Into the woods [Solo]

Yrsa had decided to go for another walk in the woods. With Garth staying at her house, it was far easier to sneak out without Aksel and Aleksia following her, because they had someone else to play with. She’d warned her brother that they’d follow him wherever he went, with her not around to follow instead, and promised to be back before nightfall.

Honestly, that might have been an empty promise, considering she did get lost occasionally. But she’d never minded getting lost prior to getting the puppies. When she had no one who depending on her, what did it matter how long she spent in the woods. But it was different now. This was just one more reason she was glad her brother had come to visit. It had been far too long since she’d had a chance to just wander and not have to worry about the puppies scaring off any cute animals she wanted to pet.

Granted, she was wandering in the wolf’s wood again, and she didn’t imagine she’d find too many soft and cuddly animals to play with her there. But Kettil had assured her that he’d seen a wolf pack traveling not too far from Skagerrak, and Yrsa was determined to get a glimpse of them. She honestly wondered what she’d do once she did. Like, what would she spend her days doing after that? Of course, she had the puppies, so her time getting lost in the woods was likely coming to an end. Maybe her mother was right and she was getting too old for that? She shuddered at the thought of acknowledging that her mother could be right about anything when it came to Yrsa’s life.

She’d been wandering quietly for a couple hours now, and decided to stop for a moment to get her bearings. She could see smoke coming from the east of her, and knew the village was in that direction. While she was paused to make sure she knew where she was, Yrsa thought she heard a soft whining noise, and looked around quickly, assuming one of the puppies had followed her. Following the quiet noises, she spotted a small wiggling puppy. It took her a moment to recognize, but after creeping closer slowly, Yrsa realized it was a wolf pup.

The poor thing’s leg was trapped in a rotted tree trunk, and it was clearly malnourished. Pulling some dried beef out of a pouch on her belt, Yrsa tore it into pieces and offered them to the pup one at a time. She managed to creep a bit closer while it was distracted by the food, and took out her axe, using the blunt end of the handle to try to free the pup’s leg.

She didn’t want to startle the poor thing, so it took her a bit of time, but she soothed the tiny wolf with gentle pats, feeding it slowly so it wouldn’t get sick. Eventually the rotted wood gave way and she got the leg loose. Looking it over, it had been rubbed raw from trying to get it loose on it’s own, but Yrsa didn’t think there were any serious injuries.

She sat cross legged on the ground, her axe on the ground beside her in case the little wolf’s pack was still nearby, and continued to feed it slowly. It was sniffing at her now, though she was certain it was only after more of her food. When she had a chance, she snuck a peek to find out whether the pup was a girl or a boy, so she could stop thinking of it as an it, and discovered it was a girl. “What’s your name, then? Hmm?” she asked, scratching her under her chin.

When Yrsa realized the sun was starting to set, she got up slowly, fed the little girl another piece of food, and slowly stood up, not wanting to startle her. She’d planned to just free the poor thing, get something in her stomach and then hope she was able to find her family. However, the little wolf trailed after her, and no matter how many times Yrsa told her ‘no,’ or ‘stay,’ she continued to follow her back towards the village.

“Looks like you listen about as well as my pups,” she told her with a smile. “I don’t think I’m allowed to bring you home with me!” Yrsa turned and headed towards the village again but the wolf continued to follow her. Once she reached the border of the village, and the pup was still right behind her, Yrsa scooped her up and headed for home. “Okay, I guess you are coming home with me. So you need a name. You look like… an Anja? How do you feel about that?” When the pup licked her face, Yrsa scrunched her face up in disgust. “I’m glad you approve of the name, but your breath stinks.”

Hopefully Aksel and Aleksia were already trained enough to be well behaved around the little pup. She was certain Anja had to be older than she looked, but was simply tiny due to being malnourished, and guessed her age to be around three months or so. The two dogs were closer to six months now, but she was hopeful the three of them would be fast friends.

It had been a few days since Anja followed Yrsa home, but things were going… okay at her house. Aksel and Aleksia had been very excited to meet her, but Anja had taken a little while to adjust. She wasn’t quite as easily excited as the pair of them, and had been wary at first. But it seemed the puppies were just well enough trained to listen to her despite their excitement, and Yrsa had managed to keep them separated for the first.

The next day, she’d spent quite a lot of time with the three of them, trying to get them used to each other before she made any real attempts to train Anja. The little wolf wouldn’t learn anything if she was too busy baring her teeth or whining at the two rambunctious dogs.

But finally, Aksel and Aleksia didn’t find Anja quite as interesting any longer, and she didn’t find them as worrisome, and Yrsa thought it would be a good time to see what she could accomplish.

She’d been playing with dogs since she was a kid, and had always managed to teach them a few things fairly easily but none were ever actually hers. Her mother didn’t like or want pets, and Yrsa had never been allowed to keep any in the house. She thought she’d done fairly well with the puppies so far. They knew the basics, and were usually good at doing as they were told, provided they were not too excited to even hear what she’d said. So, there was still some room for improvement.

Heading out with them all to the edge of the forest so they were alone, she kind of hoped they’d all learn to hunt for themselves instead of relying solely on her to eat. Not because she was worried about having to feed them, but because she was worried about what would happen to them if anything ever happened to her. If she were killed in a battle, she didn’t want them to starve because she was no longer there to feed them.

Yrsa had cut a couple cooked fish into small squares, and stuck the cubes of meat into a bag. She had to start with the basics, right? Anja didn’t even know how to ‘sit’ yet. That would be step one. She had a few afternoons of monotonous training ahead of her, if she wanted them all to have ‘sit’, ‘stay’, and ‘come’ down fairly quickly, but she was determined.

Aksel and Aleksia knew ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ so she was focusing mostly on Anja, but there would be no harm in reinforcing it with them. Taking a piece of meat from the pouch, she smiled when they all immediately started wagging their tails at her. She made sure they all got a good sniff before she said, “Sit!” while raising her hand higher in the air. Usually, when their heads went up, their bums went down. Both Aksel and Aleksia sat immediately, but Anja was simply staring at the piece of food between her fingers. Yrsa had to walk over, keep her one hand held high, so Anja couldn’t reach it by jumping, and repeated, “Sit!” while pushing Anja’s bottom down with her other hand, and then rewarded the three of them with a piece of fish, and lots of praise.

She could tell this was how it would going to be a long afternoon.

A little over a month had passed since Yrsa brought Anja home, now that the little thing was properly fed, she wasn’t so little anymore. She knew Aksel & Aleksia were probably around three months older than Anja, but she was quickly catching up to them in size. She knew it wouldn’t be long before she outgrew them. Luckily, the three of them had quickly become inseparable, which was quite a relief for her. She’d worried for quite a while that their natures and instincts would be too different, too conflicting, and either the wolf or the pair of dogs would become too aggressive towards the other, but it hadn’t happened yet. The three of them often slept together, played together, and even ate together without any real displays of dominance. Yrsa was certain it helped that the two pups had been bigger and had almost immediately adopted Anja as one of their own, so she’d never been scared of or threatened by them.

Today they were out in the woods again, because while they’d managed to master Sit, Stay, Come & Quiet, with the exception of Aksel who whined pitifully whenever he didn’t immediately get his way, Yrsa still wanted them all to be relatively self sufficient, which meant they all needed to know how to hunt. And obviously they couldn’t hunt anywhere near the village.

They all loved to chase squirrels together so Yrsa was confident their natural instincts would kick in when they were needed but she didn’t want to just wait and hope they all knew how to look after themselves. That wouldn’t be helpful for them if anything ever happened to her. The odds of her parents taking in the three of them were slim, as her mother was still convinced Anja would eat her face one night. And while she thought Garth might be willing to take care of them for her, it was a lot to ask of her brother. And a wolf wandering about Kattegat might not exactly be a welcome thing in the village. Skagerrak was surrounded by forest, so it was an ideal location to have animals like hers.

Taking a seat against a big tree once they were a decent distance from the village, Yrsa gathered up a few sticks and stones, and played with the three of them for a bit. She threw sticks in the hope that they’d bring them back to her but so far they all just tore them apart immediately before returning to her and waiting for her to throw another. When she ran out of decent sized sticks, she tossed some stones into some bushes nearby, hoping to scare some small animals out of hiding for them to chase after. Aleksia didn’t exactly understand what was happening and barked at a bush for about ten minutes straight. Yrsa assumed she expected it to return the stone she’d lost in it.

This continued for some time, and Yrsa was getting a bit disappointed. She knew it was entirely possible there simply were no squirrels or rabbits or any other kind of animals lingering nearby, with the amount of noise the three of them had been making. But she’d hoped she’d get to watch them chase after something other than sticks and stones. Maybe that was her mistake. She’d have to bring them back the following day and start with the stones, hoping that would shake loose a rabbit or two.

However, just when she was about ready to give up, she noticed Anja’s ears perk up, followed quickly by the pair of dogs, and they all grew quiet, turning to look away from her. Yrsa watched, fascinated, as they all moved slowly, silently, not in the same direction, but as if they were going to form a circle around whatever it was they’d heard moving. When Anja looked up, Yrsa did as well and smiled when she spotted the squirrel that had been climbing down a tree trunk. The squirrel must’ve caught their scent and turned around. As soon as it moved, all three of them charged the tree and started barking or growling up at the poor thing.

While that was certainly not what she’d call successful, it was promising. She’d take it for now.

Two more months had passed, and Yrsa had honestly not realized quite how large her three pups would become. She was confident the three of them were now all more or less as large as they’d be getting, though she didn’t think any of them were actually a full year old yet, which meant she could be wrong. They could keep growing for a few more months. But their growing had certainly calmed down over the last few weeks, so she was sure they wouldn’t be getting too much bigger.

They were still a bit more friendly than she’d anticipated, but she couldn’t be upset about something like that. It was cute, how they got excited when they met someone new. And they were well trained now, and behaved themselves, responding to her commands almost immediately. So their overly friendly behavior didn’t trouble her too much. Anja was always quick to growl when someone got too close for her liking, or raised their voice, which got the other two growling as well, and Yrsa had discovered it was an excellent deterrent. It would certainly come in handy whenever she was outside of Skagerrak.

She was heading to Kattegat tomorrow, and wanted to give the three of them plenty of time to run off some energy, so they’d hopefully spend most of the voyage napping. If she was lucky.

Yrsa herself was starting to feel a bit anxious about the whole thing. Going to Kattegat was usually something that excited her, but this time was different, and her nerves were starting to take over. In an attempt to ignore those feelings, she started running, heading for the forest, and didn’t need to look behind her to see if her pups were following. She’d caught them by surprise, but they caught up and kept pace with her for a moment before they all took off ahead of her.

Once she was fair deep into the woods, Yrsa slowed down and looked around, trying to listen for the pups. After a few minutes without hearing anything, she whistled loudly, and another few moments passed before she heard them crashing in her direction. She whistled again, so they could find her, and soon enough she spotted them running towards her. When they reached her, they jumped around her excitedly for a moment before she shushed them, and they quieted. All three of them were panting pretty hard, and followed her to the waterfall, where they lapped at the water quietly.

It was far too cold now to go swimming, but ever since that day she’d been here with Kettil & Gerolf, Yrsa had come back occasionally. She hadn’t run into either of them there yet, which was also nice since she had no desire to run into Gerolf, like, ever. But she liked it here, and it was a nice place for her to wander while she’d been letting her beasts roam and hunt on their own.

Now that she’d worked off a lot of her energy, and anxiety with it, Yrsa was once again looking forward to heading to Kattegat in the morning. She missed her brother, she’d get to see her friend, Eldora, and hopefully do enough digging that she’d learn something important and be able to report back to the Countess and prove herself once and for all.