Niora and The Wolf
Young Niora took the basket of fresh baked bread from her mother, listening gravely to the words of advice and warning that came from the woman's mouth. It was the same speech as was given every time Niora went to her grandmother's cabin on the other side of the forest that bordered their village. Watch out for wolves, stay on the path, and don't talk to strangers, the things mothers were expected to say to their daughters when they went on two day trips.
Niora wore a heavy wool cloak with a hood, to guard against the cold and any possible rain that might fall. The girl thought briefly of the previous day's storm, which had ripped fence posts from the ground and smashed chicken coups to pieces. The storm had set the old men of the village to recounting tales of the last such storm they had witnessed. Niora still recalled the ghostly blue glow of the lightning that came just before the resounding claps of thunder.
"And remember, your grandmother's eyesight is going, so if she asks you to help with something while you're there, do it. Safe Journey, my Lamb." Niora's mother watched her daughter walk down the path towards the forest trail that led to cabin on the far side. Worry made the woman want to call her child back, but reason held her back. For all the dangers she preached, she knew there was little danger if Niora kept to the path, which the child invariably did. Letting the worry be pushed to the back of her mind, the mother went back to baking fresh bread, this time for her husband and son to have for their midday meal. As she worked she thought of her own trips along that path, many years before.
The forest had changed little in the twenty-odd years since her days of walking through it, a fact she knew from Niora's descriptions. The trees created a cave-like aura where their branches and leave overlapped and wove together. The path was still lined with holly and raspberry bushes, and wild daisies still sprouted in the open areas and meadows. The little bridge that lay just past the fork in the trail was still there, a few of the saplings used to make it had been replaced, surely, but it was still a quaint little thing, just wide enough for a single person to cross. With a sigh born of nostalgia the middle-aged mother put the dough in the oven.
In said forest Niora found herself in a hard situation. The storm the previous day had caused the stream that ran under the small bridge on the path to overflow. The water was too deep to cross without soaking her clothes and the bread for her grandmother, however the path was mostly dried, with mud and water present only in the occasional dip and divot. Knowing her grandmother would be waiting for the bread Niora decided to continue her mission of delivery.
Despite her mother's warning the young girl decided to take the second path, which had another bridge further upstream, which with luck still stood so she would be able to cross. Humming happily Niora started half skipping back to the fork that would take her to the other bridge, listening to the trill of squirrels as they called their warnings and the sweet melodies of the songbirds as they fluttered and danced in the air above her head.
Her actions were not without witness. From the depth of the forest a pair of yellow eyes watched the bright red hood the girl wore. The eye-catching color was easily tracked by the hunter's golden orbs. Moving silently the big animal followed the girl, his gaze never leaving her. The girl was completely unaware of her watcher.
Finding the second bridge intact Niora crossed the stream and continued on her way to her grandmother's cabin, the fresh bread letting its delicious scent waft about, alerting every living thing within a fair distance of the girl's presence in the forest. It was not long before the red-hooded girl found herself confronted by a strange man with an axe on his shoulder, and a strange wide grin upon his face.
"'Ello, lit'l lass, got ye some fresh bread do ye?" The man spoke cheerfully but his demeanor unnerved the young girl. Without showing her fear she looked the man in the face and smiled before responding.
"I've come to the forest with father and brother. They should be coming along soon, they just went back to tell mother about the other bridge being washed out, so that she doesn't have to back up to the fork like we did." Niora's voice held only a slight tremor, and her face remained calm and cheerful, just a young girl out with her family on a picnic with her father and brother.
"S'that so?" The big man never stopped smiling, but he did move aside, letting the child pass. "Ah'll let yer father an' brother know ye've gone ahead. 'Ave a nice day now, lit'l lass." The man moved away, silently and nimbly for man who must have been almost seven feet tall, and near as wide as he was tall.
Letting the strange man slip from her mind Niora continued on her way, still not knowing of her silent stalker in the woods. She never saw the black shadow that slipped from bush to shrub, nor heard the soft swishing noise of the ferns parting as the large animal slid through them. Had she turned about at least once she may have caught sight of the bushy tail whisking back into the foliage when the beast crossed the path to avoid obstacles or clearings where it might have been seen. Had she been paying more attention she would have at the very least realized that all the noisy animals had fallen silent.
The strange man already forgotten, and her other admirer not even acknowledged, Niora stopped in the clearing at the halfway point of her trip to eat the simple cheese and bread midday meal her mother had prepared. Once the bread and cheese were torn into chunks of bite sizes she tucked into the meal a gusto that would have made her father proud. Halfway through her meal the girl was surprised to find the strange man from before standing at the edge of the path, his nerve-wracking grin still present.
"Tha' was no' very nice, lit'l lass. Ye had me convinced yer father an' brother were comin' on down the path. Lyin' ain't becomin' o' a pret'y lit'l lass like ye." The man swung his large axe in an arc that left a lock of Niora's hair drifting towards the ground and a thin trickle of blood running from a shallow slice on her forehead. "Now Ah'll 'ave ta punish ye."
"N-no! Help! Somebody, please!" Her cries were met only by the laughter of the strange man. He knew as well as she that there were no other people on in these woods. The two wrongly assumed however that they were alone. As Niora scrambled backwards the Amber-eyed watcher sprang from the bushes behind her.
The beast that came to stand between the two was easily as big as the mule that the girl's mother used to carry the linens from the stream to the drying lines, and black as pitch but for the tips of his ears and tail and the lower half of his legs, which were a greyish white that seemed almost silver. "Help...me..."
The wolf growled low, his eyes never leaving the axe that was perched on the strange man's shoulder. If the wolf had been able to respond to the question of why he had saved the girl, he would have had no answer, other than instinct. It was his nature to protect the weaker members of his pack, and especially the pups. The girl's youth likely played a role in his course of actions that day.
When the man swung the wolf leapt, his body cutting through the air as easily as the axe. The difference between the axe and the wolf, however, was immediately evident to those present. Whereas the axe had merely glanced off the animal's left hindquarter, the wolf's teeth had found their place in the man's throat. With a shake of his head the wolf finished his work, snapping the would-be killer's spine and tearing the soft flesh that protected the important blood vessels of the neck.
"Thank you." Niora let the breath she'd been holding let in a great sob, throwing her arms around the giant wolf's neck, paying no heed to the instinct that should have told her to run away. The wolf, which had stiffened from the contact, let his muscles relax, turning his muzzle towards the crying girl. For this creature, which had been left alone after the deaths of his pack-mates, the contact was almost therapeutic. Licking the girl's tears from her face he looked towards the basket the girl carried. With a laugh that still held some of the hysteria that made her weep, the girl took a piece of cheese from the basket and held it out to the wolf. "This is a small price to pay for saving my life."
After the wolf finished the cheese the two left, together, for the girl's grandmother's cabin. Forever after the wolf walked with the girl through the forest, protecting her from the dangers that lay hidden on the long, dark forest path.
By Dream Walker
