บท 39: Child of Fenrir

When Leo heard Fenrir calling him, he was quite annoyed.

'I just had to deal with you two a few days ago and now you're calling me again, in the middle of the night no less?!' Leo thought to himself as he drifted further into his dreams. He arrived at the side of a creek and looked around. What annoyed him even more was that he recognized the place as where he was first attacked by the high wolf. As he looked around he suddenly saw a huge wolf silently walking towards him. There was still snow in the dream world, but the wolf was walking on top of it, showing that it didn't have a physical form. Leo recognized it as Fenrir, but it was bigger than Fenrir in the hut. He figured that it changed its size to accommodate Artemis.

'A place of fated meetings, where one took place more shall follow. Child of my blood, head my call and return to this place. A great boon awaits you. Many challenges lay in your path, and no wolf can survive the hunt alone.' Leo was annoyed, but he knew better than to ignore a call from a god or god beast. The dream ended, and Leo woke suddenly and silently. He debated on waking Iris, but decided he didn't want to involved her too much in matters directly regarding gods. He quietly dressed once more, and set out into the night.

He moved swiftly and silently through the forest. Even though he was only there the one time that he was conscious, he couldn't forget the memory of he wanted to. As he moved he thought about what Fenrir said to him, 'a place of fated meetings' it obviously referred to when he saw the high wolf for the first time and became tainted with its blood. It might also be referring to when he transformed the first time and saw Iris again not to far from there. He realized it could also be related to him meeting Iris for the first time. Now that he thought about it that area was scary regarding meetings for him.

As he arrived at the area, he became horrified at the scene that waited for him. There was blood everywhere, and laying in snow was the corpse of high she wolf. Looking at the surroundings Leo was an,e to guess what happened. The she wolf was desperate for food, and came across what appeared to be a maned boar. Normally a maned boar would be too dangerous for a pack of high wolves, let alone a lone she wolf. But perhaps due to her desperation, she attacked anyways and lost her life as a result. The boar apparently didn't suffer severe injuries, seeing as there wasn't any evidence of its corpse nearby, and the smell of the wolf blood drowned out any that might have been left from the boar.

Leo cautiously approached the corpse of the she wolf, and would have vomited if he wasn't used to dealing with his own sick "ritual" each month after a transformation. Skinning a kill and gutting it was completely different from seeing a torn up corpse. Apparently the boar had dealt with the wolf with extreme prejudice. While Leo was thinking about what Fenrir wanted him to do there, when he suddenly heard a small sound and he froze. He turned and noticed that there was a small path in the snow leading away from the corpse of the she wolf. Leo's eye was twitching at the development and he walked forward to the source of the sound and unsurprisingly found a wolf pup.

It was an infant, probably born after the mother was killed. Leo was confused about how it managed to live so long. So he closed his eyes and extended his senses toward the pup. He discovered that while it wasn't as much as Fenrir or Artemis, there was a spark of divinity in the small wolf. His eyebrow twitched as he understood the situation. The pup was Fenrir's direct child. Leo didn't want to know how it happened, he was only curious as to why he was the one who had to deal with it.

Shaking his head in resignation, he tucked the pup close, and cursed the fact that he resisted the cold and didn't bring a cloak with him. He slowly returned to the village, in order to prevent the pup from freezing, and so he could come up with an excuse to Iris and the others as to why he was bringing a wolf home. After a couple hours, he finally returned to the village.

What surprised him was that there was a decent sized party forming of hunters and warriors. As he approached though they seemed to relax, and Natalie came forward with a glare in her eye. He suddenly realized that they probably formed to find him when he wasn't found in his bed. He was confused though, he didn't want to be arrogant, but there wasn't anything that could seriously hurt him in the forest so why were they worried?

"So you didn't take off then? Where were you that we had Iris dragging us out of our beds and hammering on doors for the last few hours?!" Leo heard her words and leaned over to look at Iris, who automatically looked away. He sighed, he didn't want to tell them matters regarding the gods, but felt like he had to in that situation.

"I got a summon from Fenrir." He said plainly. The reaction was immediate as people comprehended his words. While it wasn't a secret that he was a champion in the village, personally receiving a summoning from a divine being, beast or not, wasn't anything common. Natalie also reacted and quickly forgetting her anger, asked him,

"What did the wolf God want?" She didn't dare disregard Fenrir's position. Even after hearing about Artemis from Leo, she was still a follower. She knew nothing else and couldn't find it in her to give up her faith immediately. As the god beast that was her companion, no hunter would ignore anything involving him. Leo didn't say anything, and simply opened up his arms to reveal the bundle he hid inside.

There was an audible gasp through the gathered people as they saw what Leo was holding. A wolf pup wasn't that rare, but since he got a personal summons from Fenrir, they knew that this must a direct descendant of his. Leo was worried about the cold with the pup, and quickly made his way to iris's hut in order to warm it up. Iris was right on his heels, and once the door was closed started making a bed for the pup and looking for something to feed it.