Enchantments and Other things

Chapter 2. - The wolf

The night was cold.

Most nights Yna welcomed the cold, it numbed her. Yet that night, she had no reason to. It was one of those nights where things were calm. Everything was vivid and surreal. The cool air nipped at her skin, and she pulled the cloak tighter around her body. She couldn't imagine how unbearably cold it would have been if she didn't have it in the beginning. She mumbled her thanks towards the cloak as she snuggled it tighter as she trudged along.

As she started to pass the threshold of trees that separated the town from beyond, her mind wandered with her. Passed all the towns she visited, the oceans, hills and mountains. Her mind settled down her old hometown. Behind her ancestral home. And finally nuzzling in a small stump she had cherished since she was three.

A stump she had claimed hers and hers alone.

Her late Father said that no one dared to challenge her from it. She was a menace, he'd laughed remembering her antics as a toddler, and she always manages to persuade people to give her what she wants when she wanted to.

She snickered at the memory. How could she not? She had eight other siblings, three were older (two brothers and a sister), and four other ingrates. She learned to share everything.

Even things she didn't want to. If not sharing, she learned to trade or bargain.

Clothes, toys, snacks, their room. Everything!

But when the family announced that they were uprooting the stump behind their house to make way for a tool shack. She felt a sudden rush in her. She wanted that unwanted stump to be hers. She identified with it. Something she would later understand why as she grew older.

Her family reluctantly agreed to keep the thing (with the help of her Father). She then worked on it. She surrounded it with old thrown carpets and pillows she collected. It had a makeshift roof made of old wood and tiles that used to pile behind their house. She adorned it with lanterns, doodles, and knickknacks. Her Father helped her make it as cozy and unique—like her.

She misses it. It was one of the hardest thing she had to leave behind.

A small voice suddenly peeped out as she walked. She paused her small walk to memory lane and focused. Remembering wouldn't really do her much good in her current situation.

The past should stay where it is. Behind her.

"Who's there?" she shouted when her senses focused, and she felt a presence. She felt something following her. Sharp eyes were watching her.

She turned slowly and there she found she was right. A set of eyes were looking at her. Silently watching and gauging her every move. It was too dark to see what it was. The clouds had decided to cover any sort of light coming from the moon and stars.

"I have a weapon!" She yelled. It sounded more like a squeak, but she had to put up a brave front. She felt for the knife she had hidden in her back pocket. She kept one in case—in case something like this happened. She didn't know she would actually use it.

The clouds parted. The light from the moon illuminated her stalker. She froze.

"A wolf."

Behind the bushes in front of her, stood a wolf, proud and ominous. Its teeth were bared and its snarls made it seem like it was ready to attack with any given provocation.

Yna was not going to give it any reason to though. She wasn't an idiot. She stood there assessing her situation; if she needed to run, she could run faster if she started to let a bit of her load go. She can throw a bit of her food supplies as a distraction as she ran. That might have been what led it to her.