The Slums of Euridayl

7: Sharing is Caring

As with most mornings, Thokre had gathered himself some warm tea in his flask and took to wandering around Euridayl's lush forests. This morning, he was primarily in search of new strains of berries. If he found the edible sort, he had a particular jelly recipe in mind to do the trick on his otherwise boring bread loafs. Were he to find any poisonous strains, he had a plan in mind for them too.

He'd only managed to gather two types so far and he wasn't entirely sure what manner of berry that they were. Still, he tucked them into his knapsack and started to move towards the small stream about half a mile from his home. As he got to the stream, he rinsed the berries in the waters and froze when he heard a strange sort of noise.

It was a soft whimpering. Thokre looked around curiously but his eyesight was not what it used to be and he saw nothing amiss. He turned towards the source of the noise. It was a short way down the stream, and making up his mind, Thokre started to move in the direction of the noise. As he grows closer, his eyes spot something slumped over and he quirks a brow.

When he's gotten too close, the whimpering form starts to growl menacingly. It is then that the old man realises there is a wounded wolf near the stream. His feeble eyes sort out the blood on its back legs and half of its face. He studies the creature for some time as it continues to growl at him from an unmoving position.

"You've been heard rather badly, little fellow."

"Little" was a bit of an oxymoron as the wolf was full grown and probably up to Thokre's waist standing upright. Still, he wondered if he could help the creature without getting himself eaten.

He drew a little closer, the wolf still letting out a low growl as it peered up at the man.

"I don't mean to hurt you, quite the opposite, I'm a healer."

The old man was halfway sure he was growing senile in old age, talking to a feral wolf whilst alone and mostly unarmed in the sort of spot his body might never be discovered. Thokre put his walking staff down and crouched to a position his aching back did not agree with.

The wolf paused their warning snarls when Thokre had lowered himself, but resumed with a quickness when the man put one hand closer to the creature.

"C'mon fellow, I'm a measly old man. Even if I sought to hurt you, it'd be a ripe difficult time actually doing so."

The creature blinked twice, before trying to scoot away from the old man and yelping when their legs scraped across the forest floor. Thokre sighed and dug around his satchel for something to help out with the situation.

He suddenly saw the pieces of roasted rabbit meat he'd packed for lunch and he eyed the injured wolf before picking up one of the pieces and putting it in the palm of his hand. The wolf sniffed the air and turned to him curiously.

"O'course you'd listen when there's a meal involved, rotten bastard."

The wolf was unmoved by the old man's statement, still peering at the hand. Thokre extended the hand slowly downward until it was just before the creature's nose. The wolf sniffed it, before quickly gobbling down the piece of meat.

Thokre looked at the wolf with a hint of sarcastic humour on his face.

"Right then, shall we be friends now?"

The wolf made no move of discontentedness and Thokre felt comfortable enough taking off one of his shawls and wrapping it around the creature.

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Befriending an injured wolf was one matter. Finding a way to then move it to your hut half a mile away without provoking violence: that was another thing entirely.

By some miracle of luck, Thokre had worn just enough robes that morning to fasten a sort of pulley back-pack for his woodland friend. O'course, that meant he was standing in the middle of the forest in undergarments and no shirt, trying to coach a wolf into a backpack.

It was a funny sort of image, an ancient naked man gently moving this limb then that into the proper place very slowly, with the fear of all the gods in Azzan that the creature didn't rip him to shreds. Still, his wolf friend seemed vaguely aware that the man did not want to harm him, and he obliged well enough.

"Now then, I'm going to pull you up onto my back."

The wolf blinked almost uninterestedly at the man. Thokre took that for a solid enough answer and slipped the strap over his neck and slowly hoisted the wolf up onto his back. There was a light yelp in the mix but eventually things settled and the creature was secured to him. With that, Thokre kicked his staff up into his hand and leaned over onto it to help alleviate some of the weight.

Putting seventy plus pounds on your back when you were past the age of sixty five was hardly recommended and he was sure Bastian would scold him endlessly if he ever found out. Thokre started to wobble back to his home, with the wolf breathing steadily against him.

At any moment, the wolf could become unsettled and scrape the old man to shite trying to get away. Though, by the luck of the gods, the creature didn't.

They made it into the hut with little fuss as the old man scanned the area for a place to set the wolf down for treatment. It was only then he realised most flat surfaces in the cottage were covered with various projects he was working on. Thokre grumbled at himself as he carried the wolf to his bed and slowly lowered the creature onto it.

"Alright, sir."

The wolf looked around curiously as some of his blood soaked into the quilt. Thokre sighed in acceptance as he hobbled back through the house and to his healing tonics.

"Hmm, some antiseptics and gauze should do the trick."

Thokre began to gently heal and tend to the wolf's wounds.

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