically tied to hers, so it wouldn't innately be terrible to make sure she's walking, smiling and breathing.
The wolves all follow the lead of the female leader as it then prowled over to me, eliciting a reaction from the elf that was described as worry for me.
I tried to stand, the regeneration slowly taking its time to make itself more prominent as my body felt like it was on fire. It should genuinely be radiating steam from the rate it was working at. After all, it was energy, and I'm still certain that the laws of thermodynamics are still a thing that exist here.
My spine was already back to working order when it approached me, so I jumped up to my feet, which weren't completely covered in skin yet as I got into stance again. Truth be told I was actually very tempted to try and fight again, but common sense prevailed before my stupidity, and I just kept up my guard.
There wasn't much violence that I could even do in this scenario, and I hope to whichever deity above right now that there wouldn't be any for a very very long time in this existence of mine.
It stopped before me, allowing itself some room between us to kneel on one of it's forelegs, before it stood again, looking towards the rest of it's pack and leading them all away from the clearing, going somewhere I wouldn't know unless I tracked them down.
But it was when my face started to properly reconstruct itself I calmed down and was able to feel eyelids again. My eyes stung even more than usual, and I fell to the ground once more, clawing my way over to the child as she ran to me on top of the deer.
She was dismounting already when the pain and fatigue hit me even harder than I would've considered healthy.
'I'm old dammit, why am I the one that had to fight against magical wolves?'
My final thoughts went off in my head as I let the tiredness kick me into a dreamless sleep. The moment that I awoke again, I was in the shack, with a cloth on top of me as I groaned from he sores on my everywhere. "I need to calm down, genuinely."
My words seemed to have been caught by the child, who'd been staying near the foodpile, munching on the supplies that weren't meant to last all that long in the first place. She jumped out of the pile and into my gut, smacking the air right out of it as she made sure that nothing came back in by nearly breaking some of my ribs with the tight hug she gave.
"Calm thyself little culver. I'm still walking aren't I? And you know as well as I that whatever those wolves would've done wouldn't be permanent."
My words were nothing more than a white lie, because I didn't know what they would have been capable of if they didn't care for their bestial honor. Even now I was more than confounded by the lackadaisical nature of the mate that let me live.
Did it harbor young within it's womb and see itself fighting me much too costly? Did it genuinely see a threat? Or was it genuinely more principled than most people I knew long before?
Whatever answers I wanted at the moment seemed to only be attainable if I went to their pack. And I wasn't sure that they'd allot me the same mercy they did after that little duel I had.
I groan and pop some of the joints in my body for some quick relief, letting the little one get the idea that I was going to get up, with her thankfully getting the cue.
"Aye, this one was a bad fight. Too much trying, too little parts of any plan of mine to properly be used. Too many variables."
"What do you mean, old man?"
"It was a fair fight. Fair fights are hard fights. It's all skill, luck, timing and experience being pitted. No jacks, no jokers, just juggling their skills up until one falls, with the other still standing."
I stared at the sky through the doorway as I could begin to hear birds chirping all around us. It was then that I stood once more, taking a deep breath and speaking again.
"This journey of ours, it is one filled with peril, child. I know you once told me you would walk with me until you could kill me permanently, but this promise is one not so easily kept.
To be the one to slay me, you need to be more than unquestionably powerful, more than unreadable. Unpredictable is a goof thing, but when you're beginning to become unpredictable to even your friends, you begin to show yourself as a threat to them as well.
Then, and truly then, would you walk a path that will pose a looming threat do great that nobody within their right mind would ever have the mental fortitude to try and go against you."
My words? Complete, utter fallacies. Bullshit, if you may. I was weaker than ever. Yes, I didn't lose a life at this time, but I did lose something out of this.
"In any case little one how long was I asleep for?"
She took a moment to point at the sky again and that was when it clicked. It was a brand new morn. That means another life within the indents of my teeth.
But that also meant more than six hours of me being out for the count and letting so many other things try to attack us. I couldn't help but curse under my breath, of which I was certain that the little one heard, but I didn't call her out to lecture her again.
She'd just end up following my example in the end. I sighed as I went down from the tree, feeling even faster than yesterday, and yet simultaneously feeling nearly nothing. I would suppose that to be more than an exaggeration of my status as of this moment, however, it's more metaphor than hyperbole at this rate.
The aches started to get less and less as I realized that my hands got even more callused. My soles were of the same case, and I was confused about this feeling as well. I put it all aside for a moment as I walked over to the deer, looking as it grazed upon some loose grass that was off to the side.
"So."
'So.'
"No congratulations for the being that gave all of us a chance to live a little bit longer?"
'My gratitude is a natural factor.'
"And yet you act so careless, like there wasn't any problems when my skin was quite literally shredded off my leaves. Leaves, you tall, quadrupedal deer."
'You need not fret, Foreigner, the safety of the little one was as assured as it could have been.'
"ASSURED? YOU CALL BEING ENCIRCLED BY THEIR PACK AS ASSURED SAFETY? I had little to no clue that you cared little for life after what had happened to YOUR kin?"
'Twas not carelessness for living, Foreigner, 'tis but a natural agreement of the forest to allow those not included within the bout to walk unfettered, with the only true hurt gained being the loss of a warrior and the feeling of defeat.'
"And what if they had decided to belay the notion in its entirety? What if the grief of the one that leads them dying makes them forgo the very rules of the bout?"
'They would not dare to challenge the very traditions of the forest when a ruler is nearby.'
"Oh, and I was suppose to honor that? I was suppose to trust in some inane traditions, borne out of the idea that not a single one of you is going to go against them?
Opposition to order is almost always a consistent theme whenever I notice these sorts of things in the world."
The deer simply continued to graze, not caring for the fact that I was trying to make a conversation with it work for once.
"Trust is difficult to gain and easy to burn, deer. I will not deny the fact that my actions of scouting them and killing one of their birds was the spark to this blazing cacophonous inferno of suffering, but have you no decency to even try to help out?"
'Hmm, your words hold some truth to them.'
"Some? ONLY some? It is the truth, deer. Nothing but truth. You are more than capable of bringing me to the brink of shattering with your magic alone, now you are stronger, greater in might. Why in all of the world, had you not decided to keep a little fraction of safety whilst I was about to lay one of my lives down again?"
It just stared at me again with it's eyes while it went back to grazing once more.
'I knew that you would have won that battle.'
"Do not jest with me."
'I jest not, Foreigner, you are more than capable bringing an order to these lands beyond what many would possibly be capable of. But the power to create great orders all across, also brings along one who would bring the power to create horrific bouts of chaos.
I made a choice. If you fell within the battle, I would raise the young monarch to rule these forests, with I as an advisor and subject. If you were to prove victorious, well, what would've occurred is what is happening now.'
I couldn't help but pinch the bridge of my nose as I walked away for two seconds. "A choice? A choice that would have gone terribly, had I not been able to survive the bout. That's not a choice, deer. That's what's called a terrible decision.
I do not take half-chances lightly. They're chances borne of desperation, things that I wouldn't do had I more options available. You on the other hand, you are no true judge of capacity.
You are no omniscient creature, holding the very secrets of the existing and nonexistent. You are a deer, that can use gravity. That is what you are. You can be more, but right now, you are not more."
The deer simply blinked a couple times before it conceded with this gripe. I groaned a little from what I had to deal with again. This time, I feel as if there are few things going well. Well, in all honesty, that most likely could be summed up to karma, but that would just be absurd.
And yet the thought wasn't completely invalid. Karma exists within those who believe in it, in a way. Sure, the numbers roll ever so nicely whenever you are slighted, once in a blue moon. But in any other time, it's going to end with you being unsatisfied.
There's a saying that goes through my mind whenever I end up hearing about karma. Trust, but verify. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. And always reload before you go into the next roo- wait wrong one, that's for one o the games I played before.
Walking back over to where the bout between me and the wolf took place, I saw the bits of leaves that still had minuscule droplets of blood on them. Whether or not it was mine, I wasn't able to tell.
But what I did find to be certain was the outline of the fire that licked the body of the wolf to ashes. Geddit? Licked? Because sometimes there are things called tongues of flames? Anyway, I went to what could have remained except for a spectacular outline of the creature that skinned me alive and nearly got me.
And that's what's starting to get to me. I was getting better, ever so slightly. The last time, I could barely handle getting a rock into my skull without having to use up another life. Now, I could lose almost all of my skin and I'd still be able to continue.
This power, borne of me killing a wendigo. It really is something. Something so nice. Something so vile that even the me in the past would have at the very least shivered. Now, now I was the one making things shiver even further.
2029 was one hell of a year for me back then, so many people taken out with just the simple click of a button. Ah, it truly was a shame that the federal government of America found out about it. I was just about to make a really really good speech before they broke another limb back then.