The Wolf of the Wilds

The Laundry

Despite the fact that she had enough money to pay for her trip to Semul Helena put off her next meeting with the alphas as much as she could. They had made the pregnancy announcement shortly after her return from the city. Since then it was near enough impossible to reach the pair without fighting through a cheery throng of well wishers. Getting a meeting with either of them was like trying to find a slug on a salt plain.

Now she could've asked Adrian to deliver the goods, but her mate seemed just as off put by the swarms of gooey eyed wolves as she was. They'd both been discreetly avoiding the pack den and neither of them were willing to brave the trip until the pack collectively calmed down and stopped their gushing.

Helena continued to grow accustomed to the slow paced life that she led on the outskirts of the Montis territory. She had fallen into an easy routine.

Her morning started with the rising sun and she either went hunting in the forest with Cheval, or tended to her sizable vegetable patch. By the time the pack wolves rose, she had several hours of work under her belt and she would head down into the town to do odd jobs or train with the Montis warriors. At first the warriors had been less than happy with the rogue invading their territory, but after teaching them some useful drills they had begrudgingly accepted her presence.

At lunchtime she would join Adrian for bread and cold meats while he took a break from paperwork. Usually the meals were banter filled and intellectual, the pair discussing anything from wind patterns to the state of the banshee economy. They would part shortly afterwards and Lena would then see little of Adrian until the evening when she would join him for dinner and enjoy his company before bed.

In the afternoon she would alternate between meeting with Felix to help him with his omega duties and spending time with Iona in the small grocery shop she worked at. On several occasions all three had spent their afternoons together doing chores and the like. Helena was rather happy to see that Felix and Iona got along like a house on fire.

On one such afternoon they were all congregated in the omega district. Iona had been hesitant about going into the decrepit area at first, but once Helena had dragged her there once or twice she had found the appeal.

The afternoon sun sat overhead, bathing them in golden light. Felix and Iona were perched on a pair of three legged stools as they bent over a tub of warm water infused with the soapwort plant. They were scrubbing the wet fabrics of the latest laundry load that Felix had been graced with, working in near silence. Despite the lack of conversation, neither was bored as they listened to the voice of their friend a small distance away.

Helena was sat on the ground; a crowd of children and teens surrounded her, no patch of ground left unoccupied. The rogue had her cloak under her arse, her back resting against a crooked fence post. She had a leaning stack of books at her side, a thick volume resting on her crossed legs.

"Pete, when you over water a plant you're pretty much suffocating them. They need oxygen just like us so they can respire. It can also encourage root rot and that kills off the roots and starves the plant of nutrients," she said, her eyes fixed on a young shaggy haired wolf that was sat in the front row of her little congregation. He pushed back his hair and looked a little glum, scratching at his dirty chin.

"So I've killed dad's pot plant then?" He said, his voice crestfallen. Lena nodded.

"Pretty much. Next time you should check the soil first. Make sure you look at the mud below the surface and you can also judge it by the weight of the pot if you can lift it. Does anyone have anything else they want to ask?"

Several hands shot up and Lena pointed to a gangly teenage girl at the back of the group.

"I found a book in my mama's collection, but I can't read any of it and I don't understand why. Could you have a look at it?"